Death on a Pale Horse

by Donald Thomas

  He turned his head away.

  “Listen carefully, Watson, and do not appear to notice me.”

  Fortunately, we were leaning on the safety rail where the vibration of the engines made our words inaudible more than a few inches distant. I turned aside to survey the pistons.

  “I watched every passenger up the gangway, Holmes. I swear you were not among them. The man who carried that rope back is still in Ostend.”

  “Indeed he is,” Holmes said impatiently: “Sergeant Albert Gibbons of the Royal Marines is still in Ostend. It was I who rowed that cockleshell out to the ship to fetch the rope. I took it. While all eyes were on preparations for the ship’s departure, I let my shell drift from the stern well-deck back to the platform of the paddle sponson at this level. A crewman climbed out to coil a sponson rope. A crewman climbed back. Not a glance came our way. It was Gibbons who rowed back with the mooring rope. Who notices the face of a dockyard scully? It was the easiest thing in the world, while the men at the winch gave that machine their full attention.”

  “And then what?”

  He shrugged and smiled again.

  “In weather as thick as this, a man could become invisible in a dozen places on deck.”

  “And the telegram? The code? What went wrong in Brussels?”

  “I am happy to say, my dear fellow, that nothing went wrong. My coded message to you was betrayed in Brussels by a post office clerk for £100, just as we have been betrayed in London. That was essential. I would gladly have paid him myself to cheat us, though I fear the poor wretch may soon be lying somewhere with his throat cut after he has served his purpose. I have counted upon Moran or his underlings reading that telegram and deciphering it.”

  Then he sighed.

  “I trusted your powers of perception, Watson. Why was my cipher made so simple? A schoolboy game! A babe in arms could transpose each letter with the next one in the alphabet and decode the meaning. Did you believe I could do no better than that, if I had wanted it to remain secret? You cannot have believed that what it said was true? Oh, Watson, Watson! I tell you again, you see but you do not perceive. Please listen to me.”

  I listened.

  Holmes said, “I cannot find that Moran or anyone connected with him is on this ship. But there is an impostor.”

  “Who?”

  “Why do you think I am standing here? You have just seen him!”

  “The insubordinate stoker?”

  “That man is no stoker!”

  “He came from the stoke-hold.”

  “How long have we been at sea?”

  “Almost an hour.”

  “Correct. That man’s face was so covered in coal dust that only the eyes and the mouth were visible. After an hour of shovelling coal in intense heat, did you see a single trace of perspiration running down his cheeks? for I did not! A ship of this capacity requires two furnaces to raise sufficient steam for its two boilers—fore and aft. Each furnace requires at least quarter of a ton to travel the distance from here to Ostend. Does he look like a man who has worked in that heat, at that pace, for an hour?”

  “No,” I said reluctantly.

  “Nor does he to me. He looks to me like a man who has applied soot to his face as an actor applies make-up, in this case to disguise himself beyond possible recognition. For the moment, however, his attempt to escape the stokehold has been frustrated. I shall watch him.”

  “But there are stokers already. He cannot stand idle in front of the furnaces.”

  “Of course not. Stoking is an art which he does not possess. I believe he is posing in front of them as what they call a trimmer, a menial who merely shifts coal from the store to the bunker and whose face does not get covered in coal dust like that. He has used it as stage make-up.”

  “Then who is he?”

  “Let us be content that he is probably an impostor with the speech and manner of a dockland drunkard. Now if you will forgive me, I must leave you and attend to the safe-keeping of Plon Plon and his baubles.”

  “I should have thought he and they are safe enough from here to Dover.”

  “Would you? Then you have clearly overlooked the promises of ‘Hunter’ Moran. I assure you he has never yet failed to keep them. To lose that reputation might quite literally be the death of him.”

  10

  I had my marching orders and went to resume watch on deck. Holmes would conceal himself below with a view of the mailroom grille and any reappearance of the drunken “stoker.” In the absence of Moran, there was little else to do. My feelings were the dejection of one who knows he has been hoodwinked and wonders where the true robbery may be taking place. I went back up the companionway to the ship’s rail just forward of the starboard paddle-box with its green riding-light. If Prince Napoleon-Jerome should need me, he would know where I was. Just above me, Captain Legrand of the Comtesse de Flandre faced all winds and weathers on his open navigating-bridge, which ran the width of the ship above the forward saloon deck. At intervals, I heard him ring down to the engine-room as he moved the brass handle of the telegraph to and fro.

  Behind the bridge and below it, the helmsman stood on his platform, wrapped in the long jacket and hood of his sou’wester. Most of the ship’s crew took this duty in their turn, for it was only a matter of turning the wheel according to whatever point of the compass was chosen by the skipper. With the ship’s wheel between his hands, his head at the level of the captain’s feet, a helmsman steers according to simple spoken orders. The commands may be given directly by the captain, or shouted down by a callboy on the bridge if the wind is high. For good measure, there is a repeater telegraph ahead of the wheel, on whose dial the helmsman can read the orders from the bridge telegraph to the engine-room. While it is true that he may see little of what is ahead of him, the duty of the man at the helm is only to do as he is told, according to compass bearings.

  There may sometimes be a look-out in the bows who will “sing out” a warning of any minor obstruction in the water or small boat in the steamer’s path. All crew members will give warnings when they think necessary, but they assume that the captain on his bridge can see larger vessels before they do.

  For some reason not yet apparent, the bridge telegraph rang. We dropped to “Half Speed” ahead, and the steamer rolled a little as she lost way. The foremast hand walked past me, he who had given the boy a lucifer match to light the starboard navigation-lamp on the paddle-box. Like most of the hands, this fellow might be called on to relieve the helmsman or assist the ship to make fast at a pier head and attend the gangways. Just now, he was strolling towards the bows as if to take up watch, lighting his pipe as he went.

  A few minutes later, we had our first encounter since leaving Ostend. A throbbing marked the approaching propeller of a screw-driven ship, not the beat of a paddle-steamer’s wheels. The bridge telegraph rang “Slow Ahead.” “Starboard helm!” was called back to the helmsman. At a snail’s pace we passed our visitor about a hundred yards to port, her red riding-light just visible. I recalled the well-known verses of the Seaman’s Litany, Thomas Gray’s lesson in navigation. I had learnt it with every schoolboy in a Scottish fishing town:

  Green to Green or Red to Red—

  In perfect safety—Go ahead!

  Only the dimmest outline of the other ship was visible, but the glimmer of her port riding-light continued to face ours through the murk. As we passed her, the captain of the Comtesse de Flandre reached up, pulled the whistle lanyard, and sent a comradely blast of sound and steam echoing across the lonely water.

  There is nowhere so desolate as the sea on such a crossing. The stillness is eerie. A steamer’s siren, a shout, even a gunshot, echoes back as if this place were the empty end of the world, far from home, far from help. The bridge telegraph rang again, and the Comtesse picked up speed with a rush of water from the blades of her paddle-wheels and the rising beat of steel on waves.

  I wondered what Holmes was doing—or even what there was for him to do. I saw only a
few more wraiths of fishing smacks and luggers on their way to cast their nets. Sometimes I thought I saw the same vessel on several occasions, but it was impossible to be certain. From time to time, our siren wailed across the quiet water and several calls were answered from different quarters of the opaque stillness. Often it was just a friendly shout from a lugger, fishing the shallows of the sands off Dunkirk. We kept strictly to our compass bearing. It is easy enough for a ship to go aground on these sandbanks and break her back.

  I stood amidships, looking out across the paddle-box on which the passenger gangways had been stowed for use at Dover. My eye caught a glimmering of light on the sluggish grey tide through which our dusty red paddle blades were cleaving their way. Then there was a white gleam in the fog, higher than a ship’s foremast. It grew to a distant blaze and fell away again. It must be the swivelled gleam of the Ruytingen lightship, nearer than I expected, searching forlornly for the horizon.

  Though we were still on the Belgian side, the Comtesse de Flandre now pulled hard to port, as if to set a dead straight course for Dover. I was quite alone just then, except for the foremast hand, who had come back from his look-out and was trimming the wick of the red port riding-light behind me.

  The man had scarcely disappeared down the forward hatchway of the crew’s quarters when a commotion began. It is hard to imagine the tedium of such a crossing. Even the sight of the Ruytingen lightship had been an event worth celebrating. A dozen or so of the passengers had gone up to the prow, hoping for a view of it. I had just taken out my watch and read the time by one of the oil-lights on a tall standard when there was a shout from the watchers in the bows.

  “Steamer ahead!”

  I looked out across the paddle-box again. In the distance, a single green light appeared fleetingly on our starboard bow, vanished, then reappeared. It must be some distance away. I could certainly not make out the vessel or navigation buoy that might be carrying it. The channel through the sand-banks must have been buoyed. Perhaps the green light was merely assuring us that we were following the dredged channel. It was hard to tell in such a fog. Once again, however, the telegraph on the Comtesse de Flandre’s navigation-bridge rang its cautious command of “Slow Ahead,” and we eased forward. There was no cause for alarm. If a ship was crossing our bow at that distance, it would be out of our path long before we reached its present position.

  The mid-Channel vapour had closed in so completely by now that it would have been hard to know, except by one’s watch, whether it was day or night. Our helm had been put hard a-starboard briefly to counteract the effects of the tide on our starboard bow as we rounded the Ruytingen lightship. Perhaps we were momentarily carried off course. Except for the captain at his compass, it might be impossible in these conditions for anyone to tell whether we were heading north, south, east, or west. It must be north, if we were crossing direct to Dover.

  At that moment a sudden shout went up from the people in the bows. It was a cry, directed at the captain of some other vessel.

  “Hoy! Hoy! Where are you coming to?”

  I stepped aside for a view of what was going on. I could see less from where I was standing than those in the bows might. Yet the sea was so calm and the silence so deep that any captain on another ship in the vicinity must surely have heard that shout. But the green navigation light on that other vessel had gone and what I could see now, off our starboard bow, was red. I was reassured to see that it seemed to be going no faster than half speed, seven or eight knots. Perhaps it was only a warning light that we were passing on one of the sand-bank buoys. From its position, I supposed that any skipper crossing our bow did so in order to pass down our port side. That would be safe enough.

  Green to Green or Red to Red—

  In perfect safety—Go ahead!

  But was he not going to cross our bow too close? I believe it was the shout of “Where are you coming to?” that had alerted our own captain. Immediately above me, I could hear him calling down to the helmsman on the platform just behind him.

  “Hard a-port!”

  The figure in the sou’wester held the wheel between his hands and obeyed. Then the captain reached for the lanyard. The steam whistle on our funnel blew a deep-throated blast. It was answered by three other ships, intermittently from various points of the compass, no doubt including the vessel ahead of us. This channel through the sand-banks now contained far more shipping than I had realised.

  “Hold your helm!” The captain’s order to the man below him was given with some uneasiness.

  The helmsman’s back and shoulders moved as he turned the wheel to its maximum but it was not enough.

  “Hold on to your helm!”

  I still assumed that it was a matter of the tide having carried us a little further off course than he had expected as we rounded the lightship.

  “Hard over with it!”

  The seaman remained on his starboard helm. Despite this, if the tide had carried us off course, we ought still to be showing our port light to the other vessel.

  The bridge telegraph rang “Stand By.” To stop the engines completely at this point would have left us helpless to manoeuvre against the tide. Again the whistle of the Comtesse de Flandre blew long and hard, a hoarse shriek this time and a blast of steam just above my head. As the note fell away across that quiet sea, the captain cupped his hands and yelled with all the power of his lungs at the oncoming skipper.

  “Ease her! Stop her! Good God, man, where the devil are you coming to?”

  A cloudy phantom materialised ahead of us, towering above the horizon, but at last turning away—or so it seemed. The warning shouted from our bridge must have carried across the silent stretch of water. But she could see no more of us than we could see of her. Then, by the oncoming beat of her paddles, I guessed she could not be more than a few hundred yards away, her outline still clouded. I held my breath as I suddenly saw all three of her navigation lights coming into view. Now it seemed as if she was travelling at the speed of an express train: white at the masthead, green to her starboard and red to port. Was she turning again because she had seen that there was no longer room to cross our bow? In a tight curve she was surely coming down our starboard side, very close and far too fast.

  When all three lights I see ahead,

  I Port my helm and show my Red.

  But the next thing I heard from the bridge was the voice of the first mate.

  “My God, captain! Look! That man is starboarding his helm! Port! Hard a-port! Stop her! Reverse the engines! Astern! Full speed!”

  The captain had already reached these conclusions for himself. I saw him hurry to the starboard side of the bridge and grasp the telegraph handle. It jangled “Stop” followed by “Full Astern.” I distinctly saw the position of the handle, and also “Full Astern” on the helmsman’s repeater dial. I heard the verbal order. I heard the repeater ring below, the sound carried up through the engine-room ventilation hatch. I heard it ring twice more with orders to the engineers below.

  I could hardly believe that the captain of the oncoming vessel was not mad or drunk or, perhaps, had handed the bridge over to some inexperienced junior officer. He was turning to starboard again, as if to cross our bow once more. The very thing that would bring catastrophe. At such an angle as this, his own bow would be coming at us amidships in a moment more. Even in the fog, he must see our three lights when we could so plainly see his. Why had he not held a simple course dead ahead to pass us safely? His red port riding-light was now on our green starboard quarter!

  If to my Starboard Red appear,

  It is my duty to keep clear.…

  But that was too late. I saw what I could still hardly understand, as that ghostly giant rose through the mist, almost on top of our bows. Then I knew the worst and how it had happened. Coming down upon us was one of the newer and heavier railway steamers. From the low deck of our smaller ship, she seemed the height of a house. The red and green of her riding-lights, the white of her masthead light were g
laring above. The starboard green wheeled away as she turned more directly towards us. I knew the answer! It was the height of her bows that hid us from her navigation bridge! A vessel that was so much lower might now be concealed from her captain’s view. Her starboard light had disappeared; even the light on her foremast was hidden by those tall bows. Only her red port lantern glared ever closer.

  The helmsman beside me had wrenched the wheel hard to port, in obedience to his orders. He must have known that it would never save us at so short a distance. At the best, it might make the angle of collision more oblique. The oncoming bow rode towards our starboard side. I never felt more helpless in my life. Holmes and I were playing a game of life and death with Rawdon Moran. Could this be some wild sport contrived by him? But what? Even he could scarcely bring two ships into collision as if they were no more than children’s yachts on a pond in Kensington Gardens.

  It was not a whistle but a howling siren call that hooted from the forward funnel of the oncoming ship, far too late. The whistle of the Comtesse de Flandre pierced the fog again. This time it rang on and on, in a crescendo of steam from its casing on the forward funnel, for all the world as if the lanyard cord were stuck. Our engines had stopped at the telegraph’s command and we wallowed, helpless to move and avoid a collision. Then the paddles were just beginning their tantalisingly slow reversal without time to go full astern. The ship lay almost motionless, awaiting her fate.