Mr. Spokesly, looking down from the bridge at the up-turned and
uncompromising face of Joseph Plouff, frowned.
"What does he say?" he repeated uneasily.
"He says keep the course."
"You gave him the note?"
"No, he didn't open the door. He just said, to keep the course. I said
'You mean, don't alter it, Captinne?' and he said, 'No.'"
Plouff handed up the note Mr. Spokesly had given him, and the puzzled
chief officer took it and opened it, as though he had forgotten or was
uncertain of its contents. But before he read it afresh, he took a look
round. This told him nothing for he was entirely lost in a white fog
that rolled and swirled in slow undulating billows athwart the ship's
bows. For four hours he had been going through this and the captain had
not made his appearance on the bridge. Each time had come up the same
message, to keep the course. And at last Mr. Spokesly had written a
little note. He had torn a page out of the scrap-log and written these
words:
TO CAPTAIN RANNIE
SIR,
We have run our distance over this course. Please give bearer your
orders. Weather very thick.
R. SPOKESLY. Mate.
And he hadn't even opened the door. It was this singular seclusion which
caused Mr. Spokesly so much anxiety. Fog, and the captain not on deck!
Plouff, whose presence was an undeniable comfort for some reason or
other, pulled himself up the steep little ladder and stood staring
lugubriously into the fog.
"Funny sort of old man, this," muttered the mate.
"He's always the same at sea," said Plouff, still staring.
"What? Leaves it to the mate?"
"Yes. Always."
"But...." Mr. Spokesly looked at the fog, at Plouff, at the binnacle,
and then hastily fitted himself into the little wheel-house. He bent
over the chart with a ruler and pair of dividers, spacing first a
pencilled line drawn from Cape Kassandra to a point a few miles south of
Cape Fripeti on the Island of Boze Baba, and then along the scale at the
edge of the chart.
"See what's on the log, Bos', will you?" he called.
This was serious. Within a few minutes the course ought to be altered to
due south. The usual four knots of the _Kalkis_ had been exceeded owing
to the smoothness of the sea, which accounted for their arrival at this
position before six o'clock, when the captain would once more take
charge. Another thing was that from now on they would be on the course
of warships passing south from the great base at Mudros, the land-locked
harbour of Lemnos. The bosun came up again and reported thirty miles
from noon. Well, the log was about ten per cent. fast, so a note said in
the night order book. It was five-thirty now, which gave them
twenty-seven miles from noon or nearly five knots. That brought them due
south of Fripeti.
Mr. Spokesly looked at Plouff, who was looking at the fog with an
expression of extreme disillusion on his round face. And again at the
chart. There was nothing more to be extracted from either Plouff or the
chart. The pencilled line which indicated their course ended abruptly.
Where, then, were they bound? Keep on the course, the captain said. Mr.
Spokesly laid the parallel ruler against the line and produced it clear
across the chart. He stood up with a sharp intake of breath and regarded
the impassive Plouff, who looked down at the chart with respectful
curiosity.
"Say, Bos'," he began. "This is a funny business."
"What's a funny business?" demanded Plouff, looking round, as though
expecting to see something of an extremely comical nature being
performed. The pause gave Mr. Spokesly time to reflect. He cleared his
throat.
"The Old Man staying down there. He ought to ... but then he says
keep...."
"'Hold her on the course,' were his words," said Plouff obstinately,
adding, "Hasn't she got a clear road?"
"Yes ..." muttered the mate jerkily, "road's clear ... humph!" he stared
at the chart. "Oh, well! By George, I wish this damn fog would clear
away."
"What's the matter with the fog?" said Plouff. "We're safe in the fog,
ain't we? You can bet them _unterseeboats_ 'll keep in under the islands
this weather. Too much chance o' gettin' stove in," he added
sympathetically. The mate did not reply for a moment. He was very
uneasy. He studied the chart. Indeed, he could not get away from that
pencilled line running right into the Gulf of Smyrna. And Phyros was
south of Khios. He was tired and sleepy. Eight hours was a long while to
stay on the bridge. He would be glad when they got in. _Got in where?_
He stared again at the chart. And the Old Man locked in his room. Always
did that, eh?
"Go away, Bos'," he said, suddenly. "You got to be about to-night, you
know. We'll be anchoring...."
He forgot what he was saying, staring hard at the chart. Plouff slipped
down into the fog and clattered away forward.
But Mr. Spokesly was not unhappy. There was an unfamiliar yet desirable
quality about this life. The sharp flavour of it made one forget both
the ethical and economic aspects of one's existence. At the back of his
mind was a boyish desire to show that girl what he was made of. And when
they got to Athens he would----Athens! The word sent him back to the
chart. Keep on the course. He was sailing across a wide ocean and the
old familiar landmarks were hull down behind the fog. There was
something symbolic in that fog. It was as though he had indeed left the
world of his youth behind, the world of warm English hearts, of
cantankerous affections and dislikes, of fine consciences and delicate
social distinctions, and was passing through a confusing and impalpable
region of vaporous uncertainty to an unknown country. He was not
unhappy. The future might be anything, from silken dalliance behind
green jalousies in some oriental villa with a fountain making soft
music, which is the food of love, to a sudden detonation, red spurts of
savage flame, and a grave in a cold sea. He went out and looked at the
compass. And at the fog. Now that Plouff was gone down he felt lonely.
He stamped on the deck to call the steward. The captain would have to be
called. If he did not come, he, the mate, would go down and inform him
that the course would be changed without him. That would be the only
way. He had never had a commander like this, nor a voyage like this, for
that matter. He paused suddenly in his thoughts and looked down,
pinching his lower lip between finger and thumb. He had an idea. To
achieve anything, one had to be eternally prepared for just such
unexpected predicaments. Here he was, with an invisible commander and an
invisible horizon. And down in a cabin below him was Evanthia Solaris, a
distinct and formidable problem. He was going to marry her. He saw his
destiny, almost for the first time in his life, as a ball which he could
take in his hand and throw. And the direction and distance depended
entirely upon his own strength, his own skill, his own fortitude. He was
going to marry her. And he saw another thing for the first time--that
marriage was of no significance in itself for a man. What he is, brain
and sinew, character and desire, is all that counts. He saw this because
he had left the old life behind beyond the fog. Back there, marriage was
a contrivance for the hamstringing and debasing of men, a mere device
for the legal comfort and security of women who were too lazy or
incompetent or too undesirable to secure it for themselves. Ahead he had
a strange premonition that he was going to have a novel experience.
He was.
He was aroused by the helmsman reaching out and striking four soft blows
on the little bronze bell hanging by the awning-spar over the binnacle.
Six o'clock. And the young Jew, in a huge apron and a high astrakhan cap
he had picked up somewhere, came slowly up the bridge ladder.
"Captain," said Mr. Spokesly, making a number of motions to signify
knocking at a door and calling somebody out. "Savvy?"
The frightened creature, who was quite unable to comprehend the
extraordinary phenomenon of the fog on the sea, and who regarded Mr.
Spokesly, moreover, as a species of demi-god, raised his remarkable face
as though in supplication, and backed down again. It was evident to him
that his employer had consigned him to some distant place of torment
from which he could never return. Yet even in his timid heart there was
hope. Already he had given his allegiance to that beautiful and haughty
creature whose cabin it was his trembling joy and pride to put in order.
His ears were alert at all times to catch the sharp clapping sound of
her hands when she needed him, and then he flew below. She would speak
to him in his native tongue, which was Spanish, and ravish his soul with
words he could understand, instead of the terrifying gutturals of those
powerful Franks who walked to and fro on the top of the tower above them
and gave incomprehensible commands.
"Fear not," she assured him. "When the ship reaches the port, thou shalt
go with me as my servant. The lieutenant shall give thee money as wages
when he is my husband."
"Merciful Madama, what port? Whither do we go? Is it beyond the clouds?"
"Ah," she retorted, leaning back on the cushions of the settee, and
blowing cigarette-smoke from her beautiful lips. "I would like to know
that myself. Beyond the clouds? You mean this fog. Yes, far beyond the
clouds. Did you not hear anything at all in the Rue Voulgaróktono?"
"Nothing, Madama, except that once I heard Señor Dainopoulos tell Señor
Malleotis that they, someone, had reached Aidin."
"Aiee?" ejaculated Evanthia, sitting up and fixing her burning amber
eyes on the frightened and hypnotized creature. "And didst thou hear
nothing else? Aidin! Tchk!"
"I do not know, Madama," he quavered. "Unless there is a port called
Bairakli."
Evanthia showed her teeth in a brilliant smile and patted the youth's
arm.
"My servant you shall be," she chuckled. "No, there is no port called
Bairakli, but it is near to a city you and I will find good. Shalt live
at Bairakli, Amos! Tck--tck! What a fool I was. Oh! Caro! _Oh mein
lieber Mann!_" And she sang sweetly a few notes of a song.
The young man stared at her in stupefaction.
"Go," she said, pushing him with a characteristic gesture, at once
brusque and charming. "You need have no fear. Your fortune is made."
* * * * *
A few minutes past six Captain Rannie climbed the bridge ladder and
examined the compass without addressing his chief officer, bending over
it with an exaggerated solicitude. Apparently satisfied, he went into
the chart room and immediately pushed the ruler from its significant
position, pointing into the interior of Asia Minor. There was an
indefinable nervous bounce about him which indicated a highly exalted
state of mind. He seemed, Mr. Spokesly imagined, to be assuming
truculence to cover timidity. He probably knew that his insistence on
keeping the course had aroused conjecture, and the ruler, lying as it
did on the chart, confirmed the idea. Yet he did not speak. Funking, Mr.
Spokesly decided, obstinately remaining close to the dodger and staring
straight ahead--towards Asia Minor. If the Old Man thought he was going
to get away with it ... he cleared his throat and remarked:
"About time to change the course for Phyros, sir?"
And to his surprise Mr. Spokesly, in the midst of his highly complex
cogitations, found himself listening to a jaunty and characteristic
monologue which touched upon--among other things--the one rule which
Captain Rannie insisted was the _sine qua non_ of a good officer, that
he should accept the commander's orders without comments. Otherwise, how
could discipline be maintained? As to the course, he, Captain Rannie,
would attend to that immediately. And while he appreciated it, of
course, there was no real need for Mr. Spokesly to remain on the bridge
after he had been relieved.
Mr. Spokesly, still looking ahead, wanted to say sarcastically, "Is that
so?" but he was tongue-tied, dumfounded. Here was a man, apparently of
straw, who was jauntily inviting him to clear out and mind his own
business. He pulled himself together.
"Unless we pick up a Mudros escort somewhere round here," he muttered,
turning away.
Captain Rannie came out of the chart room from which his lean and
cadaverous head had been projecting to deliver his homily on obeying
orders, and looked all round at the white walls of fog. It was as though
he were contemplating some novel but highly convenient dispensation of
Providence which he was prepared to accept as one of the minor hardships
of life. All consciousness of Mr. Spokesly's presence seemed to have
vanished from his mind. He spoke to the helmsman, walked to port and
looked down at the water, looked aft and aloft, and resumed his stroll.
And Mr. Spokesly, craftily placed at a disadvantage, turned suddenly and
clattered down the ladder.
"Well," he thought to himself, pausing on the deck below and still
holding to the hand-rail, "he can't keep it up for ever. And I can't do
anything in this fog. He's going to pile her up."
But as he went into the saloon he could not help asking himself, "What
for?" What gain had Captain Rannie or Mr. Dainopoulos in view when they
ran a valuable cargo on the rocky shores of Lesbos or Anatolia? The word
"ran" stuck in his mind. "Running a cargo" in war-time, eh? One didn't
run cargoes on the rocks, in war-time. He stared so fixedly at Amos, who
was laying the table, that in spite of Evanthia's assurance of future
good fortune, the poor creature trembled and grew pale. Mr. Spokesly
understood neither Greek nor Spanish, or he might have derived some
enlightenment from a conversation with the young Jew. He frowned and
went on down to his cabin. He wanted sympathy in his anxiety. And it was
part of his Victorian and obsolete mental equipment to expect sympathy
from a woman.
She was standing before the little mirror, setting the immense
tortoise-shell comb into her hair at the desired angle, and she gave
herself a final searching scrutiny, as she turned away, before flashing
a dazzling smile at him.
"What is the matter?" she asked in her precise English, seeing the
worried expression on his face. He sat down on the settee, and she
seated herself close beside him, smiling with such ravishing abandon
that he forgot the reason for his concern.
"If I can only get you ashore," he muttered, holding her to him and
kissing her hair.
"Where?" she whispered, watching him with her bright amber eyes.
"That's just it," he said. "I don't know where."
She put her finger to her lips.
"I know," she said.
He put his hands on her shoulders and held her away a little, staring at
her.
"You!" he breathed incredulously. "You?"
She nodded, her eyes kindling.
"Here," he said hoarsely. "You must be straight with me, dear. Tell me
what you know. The captain, he's very funny to-day."
"Ismir!" she called into his ear in a ringing tone. "Beautiful,
beautiful Ismir!"
"What's that you're talking about?" he demanded doubtfully. "I don't
understand."
"No? Soon you will understand, when we reach Ismir."
"I've never heard of it," he declared. "But I can tell you, if the Old
Man don't alter the course, we're going straight into Smyrna."
"Ah, yes," she sighed. "I remember now. You call it that. We call it
Ismir, Turkish place. When I was little, little girl, we arrive there,
my fazzer and my muzzer. Oh, beautiful! The grand hotels, the _bains_,
the _plage_, the _quais_, the mountains, the _cafés-chantant_. _Aiee!_
And Bairakli! I will show you. I was little, thirteen years old." She
laughed, a soft throaty chuckle, on his shoulder, at some reminiscence.
"Ismir! _Oh mein lieber Mann!_"
She intoxicated him with her bewildering moods, with her trick of
recalling to his memory his early dreams of beautiful women, those
bright shadows of unseen enchantresses which had tortured and stimulated
his boyish thoughts. But he could not refrain from returning to the
serious problem of how she knew so accurately the intentions of his
commander.
"The captain tell you?" he asked expectantly. Her brow grew dark and a
blankness like a film came over her eyes.
"I do not like your _capitaine_," she muttered. "He is like an old
woman. Look at his face. And the silver ring on his wrist. Like an old
vulture, his head between his shoulders. Look at him. He never lifts his
eyes. Do not speak of him. But hear me now. When we reach Ismir, we will
have a house, you and me, eh?"
He stared at her, entranced, yet preoccupied with the overwhelming
difficulties of his situation.
"Oh, _mon cher_, you do not know how beautiful it is. The most beautiful
city in the world."
"But how did you know? Why didn't you tell me? Did Mrs. Dainopoulos tell
you?"
"Ssh! Madame Dainopoulos is an angel. She like you an' me very much. But
Monsieur Dainopoulos, he say to me, if I want to see my friends in Pera,
by and by there is a ship. You understand? An' then, here on the ship, I
hear somesing. Oh, tell me, _mon cher_, what time we arrive at Ismir?"
He was hardly listening to her, so busy were his thoughts with the vista
opening out before him. He was vaguely conscious that he was passing
through a crisis, that Fate had suddenly laid all her cards on the table
and was watching him, with bright amber eyes, waiting for him to make
out what those cards portended. Here, she seemed to say, is everything
you have ever dreamed of, adventure, romance, and the long-imagined
pleasures of love.
"To-night?" she persisted, lying back in his arms. And watching him,
sensing his uncertainty, her gaze hardened, she sat up away from him,
waiting for him to speak, as though she were fate indeed. Always she
gave him that impression of hair-trigger readiness to fight, to rip and
tear and give no quarter. As he looked at her now, turning over his dire
predicament the while, he noticed the truculent solidity of her jaw, the
indomitable courage and steadiness of her gaze.
"Wait," he muttered, putting up his hand and then holding it to his
brow. "I must think. I don't know when we arrive. To-morrow, perhaps."
"Why do you look so sad?" she demanded. "_Mon Dieu!_ To-morrow at Ismir.
What happiness!"
"For you," he added in a low voice.
"And for you," she twittered in his ear and patting his hand. "I see the
plan of Monsieur Dainopoulos now. We shall have good fortune."
There was a faint tap at the door.
"Supper, Madama," said the young Jew, making a low bow, and they went
up.
Mr. Spokesly, sitting on the engineer's settee an hour later and
discussing the matter cautiously with that person, was not so sure of
the good fortune.
"What can we do?" he asked, and the engineer, who was of a peaceful
disposition and perfectly satisfied so long as he got his pay, said:
"You can't do nothing in this fog. He's the captain."
"We may hit something," said Mr. Spokesly, who was talking more for
comfort than for enlightenment.
"Why, yes, we may do that. Do it anywhere, come to that. Where do you
think we are now, Mister Mate?"
"I don't know, I tell you. He says to me, 'I'll attend to the course,'
and he may have put her round. But I've got a notion he's carrying out
his orders. I see now why I got six months' pay. Did you?"
"No, I got a note on the captain, same as usual," said Mr. Cassar.
"What do you think they will do with us?" pursued Mr. Spokesly.
"I don't know, Mister Mate. There's always plenty o' work everywhere,"
was the equable reply.
"Is that all you think of?"
"I got a big family in Cospicua," said the engineer, standing up. "I
can't afford to be out of a job. I think I'll go and eat, Mister Mate.
Perhaps the fog will lift a bit and we can see what the course is."
They went out and climbed the ladder to the bridge-deck, and stood
staring into the damp, palpable darkness. The absence of all artificial
light, the silence, the tangible vapour concealing the surface of the
sea, and possibly, too, the over-hanging uncertainty of their
destination, combined to fill them with a vague dull sense of impending
peril. They were on the starboard side, abaft the lifeboat. They could
not see the bridge clearly, and the forecastle was swallowed up in the
blank opacity of the mist. It was a situation in which both care and
recklessness were of equal futility. The imagination balked and turned
back on itself before the contemplation of such limitless possibilities.
And it was while they were standing there in taciturn apprehension that
they suddenly sprang into an extraordinary animation of mind and body at
the sound and vibration of a loud crash forward. The _Kalkis_ heeled
over to port from the pressure of some invisible weight and Mr. Spokesly
started to run towards the bridge.
"They're shellin' her!" he bawled. "Stand by! Look out! What's that?"
He stood still for a moment, his hands raised to balance himself against
the returning roll of the ship as she recovered. And in that moment, out
of the fog, above him and over the rail, came an immense gray vertical
wall of sharp steel rushing up to him and past into oblivion with a
grinding splintering roar. There were cries, the dim glow of an opened
door high up, the sough of pouring waters in the darkness, a shadowy
phantom and a swirl of propellers, and she was gone.
And there was an absolute silence on the _Kalkis_ more dreadful to Mr.
Spokesly than the panic of the mob of Asiatics on the _Tanganyika_. He
tried to think. Mr. Cassar had disappeared. They had been in collision
with a man-of-war, he felt certain of that. There was no mistaking the
high cleaving flare of those gray bows as they fled past. And she must
have struck the _Kalkis_ forward as well as amidships. A glancing blow.
Yet there was silence. He strode forward and climbed the ladder to the
bridge.
"Are you there, sir?" he called.
There was no answer. He went up to the man at the wheel, who was turning
the spokes of the wheel rapidly.
"Where is the Captain?" he demanded harshly.
"He's over there," said the man confidentially, nodding towards the
other side of the bridge. "What was that, sir? Explosions?"
"I don't know," said Mr. Spokesly angrily. "Ask the captain," and he
went down again and descended the ladder to the fore-deck.
He fell over something here in the dark, something rough and with jagged
edges. He felt it with his hands and discovered that it was one of the
heavy cast-iron bollards which were mounted on either side of the
forecastle head. Mr. Spokesly began to realize that he was confronting a
problem which he would have to handle alone. He stepped over the mass of
metal, which had been flung fifty feet, and immediately tripped upon a
swaying, jagged surface that tore his clothes and cut his hands. He said
to himself, "The deck is torn up. I must have a light." There was no
sound from forward and he wondered miserably if any of them had been
hurt. He climbed to the bridge again to get a hurricane lamp that he
knew was in the chart room. While he was striking a match to light it he
was once more aware of the fact that the engines were still going. So he
hadn't stopped or anything. The captain's form was dimly discernible
against the canvas dodger, extraordinarily huge and rotund. Mr.
Spokesly's anger broke out in a harsh yell.
"Hi, Captain! Do you know your forecastle's carried away? Or perhaps you
don't care."
"I won't be spoken to in that manner," came the lisping, toothless voice
from the darkness. "Go forward and report on the damage. I should think
it wouldn't be necessary to tell an experienced officer his duty...."
Mr. Spokesly, swinging the hurricane lamp in his hand, laid his other
hand upon Captain Rannie's shoulder.
"Look you here, Captain. You won't be spoken to in that manner? You'll
be spoken to as I want from now on. Do you get that? From now on. I'm
going forward to report damage. And when I find out if the ship's
sinking, I'll not trouble to tell you, you double-crossing old
blatherskite you!" And he gave the captain a thrust that sent him flying
into the pent-house at the end, where he remained invisible but audible,
referring with vivacity to the fact that he had been "attacked."
"I'll attack you again when I come back," muttered his chief officer as
he went down the ladder.
And the lamp showed him, in spite of the fog, what had happened. The
fore-deck was a mass of ripped and twisted plates, splintered doors, and
fragments of the interiors of cabins looked strangely small and tawdry
out on the harsh deck. A settee-cushion, all burst and impaled upon a
piece of angle iron, impeded him. "Won't be spoken to that fashion!" he
muttered, holding up the lamp and peering into the murk. "Good Lord! The
forecastle's carried away." He stumbled nearer. There was no ladder on
this side any more. The high sharp prow had struck a glancing blow just
abaft the anchor and sliced away the whole starboard side of the
forecastle. Standing where the door of the bosun's room had been, Mr.
Spokesly lowered his lamp and saw the black water rushing past between
the torn deck-beams. And Mr. Spokesly had it borne in upon him that not
only was Plouff vanished, but his cabin was gone. There was scarcely
anything of it left save some splintered parts of the settee and the
inner bulkhead, on which a gaudy calendar from a seaman's outfitter
fluttered in the night breeze against the blue-white paint.
Mr. Spokesly's heart was daunted by the desolation of that brutally
revealed interior. It daunted him because he could imagine, with painful
particularity, the scene in that little cabin a few moments before. He
had looked in at the door a day or two since, and seen Plouff, a large
calabash pipe like a cornucopia in his mouth, propped up in his
bed-place, reading a very large book with marbled covers which turned
out to be the bound volume of a thirty-year-old magazine picked up for a
few pence in some port. He could see him thus engaged a few moments ago.
Mr. Spokesly gave a sort of half-sob, half-giggle. "My God, he isn't
here at all! He's been carried away, cabin and bunk and everything.
Smashed and drowned. Well!"
He felt he couldn't stop there any more. It was worse than finding
Plouff's mangled body in the ruins. To have been wiped out like that
without a chance to explain a single word to any one was tragic for
Plouff. Mr. Spokesly gave a shout.
"Anybody down there?" There was no answer. He found himself wondering
what the captain's comment would be upon Plouff's sudden departure for
parts unknown. He tried to convince himself that there was no reason for
supposing him to be dead. He saw him sitting up in his bunk in the sea,
still clasping the large book and smoking the trumpet-shaped pipe, and
indulging in a querulous explanation of his unusual behaviour. Which
would not be his fault for once, Mr. Spokesly reflected. No doubt,
however, Captain Rannie would log him for deserting the ship. Mr.
Spokesly went aft and looked at the boat near which he had been standing
when the collision happened. It was hanging by the after davit, a mere
bunch of smashed sticks. Trailing in the water and making a soft
swishing sound were the bow plates and bulwarks which had been peeled
from the forepart of the _Kalkis_ by the sharp prow of the stranger. And
yet she seemed to have suffered nothing below the water-line. Mr.
Spokesly, who knew Plouff kept the sounding rod in his cabin, wondered
how he was going to sound the wells. He thought of the engineer, stepped
over to the port side to reach the after ladder, and pulled himself up
short to avoid falling over a huddled group gathered alongside the
engine-room hatch.
"What's the matter?" he stammered, astonished. He saw the steward, a
coat hastily put on over his apron, Amos, whose glittering and
protuberant eyes were less certain than ever of his future fortune, and
Evanthia. She was not afraid. She was angry. She darted at Mr. Spokesly
and broke into a torrent of invective against the two wretched beings
who wanted to get into the boat and couldn't untie the ropes.
"Pigs, dogs, carrion!" she shrilled at them in Greek, and then to Mr.
Spokesly she said,
"The ship. Is it finished?"
"No. Ship's all right. Why don't you go down?"
"_Mon Dieu!_ Why? He asks why! Did you hear the noise? The bed is
broken. The window, the lamp, _Brr-pp_!" She clapped her hands together.
"Why? Go and see," and she turned away from him to rage once more at the
two terrified creatures who had been unable to carry out her imperious
orders. These had been to set her afloat in the lifeboat instantly; and
willingly would they have done it, and gone in with her themselves; but
alas, they had been unable to let the villainous boat drop into the
water.
Mr. Spokesly was genuinely alarmed at this news. He left them
precipitately and ran down the cabin stairs to find out if the ship was
making water.
There was no need. The _Kalkis_, on rebounding from the terrific impact
on her forecastle, had heeled over to starboard, the side of the ship
had been buckled and crushed along the line of the deck, and the
concussion had knocked the lamp out of its gimbals and it was rolling on
the floor. He picked it up and relit it. He hurried out again to find
the engineer. His training was urging him to get the wells sounded.
Moreover, the filling of the forepeak through the smashed chain-locker
had put the ship down by the head a little. She might be all right, but
on the other hand....
He found the engineer calmly hauling the line out of the forward
sounding pipes.
"Is she making anything, Chief?" he asked anxiously.
"Just show a light please, Mister Mate. I got a flashlight here but it's
gone out on me. Why, four inches. Nothing much _here_. We'll try the
other side, eh?"
They scrambled over the hatch and hastily wiped the rod dry before
lowering it into the pipe.
"Hm!" The engineer grunted as he brought the rod into view again.
"_Three feet!_ I reckon she's makin' some water here through that
bulkhead, Mister Mate. What say if I try the pumps on her, eh?"
"You do that, will you? I was afraid o' that, Chief. You know the
bosun's gone?"
"Is that so? Gee! That's a big smash! The bosun? Tk--tk! I'll get the
pump on her."
"Now!" said Mr. Spokesly to himself, "I'm going to see the Old Man." And
he sprang up the ladders once more.
Captain Rannie was not to be seen, however. Mr. Spokesly went upon the
bridge charged with belligerence. But Captain Rannie was an old hand. He
had had an extraordinarily varied experience of exasperated subordinates
and Mr. Spokesly's conscientious tantrums worried him not at all.
Especially did he fail to appreciate the significance of his chief
officer's anxiety at this moment since from his own point of view this
smash in the fog, supposing they did not meet any inquisitive craft for
an hour or two, and this was not at all likely--this smash was a piece
of singular good fortune. The cruiser would report ramming a small
vessel in the fog, and the people in Saloniki, knowing the position of
the _Kalkis_, would conclude she was lost with all hands, when she
failed to appear at Phyros. It was so perfectly in accordance with his
desires that he decided to run down and get one of his own special
cigarettes. Now that he was actually in the middle of carrying out the
plans of the owner of the _Kalkis_, Captain Rannie suffered from none of
the timidity and truculent nervousness which had assailed him the day
before. He had more courage than Mr. Spokesly would ever admit because
that gentleman was not aware that his captain was a bad navigator. To
the bad navigator every voyage is a miracle.
So he came up jauntily, behind Mr. Spokesly, smoking a special
cigarette, and ignoring his chief officer completely until the latter
chose to speak. This was another trick he had learned in the course of
his career of oblique enthusiasms and carefully cultivated antagonisms.
He had once been savagely "attacked," as he called it, by a sailor
simply because he waited for the man to speak before saying a word! He
had found that men might growl at being treated "like dogs" but to rowel
the human soul it was far better to act as though they did not exist at
all. There was a blind primeval ferocity to be engendered by
adumbrating, even for a few moments, their non-existence. And now, with
everything in his favour, for he had heard the engineer's remarks on the
condition of the bilges forward, he was resolved to "maintain his
authority," as he phrased it, by "a perfectly justifiable silence."
But it was no use trying to convince Mr. Spokesly that he did not exist.
That gentleman, in the course of the last few minutes, since the
collision in fact, had experienced a great accession of vitality. He
felt as though not only his own existence but the integrity of the ship
as a living whole, her frame, her life, her freight, and the souls
clinging to her in the blind white void of the fog, was concentrated in
himself. He looked over the side and tried to see if the engineer had
succeeded in getting the pump on that bilge. She was down by the
head--no doubt of that. And yet there couldn't be any real fracture of
that bulkhead, or the fore-hold would have filled by now. Lucky all the
caps were well lashed on the ventilators. He looked over the side again.
The fog seemed clearing a little. And the ship was moving faster. The
beat of the engines was certainly more rapid. He stared at the
ostentatiously turned back of his commander with a sort of exasperated
admiration. He was evidently a much more accomplished scoundrel than Mr.
Spokesly had imagined. Here he had extra speed up his sleeve. Why, it
might be anything up to thirteen knots. Not that the _Kalkis_ had
boilers for that speed. Wow! He was a card!
"I suppose you know the bosun was carried overboard when that ship hit
us," Mr. Spokesly remarked in a conversational tone as the captain
approached in his stroll.
"And I've no doubt," said Captain Rannie with extreme bitterness to the
surrounding air, "that you blame me for not stopping and picking him
up."
"You might have stopped, certainly," said his chief officer; "but the
point is, if you'd been on your right course you wouldn't have hit
anything."
"Oh, indeed! Oh, indeed!" said the captain.
"Yes, oh, indeed. You won't maintain you were on the right course, I
suppose."
"I maintain nothing," snapped the captain. "I'll merely trouble you to
ask the man at the wheel what course he was making when we were run into
by one of those infernal, careless naval officers who think they know
everything, like you. And after that I'll merely invite you to mind your
own business."
"Mind my own business!" repeated Mr. Spokesly in a daze.
"And I'll mind mine," added the captain after a dramatic pause, and
turning on his heel.
"You're like some bally old woman," began Mr. Spokesly, "with your nag,
nag, nag. I don't wonder that Maltee mate used to go for you."
"Ask the man at the wheel what course he was steering," repeated the
captain distinctly, coming back out of the gloom and wheeling away
again.
"I'll be going for you myself before this trip is over," added the mate.
"And then kindly leave the bridge," concluded the captain, reappearing
once more, as though emerging suddenly from the wings of a theatre and
declaiming a speech in a play. Having declaimed it, however, he
retreated with singular precipitancy.
"I must say, I've been with a few commanders in my time," Mr. Spokesly
began in a general way. He heard his captain's voice out of the dark
opining that he had no doubt every one of those commanders was glad
enough to get rid of him. He could easily believe that.
"Perhaps they were," agreed Mr. Spokesly. "Perhaps they were. The point
is, even supposing that was the case, they never made me want to throw
them over the side."
The voice came out of the darkness again, commenting upon Mr. Spokesly's
extreme forbearance.
"Don't drive me too far," he warned.
The voice said all Mr. Spokesly had to do was remove himself and come on
the bridge when he was sent for. No driving was intended.
"Ah, you talk very well, captain. I'm only wondering whether you'll talk
half so well at the Inquiry."
The voice asked, what inquiry? with a titter.
"There's always an inquiry, somewhere, sometime," said Mr. Spokesly,
dully, wondering what he himself would have to say, for that matter. He
heard the voice enunciate with a certain lisping exactitude, "Not yet."
"Oh, no, not yet. When the war's won, let's say," he replied. This
seemed such a convenient substitute for "never," that he was not
surprised to get no answer save a sound like "Tchah!"
"The fog's lifting," he remarked absently. It was. He could already see
a number of stars above his head through the thinning vapour. "I'll
leave you," he added, "must get some sleep. However," he went on, "we'll
have another look at the bilges. I got a certificate to lose as well as
you--if you've got one."
The captain remained in obscurity, and made no reply.
"I mean, if you haven't had it endorsed, or suspended, or any little
thing like that."
There was no answer, and tiring of the sport, Mr. Spokesly picked up the
hurricane lamp and went down again to sound the starboard bilge. He was
getting very tired physically, now the reaction from the excitement of
the collision had set in. He found the sounding-rod, neatly chalked,
ready to lower. Very decent party, that engineer, he reflected. Rather
disconcerting though in his almost perfect neutrality. The wife and the
big family out at Cospicua, which is near Valletta, seemed to be a
powerful resolvent of sentimental ideas. For such a man there was
nothing of any permanence in the world to compare with a permanent
billet. His loyalty was to his job rather than to abstract principles of
nationality. Well! The rod showed two feet eight inches. Mr. Spokesly
breathed more easily. He had got his pumps going, then. He decided to go
aft. Yes, the fog was clearing.
In the stress of the crisis through which he was passing, the mysterious
and exacerbating strife going on between himself and the captain, Mr.
Spokesly seemed to himself to be separated from Evanthia as by a
transparent yet impassable barrier. The insignificance of such a
creature in the face of a material disaster as had been impending
appalled him. He saw with abrupt clarity how, if the ship had been
mortally hit, and if there had been any manner of struggle to save their
lives, she would not have sustained the part of fainting heroine rescued
by lion-hearted men, or that of heroic comrade taking her place in the
peril beside them. Nothing of the sort. She would have got into the boat
and commanded the crew to row away with her at once. She did not know
that Plouff was gone, and if he went down and told her, she would not
care a flip of her fingers. That, he was surprised to realize, was part
of her charm. She was so entirely pagan in her attitude towards men. She
was one of those women who were born to be possessed by men, but the men
who possess them can possess nothing else. They are the destroyers, not
of morals, but of ideals. They render the imagination futile because
they possess the powerful arts of the enchantresses, the daughters of
Helios. They demand the chastity of an anchorite and the devotion of a
knight of the Grail. While the virtuous and generous bend under the
weight of their self-appointed travails, these pass by in swift
palanquins of silk and fine gold, and are adored by the valiant and the
wise.
And he was going to marry her.
He slept heavily on the engineer's settee. He had told that obliging
person to give him a call at midnight--he wanted to see what the Old Man
was up to. The Old Man, however, later gave Mr. Cassar explicit orders
to let the mate sleep--he would remain on duty himself. The chief felt
it incumbent upon him to oblige the captain, and Mr. Spokesly slept on,
much disturbed none the less by grotesque and laboured forebodings of
his subconscious being, so that he moved restlessly at times, as though
some occult power within was striving to rouse him. Indeed, it was the
spirit of duty struggling with wearied tissues. It was past three when
the former was so far successful as to wrench his eyes open. He started
up, stretched, looked at the engineer's clock, and muttered that he must
have fallen asleep again. He put on his coat and cap, and taking a
hurried glance at the engineer, who was sprawling on his back in his
bunk with his mouth open and his fingers clutching the matted growth of
black hair on his chest, he hurried out on deck.
The fog was gone, and a high, level canopy of thin clouds gave the night
the character of an enormous and perfectly dark chamber. The _Kalkis_
was moving so slowly, Mr. Spokesly could with difficulty keep tally of
the beat of the engines. Yet she was moving. He could hear the sough of
water, and there was a faint phosphorescence along the ship's side. And
a change in the air, an indefinable modification of temperature and
possibly smell, led him to examine the near horizon for the deeper
blackness of a high shore. He listened intently, trying to detect the
sound of waves on the rocks. He tried to figure out what the position
would be now, if they had made the course he suspected. They ought to be
under the southern shores of Lesbos by now. But if that were the case
the cool breeze coming off shore would be on the port side. He listened,
sniffed, and resigned himself passively for a moment to the impact of
influences so subtle that to one unaccustomed to the sea they might be
suspected of supernatural sources. He climbed to the bridge-deck and
went over to where the smashed boat hung like a skeleton from the
crumpled davit. And he was aware at once of the correctness of his
suspicions. But it would not be Lesbos. It was the high land which juts
northward and forms the western promontory of the long curving Gulf of
Smyrna. He could see it as an intenser and colder projection of the
darkness. And then his curiosity centred about the more complex problem
of speed. They could not be doing more than a couple of knots. What was
the old fraud's game? Waiting for a signal, perhaps. He had evidently
got himself and his old ship inside any mines that had been laid between
Chios and Lesbos. If there were any. Perhaps he was waiting for
daylight.
This was the correct solution. Captain Rannie had crept as close in
under Lesbos as he had dared according to the scanty hints he had gotten
from Mr. Dainopoulos, who had been informed by a Greek sailor from a
captured Bulgarian schooner that there was a safe passage inshore to the
east of Cape Vurkos. The result, however, of clearing the southern coast
of Lesbos in safety was to engender a slight recklessness in the
captain. For his dangers were practically over. Even if he got run
ashore later, they could get the cargo out of her. And he had made too
much distance east before turning south, so that, in trying to raise a
certain point on the western side, he had grown confused. The chart was
not large enough. When Mr. Spokesly appeared once more on the bridge,
Captain Rannie had rung "Slow" on the telegraph, and was endeavouring to
locate some sort of light upon the immense wall of blackness that rose
to starboard.
And it could not be asserted that he was sorry to see his chief officer.
That gentleman could not do much now. Captain Rannie, with his
binoculars to his eyes, was trembling with excitement. According to the
chart he ought to see a red light on his port bow within an hour or two.
There was a good reason for supposing that light was still kept burning
even during the war. It could not be seen from the northward and was of
prime importance to coasting vessels in the Gulf when making the turn
eastward into the great inland estuary at the head of which lay the
city. He was creeping along under the high western shore until he felt
he could make the turn. It was shallow water away to the eastward, by
the salt-works. It was nearly over. He would get the money, in gold, and
wait quietly until the war was over, and take a passage back to China.
He knew a valley, the Valley of Blue Primroses, a mere fold in a range
of enormous mountains, where men dwelt amid scenes of beauty and
ineffable peace, where he would live, too, far away from the people of
his own race, and far from the detestable rabble of ships. He had never
got on with seamen. Sooner or later, they always attacked him either
with violence or invective. He would be revenged on the whole pack of
them!
He heard his chief officer behind him and maintained his attitude of
close attention. He was trembling. One, two, or perhaps three or four
hours and he would know that all was well. He wished he could see
better, though. During the fog there had been a curious sense of
satisfaction in his heart because he knew that, whatever happened, his
defective vision would make no difference. Oh, he could see all right.
But those damned red lights. He was sure there was nothing, yet. That
chief officer of his had gone into the chart room. Captain Rannie forgot
himself so far as to titter. Imagine a simple-minded creature like that
trying to put _him_ out of countenance! Inquiry! A fine show _he_ would
make at the inquiry, with a woman in his cabin, and six months' pay in
his pocket! Ho-ho! These smart young men! He hated them. There was only
one kind of human being he hated more and that was a young woman. He was
perfectly sincere. The Caucasian had come to him to appear like a puffy
white fungus, loathsome to come in contact with. Without ever expressing
himself, for there was no need, he had conceived a strong predilection
for the Oriental. He loved the permanence of the type, the skins like
yellow silk, the hair like polished ebony, the eyes, long and narrow,
like black satin. He liked to have them on the ship, silent, incurious,
efficient, devoid of ambition. He put the glasses in the little locker
by the bridge-rail. There was no light to be seen.
He started towards the chart-room door and found himself confronted by
his chief officer. He would have brushed past with his almost feminine
petulance had not Mr. Spokesly once again seized his shoulder.
"She hasn't got steerage way," said the mate.
"What do you mean by steerage way?" he inquired sarcastically.
"Do you know where you are?" demanded Mr. Spokesly, steadily, "or is it
your intention to run her ashore? I'm only asking for information."
Captain Rannie forced himself into the chart room and putting on his
glasses examined the chart afresh. Mr. Spokesly followed him in and shut
the door.
"I won't have this," the captain began rapidly, laying his hand on the
chart and staring down at it. "I won't have it, I tell you. You force
yourself in upon me and I am obliged to speak plainly."
"I only want to tell you," said Mr. Spokesly, "that you are too far to
the westward. The current is setting you this way," he tapped the chart
where a large indentation bore away due south, "and by daylight you
won't have sea room."
"I don't believe it!" exclaimed the captain, who meant that he did
believe it. "I have taken the log every quarter of an hour."
"Well," said Mr. Spokesly, who was perfectly at ease in this sort of
navigation, "the current won't show on the log, which is away out any
way. I tell you again, she's going ashore. And it's deep water all round
here, as you can see. It won't take a very heavy wallop to send her to
the bottom with her bows opened out and the fore peak bulkhead leaking
already. Put her about. If you don't," said the mate with his hand on
the door and looking hard at his commander, "do you know what I'll do?"
He did not wait for an answer but went out and closed the door sharply.
He picked up the telescope and examined the horizon on the port bow. He
could discern without difficulty the lofty silhouette of a rocky
promontory between the ship and the faint beginnings of the dawn. He
turned to the helmsman.
"Hard over to port," he said quietly, and reaching out his hand he rang
"Full ahead" on the telegraph. It answered with a brisk scratching
jangle, and a rhythmic tremor passed through the vessel's frame, as
though she, too, had suddenly realized her peril.
"You do what I say," he warned the man at the wheel, who did not reply.
He only twirled the spokes energetically, and the little ship heeled
over as she went round. Mr. Spokesly looked again at the approaching
coast. There was plenty of room. He heard the door open and the captain
come out.
"Easy now," Mr. Spokesly said. "Starboard. Easy does it. That's the
style. Well, do you believe what I say now, Captain?"
"I'll report you--I'll have you arrested--I'll use my power----" he
stuttered, stopping short by the binnacle and bending double in the
impotence of his anger. "Remember, I can tell things about you," he
added, pointing his finger at the mate, as though he were actually
indicating a visible mark of guilt.
"Shut up," said Mr. Spokesly, staring hard through the telescope. "Hold
her on that now, Quartermaster, till I give the word. There will be
enough light soon."
Captain Rannie came up to his chief officer's shoulder and whispered:
"You're in this as deep as I am, remember."
"I'm not in it at all and don't you forget it," bawled Mr. Spokesly. The
man at the wheel said suddenly in a querulous tone:
"I can't see to steer."
Captain Rannie had fallen back against the binnacle and the sleeve of
his coat covered the round hole through which the compass could be seen.
"You threaten me?" he whimpered. "You threaten the master of the ship?"
"Threaten!" repeated Mr. Spokesly, looking eagerly through the
binoculars. "Couple of points to starboard, you. I reckon she's all
right now," he muttered to himself, "but we'll go half speed for a bit,"
and he pulled the handle. At the sound of the reply gong and the
obsequious movement of the pointer on the dial Captain Rannie was
galvanized into fresh life. It was as though the sound had reminded him
of something.
"You've been against me ever since you came aboard," he announced. "I
noticed it from the first. You had made up your mind to give me all the
trouble you possibly could. I don't know how it is, I'm sure, but I
always get the most insubordinate and useless officers on my ship. You
go in these big lines and get exaggerated ideas of your own importance,
and then come to me and try it on here. How can a commander get on with
officers who defy him and incite the crew to mutiny? Don't deny it. What
you're doing now is mutiny. It may take time, but I'll do it. I'll get
you into all the trouble I possibly can for this. I--I--I'll log the
whole thing. I'm sorry I ever shipped you. I might have known. I
suspected something of the sort. A manner you had in the office.
Impudent, insubordinate, self-sufficient. On the beach. Not a suit of
clothes to your back. Had to borrow money--_I_ heard all about it. And
then bringing a woman on the ship. Told some sort of tale to the owner.
All very fine. I might as well tell you now, since you've taken this
attitude, that I knew we wouldn't get on. If it had been a regular
voyage I wouldn't have had you. It's been nothing but trouble since you
came. The other man was bad enough, but you...."
"Starboard, Quartermaster. Go ahead, Captain. That's one thing about
you. Nothing matters so long as you can go on talking. Fire away if it
eases your mind. But I'm taking this ship in. See the fairway? If you
make anything out of this trip, and I dare say you'll make it all right,
don't forget you owe it to me. You had me rattled a bit when you ran
into that ship last night. I thought you knew what you were doing. And
you were just scared. Sitting over there on that life-belt, blowing up
that patent vest of yours. Thought I didn't notice it, eh? So busy
blowing it up you couldn't answer me when I called you. Master of the
ship! Yah!"
Captain Rannie was visible now, a high-shouldered figure with one hand
in his pocket and the other resting on the corner of the chart house.
During the night he had put on a thick woollen cap with a small knob,
the size of a cherry, on the point of it, and it made him look like some
fantastic creature out of an opera. It was as though he had materialized
out of the darkness, an elderly imp foiled in his mischievous designs.
He stood there, looking down at the deck, his mouth working over his
toothless gums, silently yet frantically marshalling the routed forces
of his personality.
"All right!" he exclaimed. "You take her, I hold you responsible, mind
that. I wash my hands of you. You incited my crew to mutiny. Defied my
orders."
Mr. Spokesly turned suddenly and Captain Rannie rushed to the ladder and
descended halfway, holding by the hand-rail and looking up at Mr.
Spokesly's knees.
"Don't you attack me!" he shrilled. "Don't you dare...." He paused,
breathing heavily.
Mr. Spokesly walked to the ladder.
"You'd better go down and pull yourself together," he said in a low
tone. "You're only making yourself conspicuous. I can manage without
you. And if you come up here again until I've taken her in, by heavens
I'll throw you over the side."
He walked back quickly to the bridge-rail, and stared with anxious eyes
into the stretch of fairway. He could not help feeling that something
tremendous was happening to him. To say that to the captain of the ship!
But he had to keep his attention on the course. Looking ahead, it was as
though he had made the same error of which he had accused the Captain,
of running into the land. On the port side the low shore in the
half-light ran up apparently into the immense wall of blue mountains in
the distance. A few more miles and he would see. He looked down at the
torn strakes draggling in the water alongside, at the smashed boat, and
the tangled wreckage on the fore-deck. She was very much down by the
head now, he noted. Yet they were making it. It would be any moment now
when the land would open out away to the eastward and he would give the
word to bear away.
And as the sun came up behind the great ranges of Asia and touched the
dark blue above their summits with an electric radiance so that the sea
and the shore, though dark, were yet strangely clear, he saw the white
riffle of contending currents away to port, and got his sure bearings in
the Gulf. And as he rang "Full speed ahead" he heard a step behind him
and felt a quick pressure of his arm.
She was wearing the big blue overcoat, which was Plouff's last
demonstration of his own peculiar and indefatigable usefulness, and her
face glowed in the depths of the up-turned collar. The morning breeze
blew her hair about as she peered eagerly towards the goal of her
desire.
"See!" she cried happily, pointing, one finger showing at the end of the
huge sleeve. "See the town?" She snatched the glasses and held them to
her eyes. "Giaour Ismir!"
"You don't want to get into the boat after all," he said, putting his
arm about her shoulders.
"Me? No! That fool said the ship would go down. Look! Oh, _quelle jolie
ville_!"
"Where?" he said, taking the glasses.
"See!" She pointed into the dim gray stretch of the waters that lay like
a lake in the bosom of immense mountains. He looked and saw what she
meant, a spatter of white on the blue hillside, a tiny sparkle of lights
and clusters of tall cypresses, black against the mists of the morning.
And along the coast on their right lay a gray-green sea of foliage where
the olive groves lined the shore. Range beyond range the mountains
receded, barring the light of the sun and leaving the great city in a
light as mysterious as the dawn of a new world. Far up the Gulf, beyond
the last glitter of the long sea wall, he could see the valleys flooded
with pale golden light from the hidden sun, with white houses looking
down upon the waters from their green nests of cypresses and oaks.
"Why don't they come out?" he wondered half to himself. "Are they all
asleep?"
"Oh, the poor ones, they must come out in a boat. They have no coal,"
she retorted. "Look! there is a little ship sailing out! Tck!"
He looked at it. Well, what could they do? He held her close. She must
be interpreter for him, he said. Oh, of course. She would tell them what
a hero he was, how he had brought them safely through innumerable
dangers for her sake. They would live, see! Up there. He had no idea how
happy they would be!
The little sailing boat was coming out, her sail like a fleck of cambric
on the dark water.
He said there was no need to tell them he was a hero.
"They will know it," she said, "when they see the poor ship. Oh, yes, I
will tell them everything. I will tell them you did this because you
love me."
"Will they believe it?" he asked in a low tone, watching the city as
they drew nearer.
"Believe?" she questioned without glancing at him. "It is nothing to
them. What matter? I tell them something, that is all."
He did not reply to this, merely turning to give an order to the
helmsman. The other seaman was coming along the deck, and he called him
to take in the log and run up the ensign. It was nothing to them, he
thought, repeating her words to himself. Nothing. They would make no
fine distinctions between himself and the captain. Yes, she was right in
that. He went into the chart room and got out the flags of the ship's
name. She, the ship, was not to blame, he muttered. She had been
faithful. "And so have I!" he cried out within himself. He could not
make it clear even to himself, but as he bent the grimy little flags to
the signal halyards and hoisted them to the crosstrees, and saw them
straighten out like sheets of tin in the breeze, he had an uplifting of
the heart. He rang "Stop" to the engine room, and went over to Evanthia.
"Go down," he said gently, "and tell the captain he must come up. We are
going to drop the anchor. There is a boat coming alongside."
He stood watching the boat bearing down upon them. He tried to think
clearly. Yes, the captain must come up. The complex animosities of the
night must be put away. And though he was a little afraid of what lay
before him in that great fair city rising from the sea, he had no
regrets for the past. He felt, in spite of everything, he had been
faithful.