they had expected, and hated to hear, that idea of a stalking death,
thrust at them many times a day like a boast and like a menace by this
obnoxious nigger. He seemed to take a pride in that death which, so
far, had attended only upon the ease of his life; he was overbearing
about it, as if no one else in the world had ever been intimate
with such a companion; he paraded it unceasingly before us with an
affectionate persistence that made its presence indubitable, and at
the same time incredible. No man could be suspected of such monstrous
friendship! Was he a reality—or was he a sham—this ever-expected
visitor of Jimmy’s? We hesitated between pity and mistrust, while, on
the slightest provocation, he shook before our eyes the bones of his
bothersome and infamous skeleton. He was for ever trotting him out. He
would talk of that coming death as though it had been already there,
as if it had been walking the deck outside, as if it would presently
come in to sleep in the only empty bunk; as if it had sat by his side
at every meal. It interfered daily with our occupations, with our
leisure, with our amusements. We had no songs and no music in the
evening, because Jimmy (we all lovingly called him Jimmy, to conceal
our hate of his accomplice) had managed, with that prospective decease
of his, to disturb even Archie’s mental balance. Archie was the owner
of the concertina; but after a couple of stinging lectures from Jimmy
he refused to play any more. He said:—“Yon’s an uncanny joker. I dinna
ken what’s wrang wi’ him, but there’s something verra wrang, verra
wrang. It’s nae manner of use asking me. I won’t play.” Our singers
became mute because Jimmy was a dying man. For the same reason no
chap—as Knowles remarked—could “drive in a nail to hang his few poor
rags upon,” without being made aware of the enormity he committed in
disturbing Jimmy’s interminable last moments. At night, instead of the
cheerful yell, “One bell! Turn out! Do you hear there? Hey! hey! hey!
Show leg!” the watches were called man by man, in whispers, so as not
to interfere with Jimmy’s, possibly, last slumber on earth. True, he
was always awake, and managed, as we sneaked out on deck, to plant in
our backs some cutting remark that, for the moment, made us feel as if
we had been brutes, and afterwards made us suspect ourselves of being
fools. We spoke in low tones within that fo’c’sle as though it had
been a church. We ate our meals in silence and dread, for Jimmy was
capricious with his food, and railed bitterly at the salt meat, at the
biscuits, at the tea, as at articles unfit for human consumption—“let
alone for a dying man!” He would say:—“Can’t you find a better slice
of meat for a sick man who’s trying to get home to be cured—or buried?
But there! If I had a chance, you fellows would do away with it. You
would poison me. Look at what you have given me!” We served him in his
bed with rage and humility, as though we had been the base courtiers
of a hated prince; and he rewarded us by his unconciliating criticism.
He had found the secret of keeping for ever on the run the fundamental
imbecility of mankind; he had the secret of life, that confounded dying
man, and he made himself master of every moment of our existence. We
grew desperate, and remained submissive. Emotional little Belfast
was for ever on the verge of assault or on the verge of tears. One
evening he confided to Archie:—“For a ha’penny I would knock his ugly
black head off—the skulking dodger!” And the straightforward Archie
pretended to be shocked! Such was the infernal spell which that casual
St. Kitt’s nigger had cast upon our guileless manhood! But the same
night Belfast stole from the galley the officers’ Sunday fruit pie, to
tempt the fastidious appetite of Jimmy. He endangered not only his long
friendship with the cook but also—as it appeared—his eternal welfare.
The cook was overwhelmed with grief; he did not know the culprit but he
knew that wickedness flourished; he knew that Satan was abroad amongst
those men, whom he looked upon as in some way under his spiritual care.
Whenever he saw three or four of us standing together he would leave
his stove, to run out and preach. We fled from him; and only Charley
(who knew the thief) affronted the cook with a candid gaze which
irritated the good man. “It’s you, I believe,” he groaned, sorrowful
and with a patch of soot on his chin. “It’s you. You are a brand for
the burning! No more of your socks in my galley.” Soon, unofficially,
the information was spread about that, should there be another case
of stealing, our marmalade (an extra allowance: half a pound per man)
would be stopped. Mr. Baker ceased to heap jocular abuse upon his
favourites, and grunted suspiciously at all. The captain’s cold eyes,
high up on the poop, glittered mistrustful, as he surveyed us trooping
in a small mob from halyards to braces for the usual evening pull at
all the ropes. Such stealing in a merchant ship is difficult to check,
and may be taken as a declaration by men of their dislike for their
officers. It is a bad symptom. It may end in God knows what trouble.
The Narcissus was still a peaceful ship, but mutual confidence was
shaken. Donkin did not conceal his delight. We were dismayed.
Then illogical Belfast reproached our nigger with great fury. James
Wait, with his elbow on the pillow, choked, gasped out:—“Did I ask
you to bone the dratted thing? Blow your blamed pie. It has made me
worse—you little Irish lunatic, you!” Belfast, with scarlet face and
trembling lips, made a dash at him. Every man in the forecastle rose
with a shout. There was a moment of wild tumult. Some one shrieked
piercingly:—“Easy, Belfast! Easy!...” We expected Belfast to strangle
Wait without more ado. Dust flew. We heard through it the nigger’s
cough, metallic and explosive like a gong. Next moment we saw Belfast
hanging over him. He was saying plaintively:—“Don’t! Don’t, Jimmy!
Don’t be like that. An angel couldn’t put up with ye—sick as ye
are.” He looked round at us from Jimmy’s bedside, his comical mouth
twitching, and through tearful eyes; then he tried to put straight
the disarranged blankets. The unceasing whisper of the sea filled the
forecastle. Was James Wait frightened, or touched, or repentant? He
lay on his back with a hand to his side, and as motionless as if his
expected visitor had come at last. Belfast fumbled about his feet,
repeating with emotion:—“Yes. We know. Ye are bad, but.... Just say
what ye want done, and.... We all know ye are bad—very bad....” No!
Decidedly James Wait was not touched or repentant. Truth to say, he
seemed rather startled. He sat up with incredible suddenness and
ease. “Ah! You think I am bad, do you?” he said gloomily, in his
clearest baritone voice (to hear him speak sometimes you would never
think there was anything wrong with that man). “Do you?... Well,
act according! Some of you haven’t sense enough to put a blanket
shipshape over a sick man. There! Leave it alone! I can die anyhow!”
Belfast turned away limply with a gesture of discouragement. In the
silence of the forecastle, full of interested men, Donkin pronounced
distinctly:—“Well, I’m blowed!” and sniggered. Wait looked at him. He
looked at him in a quite friendly manner. Nobody could tell what would
please our incomprehensible invalid: but for us the scorn of that
snigger was hard to bear.
Donkin’s position in the forecastle was distinguished but unsafe. He
stood on the bad eminence of a general dislike. He was left alone;
and in his isolation he could do nothing but think of the gales of
the Cape of Good Hope and envy us the possession of warm clothing
and waterproofs. Our sea-boots, our oilskin coats, our well-filled
sea-chests, were to him so many causes for bitter meditation:
he had none of those things, and he felt instinctively that no
man, when the need arose, would offer to share them with him. He
was impudently cringing to us and systematically insolent to the
officers. He anticipated the best results, for himself, from such
a line of conduct—and was mistaken. Such natures forget that under
extreme provocation men will be just—whether they want to be so or
not. Donkin’s insolence to long-suffering Mr. Baker became at last
intolerable to us, and we rejoiced when the mate, one dark night, tamed
him for good.
It was done neatly, with great decency and decorum, and with little
noise. We had been called—just before midnight—to trim the yards,
and Donkin—as usual—made insulting remarks. We stood sleepily in a
row with the forebrace in our hands waiting for the next order, and
heard in the darkness a scuffly trampling of feet, an exclamation of
surprise, sounds of cuffs and slaps, suppressed, hissing whispers:—“Ah!
Will you!” ... “Don’t ... Don’t” ... “Then behave”.... “Oh! Oh!...”
Afterwards there were soft thuds mixed with the rattle of iron things
as if a man’s body had been tumbling helplessly amongst the main-pump
rods. Before we could realise the situation, Mr. Baker’s voice was
heard very near and a little impatient:—“Haul away, men! Lay back on
that rope!” And we did lay back on the rope with great alacrity. As if
nothing had happened, the chief mate went on trimming the yards with
his usual and exasperating fastidiousness. We didn’t at the time see
anything of Donkin, and did not care. Had the chief officer thrown
him overboard, no man would have said as much as “Hallo! he’s gone!”
But, in truth, no great harm was done—even if Donkin did lose one of
his front teeth. We perceived this in the morning, and preserved a
ceremonious silence: the etiquette of the forecastle commanded us to
be blind and dumb in such a case, and we cherished the decencies of
our life more than ordinary landsmen respect theirs. Charley, with
unpardonable want of savoir vivre, yelled out:—“’Ave you been to your
dentyst?... Hurt ye, didn’t it?” He got a box on the ear from one of
his best friends. The boy was surprised, and remained plunged in grief
for at least three hours. We were sorry for him, but youth requires
even more discipline than age. Donkin grinned venomously. From that day
he became pitiless; told Jimmy that he was a “black fraud”; hinted to
us that we were an imbecile lot, daily taken in by a vulgar nigger. And
Jimmy seemed to like the fellow!
Singleton lived untouched by human emotions. Taciturn and unsmiling,
he breathed amongst us—in that alone resembling the rest of the crowd.
We were trying to be decent chaps, and found it jolly difficult; we
oscillated between the desire of virtue and the fear of ridicule; we
wished to save ourselves from the pain of remorse, but did not want
to be made the contemptible dupes of our sentiment. Jimmy’s hateful
accomplice seemed to have blown with his impure breath undreamt of
subtleties into our hearts. We were disturbed and cowardly. That we
knew. Singleton seemed to know nothing, understand nothing. We had
thought him till then as wise as he looked, but now we dared, at times,
suspect him of being stupid—from old age. One day, however, at dinner,
as we sat on our boxes round a tin dish that stood on the deck within
the circle of our feet, Jimmy expressed his general disgust with men
and things in words that were particularly disgusting. Singleton lifted
his head. We became mute. The old man, addressing Jimmy, asked:—“Are
you dying?” Thus interrogated, James Wait appeared horribly startled
and confused. We all were startled. Mouths remained open; hearts
thumped, eyes blinked; a dropped tin fork rattled in the dish; a man
rose as if to go out, and stood still. In less than a minute Jimmy
pulled himself together:—“Why? Can’t you see I am?” he answered
shakily. Singleton lifted a piece of soaked biscuit (“his teeth”—he
declared—“had no edge on them now”) to his lips.—“Well, get on with
your dying,” he said with venerable mildness; “don’t raise a blamed
fuss with us over that job. We can’t help you.” Jimmy fell back in his
bunk, and for a long time lay very still wiping the perspiration off
his chin. The dinner-tins were put away quickly. On deck we discussed
the incident in whispers. Some showed a chuckling exultation. Many
looked grave. Wamibo, after long periods of staring dreaminess,
attempted abortive smiles; and one of the young Scandinavians, much
tormented by doubt, ventured in the second dog-watch to approach
Singleton (the old man did not encourage us much to speak to him) and
ask sheepishly:—“You think he will die?” Singleton looked up.—“Why,
of course he will die,” he said deliberately. This seemed decisive.
It was promptly imparted to every one by him who had consulted the
oracle. Shy and eager, he would step up and with averted gaze recite
his formula:—“Old Singleton says he will die.” It was a relief! At last
we knew that our compassion would not be misplaced, and we could again
smile without misgivings—but we reckoned without Donkin. Donkin “didn’t
want to ’ave no truck with ’em dirty furriners.” When Nilsen came to
him with the news: “Singleton says he will die,” he answered him by a
spiteful “And so will you—you fat-headed Dutchman. Wish you Dutchmen
were all dead—’stead comin’ takin’ our money inter your starvin’
country.” We were appalled. We perceived that after all Singleton’s
answer meant nothing. We began to hate him for making fun of us. All
our certitudes were going; we were on doubtful terms with our officers;
the cook had given us up for lost; we had overheard the boatswain’s
opinion that “we were a crowd of softies.” We suspected Jimmy, one
another, and even our very selves. We did not know what to do. At every
insignificant turn of our humble life we met Jimmy overbearing and
blocking the way, arm-in-arm with his awful and veiled familiar. It was
a weird servitude.
It began a week after leaving Bombay and came on us stealthily like
any other great misfortune. Every one had remarked that Jimmy from
the first was very slack at his work; but we thought it simply the
outcome of his philosophy of life. Donkin said:—“You put no more weight
on a rope than a bloody sparrer.” He disdained him. Belfast, ready
for a fight, exclaimed provokingly:—“You don’t kill yourself, old
man!”—“Would you?” he retorted with extreme, scorn—and Belfast retired.
One morning, as we were washing decks, Mr. Baker called to him:—“Bring
your broom over here, Wait.” He strolled languidly.
“Move yourself! Ough!” grunted Mr. Baker; “what’s the matter with your
hind legs?” He stopped dead short. He gazed slowly with eyes that
bulged out with an expression audacious and sad.—“It isn’t my legs,” he
said, “it’s my lungs.” Everybody listened.—“What’s ... Ough!... What’s
wrong with them?” inquired Mr. Baker. All the watch stood around on
the wet deck, grinning, and with brooms or buckets in their hands. He
said mournfully:—“Going—or gone. Can’t you see I’m a dying man? I know
it!” Mr. Baker was disgusted.—“Then why the devil did you ship aboard
here?”—“I must live till I die—mustn’t I?” he replied. The grins became
audible.—“Go off my deck—get out of my sight,” said Mr. Baker. He was
nonplussed. It was a unique experience. James Wait, obedient, dropped
his broom, and walked slowly forward. A burst of laughter followed him.
It was too funny. All hands laughed.... They laughed!... Alas!
He became the tormentor of all our moments; he was worse than a
nightmare. You couldn’t see that there was anything wrong with him: a
nigger does not show. He was not very fat—certainly—but then he was
no leaner than other niggers we had known. He coughed often, but the
most prejudiced person could perceive that, mostly, he coughed when
it suited his purpose. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do his work—and he
wouldn’t lie-up. One day he would skip aloft with the best of them,
and next time we would be obliged to risk our lives to get his limp
body down. He was reported, he was examined; he was remonstrated
with, threatened, cajoled, lectured. He was called into the cabin
to interview the captain. There were wild rumours. It was said he
had cheeked the old man; it was said he had frightened him. Charley
maintained that the “skipper, weepin’, ’as giv’ ’im ’is blessin’ an’ a
pot of jam.” Knowles had it from the steward that the unspeakable Jimmy
had been reeling against the cabin furniture; that he had groaned; that
he had complained of general brutality and disbelief; and had ended by
coughing all over the old man’s meteorological journals which were then
spread on the table. At any rate, Wait returned forward supported by
the steward, who, in a pained and shocked voice, entreated us:—“Here!
Catch hold of him, one of you. He is to lie-up.” Jimmy drank a tin
mugful of coffee, and, after bullying first one and then another, went
to bed. He remained there most of the time, but when it suited him
would come on deck and appear amongst us. He was scornful and brooding;
he looked ahead upon the sea, and no one could tell what was the
meaning of that black man sitting apart in a meditative attitude and as
motionless as a carving.
He refused steadily all medicine; he threw sago and cornflour overboard
till the steward got tired of bringing it to him. He asked for
paregoric. They sent him a big bottle; enough to poison a wilderness
of babies. He kept it between his mattress and the deal lining of the
ship’s side; and nobody ever saw him take a dose. Donkin abused him to
his face, jeered at him while he gasped; and the same day Wait would
lend him a warm jersey. Once Donkin reviled him for half an hour;
reproached him with the extra work his malingering gave to the watch;
and ended by calling him “a black-faced swine.” Under the spell of our
accursed perversity we were horror-struck. But Jimmy positively seemed
to revel in that abuse. It made him look cheerful—and Donkin had a pair
of old sea boots thrown at him. “Here, you East-end trash,” boomed
Wait, “you may have that.”
At last Mr. Baker had to tell the captain that James Wait was
disturbing the peace of the ship. “Knock discipline on the head—he
will, Ough,” grunted Mr. Baker. As a matter of fact, the starboard
watch came as near as possible to refusing duty, when ordered one
morning by the boatswain to wash out their forecastle. It appears Jimmy
objected to a wet floor—and that morning we were in a compassionate
mood. We thought the boatswain a brute, and, practically, told him so.
Only Mr. Baker’s delicate tact prevented an all-fired row: he refused
to take us seriously. He came bustling forward, and called us many
unpolite names but in such a hearty and seamanlike manner that we
began to feel ashamed of ourselves. In truth, we thought him much too
good a sailor to annoy him willingly: and after all Jimmy might have
been a fraud—probably was! The forecastle got a clean up that morning;
but in the afternoon a sick-bay was fitted up in the deck-house. It
was a nice little cabin opening on deck, and with two berths. Jimmy’s
belongings were transported there, and then—notwithstanding his
protests—Jimmy himself. He said he couldn’t walk. Four men carried him
on a blanket. He complained that he would have to die there alone, like
a dog. We grieved for him, and were delighted to have him removed from
the forecastle. We attended him as before. The galley was next door,
and the cook looked in many times a day. Wait became a little more
cheerful. Knowles affirmed having heard him laugh to himself in peals
one day. Others had seen him walking about on deck at night. His little
place, with the door ajar on a long hook, was always full of tobacco
smoke. We spoke through the crack cheerfully, sometimes abusively, as
we passed by, intent on our work. He fascinated us. He would never
let doubt die. He overshadowed the ship. Invulnerable in his promise
of speedy corruption he trampled on our self-respect, he demonstrated
to us daily our want of moral courage; he tainted our lives. Had we
been a miserable gang of wretched immortals, unhallowed alike by hope
and fear, he could not have lorded it over us with a more pitiless
assertion of his sublime privilege.
CHAPTER THREE
Meantime the Narcissus, with square yards, ran out of the fair monsoon.
She drifted slowly, swinging round and round the compass, through
a few days of baffling light airs. Under the patter of short warm
showers, grumbling men whirled the heavy yards from side to side; they
caught hold of the soaked ropes with groans and sighs, while their
officers, sulky and dripping with rain water, unceasingly ordered them
about in wearied voices. During the short respites they looked with
disgust into the smarting palms of their stiff hands, and asked one
another bitterly:—“Who would be a sailor if he could be a farmer?”
All the tempers were spoilt, and no man cared what he said. One black
night, when the watch, panting in the heat and half-drowned with the
rain, had been through four mortal hours hunted from brace to brace,
Belfast declared that he would “chuck the sea for ever and go in a
steamer.” This was excessive, no doubt. Captain Allistoun, with great
self-control, would mutter sadly to Mr. Baker:—“It is not so bad—not so
bad,” when he had managed to shove, and dodge, and manoeuvre his smart
ship through sixty miles in twenty-four hours. From the doorstep of the
little cabin, Jimmy, chin in hand, watched our distasteful labours with
insolent and melancholy eyes. We spoke to him gently—and out of his
sight exchanged sour smiles.
Then, again, with a fair wind and under a clear sky, the ship went
on piling up the South Latitude. She passed outside Madagascar and
Mauritius without a glimpse of the land. Extra lashings were put on the
spare spars. Hatches were looked to. The steward in his leisure moments
and with a worried air tried to fit washboards to the cabin doors.
Stout canvas was bent with care. Anxious eyes looked to the westward,
towards the cape of storms. The ship began to dip into a southwest
swell, and the softly luminous sky of low latitudes took on a harder
sheen from day to day above our heads: it arched high above the ship
vibrating and pale, like an immense dome of steel, resonant with the
deep voice of freshening gales. The sunshine gleamed cold on the white
curls of black waves. Before the strong breath of westerly squalls the
ship, with reduced sail, lay slowly over, obstinate and yielding. She
drove to and fro in the unceasing endeavour to fight her way through
the invisible violence of the winds: she pitched headlong into dark
smooth hollows; she struggled upwards over the snowy ridges of great
running seas; she rolled, restless, from side to side, like a thing in
pain. Enduring and valiant, she answered to the call of men; and her
slim spars waving for ever in abrupt semicircles, seemed to beckon in
vain for help towards the stormy sky.
It was a bad winter off the Cape that year. The relieved helmsmen came
off flapping their arms, or ran stamping hard and blowing into swollen,
red fingers. The watch on deck dodged the sting of cold sprays or,
crouching in sheltered corners, watched dismally the high and merciless
seas boarding the ship time after time in unappeasable fury. Water
tumbled in cataracts over the forecastle doors. You had to dash through
a waterfall to get into your damp bed. The men turned in wet and
turned out stiff to face the redeeming and ruthless exactions of their
glorious and obscure fate. Far aft, and peering watchfully to windward,
the officers could be seen through the mist of squalls. They stood by
the weather-rail, holding on grimly, straight and glistening in their
long coats; and in the disordered plunges of the hard-driven ship, they
appeared high up, attentive, tossing violently above the grey line of a
clouded horizon in motionless attitudes.