Hollow Sea (37 page)

Dunford's hand moved over the table, the hand opened, pawed the surface of it. The other joined it and two hands were rubbing the table.

There was dirt there and they knew it, and because it was dirt they recoiled, and then they had to do it. Not because of the dirt, but because they had to. And dirt was suddenly a dignity, and he remembered that also. Yesterday was in the sullen places and it was hot there, sweltering, and sweat was holy, dripping from many faces. Lights flashed, blood flowed, flowed away into emptiness. Yesterday and no fullness there. Only the haze. The haze. Men passed, flashed by, were gone. An end to that yesterday, but no beginning. Men went forward, some struck, some held. None triumphed. Yesterday in the sullen places was something grown inside one. Something to hold. Like flowers in the hand that will not grow again.

The hands rubbing on the table suddenly stopped, stiffened. Mr. Dunford got up, all attention, having heard the rap upon his door. He rushed over and opened it, brushed past the man standing outside, heard what he said, but they were ragged words from a humble mouth, and that was nothing new. He had expected it, he had been waiting for it. And others were waiting for him. He knew that also. The ship and the life in that ship waited, hung in the balance of decision. He went straight to the bridge. The cable was up. He heard many voices for'ard. Many different voices, some angry, some soft and calm. One laughing. One swearing loudly. They had been waiting too. He saw Ericson standing, silent. He too was waiting. He laughed suddenly.

'Ericson,' he called from the starboard wing, and the other joined him.

'Where is the quartermaster on duty?' asked Dunford gruffly.

'Just behind you, sir,' replied Mr. Ericson.

Dunford swung round. Yes. There was the fellow standing there. He hadn't even noticed him. He said quietly, 'Quartermaster.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Go for'ard and tell the bosun that I want the port bulkhead doors opened in the middle watch. Watch to stand by there for orders.'

'Yes, sir.'

The quartermaster departed.

Mr. Dunford stood close by the young officer now. Ericson looked at him. Wondered. He would know something soon. Those bulkhead doors were to be opened. But Dunford was speaking now. He said in a casual manner, 'Ericson, I want you to be on D deck at twelve. Good night.'

'
 
'Night, Mr. Dunford.'

The shadow in the port wind suddenly became a blur, and then a body. The body moved. It was Deveney. He had stood silent there all that time. Now he crossed over to Mr. Dunford and spoke to him. He spoke to him anxiously, urgently, great agitation in his voice. And Dunford listened. But he said nothing. He went to the tube and spoke down it. The voice in the engine-room answered him. He went to the telegraph and swung its handle, and far below the bell rang. Slowly astern. A.10 was moving. Then she began to swing round. Mr. Dunford stood by. He did these things without hurry or fuss, without speaking, as though he were quite alone on that bridge, as though Deveney did not exist, had never existed. It was quite dark, and once or twice Dunford glanced up at the sky, at the few stars, the ragged clouds. The noise for'ard had ceased. Men tramped up the well-deck, vanished. He could hear the untidy dragging of their feet on the iron deck of the fo'c'sle alleyway. Below men lay, sprawled and farther below, the heaped dead, staring at nothing. A.10 was moving at last. Moving slowly, but nevertheless moving. Veering towards another land and another time. But the loneliness was there nevertheless. Loneliness was all about, was everywhere. Dunford looked upwards again, and now the clouds seemed even more ragged, white against a greater blackness, like scratches jagged on dark rock, or on rain-sodden slate. Ragged clouds, ragged time, ragged hour. The thoughts ragged. The screen of fear rolled up, and tiredness in the eyes.

He stood rock-like, thinking, hands gently resting on the clean white rail of the bridge. One among many and yet aloof. In the middle of confusion, and this at times like a great arch under strain, all the ragged hours beneath. Water splashing, humming dynamo, whir-whir of engines, soft clap of halliards when wind came, a light wind, halliards clap-clapping against wood. Dunford heard no sounds. He looked to port, to starboard, immensities there and walls of darkness. More stars came out, but he did not look upwards any more. More noise for'ard now, and he heard that. He knew the noise, knew the place there, those men below. Yes, he knew
them
. He began pacing up and down the bridge. He saw Deveney standing there, like a statue, enveloped in his great-coat. A good man, but not like Bradshaw. No. No man was like Bradshaw, could ever be so. He knew it was time Deveney should go below. He would want to sleep. He was a tired man. Ericson would go to D deck and the watch on would be there. Deveney would return then. He himself would stay. All night, till late morning maybe. He would not go until he knew he had reached
that
position, and he could write in that log-book – 'Tuesday. 4 a.m. Position forty' – yes, he would stay till then. Before he had been tired, very tired, but not like any tiredness he had ever known. There had been a dull ache in that tiredness. Now he had thrown it from him. A.10 was about, bow cleaving water, moving onwards towards home. He said to himself from time to time, 'Home! Home!' It sounded strange. It struck no chord of feeling in him. When the spirit is pillaged, light goes. He went up to Deveney.

'You go below now, Mr. Deveney,' he said. His tone of voice was so gentle, so strange, so suddenly disarming to Deveney.

'I'll be here when you come up,' Dunford added. 'Tomorrow will be different.'

That was all, was final, and Deveney said, 'Yes. 'Night.'

He too was gone, and with his going the other's restlessness came to an end. The pacing ceased. He stood behind the port telegraph now, hidden in the half-darkness.

An eye looked out at him, wonder and much questioning behind it. That was the quartermaster who sometimes when on duty stared at Mr. Dunford from behind. Saw the broad back, the broad shoulders and straight figure, and sometimes he said to himself that he was anxious to know what the great thought about things, things like yesterday, and the hour now, and that first day. But there was no bridging that. Sometimes he would stare out at Deveney in the same way, or at Ericson, just as he had done when Bradshaw had stood there. He had caught Bradshaw in the light of the sun, and a shadow falling across his neck once. When he turned, Bradshaw's face was in the hard pitiless light of that sun, and a shadow came so that his mouth looked like a thin black line in the browned face.

Dunford half turned now, looked into the wheel-house, stepped across, looked inside. He saw the needle-point, ignored the helmsman there.

'Three points,' he said, then went out again.

Two bells rang out hard and clear from the nest.

Darkness was a blight. An isolation. He would be glad when morning came. A.10 was going forward now. Towards the light, and air would be different then. Breathing clean again, clean from defilement like that of yesterday. Waters would be blue, then green, bright green, mirroring the sun, the sky blue, clean of clouds. That would be tomorrow. The light and sun clean upon them all. Men would go about their work as though nothing had ever happened.

Mr. Dunford shifted one foot, now leaned on the other. He thought of his home, his wife, his child. Then the bell rang again and the sudden vision sank. Two rings upon the bell. Two before. And there, almost abeam now, a light. He took up the night glasses and looked through. Green light – white light. He pushed the glasses back on the shelf. He went to the tube again, made as though to speak into it, paused, then rang the telegraph. Half-speed.

Full when morning came. So he hoped. And to-morrow, if it should surely come, he would sit down, giving his mind to the urgent things. The reports, yes, the reports. And the protest. He knew it might go with all the other protests, make higher the pile. But that would mean nothing. They would soon forget. There was an urgency in the times, and something more compelling in the minds of men, and the protest would lie. Lie and become old, yellow and worn, its meaning sunk from sight, for history, some kind of history was now being made, and being writ, and protests were spokes in the wheel, the fast-moving and burning wheel. And they would sail in, and those men for'ard would go home, those who had seen much and heard much. Go home to wives and mothers and children. Simple men, clothed with power once, when they had stood against the sun in the sullen places that was yesterday, and history was made, coined upon those hollow seas, coined and made in that battered, disease-ridden, scorched and blood-soaked land, carrying with it the pestilence of some unearthly whore.

A slight breeze came up, seemed to leap over that wooden rail, fanned Dunford's face. So once again he glanced skywards. He held his head there, eyes glancing from star to star, and again the swift, fugitive-like crossing of torn clouds. He shut his eyes for a moment, then looked their way again, to what seemed an even more impenetrable darkness. Then all seemed still and dead beneath his feet. Nothing stirred. Only the vast expanse of sky seemed to swing violently, in one great sweep, deluging air, the stars to swiften their set courses, a speeding of lights through darkness.

He knew then that tiredness was coming on him again. He walked the bridge again. Bells rang. Seven. He counted them aloud, as though some unconscious instinct in him urged him to break fast with silence, disturb calm, uproot all stillness. Yes, he was feeling tired again. But that would wear off shortly. There would be coffee soon. The hour was burdensome, heavy with responsibility, upthrusting fear, giving restlessness to waiting, waiting for light. Daylight. Then he could be free for a while. The greater burden was far below. There were two men like him, but always one was below, stood in the greater silence below, seeing those who had spilt worth in the wilderness. Suddenly Mr. Pearson came into his head and he smiled. Smiled at the thought of, 'And your strategy, Mr. Dunford, is simply forgetting you've been fooled.' True maybe, but he was no longer alone. The treasure of the others had been ransacked also. He reflected that that strangely silent old man had not packed his things and asked to have the proffered boat lowered for him. No. Mr. Alfred Pearson, simple and ordinary, lost amongst the legions in that plagued and tormented port. No. Never. Dunford could never imagine it. Well, he might now rest in peace in his room, and see only to the coal, and that the hands below still had power, and were armed and ready with a greater power, should the time come.

Now Dunford looked ahead, having heard a noise below him. A man was going up to the nest. Eight bells almost on the point of ringing. They were relieving watches. Ericson would be up soon, and Deveney would, too, though he would remain, whilst the younger man went far below and was lost in those stuffy and darkened holds. Angry voices, loud voices were raised for'ard and Dunford exclaimed, 'Good Lord! That's sudden enough, anyhow.'

Even Mr. Deveney had heard it. The hum of engines did not throw it out. He was disturbed about this and decided he would go for'ard to discover what all the row was about. By the sound of it they were not in any good humour for'ard. He secretly agreed with Pearson. He felt Dunford had drawn back at the wrong moment, and he had been surprised by it. He left his cabin and went down the alleyway. He passed off the bridge, but nobody saw him. Yes. There were some men on the well-deck, but whether the watch on or the watch off he could not tell. It made little difference anyhow, he thought. He had not heard the like since he came aboard. A real row. The men were arguing on the deck there. He stood listening, standing behind a ventilator. He should go up now, but before he did go he must listen to all these confused and babbling voices. Where were the others? Was it just the sailors, and not the black crowd? 'H'm!' he said to himself, 'something for Mr. Dunford to think about, anyhow.' Then he heard Mr. Dunford's voice calling down.

'What is all that commotion for'ard there?'

Mr. Deveney left his hiding-place and went up to the bridge.

'What'd I tell you?' someone was saying. 'What did I tell you, fellers, eh?'
 
'Sure! He's right. We don't mind working with them in their bloody old war – but by hell, that doesn't say we're going to be made cods of. No, sir!'
 
'Yes. I agree! I was hoping to see Rag Annie at least! But still we can't growl! It's all in the game. At least we're going to England.'

'Did you hear all the commotion when that boat came down? Aye. They reckon the whole of Alex, docks is full of ships, and every goddam ship is full of men, and they're all held up there, and they're scared to move count of some plague they're frightened about. So we're going home, and a bloody good thing, I reckon. I'll be off this ship before you can say Jack Donoghue, I tell you.'

'It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't keep those goddam stiffs. The smell's enough to make you stand on your bloody head.'

'Aye. But they reckon he got no other orders. What's the use of growling? We all know the ship's got a damn ju-ju on her. But God love me, Charlie, it'd be a bloody sight worse if we was to go in there! They'd fill us up with more troops, for they're determined to carry those bloody old Islands. Christ, I don't care about any stink. Those poor sods wouldn't do anybody any harm. What d'you think, Roche?'

'I don't think anything at all,' the man replied. 'Less you think farther you'll get. I say let the fellers on top do the worrying. We'll be paid off a week from now, and I can get a respectable ship any time. Just think how lucky we are, stink or no stink! I'll bet that skipper knows we want to get out of it.'

'That's right, mate! Every man aboard here will get out of it goddam quick soon's she's tied up at that quay. Their "durations" ain't going to worry this man.'

'See!' said another. 'We're swinging along now. Now I reckon if that lousy steward only chucked a bottle or two into this fo'c'sle, why, it would be a different ship.'

To all this Dunford listened. Then he walked quietly away to the corner of the bridge.