by Max Hennessy
* * *
High summer was on us almost before we were aware of it. It was a rich summer, full of brittle laughter that echoed hollowly on the breezes that were blowing across the Channel.
I was nervous, restless and edgy. Angry words came quickly and laughter was rare in the resentment Minnie and I felt for each other. We’d reached the stage when we just didn’t get along. We weren’t at open loggerheads or not on speaking terms. We spoke, laughed sometimes, made love to each other – but there was always something missing, and it took the spice out of life and made it a flat, uninteresting thing.
There could be only one ending to it all. It was as inevitable as tomorrow. There was only one answer to the urge inside me to get back to sea, and to the hatred that had been growing on me for the Steam Packet.
The papers were full of requests for men to give a little extra to the country, as Territorials, with the Air Force, in the Navy reserve. Snatching the breath that Hitler had given them time for at Munich, the Government was doing what it should have done years before, and was building up its defences. Everybody was talking A.R.P. and Civil Defence. People were giving themselves the wind-up trying on gas-masks. Bomb shelters had begun to appear. Peace-time conscription arrived in England for the first time in history. Slowly, desperately slowly, they did it, always trying to avoid alarm yet pathetic in their appeals for patriotism.
It was these appeals that gave me the loophole I needed. I’ve never particularly been one for patriotism, but I snatched at it then as the best excuse I could think of.
Minnie didn’t take kindly to my decision, but, then, I’d never expected she would, and I was in no mood to argue. Yorky had been seen in the town again, and I’d heard the Eastern Star was in port. There was a sudden clamouring inside me to be aboard, with shipmates I knew. If I hurried I knew I’d catch her before she left. I’d made a point of finding out how long she was staying. She’d been in collision, I’d heard, and the dock workers were aboard her. I’d just got time to do one thing I wanted.
Minnie watched me with cold, unfriendly eyes as I packed my bags. ‘Well,’ she commented, ‘so you’re leaving me, eh? Running away? Back to that carry-on.’
‘Listen, Minnie,’ I explained. ‘I’m going to do my job. I’m a sailor, and no sailor can do his job ashore.’
‘The Steam Packet needs you more’n any ship,’ Minnie said. ‘For all you care, I could starve.’
‘See here, Minnie.’ I was uncomfortable. She made me feel I was deserting her. ‘You managed before I came along, and you’ll manage just as well now I’m going. You always said you could run this place with one hand tied behind your back.’ She stared at me, angry and silent.
‘I’m going up to London first to sit for my mate’s ticket,’ I went on. ‘I’ve been jogging my memory lately, doing some swotting on the quiet. I wrote ’em weeks ago, and they’ve given me the “Go-ahead.” And when I’ve got that in my pocket you’ll be a captain’s lady in no time, who’s never short of cash.’
‘I don’t want cash,’ she said sulkily, ‘I want you.’
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘there’s trouble coming, and England needs sailors just now. That’s why I’ve got to go,’
Even as I spoke I knew the words had a shifty, dishonest sound about them.
Minnie was aware of it also, apparently, for she laughed. ‘Sharp, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Straight out of the knife-box. Got all your excuses handy. England!’ she sneered. ‘That’s a fine way to talk I You know damn’ fine it isn’t that what’s sending you off. Sailor! A fine thing I did marrying a sailor. I oughta known. I seen plenty of ’em. If I’d had any sense I’d have married Pat Fee.’
I rounded on her angrily. ‘I sometimes wish to God you had!’ I snapped.
‘What’s the matter with Pat Fee?’ Minnie demanded. ‘If Kate Fee’s good enough for you, Pat’s good enough for me.’
‘Shut up, Minnie!’ I shouted, suddenly furious. ‘Shut up!’
‘Ha! Hark at him! It’s different now, isn’t it?’ Minnie yelled, realizing she’d touched me where it hurt. ‘Now that her name’s come into it, it’s very different.’
I stepped forward and Minnie backed away. ‘Shut up, Minnie!’ I breathed. ‘Or, by God, I’ll fetch you one!’
She was silent, watching me with furious eyes as I picked up my bags.
‘All right,’ she grated at last, ‘you can go. But you needn’t be in such a hurry to come back.’
VIII
There was an evening mist hanging over the water when I walked along the dockside towards the Eastern Star. Out in midstream a tug boomed and away in the distance the St. Andrew Light winked sharply. You could just see its flash on the bend of the river.
The Eastern Star, just as Old Boxer had described it, was an ill-designed, crank, wry-necked vessel with a bow that was just too high. She had a tall, cigarette-shaped funnel and rusty goalpost derricks. Welders were at work on her, bending over their crackling bright-blue flames. The decks were covered with loops of heavy mooring-ropes and agonized coils of wire that ended round the winches. The familiar smell of engine oil and steam and straw was in the air. It was always the first thing that hit me when I set foot aboard a ship.
As I stepped on the deck I felt the old thrill come over me – the same old thrill I’d always felt after a spell ashore. And then I knew I’d never leave the sea as long as I drew breath.
Minnie could have offered me the biggest pub in the world, with gold-plated bars and diamond-studded beer-engines, but it would never appeal to me half as much as one whiff of that scent I’d caught as I approached the Eastern Star. I was lost for ever to the sea the first day I ever set foot aboard a ship.
Those grey, heaving wastes I’d travelled in the last few years had put a spell on me. I was bewitched by them. There were times when I detested them – what sailor doesn’t when the living’s hard? – but when I was ashore the merest whiff of them was enough to make me heart-sick for their motion. Many a time at the Steam Packet I’d dived into the cupboard in the back bedroom and fished out my sea-bag and my knife, and the sea-boots with the coating of mildew and salt on them, on the pretext of using them to do some job. But I’d only toyed with them, not knowing whether to be glad because the sea was behind me or miserable. Mostly I was miserable without really knowing why.
I’d often thought I was smart to pack it up before I was old and salt-caked, and with the stamp of bunk-springs on my behind. But I wasn’t. If I’d been smart I’d have been aboard months before. When the sea gets you as it had got me, you only starve yourself of light and air and happiness when you turn your back on it…
The forecastle seemed to be empty when I dropped my kitbag, but as I lit a cigarette I became aware of an unshaven, bleary face staring at me over the top of a pile of ruffled blankets.
‘Yorky!’
A. pair of white arms appeared, and I saw a podgy body wearing nothing but the remains of a torn shirt.
‘Jess, me old flower! You’ve come back to us?’
Yorky heaved himself from his bunk and hurried across to me to clutch my hand, his fat bare legs white and hairless, the colour of dough.
‘Gawd, mate, it’s proper nice to see you!’ He suddenly frowned and held his forehead for a moment, then he tottered back to his bunk and crawled into it again.
‘Pardon me, Jess. I look like a queeny in this rig. ’Aving a bit of a kip I was, see? There’s seaweed round me funnel, kid. I’m under way but only just. I need a little liver pill or summat.’
‘What was it, Yorky?’ I grinned. ‘A heavy night?’
‘Not ’alf. Party. Posh do it was. Nearly floated outa the door on the booze. Young ladies, too.’ He frowned at his headache. ‘That’s why I’m aboard of ’er now. No money left. Subbed off the Skipper till ’e won’t cough up no more. P’r’aps it’s as well, though. The Dock Police swore they’d run me in if they seen me ashore again this trip. Brought me ’ome last night.’
He groaned at the
memory and cadged a cigarette. ‘A spit an’ a drag’ll put me right.’
‘Got one of me own somewhere,’ he said dismally, fishing under his pillow.
Out came the inevitable brown paper parcel, which he started to unwrap.
‘Keep sayin’ I’ll make meself a kit-bag,’ he observed gloomily, half to himself. ‘But I don’t seem to get around to it.’
He drew on his cigarette for a while as I sat on the forecastle bench and waited for him to come round a bit. The dingy little space was chilly with the dampness and the mist. But there was a whiff of the sea in it that cheered me up in spite of its comfortlessness.
‘You’re only just in time, lad,’ Yorky said. ‘Sailing to-morrer.’
I stared at my cigarette-end for a moment, then I looked up suddenly at him.
‘Chain Locker,’ he said without waiting for my question. ‘First boozer outside the dock gates. He never gets beyond the first one these days, kid.’
I nodded and rose.
‘You’ll see a bit of a change in ’im,’ Yorky went on drearily, as though he were making a confession. ‘’E’s beginnin’ to look like somethin’ the cat drug outa the knacker’s yard. I’ve tried, but ’e’s stubborn, mate.’
He sat up suddenly, and the blankets slid to the deck.
‘Tried to put ’is name down for that list of Navy reserve of officers you’ll ’ave ’eard about, Jess, see? Wouldn’t ’ave ’im. An’ ’e took it a bit to ’eart. Gawd knows why ’e thought the Navy’d want ’im though. ’E’s obviously rotten with booze and looks it. You could put a wreck marker over ’im just now and write ’im off as a dead loss. They don’t want blokes like that. They want youngsters like you, Jess, wot’s got a bit o’ red blood left in ‘em. Christ, ’e’s a fair caution these days.’ He stared at me with red-rimmed eyes. ‘’E’s drinkin’ in a way what frightens me. I seen some boozin’ in me time, but ‘e’s drinkin’ now like somethin’s chasin’ ’im.’
‘Something is,’ I said.
‘Reelly? No kid? What?’
‘His own thoughts. They’ve been chasing him for twenty years.’
* * *
The Chain Locker was a derelict little dump and its proprietor matched it for desolation. I almost expected him to smell as if he’d just been dragged out of an attic corner.
‘In there,’ he said in answer to my question, and he indicated the room opposite the bar. ‘You come to take ’im away?’
Old Boxer was alone, his flabby bulk sagging in a corner of a wooden settle, as though he were a part of the decrepit whole that was the pub.
He stared up at me, and it seemed ages before he spoke.
‘God,’ he said at last, ‘I do believe…’ He struggled to speak, and I saw there were tears in his eyes. ‘Jess,’ he croaked, ‘why didn’t you say you were comin’ ? Catching a chap like this with a list on him. It’s like callin’ for a woman while she’s still got her hair unpinned.’
He heaved himself ponderously to his feet and stood swaying. He was hanging on to the mantelpiece, and I saw his fingers were trembling as they clutched at it.
‘I’m more keel than funnel at the moment,’ he said, ‘and my brain seems knotted like an old woman’s entrails. Steer me back to the Eastern Star, lad. You wouldn’t see a shipmate stranded, would you?’
‘Come on, you old donkey, you,’ I said gently.
‘Are you with us again, Jess?’ he queried as I manoeuvred him carefully through the door.
‘Yes, I’m with you. I’ve slipped me cable and got myself signed on the Eastern Star.’
‘Praise be to God,’ he said fervently, and he began to sing in a wobbly cracked voice that was pathetic in its wretchedness:
‘Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu, ladies of Spain.’
He stumbled a little on the uneven cobbles.
‘Bit of an awkward cross-swell here,’ he said. ‘No, I’m drunk. That’s what it is. I’m a copper-bottomed old fool with a rum bottle for a nose. What shall we do with the drunken sailor? What shall we do with the drunken sailor…?’
His voice trailed off into a monotonous chant, and he shuffled after me, a stale-smelling old wreck of a man.
‘She’s a starvation bastard, the Eastern Star, with cockroaches big as tomcats,’ he went on. ‘You can make her loaves into fenders. You can caulk seams with her duff. And her salt pork you can use to frighten the gulls away.’ Leaning heavily on me and on legs that buckled under him, he babbled on as we made our way to the docks. ‘Her skipper couldn’t navigate driftwood round a duckpond, and she’s designed by a corkscrew maker, but she’s home, lad, to me.’
‘Cheer up, man,’ I said, depressed by the windy rigmarole of misery. ‘Pull yourself together.’
‘Never pull myself together again, lad. They don’t want me. The Navy’s no time for me. God, and they’re crying out for men, too. Better if I’d gone down with my ship ’stead of living to see them throw me out – and throw me out again.’
I got another grip on him as he began to bend a little at the knees.
‘Too old, they said! Too old. Didn’t ask about my record. Don’t suppose they’re bothered, anyway. Just took one look at me and said, “Too old.” Just like that. And they wrinkled their noses as if they’d picked something up on their boots.’
‘Were you sober?’
‘Sober as a judge, Jess. Just come from sea.’ His words tumbled over themselves in his eagerness to convince. ‘Had to be sober. First call soon as I set foot ashore. Just had one or two to bolster me up. That’s all. Shaky with nerves, man. But only one or two. No more. Only an eyeful. Just one or two to keep me going. They ask so many questions, Jess. They get you dizzy. Didn’t know whether I was coming or going. But I was sober, Jess. Honest, I was.’
I could well imagine the interview. Old Boxer would be remembering his disgrace all the time. The grey ghosts of the past would be haunting him. He’d be guiltily aware he was hiding a bad record, sensing all the time they’d never have him. He’d be nervous at the start, awed a little by the smart uniforms, ashamed of his own untidiness, and more than likely dazed with rum, more than likely with a chip on his shoulder.
His voice broke in on my thoughts. ‘Too old,’ he said, and it seemed as though the years were jostling him unwillingly along. ‘God, it’s awful to get to my age, Jess. Should have gone down with the ship. I know I should.’
‘Oh, shut up, man!’ I said irritably, growing angry at his self-pity.
‘Only old age and a shabby lodging-house. That’s what I’ve got coming to me.’ He seemed to be staring into the eyes of idiot reality. ‘Pauper’s grave. Parson at the workhouse. That’s all.’
Something seemed to have gone from him. Once there’d been a ponderous grandeur about his drunkenness. Now he was just a stupid, drivelling, glassy-eyed old fool. The spine had gone out of him and he’d lost his grip on hope.
IX
Even as the Eastern Star slipped her moorings and headed across the Bay of Biscay and into the Mediterranean sunshine, the lights were beginning to go out in Europe. Those speeches of Hitler’s had come to a head at last.
A wireless message told us to hurry, and we set off for Gibraltar like the clappers of hell. They got the engines knocking up revs she’d not produced in twenty years or more and set the old ship rattling from stem to stern, all the ladder stagings buzzing with the vibration and the bolts rattling in the plates; and all the mugs and knives and forks in the mess-deck playing a tune as they danced up and down the table.
We’d reached Gibraltar when the news of the Polish invasion came through, and we huddled on the foredeck between watches to hear the wireless in the officers’ saloon, eager for news.
‘The bastards,’ I heard Yorky murmuring. ‘The bastards. Them bleeden politicians ’as let us in for it again.’
The old hands among the crew were silent, remembering their experiences in the last war, and Old Boxer was the most taciturn of the lot.
>
The declaration of war came at last, and a typewritten notice from the Captain’s cabin was stuck up in the forecastle, a bleak little message that was repeated by the signalling lamp of a sleek, grey destroyer as she hurried past us, heading for Malta: ‘War has broken out with Germany. Do not put into any German port.’
‘Well,’ someone said, ‘I hope that old blighter with the umbrella’s happy now.’
The forecastle was full of buzzes immediately. It was blacked out the first night after we got the news and the dropped deadlights created the atmosphere of an oven in the Red Sea evenings. New watches had to be fitted in and gallons of grey paint had to be slapped on to the white deck-work to reduce it to a drab, wartime camouflage. Rumours, half of them imaginary, went round the ship, of vessels sunk in the Indian Ocean by a German pocket battleship which was reported to be just ahead of us, and of collisions in convoys as ships strayed from their positions in the dark through lack of experience.
That trip of the Eastern Star wasn’t a happy one for me. Those high hopes I’d had, those sea fevers that had given me restless nights, seemed to have come to nothing. The trip was a dreadful anti-climax that was symbolized by Old Boxer’s attitude.
We both tried hard to behave normally towards each other, but I was married, and that link there’d been between us was broken by the existence of Minnie. We never got on with each other in quite the same way, from the minute the winches began to bang and rattle as we coiled mooring-ropes until the anchor chain roared through the hawse-hole in Mombasa harbour.
I wasn’t sorry when the voyage was over and we were tied up within sight of St. Andrew Head again.
I walked away from the Eastern Star slowly. I could hear the sound of ‘Shenandoah’ played on Yorky’s concertina. It was a bit uneven because Yorky had had one or two already – when he went to buy the usual railway ticket to Hull I knew he’d never use. The yearning melody seemed a fitting accompaniment to my thoughts. There was something oppressive in the air I couldn’t put my finger on, in spite of the brand-new mate’s ticket I’d been told was waiting for me when I wanted to collect it. I’d wanted the sea – badly – but Old Boxer’s strangeness had left me with a bitter taste of disappointment.