THE CACHE
When she lay down that night on the hard sand, with the sailcloth
beneath her head, she could not sleep. The wretchedness of having to lie
down fully dressed, of being unable to change her clothes, fell on her
like a blight.
She lay fighting the problem. It was impossible to go on like this. One
might live with little food, but to live always without undressing and
changing one's things was impossible. This problem was insoluble, or
seemed so. Then she found a half solution. She would discard her
stockings and under garments, make a bundle of them and put them under
the sailcloth, she would not wear them again, she would suffer from
cold, no matter, anything was better than that feeling of being fully
dressed always. The weather, besides, was fairly warm. She would learn
to do without shoes as well as without stockings. She would have to go
about without shoes or stockings. She thought of the men. Strangely
enough the thought of going about without shoes or stockings seemed less
repulsive to her than the thought of going about with her hair loose.
As she lay revolving this business in her mind the whale birds flitting
about in the darkness outside suddenly ceased their crying and through
the silence came a vague mysterious sound that deepened into a humming
like the drone of a gigantic top; the humming became a roar, the roar of
rain. Rain falling in solid sheets, coming across the land like a moving
Niagara, now taking the beach and now the sea. Never had she heard such
rain as this, falling in the black and utter darkness. The shelve of the
beach saved the cave from being flooded and the beetling of the cliff
kept it dry and within a couple of feet of the entrance but it could not
keep out the rain smell, the raw smell of Kerguelen carried from inland,
the smell of bog patches and new washed dolerite and bitter vegetation,
keen, like the smell of the Stone Age. Then after a bit the first great
onslaught slackened.
The girl raised herself on her elbow, then she rose and cast off the
oilskin coat that had served for a blanket. She undressed in the
darkness, made a bundle of her stockings and her Jaeger underclothes and
placed them beneath the sailcloth, then removing the comb from her hair
and letting it fall she came out into the blackness and stood in the
torrential rain.
It beat on her head and shoulders and breast, it cascaded down her
limbs, soothing as the hand of mesmerism, refreshing, delightful beyond
words, then she came back into the cave and, finding the cotton waste,
dried herself as well as she could, dried her hair and twisted it into
a knot, put on her blouse, coat and skirt and covered herself with the
oilskin.
She had solved the question of a bath and change of clothes, at least
for the moment. The discomfort of the rough tweed of the skirt against
her unprotected limbs, of the hard bed, of the sailcloth pillow with
its vague smell of canvas and jute, all these were nothing to that other
discomfort. These were physical, that was psychical.
She fell asleep and slept till long after dawn. When she came out the
rain had ceased and through air fresh as though from the hand of
Creation vast clouds were rolling away towards the islands over a
blue-green sea.
They had made a fire on the night before and had cooked some of the
mussels in the baling tin, the rest had been put by to cook for
breakfast; hot food of any sort is a revelation if you have been
condemned to live on cold stuff for any time, but this morning there was
to be nothing hot. The firewood, one of the bottom boards of the boat
chopped up, had been left out in the rain. The sight of it, all soaked,
made the girl forget her bare feet and her hair roughly tied up in a
knot. The housekeeper that lives in every woman rose up in revolt, all
the more so as the guilty ones tried to defend themselves.
"As for me," said La Touche, "I was listening to the rain, it drove
everything else out of my head."
"That is so," said Bompard, "I thought every moment we would be flooded
out. It was no time for a man to be thinking of firewood."
"Well, you will have no fire and nothing hot," said Cléo, "and those
mussels will be wasted--they won't keep, but there's no use in saying
any more about it--only you must learn to think of things. It's not
pleasant, I know, to have to look ahead but one has to do it. You see I
am not wearing my boots and stockings, boots wear out and stockings wear
out quicker, so I just looked ahead last night and said to myself--'your
stockings will soon be worn into holes, so you must begin now to learn
to do without them.' It's not pleasant, but it has to be done. If that
ship we ran into had looked ahead we would not have been wrecked."
"That is true," said Bompard, anxious to get off the main subject. "If
those chaps had eyes in their heads they wouldn't be feeding the
fishes."
"It wasn't all their fault," put in La Touche. "If those chaps on the
bridge hadn't put the engines on we wouldn't have rammed her as we did."
"Well," said Cléo, "there is no use in going back over things. We have
to get breakfast and then go and open the cache."
She had told them of the cache overnight and, to her wonder, the thing
had interested them, so this morning when they had finished their
biscuits and beef she found not the slightest difficulty in making them
start.
She put on her boots for the journey and then they reeled along the
beach in the usual order, Cléo first, the two others following; the
great skull made them halt and discuss it for a moment but the
figure-head when they reached it held them entirely in its spell.
She could scarcely tear them away, they discussed it from every point of
view, argued over it, pondered over it and were only brought to their
senses by a hint that it would have to be chopped up for firewood.
Then, when they reached the cache, there was another long pause for
discussion, the two sitting down to smoke whilst they talked it over.
It was not till she set to work pulling more stones away that they began
to get busy; then when once started they laboured like negroes. The
glimpse of the barrel end seemed to inflame them, but indeed they did
not want even that, for the business they had set their hands to had all
the fascination of treasure hunting mixed with the thrills of
house-breaking. Here was "stuff," plunder of some sort, who could tell
what?
An hour and a half of labour brought them sweating to the end of the
business and the presiding gulls saw exposed to the light of day two big
barrels, two long cases and an amount of canned meat and vegetables
enough to stock a small shop, also a harpoon of the old type and two
shovels placed by the long cases. Then after a rest of half an hour the
barrels were sampled. One contained flour, the other blankets and mens'
clothes, sweaters and coats and trousers. One of the long cases
contained kitchen utensils and tin cups and plates, also knives and
forks and spoons.
The other contained "comforts," tea and coffee and sugar in sealed tins,
some rolls of tobacco, drugs and a few surgical instruments. All the
equipment, in fact, necessary for an expedition of a dozen men for six
months. Not a drop of liquor.
Perhaps that was why the girl was more overjoyed by the details of the
find than the mariners.
Bompard openly expressed his mind.
"Not a bottle of wine or a drop of rum, swabs."
"Well, you've got some tobacco," said Cléo, "and there's tea and coffee
and cups and saucers, and a teapot--no coffeepot--well one can make
coffee in anything--" She was running over the stores in her mind,
standing, reviewing them with no thought of anything else and her soul
filled with a joy and satisfaction absolutely new.
Blankets! Tea! Coffee! and clothes--even mens' clothes if it came to the
worst. One might have fancied her to have fixed definitely in her mind
that she was to spend a very long time on the shores of Kerguelen and to
have accepted the terrible prospect with equanimity. It was not so. She
was living in the moment, so entirely in the moment that these things
were tremendous and vivid and compared with them Art, Music, Religion,
Ambition, and the gauds of Civilization were as nothing.
This power to live in the moment is the form of strength that brings
men through battles and women through adversity. It fells cities and
builds them. On Kerguelen it is salvation. For, here to think of the
future, unless in terms of material necessities, to dream, to brood,
means death or madness.
But Bompard and La Touche, resting themselves after their labours, were
not living in the moment nor in the past nor in the present, they were
living in that strange sad land called the Might-Have-Been. They might
have been in the way to a jolly booze by now if that fool who
provisioned the cache had not forgotten the drink. They were thankful
for nothing. They had food, they had clothes, they had tobacco. They
were glad enough of the blankets, but even the thought of the blankets
could not relieve their depression.
They were not drunkards, but the cache had given them hopes of drinks.
These hopes shattered they sat like discontented children who had been
promised sweets and disappointed.
But this did not last long, the Hopeless is its own antidote and after
half a pipe of tobacco their cheerfulness, such as it was, returned and
they fell to discussing with the girl the best way of treating the
stores.
Bompard, considering the difficulty of transporting the stuff to the
caves, proposed that they should move their abode right up to the cache.
Cléo pointed out that there were no caves here, so, unless they moved
the caves as well as their belongings, they would have nowhere to sleep
in.
"I think the best thing we can do," said she, "is to take what we want
and then cover up the rest till we want some more."
"Put the stuff under the rocks again?" asked Bompard.
"Yes."
"Mon Dieu!" said La Touche.
It was not what he said but the way he said it that angered the girl.
La Touche was a problem in her mind. She could understand Bompard but
she could not quite understand La Touche. It seemed to her that he was
one of those people who without much intelligence, yet, or perhaps
because of that fact, make fine centres of rebellion. She could fancy
him leading a mob to tear down something that vexed him, and everything
seemed to vex him, at times.
But though she was not clear about La Touche she was quite clear about
herself and she was determined to be his master. She felt instinctively
that he was the leader of Bompard and that Bompard alone would have been
a much better individual, in many respects.
"There is no use in saying 'Mon Dieu,'" said she, "the thing has to be
done. The gulls and the rabbits will ruin everything if we leave things
about. Come, Bompard."
Bompard rose up at the order and began to assist in sorting out the
things they were to take back with them. Then La Touche, not to be out
of the business and perhaps ashamed of himself, or of his position as an
idler, joined in.
Had she given the order direct to him he might have revolted; she had
conquered him for the moment none the less.
First they began to sort out the things to be kept for immediate use. A
saucepan, three tin cups, three tin plates, knives and forks, the teapot
and kettle, a canister of tea, sugar and salt. The canned stuff,
including thirty cans of vegetables, Cléo left untouched. She determined
to keep it in reserve and depend upon the cabbage plants, one of which
Bompard had brought back yesterday.
Then came the question of the flour, that too must be kept in reserve
and the opening they had made in the top of the barrel closed up
properly. This operation took time and was conducted with a good deal of
grumbling which fell on deaf ears. The thing was done and that was the
main thing. Four blankets were taken from the other barrel and that too
was closed. Then with the shovels the whole lot was sanded over and the
rocks replaced, the girl helping in the work as well as directing.
When everything was finished they made three bundles, using the blankets
as holdalls, and started back.
It was now noon and the breeze that had been blowing ever since dawn had
died away, but great clouds were banking up over the islands, vast,
solemn, leaden-coloured clouds rolling up from the far sea and piling
one on the other like alps on alps.
They had nearly reached the caves when a roll of thunder like the ruffle
of muffled drums came over the water, but they got under shelter before
the rain began to fall, just a few heavy drops, at first, and then in a
moment a cataract.
The islands vanished, the sea vanished to within a few hundred yards of
the beach, the voices of the gulls and the breaking of the waves became
merged and vague in the hiss of the sheeting rain.
"The chaps that left the truck in that cask forgot to shove in some
oilskins," said La Touche as he undid his load.
Cléo had come into the men's cave to help to unpack. Half-way back she
had taken her boots off. Owing to the absence of stockings her right
heel had become chafed and she had taken them off determining not to
wear them any more. She was kneeling now, bare-footed, taking the things
from Bompard's bundle and La Touche's remark made her look up. It was
the tone rather than the words that irritated her. The recollection of
an oilskin coat which she had used when fishing in Norway the year
before rose in her mind. It had been put away for a long time and when
taken out had been found all stuck up and quite ruined.
"You can't be much of a sailor," said she, "not to know that oilskin
doesn't stand packing. The men who buried these things did. If they had
known that you were so particular about rain they might have put in an
umbrella."
Dead silence followed this thrust of the tongue which she instantly
regretted, not because of hurting La Touche's feelings, but because she
instantly felt that it had helped to widen the division between her and
her mates. The extraordinary fact was that she, having assumed the
responsibility of office, was, seemingly, held responsible by the others
for all unpleasant happenings; she felt that the rain of Kerguelen was
now, in a way, being laid at her door.
Then, again, she had singled out La Touche as a direct opponent. She
felt that he and she were already matching each other and there was
likely to be a struggle between them for dominance.
Women have been gifted above men with an instinctive knowledge of
character. She divined in La Touche a character weak yet capable of
violence, incapable of leading yet jealous of being led, and especially
of being led by a woman. That was the danger point.
However, there was no use in trying to say anything smooth and she went
on with her work, helping to stow the things and, when that was
finished, taking off two of the blankets to her own cave.
A fire was impossible owing to the rain so they dined off biscuits and
canned stuff, cold.
Bompard and La Touche on this little expedition had discovered a water
source only a quarter of a mile inland, a deep pond cut in the rocks
and fed by the rains. Bompard referred to it as he ate.
"But as long as the boat holds together," said he, "we don't want to
bother about water; she'll catch and hold all we want. I've heard tell
it rains here months on end."
"When it's not blowing," said La Touche. Cléo said nothing. It came to
her almost as a new impression that conversation as we know it was
almost impossible with her companions. They had no outlook over anything
but the material and they seemed to see nothing but the black side of
things. She felt also that any attempt to rally them and cheer them
would be dumbly resented and would only help to widen even more the
division between her and them.
When the meal was finished she put the plates out in the rain to wash
them. Then a bright idea came to her and getting the roll of wire she
asked La Touche to shew her how to make rabbit snares.
La Touche took the roll of wire and held it in his hands for a moment.
"This is all very well," said he, "but where is your wire cutters?"
They had nothing to cut the wire with, and he seemed to look on the fact
as a triumph of his own cleverness over Cléo's, till Bompard intervened
and shewed how, by knotting the wire and pulling hard, a break might be
made. This accomplished, and three lengths of wire having been
procured, the surly one proceeded to make a snare and to demonstrate how
it might be set.
At the end of the business the girl regretted that she had ever started
it. She had put herself under the tuition of La Touche and allowed the
intimacy of master and pupil, allowed even in this slight way that he
was her superior.
A yelling wind from the mountains arose that afternoon and drove the
rain away across the islands. It held for half an hour and then of a
sudden ceased and a howling wind from the islands rose and drove the
rain back again towards the mountains.
The sea suddenly seemed to go mad, with cross currents meeting. Waves
seemed fighting waves and the gulls seemed filled with the general
torment, clanging and blowing about hither and thither like leaves in
autumn.
Cléo went to her cave and wrapping herself in one of the blankets, with
the other folded double to lie upon, took her place upon the floor with
her head on the sailcloth.
It was her first really bad moment. Her first moment of real depression.
The rain and the fact that their position as regarded food was secure,
so that there was nothing to fight against at the moment, conspired to
overthrow her.
Hitherto she had fought bravely and the struggle had kept her up; the
sudden easing of the situation had brought new forces against her. Time
suddenly appeared before her eyes asking: "How are you to kill me? You
can't, you have no weapons. Would you like a book? Would you like
embroidery work to do, companions to talk with, music to listen to?
Fate, under the name of civilization, gave you all these and more, they
have been taken from you and now you see me as I am, the great terror."
She fought this Bogey by thinking of La Touche. She had raised La Touche
against herself. She knew that something in herself had risen against La
Touche.
She felt that his respect for a woman of the higher classes was, as
regarded herself, wearing thin, owing to propinquity. That he resented
being "bossed" by a woman, that her superior quickness of mind and
energy vexed him and that one day he would try to master her. He was of
the type that is too mean to rule, yet hates to be ruled. There was also
the jealousy of the male at the superiority of the female. She was
physically weaker than he, a fact that means little in civilized life
where power is in the hands of Order, but which means everything in
primitive life. And they were steadily drifting to the primitive.
These thoughts, troublesome enough, were still excellent in their way.
They gave her occupation for her mind.
Then she fell asleep, awaking towards evening to find Bompard at the
cave mouth telling her that supper was ready.