“Sterne--of course. Look at him blink. Look at him! Sterne, Whalley,
Massy. Massy, Whalley, Sterne. But Massy’s the best. You can’t come over
him. He would just love to see you starve.”
Mr. Van Wyk moved away, made out farther forward a shadowy head stuck
out from under the awnings as if on the watch, and spoke quietly in
Malay, “Is the mate asleep?”
“No. Here, at your service.”
In a moment Sterne appeared, walking as noiselessly as a cat on the
wharf.
“It’s so jolly dark, and I had no idea you would be down to-night.”
“What’s this horrible raving?” asked Mr. Van Wyk, as if to explain the
cause of a shudder than ran over him audibly.
“Jack’s broken out on a drunk. That’s our second. It’s his way. He will
be right enough by to-morrow afternoon, only Mr. Massy will keep on
worrying up and down the deck. We had better get away.”
He muttered suggestively of a talk “up at the house.” He had long
desired to effect an entrance there, but Mr. Van Wyk nonchalantly
demurred: it would not, he feared, be quite prudent, perhaps; and
the opaque black shadow under one of the two big trees left at the
landing-place swallowed them up, impenetrably dense, by the side of the
wide river, that seemed to spin into threads of glitter the light of
a few big stars dropped here and there upon its outspread and flowing
stillness.
“The situation is grave beyond doubt,” Mr. Van Wyk said. Ghost-like in
their white clothes they could not distinguish each others’ features,
and their feet made no sound on the soft earth. A sort of purring was
heard. Mr. Sterne felt gratified by such a beginning.
“I thought, Mr. Van Wyk, a gentleman of your sort would see at once how
awkwardly I was situated.”
“Yes, very. Obviously his health is bad. Perhaps he’s breaking up. I
see, and he himself is well aware--I assume I am speaking to a man of
sense--he is well aware that his legs are giving out.”
“His legs--ah!” Mr. Sterne was disconcerted, and then turned sulky.
“You may call it his legs if you like; what I want to know is whether he
intends to clear out quietly. That’s a good one, too! His legs! Pooh!”
“Why, yes. Only look at the way he walks.” Mr. Van Wyk took him up in a
perfectly cool and undoubting tone. “The question, however, is whether
your sense of duty does not carry you too far from your true interest.
After all, I too could do something to serve you. You know who I am.”
“Everybody along the Straits has heard of you, sir.”
Mr. Van Wyk presumed that this meant something favorable. Sterne had
a soft laugh at this pleasantry. He should think so! To the opening
statement, that the partnership agreement was to expire at the end of
this very trip, he gave an attentive assent. He was aware. One heard of
nothing else on board all the blessed day long. As to Massy, it was no
secret that he was in a jolly deep hole with these worn-out boilers. He
would have to borrow somewhere a couple of hundred first of all to pay
off the captain; and then he would have to raise money on mortgage upon
the ship for the new boilers--that is, if he could find a lender at all.
At best it meant loss of time, a break in the trade, short earnings
for the year--and there was always the danger of having his connection
filched away from him by the Germans. It was whispered about that he
had already tried two firms. Neither would have anything to do with
him. Ship too old, and the man too well known in the place. . . .
Mr. Sterne’s final rapid winking remained buried in the deep darkness
sibilating with his whispers.
“Supposing, then, he got the loan,” Mr. Van Wyk resumed in a deliberate
undertone, “on your own showing he’s more than likely to get a
mortgagee’s man thrust upon him as captain. For my part, I know that I
would make that very stipulation myself if I had to find the money.
And as a matter of fact I am thinking of doing so. It would be worth
my while in many ways. Do you see how this would bear on the case under
discussion?”
“Thank you, sir. I am sure you couldn’t get anybody that would care more
for your interests.”
“Well, it suits my interest that Captain Whalley should finish his time.
I shall probably take a passage with you down the Straits. If that can
be done, I’ll be on the spot when all these changes take place, and in a
position to look after _your_ interests.”
“Mr. Van Wyk, I want nothing better. I am sure I am infinitely . . .”
“I take it, then, that this may be done without any trouble.”
“Well, sir, what risk there is can’t be helped; but (speaking to you as
my employer now) the thing is more safe than it looks. If anybody had
told me of it I wouldn’t have believed it, but I have been looking on
myself. That old Serang has been trained up to the game. There’s nothing
the matter with his--his--limbs, sir. He’s got used to doing things
himself in a remarkable way. And let me tell you, sir, that Captain
Whalley, poor man, is by no means useless. Fact. Let me explain to you,
sir. He stiffens up that old monkey of a Malay, who knows well enough
what to do. Why, he must have kept captain’s watches in all sorts of
country ships off and on for the last five-and-twenty years. These
natives, sir, as long as they have a white man close at the back, will
go on doing the right thing most surprisingly well--even if left quite
to themselves. Only the white man must be of the sort to put starch into
them, and the captain is just the one for that. Why, sir, he has drilled
him so well that now he needs hardly speak at all. I have seen that
little wrinkled ape made to take the ship out of Pangu Bay on a blowy
morning and on all through the islands; take her out first-rate, sir,
dodging under the old man’s elbow, and in such quiet style that you
could not have told for the life of you which of the two was doing the
work up there. That’s where our poor friend would be still of use to
the ship even if--if--he could no longer lift a foot, sir. Provided the
Serang does not know that there’s anything wrong.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Naturally not. Quite beyond his apprehension. They aren’t capable of
finding out anything about us, sir.”
“You seem to be a shrewd man,” said Mr. Van Wyk in a choked mutter, as
though he were feeling sick.
“You’ll find me a good enough servant, sir.”
Mr. Sterne hoped now for a handshake at least, but unexpectedly, with a
“What’s this? Better not to be seen together,” Mr. Van Wyk’s white shape
wavered, and instantly seemed to melt away in the black air under
the roof of boughs. The mate was startled. Yes. There was that faint
thumping clatter.
He stole out silently from under the shade. The lighted port-hole shone
from afar. His head swam with the intoxication of sudden success. What
a thing it was to have a gentleman to deal with! He crept aboard, and
there was something weird in the shadowy stretch of empty decks, echoing
with shouts and blows proceeding from a darker part amidships. Mr. Massy
was raging before the door of the berth: the drunken voice within flowed
on undisturbed in the violent racket of kicks.
“Shut up! Put your light out and turn in, you confounded swilling
pig--you! D’you hear me, you beast?”
The kicking stopped, and in the pause the muzzy oracular voice announced
from within--
“Ah! Massy, now--that’s another thing. Massy’s deep.”
“Who’s that aft there? You, Sterne? He’ll drink himself into a fit of
horrors.” The chief engineer appeared vague and big at the corner of the
engineroom.
“He will be good enough for duty to-morrow. I would let him be, Mr.
Massy.”
Sterne slipped away into his berth, and at once had to sit down. His
head swam with exultation. He got into his bunk as if in a dream. A
feeling of profound peace, of pacific joy, came over him. On deck all
was quiet.
Mr. Massy, with his ear against the door of Jack’s cabin, listened
critically to a deep stertorous breathing within. This was a dead-drunk
sleep. The bout was over: tranquilized on that score, he too went in,
and with slow wriggles got out of his old tweed jacket. It was a garment
with many pockets, which he used to put on at odd times of the day,
being subject to sudden chilly fits, and when he felt warmed he would
take it off and hang it about anywhere all over the ship. It would
be seen swinging on belaying-pins, thrown over the heads of winches,
suspended on people’s very door-handles for that matter. Was he not the
owner? But his favorite place was a hook on a wooden awning stanchion on
the bridge, almost against the binnacle. He had even in the early days
more than one tussle on that point with Captain Whalley, who desired the
bridge to be kept tidy. He had been overawed then. Of late, though, he
had been able to defy his partner with impunity. Captain Whalley never
seemed to notice anything now. As to the Malays, in their awe of that
scowling man not one of the crew would dream of laying a hand on the
thing, no matter where or what it swung from.
With an unexpectedness which made Mr. Massy jump and drop the coat
at his feet, there came from the next berth the crash and thud of a
headlong, jingling, clattering fall. The faithful Jack must have dropped
to sleep suddenly as he sat at his revels, and now had gone over chair
and all, breaking, as it seemed by the sound, every single glass and
bottle in the place. After the terrific smash all was still for a time
in there, as though he had killed himself outright on the spot. Mr.
Massy held his breath. At last a sleepy uneasy groaning sigh was exhaled
slowly on the other side of the bulkhead.
“I hope to goodness he’s too drunk to wake up now,” muttered Mr. Massy.
The sound of a softly knowing laugh nearly drove him to despair. He
swore violently under his breath. The fool would keep him awake all
night now for certain. He cursed his luck. He wanted to forget his
maddening troubles in sleep sometimes. He could detect no movements.
Without apparently making the slightest attempt to get up, Jack went on
sniggering to himself where he lay; then began to speak, where he had
left off as it were--
“Massy! I love the dirty rascal. He would like to see his poor old Jack
starve--but just you look where he has climbed to.” . . . He hiccoughed
in a superior, leisurely manner. . . . “Ship-owning it with the best.
A lottery ticket you want. Ha! ha! I will give you lottery tickets, my
boy. Let the old ship sink and the old chum starve--that’s right. He
don’t go wrong--Massy don’t. Not he. He’s a genius--that man is. That’s
the way to win your money. Ship and chum must go.”
“The silly fool has taken it to heart,” muttered Massy to himself. And,
listening with a softened expression of face for any slight sign of
returning drowsiness, he was discouraged profoundly by a burst of
laughter full of joyful irony.
“Would like to see her at the bottom of the sea! Oh, you clever, clever
devil! Wish her sunk, eh? I should think you would, my boy; the damned
old thing and all your troubles with her. Rake in the insurance money
--turn your back on your old chum--all’s well--gentleman again.”
A grim stillness had come over Massy’s face. Only his big black eyes
rolled uneasily. The raving fool. And yet it was all true. Yes. Lottery
tickets, too. All true. What? Beginning again? He wished he
wouldn’t. . . .
But it was even so. The imaginative drunkard on the other side of the
bulkhead shook off the deathlike stillness that after his last words had
fallen on the dark ship moored to a silent shore.
“Don’t you dare to say anything against George Massy, Esquire. When he’s
tired of waiting he will do away with her. Look out! Down she goes--chum
and all. He’ll know how to . . .”
The voice hesitated, weary, dreamy, lost, as if dying away in a vast
open space.
“. . . Find a trick that will work. He’s up to it--never fear . . .”
He must have been very drunk, for at last the heavy sleep gripped him
with the suddenness of a magic spell, and the last word lengthened
itself into an interminable, noisy, in-drawn snore. And then even the
snoring stopped, and all was still.
But it seemed as though Mr. Massy had suddenly come to doubt the
efficacy of sleep as against a man’s troubles; or perhaps he had found
the relief he needed in the stillness of a calm contemplation that
may contain the vivid thoughts of wealth, of a stroke of luck, of long
idleness, and may bring before you the imagined form of every desire;
for, turning about and throwing his arms over the edge of his bunk, he
stood there with his feet on his favorite old coat, looking out through
the round port into the night over the river. Sometimes a breath of wind
would enter and touch his face, a cool breath charged with the damp,
fresh feel from a vast body of water. A glimmer here and there was all
he could see of it; and once he might after all suppose he had dozed
off, since there appeared before his vision, unexpectedly and connected
with no dream, a row of flaming and gigantic figures--three naught seven
one two--making up a number such as you may see on a lottery ticket.
And then all at once the port was no longer black: it was pearly gray,
framing a shore crowded with houses, thatched roof beyond thatched
roof, walls of mats and bamboo, gables of carved teak timber. Rows
of dwellings raised on a forest of piles lined the steely band of the
river, brimful and still, with the tide at the turn. This was Batu
Beru--and the day had come.
Mr. Massy shook himself, put on the tweed coat, and, shivering nervously
as if from some great shock, made a note of the number. A fortunate,
rare hint that. Yes; but to pursue fortune one wanted money--ready cash.
Then he went out and prepared to descend into the engine-room. Several
small jobs had to be seen to, and Jack was lying dead drunk on the
floor of his cabin, with the door locked at that. His gorge rose at
the thought of work. Ay! But if you wanted to do nothing you had to get
first a good bit of money. A ship won’t save you. He cursed the Sofala.
True, all true. He was tired of waiting for some chance that would rid
him at last of that ship that had turned out a curse on his life.