by A. J. Cronin
He remained quite still, craving to drink, feeling the fine tremor of his fingers run into his arms in spasms of nervous irritation. But oddly, with a fierce and introverted grimness, he withheld the moment of his deliverance. He would drink when the ship got under way, but not before. And so he sat waiting; waiting for the ship’s departure.
Chapter Two
The ship, too, seemed waiting. In the waist, the cargo hatches lay secured, tarpaulined and in sea shape. Beyond, at the donkey engine, two men in blue jerseys stood alert, shrouded by a coil of hissing steam. In the bows the boatswain fingered his whistle, and by the gangway Hamble, the purser, hung about, dusting the lapels of his monkey-jacket, caressing his small moustache, fiddling at his stringy black tie, all with a sort of nervous anticipation.
The tender had long ago stood off. On the bridge deck, gazing intently towards the quay, there was firmly planted a short man in uniform who now, without moving his head, hailed the bridge. At once the siren sounded – a long and mournful note, repeated and again repeated. At the same second a swift moving shape darted from the dull background of the docks towards the ship. On it came, an open motor-launch, impelled to speed by the siren’s troubled moaning, threshing a curving wake with every indication of despatch. In three minutes it bumped alongside.
Beyond the rich baggage which it contained and the waterman – plainly distressed to be involved in the supreme disaster of a ship’s delay – the launch held three passengers.
And now they came on board.
Daines-Dibdin, a long, rangy, senile gentleman with a monocle embedded in his eye, came first. He was a reddish, withered gentleman, but he was, in his preserved way, utterly immaculate and well bred. He stood, at a glance, for the correct thing, and there was about him a perennial aspect and a certain doltish inevitability as though one day he might use Bond Street as his highway and the next, with a fresh shave and serene stupidity, the middle of the Sahara.
Breathing heavily, he reached the deck and turned to assist the others – a woman and a girl – now clambering up the gangway. At that moment Harvey, chafing at the delay, flung open his cabin door. His brooding eye, arrested suddenly, fastened on the scene of the arrival: the formal reception, Hamble’s deference, the rapid attention to the baggage, the agitated scurrying of the stewardess, the unusual stir created. With cold detachment he noticed these evidences of social consequence, and a moment later, as the two women advanced along the deck, he inspected them stonily.
The elder was tall, with a full and elegant figure, a languid air, and a manner so completely assured it aroused unreasonably a sort of irritation. Perhaps it was Elissa Baynham’s manner which had irritated two husbands through the divorce courts. Perhaps not. Certainly, at thirty-two, she was physically quite magnificent. But it was a careless magnificence. Only a tenth part of her mind seemed occupied by external affairs – a tiresome business! – the remainder was concentrated upon herself. If her face showed no animation it was because she had now decided that the situation was unworthy of her attention. Yet her expression was striking – faintly challenging and, now that her features were in repose, arrogant, almost sullen. She was handsome in her vivid way. She had a dashing colour, her eyes were splendid, her mouth wide, her teeth strong and white.
Beside her the girl seemed strangely young; that, indeed, was the quality in Mary Fielding which instantly possessed the eye; though she was twenty-five, she looked, at times, no more than fifteen years. She was of medium height, her figure slender, small-boned, and light. Her hands and feet were small, her face both eager and alive. Her hair, of a deep rich brown, was worn short, falling away from a wide forehead; her teeth were small and perfect; her eyes blue, with irises circled curiously by much darker rings; and very deep they were – brimming with light that seemed upon the edge of darkness. Though there were moments when those eyes could hold a strangely puzzled sadness, now they were dancing – singularly gay. She was dressed quite carelessly in brown tweed clothes that hung about her in some disarray.
They drew near. And, preparatory to their passing, Harvey pointedly averted his gaze. It was then that Mary Fielding saw him.
She gave a little gasp; her face went quite pale; and into the brightness of her eyes there flashed a look both joyful and afraid. She hesitated, made to stop. And then, lifting his head, his gaze met hers. He did not know her, had never in his life seen her before. He stared at her in stony and complete unrecognition.
At that her eyes fell. Again deep within her she felt frightened, terribly frightened, and yet glad. Her face was still white as she walked forward with Elissa. Out of the corner of his eye Harvey observed them enter their cabins, which, with a cold indifference, he saw to be adjoining his own.
The doors closed; he forgot about it all. Wearily he turned and leant against a stanchion. A bell rang sharply from the bridge, then rang again; a muffled throbbing stirred inside the ship, which pulsed as with the awakening of life. He felt the vessel slowly move and, like a man released by a sudden signal, he swung abruptly round.
Chapter Three
He stepped into his cabin, flung himself upon the settee, and immediately pressed the bell. He waited; then with a sudden impatience he rang the bell again. Violently. In a moment the steward entered, flurried and apologetic, sweating from his haste. He was a little fat man, bald on top of his head, with brown bulbous eyes that popped out of his round face above the whiteness of his short drill jacket.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Leith abruptly.
‘Trout, sir.’
‘You thought twice about answering the bell, Trout.’
‘Very sorry, sir. I’ve been extra busy with the luggage. You see, sir, Lady Fielding just came aboard now. And I had to look slippy of a sudden. Sir Michael Fielding – her husband – is a big man with Slade Brothers. Large interests in the company he has, sir.’
‘Fielding?’ said Harvey. ‘You mean the specimen with the monocle?’
Trout looked deprecatingly at his cracked boots, rubbed his moist palms along the shiny seams of his blue serge trousers.
‘Sir Michael is not travelling, sir. You might mean the Honourable Daines-Dibdin, intending no offence. An oldish gentleman, sir, but very classy, as you would say. He came aboard with her ladyship and Mrs Baynham.’
Harvey looked gloomily at the steward’s bald head.
‘I’ve got no title, Trout. And no influence with the company. But I’ve got a devil of a thirst. So fetch me a bottle of whisky. And look sharp about it.’
There was a pause during which the steward’s eyes remained irresolutely upon his boots. Then he said:
‘Yes, sir,’ in a constrained voice, as though the words came from those very boots; and he turned and went out.
The satire faded from Harvey’s face, and, raising himself, he gazed through the square glass port. Why had he bullied the steward? It wasn’t like him to do that. A dark melancholy flowed into his eyes as he stared at the blurred river-bank slipping past like a grey veil unwound slowly across the screen of his sight. Life slipped past now in just such a fashion. Remote, empty, meaningless.
He moved uneasily, gritted his teeth. Why did the fellow not come? Was he never coming? He waited with quivering nerves, then on an impulse he jumped up and flung out of the cabin. The deck, swept now by the freshening wind of the estuary, was deserted as he crossed to the companion, descended, and entered the saloon. It was a small place, but very bright and clean, panelled in white wood, the floor covered by a Turkey carpet, the shining mahogany of the long fixed table splashed by a pot of blazing geranium. And seated in the corner with his boots upon the cushions was a very big man of about sixty with a large square-cropped grey head on which his bowler hat reposed at an angle both rakish and profound. He was ugly, his eyebrows mere grey tufts, one ear a flattened wreck, but over all his seamed and battered face there lay a look of jaunty affability. He wore a very shiny blue serge suit, much too small and much too shabby. And yet he carried that shabbiness
adventurously. The tight short trousers upon his bulky legs gave him quite a dashing air; his neck-tie bore a large imitation pearl pin; and his linen was clean – at least in parts. There he sat composedly, and in his knobby, enormous hands he gravely held a certain volume with a paper back. As Harvey entered he lowered the book, over which his lips had moved, looked across the steel-rimmed spectacles on his broken nose, and in a seductive Irish voice remarked:
‘Good mornin’ to you.’
‘Morning.’ Harvey sank into a chair, rang the bell, and began nervously to drum his fingers upon his knees. In a moment the table steward entered.
‘Steward,’ said Harvey in a controlled voice, ‘ I ordered some whisky to be sent to my cabin – No.7. Send it up, will you? In the meantime bring me a brandy and soda.’
At once the steward’s face exhibited an ill-concealed embarrassment.
‘Dr Leith, sir,’ he hesitated. ‘No. 7?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. The bar is closed.’
‘Closed?’
The steward bent over and lowered his voice with awkward, too obvious tact.
‘Closed to you, sir. The captain’s orders through Mr Hamble, the purser.’
Harvey’s fingers ceased their drumming; he sat quite still, transfixed by the unexpectedness of the reply. Then his lips drew to a narrow line.
‘I see,’ he murmured to himself. ‘I see.’
Dimly he felt the two men watching him; dimly he saw the steward slip out of the saloon; but he gave no heed. Ismay, of course, had done this – Ismay, priding himself upon his friendship, his influence, his ability to arrange the universe, had interviewed the captain – oh, it was maddening.…
Suddenly the man in the corner spoke.
‘Do ye know, now,’ he said – and unexpectedly his battered face was illumined by a friendly grin – ‘ they’re cranky, some of these skippers, cranky as a cracked payanna. Sure, if I was you, I wouldn’t be gettin’ up in the air about sich a thing one way or t’other.’ He paused, but, though Harvey gave no sign of having heard, with undiminished gusto he went on: ‘ I saw ye in the tinder comin’ off. Me name’s Corcoran. Jimmy Corcoran. It’s a name well beknown, up and down, off and on.’ Again he paused naively, his good ear expectantly advanced, as if to hear some confirmation of his repute; then he added:
‘Heavy-weight champeen of the North in ’ 88. The only man that went the length with cracky Joe Crotty. Might have been a world beater if I hadn’t bruk me leg. Faith, there’s many’s the one knows Jimmy Corcoran, and all about him. Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, never a rich man and never a thief, that’s Jimmy C., always in form wherever he be’s. And always in trouble, like the Drury Lane lady. Them’s me ould mother’s words – the finest woman, rest her soul, that ever came out of Tralee in the Kingdom of Kerry.’ He sighed gently, pulled a metal snuff-box from his waistcoat pocket, tapped it with reminiscent sentiment, and took a generous pinch. Then, holding out his book, he enquired artlessly, ‘Did ye ever read Playto? Well, well, he’s the boy that knew which was what. He’s took me through some queer spots off and on. A great boy was Playto. You should read him, young fella, if you’re not too busy.’
Harvey made no reply. He scarcely realised that he had been addressed. With a fixed expression he stood up, turned, and walked out of the saloon. He ascended the companion, made his way to the bridge deck. Here the chart-house and the captain’s quarters faced him, set solidly beneath the bridge, and through an open doorway he saw the captain writing at a baize-covered table. He gathered himself, knocked upon the door which stood hooked back, and entered the cabin.
Captain Renton looked up sharply. He was a little bantam-cock of a man with frosty eyes and a chin: his short, fairish hair, turning grey in patches, had a strangely piebald look; his monkey-jacket, worn too small, gave his figure an air of tautness; his whole attitude was spry, uncompromising, and direct. Before him on the panelled bulkhead was a crayon portrait of Nelson, whom he had once been told that he resembled and for whose memory he had an inordinate regard.
‘Well, sir,’ he exclaimed immediately; then added: ‘I hope you see that I’m engaged?’
‘My name is Leith,’ said Harvey in a hard voice. ‘I’ve got something to ask you.’
‘You must ask another time, Dr Leith. Give me an hour. The pilot’s still on the bridge. I’m always busy when I sail.’
A spot of colour worked itself into the greyness of Harvey’s cheek, but he made no sign to go.
‘You’ve given orders to the steward –’
‘I give what orders I choose in my own ship, Dr Leith.’
There was a pause, during which the two looked at each other; in Harvey’s eyes was hidden a singular distress.
‘I’d like to indicate,’ he said at last in a laboured tone, ‘that it’s against all reason to cut me off short at a second’s notice. I know what I’m talking about.’
‘No doubt, Dr Leith,’ answered Renton crisply. ‘But I’m the person who does the talking here. And I’ve talked with your friend, Mr Ismay. Desperate cases require desperate remedies. You’ll not touch a drop in my ship. You may as well make up your mind to it. I dare say you’ll thank me when we get back.’
The colour died out of Harvey’s face and his lip twitched with the bitterness of his thoughts.
‘I see,’ he cried. ‘I’m to be saved. To come back with the halo. In spite of myself. Good God! It’s too funny for words. Long live humanity. Love one another and be kind. They’ve kicked me into the bloody pit and now they’re going to bloody well kick me out of it.’
The captain turned his eyes away, stared at the drawing upon the bulkhead opposite, then let his gaze wander back to Leith. As he spoke he tapped the table gently with his pen.
‘You’ve had a bad time. I’m aware of it,’ he said in a quiet, altered voice. ‘ Yes, a bad time. If I may say it, you have my sympathy.’
‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ Harvey said savagely; then he stopped. His face quivered and hardened; without a word he swung round; pushed through the open doorway. Already he felt ill; his head throbbed with a heavy pulse; the daylight stabbed his jaded eyeballs; a deadly wave of weakness flowed into him. He swallowed down his sickness and entered his cabin. There, standing rigid and intense, he seemed as in a vision to see the impotence of all life and to feel dumbly the wretchedness of his own. As he flung himself upon his bunk a low sound broke from his lips that was like a sob.
Chapter Four
In the next cabin a man and a woman were praying, standing together in the narrow space, with hands clasped and faces uplifted, linked by the ardour of their spiritual communion.
He was about thirty, of a fine upstanding figure, an imposing presence, well dressed in a grey square-shouldered suit, dark, deep-chinned, and handsome, with a full lip, a humid eye, and a nostril that could curl with eloquence. His hands were white and smooth, moving at times – responsive to his happy fervour. He it was who prayed aloud in a sonorous voice coloured not unpleasantly by an American accent.
‘And give to our mission, dear Lord,’ he went on earnestly, ‘all blessings and all benisons. Let the light be shown in these benighted islands where there is darkness and many are lost – ah – roaming in the wilderness, ignorant of the true word of the Seventh Day Unity. Suffer us, Thy servants Robert and Susan Tranter, to be Thy instruments of grace. Be with us, Saviour. Be with us. Favour Thy servant Robert with a fuller knowledge of the foreign tongue. Vouchsafe to Thy servant Susan continued strength and purity of soul. Be with us, Saviour, oh, be with us, we beseech Thee. Give us fortitood to withstand sickness, temptation, and the scoffing of unbelievers. Let us follow after charity and desire spiritual gifts, and above all let us remember that all things are possible in Him who strengtheneth us.’
When he had concluded she said aloud, ‘Amen’; then in the same quiet tone she added, her face holding a warmth which enriched her words: ‘And please, O Lord, let my brother Robert’s health improve,
for Jesus’ sake. Amen.’
She was not so tall as her brother, nor was she as handsome. Her figure was too solid, rather disproportioned, her hands large, her ankles generous; her nose was blunt, mildly upturned; her cheeks wore a fresh scrubbed look; yet the face, though plain, held a singular candour. Her eyes perhaps expressed her honesty; they were brown, small, but very bright; bright with a twin devotion – to her God and to her Robbie.
There was a moment’s silence, then, suddenly relaxed, they looked across and smiled, as people do who love each other.
‘I guess I’ll tuck into my unpacking now, Robbie,’ she said at length. ‘Guess I better not leave that till it blows.’
She was an indifferent sailor; when, two weeks ago, they had crossed a turbulent Atlantic she had shown a lamentable lack of equipoise. Even now he wagged his head jocosely at the memory.
‘No basins this trip though, Susie girl. Not a one. Believe me, with the Lord’s help we’re going to have it calm as Galilee after the storm. And it’s not that long. I figure it’s seven days to Las Palmas – where we lay up one day. One more to Orotava, and say another to Santa Cruz. Gee! It’s nothing, Sue, to a hardened vessel like yourself.’ He sat down upon the settee and, without crossing his legs, placed his hands upon his knees, watching her with affectionate regard as she drew out and began to unstrap her trunk. ‘You know, sis,’ he went on reflectively, ‘I’ve got a hunch we’ll strike a rich vein of salvation out there in Santa Cruz. The vine is heavy within the vineyard – that’s the Rev Hiram McAtee’s own words; he wrote me a real letter; he’s one good man, he sure is, and I did set value on his brotherly greeting and encouragement. But there’s no doubt, sister, the time is ripe now. The revolution has produced enormous change. In Spain – mother country, as you might say, of these islands – the old order is tottering to its fall. As I wrote to the Rev Hiram, this surely is the living moment to advance the genuine word of God in that special field.’