Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (415 page)

“Possibly about to die,” went on the old man, in his careful deliberate tone.  “And perhaps glad enough to die.”

Mr. Powell was young enough to be startled at the suggestion, which sounded confidential and blood-curdling in the dusk.  He said sharply that it was not very likely, as if defending the absent victim of the accident from an unkind aspersion.  He felt, in fact, indignant.  The other emitted a short stifled laugh of a conciliatory nature.  The second bell rang under the poop.  He made a movement at the sound, but lingered.

“What I said was not meant seriously,” he murmured, with that strange air of fearing to be overheard.  “Not in this case.  I know the man.”

The occasion, or rather the want of occasion, for this conversation, had sharpened the perceptions of the unsophisticated second officer of the Ferndale.  He was alive to the slightest shade of tone, and felt as if this “I know the man” should have been followed by a “he was no friend of mine.”  But after the shortest possible break the old gentleman continued to murmur distinctly and evenly:

“Whereas you have never seen him.  Nevertheless, when you have gone through as many years as I have, you will understand how an event putting an end to one’s existence may not be altogether unwelcome.  Of course there are stupid accidents.  And even then one needn’t be very angry.  What is it to be deprived of life?  It’s soon done.  But what would you think of the feelings of a man who should have had his life stolen from him?  Cheated out of it, I say!”

He ceased abruptly, and remained still long enough for the astonished Powell to stammer out an indistinct: “What do you mean?  I don’t understand.”  Then, with a low ‘Good-night’ glided a few steps, and sank through the shadow of the companion into the lamplight below which did not reach higher than the turn of the staircase.

The strange words, the cautious tone, the whole person left a strong uneasiness in the mind of Mr. Powell.  He started walking the poop in great mental confusion.  He felt all adrift.  This was funny talk and no mistake.  And this cautious low tone as though he were watched by someone was more than funny.  The young second officer hesitated to break the established rule of every ship’s discipline; but at last could not resist the temptation of getting hold of some other human being, and spoke to the man at the wheel.

“Did you hear what this gentleman was saying to me?”

“No, sir,” answered the sailor quietly.  Then, encouraged by this evidence of laxity in his officer, made bold to add, “A queer fish, sir.”  This was tentative, and Mr. Powell, busy with his own view, not saying anything, he ventured further.  “They are more like passengers.  One sees some queer passengers.”

“Who are like passengers?” asked Powell gruffly.

“Why, these two, sir.”

CHAPTER THREE — DEVOTED SERVANTS — AND THE LIGHT OF A FLARE

Young Powell thought to himself: “The men, too, are noticing it.”  Indeed, the captain’s behaviour to his wife and to his wife’s father was noticeable enough.  It was as if they had been a pair of not very congenial passengers.  But perhaps it was not always like that.  The captain might have been put out by something.

When the aggrieved Franklin came on deck Mr. Powell made a remark to that effect.  For his curiosity was aroused.

The mate grumbled “Seems to you? . . . Putout?  . . . eh?”  He buttoned his thick jacket up to the throat, and only then added a gloomy “Aye, likely enough,” which discouraged further conversation.  But no encouragement would have induced the newly-joined second mate to enter the way of confidences.  His was an instinctive prudence.  Powell did not know why it was he had resolved to keep his own counsel as to his colloquy with Mr. Smith.  But his curiosity did not slumber.  Some time afterwards, again at the relief of watches, in the course of a little talk, he mentioned Mrs. Anthony’s father quite casually, and tried to find out from the mate who he was.

“It would take a clever man to find that out, as things are on board now,” Mr. Franklin said, unexpectedly communicative.  “The first I saw of him was when she brought him alongside in a four-wheeler one morning about half-past eleven.  The captain had come on board early, and was down in the cabin that had been fitted out for him.  Did I tell you that if you want the captain for anything you must stamp on the port side of the deck?  That’s so.  This ship is not only unlike what she used to be, but she is like no other ship, anyhow.  Did you ever hear of the captain’s room being on the port side?  Both of them stern cabins have been fitted up afresh like a blessed palace.  A gang of people from some tip-top West-End house were fussing here on board with hangings and furniture for a fortnight, as if the Queen were coming with us.  Of course the starboard cabin is the bedroom one, but the poor captain hangs out to port on a couch, so that in case we want him on deck at night, Mrs. Anthony should not be startled.  Nervous!  Phoo!  A woman who marries a sailor and makes up her mind to come to sea should have no blamed jumpiness about her, I say.  But never mind.  Directly the old cab pointed round the corner of the warehouse I called out to the captain that his lady was coming aboard.  He answered me, but as I didn’t see him coming, I went down the gangway myself to help her alight.  She jumps out excitedly without touching my arm, or as much as saying “thank you” or “good morning” or anything, turns back to the cab, and then that old joker comes out slowly.  I hadn’t noticed him inside.  I hadn’t expected to see anybody.  It gave me a start.  She says: “My father — Mr. Franklin.”  He was staring at me like an owl.  “How do you do, sir?” says I.  Both of them looked funny.  It was as if something had happened to them on the way.  Neither of them moved, and I stood by waiting.  The captain showed himself on the poop; and I saw him at the side looking over, and then he disappeared; on the way to meet them on shore, I expected.  But he just went down below again.  So, not seeing him, I said: “Let me help you on board, sir.”  “On board!” says he in a silly fashion.  “On board!”  “It’s not a very good ladder, but it’s quite firm,” says I, as he seemed to be afraid of it.  And he didn’t look a broken-down old man, either.  You can see yourself what he is.  Straight as a poker, and life enough in him yet.  But he made no move, and I began to feel foolish.  Then she comes forward.  “Oh!  Thank you, Mr. Franklin.  I’ll help my father up.”  Flabbergasted me — to be choked off like this.  Pushed in between him and me without as much as a look my way.  So of course I dropped it.  What do you think?  I fell back.  I would have gone up on board at once and left them on the quay to come up or stay there till next week, only they were blocking the way.  I couldn’t very well shove them on one side.  Devil only knows what was up between them.  There she was, pale as death, talking to him very fast.  He got as red as a turkey-cock — dash me if he didn’t.  A bad-tempered old bloke, I can tell you.  And a bad lot, too.  Never mind.  I couldn’t hear what she was saying to him, but she put force enough into it to shake her.  It seemed — it seemed, mind! — that he didn’t want to go on board.  Of course it couldn’t have been that.  I know better.  Well, she took him by the arm, above the elbow, as if to lead him, or push him rather.  I was standing not quite ten feet off.  Why should I have gone away?  I was anxious to get back on board as soon as they would let me.  I didn’t want to overhear her blamed whispering either.  But I couldn’t stay there for ever, so I made a move to get past them if I could.  And that’s how I heard a few words.  It was the old chap — something nasty about being “under the heel” of somebody or other.  Then he says, “I don’t want this sacrifice.”  What it meant I can’t tell.  It was a quarrel — of that I am certain.  She looks over her shoulder, and sees me pretty close to them.  I don’t know what she found to say into his ear, but he gave way suddenly.  He looked round at me too, and they went up together so quickly then that when I got on the quarter-deck I was only in time to see the inner door of the passage close after them.  Queer — eh?  But if it were only queerness one wouldn’t mind.  Some luggage in new trunks came on board in the afternoon.  We undocked at midnight.  And may I be hanged if I know who or what he was or is.  I haven’t been able to find out.  No, I don’t know.  He may have been anything.  All I know is that once, years ago when I went to see the Derby with a friend, I saw a pea-and-thimble chap who looked just like that old mystery father out of a cab.”

All this the goggle-eyed mate had said in a resentful and melancholy voice, with pauses, to the gentle murmur of the sea.  It was for him a bitter sort of pleasure to have a fresh pair of ears, a newcomer, to whom he could repeat all these matters of grief and suspicion talked over endlessly by the band of Captain Anthony’s faithful subordinates.  It was evidently so refreshing to his worried spirit that it made him forget the advisability of a little caution with a complete stranger.  But really with Mr. Powell there was no danger.  Amused, at first, at these plaints, he provoked them for fun.  Afterwards, turning them over in his mind, he became impressed, and as the impression grew stronger with the days his resolution to keep it to himself grew stronger too.

* * * * *

What made it all the easier to keep — I mean the resolution — was that Powell’s sentiment of amused surprise at what struck him at first as mere absurdity was not unmingled with indignation.  And his years were too few, his position too novel, his reliance on his own opinion not yet firm enough to allow him to express it with any effect.  And then — what would have been the use, anyhow — and where was the necessity?

But this thing, familiar and mysterious at the same time, occupied his imagination.  The solitude of the sea intensifies the thoughts and the facts of one’s experience which seems to lie at the very centre of the world, as the ship which carries one always remains the centre figure of the round horizon.  He viewed the apoplectic, goggle-eyed mate and the saturnine, heavy-eyed steward as the victims of a peculiar and secret form of lunacy which poisoned their lives.  But he did not give them his sympathy on that account.  No.  That strange affliction awakened in him a sort of suspicious wonder.

Once — and it was at night again; for the officers of the Ferndale keeping watch and watch as was customary in those days, had but few occasions for intercourse — once, I say, the thick Mr. Franklin, a quaintly bulky figure under the stars, the usual witnesses of his outpourings, asked him with an abruptness which was not callous, but in his simple way:

“I believe you have no parents living?”

Mr. Powell said that he had lost his father and mother at a very early age.

“My mother is still alive,” declared Mr. Franklin in a tone which suggested that he was gratified by the fact.  “The old lady is lasting well.  Of course she’s got to be made comfortable.  A woman must be looked after, and, if it comes to that, I say, give me a mother.  I dare say if she had not lasted it out so well I might have gone and got married.  I don’t know, though.  We sailors haven’t got much time to look about us to any purpose.  Anyhow, as the old lady was there I haven’t, I may say, looked at a girl in all my life.  Not that I wasn’t partial to female society in my time,” he added with a pathetic intonation, while the whites of his goggle eyes gleamed amorously under the clear night sky.  “Very partial, I may say.”

Mr. Powell was amused; and as these communications took place only when the mate was relieved off duty he had no serious objection to them.  The mate’s presence made the first half-hour and sometimes even more of his watch on deck pass away.  If his senior did not mind losing some of his rest it was not Mr. Powell’s affair.  Franklin was a decent fellow.  His intention was not to boast of his filial piety.

“Of course I mean respectable female society,” he explained.  “The other sort is neither here nor there.  I blame no man’s conduct, but a well-brought-up young fellow like you knows that there’s precious little fun to be got out of it.”  He fetched a deep sigh.  “I wish Captain Anthony’s mother had been a lasting sort like my old lady.  He would have had to look after her and he would have done it well.  Captain Anthony is a proper man.  And it would have saved him from the most foolish — ”

He did not finish the phrase which certainly was turning bitter in his mouth.  Mr. Powell thought to himself: “There he goes again.”  He laughed a little.

“I don’t understand why you are so hard on the captain, Mr. Franklin.  I thought you were a great friend of his.”

Mr. Franklin exclaimed at this.  He was not hard on the captain.  Nothing was further from his thoughts.  Friend!  Of course he was a good friend and a faithful servant.  He begged Powell to understand that if Captain Anthony chose to strike a bargain with Old Nick to-morrow, and Old Nick were good to the captain, he (Franklin) would find it in his heart to love Old Nick for the captain’s sake.  That was so.  On the other hand, if a saint, an angel with white wings came along and — ”

He broke off short again as if his own vehemence had frightened him.  Then in his strained pathetic voice (which he had never raised) he observed that it was no use talking.  Anybody could see that the man was changed.

“As to that,” said young Powell, “it is impossible for me to judge.”

“Good Lord!” whispered the mate.  “An educated, clever young fellow like you with a pair of eyes on him and some sense too!  Is that how a happy man looks?  Eh?  Young you may be, but you aren’t a kid; and I dare you to say ‘Yes!’”

Mr. Powell did not take up the challenge.  He did not know what to think of the mate’s view.  Still, it seemed as if it had opened his understanding in a measure.  He conceded that the captain did not look very well.

“Not very well,” repeated the mate mournfully.  “Do you think a man with a face like that can hope to live his life out?  You haven’t knocked about long in this world yet, but you are a sailor, you have been in three or four ships, you say.  Well, have you ever seen a shipmaster walking his own deck as if he did not know what he had underfoot?  Have you?  Dam’me if I don’t think that he forgets where he is.  Of course he can be no other than a prime seaman; but it’s lucky, all the same, he has me on board.  I know by this time what he wants done without being told.  Do you know that I have had no order given me since we left port?  Do you know that he has never once opened his lips to me unless I spoke to him first?  I?  His chief officer; his shipmate for full six years, with whom he had no cross word — not once in all that time.  Aye.  Not a cross look even.  True that when I do make him speak to me, there is his dear old self, the quick eye, the kind voice.  Could hardly be other to his old Franklin.  But what’s the good?  Eyes, voice, everything’s miles away.  And for all that I take good care never to address him when the poop isn’t clear.  Yes!  Only we two and nothing but the sea with us.  You think it would be all right; the only chief mate he ever had — Mr. Franklin here and Mr. Franklin there — when anything went wrong the first word you would hear about the decks was ‘Franklin!’ — I am thirteen years older than he is — you would think it would be all right, wouldn’t you?  Only we two on this poop on which we saw each other first — he a young master — told me that he thought I would suit him very well — we two, and thirty-one days out at sea, and it’s no good!  It’s like talking to a man standing on shore.  I can’t get him back.  I can’t get at him.  I feel sometimes as if I must shake him by the arm: “Wake up!  Wake up!  You are wanted, sir . . . !”