Faulkner Reader

by William Faulkner

  “You’ll tell me if you get cold?”

  “Yes. Sure.” He was looking down at the cylinder on which he sat. It was a half cylinder—that is, like the hot-water tank to some Gargantuan stove, sliced down the middle and bolted, open side down, to the floor plates. It was twenty feet long and more than two feet thick. Its top rose as high as the gunwales and between it and the hull on either side was just room enough for a man to place his feet to walk.

  “That’s Muriel,” the boy said.

  “Muriel?”

  “Yes. The one before that was Agatha. After my aunt. The first one Ronnie and I had was Alice in Wonderland. Ronnie and I were the White Rabbit. Jolly, eh?”

  “Oh, you and Ronnie have had three, have you?”

  “Oh, yes,” the boy said. He leaned down. “He didn’t notice,” he whispered. His face was again bright, gleeful. “When we come back,” he said. “You watch.”

  “Oh,” Bogard said. “The Ergenstrasse.” He looked astern, and then he thought: “Good Lord! We must be going—traveling.” He looked out now, broadside, and saw the harbor line fleeing past, and he thought to himself that the boat was well-nigh moving at the speed at which the Handley-Page flew, left the ground. They were beginning to bound now, even in the sheltered water, from one wave crest to the next with a distinct shock. His hand still rested on the cylinder on which he sat. He looked down at it again, following it from where it seemed to emerge beneath Ronnie’s seat, to where it beveled into the stern. “It’s the air in her, I suppose,” he said.

  “The what?” the boy said.

  “The air. Stored up in her. That makes the boat ride high.”

  “Oh, yes. I dare say. Very likely. I hadn’t thought about it.” He came forward, his burnous whipping in the wind, and sat down beside Bogard. Their heads were below the top of the screen.

  Astern the harbor fled, diminishing, sinking into the sea. The boat had begun to lift now, swooping forward and down, shocking almost stationary for a moment, then lifting and swooping again; a gout of spray came aboard over the bows like a flung shovelful of shot. “I wish you’d take this coat,” the boy said.

  Bogard didn’t answer. He looked around at the bright face. “We’re outside, aren’t we?” he said quietly.

  “Yes.… Do take it, won’t you?”

  “Thanks, no. I’ll be all right. We won’t be long, anyway, I guess.”

  “No. We’ll turn soon. It won’t be so bad then.”

  “Yes. I’ll be all right when we turn.” Then they did turn. The motion became easier. That is, the boat didn’t bang head-on, shuddering, into the swells. They came up beneath now, and the boat fled with increased speed, with a long, sickening, yawing motion, first to one side and then the other. But it fled on, and Bogard looked astern with that same soberness with which he had first looked down into the boat. “We’re going east now,” he said.

  “With just a spot of north,” the boy said. “Makes her ride a bit better, what?”

  “Yes,” Bogard said. Astern there was nothing now save empty sea and the delicate needlelike cant of the machine gun against the boiling and slewing wake, and the two seamen crouching quietly in the stern. “Yes. It’s easier.” Then he said: “How far do we go?”

  The boy leaned closer. He moved closer. His voice was happy, confidential, proud, though lowered a little: “It’s Ronnie’s show. He thought of it. Not that I wouldn’t have, in time. Gratitude and all that. But he’s the older, you see. Thinks fast. Courtesy, noblesse oblige—all that. Thought of it soon as I told him this morning. I said, ‘Oh, I say. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it’; and he said, ‘Not flying’; and I said, ‘Strewth’; and he said ‘How far? No lying now’; and I said, ‘Oh, far. Tremendous. Gone all night’; and he said, ‘Flying all night. That must have been to Berlin’; and I said, ‘I don’t know. I dare say’; and he thought. I could see him thinking. Because he is the older, you see. More experience in courtesy, right thing. And he said, ‘Berlin. No fun to that chap, dashing out and back with us.’ And he thought and I waited, and I said, ‘But we can’t take him to Berlin. Too far. Don’t know the way, either’; and he said—fast, like a shot—said, ‘But there’s Kiel’; and I knew—”

  “What?” Bogard said. Without moving, his whole body sprang. “Kiel? In this?”

  “Absolutely. Ronnie thought of it. Smart, even if he is a stickler. Said at once, ‘Zeebrugge no show at all for that chap. Must do best we can for him. Berlin,’ Ronnie said. ‘My Gad! Berlin.’ ”

  “Listen,” Bogard said. He had turned now, facing the other, his face quite grave. “What is this boat for?”

  “For?”

  “What does it do?” Then, knowing beforehand the answer to his own question, he said, putting his hand on the cylinder: “What is this in here? A torpedo, isn’t it?”

  “I thought you knew,” the boy said.

  “No,” Bogard said. “I didn’t know.” His voice seemed to reach him from a distance, dry, cricketlike: “How do you fire it?”

  “Fire it?”

  “How do you get it out of the boat? When that hatch was open a while ago I could see the engines. They were right in front of the end of this tube.”

  “Oh,” the boy said. “You pull a gadget there and the torpedo drops out astern. As soon as the screw touches the water it begins to turn, and then the torpedo is ready, loaded. Then all you have to do is turn the boat quickly and the torpedo goes on.”

  “You mean—” Bogard said. After a moment his voice obeyed him again. “You mean you aim the torpedo with the boat and release it and it starts moving, and you turn the boat out of the way and the torpedo passes through the same water that the boat just vacated?”

  “Knew you’d catch on,” the boy said. “Told Ronnie so. Airman. Tamer than yours, though. But can’t be helped. Best we can do, just on water. But knew you’d catch on.”

  “Listen,” Bogard said. His voice sounded to him quite calm. The boat fled on, yawing over the swells. He sat quite motionless. It seemed to him that he could hear himself talking to himself: “Go on. Ask him. Ask him what? Ask him how close to the ship do you have to be before you fire.… Listen,” he said, in that calm voice. “Now, you tell Ronnie, you see. You just tell him—just say—” He could feel his voice ratting off on him again, so he stopped it. He sat quite motionless, waiting for it to come back; the boy leaning now, looking at his face. Again the boy’s voice was solicitous:

  “I say. You’re not feeling well. These confounded shallow boats.”

  “It’s not that,” Bogard said. “I just— Do your orders say Kiel?”

  “Oh, no. They let Ronnie say. Just so we bring the boat back. This is for you. Gratitude. Ronnie’s idea. Tame, after flying. But if you’d rather, eh?”

  “Yes, some place closer. You see, I—”

  “Quite. I see. No vacations in wartime. I’ll tell Ronnie.” He went forward. Bogard did not move. The boat fled in long, slewing swoops. Bogard looked quietly astern, at the scudding sea, the sky.

  “My God!” he thought. “Can you beat it? Can you beat it?”

  The boy came back; Bogard turned to him a face the color of dirty paper. “All right now,” the boy said. “Not Kiel. Nearer place, hunting probably just as good. Ronnie says he knows you will understand.” He was tugging at his pocket. He brought out a bottle. “Here. Haven’t forgot last night. Do the same for you. Good for the stomach, eh?”

  Bogard drank, gulping—a big one. He extended the bottle, but the boy refused. “Never touch it on duty,” he said. “Not like you chaps. Tame here.”

  The boat fled on. The sun was already down the west. But Bogard had lost all count of time, of distance. Ahead he could see white seas through the round eye opposite Ronnie’s face, and Ronnie’s hand on the wheel and the granitelike jut of his profiled jaw and the dead upside-down pipe. The boat fled on.

  Then the boy leaned and touched his shoulder. He half rose. The boy was pointing. The sun was reddish; against it, outside them and abo
ut two miles away, a vessel—a trawler, it looked like—at anchor swung a tall mast.

  “Lightship!” the boy shouted. “Theirs.” Ahead Bogard could see a low, flat mole—the entrance to a harbor. “Channel!” the boy shouted. He swept his arm in both directions. “Mines!” His voice swept back on the wind. “Place filthy with them. All sides. Beneath us too. Lark, eh?”

  - 7 -

  Against the mole a fair surf was beating. Running before the seas now, the boat seemed to leap from one roller to the next; in the intervals while the screw was in the air the engine seemed to be trying to tear itself out by the roots. But it did not slow; when it passed the end of the mole the boat seemed to be standing almost erect on its rudder, like a sailfish. The mole was a mile away. From the end of it little faint lights began to flicker like fireflies. The boy leaned. “Down,” he said. “Machine guns. Might stop a stray.”

  “What do I do?” Bogard shouted. “What can I do?”

  “Stout fellow! Give them hell, what? Knew you’d like it!”

  Crouching, Bogard looked up at the boy, his face wild. “I can handle the machine gun!”

  “No need,” the boy shouted back. “Give them first innings. Sporting. Visitors, eh?” He was looking forward. “There she is. See?” They were in the harbor now, the basin opening before them. Anchored in the channel was a big freighter. Painted midships of the hull was a huge Argentine flag. “Must get back to stations!” the boy shouted down to him. Then at that moment Ronnie spoke for the first time. The boat was hurtling along now in smoother water. Its speed did not slacken and Ronnie did not turn his head when he spoke. He just swung his jutting jaw and the clamped cold pipe a little, and said from the side of his mouth a single word:

  “Beaver.”

  The boy, stooped over what he had called his gadget, jerked up, his expression astonished and outraged. Bogard also looked forward and saw Ronnie’s arm pointing to starboard. It was a light cruiser at anchor a mile away. She had basket masts, and as he looked a gun flashed from her after turret. “Oh, damn!” the boy cried. “Oh, you putt! Oh, confound you, Ronnie! Now I’m three down!” But he had already stooped again over his gadget, his face bright and empty and alert again; not sober; just calm, waiting. Again Bogard looked forward and felt the boat pivot on its rudder and head directly for the freighter at terrific speed, Ronnie now with one hand on the wheel and the other lifted and extended at the height of his head.

  But it seemed to Bogard that the hand would never drop. He crouched, not sitting, watching with a kind of quiet horror the painted flag increase like a moving picture of a locomotive taken from between the rails. Again the gun crashed from the cruiser behind them, and the freighter fired point-blank at them from its poop. Bogard heard neither shot.

  “Man, man!” he shouted. “For God’s sake!”

  Ronnie’s hand dropped. Again the boat spun on its rudder. Bogard saw the bow rise, pivoting; he expected the hull to slam broadside on into the ship. But it didn’t. It shot off on a long tangent. He was waiting for it to make a wide sweep, heading seaward, putting the freighter astern, and he thought of the cruiser again. “Get a broadside, this time, once we clear the freighter,” he thought. Then he remembered the freighter, the torpedo, and he looked back toward the freighter to watch the torpedo strike, and saw to his horror that the boat was now bearing down on the freighter again, in a skidding turn. Like a man in a dream, he watched himself rush down upon the ship and shoot past under her counter, still skidding, close enough to see the faces on her decks. “They missed and they are going to run down the torpedo and catch it and shoot it again,” he thought idiotically.

  So the boy had to touch his shoulder before he knew he was behind him. The boy’s voice was quite calm: “Under Ronnie’s seat there. A bit of a crank handle. If you’ll just hand it to me—”

  He found the crank. He passed it back; he was thinking dreamily: “Mac would say they had a telephone on board.” But he didn’t look at once to see what the boy was doing with it, for in that still and peaceful horror he was watching Ronnie, the cold pipe rigid in his jaw, hurling the boat at top speed round and round the freighter, so near that he could see the rivets in the plates. Then he looked aft, his face wild, importunate, and he saw what the boy was doing with the crank. He had fitted it into what was obviously a small windlass low on one flank of the tube near the head. He glanced up and saw Bogard’s face. “Didn’t go that time!” he shouted cheerfully.

  “Go?” Bogard shouted. “It didn’t— The torpedo—”

  The boy and one of the seamen were quite busy, stooping over the windlass and the tube. “No. Clumsy. Always happening. Should think clever chaps like engineers— Happens, though. Draw her in and try her again.”

  “But the nose, the cap!” Bogard shouted. “It’s still in the tube, isn’t it? It’s all right, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely. But it’s working now. Loaded. Screw’s started turning. Get it back and drop it clear. If we should stop or slow up it would overtake us. Drive back into the tube. Bingo! What?”

  Bogard was on his feet now, turned, braced to the terrific merry-go-round of the boat. High above them the freighter seemed to be spinning on her heel like a trick picture in the movies. “Let me have that winch!” he cried.

  “Steady!” the boy said. “Mustn’t draw her back too fast. Jam her into the head of the tube ourselves. Same bingo! Best let us. Every cobbler to his last, what?”

  “Oh, quite,” Bogard said. “Oh, absolutely.” It was like someone else was using his mouth. He leaned, braced, his hands on the cold tube, beside the others. He was hot inside, but his outside was cold. He could feel all his flesh jerking with cold as he watched the blunt, grained hand of the seaman turning the windlass in short, easy, inch-long arcs, while at the head of the tube the boy bent, tapping the cylinder with a spanner, lightly, his head turned with listening delicate and deliberate as a watchmaker. The boat rushed on in those furious, slewing turns. Bogard saw a long, drooping thread loop down from somebody’s mouth, between his hands, and he found that the thread came from his own mouth.

  He didn’t hear the boy speak, nor notice when he stood up. He just felt the boat straighten out, flinging him to his knees beside the tube. The seaman had gone back to the stern and the boy stooped again over his gadget. Bogard knelt now, quite sick. He did not feel the boat when it swung again, nor hear the gun from the cruiser which had not dared to fire and the freighter which had not been able to fire, firing again. He did not feel anything at all when he saw the huge, painted flag directly ahead and increasing with locomotive speed, and Ronnie’s lifted hand drop. But this time he knew that the torpedo was gone; in pivoting and spinning this time the whole boat seemed to leave the water; he saw the bow of the boat shoot skyward like the nose of a pursuit ship going into a wingover. Then his outraged stomach denied him. He saw neither the geyser nor heard the detonation as he sprawled over the tube. He felt only a hand grasp him by the slack of his coat, and the voice of one of the seamen: “Steady all, sir. I’ve got you.”

  - 8 -

  A voice roused him, a hand. He was half sitting in the narrow starboard runway, half lying across the tube. He had been there for quite a while; quite a while ago he had felt someone spread a garment over him. But he had not raised his head. “I’m all right,” he had said. “You keep it.”

  “Don’t need it,” the boy said. “Going home now.”

  “I’m sorry I—” Bogard said.

  “Quite. Confounded shallow boats. Turn any stomach until you get used to them. Ronnie and I both, at first. Each time. You wouldn’t believe it. Believe human stomach hold so much. Here.” It was the bottle. “Good drink. Take enormous one. Good for stomach.”

  Bogard drank. Soon he did feel better, warmer. When the hand touched him later, he found that he had been asleep.

  It was the boy again. The pea-coat was too small for him; shrunken, perhaps. Below the cuffs his long, slender, girl’s wrists were blue with cold. Then Bogard real
ized what the garment was that had been laid over him. But before Bogard could speak, the boy leaned down, whispering; his face was gleeful: “He didn’t notice!”

  “What?”

  “Ergenstrasse! He didn’t notice that they had shifted her. Gad, I’d be just one down, then.” He watched Bogard’s face with bright, eager eyes. “Beaver, you know. I say. Feeling better, eh?”

  “Yes,” Bogard said, “I am.”

  “He didn’t notice at all. Oh, gad! Oh, Jove!”

  Bogard rose and sat on the tube. The entrance to the harbor was just ahead; the boat had slowed a little. It was just dusk. He said quietly: “Does this often happen?” The boy looked at him. Bogard touched the tube. “This. Failing to go out.”

  “Oh, yes. Why they put the windlass on them. That was later. Made first boat; whole thing blew up one day. So put on windlass.”

  “But it happens sometimes, even now? I mean, sometimes they blow up, even with the windlass?”

  “Well, can’t say, of course. Boats go out. Not come back. Possible. Not ever know, of course. Not heard of one captured yet, though. Possible. Not to us, though. Not yet.”

  “Yes,” Bogard said. “Yes.” They entered the harbor, the boat moving still fast, but throttled now and smooth, across the dusk-filled basin. Again the boy leaned down, his voice gleeful.

  “Not a word, now!” he hissed. “Steady all!” he stood up; he raised his voice: “I say, Ronnie.” Ronnie did not turn his head, but Bogard could tell that he was listening. “That Argentine ship was amusing, eh? In there. How do you suppose it got past us here? Might have stopped here as well. French would buy the wheat.” He paused, diabolical—Machiavelli with the face of a strayed angel. “I say. How long has it been since we had a strange ship in here? Been months, eh?” Again he leaned, hissing. “Watch, now!” But Bogard could not see Ronnie’s head move at all. “He’s looking, though!” the boy whispered, breathed. And Ronnie was looking, though his head had not moved at all. Then there came into view, in silhouette against the dusk-filled sky, the vague, basket-like shape of the interned vessel’s foremast. At once Ronnie’s arm rose, pointing; again he spoke without turning his head, out of the side of his mouth, past the cold, clamped pipe, a single word: