I feel strangely to-night, and I cannot sleep. As I woke, Six Bells,
eleven o'clock, was striking, half carried away by the wind. For the
storm is rising, and a beam sea sends wave after wave against my
ports. Now and then, in the lulls, I feel the race of the propeller as
she rises from the water, sending vast tremors through the frame of
the empty ship. How she rolls! In my thwart-ship bunk I slide up and
down, and the green seas thunder over my head repeatedly. As I turn
out I feel excited. North Atlantic, light ship.
The mess-room is silent, dark. To and fro on the floor there washes a
few inches of water. The stove-pipe has been carried away, and the sea
has flooded the stove. The solid teak door at the top of the companion
groans as the tons of water are hurled against it. The brass lamp
glimmers in the darkness, creaking as it swings. Against the white
wall the Steward's whiter apron sways like a ghost, fluttering in some
eddy of draught. In the tiny pantry the cups clink softly on their
hooks. And outside the storm-wind whistles in demoniac fury.
Across the room a narrow slit of light shows where the Fourth's room
is hooked ajar. I go across and peer in. He is on watch, of course,
and there is no one there. But all round I see littered the belongings
of George's successor. A quiet, likeable Glasgow laddie, as I know him
yet. He has put up his bunk curtains, and as they sway I catch a
glimpse of a portrait. And so? Who can blame me if I look searchingly
into the eyes of the girl with ribbon in her hair and a silver cross
on her breast? And just beneath the narrow gold frame, swinging on a
screw, there is a coloured paper design, which I know emanates from
the Order of the Sacred Heart. It is an indulgence for one hundred
days, and it has been blessed by the Vicar of Christ. Yes, and the
laddie will have one on his breast, next the skin, as he stands by the
throttle down below. And when we are half a world away from the parish
church, he will be mindful of the tonsured man who gave him these; he
will read the little red Prayer Book, and he will be ill at ease on
Friday when we pass him the salt fish.
Glancing at an old cigar-box full of letters, I go out softly and hook
the door.
For all the darkness and the rushing water it is close, and I go up
and struggle desperately with the teak door, biding my time until the
waters surge back to the rail. The door crashes to again, and I
struggle on to the poop. To my amazement there are men here, four of
them at the wheel. And my friend the Mate, in oilskins and sou'wester,
walking back and for'ard. I cry his name, but my voice is swept into
the void. He sees me, but does not speak, only walks to and fro. To
me, strung up to a tautness of sensation that almost frightens me,
this silence of the Mate is horrible. I feel a pain in my chest like
the pressure of a heavy weight as I look at him. And the four men toil
at the wheel, for the steering chains have been carried away.
Looking for'ard, I see on the well-deck the white wreckage of a boat,
and I begin to tremble with excitement. If the Mate would only speak!
A thought strikes me--that he will never speak to me again; then the
sea comes. As she rolls to starboard, the great wave lifts his head
and springs like a wild beast at the rail. A hoarse roar, a rending,
splitting sound of gear going adrift, and the sea strikes the poop
with terrific impact. Then the water soughs away through the scuppers.
And athwart the blackened sky there darts a dazzling flash of
lightning. As I hold to my stanchion, soaked to the skin, I watch the
wrath of God on the face of the waters.
Making a rush, I gain the shelter of the canvas screen round the cabin
companion, and I bump into the Innovation. From beneath the dripping
sou'wester his small, keen face peers up at me, and he utters his
inevitable blasphemy. He hugs his left hand to his side. "Mister!" he
hisses in my ear, "for the love of Christ get me a scarf out o' me
berth. It's a blue one, in the top drawer." Then, darting out for a
moment, he yells "Ai!" boiling over into asterisks. He darts in again,
hugging his hand. My foot is in the door, and together we wrench it
open. I drop down the companion and turn into his berth for the scarf.
It is while coming back that I see into the cabin, and I halt. The
Skipper is standing under the lamp holding out his hand for a cup of
coffee. And Nicholas, the fears and imaginings of a volatile race
blanching his wizened features, rocks unsteadily across the floor. The
big man with the white hair, red face, and cold blue eyes, towers over
him, those same eyes snapping with something that has nought to do
with money-making or Brixton, something not mentioned in any Board of
Trade regulations. And Nicholas, holding by the table, looks like a
rat in a trap, shaking with the fear of sudden death. A word from the
Skipper, and he turns and runs a zig-zag course for the door. He
cannot see me in the darkness, but I hear him whinnying a song to
steady his nerves:
"_Ess, a young maid's broken-'earted
When a ship is outward bound._"
His face is pinched and drawn, his beady eyes move unceasingly, and I
think of one who said, "His nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'e babbled
of green fields."
* * * * *
As I go below to my berth again, striving with the door as with a
strong man, there crackles and hisses a forked glare of lightning, an
enormous whip driving the great white horses of the sea to madness.
Onward they spring, phalanx after phalanx, while above the riot of
their disintegration glints the faint yellow light of Fastnet. Far off
to nor'ard, guarding Cape Clear, hidden at times by the mountainous
water, veiled almost to obscurity by the flying spume, it flashes, a
coastwise light. And on the eastern horizon--O wondrous sight to
me!--the black pall has lifted a little from the tumbling waters,
leaving a band of yellow moonlight with one green-flashing star.
Reaching my berth once more, the terror and delight of that last
glimpse is upon me. In that strange yellow rift at midnight, backing
the world of dark chaos, that star of palest green, I feel a thrill of
the superhuman sense which renders Turner inexplicable to Balham, and
stabs the soul with demoniac joy in the Steersman's Song.
One Bell, and the pen drops from my fingers. And so, until the day
break and the shadows flee away, I shall be at my post. And in the
morning there will be more to tell.