Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (703 page)

‘He deposed that Maddingham came alongside swearing like a bargee,’ said Tegg.

‘Not in the least. This is what happened.’ Maddingham turned to Portson. ‘I asked him where he was bound for and he told me-Antigua.’

‘Hi! Wake up, Winchmore. You’re missing something.’ Portson nudged Winchmore, who was slanting sideways in his chair.

‘Right! All right! I’m awake,’ said Winchmore stickily. ‘I heard every word.’

Maddingham went on. ‘I told him that this wasn’t his way to Antigua — ’

‘Antigua. Antigua!’ Winchmore finished rubbing his eyes. ‘“There was a young bride of Antigua — ”‘

‘Hsh! Hsh!’ said Portson and Tegg warningly.

‘Why? It’s the proper one. “Who said to her spouse, ‘What a pig you are!’”‘

‘Ass!’ Maddingham growled and continued: ‘He told me that he’d been knocked out of his reckoning by foul weather and engine-trouble, owing to experimenting with a new type of Diesel engine. He was perfectly frank about it.’

‘So he was with me,’ said Winchmore. ‘Just like a real lady. I hope you were a real gentleman, Papa.’

‘I asked him what he’d got. He didn’t object. He had some fifty thousand gallon of oil for his new Diesel engine, and the rest was coal. He said he needed the oil to get to Antigua with, he was taking the coal as ballast, and he was coming back, so he told me, with coconuts. When he’d quite finished, I said: “What sort of damned idiot do you take me for?” He said: “I haven’t decided yet!” Then I said he’d better come into port with me, and we’d arrive at a decision. He said that his papers were in perfect order and that my instructions- mine, please!-were not to imperil political relations. I hadn’t received these asinine instructions, so I took the liberty of contradicting him-perfectly politely, as I told them at the Inquiry afterward. He was a small-boned man with a grey beard, in a glengarry, and he picked his teeth a lot. He said: “The last time I met you, Mister Maddingham, you were going to Carlsbad, and you told me all about your blood-pressures in the wagon-lit before we tossed for upper berth. Don’t you think you are a little old to buccaneer about the sea this way?” I couldn’t recall his face-he must have been some fellow that I’d travelled with some time or other. I told him I wasn’t doing this for amusement-it was business. Then I ordered him into port. He said: “S’pose I don’t go?” I said: “Then I’ll sink you.” Isn’t it extraordinary how natural it all seems after a few weeks? If any one had told me when I commissioned Hilarity last summer what I’d be doing this spring I’d-I’d...God! It is mad, isn’t it?’

‘Quite,’ said Portson. ‘But not bad fun.’

‘Not at all, but that’s what makes it all the madder. Well, he didn’t argue any more. He warned me I’d be hauled over the coals for what I’d done, and I warned him to keep two cables ahead of me and not to yaw.’

‘Jaw?’ said Winchmore sleepily.

‘No. Yaw;’ Maddingham snarled. ‘Not to look as if he even wanted to yaw. I warned him that, if he did, I’d loose off into him, end-on. But I was absolutely polite about it. ‘Give you my word, Tegg.’

‘I believe you. Oh, I believe you,’ Tegg replied.

‘Well, so I took him into port-and that was where I first ran across our Master Tegg. He represented the Admiralty on that beach.’

The small blinking man nodded. ‘The Admiralty had that honour,’ he said graciously.

Maddingham turned to the others angrily. ‘I’d been rather patting myself on the back for what I’d done, you know. Instead of which, they held a court-martial — ’

‘We called it an Inquiry,’ Tegg interjected.

‘You weren’t in the dock. They held a court-martial on me to find out how often I’d sworn at the poor injured Neutral, and whether I’d given him hot-water bottles and tucked him up at night. It’s all very fine to laugh, but they treated me like a pickpocket. There were two fat- headed civilian judges and that blackguard Tegg in the conspiracy. A cursed lawyer defended my Neutral and he made fun of me. He dragged in everything the Neutral had told him about my blood-pressures on the Carlsbad trip. And that’s what you get for trying to serve your country in your old age!’ Maddingham emptied and refilled his glass.

‘We did give you rather a grilling,’ said Tegg placidly. ‘It’s the national sense of fair play.’

‘I could have stood it all if it hadn’t been for the Neutral. We dined at the same hotel while this court-martial was going on, and he used to come over to my table and sympathise with me! He told me that I was fighting for his ideals and the uplift of democracy, but I must respect the Law of Nations!’

‘And we respected ‘em,’ said Tegg. ‘His papers were perfectly correct; the Court discharged him. We had to consider existing political relations. I told Maddingham so at the hotel and he — ’

Again Maddingham turned to the others. ‘I couldn’t make up my mind about Tegg at the Inquiry,’ he explained. ‘He had the air of a decent sailor-man, but he talked like a poisonous politician.’

‘I was,’ Tegg returned. ‘I had been ordered to change into that rig. So I changed.’

Maddingham ran one fat square hand through his crisped hair and looked up under his eyebrows like a shy child, while the others lay back and laughed.

‘I suppose I ought to have been on to the joke,’ he stammered, ‘but I’d blacked myself all over for the part of Lootenant-Commander R.N.V.R. in time of war, and I’d given up thinking as a banker. If it had been put before me as a business proposition I might have done better.’

‘I thought you were playing up to me and the judges all the time,’ said Tegg. ‘I never dreamed you took it seriously.’

‘Well, I’ve been trained to look on the law as serious. I’ve had to pay for some of it in my time, you know.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Tegg. ‘We were obliged to let that oily beggar go- for reasons, but, as I told Maddingham, the night the award was given, his duty was to see that he was properly directed to Antigua.’

‘Naturally,’ Portson observed. ‘That being the Neutral’s declared destination. And what did Maddingham do? Shut up, Maddingham!’

Said Tegg, with downcast eyes: ‘Maddingham took my hand and squeezed it; he looked lovingly into my eyes (he did!); he turned plumcolour, and he said: “I will” just like a bride groom at the altar. It makes me feel shy to think of it even now. I didn’t see him after that till the evening when Hilarity was pulling out of the Basin, and Maddingham was cursing the tug-master.’

‘I was in a hurry,’ said Maddingham. ‘I wanted to get to the Narrows and wait for my Neutral there. I dropped down to Biller and Grove’s yard that tide (they’ve done all my work for years) and I jammed Hilarity into the creek behind their slip, so the Newt didn’t spot me when he came down the river. Then I pulled out and followed him over the Bar. He stood nor-west at once. I let him go till we were well out of sight of land. Then I overhauled him, gave him a gun across the bows and ran alongside. I’d just had my lunch, and I wasn’t going to lose my temper this time. I said: “Excuse me, but I understand you are bound for Antigua?” He was, he said, and as he seemed a little nervous about my falling aboard him in that swell, I gave Hilarity another sheer in-she’s as handy as a launch-and I said: “May I suggest that this is not the course for Antigua?” By that time he had his fenders overside, and all hands yelling at me to keep away. I snatched Hilarity out and began edging in again. He said: “I’m trying a sample of inferior oil that I have my doubts about. If it works all right I shall lay my course for Antigua, but it will take some time to test the stuff and adjust the engines to it.” I said: “Very good, let me know if I can be of any service,” and I offered him Hilarity again once or twice-he didn’t want her-and then I dropped behind and let him go on. Wasn’t that proper, Portson?’

Portson nodded. ‘I know that game of yours with Hilarity,’ he said. ‘How the deuce do you do it? My nerve always goes at close quarters in any sea.’

‘It’s only a little trick of steering,’ Maddingham replied with a simper of vanity. ‘You can almost shave with her when she feels like it. I had to do it again that same evening, to establish a moral ascendancy. He wasn’t showing any lights, and I nearly tripped over him. He was a scared Neutral for three minutes, but I got a little of my own back for that damned court-martial. But I was perfectly polite. I apologised profusely. I didn’t even ask him to show his lights.’

‘But did he?’ said Winchmore.

‘He did-every one; and a flare now and then,’ Maddingham replied. ‘He held north all that night, with a falling barometer and a rising wind and all the other filthy things. Gad, how I hated him! Next morning we got it, good and tight from the nor-nor-west out of the Atlantic, off Carso Head. He dodged into a squall, and then he went about. We weren’t a mile behind, but it was as thick as a wall. When it cleared, and I couldn’t see him ahead of me, I went about too, and followed the rain. I picked him up five miles down wind, legging it for all he was worth to the south’ard-nine knots, I should think. Hilarity doesn’t like a following sea. We got pooped a bit, too, but by noon we’d struggled back to where we ought to have been-two cables astern of him. Then he began to signal, but his flags being end-on to us, of course, we had to creep up on his beam-well abeam-to read ‘em. That didn’t restore his morale either. He made out he’d been compelled to put back by stress of weather before completing his oil tests. I made back I was sorry to hear it, but would be greatly interested in the results. Then I turned in (I’d been up all night) and my lootenant took on. He was a widower (by the way) of the name of Sherrin, aged forty-seven. He’d run a girls’ school at Weston-super-Mare after he’d left the Service in ‘ninety-five, and he believed the English were the Lost Tribes.’

‘What about the Germans?’ said Portson.

‘Oh, they’d been misled by Austria, who was the Beast with Horns in Revelations. Otherwise he was rather a dull dog. He set the tops’ls in his watch. Hilarity won’t steer under any canvas, so we rather sported round our friend that afternoon, I believe. When I came up after dinner, she was biting his behind, first one side, then the other. Let’s see-that would be about thirty miles east-sou-east of Harry Island. We were running as near as nothing south. The wind had dropped, and there was a useful cross-rip coming up from the south- east. I took the wheel and, the way I nursed him from starboard, he had to take the sea over his port bow. I had my sciatica on me- buccaneering’s no game for a middleaged man-but I gave that fellow sprudel! By Jove; I washed him out! He stood it as long as he could, and then he made a bolt for Harry Island. I had to ride in his pocket most of the way there because I didn’t know that coast. We had charts, but Sherrin never understood ‘em, and I couldn’t leave the wheel. So we rubbed along together, and about midnight this Newt dodged in over the tail of Harry Shoals and anchored, if you please, in the lee of the Double Ricks. It was dead calm there, except for the swell, but there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre in, and I wasn’t going to anchor. It looked too like a submarine rendezvous. But first, I came alongside and asked him what his trouble was. He told me he had overheated his something-or-other bulb. I’ve never been shipmates with Diesel engines, but I took his word for it, and I said I ‘ud stand by till it cooled. Then he told me to go to hell.’

‘If you were inside the Double Ricks in the dark, you were practically there,’ said Portson.

‘That’s what I thought. I was on the bridge, rabid with sciatica, going round and round like a circus-horse in about three acres of water, and wondering when I’d hit something. Ridiculous position. Sherrin saw it. He saved me. He said it was an ideal place for submarine attacks, and we’d better begin to repel ‘em at once. As I said, I couldn’t leave the wheel, so Sherrin fought the ship-both quick-firers and the maxims. He tipped ‘em well down into the sea or well up at the Ricks as we went round and round. We made rather a row; and the row the gulls made when we woke ‘em was absolutely terrifying. ‘Give you my word!’

‘And then?’ said Winchmore.

‘I kept on running in circles through this ghastly din. I took one sheer over toward his stern-I thought I’d cut it too fine, but we missed it by inches. Then I heard his capstan busy, and in another three minutes his anchor was up. He didn’t wait to stow. He hustled out as he was-bulb or no bulb. He passed within ten feet of us (I was waiting to fall in behind him) and he shouted over the rail: “You think you’ve got patriotism. All you’ve got is uric acid and rotten spite!” I expect he was a little bored. I waited till we had cleared Harry Shoals before I went below, and then I slept till 9 a.m. He was heading north this time, and after I’d had breakfast and a smoke I ran alongside and asked him where he was bound for now. He was wrapped in a comforter, evidently suffering from a bad cold. I couldn’t quite catch what he said, but I let him croak for a few minutes and fell back. At 9 a.m. he turned round and headed south (I was getting to know the Irish Channel by then) and I followed. There was no particular sea on. It was a little chilly, but as he didn’t hug the coast I hadn’t to take the wheel. I stayed below most of the night and let Sherrin suffer. Well, Mr. Newt kept up this game all the next day, dodging up and down the Irish Channel. And it was infernally dull. He threw up the sponge off Cloone Harbour. That was on Friday morning. He signalled: “Developed defects in engine-room. Antigua trip abandoned.” Then he ran into Cloone and tied up at Brady’s Wharf. You know you can’t repair a dinghy at Cloone! I followed, of course, and berthed behind him. After lunch I thought I’d pay him a call. I wanted to look at his engines. I don’t understand Diesels, but Hyslop, my engineer, said they must have gone round ‘em with a hammer, for they were pretty badly smashed up. Besides that, they had offered all their oil to the Admiralty agent there, and it was being shifted to a tug when I went aboard him. So I’d done my job. I was just going back to Hilarity when his steward said he’d like to see me. He was lying in his cabin breathing pretty loud-wrapped up in rugs and his eyes sticking out like a rabbit’s. He offered me drinks. I couldn’t accept ‘em, of course. Then he said: “Well, Mr. Maddingham, I’m all in.” I said I was glad to hear it. Then he told me he was seriously ill with a sudden attack of bronchial pneumonia, and he asked me to run him across to England to see his doctor in town. I said, of course, that was out of the question, Hilarity being a man-of-war in commission. He couldn’t see it. He asked what had that to do with it? He thought this war was some sort of joke, and I had to repeat it all over again. He seemed rather afraid of dying (it’s no game for a middle-aged man, of course) and he hoisted himself up on one elbow and began calling me a murderer. I explained to him-perfectly politely-that I wasn’t in this job for fun. It was business. My orders were to see that he went to Antigua, and now that he wasn’t going to Antigua, and had sold his oil to us, that finished it as far as I was concerned. (Wasn’t that perfectly correct?) He said: “But that finishes me, too. I can’t get any doctor in this Godforsaken hole. I made sure you’d treat me properly as soon as I surrendered.” I said there wasn’t any question of surrender. If he’d been a wounded belligerent, I might have taken him aboard, though I certainly shouldn’t have gone a yard out of my course to land him anywhere; but as it was, he was a neutral- altogether outside the game. You see my point? I tried awfully hard to make him understand it. He went on about his affairs all being at loose ends. He was a rich man-a million and a quarter, he said-and he wanted to redraft his will before he died. I told him a good many people were in his position just now-only they weren’t rich. He changed his tack then and appealed to me on the grounds of our common humanity. “Why, if you leave me now, Mr. Maddingham,” he said, “you condemn me to death, just as surely as if you hanged me.”‘