Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  But the pity of this blind wantonness of destruction was more than compensated for in the girl’s mind by the savagery and force of the unlooked-for hurricane, and she easily persuaded Hugh to come out with her and be beaten and stormed upon. Always sensitive to the weather, this portentous storm had aroused in her a sort of rapture of restlessness: she rejoiced in it, and somehow feared it for its ruthlessness and indifference.

  They took the path that led downward to the beach, for it was the tumult and madness of the sea that Nadine especially wished to observe. Though as yet the gale had been blowing only an hour or two, it had raised a monstrous sea, and long before they came down within sight of it, they heard the hoarse thunder and crash of broken waters penetrating the screaming bellow of the gale, and the air was salt with spray and flying foam. To the West there was still clear that arch of open sky through which the gale poured; somewhere behind the clouds to the left of it, the sun was near to its setting, and a pale livid light shone out of it, catching the tops of the breakers as they streamed landwards. Between these foam-capped tops lay gray hollows and darknesses, out of which would suddenly boil another crest of mountainous water. The tide was only at half flood, but the sea, packed by the astounding wind, was already breaking at the foot of the cliffs themselves, while in the troughs of the waves as they rode in, there appeared and disappeared again the scattered rocks from some remote cliff-fall, that were strewn about the beach. Sometimes a wave would strike one of these full, and be shattered against it, spouting heavenwards in a column of solid water; oftener the breakers swept over them unbroken, until with menace of their toppling crests they flung themselves with huge tongues of hissing water on the rocks at the foot of the cliffs. Then with the scream of the withdrawn shingle the spent water was furiously dragged back to the base of the next incoming wave, and was caught up again to hurl itself against the land. Sometimes a sudden blast of wind would cut off the crest of the billow even as it curled over, and fling it, a monstrous riband of foam, through the air, sometimes two waves converging rose up in a fountain of water, and fell back without having reached the shore. This way and that, rushing and rolling, in hills and valleys of water, the maddened sea crashed and thundered, and every moment the spray rose more densely from the infernal cauldron. Then as the tide rose higher, the waves came in unbroken, and hurled their tons of water against the face of the cliff itself. Above, continuous as a water-fall, rose the roar and scream of the gale, ominous, insensate, bewildering: it was as if the elements were being transferred back into the chaos out of which they came.

  Nadine and Hugh, clinging together for support, stood there for some minutes, half-way down the side of the cliff, watching the terror and majesty of the spectacle, she utterly absorbed in it and cruelly unconscious of him. Then, since they could no longer get down to the base of the cliff, they skirted along it till they came to the sandy foreshore of the bay. There from water-level they could better see the hugeness of the tumult, the strange hardness and steepness of the wave-slopes. It was as if a line of towers and great buildings were throwing themselves down upon the sands, and breaking up into walls and eddies of foam-sheeted water, while behind them there rose again another street of toppling buildings, which again shattered itself on the beach. Great balls of foam torn from the spent water trundled by them on the sands, and bunches of brown seaweed torn from the rocks were flung in handfuls at their feet. Once from the arch in the sky westwards, a dusky crimson light suddenly burned, turning the wave crests to blood, and then as the darkness of the early winter sunset gathered, they turned, and were blown up the steep cliff-path again, wet and buffeted. Conversation had been altogether impossible, and they could but communicate with pointing finger, and nodding head. Yet, somehow, to be together thus, cut off by the rise of winds and waves, from all sense of the existence of others, in that pandemonium of tempest, gave to Hugh at least a closer feeling of intimacy with Nadine, than he had ever yet known. She clung to him, she sheltered under his shoulder, unconsciously, instinctively, as an animal trusts his master, without knowing it is trusting. And that to his aching hunger for her was something....

  But the gale was to bring them closer together yet.

  CHAPTER X

  All the evening and all night long the gale continued. Now and then the constant scream of it would leap upwards a couple of octaves as a shriller blast struck the houses and again for a moment the mad chant would drop into silence. From time to time like a tattoo of drums the rain battered at the window-panes, but through it all, whether in hushes of the wind or when its fiercest squall descended, the beat of the surf sounded ever louder. And all through the night, the result perhaps of his agitated talk with Nadine in the morning, or of his intimate gale-encompassed isolation with her in the afternoon, Hugh turned and tossed midway between sleeping and waking. Sometimes he seemed to himself to be yelling round the house among the spirits of the air seeking admittance, sometimes it seemed to him that he was being beaten on by the hammer of the surf, and whether he was homelessly wandering outside among the spirits of the wind, or was being done to death by those incessant blows of the beating waves, it was Nadine that he sought. And as the night went on the anguish of his desire grew ever more acute, and the beating of the waves a more poignant torture, until while yet no faintest lightening of winter’s dawn had touched the gross blackness of the night, he roused himself completely, and sat up in bed and turned on his light.

  To him awake the riot outside was vastly magnified compared with the dimmer trouble of his dream; so was his yearning for Nadine. His windows looked eastwards away from the quarter of the gale, and getting out of bed, he lifted a sash, and peered out. Nothing whatever could be seen; it was as if he gazed into the darkness of the nethermost pit, out of which blown by the blast of the anger of God came the shrieks of souls that might not rest, driven forever along, drenched by the river of their unavailing tears. Even though he was awake the strange remote horror of nightmare was on him, and it was in vain that he tried to comfort himself, by saying, like some child repeating a senseless lesson, “A deep depression has reached us traveling eastwards from the Atlantic.” He tried to read, but still the nightmare-sense possessed him, and he fancied he had to read a whole line, neither more nor less, between the poundings of the waves. Then as usually happens towards the end of these Walpurgis nights, he got back to bed again, and slept calmly and dreamlessly.

  He and Seymour alone out of the party put in an appearance at breakfast time: it seemed probable that the others were compensating themselves for a disturbed night by breakfasting upstairs, and afterwards the two went out together to look at the doings of the night. By this time the wind had considerably moderated, the rain had ceased altogether, and the thick pall of cloud that had last night overlain the sky was split up into fragments and islands, and flying vapors, so that here and there pale shafts of sunlight shone upon land and sea. But the thunder of the surf had immeasurably increased, and when they went to the cliff-edge which he and Nadine had passed down yesterday afternoon, they looked upon an indescribable confusion of tremendous waters. The tide was low, but the bay was still packed with the sea heaped-up by the wind, and the end of the reef with its big scattered rocks was out beyond the walls of breaking water. The sea appeared to have been driven distraught by the stress of the night; cross currents carried the waves in all directions: it almost seemed that some, shrinking from the wall of cliff in front, were trying to beat out to sea again. Quite out, away from land, they jousted and sparred with each other, not jestingly, but, it seemed, with some grim purpose, as if they were practising their strength for deeds of earnest violence, as for some fierce civil war among themselves. It was round the furthest rocks of the reef that this sport of billowy giants most centered: right across the bay ran some current that set on to the end of the reef, and there it met with the waves coming straight in-shore from the direction of the blowing of the gale. Then they spouted and foamed together, yet not in play: some purpose, so re
gular were these rounds of combat, seemed to underlie their wrestlings.

  Hugh threw away a charred peninsula of paper, once a cigarette, which the wind had smoked for him. He never had felt much sense of comradeship in the presence of Seymour, and their after-breakfast stroll had no more virtue than was the reward of necessary politeness.

  “There is something rather senseless in this display of wasted energy,” said Seymour. “Each of those waves would probably cook a dinner, if its force was reasonably employed.”

  Hugh, in spite of his restless night, had something of Nadine’s thrilled admiration for the turmoil, and felt slightly irritated.

  “They would certainly cook your goose or mine,” he remarked.

  Seymour wondered whether it would be well to say, “Do you allude to Nadine as our goose?” but, perhaps wisely, refrained.

  “That would be to the good,” he said. “Goose is a poor bird at any time, but uneatable unless properly roasted.”

  Hugh did not attend to this polite rejoinder, for he had caught sight of something incredible not so far out at sea, and he focused his eyes instantly on it. For the moment, what he thought he had seen completely vanished; directly afterwards he caught sight of it again, a fishing-boat with mast broken, reeling drunkenly on the top of a huge wave. His quick, long-sighted eye told him in that one moment of slewing deck that it presented to them, before it was swallowed from sight in the trough of the next wave, that there were two figures on it, clinging to the stump of the broken mast.

  “Look,” he said, “there is a boat out there.”

  It rose again to the crest of a wave and again plunged giddily out of sight. The incoming tide was bearing it swiftly shorewards, swiftly also the cross-current that set towards the end of the reef was bearing it there.

  Hugh did not pause. He laid hold of Seymour by the shoulder.

  “Run up to the house,” he said, “and fetch a couple of men. Bring down with you as much rope as you can find. Don’t say anything to Nadine and the women. But be quick.”

  He ran down to the beach himself, as Seymour went on his errand, seeing at once that there were two things that might happen to this stricken wanderer of a ship. In one case, the incoming tide with its following waves might bear it straight on to the sandy beach; in the other the cross-current, in which now it was laboring, might carry it across to the reef where the waves were wrestling and roaring together. It was in case of this first contingency that he ran down upon the sands to be ready. The beach was steep there: it would ride it until it was flung down by that fringe of toppling, hard-edged breakers. In that tumble and scurry of surf it might easily be that strong arms could drag out of the fury of the backwash whatever was cast there. The boat, a decked fishing-boat, would be dumped down on the sand: there would be a half-minute, or a quarter-minute, when something might be done. On the other hand this greedy sucking current might carry it on to the reef. Then, by the mercy of God, a rope might be of some avail, if a man could reach them.

  As he ran down the cliff, a sudden splash of sunlight broke through the clouds, making a bright patch of illumination round the boat as it swung over another breaker. There was only one figure there now, lying full length on the deck, and clinging with both hands to the stump of the mast. Then once again the water broke over it, lucidly green in the sunlight, and all Hugh’s heart went out to that solitary prone body, lying there helpless in the hands of God and the gale. His heart stood still to see whether when next the drifting boat reappeared it would be tenantless, and with a sob in his throat, “Oh, thank God,” he said, when he saw it again.

  It was still doubtful whether the current or the tide would win, and Hugh pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and threw them on the beach, in order to be able to rush in unimpeded of hand and muscle. Then with a strange sickness of heart, he saw that the boat was getting in nearer, but moving sideways across to the left, where the reef lay. And he waited, in the suspense of powerlessness. The wind now had quite abated; it was as if it had done its work, in making ready this theater of plunging water; now waited to observe what drama should be moving across the stage of billows.

  Soon from behind, he heard across the shingle at the top of the beach the approach of the others. Seymour had brought Berts and two men with him, and they brought with them half-a-dozen long coils of rope, part of the fire-rescue apparatus of the house. While watching and waiting for them, his plan was quite made. It was no longer possible to hope that the boat would come to land on the sandy beach, where without doubt two or three able-bodied men could rescue any one cast up, but was driving straight on to the rocks. Once there, rescue was all but impossible; the only chance lay in reaching it before it was smashed to atoms on the immense boulders and sharp-toothed fangs. Quickly he tied three of the ropes together, and fastened the end round his body just below the shoulders, and took off his boots.

  “I’m going in,” he said; “you all hold the rope and pay it out. If I come near the end of it, tie a fresh piece on—”

  Suddenly across the shingle came footsteps, and a cry. Nadine ran down the beach towards them. She was clad only in a dressing-gown, that rainbow-hued one in which one night last June she had entertained a company in her bedroom, and slippers so that her ankles showed white and bare. She saw what Hugh intended, and something within her, some denizen of her soul, who till that moment had been unknown to her, took possession of her.

  “No, Hughie, not you, not you,” she screamed. “Seymour, anybody, but not you!”

  The cry had come from her very heart; she could no more have stifled it than she could have stopped the beating of it. Then, suddenly, she realized what she had said, and sank down on the beach, burying her face in her hands.

  “Take care of her, Seymour,” said Hugh, and there was more heroism required for these few little words, than for the desperate feat he was about to attempt. He did not look round again, nor wish to say anything more, and there was no time to lose.

  “Now, you chaps!” he called out, and ran forward to the edge of the water.

  At the moment an immense billow poised and curled just in front of him. The wash of it covered him waist-deep and he floundered and staggered as the rush of water went by him. Then as it drew out to sea again he ran with it, to where another breaker was toppling in front of him. With a low outward spring he dived into the hollowed water head foremost and passed through it.

  The beach was very steep here, and coming up again through and beyond the line of surf, he found himself in deep water. Behind him lay the breaking line of billows, but in front the huge mountains of water rose and fell unbroken. As he was lifted up on the first of these, swimming strongly against it, he saw not a hundred yards from him his helpless and drifting goal. He could see, too, who it was who lay there, desperately clinging to the stump of the mast with white slender wrists; it was quite a young boy. And at that sight, Hugh’s pity and determination were strung higher than ever. Here was a young creature, in desperate plight among these desperate waterways, one who should not yet have known what peril meant. And at the risk of spending a little strength, when strength was so valuable, Hugh gave a great shout of notice and encouragement. Then he was swallowed up in the trough of a wave again. But when he rose next, he saw that the boy had raised his head, and that he saw him.

  The current that swept towards the rocks, swept also a little shorewards, and Hugh measuring the distance between the boat and the fatal breakers with his eye, and measuring again the distance between the boat and himself, knew that he must exert himself to the point of exhaustion to get to the boat before it was drifted to its final destruction. But as he swam he knew he had made a mistake in not taking off his shirt and trousers also and giving himself an unimpeded use of his limbs. His trousers particularly dragged and hampered him; then suddenly he remembered a water-game at which he used to be expert at school, namely taking a header into the bathing-place in flannels and undressing in the water. It seemed worth while to sacrifice a few seconds to a
ccomplish that, and, as cool and collected as when he was doing it for mere sport at school, he trod water, slipped his legs out of his trousers, and saw them float away from him. Then twice as vigorous, he struck out again. His shirt did not bother him: besides, the rope was tied round his chest, and there was not time for more disencumbrances.

  For the next five minutes, for he was fighting the tide, he just swam and swam. Occasionally rising to a wave it seemed to him that he was making no headway at all, but somehow that did not discourage him. The only necessity that concerned him was that he must go till he could go no longer. And all the time, like a dream and yet like a draught of wine to him was Nadine’s involuntary cry, “No, Hughie, not you!” He did not trouble to guess what that meant. He was only conscious that it invigorated and inspired him.

  The minutes passed; once the rope seemed to jerk him back, and he found himself swearing underneath his breath. Then, though it was terribly heavy, he realized that it was free again, and that he was not being hampered. Then he suddenly found himself much closer to the boat than he had any idea of, and this, though he was getting very tired, gave him a new supply of nervous force. He swam into three valleys more, he surmounted three ridges of water, and lo, the boat was on the peaks directly opposite to him, and from opposite sides they plunged into the same valley together. Not fifty yards off to the left, incredible fountains of foam spouted and aspired.