Singleton, without a glance, moved slightly aside to let him pass. The
nigger put away his shore togs and sat in clean working clothes on his
box, one arm stretched over his knees. After staring at Singleton for
some time he asked without emphasis:—“What kind of ship is this? Pretty
fair? Eh?”
Singleton didn’t stir. A long while after he said, with unmoved
face:—“Ship!... Ships are all right. It is the men in them!”
He went on smoking in the profound silence. The wisdom of half a
century spent in listening to the thunder of the waves had spoken
unconsciously through his old lips. The cat purred on the windlass.
Then James Wait had a fit of roaring, rattling cough, that shook him,
tossed him like a hurricane, and flung him panting with staring eyes
headlong on his sea-chest. Several men woke up. One said sleepily
out of his bunk: “’Struth! what a blamed row!”—“I have a cold on my
chest,” gasped Wait.—“Cold! you call it,” grumbled the man; “should
think ’twas something more....”—“Oh! you think so,” said the nigger
upright and loftily scornful again. He climbed into his berth and began
coughing persistently while he put his head out to glare all round the
forecastle. There was no further protest. He fell back on the pillow,
and could be heard there wheezing regularly like a man oppressed in his
sleep.
Singleton stood at the door with his face to the light and his back to
the darkness. And alone in the dim emptiness of the sleeping forecastle
he appeared bigger, colossal, very old; old as Father Time himself,
who should have come there into this place as quiet as a sepulchre to
contemplate with patient eyes the short victory of sleep, the consoler.
Yet he was only a child of time, a lonely relic of a devoured and
forgotten generation. He stood, still strong, as ever unthinking; a
ready man with a vast empty past and with no future, with his childlike
impulses and his man’s passions already dead within his tattooed
breast. The men who could understand his silence were gone—those men
who knew how to exist beyond the pale of life and within sight of
eternity. They had been strong, as those are strong who know neither
doubts nor hopes. They had been impatient and enduring, turbulent
and devoted, unruly and faithful. Well-meaning people had tried to
represent those men as whining over every mouthful of their food; as
going about their work in fear of their lives. But in truth they had
been men who knew toil, privation, violence, debauchery—but knew not
fear, and had no desire of spite in their hearts. Men hard to manage,
but easy to inspire; voiceless men—but men enough to scorn in their
hearts the sentimental voices that bewailed the hardness of their fate.
It was a fate unique and their own; the capacity to bear it appeared to
them the privilege of the chosen! Their generation lived inarticulate
and indispensable, without knowing the sweetness of affections or
the refuge of a home—and died free from the dark menace of a narrow
grave. They were the everlasting children of the mysterious sea. Their
successors are the grown-up children of a discontented earth. They
are less naughty, but less innocent; less profane, but perhaps also
less believing; and if they have learned how to speak they have also
learned how to whine. But the others were strong and mute; they were
effaced, bowed and enduring, like stone caryatides that hold up in the
night the lighted halls of a resplendent and glorious edifice. They are
gone now—and it does not matter. The sea and the earth are unfaithful
to their children: a truth, a faith, a generation of men goes—and is
forgotten, and it does not matter! Except, perhaps, to the few of those
who believed the truth, confessed the faith—or loved the men.
A breeze was coming. The ship that had been lying tide-rode swung to
a heavier puff; and suddenly the slack of the chain cable between the
windlass and the hawse-pipe clinked, slipped forward an inch, and rose
gently off the deck with a startling suggestion as of unsuspected life
that had been lurking stealthily in the iron. In the hawse-pipe the
grinding links sent through the ship a sound like a low groan of a man
sighing under a burden. The strain came on the windlass, the chain
tautened like a string, vibrated—and the handle of the screw-brake
moved in slight jerks. Singleton stepped forward.
Till then he had been standing meditative and unthinking, reposeful
and hopeless, with a face grim and blank—a sixty-year-old child of
the mysterious sea. The thoughts of all his lifetime could have been
expressed in six words, but the stir of those things that were as much
part of his existence as his beating heart called up a gleam of alert
understanding upon the sternness of his aged face. The flame of the
lamp swayed, and the old man, with knitted and bushy eyebrows, stood
over the brake, watchful and motionless in the wild saraband of dancing
shadows. Then the ship, obedient to the call of her anchor, forged
ahead slightly and eased the strain. The cable relieved, hung down,
and after swaying imperceptibly to and fro dropped with a loud tap
on the hard wood planks. Singleton seized the high lever, and, by a
violent throw forward of his body, wrung out another half-turn from the
brake. He recovered himself, breathed largely, and remained for a while
glaring down at the powerful and compact engine that squatted on the
deck at his feet like some quiet monster—a creature amazing and tame.
“You ... hold!” he growled at it masterfully, in the incult tangle of
his white beard.
CHAPTER TWO
Next morning, at daylight, the Narcissus went to sea.
A slight haze blurred the horizon. Outside the harbour the measureless
expanse of smooth water lay sparkling like a floor of jewels, and as
empty as the sky. The short black tug gave a pluck to windward, in
the usual way, then let go the rope, and hovered for a moment on the
quarter with her engines stopped; while the slim, long hull of the ship
moved ahead slowly under lower topsails. The loose upper canvas blew
out in the breeze with soft round contours, resembling small white
clouds snared in the maze of ropes. Then the sheets were hauled home,
the yards hoisted, and the ship became a high and lonely pyramid,
gliding, all shining and white, through the sunlit mist. The tug turned
short round and went away towards the land. Twenty-six pairs of eyes
watched her low broad stern crawling languidly over the smooth swell
between the two paddle-wheels that turned fast, beating the water with
fierce hurry. She resembled an enormous and aquatic black beetle,
surprised by the light, overwhelmed by the sunshine, trying to escape
with ineffectual effort into the distant gloom of the land. She left
a lingering smudge of smoke on the sky, and two vanishing trails of
foam on the water. On the place where she had stopped a round black
patch of soot remained, undulating on the swell—an unclean mark of the
creature’s rest.
The Narcissus left alone, heading south, seemed to stand resplendent
and still upon the restless sea, under the moving sun. Flakes of foam
swept past her sides; the water struck her with flashing blows; the
land glided away slowly fading; a few birds screamed on motionless
wings over the swaying mastheads. But soon the land disappeared, the
birds went away; and to the west the pointed sail of an Arab dhow
running for Bombay, rose triangular and upright above the sharp edge of
the horizon, lingered and vanished like an illusion. Then the ship’s
wake, long and straight, stretched itself out through a day of immense
solitude. The setting sun, burning on the level of the water, flamed
crimson below the blackness of heavy rain clouds. The sunset squall,
coming up from behind, dissolved itself into the short deluge of a
hissing shower. It left the ship glistening from trucks to water-line,
and with darkened sails. She ran easily before a fair monsoon, with
her decks cleared for the night; and, moving along with her, was heard
the sustained and monotonous swishing of the waves, mingled with the
low whispers of men mustered aft for the setting of watches; the short
plaint of some block aloft; or, now and then, a loud sigh of wind.
Mr. Baker, coming out of his cabin, called out the first name sharply
before closing the door behind him. He was going to take charge of the
deck. On the homeward trip, according to an old custom of the sea, the
chief officer takes the first night-watch—from eight till midnight.
So Mr. Baker, after he had heard the last “Yes, sir!” said moodily,
“Relieve the wheel and look-out”; and climbed with heavy feet the poop
ladder to windward. Soon after Mr. Creighton came down, whistling
softly, and went into the cabin. On the doorstep the steward lounged,
in slippers, meditative, and with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to the
armpits.
On the main deck the cook, locking up the galley doors, had an
altercation with young Charley about a pair of socks. He could be heard
saying impressively, in the darkness amidships: “You don’t deserve a
kindness. I’ve been drying them for you, and now you complain about
the holes—and you swear, too! Right in front of me! If I hadn’t been a
Christian—which you ain’t, you young ruffian—I would give you a clout
on the head.... Go away!” Men in couples or threes stood pensive or
moved silently along the bulwarks in the waist. The first busy day of
a homeward passage was sinking into the dull peace of resumed routine.
Aft, on the high poop, Mr. Baker walked shuffling and grunted to
himself in the pauses of his thoughts. Forward, the look-out man, erect
between the flukes of the two anchors, hummed an endless tune, keeping
his eyes fixed dutifully ahead in a vacant stare. A multitude of stars
coming out into the clear night peopled the emptiness of the sky. They
glittered, as if alive above the sea; they surrounded the running ship
on all sides; more intense than the eyes of a staring crowd, and as
inscrutable as the souls of men.
The passage had begun, and the ship, a fragment detached from the
earth, went on lonely and swift like a small planet. Round her the
abysses of sky and sea met in an unattainable frontier. A great
circular solitude moved with her, ever changing and ever the same,
always monotonous and always imposing. Now and then another wandering
white speck, burdened with life, appeared far off—disappeared; intent
on its own destiny. The sun looked upon her all day, and every morning
rose with a burning, round stare of undying curiosity. She had her
own future; she was alive with the lives of those beings who trod her
decks; like that earth which had given her up to the sea, she had an
intolerable load of regrets and hopes. On her lived timid truth and
audacious lies; and, like the earth, she was unconscious, fair to
see—and condemned by men to an ignoble fate. The august loneliness of
her path lent dignity to the sordid inspiration of her pilgrimage. She
drove foaming to the southward, as if guided by the courage of a high
endeavour. The smiling greatness of the sea dwarfed the extent of time.
The days raced after one another, brilliant and quick like the flashes
of a lighthouse, and the nights, eventful and short, resembled fleeting
dreams.
The men had shaken into their places, and the half-hourly voice of the
bells ruled their life of unceasing care. Night and day the head and
shoulders of a seaman could be seen aft by the wheel, outlined high
against sunshine or starlight, very steady above the stir of revolving
spokes. The faces changed, passing in rotation. Youthful faces, bearded
faces, dark faces: faces serene, or faces moody, but all akin with
the brotherhood of the sea; all with the same attentive expression of
eyes, carefully watching the compass or the sails. Captain Allistoun,
serious, and with an old red muffler round his throat, all day long
pervaded the poop. At night, many times he rose out of the darkness
of the companion, such as a phantom above a grave, and stood watchful
and mute under the stars, his night-shirt fluttering like a flag—then,
without a sound, sank down again. He was born on the shores of the
Pentland Firth. In his youth he attained the rank of harpooner in
Peterhead whalers. When he spoke of that time his restless grey eyes
became still and cold, like the loom of ice. Afterwards he went
into the East Indian trade for the sake of change. He had commanded
the Narcissus since she was built. He loved his ship, and drove her
unmercifully; for his secret ambition was to make her accomplish some
day a brilliantly quick passage which would be mentioned in nautical
papers. He pronounced his owner’s name with a sardonic smile, spoke but
seldom to his officers, and reproved errors in a gentle voice, with
words that cut to the quick. His hair was iron-grey, his face hard and
of the colour of pump-leather. He shaved every morning of his life—at
six—but once (being caught in a fierce hurricane eighty miles southwest
of Mauritius) he had missed three consecutive days. He feared naught
but an unforgiving God, and wished to end his days in a little house,
with a plot of ground attached—far in the country—out of sight of the
sea.
He, the ruler of that minute world, seldom descended from the Olympian
heights of his poop. Below him—at his feet, so to speak—common mortals
led their busy and insignificant lives. Along the main deck, Mr. Baker
grunted in a manner bloodthirsty and innocuous; and kept all our noses
to the grindstone, being—as he once remarked—paid for doing that very
thing. The men working about the deck were healthy and contented—as
most seamen are, when once well out to sea. The true peace of God
begins at any spot a thousand miles from the nearest land; and when He
sends there the messengers of His might it is not in terrible wrath
against crime, presumption, and folly, but paternally, to chasten
simple hearts—ignorant hearts that know nothing of life, and beat
undisturbed by envy or greed.
* * * * *
In the evening the cleared decks had a reposeful aspect, resembling
the autumn of the earth. The sun was sinking to rest, wrapped in a
mantle of warm clouds. Forward, on the end of the spare spars, the
boatswain and the carpenter sat together with crossed arms; two men
friendly, powerful, and deep-chested. Beside them the short, dumpy
sailmaker—who had been in the Navy—related, between the whiffs of his
pipe, impossible stories about Admirals. Couples tramped backwards
and forwards, keeping step and balance without effort, in a confined
space. Pigs grunted in the big pigstye. Belfast, leaning thoughtfully
on his elbow, above the bars, communed with them through the silence of
his meditation. Fellows with shirts open wide on sunburnt breasts sat
upon the mooring bits, and all up the steps of the forecastle ladders.
By the foremast a few discussed in a circle the characteristics of a
gentleman. One said:—“It’s money as does it.” Another maintained:—“No,
it’s the way they speak.” Lame Knowles stumped up with an unwashed face
(he had the distinction of being the dirty man of the forecastle),
and showing a few yellow fangs in a shrewd smile, explained craftily
that he “had seen some of their pants.” The backsides of them—he had
observed—were thinner than paper from constant sitting down in offices,
yet otherwise they looked first-rate and would last for years. It was
all appearance. “It was,” he said, “bloomin’ easy to be a gentleman
when you had a clean job for life.” They disputed endlessly, obstinate
and childish; they repeated in shouts and with inflamed faces their
amazing arguments; while the soft breeze, eddying down the enormous
cavity of the foresail, distended above their bare heads, stirred the
tumbled hair with a touch passing and light like an indulgent caress.
They were forgetting their toil, they were forgetting themselves.
The cook approached to hear, and stood by, beaming with the inward
consciousness of his faith, like a conceited saint unable to forget
his glorious reward; Donkin, solitary and brooding over his wrongs on
the forecastle-head, moved closer to catch the drift of the discussion
below him; he turned his sallow face to the sea, and his thin nostrils
moved, sniffing the breeze, as he lounged negligently by the rail.
In the glow of sunset faces shone with interest, teeth flashed, eyes
sparkled. The walking couples stood still suddenly, with broad grins;
a man, bending over a wash-tub, sat up, entranced, with the soapsuds
flecking his wet arms. Even the three petty officers listened leaning
back, comfortably propped, and with superior smiles. Belfast left off
scratching the ear of his favourite pig, and, open mouthed, tried with
eager eyes to have his say. He lifted his arms, grimacing and baffled.
From a distance Charley screamed at the ring:—“I know about gentlemen
more’n any of you. I’ve been intermit with ’em.... I’ve blacked their
boots.” The cook, craning his neck to hear better, was scandalised.
“Keep your mouth shut when your elders speak, you impudent young
heathen—you.” “All right, old Hallelujah, I’m done,” answered Charley,
soothingly. At some opinion of dirty Knowles, delivered with an air of
supernatural cunning, a ripple of laughter ran along, rose like a wave,
burst with a startling roar. They stamped with both feet; they turned
their shouting faces to the sky; many, spluttering, slapped their
thighs; while one or two, bent double, gasped, hugging themselves with
both arms like men in pain. The carpenter and the boatswain, without
changing their attitude, shook with laughter where they sat; the
sailmaker, charged with an anecdote about a Commodore, looked sulky;
the cook was wiping his eyes with a greasy rag; and lame Knowles,
astonished at his own success, stood in their midst showing a slow
smile.
Suddenly the face of Donkin leaning high-shouldered over the after-rail
became grave. Something like a weak rattle was heard through the
forecastle door. It became a murmur; it ended in a sighing groan. The
washerman plunged both his arms into the tub abruptly; the cook became
more crestfallen than an exposed backslider; the boatswain moved his
shoulders uneasily; the carpenter got up with a spring and walked
away—while the sailmaker seemed mentally to give his story up, and
began to puff at his pipe with sombre determination. In the blackness
of the doorway a pair of eyes glimmered white, and big, and staring.
Then James Wait’s head protruding, became visible, as if suspended
between the two hands that grasped a doorpost on each side of the face.
The tassel of his blue woollen nightcap, cocked forward, danced gaily
over his left eyelid. He stepped out in a tottering stride. He looked
powerful as ever, but showed a strange and affected unsteadiness in
his gait; his face was perhaps a trifle thinner, and his eyes appeared
rather startlingly prominent. He seemed to hasten the retreat of
departing light by his very presence; the setting sun dipped sharply,
as though fleeing before our nigger; a black mist emanated from him; a
subtle and dismal influence; a something cold and gloomy that floated
out and settled on all the faces like a mourning veil. The circle
broke up. The joy of laughter died on stiffened lips. There was not a
smile left among all the ship’s company. Not a word was spoken. Many
turned their backs, trying to look unconcerned; others, with averted
heads, sent half-reluctant glances out of the corners of their eyes.
They resembled criminals conscious of misdeeds more than honest men
distracted by doubt; only two or three stared frankly, but stupidly,
with lips slightly open. All expected James Wait to say something, and,
at the same time, had the air of knowing beforehand what he would say.
He leaned his back against the doorpost, and with heavy eyes swept over
them a glance domineering and pained, like a sick tyrant overawing a
crowd of abject but untrustworthy slaves.
No one went away. They waited in fascinated dread. He said ironically,
with gasps between the words:—
“Thank you ... chaps. You ... are nice ... and ... quiet ... you are!
Yelling so ... before ... the door....”
He made a longer pause, during which he worked his ribs in an
exaggerated labour of breathing. It was intolerable. Feet were
shuffled. Belfast let out a groan; but Donkin above blinked his red
eyelids with invisible eyelashes, and smiled bitterly over the nigger’s
head.
The nigger went on again with surprising ease. He gasped no more, and
his voice rang, hollow and loud, as though he had been talking in an
empty cavern. He was contemptuously angry.
“I tried to get a wink of sleep. You know I can’t sleep o’ nights.
And you come jabbering near the door here like a blooming lot of old
women.... You think yourselves good shipmates. Do you?... Much you care
for a dying man!”
Belfast spun away from the pigstye. “Jimmy,” he cried tremulously, “if
you hadn’t been sick I would—”
He stopped. The nigger waited awhile, then said, in a gloomy tone:—“You
would.... What? Go an’ fight another such one as yourself. Leave me
alone. It won’t be for long. I’ll soon die.... It’s coming right
enough!”