Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (795 page)

“They take Mrs. Harry to the inn, nearly opposite the rocks; she bolts straight up-stairs to look out of the window, and she lets out a great cry when she sees the wreck.  She won’t rest till she gets on board to her Harry.  Cloete soothes her all he can. . . All right; you try to eat a mouthful, and we will go to make inquiries.

“He draws George out of the room: Look here, she can’t go on board, but I shall.  I’ll see to it that he doesn’t stop in the ship too long.  Let’s go and find the coxswain of the life-boat. . . George follows him, shivering from time to time.  The waves are washing over the old pier; not much wind, a wild, gloomy sky over the bay.  In the whole world only one tug away off, heading to the seas, tossed in and out of sight every minute as regular as clockwork.

“They meet the coxswain and he tells them: Yes!  He’s going out again.  No, they ain’t in danger on board — not yet.  But the ship’s chance is very poor.  Still, if the wind doesn’t pipe up again and the sea goes down something might be tried.  After some talk he agrees to take Cloete on board; supposed to be with an urgent message from the owners to the captain.

“Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it looks so threatening.  George Dunbar follows him about with a white face and saying nothing.  Cloete takes him to have a drink or two, and by and by he begins to pick up. . . That’s better, says Cloete; dash me if it wasn’t like walking about with a dead man before.  You ought to be throwing up your cap, man.  I feel as if I wanted to stand in the street and cheer.  Your brother is safe, the ship is lost, and we are made men.

“Are you certain she’s lost? asks George.  It would be an awful blow after all the agonies I have gone through in my mind, since you first spoke to me, if she were to be got off — and — and — all this temptation to begin over again. . . For we had nothing to do with this; had we?

“Of course not, says Cloete.  Wasn’t your brother himself in charge?  It’s providential. . . Oh! cries George, shocked. . . Well, say it’s the devil, says Cloete, cheerfully.  I don’t mind!  You had nothing to do with it any more than a baby unborn, you great softy, you. . . Cloete has got so that he almost loved George Dunbar.  Well.  Yes.  That was so.  I don’t mean he respected him.  He was just fond of his partner.

“They go back, you may say fairly skipping, to the hotel, and find the wife of the captain at the open window, with her eyes on the ship as if she wanted to fly across the bay over there. . . Now then, Mrs. Dunbar, cries Cloete, you can’t go, but I am going.  Any messages?  Don’t be shy.  I’ll deliver every word faithfully.  And if you would like to give me a kiss for him, I’ll deliver that too, dash me if I don’t.

“He makes Mrs. Harry laugh with his patter. . . Oh, dear Mr. Cloete, you are a calm, reasonable man.  Make him behave sensibly.  He’s a bit obstinate, you know, and he’s so fond of the ship, too.  Tell him I am here — looking on. . . Trust me, Mrs. Dunbar.  Only shut that window, that’s a good girl.  You will be sure to catch cold if you don’t, and the Captain won’t be pleased coming off the wreck to find you coughing and sneezing so that you can’t tell him how happy you are.  And now if you can get me a bit of tape to fasten my glasses on good to my ears, I will be going. . .

“How he gets on board I don’t know.  All wet and shaken and excited and out of breath, he does get on board.  Ship lying over, smothered in sprays, but not moving very much; just enough to jag one’s nerve a bit.  He finds them all crowded on the deck-house forward, in their shiny oilskins, with faces like sick men.  Captain Harry can’t believe his eyes.  What!  Mr. Cloete!  What are you doing here, in God’s name? . . . Your wife’s ashore there, looking on, gasps out Cloete; and after they had talked a bit, Captain Harry thinks it’s uncommonly plucky and kind of his brother’s partner to come off to him like this.  Man glad to have somebody to talk to. . . It’s a bad business, Mr. Cloete, he says.  And Cloete rejoices to hear that.  Captain Harry thinks he had done his best, but the cable had parted when he tried to anchor her.  It was a great trial to lose the ship.  Well, he would have to face it.  He fetches a deep sigh now and then.  Cloete almost sorry he had come on board, because to be on that wreck keeps his chest in a tight band all the time.  They crouch out of the wind under the port boat, a little apart from the men.  The life-boat had gone away after putting Cloete on board, but was coming back next high water to take off the crew if no attempt at getting the ship afloat could be made.  Dusk was falling; winter’s day; black sky; wind rising.  Captain Harry felt melancholy.  God’s will be done.  If she must be left on the rocks — why, she must.  A man should take what God sends him standing up. . . Suddenly his voice breaks, and he squeezes Cloete’s arm: It seems as if I couldn’t leave her, he whispers.  Cloete looks round at the men like a lot of huddled sheep and thinks to himself: They won’t stay. . . Suddenly the ship lifts a little and sets down with a thump.  Tide rising.  Everybody beginning to look out for the life-boat.  Some of the men made her out far away and also two more tugs.  But the gale has come on again, and everybody knows that no tug will ever dare come near the ship.

“That’s the end, Captain Harry says, very low. . . . Cloete thinks he never felt so cold in all his life. . . And I feel as if I didn’t care to live on just now, mutters Captain Harry . . . Your wife’s ashore, looking on, says Cloete . . . Yes.  Yes.  It must be awful for her to look at the poor old ship lying here done for.  Why, that’s our home.

“Cloete thinks that as long as the Sagamore’s done for he doesn’t care, and only wishes himself somewhere else.  The slightest movement of the ship cuts his breath like a blow.  And he feels excited by the danger, too.  The captain takes him aside. . . The life-boat can’t come near us for more than an hour.  Look here, Cloete, since you are here, and such a plucky one — do something for me. . . He tells him then that down in his cabin aft in a certain drawer there is a bundle of important papers and some sixty sovereigns in a small canvas bag.  Asks Cloete to go and get these things out.  He hasn’t been below since the ship struck, and it seems to him that if he were to take his eyes off her she would fall to pieces.  And then the men — a scared lot by this time — if he were to leave them by themselves they would attempt to launch one of the ship’s boats in a panic at some heavier thump — and then some of them bound to get drowned. . . There are two or three boxes of matches about my shelves in my cabin if you want a light, says Captain Harry.  Only wipe your wet hands before you begin to feel for them. . .

“Cloete doesn’t like the job, but doesn’t like to show funk, either — and he goes.  Lots of water on the main-deck, and he splashes along; it was getting dark, too.  All at once, by the mainmast, somebody catches him by the arm.  Stafford.  He wasn’t thinking of Stafford at all.  Captain Harry had said something as to the mate not being quite satisfactory, but it wasn’t much.  Cloete doesn’t recognise him in his oilskins at first.  He sees a white face with big eyes peering at him. . . Are you pleased, Mr. Cloete . . . ?

“Cloete is moved to laugh at the whine, and shakes him off.  But the fellow scrambles on after him on the poop and follows him down into the cabin of that wrecked ship.  And there they are, the two of them; can hardly see each other. . . You don’t mean to make me believe you have had anything to do with this, says Cloete. . .

“They both shiver, nearly out of their wits with the excitement of being on board that ship.  She thumps and lurches, and they stagger together, feeling sick.  Cloete again bursts out laughing at that wretched creature Stafford pretending to have been up to something so desperate. . . Is that how you think you can treat me now? yells the other man all of a sudden. . .

“A sea strikes the stern, the ship trembles and groans all round them, there’s the noise of the seas about and overhead, confusing Cloete, and he hears the other screaming as if crazy. . . Ah, you don’t believe me!  Go and look at the port chain.  Parted?  Eh?  Go and see if it’s parted.  Go and find the broken link.  You can’t.  There’s no broken link.  That means a thousand pounds for me.  No less.  A thousand the day after we get ashore — prompt.  I won’t wait till she breaks up, Mr. Cloete.  To the underwriters I go if I’ve to walk to London on my bare feet.  Port cable!  Look at her port cable, I will say to them.  I doctored it — for the owners — tempted by a low rascal called Cloete.

“Cloete does not understand what it means exactly.  All he sees is that the fellow means to make mischief.  He sees trouble ahead. . . Do you think you can scare me? he asks, — you poor miserable skunk. . . And Stafford faces him out — both holding on to the cabin table: No, damn you, you are only a dirty vagabond; but I can scare the other, the chap in the black coat. . .

“Meaning George Dunbar.  Cloete’s brain reels at the thought.  He doesn’t imagine the fellow can do any real harm, but he knows what George is; give the show away; upset the whole business he had set his heart on.  He says nothing; he hears the other, what with the funk and strain and excitement, panting like a dog — and then a snarl. . . A thousand down, twenty-four hours after we get ashore; day after to-morrow.  That’s my last word, Mr. Cloete. . . A thousand pounds, day after to-morrow, says Cloete.  Oh yes.  And to-day take this, you dirty cur. . . He hits straight from the shoulder in sheer rage, nothing else.  Stafford goes away spinning along the bulk-head.  Seeing this, Cloete steps out and lands him another one somewhere about the jaw.  The fellow staggers backward right into the captain’s cabin through the open door.  Cloete, following him up, hears him fall down heavily and roll to leeward, then slams the door to and turns the key. . . There! says he to himself, that will stop you from making trouble.”

“By Jove!” I murmured.

The old fellow departed from his impressive immobility to turn his rakishly hatted head and look at me with his old, black, lack-lustre eyes.

“He did leave him there,” he uttered, weightily, returning to the contemplation of the wall.  “Cloete didn’t mean to allow anybody, let alone a thing like Stafford, to stand in the way of his great notion of making George and himself, and Captain Harry, too, for that matter, rich men.  And he didn’t think much of consequences.  These patent-medicine chaps don’t care what they say or what they do.  They think the world’s bound to swallow any story they like to tell. . . He stands listening for a bit.  And it gives him quite a turn to hear a thump at the door and a sort of muffled raving screech inside the captain’s room.  He thinks he hears his own name, too, through the awful crash as the old Sagamore rises and falls to a sea.  That noise and that awful shock make him clear out of the cabin.  He collects his senses on the poop.  But his heart sinks a little at the black wildness of the night.  Chances that he will get drowned himself before long.  Puts his head down the companion.  Through the wind and breaking seas he can hear the noise of Stafford’s beating against the door and cursing.  He listens and says to himself: No.  Can’t trust him now. . .

“When he gets back to the top of the deck-house he says to Captain Harry, who asks him if he got the things, that he is very sorry.  There was something wrong with the door.  Couldn’t open it.  And to tell you the truth, says he, I didn’t like to stop any longer in that cabin.  There are noises there as if the ship were going to pieces. . . Captain Harry thinks: Nervous; can’t be anything wrong with the door.  But he says: Thanks — never mind, never mind. . . All hands looking out now for the life-boat.  Everybody thinking of himself rather.  Cloete asks himself, will they miss him?  But the fact is that Mr. Stafford had made such poor show at sea that after the ship struck nobody ever paid any attention to him.  Nobody cared what he did or where he was.  Pitch dark, too — no counting of heads.  The light of the tug with the lifeboat in tow is seen making for the ship, and Captain Harry asks: Are we all there? . . . Somebody answers: All here, sir. . . Stand by to leave the ship, then, says Captain Harry; and two of you help the gentleman over first. . . Aye, aye, sir. . . Cloete was moved to ask Captain Harry to let him stay till last, but the life-boat drops on a grapnel abreast the fore-rigging, two chaps lay hold of him, watch their chance, and drop him into her, all safe.

“He’s nearly exhausted; not used to that sort of thing, you see.  He sits in the stern-sheets with his eyes shut.  Don’t want to look at the white water boiling all around.  The men drop into the boat one after another.  Then he hears Captain Harry’s voice shouting in the wind to the coxswain, to hold on a moment, and some other words he can’t catch, and the coxswain yelling back: Don’t be long, sir. . . What is it?  Cloete asks feeling faint. . . Something about the ship’s papers, says the coxswain, very anxious.  It’s no time to be fooling about alongside, you understand.  They haul the boat off a little and wait.  The water flies over her in sheets.  Cloete’s senses almost leave him.  He thinks of nothing.  He’s numb all over, till there’s a shout: Here he is! . . . They see a figure in the fore-rigging waiting — they slack away on the grapnel-line and get him in the boat quite easy.  There is a little shouting — it’s all mixed up with the noise of the sea.  Cloete fancies that Stafford’s voice is talking away quite close to his ear.  There’s a lull in the wind, and Stafford’s voice seems to be speaking very fast to the coxswain; he tells him that of course he was near his skipper, was all the time near him, till the old man said at the last moment that he must go and get the ship’s papers from aft; would insist on going himself; told him, Stafford, to get into the life-boat. . . He had meant to wait for his skipper, only there came this smooth of the seas, and he thought he would take his chance at once.

“Cloete opens his eyes.  Yes.  There’s Stafford sitting close by him in that crowded life-boat.  The coxswain stoops over Cloete and cries: Did you hear what the mate said, sir? . . . Cloete’s face feels as if it were set in plaster, lips and all.  Yes, I did, he forces himself to answer.  The coxswain waits a moment, then says: I don’t like it. . . And he turns to the mate, telling him it was a pity he did not try to run along the deck and hurry up the captain when the lull came.  Stafford answers at once that he did think of it, only he was afraid of missing him on the deck in the dark.  For, says he, the captain might have got over at once, thinking I was already in the life-boat, and you would have hauled off perhaps, leaving me behind. . . True enough, says the coxswain.  A minute or so passes.  This won’t do, mutters the coxswain.  Suddenly Stafford speaks up in a sort of hollow voice: I was by when he told Mr. Cloete here that he didn’t know how he would ever have the courage to leave the old ship; didn’t he, now? . . . And Cloete feels his arm being gripped quietly in the dark. . . Didn’t he now?  We were standing together just before you went over, Mr. Cloete? . . .