Hollow Sea

by James Hanley

  And he left the excited crowd, still talking, asking questions. There were no answers. Only questions. The answer was written somewhere, where they did not know, nor did any man know. Captain or mate, cook or fireman, peggy or trimmer! It was written somewhere very far away. Even Mr. Walters and Mr. Hump, standing outside the saloon, looked baffled. To come all that way, and suddenly to stop, to drop anchor. Well, it took the biscuit so far as he was concerned. Mr. Hump, more patient, suggested it was only temporary. Probably for examination of the ship.

  'Examination my backside!' said Mr. Walters with apparent disgust. 'All is known. And good God! If they've noses they can smell, can't they? I'll swear you can smell this ship from Sister Street.'

  'Mr. Walters!'

  The chief steward looked round at Mr. Hump. Mr. Hump looked rather a strange sight, so he thought. He couldn't see him very well, but he could see that egg-shaped head and glory be! wasn't there a clear bald patch showing in the middle, or, well, fancy that!

  'They're afraid of something, Mr. Walters. You know there's a queer feeling about. Yes, you can feel they're afraid. Did you notice how that destroyer slunk off. Slunk off and then put on top speed.' Mr. Hump pointed to the four corners of the compass. Perhaps this was to symbolize the something big, the something strange and frightening about this silence. This dead stop in dark waters. This being lost in the night. No action! Nothing moving.

  'I never saw the destroyer,' Walters replied. He coughed.

  'But I did! And now it's gone! And we know nothing.' He threw his hands in the air. A gesture of despair.

  'Less than nothing,' Walters said, as though to seal it. 'Well, I'm not standing here, anyhow. There's plenty to be done,' he said.

  Yes, thought Mr. Hump. Plenty to be done. A steward's work was never done. He followed Mr. Walters down the saloon stairs, along to the saloon galley. The Scotch cook who only put his head out of the port once every day, and stole up in the evening to have a quiet look round, was astonished when his chief steward said: We'll have the last tinned partridges to-night, Duggan, and the peaches, and those tinned peas.'

  They passed on. Went to their room. Both men lit pipes. Here was a situation that called for a little clear thinking. Did they belong to anything? Anybody? Was the war over? Or had some evil come over the ship? One could think these things out calmly with a pipe.

  'I wouldn't give a damn if they sent us to Timbuctoo this minute,' said Walters, 'so long as they get these fellows ashore! I'm getting sick of it.'

  'How sick of it those fellows in number four hold must be,' remarked Hump.

  'That's enough, Hump. We don't want any of that sort of stuff here! This is a bloody prison, this ship is. Think about that! I always said, I told Mr. Camithers the night we sailed, I said, "Well, so they've taken her name off bow and stern." "Yes," he said. "And there's your number, A.10." And I thought to myself, "That's done it. We're a number now. And there's millions of numbers. It's easy to forget a number, but not a name. Who could ever forget the name Helicon? I couldn't. That's what's happened, Hump. They've forgotten us, suddenly remembered. They're human. Give 'em a chance, they have to think out something for us." ' He puffed away irritably at his pipe. Seated thus, pipe between his teeth, that mock serious face had something Puckish about it. In this moment, all things could fall away from him as water from a stone: Irritation, worry, fear, repellent sights, ears deaf to groans, crazy shoutings. A.10 rooted in the darkness, these two men seated quiet within her, each thinking his own thoughts, and around a greater quietness, hushed voices, vain wonderings, a spell upon the tongue that had gabbled of so many futures for A.10. All waiting. Quietly waiting. There! The anchor was home! Silence again.

  In the fo'c'sle itself there had been much argument the moment struck, stripped all apathy, all indifference from their faces, revealed restlessness there, shouting died down, they talked in low voices as though their tones were indeed fashioned from the uncertainty of this hour. And at last no tongue spoke. They looked at each other.

  Upon the bridge Mr. Deveney looked at the junior officer, the junior officer looked at Mr. Dunford. They were standing there in line. Each one seemed to say to the other: What do you think?

  The night might be everlasting, but not to the crew's cook, who worked quietly in the galley, a nonchalant air about him. His galley doors were closed. He was indifferent. Three minutes previous a man had come to him, complained about the food for dinner. 'H'm,' he thought, 'men are funny sorts of cows.'

  Aft, and far below the dead lay, stank, lay and were free. Nothing would touch them, no voice rouse. They were beyond all things. It was black darkness there. They were close together, huddled. They knew no fear. In the saloon the wounded lay, and they were beyond wondering, they slept, snored or sighed. For them the world span through space, zigzagged, tumbled, they were wounded – they were one wound.

  Suddenly the spell was broken. Broken by sound, by a bell, a light. The waiting was over, that which lay beyond thought was evaporating, the incoherent taking form, vision broke, meaning was no longer flux. It had taken flesh. The order came through to Dunford. Very clear, very definite, 'PROCEED AT ONCE TO PORT OF REGISTRY, DUMP YOUR DEAD.' Dunford was holding a pair of night glasses in his hand, 'PROCEED AT ONCE.'

  The glasses fell out of his hand, broke, their fragments showered the deck like fine dust.

  'I protest! These wounded must be landed.'

  'THE PORT IS CHOKED WITH SHIPPING, THERE ARE FEARS OF PLAGUE. PROCEED.'

  'Good God! I am carrying one hundred and twenty-one . . . one hundred and twenty-one. . . '

  'THEN CLEAR TO HELL OUT OF THIS, IT IS SUICIDE TO ENTER HERE! FEVER IS THREATENED.'

  'All right! By heavens, all right! Mr. Ericson! Fo'c'sle. Anchor up. Stand by for orders, Mr. Deveney. We are going home, HOME! Think of that! HOME.'

  'But these men, sir! It's outrageous! I. . . '

  'These men will probably die. And like the others they will smell. Mr. Deveney, I shall lay them fore and aft— fore and aft, d'you hear me? There she goes! Anchor coming up. Stand by there! Stand by.'

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  'THERE is this much to be said,' began Mr. Pearson, but Dunford interrupted at once.

  'There is nothing to be said, Mr. Pearson, except to repeat what I myself said ten minutes ago. If you feel you are so far above the thing then, I'll lower a boat, man it, and I'll give you a quarter of an hour to make up your mind.'

  Mr. Dunford began pacing up and down the chart-room.

  'But it's monstrous, Mr. Dunford. Mind you, I'm a man who says very little. I keep to myself. But now – well, I just had to come up. There are orders we know. But there are orders and orders. But this, this turning about and returning on that order. Why it's simply crazy. And not only that. Oh no! It's this sailing about as though we weren't wanted or something, this damn sneaking about waters as though we were outcasts or something, had nowhere to go. Weren't, oh damn it man. I—'

  Dunford took out his watch then.

  'Now, Mr. Pearson, it simply comes to this. You want to get into port. Then hurry up and pack your things. It's just thirty odd miles to port. They say there's bubonic plague threatening. The harbour is bottled up with ships. The ships are bottled up with men. They're afraid to move. The port for the time being, anyhow, is closed to other ships. And all the ships and all the men. Well, they have them now. God knows they cried out hard enough for them.'

  'Ah! That's only your conscience, Mr. Dunford. Look at it in a plain way.'

  Dunford forced a laugh. He hadn't wanted to laugh at all, really, but that expression on the engineer's face, well he just had to laugh.

  'Conscience be hanged,' he cried. 'I was simply trying to illustrate to you their wonderful strategy, Mr. Pearson.'

  He pulled up short by the mahogany table.

  'Strategy,' exploded Pearson, 'strategy.' He turned now, as though to rush from the room.

  'Strategy is forgetting the mistakes you've made,' Dunford said.

>   'Rubbish,' snapped Mr. Pearson. 'Rubbish. Forgetting you've been fooled more likely, I should say.'

  Mr. Dunford was all attention. 'Listen to that,' he said. 'Listen.' It was the cable coming up. But Mr. Pearson did not wait to listen. Without another word he left the cabin, banging the door noisily behind him. He was gone, the bent figure already swallowed up in the darkness outside. But had Mr. Dunford followed behind him, he would have seen the engineer sauntering along the bridge-deck, throwing first one hand and then the other into the air, with a sort of despairful resignation. He would have heard him muttering all the way along that bridge-deck. But Dunford had not moved. He stood quite still listening to the rattling sound. And when it had finally ceased, and the silence came, following that tempestuous din, he went to his table and sat down, resting his hands on it, eyes covering its highly polished surface, through which he could see the dull reflection of his own hands. He knew he had better go out now. Voices rang in his ears. The little clock in his cabin began to chime. Yes, he had better go out at once. But he sat on.

  The closed harbour. The strange voice, the ethereal voice that gave orders. The anchor coming up. The turning about. The retreat from O. Turning one's back on old things. Going forward to new ones. There was a day and an hour he was remembering now. That was yesterday. Yesterday was in the sullen places, in the hollow seas, under the pressure of a purpose. Yesterday was doing something that had to be done, and now was done. There was worth in it, and there was dirt in it, and it had to be done. They hadn't wanted to do it, and they did it just because they hadn't wanted to. Purpose had a hollow voice. And that, like yesterday, had passed beyond the reaches of silence. Yesterday was in the sullen places. Sullen and a great heat all about. Words were coined upon tongues in the heat of that hour, and he remembered them. And the flesh yielded. The net dragged and the will stiffened, the spirit held. The eye saw, but no door was closed against rage. In the sullen places. Yesterday.

  Dunford's hand moved over the table, the hand opened, pawed the surface of it. The other joined it and two hands were rubbing the table.

  There was dirt there and they knew it, and because it was dirt they recoiled, and then they had to do it. Not because of the dirt, but because they had to. And dirt was suddenly a dignity, and he remembered that also. Yesterday was in the sullen places and it was hot there, sweltering, and sweat was holy, dripping from many faces. Lights flashed, blood flowed, flowed away into emptiness. Yesterday and no fullness there. Only the haze. The haze. Men passed, flashed by, were gone. An end to that yesterday, but no beginning. Men went forward, some struck, some held. None triumphed. Yesterday in the sullen places was something grown inside one. Something to hold. Like flowers in the hand that will not grow again.

  The hands rubbing on the table suddenly stopped, stiffened. Mr. Dunford got up, all attention, having heard the rap upon his door. He rushed over and opened it, brushed past the man standing outside, heard what he said, but they were ragged words from a humble mouth, and that was nothing new. He had expected it, he had been waiting for it. And others were waiting for him. He knew that also. The ship and the life in that ship waited, hung in the balance of decision. He went straight to the bridge. The cable was up. He heard many voices for'ard. Many different voices, some angry, some soft and calm. One laughing. One swearing loudly. They had been waiting too. He saw Ericson standing, silent. He too was waiting. He laughed suddenly.

  'Ericson,' he called from the starboard wing, and the other joined him.

  'Where is the quartermaster on duty?' asked Dunford gruffly.

  'Just behind you, sir,' replied Mr. Ericson.

  Dunford swung round. Yes. There was the fellow standing there. He hadn't even noticed him. He said quietly, 'Quartermaster.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Go for'ard and tell the bosun that I want the port bulkhead doors opened in the middle watch. Watch to stand by there for orders.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  The quartermaster departed.

  Mr. Dunford stood close by the young officer now. Ericson looked at him. Wondered. He would know something soon. Those bulkhead doors were to be opened. But Dunford was speaking now. He said in a casual manner, 'Ericson, I want you to be on D deck at twelve. Good night.'

  ' 'Night, Mr. Dunford.'

  The shadow in the port wind suddenly became a blur, and then a body. The body moved. It was Deveney. He had stood silent there all that time. Now he crossed over to Mr. Dunford and spoke to him. He spoke to him anxiously, urgently, great agitation in his voice. And Dunford listened. But he said nothing. He went to the tube and spoke down it. The voice in the engine-room answered him. He went to the telegraph and swung its handle, and far below the bell rang. Slowly astern. A.10 was moving. Then she began to swing round. Mr. Dunford stood by. He did these things without hurry or fuss, without speaking, as though he were quite alone on that bridge, as though Deveney did not exist, had never existed. It was quite dark, and once or twice Dunford glanced up at the sky, at the few stars, the ragged clouds. The noise for'ard had ceased. Men tramped up the well-deck, vanished. He could hear the untidy dragging of their feet on the iron deck of the fo'c'sle alleyway. Below men lay, sprawled and farther below, the heaped dead, staring at nothing. A.10 was moving at last. Moving slowly, but nevertheless moving. Veering towards another land and another time. But the loneliness was there nevertheless. Loneliness was all about, was everywhere. Dunford looked upwards again, and now the clouds seemed even more ragged, white against a greater blackness, like scratches jagged on dark rock, or on rain-sodden slate. Ragged clouds, ragged time, ragged hour. The thoughts ragged. The screen of fear rolled up, and tiredness in the eyes.

  He stood rock-like, thinking, hands gently resting on the clean white rail of the bridge. One among many and yet aloof. In the middle of confusion, and this at times like a great arch under strain, all the ragged hours beneath. Water splashing, humming dynamo, whir-whir of engines, soft clap of halliards when wind came, a light wind, halliards clap-clapping against wood. Dunford heard no sounds. He looked to port, to starboard, immensities there and walls of darkness. More stars came out, but he did not look upwards any more. More noise for'ard now, and he heard that. He knew the noise, knew the place there, those men below. Yes, he knew them. He began pacing up and down the bridge. He saw Deveney standing there, like a statue, enveloped in his great-coat. A good man, but not like Bradshaw. No. No man was like Bradshaw, could ever be so. He knew it was time Deveney should go below. He would want to sleep. He was a tired man. Ericson would go to D deck and the watch on would be there. Deveney would return then. He himself would stay. All night, till late morning maybe. He would not go until he knew he had reached that position, and he could write in that log-book – 'Tuesday. 4 a.m. Position forty' – yes, he would stay till then. Before he had been tired, very tired, but not like any tiredness he had ever known. There had been a dull ache in that tiredness. Now he had thrown it from him. A.10 was about, bow cleaving water, moving onwards towards home. He said to himself from time to time, 'Home! Home!' It sounded strange. It struck no chord of feeling in him. When the spirit is pillaged, light goes. He went up to Deveney.

  'You go below now, Mr. Deveney,' he said. His tone of voice was so gentle, so strange, so suddenly disarming to Deveney.

  'I'll be here when you come up,' Dunford added. 'Tomorrow will be different.'

  That was all, was final, and Deveney said, 'Yes. 'Night.'

  He too was gone, and with his going the other's restlessness came to an end. The pacing ceased. He stood behind the port telegraph now, hidden in the half-darkness.

  An eye looked out at him, wonder and much questioning behind it. That was the quartermaster who sometimes when on duty stared at Mr. Dunford from behind. Saw the broad back, the broad shoulders and straight figure, and sometimes he said to himself that he was anxious to know what the great thought about things, things like yesterday, and the hour now, and that first day. But there was no bridging that. Sometimes he would stare out at
Deveney in the same way, or at Ericson, just as he had done when Bradshaw had stood there. He had caught Bradshaw in the light of the sun, and a shadow falling across his neck once. When he turned, Bradshaw's face was in the hard pitiless light of that sun, and a shadow came so that his mouth looked like a thin black line in the browned face.

  Dunford half turned now, looked into the wheel-house, stepped across, looked inside. He saw the needle-point, ignored the helmsman there.

  'Three points,' he said, then went out again.

  Two bells rang out hard and clear from the nest.

  Darkness was a blight. An isolation. He would be glad when morning came. A.10 was going forward now. Towards the light, and air would be different then. Breathing clean again, clean from defilement like that of yesterday. Waters would be blue, then green, bright green, mirroring the sun, the sky blue, clean of clouds. That would be tomorrow. The light and sun clean upon them all. Men would go about their work as though nothing had ever happened.

  Mr. Dunford shifted one foot, now leaned on the other. He thought of his home, his wife, his child. Then the bell rang again and the sudden vision sank. Two rings upon the bell. Two before. And there, almost abeam now, a light. He took up the night glasses and looked through. Green light – white light. He pushed the glasses back on the shelf. He went to the tube again, made as though to speak into it, paused, then rang the telegraph. Half-speed.

  Full when morning came. So he hoped. And to-morrow, if it should surely come, he would sit down, giving his mind to the urgent things. The reports, yes, the reports. And the protest. He knew it might go with all the other protests, make higher the pile. But that would mean nothing. They would soon forget. There was an urgency in the times, and something more compelling in the minds of men, and the protest would lie. Lie and become old, yellow and worn, its meaning sunk from sight, for history, some kind of history was now being made, and being writ, and protests were spokes in the wheel, the fast-moving and burning wheel. And they would sail in, and those men for'ard would go home, those who had seen much and heard much. Go home to wives and mothers and children. Simple men, clothed with power once, when they had stood against the sun in the sullen places that was yesterday, and history was made, coined upon those hollow seas, coined and made in that battered, disease-ridden, scorched and blood-soaked land, carrying with it the pestilence of some unearthly whore.