‘I thought you were playing up to me and the judges all the time,’ said Tegg. ‘I never dreamed you took it seriously.’
‘Well, I’ve been trained to look on the law as serious. I’ve had to pay for some of it in my time, you know.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Tegg. ‘We were obliged to let that oily beggar go- for reasons, but, as I told Maddingham, the night the award was given, his duty was to see that he was properly directed to Antigua.’
‘Naturally,’ Portson observed. ‘That being the Neutral’s declared destination. And what did Maddingham do? Shut up, Maddingham!’
Said Tegg, with downcast eyes: ‘Maddingham took my hand and squeezed it; he looked lovingly into my eyes (he did!); he turned plumcolour, and he said: “I will” just like a bride groom at the altar. It makes me feel shy to think of it even now. I didn’t see him after that till the evening when Hilarity was pulling out of the Basin, and Maddingham was cursing the tug-master.’
‘I was in a hurry,’ said Maddingham. ‘I wanted to get to the Narrows and wait for my Neutral there. I dropped down to Biller and Grove’s yard that tide (they’ve done all my work for years) and I jammed Hilarity into the creek behind their slip, so the Newt didn’t spot me when he came down the river. Then I pulled out and followed him over the Bar. He stood nor-west at once. I let him go till we were well out of sight of land. Then I overhauled him, gave him a gun across the bows and ran alongside. I’d just had my lunch, and I wasn’t going to lose my temper this time. I said: “Excuse me, but I understand you are bound for Antigua?” He was, he said, and as he seemed a little nervous about my falling aboard him in that swell, I gave Hilarity another sheer in-she’s as handy as a launch-and I said: “May I suggest that this is not the course for Antigua?” By that time he had his fenders overside, and all hands yelling at me to keep away. I snatched Hilarity out and began edging in again. He said: “I’m trying a sample of inferior oil that I have my doubts about. If it works all right I shall lay my course for Antigua, but it will take some time to test the stuff and adjust the engines to it.” I said: “Very good, let me know if I can be of any service,” and I offered him Hilarity again once or twice-he didn’t want her-and then I dropped behind and let him go on. Wasn’t that proper, Portson?’
Portson nodded. ‘I know that game of yours with Hilarity,’ he said. ‘How the deuce do you do it? My nerve always goes at close quarters in any sea.’
‘It’s only a little trick of steering,’ Maddingham replied with a simper of vanity. ‘You can almost shave with her when she feels like it. I had to do it again that same evening, to establish a moral ascendancy. He wasn’t showing any lights, and I nearly tripped over him. He was a scared Neutral for three minutes, but I got a little of my own back for that damned court-martial. But I was perfectly polite. I apologised profusely. I didn’t even ask him to show his lights.’
‘But did he?’ said Winchmore.
‘He did-every one; and a flare now and then,’ Maddingham replied. ‘He held north all that night, with a falling barometer and a rising wind and all the other filthy things. Gad, how I hated him! Next morning we got it, good and tight from the nor-nor-west out of the Atlantic, off Carso Head. He dodged into a squall, and then he went about. We weren’t a mile behind, but it was as thick as a wall. When it cleared, and I couldn’t see him ahead of me, I went about too, and followed the rain. I picked him up five miles down wind, legging it for all he was worth to the south’ard-nine knots, I should think. Hilarity doesn’t like a following sea. We got pooped a bit, too, but by noon we’d struggled back to where we ought to have been-two cables astern of him. Then he began to signal, but his flags being end-on to us, of course, we had to creep up on his beam-well abeam-to read ‘em. That didn’t restore his morale either. He made out he’d been compelled to put back by stress of weather before completing his oil tests. I made back I was sorry to hear it, but would be greatly interested in the results. Then I turned in (I’d been up all night) and my lootenant took on. He was a widower (by the way) of the name of Sherrin, aged forty-seven. He’d run a girls’ school at Weston-super-Mare after he’d left the Service in ‘ninety-five, and he believed the English were the Lost Tribes.’
‘What about the Germans?’ said Portson.
‘Oh, they’d been misled by Austria, who was the Beast with Horns in Revelations. Otherwise he was rather a dull dog. He set the tops’ls in his watch. Hilarity won’t steer under any canvas, so we rather sported round our friend that afternoon, I believe. When I came up after dinner, she was biting his behind, first one side, then the other. Let’s see-that would be about thirty miles east-sou-east of Harry Island. We were running as near as nothing south. The wind had dropped, and there was a useful cross-rip coming up from the south- east. I took the wheel and, the way I nursed him from starboard, he had to take the sea over his port bow. I had my sciatica on me- buccaneering’s no game for a middleaged man-but I gave that fellow sprudel! By Jove; I washed him out! He stood it as long as he could, and then he made a bolt for Harry Island. I had to ride in his pocket most of the way there because I didn’t know that coast. We had charts, but Sherrin never understood ‘em, and I couldn’t leave the wheel. So we rubbed along together, and about midnight this Newt dodged in over the tail of Harry Shoals and anchored, if you please, in the lee of the Double Ricks. It was dead calm there, except for the swell, but there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre in, and I wasn’t going to anchor. It looked too like a submarine rendezvous. But first, I came alongside and asked him what his trouble was. He told me he had overheated his something-or-other bulb. I’ve never been shipmates with Diesel engines, but I took his word for it, and I said I ‘ud stand by till it cooled. Then he told me to go to hell.’
‘If you were inside the Double Ricks in the dark, you were practically there,’ said Portson.
‘That’s what I thought. I was on the bridge, rabid with sciatica, going round and round like a circus-horse in about three acres of water, and wondering when I’d hit something. Ridiculous position. Sherrin saw it. He saved me. He said it was an ideal place for submarine attacks, and we’d better begin to repel ‘em at once. As I said, I couldn’t leave the wheel, so Sherrin fought the ship-both quick-firers and the maxims. He tipped ‘em well down into the sea or well up at the Ricks as we went round and round. We made rather a row; and the row the gulls made when we woke ‘em was absolutely terrifying. ‘Give you my word!’
‘And then?’ said Winchmore.
‘I kept on running in circles through this ghastly din. I took one sheer over toward his stern-I thought I’d cut it too fine, but we missed it by inches. Then I heard his capstan busy, and in another three minutes his anchor was up. He didn’t wait to stow. He hustled out as he was-bulb or no bulb. He passed within ten feet of us (I was waiting to fall in behind him) and he shouted over the rail: “You think you’ve got patriotism. All you’ve got is uric acid and rotten spite!” I expect he was a little bored. I waited till we had cleared Harry Shoals before I went below, and then I slept till 9 a.m. He was heading north this time, and after I’d had breakfast and a smoke I ran alongside and asked him where he was bound for now. He was wrapped in a comforter, evidently suffering from a bad cold. I couldn’t quite catch what he said, but I let him croak for a few minutes and fell back. At 9 a.m. he turned round and headed south (I was getting to know the Irish Channel by then) and I followed. There was no particular sea on. It was a little chilly, but as he didn’t hug the coast I hadn’t to take the wheel. I stayed below most of the night and let Sherrin suffer. Well, Mr. Newt kept up this game all the next day, dodging up and down the Irish Channel. And it was infernally dull. He threw up the sponge off Cloone Harbour. That was on Friday morning. He signalled: “Developed defects in engine-room. Antigua trip abandoned.” Then he ran into Cloone and tied up at Brady’s Wharf. You know you can’t repair a dinghy at Cloone! I followed, of course, and berthed behind him. After lunch I thought I’d pay him a call. I wanted to look at his engines. I don’t unde
rstand Diesels, but Hyslop, my engineer, said they must have gone round ‘em with a hammer, for they were pretty badly smashed up. Besides that, they had offered all their oil to the Admiralty agent there, and it was being shifted to a tug when I went aboard him. So I’d done my job. I was just going back to Hilarity when his steward said he’d like to see me. He was lying in his cabin breathing pretty loud-wrapped up in rugs and his eyes sticking out like a rabbit’s. He offered me drinks. I couldn’t accept ‘em, of course. Then he said: “Well, Mr. Maddingham, I’m all in.” I said I was glad to hear it. Then he told me he was seriously ill with a sudden attack of bronchial pneumonia, and he asked me to run him across to England to see his doctor in town. I said, of course, that was out of the question, Hilarity being a man-of-war in commission. He couldn’t see it. He asked what had that to do with it? He thought this war was some sort of joke, and I had to repeat it all over again. He seemed rather afraid of dying (it’s no game for a middle-aged man, of course) and he hoisted himself up on one elbow and began calling me a murderer. I explained to him-perfectly politely-that I wasn’t in this job for fun. It was business. My orders were to see that he went to Antigua, and now that he wasn’t going to Antigua, and had sold his oil to us, that finished it as far as I was concerned. (Wasn’t that perfectly correct?) He said: “But that finishes me, too. I can’t get any doctor in this Godforsaken hole. I made sure you’d treat me properly as soon as I surrendered.” I said there wasn’t any question of surrender. If he’d been a wounded belligerent, I might have taken him aboard, though I certainly shouldn’t have gone a yard out of my course to land him anywhere; but as it was, he was a neutral- altogether outside the game. You see my point? I tried awfully hard to make him understand it. He went on about his affairs all being at loose ends. He was a rich man-a million and a quarter, he said-and he wanted to redraft his will before he died. I told him a good many people were in his position just now-only they weren’t rich. He changed his tack then and appealed to me on the grounds of our common humanity. “Why, if you leave me now, Mr. Maddingham,” he said, “you condemn me to death, just as surely as if you hanged me.”‘
‘This is interesting,’ Portson murmured. ‘I never imagined you in this light before, Maddingham.’
‘I was surprised at myself-’give you my word. But I was perfectly polite. I said to him: “Try to be reasonable, sir. If you had got rid of your oil where it was wanted, you’d have condemned lots of people to death just as surely as if you’d drowned ‘em.” “Ah, but I didn’t,” he said. “That ought to count in my favour.” “That was no thanks to you,” I said. “You weren’t given the chance. This is war, sir. If you make up your mind to that, you’ll see that the rest follows.” “I didn’t imagine you’d take it as seriously as all that,” he said-and he said it quite seriously, too. “Show a little consideration. Your side’s bound to win anyway.” I said: “Look here! I’m a middle-aged man, and I don’t suppose my conscience is any clearer than yours in many respects, but this is business. I can do nothing for you.”‘
‘You got that a bit mixed, I think,’ said Tegg critically.
‘He saw what I was driving at,’ Maddingham replied, ‘and he was the only one that mattered for the moment. “Then I’m a dead man, Mr. Maddingham,” he said. “That’s your business,” I said. “Good afternoon.” And I went out.’
‘And?’ said Winchmore, after some silence.
‘He died. I saw his flag half-masted next morning.’
There was another silence. Henri looked in at the alcove and smiled. Maddingham beckoned to him.
‘But why didn’t you lend him a hand to settle his private affairs?’ said Portson.
‘Because I wasn’t acting in my private capacity. I’d been on the bridge for three nights and — ’ Maddingham pulled out his watch-’this time to-morrow I shall be there again-confound it! Has my car come, Henri?’
‘Yes, Sare Francis. I am sorry.’ They all complimented Henri on the dinner, and when the compliments were paid he expressed himself still their debtor. So did the nephew.
‘Are you coming with me, Portson?’ said Maddingham as he rose heavily.
‘No. I’m for Southampton, worse luck! My car ought to be here, too.’
‘I’m for Euston and the frigid calculating North,’ said Winchmore with a shudder. ‘One common taxi, please, Henri.’
Tegg smiled. ‘I’m supposed to sleep in just now, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to come with you as far as Gravesend, Maddingham.’
‘Delighted. There’s a glass all round left still,’ said Maddingham. ‘Here’s luck! The usual, I suppose? “Damnation to all neutrals!”‘
The Vineyard
AT the eleventh hour he came.
But his wages were the same
As ours who all day long had trod
The wine-press of the Wrath of God.
When he shouldered through the lines
Of our cropped and mangled vines.
His unjaded eye could scan
How each hour had marked its man.
(Children of the morning — tide
With the hosts of noon had died;
And our noon contingents lay
Dead with twilight’s spent array.)
Since his back had felt no load
Virtue still in him abode;
So he swiftly made his own
Those last spoils we had not won.
We went home, delivered thence.
Grudging him no recompense
Till he portioned praise or blame
To our works before he came.
Till he showed us for our good —
Deaf to mirth, and blind to scorn-
How we might have best withstood
Burdens that he had not borne!
‘Banquet Night’
‘ONCE in so often,’ King Solomon said.
Watching his quarrymen drill the stone.
‘We will club our garlic and wine and bread
And banquet together beneath my Throne
And all the Brethren shall come to that mess
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.
‘Send a swift shallop to Hiram of Tyre.
Felling and floating our beautiful trees.
Say that the Brethren and I desire
Talk with our Brethren who use the seas.
And we shall be happy to meet them at mess
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.
‘Carry this message to Hiram Abif-
Excellent Master of forge and mine: —
I and the Brethren would like it if
He and the Brethren will come to dine
(Garments from Bozrah or morning-dress)
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.
‘God gave the Hyssop and Cedar their place-
Also the Bramble, the Fig and the Thorn —
But that is no reason to black a man’s face
Because he is not what he hasn’t been born.
And, as touching the Temple, I hold and profess
We are Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.’
So it was ordered and so it was done.
And the hewers of wood and the Masons of Mark.
With foc’sle hands of the Sidon run
And Navy Lords from the Royal Ark.
Came and sat down and were merry at mess
As Fellow-Craftsmen-no more and no less.
The Quarries are hotter than Hiram’s forge.
No one is safe from the dog-whips’ reach.
It’s mostly snowing up Lebanon gorge.
And it’s always blowing off Joppa beach;
But once in so often, the messenger brings
Solomon’s mandate: ‘Forget these things!
Brother to Beggars and Fellow to Kings.
Companion of Princes-forget these things!
Fellow-Craftsman, forget these things!’
‘In the Interests of the Brethren’
I WAS buying a canary in a
birdshop when he first spoke to me and suggested that I should take a less highly coloured bird. ‘The colour is in the feeding,’ said he. ‘Unless you know how to feed ‘em, it goes. Canaries are one of our hobbies.’
He passed out before I could thank him. He was a middle-aged man with grey hair and a short, dark beard, rather like a Sealyham terrier in silver spectacles. For some reason his face and his voice stayed in my mind so distinctly that, months later, when I jostled against him on a platform crowded with an Angling Club going to the Thames, I recognised, turned, and nodded.
‘I took your advice about the canary,’ I said.
‘Did you? Good!’ he replied heartily over the rod-case on his shoulder, and was parted from me by the crowd.
* * *
A few years ago I turned into a tobacconist’s to have a badly stopped pipe cleaned out.
‘Well! Well! And how did the canary do?’ said the man behind the counter. We shook hands, and ‘What’s your name?’ we both asked together.
His name was Lewis Holroyd Burges, of ‘Burges and Son,’ as I might have seen above the door-but Son had been killed in Egypt. His hair was whiter than it had been, and the eyes were sunk a little.
‘Well! Well! To think,’ said he, ‘of one man in all these millions turning up in this curious way, when there’s so many who don’t turn up at all-eh?’ (It was then that he told me of Son Lewis’s death and why the boy had been christened Lewis.) ‘Yes. There’s not much left for middle-aged people just at present. Even one’s hobbies — We used to fish together. And the same with canaries! We used to breed ‘em for colour-deep orange was our speciality. That’s why I spoke to you, if you remember; but I’ve sold all my birds. Well! Well! And now we must locate your trouble.’
He bent over my erring pipe and dealt with it skilfully as a surgeon. A soldier came in, spoke in an undertone, received a reply, and went out.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 526