Hollow Sea (45 page)

Mr. Walters sat isolated. The others too were silent.

From above came the sound of cheering.

The sound of this cheering floated up to the bridge. It was black dark. A.10 moved easily through the calm waters. Mr. Deveney moved about bat-like upon the bridge. Dunford was already below.

He was seated in his room. The cabin door was wide open. The sounds floated in. But he seemed quite unconscious of them. He sat so still, and looked so much at ease that but for the fact that his eyes were open and staring down at the red carpet, one might have assumed he was fast asleep. Here too, the drone of the engines could be heard. Six bells rang out, not so clearly now it seemed, as though the wave of sound ebbing and flowing through the saloon had robbed it of its significance. Six bells. The look-out would change now.

A pinhead of light shone in Mr. Dunford's face. This came from a small torch he held in his hand. Suddenly he switched this out. The heavy curtain across the door only seemed to increase the darkness. Then he got up and closed the door.

Outside the blackness covered everything, only the big derricks like long ghostly fingers seemed to pierce through this pall of darkness. For'ard and seen clearly against the skyline a figure. A figure just emerged from the crow's nest.

The figure was Rochdale. It was with a rather jerky tread that the relieved man made his descent down the rigging. Perhaps he felt the cold, the sudden physical movement after standing in that nest for so long. Perhaps that cheering had affected him, or the unusual darkness hinted at even darker things ahead.

Well, that hour had certainly seemed the longest he had ever spent aloft. Strange things had happened to him up there. Strange feelings had stirred in him, feelings the meaning of which he could not comprehend. He had never experienced that before. It wasn't that, as was usual with him, he had been thinking of wife and child at home, they hadn't even crossed his mind. No! He couldn't fathom the reason for the curious feelings that had held on to him during the past hour. There was in that jerky tread upon the rigging a kind of urgency, as though the isolation had for once been too much for him, and now he was free of it. It was still up there, but covering another, yes, and below there was the cheering, the singing. Did it seem so strange then? No! But at least forty more feet down and he would reach the deck. Feel it strong, secure beneath his feet. Already he was reaching out for that something which was light, was warmth, human warmth and contact.

Rochdale could not get down that ladder quickly enough. It was as though one single hour had changed him. Stripped him, newly clothed him. And when his feet did touch the deck, it was to find that a figure was standing there. Perhaps this person had been waiting for him. It was the peggy.

'I say, well, beggar me!' exclaimed Rochdale. 'What the devil are you doing out here this time of night? You ought to be in bed, Mr. Peggy.'

The boy looked at Rochdale. He saw his face set against the banked up darkness.

'I wanted to go to this concert,' said the peggy. 'But it's too late now. When I did get out of the fo'c'sle and went along I couldn't get in.'

'Well, I call that lousy. Simply lousy. But why worry, laddie? We'll be home soon. Is this your first trip?' asked Rochdale as he began unwinding the scarf from his neck. 'I—' He patted the lad on the back. 'Let's go for'ard.'

Man and boy went towards the fo'c'sle. Rochdale thought, 'Well, hang it. There's a kid for you! Here we are packed full of dirt, all kinds of it, and wounded men, and the world's all right amidships, judging by the row, and just about here,' he swung his hand round, 'just around here there are mines, there are submarines, aye, and there are hungry bloody catfish! And all this kid is worried about is a bloody song and dance.'

His hand rested on the boy's shoulder all the way to the fo'c'sle.

'Like some coffee?' Rochdale asked, as he took off reefer and cap.

'I'm going to make some right now. You can come with me if you like. But when you've had your coffee d'you know what you're going to do?' He began to laugh. 'You're going to turn into that bunk of yours. Get me, laddie? Bunko for you. Why ifs gone eleven, and you have to be up at five prompt. Now come on,' he said, as he picked up a tin cup and put sugar into it. 'There'll be enough for both in this full-up.'

They went into the galley. The fo'c'sle contained five sleeping men. The remainder were at the concert, or out on watch. The peggy sat down on the white seat in the galley and watched the look-out make coffee.

'Are we really going home?' he asked, as he watched Rochdale make coffee.

'Yes,' replied Rochdale, 'We're really going home. And we're going home laddie, for the simple reason that it's very necessary we
should
go. Right away. Everybody says that, 'cos if we don't we'll be forgotten altogether – be lost entirely. Then we would be in a bloody mess.'

'But why should we be forgotten?' The boy looked sharply at the look-out as he turned round cup in hand and began to stir his coffee with a wooden meat skewer.

'Little boy, you shouldn't ask questions. But now when I look at you I really discover that you're not a little boy at all. You're a little man. So you want me to tell you. All right. Did
your
mother ever tell you fairy tales?'

The peggy laughed. He made no reply but went on swinging his legs.

'Anyhow,' went on Rochdale, 'this isn't the time for fairy tales. Come along, boy, up you get from that bloody seat. To see you swinging your legs about there so care-free, sets me thinkin' as there's nowt wrong about anything. Tell me how much did you make last trip?'

He put a hand on the boy's shoulder, adding, 'Of course, not counting the two bob I gave you at the pay-off.'

The boy got up. 'I'm going to turn in now,' he said.

'That's better. Come along. Hanging round the decks at this time of night.'

Rochdale made as though to leave the galley, but the boy said, 'Hey! What about your coffee, Mr. Rochdale.'

The man laughed. Of course. The bloody coffee. Fancy his forgetting it. 'I must be dreaming,' he said. He took the coffee from the range and sat down again. He said nothing now, just sipped at the coffee, all the while watching the boy. He liked watching him, he hadn't taken much notice of him before, but here, sitting on the bench alone, he could look at him and think, 'How different he is.'

He had passed in and out of the fo'c'sle the whole trip yet he had hardly noticed him. Perhaps in the fo'c'sle with all those men his personality was dissolved. Here in the galley he was different. All himself. He was young, he was fresh, yes and what was more the look on his face seemed to say, 'The ship's all right for me.'

Aye. The world was all right for him. Rochdale handed him the cup.

'Take a drink,' he said. 'Make you sleep like a top. You're a nice lad,' he continued, 'and your mother must be proud of you. You're a real little man.'

Suddenly he stopped. That was quite enough. Too much praise and the kid would have his head turned right round.

'Hurry up,' he said, tapping the boy's knee. 'Hurry up. Good job I found you. Heaven knows what game you might have been on.'

Boy and man sat silent then. Each seemed to be looking with curiosity at the iron range, a very common iron range, covered with films of grease here and there. The boy handed back the cup. 'Thanks,' he said. 'We are really going home then?' he asked. 'We are really going home, Mr. Rochdale?' To which question Rochdale replied by a curt nod of the head. Then he said: 'Aye. We're going home. And when we tie up,
if
we do tie up, touching wood, there won't be a man aboard her who'll stay more than a minute. Take me? Now I'm going to scoot, simply scoot and get a job in the Atlantic Route. This one's much too dirty for me. Look here! What is your name, anyhow? Peggy's one, what's the other?'

The boy gulped down the coffee. Then he placed the cup on the bench and said: 'Jennings. My name's Jennings, Robert Jennings. My father's a bosun on the
Oresa
. He sails to India. I have a brother who is A.B. aboard a tramp ship. He comes home every two years. And I have an uncle who's a third officer.'

'Gosh! You must be proud,' Rochdale said, bursting into laughter.

'Why did the Captain keep all those dead men in the hold?'

Rochdale looked intently at the boy. He couldn't be more than fifteen years old. Perhaps younger. And he had seen the same things. All the things.
Everything
. And he was a little boy just the same.

'Oh, I don't know! Perhaps he's – I don't know. It doesn't matter anyhow. But listen to me, sonny. You ought to go to bed. D'you hear me? You have no right to be sitting up here at this time of night I'll bet your mother wouldn't allow it. Now you just get into that bunk of yours, and fall asleep like a good lad. I've told you a fairy tale. Now what bloody more can you want?'

The peggy laughed. 'Are you going to the concert, Mr. Rochdale?'

He got to his feet.

'I don't know,' Rochdale replied. 'Maybe the best part's over, anyhow! All I may have missed is hearing one of the fellers telling that yarn about the Orange woman. But shut your ears to that; youngster. Well, let's go.'

They went back to the fo'c'sle. The peggy went straight to his bunk and sat down. He started to undress. Rochdale glanced up at the sleeping men.

'Now they've got real sense. More than I have, for I'm just going to go along there and see what's going on. Perhaps they'll be giving us a drink.'

He leaned his head on his hands, his eyes followed the grooves in the clean wooden table, clean except for the grease-filled grooves.

The peggy had already climbed into his bunk.

A man woke at that moment saying sleepily, 'What's all the bloody row?' and, yawning, 'Put out that goddam light, somebody.'

Rochdale got to his feet, left the fo'c'sle, switched off the light as he went out.

After all, perhaps he would be best off along there, see some of the fun anyhow. Somehow the fo'c'sle gave him the dithers tonight. 'I'm not usually like that,' he was telling himself as he ambled leisurely down the well-deck. 'But everybody's out. Everybody's on holiday. Now if that little peggy hadn't actually been falling asleep without really knowing it' – Well, he would have sat in that galley with him the whole watch, just telling him fairy tales. A bright, quick, good-working lad without a doubt. All the same he was glad it wasn't any kid of his. Yes, sir.

He stopped by the alleyway, leaned against the bulwarks. All was laughter ahead. The laughter of men who didn't care a hang, who heard no sounds save that of their own laughter, saw nothing except the many faces inside that saloon. Thought nothing in particular perhaps. Yet somehow he, Rochdale, couldn't help thinking. It was as though he had cut down every thought in his head, just like wheat, that he had long forgotten how to think, and then suddenly like the growing wheat the thoughts had come up again. All kinds of thoughts. Why did he feel so suddenly lonely? Why had he sat talking to the kid? Why didn't he go for'ard right now, turn in, fall asleep like a sensible man? He didn't know. He felt a bit queer, and that was all he did know. Not frightened, not lonely, just aware of something, like a man kidding himself that there is a figure before him, yet all is space. Nothing there.

Rochdale went on down the alleyway. There was a sudden silence in the saloon. Then he heard Mr. Walters speaking. He stopped to listen. A squeaky sound. What the hell was the fellow talking about?

Rochdale climbed the ladder, found himself on the saloon deck. As he stood there a hand touched his shoulder. When he looked up he saw a steward.

'Come this way. Quick!' the steward said. Rochdale knew this man. His name was Marvel. He followed the man along the saloon.

'What's up?' he asked.

'You'll see,' the steward snapped back. 'Hurry up.'

Rochdale became quite excited. 'Well, Christ Almighty,' he swore loudly. 'You can say what it is can't you? Pulling a feller away from a sing-song.'

The steward did not answer.
 
.
 
.
 
They reached the after-deck. Went down the ladder.

Marvel suddenly gripped the look-out man with both hands, held him fast, for almost a minute, stared, glowered, seemed to ransack this other face.

Rochdale said, 'What's up? Gone crazy or something? Let go my arm will you?'

The hands dropped quickly, heavily, there was a sort of abandon in their quick movement as though the person had been shot. Then he turned on his heel.

'This way,' he snapped.

Rochdale followed behind him. He saw that Marvel was wearing the white jacket as usual, but he did not see the wet blood that coated its front. In any case the look-out man was far too excited, too bewildered by this sudden summons to see anything but that strange face that had looked at him by the companion ladder. At last he pulled Marvel's arm. Held it tight. It was a thin arm, but then the steward was thin too.

'What you want, anyhow?' demanded Rochdale. 'Is it help? Or are you just going off your nut, or are you walking in your sleep or what?'

Marvel did not answer. He seized Rochdale's hand and pulled him towards the hospital under the poop, the cabin where the loonies were. He knew too that this steward did night watches at the aft end.

Again he looked at Rochdale. Said, 'I want you to help me.'

'Yes. Yes. Certainly,' replied Rochdale. 'But what is wrong? Don't you get any relief or what? Or has something happened? That's just what it is. Something's happened. One of those fellers gone west. I'll bet it is.'

'Go in. Take a look,' Marvel said. He pushed Rochdale towards the door.

The man opened it and went inside. Marvel shut the door on him and waited.

Rochdale looked round. He saw a man in the bunk, stark naked, laughing, his mouth afroth with slobber. In the lower one he saw the boy. He was wide awake. Already his eyes were fastened upon the newcomer. For the first time in all his life, Rochdale was afraid. He laughed. Laughed at his silliness. Afraid? For what? Of what?