"JOHN DARBY"
Although it was snowing hard, it was not a dark night. There was a half
moon hidden behind those thin, fleecy clouds, which carry the snow across
the North Sea and cast it noiselessly upon the low-lying coast, from
Thanet to the Wash, which knows less rain and more snow than any in
England.
A gale of wind was blowing from the north-east; not in itself a wild
gale, but at short intervals a fresh burst of wind brought with it a
thicker fall of snow, and during these squalls the force of the storm was
terrific. A man, who had waited on the far shore of the river for a quiet
interval, had at last made his way to the Farlingford side. He moored his
boat and stumbled heavily up the steps.
There was no one on the quay. The street was deserted, but the lights
within the cottages glowed warmly through red blinds here and there. The
majority of windows were, however, secured with a shutter, screwed tight
from within. The man trotted steadily up the street. He had an
unmistakable air of discipline. It was only six o'clock, but night had
closed in three hours ago. The coast-guard looked neither to one side nor
the other, but ran on at the pace of one who had run far and knows that
he cannot afford to lose his breath; for his night's work was only begun.
The coast-guard station stands on the left-hand side of the street, a
long, low house in a bare garden. In answer to the loud summons, a
red-faced little man opened the door and let out into the night a smell
of bloaters and tea--the smell that pervades all Farlingford at six
o'clock in the evening.
"Something on the Inner Curlo Bank," shouted the coast-guard in his face,
and turning on his heel, he ran with the same slow, organised haste,
leaving the red-faced man finishing a mouthful on the mat.
The next place of call was at River Andrew's, the little low cottage with
rounded corners, below the church.
"Come out o' that," said the coast-guard, with a contemptuous glance of
snow-rimmed eyes at River Andrew's comfortable tea-table. "Ring yer bell.
Something on the Inner Curlo Bank."
River Andrew had never hurried in his life, and like all his fellows, he
looked upon coast-guards as amateurs mindful, as all amateurs are, of
their clothes.
"A'm now going," he answered, rising laboriously from his chair. The
coast-guard glanced at his feet clad in the bright green carpet-slippers,
dear to seafaring men. Then he turned to the side of the mantelpiece and
took the church keys from the nail. For everybody knows where everybody
else keeps his keys in Farlingford. He forgot to shut the door behind
him, and River Andrew, pessimistically getting into his sea-boots, swore
at his retreating back.
"Likely as not, he'll getten howld o' the wrong roup," he muttered;
though he knew that every boy in the village could point out the rope of
"John Darby," as that which had a piece of faded scarlet flannel twisted
through the strands.
In a few minutes the man, who hastened slowly, gave the call, which
every man in Farlingford answered with an emotionless, mechanical
promptitude. From each fireside some tired worker reached out his hand
toward his most precious possession, his sea-boots, as his forefathers
had done before him for two hundred years at the sound of "John Darby."
The women crammed into the pockets of the men's stiff oilskins a piece of
bread, a half-filled bottle--knowing that, as often as not, their
husbands must pass the night and half the next day on the beach, or out
at sea, should the weather permit a launch through the surf.
There was no need of excitement, or even of comment. Did not "John Darby"
call them from their firesides or their beds a dozen times every winter,
to scramble out across the shingle? As often as not, there was nothing to
be done but drag the dead bodies from the surf; but sometimes the dead
revived--some fair-haired, mystic foreigner from the northern seas, who
came to and said, "T'ank you," and nothing else. And next day, rigged out
in dry clothes and despatched toward Ipswich on the carrier's cart, he
would shake hands awkwardly with any standing near and bob his head and
say "T'ank you" again, and go away, monosyllabic, mystic, never to be
heard of more. But the ocean, as it is called at Farlingford, seemed to
have an inexhaustible supply of such Titans to throw up on the rattling
shingle winter after winter. And, after all, they were seafaring men, and
therefore brothers. Farlingford turned out to a man, each seeking to be
first across the river every time "John Darby" called them, as if he had
never called them before.
To-night none paused to finish the meal, and many a cup raised half-way
was set down again untasted. It is so easy to be too late.
Already the flicker of lanterns on the sea-wall showed that the rectory
was astir. For Septimus Marvin, vaguely recalling some schoolboy instinct
of fair-play, knew the place of the gentleman and the man of education
among humbler men in moments of danger and hardship, which should,
assuredly, never be at the back.
"Yonder's parson," some one muttered. "His head is clear now, I'll
warrant, when he hears 'John Darby.'"
"'Tis only on Sundays, when 'John' rings slow, 'tis misty," answered a
sharp-voiced woman, with a laugh. For half of Farlingford was already at
the quay, and three or four boats were bumping and splashing against the
steps. The tide was racing out, and the wind, whizzing slantwise across
it, pushed it against the wooden piles of the quay, making them throb and
tremble.
"Not less'n four to the oars!" shouted a gruff voice, at the foot of the
steps, where the salt water, splashing on the snow, had laid bare the
green and slimy moss. Two or three volunteers stumbled down the steps,
and the first boat got away, swinging down-stream at once, only to be
brought slowly back, head to wind. She hung motionless a few yards from
the quay, each dip of the oars stirring the water into a whirl of
phosphorescence, and then forged slowly ahead.
Septimus Marvin was not alone, but was accompanied by a bulky man, not
unknown in Farlingford--John Turner, of Ipswich, understood to live
"foreign," but to return, after the manner of East Anglians, when
occasion offered. The rector was in oilskins and sou'wester, like any one
else, and the gleam of his spectacles under the snowy brim of his
headgear seemed to strike no one as incongruous. His pockets bulged with
bottles and bandages. Under his arm he carried a couple of blanket
horse-cloths, useful for carrying the injured or the dead.
"The Curlo--the Inner Curlo--yes, yes!" he shouted in response to
information volunteered on all sides. "Poor fellows! The Inner Curlo,
dear, dear!"
And he groped his way down the steps, into the first boat he saw, with a
simple haste. John Turner followed him. He had tied a silk handkerchief
over his soft felt hat and under his chin.
"No, no!" he said, as Septimus Marvin made room for him on the
after-thwart. "I'm too heavy for a passenger. Put my weight on an oar,"
and he clambered forward to a vacant thwart.
"Mind you come back for us, River Andrew!" cried little Sep's thin voice,
as the boat swirled down stream. His wavering bull's-eye lantern followed
it, and showed River Andrew and another pulling stroke to John Turner's
bow, for the banker had been a famous oar on the Orwell in his boyhood.
Then, with a smack like a box on the ear, another snow-squall swept in
from the sea, and forced all on the quay to turn their backs and crouch.
Many went back to their homes, knowing that nothing could be known for
some hours. Others crouched on the landward side of an old coal-shed,
peeping round the corner.
Miriam and Sep, and a few others, waited on the quay until River Andrew
or another should return. It was an understood thing that the helpers,
such as could man a boat or carry a drowned man, should go first. In a
few minutes the squall was past, and by the light of the moon, now thinly
covered by clouds, the black forms of the first to reach the other shore
could be seen straggling across the marsh toward the great shingle-bank
that lies between the river and the sea. Two boats were moored at the far
side, another was just making the jetty, while a fourth was returning
toward the quay. It was River Andrew, faithful to his own element, who
preferred to be first here, rather than obey orders on the open beach.
There were several ready to lend a helping hand against tide and wind,
and Miriam and Sep were soon struggling across the shingle, in the
footsteps of those who had gone before. The north-east wind seared their
faces like a hot iron, but the snow had ceased falling. As they reached
the summit of the shingle-bank, they could see in front of them the black
line of the sea, and on the beach, where the white of the snow and the
white of the roaring surf merged together, a group of men.
One or two stragglers had left this group to search the beach, north or
south; but it was known, from a long and grim experience, that anything
floating in from the tail of the Inner Curlo Bank must reach the shore at
one particular point. A few lanterns twinkled here and there, but near
the group of watchers a bonfire of wreckage and tarry fragments and old
rope, brought hither for the purpose, had been kindled.
Two boats, hauled out of reach of a spring tide, were being leisurely
prepared for launching. There was no hurry; for it had been decided by
the older men that no boat could be put to sea through the surf then
rolling in. At the turn of the tide, in two hours' time, something might
be done.
"Us cannot see anything," a bystander said to Miriam. "It is just there,
where I am pointing. Sea Andrew saw something a while back--says it
looked like a schooner."
The man stood pointing out to sea to the southward. He carried an
unlighted torch--a flare, roughly made, of tarred rope, bound round a
stick. At times, one or another would ignite his flare, and go down the
beach holding it above his head, while he stood knee deep in the churning
foam to peer out to sea. He would presently return, without comment, to
beat out his flare against his foot and take his place among the silent
watchers. No one spoke; but if any turned his head sharply to one side or
other, all the rest wheeled, like one man, in the same direction and
after staring at the tumbled sea would turn reproachful glances on the
false alarmist.
Suddenly, after a long wait, four men rushed without a word into the
surf; their silent fury suggesting oddly the rush of hounds upon a fox.
They had simultaneously caught sight of something dark, half sunk in the
shallow water. In a moment they were struggling up the shingle slope
toward the fire, carrying a heavy weight. They laid their burden by the
fire, where the snow had melted away, and it was a man. He was in
oilskins, and some one cut the tape that tied his sou'wester. His face
was covered with blood.
"'Tis warm," said the man who had cut away the oilskin cap, and with his
hand he wiped the blood away from the eyes and mouth. Some one in the
background drew a cork, with his teeth, and a bottle was handed down to
those kneeling on the ground.
Suddenly the man sat up--and coughed.
"Shipmets," he said, with a splutter, and lay down again.
Some one held the bottle to his lips and wiped the blood away from his
face again.
"My God!" shouted a bystander, gruffly. "'Tis William Brooke, of the
Cottages."
"Yes. 'Tis me," said the man, sitting up again. "Not that arm, mate;
don't ye touch it. 'Tis bruk. Yes; 'tis me. And 'The Last Hope' is on the
tail of the Inner Curlo--and the spar that knocked me overboard fell on
the old man, and must have half killed him. But Loo Barebone's aboard."
He rose to his knees, with one arm hanging straight and piteous from his
shoulder, then slowly to his feet. He stood wavering for a moment, and
wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and spluttered. Then, looking
straight in front of him, with that strange air of a whipped dog which
humble men wear when the hand of Heaven is upon them, he staggered up the
beach toward the river and Farlingford.
"Where are ye goin'?" some one asked.
"Over to mine," was the reply. "A'm going to my old woman, shipmets."
And he staggered away in the darkness.