It is Christmas Day, and I begin it with the clock as usual. George
the Fourth punches me in the ribs, grunts, "Merry new Christmas, Mac,"
and vanishes. There is not a breath of air stirring. Through the
sultry night air the stars burn brightly. A cluster of blurred lights
on the horizon show me where a liner is creeping past us in the
darkness--a ship passing in the night. Clad only in dungaree trousers
and singlet, I go below, on watch. The windsail hangs limp and
breathless, and the thermometer stands at 120 deg. Fah. Christmas Day!
Slowly in the hot air the hours drag on. One, two, three o'clock.
Then, "one bell." No breeze yet. I finish up, score my log on the
black-board--Sea water 90 deg., discharge 116 deg.--and call the
Second. He is awake, panting in the hot oven of his berth. If I wish
him a merry Christmas he will murder me. I slink below again, and have
a sea bath. Even salt water at 90 deg. Fah. is a boon after four hours
in that inferno.
A mug of cocoa--strange how hot cocoa cools one--and I turn in. I hear
the Skipper padding up and down in his sandals on the poop, clad only
in pyjamas. At last, as the stars are paling, I fall asleep.
At seven o'clock I am aroused by the mess-room steward leaning over
me, closing my ports. They are flooding the decks with sea-water to
cool them, and if my ports are open I am also flooded.
Still no relief. There is a deathly quiet in the mess-room as we
assembled to our Christmas breakfast of bacon and eggs, coffee, cocoa,
and marmalade. Imagine such a _menu_ in the tropics! The butter is
liquid, and from each of us, clad in singlets and white ducks,
the sweat streams. The day begins unpropitiously. John Thomas,
the mess-room steward, balancing himself on the top step of our
companion-way with three cups of boiling cocoa in his hands, slips and
thunders to the bottom. There is a chaotic mixture of scalded boy,
broken cups, and steam on the floor, and we giggle nervously in our
Turkish bath.
George the Fourth goes on watch, and we lie listlessly under our
awning, praying for a breeze. On the face of the blazing vault there
is not a single cloud, on the face of the waters not a ripple. The sea
is a vast pond of paraffin. The hot gases from the funnel rise
vertically, and the sun quivers behind them. The flaps of the windsail
hang dead, the sides of the canvas tube have fallen in like the neck
of a skinny old man. Slowly the sun mounts over our heads and the air
grows hotter and hotter. From the galley come sounds of quacking, and
a few feathers roll slowly past us. Now and then an agonized trimmer
will stagger out of a bunker hatch into the open air, his half-naked
body black with coal-dust and gleaming with sweat. The Mate, in a big
straw hat, paces the bridge slowly. The cook emerges from the galley
and hastens aft for provisions--they are preparing our Christmas
dinner. Roast duck, green peas, new potatoes, plum pudding--and the
temperature is 105 deg. Fah. on deck.
One bell. I rise, and go below to change for my watch--12 to 4.
"Will you take any dinner, sir?" John Thomas rubs the sweat from his
forehead and sets the soup on the table. I ponder on the madness of
eating Christmas fare in that oven-like mess-room, but sentiment
wins, and I sit down with the others.
"Hoondred an' twenty oonder t' win's'le," whispers George to me
huskily.
"What's the sea-water?" asks the Chief.
"Eighty-nine, sir."
We push the soup aside, and John Thomas brings in the roast ducks. How
appetizing they would be at home! The Chief wrenches them apart in
perspiring silence, and we fall to. We peck at the food; the sweat
drops from our faces into the plates, the utensils slide from our
hands, and so we make the best of it. But when the pudding arrives our
courage fails us. We _cannot_ face plum pudding, sentiment or no
sentiment. We gulp down some lime-juice and stagger away like dying
men--I to four hours' purgatory below.
Slowly (oh, so slowly!) the time drags on. The greaser draws his
tattooed arm across his eyes and whispers, with the triumph of a lost
soul bragging of the Circle of Fire, that he has known it "'otter'n
this in the Red Sea, sir." He is an entertaining man. Often I hear
tales from the wide world of waters from his lips. This is his last
voyage, he tells me. He is going "shore donkeyman" in future--what you
call longshoreman. His wife has a nice little business in Neath now,
and "she wants 'im 'ome." Have I noticed how that high-press guide is
leaking? Should he tighten up the tap-bolts in the bottom plate? I
dissent, because one cannot reach them safely while she is running. It
is only a trifle; better let it go. He acquiesces doubtfully, and
resumes greasing. And the hours drift by.
At four o'clock the Second relieves me, looking reproachfully at the
slackened windsail. Still no breeze. And the greaser, who does not go
off till six o'clock, observes, "Oh, wot a--'appy Christmas!" Which
would be profane if the temperature were lower.
I change into white ducks again and saunter up to the bridge to talk
to my friend the Mate. If I were to paraphrase Johnson's burst of
energy, I should say, "Sir, I _love_ the Mate!"
"Merry Christmas, Mr. McAlnwick!" he shouts cheerfully from the upper
bridge, and a chorus of yelping dogs joyfully take up the cry. They
are the "Old Man's," but they follow the Mate up and down until they
drop with fatigue. Black silky spaniel, rough-red Irish terrier, black
and grey badger-toed Scotch half-breed, nameless mongrel--they all
love the Mate. "Come here," he says, and I climb up to his level.
"The Old Man had a letter this mornin'," he says.
"Eh?" I remark blankly.
"Ah! His wife gave it me before we sailed an' I left it on his table
this mornin'! Says he, at breakfast, 'Pshaw!' says he, 'it's a waste
o' paper.'"
"Mr. Honna," I say, "perhaps he'll be sorry for saying that, eh?"
"He will, he will--some day, Mr. Mac," and he walks up and down the
bridge for a bit, smoking the pipe his children gave him for a present
last Christmas. I ask him:
"When shall we strike the trade wind, Mr. Honna?"
"Soon, soon. 'T ought to be here in the morning."
I climb down again, and sniff eagerly for the first beginnings of a
breeze. Nothing, unless you are optimistic and like to stare at a
brown streak away southward, between sky and sea.
I reach the engineers' awning aft of the engine-room, and see the
Chief in his chair, the Fourth in his hammock, and the Second just
come up for tea. I open my mouth and speak, when the regular throb of
the engines is broken by a scream. Like a flash each one springs to
his feet and looks at the others. The regular throb goes on as before,
and George laughs, but the Second disappears through the door, I
following. I shall not easily forget that scream.
Half-way down, a fireman, his face blanching under the coal-dust and
sweat, meets us.
"What's up?" snaps the Second.
"Donkeyman, sir. In the crankpit!" He plunges downward again, and we
do the same. Down into the fierce oily heat illuminated by the
electrics in front of each engine. The second puts two fingers in his
mouth and whistles shrilly to those above. And then we fall to work.
The telegraph is flung over to "Stop," the throttle is closed, ash-pit
damper put on, and the regular throb slackens, hesitates, stops. With
a dexterous flick of the reversing engine the Second catches the
high-press engine on the stop centre and locks her there. And then we
look.
Far better for him, poor lad, if he had taken my tip and left those
tap-bolts to leak. The Second says "Hand-lamp," and I give him one.
People are coming down the stairs in numbers now, and the Chief rushes
up to us, looks down, and turns away sickened. The ponderous cranks
have blood dashed across them, the rod is streaked and lathered with
it. From the bottom of the pit comes no sound, no movement. Lying on
the plates is the spanner which must have spun from his hand as he
fell to destruction.
"Now then, how many more?" snarls the Second. Sweat streams from his
face as he pushes the intruders away and lifts a man-hole plate in
the platform. I seize the hand-lamp and get down on to the tank, and
the Second follows. It is not pleasant, understand, down there, where
bilge collects and rats run riot, and grease is rolled into filthy
black balls, and the stench is intolerable. I push on towards the pit.
* * * * *
A full moon, blood-red and enormous, hangs just above the eastern
sky-line. In the west still burns the glow of the vanishing sun, and
the pale sky is twinkling with innumerable stars. The regular throb
of the engines drives the ship forward again, a sailor is hauling
down the red ensign from the poop, and another moves to and fro,
silhouetted against the southern sky, on the foc'sle-head. Just ahead
of the bridge two more sailors sit busily sewing. The Old Man stands
by the chart-house door talking to the Mate. The dogs lie quietly on
the lower deck, their heads between their paws.
In the after-hatch, covered by the flag, lies that which is about to
be committed to the deep.
The red glow fades from the west, and the moon swings upward, flooding
the sea with silver light. Away southward lies a black streak on the
sky-line and the windsail flickers a little. The two sailors have
finished sewing, and go aft. A fireman breaks the deck silence as he
hoists two firebars up from the for'ard stokehold and carries them
aft. Up on the poop, under the awning, the Second Mate has removed the
hand-rails on the starboard quarter, and the carpenter is lashing some
hatches in an inclined position.
We by the engine-room door are silent, for there is nothing to say. We
wait for the _Stand by_ bell in silence. A heavy footfall, and the
Skipper, his bronzed face hard-drawn, his snowy hair uncovered, passes
us. I think, even now, he is sorry for that sneer at his wife's little
trick. He is going to get the Prayer Book that lies close to his
revolver in his chest.
George and I go below and make all ready. I think the Second is glad
of our company, in the terrible heat. We potter about in silence: then
"_Stand by--Half--Slow--Stop_." A few minutes' swift toil, a hurried
wash, and we climb up on deck again into the moonlight. A white,
silent world of waters is about us as we join the crew going aft to
the poop. The awning has been partly folded back, and we see the
Skipper resting his book on the tiller-gear, while the Steward stands
by with a lantern. I look curiously into the faces I know so well,
seeking, in the presence of death, a little more knowledge of life. I
look at the Skipper, with his white hair and fierce moustache gleaming
in the silver radiance of the moon, his hands fumbling with the
leaves of the book. I look at the Chief, fidgeting about in the rear,
meeting no one's eye, his mouth working nervously. I look at George
the Fourth; he is staring like a schoolboy at the flag-covered thing
on the hatch, with the firebars lashed to its sides. And then the
silence is broken by the harsh, unsteady voice:
"_I am the resurrection and the life._"
The tension is almost unbearable now. We have not been educated to
this. We are like soldiers suddenly flung into the face of the enemy.
"_We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into
corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea
shall give up her dead), and the life of the world to come, through
our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body
that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty
working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself._"
A pause, and he closes the book. Two of the men quietly slacken the
ropes which hold the body in position, another pulls off the flag, and
the dark mass on the planks plunges downward into the oily sea.
Another pause, while I picture it rushing "down to the dark, to the
utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are," and the Chief
motions furtively with his fingers.
In a few minutes we are under way.
* * * * *
It is eight bells, midnight, once more. The sky to the southward is a
jet-black mass of clouds, and the windsail is yawing in a strong, cool
breeze. Away to the westward the moon still throws her glory over the
face of the waters and I go below, thinking of the night coming, when
no man shall work.
And so ends our Christmas Day.