Hollow Sea (50 page)

'Yes, Mr. Walters. Yes, sir.'

He went on talking to the sailor, but that gentleman was halfway down the stairway, his instrument swinging in his hand.

Alone at last, Mr. Walters stood in the middle of the saloon and surveyed the scene. He looked at the soldiers in the corner and called out: 'Enjoy it?'

'Yes, yes. Lovely. Lovely. Oh aye. Yes—' .

How queer they talked, especially that chap with the bandages over his mouth.

Ah! The bloody evening was over, or was it night? And by heavens it would be the last, the very last for him. Again Crilly and Devine, Marvel and Sloane came into his mind. On duty or off. Tired or fresh. In good or bad mood. Sick or well. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered much in this rip of a boat. Simply nothing. He thought he had better go now, get those stewards on the go as early as possible. And that was
now.
Yes
NOW
. Then he would go to his room. Lord! His room. And Hump's room. Yes, that devil Hump's room too. Shut the door. Lock it. Bury his head in the blankets. His room. And Hump's room. Yes, that devil Hump's room. Sleep. Sleep till world's end and the cock-eyed people running it smashed up with it. He looked towards that helpless, pathetic group again. Just children. Grown up children. Children left out in the dark, and like children, wondering why maybe.

'Well, good night boys. Stewards'll fix you up O.K.'

Then he was gone. Down the ladder at a run, a sharp turn left, another little run. Was somebody chasing him? No. It was all right. Just feeling glad the 'bloody how'd yer do' was over.

'And here's the room,' he was saying, 'the cosy room.'
 
'Yes, here's your cosy room,' his fat body seemed to be saying too.

He slammed the door.

'Hump!' he called. 'Hump! Get up.'

Mr. Hump, however, was deado.

'Sleeping his damned brains away. What he has left anyhow, thought Mr. Walters. 'The damned, damned, damned—' well, he wouldn't forget Hump for a long, long time. Never, in fact. Nor the way he had been made a fool of to-night.

He pressed a bell-button in the bulkhead.

He waited ten seconds, counting ten. He rang again.

Crilly arrived. He too looked washed out.

'Get Sloane, Marvel, yourself, Devine. Clean that saloon up ship-shape.'

'Marvel was found hanged, sir, 'bout an hour ago. I—'

'Marvel, found hanged? Oh aye, yes-im-um-ah-yes-yes-yes. Must be drunk. Get to hell then will you and clean that saloon.'

'Sloane has just turned in, sir. He's been on duty since—'

'Hurry up,' Walters said. Then savagely,
'Are
you deaf? Fire away. Get the bloody saloon ship-shape. Right now. Understand that?'

Mr. Walters began taking off his coat. 'Fire away! Aye. Fire away!'

'But, sir—'

'And for every damn torment I get through all the silly swines running this confounded war, I'll take it back out of you, you miserable half-starved looking bastard. Goddam! You simply
can't,
' Mr. Walters's voice had reached soprano altitude now, 'you can't
help
being nasty, can you, Hump?' he said, laughed, put his hand on Mr. Hump's chest.

The door banged and the steward had gone.

Mr. Walters took Mr. Hump's nose between a fat finger and thumb and squeezed it.

'Here, lazy-bones. I squeezed hard but no brains dribbled through. They've been slept away, anyhow. Good bloody night.'

He climbed into his bunk without bothering to undress, switched out the light, said under his breath, 'Thank heavens.'

Then, with the blankets tucked snugly round him, 'Go! Go ahead, engines. Get this creepy, crawly, crazy stinker along. Oh, boy! What a bloody war. Won't a pub be grand after this lot? Oh, boy!'

T
HE
steward could see Mr. Dunford for the door was partly open. He was seated at his desk, pen in hand. He was turning over the pages of a book, then slowly turning them back again as though he were searching for some particular entry there. The steward hesitated. Then he went up and knocked on the door.

'Lunch is ready, sir. Mr. Deveney said you would be joining him, sir.'

'Oh, yes! Right. Thank you. Coming directly. Um – ah!—'

The steward said 'Yes, sir,' then walked away. He could see Mr. Ericson talking to the quartermaster. He had no eyes for the sun, clear sky, choppy water. He turned the corner.

Mr. Dunford turned another page, then bent over it, reading what he had written there. 'View F White chalk cliffs in line with G Light. 250° leads N. of L. Bank.'

'Correct. Of course. North of L. Bank.'

He sat back in his chair now. A breeze came through the open port. A.10 was full-speed now. Speeding towards home, another land and another time. In four days, five at the most, he was saying to himself as now he turned back two pages and began reading again. He suddenly began to laugh. He read with his head close to the book, the hand holding the pen raised in air, as though he were on the stroke of making a fresh entry there.

'At Lat. 40° 25' 4" N. Long.
 
.
 
.
 
. 26° 4' 7" E.'

He covered his eyes with his fingers, their tips pressing upon the eyeballs.

White chalk cliffs in line with that light. Yes. He remembered that very well.

The white chalk cliffs were high, leaned backward, fell away from the senseless sea. Upthrust like fingers, long skeleton fingers, spearing sun and sky. The senseless sea mirrored it. White. Chalk, 257
0
leading N. of L. bank. He began reading aloud now. 'The wheel pins. Will still spin there.'

He repeated this aloud as he read further. He laid down the pen, placed his hands on his knees, leaning forward over the table. The sun shone through the partly open door, the light falling across his black serge coat.

'View GD in line with C Lat. 220° leads N.W. of Z. At Lat. 40° 25' 8" N. Long.

'All bearings are true.

'Shoals.

'Soundings in fathoms. Reduce Long. 11°'

He read rapidly now, though now and again an entry baffled him, a hurried scrawl, unable to understand his own writings. Suddenly he called out angrily. 'All right. I said all right. Go away, man. Don't come bothering me.'

The steward swore under his breath, and returned to the mess to see to Mr. Deveney.

'At Lat. 40° 25' 4" N. Long. 26° 4' 7" E.'

Mr. Dunford got up, glanced through the open port-hole, then suddenly sat down again. Confound the fellow, anyhow. Butting in just at this particular hour. 'Let me see. There are some entries I must expand.'

There came another knock upon the door, but this time Mr. Dunford was given no chance to make remonstrance. The voice outside droned:

'Wanted outside, sir. Mr. Ericson, sir.'

'Blast!' exclaimed Dunford. He picked up his hat and went out on to the bridge. He could see Mr. Ericson in the starboard wing, holding a pair of glasses to his eyes.

'I heard the bell,' he said to Ericson, joining him with glasses hastily picked up from the shelf under the rail. Yes. He had heard the bell. He seemed quite indifferent to the fact that Mr. Ericson's face carried a very worried look.

'It's almost abeam. A queer looking affair, Mr. Ericson. How long have you had your eye cocked on her?'

'I thought she was a full-rigged ship at first,' replied Ericson. 'Now I see it's a very small fishing-boat. She's a Greek.'

'Yes. That's it. Odd-looking, just the same, for a fisherman.'

'Well, I've seen queerer looking craft than her in my time,' said Mr. Dunford, laughing, as he put back the glasses on the shelf. 'If we were directly following the trade route we might expect to see much queerer things than that, Mr. Ericson, and we should have lots more to worry about.'

Half turning he espied the tiger just coming out of the mess. He put up his hand. He just couldn't stand hearing about that steward again. He went up to the quartermaster standing by.

'Tell the bosun to post two more men on the fo'c'sle head.' Then he went off to the mess to join Mr. Deveney. This would be the first time he had eaten with Mr. Deveney since sailing, in fact the
very
first time he had eaten in the mess at all, always having his meals brought to him by the tiger. He hummed to himself as he went along.

This trip, this adventure, bit of business, crusade, call it what you like, well it was only a matter of four days, five at the most. No matter. The back of the thing had been broken, anyhow. And they might hope to drop anchor in the river, anyway. No such luck as sailing right into a berth and tying up there. Ships like A.10 were different. One dealt entirely in potentialities. No, A.10 wasn't that kind of ship. There were too many exciting possibilities. 'Chance had lost a little of its magic now,' he thought as he stepped into the corridor leading to the mess-room.

A dirty, futile game. Well, four days, five days. 'A little margin still left for Chance,' he said to himself. Yes. That's where he came in. But the others, well, they stepped out. They were free men. At least they called themselves free, and would no doubt hardly wait for those ropes to go over the bitts, before they would be rushing down the gangway. 'I don't think I shall see the same faces next trip.'

Then he was in the mess, placing his hat on the sideboard, saying, 'Hello, Deveney,' to the gentleman very busy with his soup, and there was a rather strong smell of beef about, and Mr. Dunford didn't quite like it. A little rank somehow. He sat down opposite the now first officer.

Mr. Deveney was on the point of saying something, but the steward was already at Mr. Dunford's elbow, reciting almost poetically, 'Pea soup, sir. Roast beef and cabbage and potatoes, sago pudding, cheese, some bottled Guinness, sir.'

'Bring me some soup,' Mr. Dunford said.

'You were going to say something, Mr. Deveney,' he said, looking across at the officer.

'Yes.' He began to laugh. 'It was only about the concert last night, sir.' He went on laughing, whilst he watched the steward place a bowl of soup in front of Mr. Dunford. The steward retired, stood by the sideboard, caught Dunford's glance, went quietly out.

'Oh that,' Dunford said. 'I heard about it too from Mr. Ericson. It was quite a success. It broke the tension, it relieved everybody. That was good.'

'May I say, sir, that I believe you did the wise thing in burying those men. I thought that perhaps you might—'

'Well?' Dunford seemed almost churlish. 'Well?'

Deveney gave a sickly smile and said, 'Oh, nothing, sir. Nothing.'

'Our position is no different,' said Mr. Dunford. 'If one harbour is closed to us there is no reason for not supposing another harbour might not be closed likewise.'

'Surely, Mr. Dunford. You're not suggesting that the men we have below now might—'

And again Mr. Dunford interrupted by saying, 'This ship cannot put into any harbour without a clean bill of health. That is nothing new, Mr. Deveney. I once commanded a ship in which almost the same set of circumstances arose, and what happened in that case? I'll tell you. It sounds unbelievable, nevertheless it's true. We sailed from port to port, almost begging entrance, but each place we went to turned us away on the grounds that we would imperil the health of the port. What d'you suppose is going to happen in this case? D'you imagine that A.10 will simply pick up a pilot and be gracefully berthed in an English port? Mr. Deveney, I anticipate a deal of trouble with the authorities at home. Why? Because the authorities at home exist to override the orders of the authorities out here. I mean – well, you know right well what I mean. All I am concerned about is that we are being used as the pendulum to swing between the two of them. The port authorities will want this report and that report, the authorities who have ordered us to proceed home will by this time have forgotten all about us. Forgetting is becoming a virtue now. On top of that there are reports to the medical authorities, the military authorities, the naval authorities, and every Tom, Dick and Harry who likes to come down and worry our souls out of us. It is one thing, Mr. Deveney, to carry out over a thousand men, and to throw two hundred into the sea, to return with the remnants of a draft, and in the state they're in. But understand this. We are – I should say,
this ship
stands for – but one thing. Tonnage. Tonnage is everything. What you've done, and what you thought, what happened and what didn't happen, does not count. Under orders to proceed to port of registration, we do so, hoping for the best, the best of a bad bargain. That some of those soldiers below will still be alive to land. That every man for'ard is able to pack his bag and go home. That every officer is satisfied that what we were ordered to do we did. That's all. I could have told you how events would work out the first day we sailed. I could tell you now what will happen on our next trip. Still, we won't pursue the matter. Yes. I too heard all about that concert, Mr. Deveney. And now I've many other things to think about. Many other things.'

He pushed away the soup plate, and when the steward came said, 'Some bread and cheese. Have we anything decent in the way of water?'

'Yes, sir.'

The steward went to the sideboard and brought a yellowish looking water-bottle, poured out a glassful and then retired gracefully to the sideboard again. Mr. Dunford looked at the water, in the glass, then pushed it away saying, 'It looks like oil, steward. I'll have some Guinness.'

'I keep thinking of young Bradshaw,' Deveney began, but here Mr. Dunford interrupted quickly saying, 'Then don't Mr. Deveney.'

The two men were silent now, Mr. Deveney doing his best with a piece of meat that looked like the sole of somebody's boot, whilst Mr. Dunford ran his finger round the top of the glass of stout. He seemed irritable, certainly far from comfortable. He had eaten scarcely anything, and even wondered now why he had bothered to come in at all. But in spite of this he sat on, watching Mr. Deveney eat, saying not a word, for the simple reason that he couldn't think of a single thing to say, not if his whole life depended on it. He hated himself for striking up this attitude, and yet there was something worrying, something gnawing away at one all the time, and he really wanted to get back to his cabin and shut himself up. It was the responsibility, it was yesterday, that mass burial, it was today, those pitiful men below. It was those men for'ard and those aft. Those mines floating about and the periscope scratching water surfaces. It was that order and this order, that resolve and this resolve. That starting point and the secrecy. That senseless sea, the cliffs, and Bradshaw blown high in the air, Dr. Donaldson dragged under by a raft. That concert and raised voices and ribald laughter, that steward Marvel and men dragged from the hold and flung over the rail by a madman. It was all this, waiting. Waiting and wondering. It was being a hell of a fellow and it was being sick – sick. It was listening and trying not to feel, feeling and shutting the eyes. It was thinking of purposes propelling one forward and laughing about it all. It was hoping and moving murderously slow through water. It was thinking whilst alone, and even sitting at table in the mess and looking at a glass of stout. All these things, circling about, spreading out, closing in.