I'll Never Be Young Again (19 page)

The mate paced up and down, a small figure like a beetle in an oilskin several sizes too large for him.

The Dutch fireman came up for a breather; he put his head out of the round scuttle and sniffed at the rain. In the fo’c’sle one of the Belgians was playing on a mouth-organ; he drew in his breath with short, spasmodic jerks, and the tune came dolefully, a harsh, strained sound. Somehow the hearing of it brought back to me a memory of long ago, when I had been taken as a child by my mother to a bay some twenty miles from home. We had a picnic on the beach, and a mist had blown in upon us from the sea, even as this mist that wrapped the
Romanie
now, and listening I had heard the mournful tolling of a bell coming from a far distance across the bay. My mother told me it was a buoy, set in the sea to mark a dangerous ledge of rock, and when sailors heard the toll of it through the mist it served them as a warning, and they altered their course accordingly. The mouth-organ was like a poor thin echo of that tolling bell; it shivered its way through the air from the fo’c’sle to the galley door, borne on the wind and the rain. Someone began to sing against the tune in a different key, and then there was a great burst of laughter, and a silly, high French voice. It jarred horribly, and I shuddered for no reason. I hated the
Romanie
.

 

It was about half-past seven in the evening. We had passed the Ile d’Ouessant early in the afternoon; it had been fine enough to distinguish it away on the quarter, and then the wall of fog had come up again, and we ran away into this with the land left far astern. I had been up on the bridge, taking my stand at the wheel. The skipper had been beside me for a while, but when we came into the fog once more he shrugged his shoulders as though this was some trick the fates had played him, and after peering about him he altered the course he had just given me, then called to the mate for some sort of conference - mainly, I think, to impress me with their joint efficiency, and finally disappeared and leaving me with no confidence at all. The mate remained on the bridge, nervous, restless, and his very manner unsettled me, especially the way he kept turning his head and listening - straining his eyes into the bank of fog. It was as though he expected to hear something.

There was no protection from the weather on the bridge.The rain drove into my eyes, and I could not see ahead of us more than two cables’ length or so. The ship groaned and plunged in an ugly cross sea. Deep inside me I had a feeling that neither the skipper nor the mate, nor any of us upon the ship, knew for certain where we were going.

Later I was relieved by one of the Belgians, and I went down from the bridge, and then for’ard to the fo’c’sle.

This mist had made everything dark. Somebody had lit the lamp, it swung in gimbals against the bulkhead, casting a yellow reflection on the faces of the men. One of them lay stretched in his berth, his hands over his eyes.There was a smell of wet oilskin, stale tobacco, and cheese. A torn magazine without a cover lay upon the floor. I lit a cigarette and went and sat beside Jake.

‘What’s happened?’ he said.

‘Nothing,’ I told him; ‘you can’t see a yard ahead, and the glass is falling. I don’t think the bloody little fool has any idea where we are.’

‘He’s keeping too close in,’ said Jake; ‘I don’t know what his game is.’

‘He’s afraid of the high seas farther out,’ I suggested; ‘maybe he thinks she’ll settle down to it and wallow. He must have realized by now she won’t stand it. Do you think he’ll try for Brest?’

‘We’re miles from Brest,’ said Jake; ‘this coast is hell - he ought to know that!’

‘He doesn’t seem to make any effort,’ I said; ‘you’d think if he wasn’t afraid for his own skin he’d give some thought to the owners of the blasted ship. He’d lose his job even if he saved himself.’

‘Not necessarily, Dick.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘It might be a put-up job,’ he said.

‘Good God!’

‘Yes, I know. But that sort of thing happens at sea. When a ship is losing money over freights and she’s not worth reconditioning, what’s to prevent an owner making a bit on the insurance? Broken ships don’t tell any tales.’

‘Listen, Jake, no skipper’s going to risk his life for the sake of his owner’s pocket.’

‘What about the skipper’s pocket?’ said Jake. ‘He’d make on the deal, too, you may depend on that. A fellow like this Belgian of ours would split himself if he stood to gain anything by it. I know the type. Lazy, ignorant, good-natured, but crooked as hell.’

‘I don’t believe he’d have the guts to carry through with the job,’ I said.

‘Perhaps not. It needs an odd sort of courage. It wouldn’t be so difficult, Dick, to run a vessel ashore on a quiet stretch of coast. There wouldn’t be much danger, I mean. A skipper would blame the fog - and then invent a highly-coloured story of the fight he’d had.While all the time he’d waded ashore, and watched his ship break up on the rocks where he’d put her himself.’

‘What about the mate - and the men?’

‘Bribes, Dick, can quieten a whole lot of nonsense.’

It sounded convincing, this theory of Jake’s, but even if it were true, I did not see how the knowledge of it would help us at all.

‘Oh, well!’ I said, ‘he can send her to the bottom for all I care. I’m game for a swim or anything else.’

‘Yes,’ said Jake, ‘so would I be if we were heading for a sand-bank off the coast of Holland, but if this fellow thinks he’s being clever, running ashore round the Pointe du Raz, he’s making the biggest mistake of his life, and the last one.’

I looked at Jake through the haze of smoke.

‘You can’t scare me,’ I laughed; ‘come on deck.’

He followed me without a word.The seas were running higher now than when I had been upon the bridge, and the mist had not lifted. The seas were grey, foam-crested, rearing into the air like strange giants with sloping shoulders, turning and rushing upon us out of the mist. A thin rain blew in our faces. Every now and then the deck was swept with a sheet of water, and the ship rolled heavily, wearily, as if she had no wish to shake free.

It would be dark soon. I could see the figures of the mate and the skipper on the bridge, standing beside the man at the wheel. The mate was gesticulating with his hands, and I could imagine the torrent of words pouring from his mouth. It seemed as though the skipper turned a helpless face and shrugged his shoulders.The chap at the wheel gazed stolidly before him, solemn as a mule. They were like dumb shadows in a moving-picture show. I knew how they would be in a crisis, pitiful, impotent, and swept aside. We watched them in silence, and we watched the curling seas sweep astern of the
Romanie
, and we listened to the rain. The mist closed in upon us, grey now and stifling, and night came like a dark cloud to cover us.

‘I don’t think,’ said Jake, ‘we can do any good by staying here.’ This time it was I who made no answer, and he led the way back into the fo’c’sle, where the flickering lamp shone as a glow of queer comfort, and the Belgian boy blowing his mouth-organ seemed symbolical and a defiance of fear.

 

I can see them now without closing my eyes, dark figures on a dim background, sprawling in the cramped fo’c’sle under a guttering light. The boy with the mouth-organ sat on the edge of his cot with his legs swinging over, dangling to the berth below. He leant sideways, his cheeks puffed out, and his eyes closed, and ever and again he took the instrument from his mouth and wiped it on his trouser knee. One of the firemen lay on his back asleep, even the wail of the mouth-organ would not wake him. His face was upturned, and he had one arm stretched above his head, and one leg drawn up, a weird, strained position. He snored loudly, quivering on a scale with a tremulous shudder, followed by a deep, satisfying intake of breath. The sound of his snores was distinct and apart; it did not mingle with the tuneless jerky whimper played by the boy. Another fellow sat cross-legged, a jacket across his knees, biting at a piece of coarse black thread, and turning his eyes up to the boy with the mouth-organ, chaffing him, keeping up a barrage of words. He spoke a mixture of Flemish and bad French; I could not distinguish half of what he said. I think this was the fellow who had drawn the pornographic figures in the galley. He grinned at Jake and me, showing a great empty mouth and two yellow fangs drooping from black gums.

‘
Tu l’as vu, le petit, avec son foutu machin
,’ he said, ‘
quand on ne le regarde pas il s’en sert comme d’une petite amie, quoi! Assez, mon vieux, assez - tu me fais chier avec ton bruit. C’est pas une femme ça -
’

I hated his voice, and his high thin cackle of laughter. The boy up in the cot puffed out his cheeks and a high-pitched wail came from his mouth-organ, while the sleeping man spluttered and tremored beneath him.

I could feel the rush of the sea against the bows of the vessel, the thud and plunge of her head in the trough, and the walls of the ship groaned and screamed for relief, shuddering like a live thing in pain. There was a hiss of air above me, coming from some crack, a hollow echo of the wind on deck, and the water sucked and gurgled in the bilges beneath the planks.

‘Oh! hell,’ I said to Jake, ‘I can’t turn in and sleep and I can’t sit here and wait. If there’s going to be a row in this hole, let’s make it loud and strong.’ He smiled, he did not say anything.

‘Here, you,’ I called to the boy, ‘stop that damned howling -
jouez quelque chose
. And you -
finie votre
bloody mucking with a needle -
chantez - chantez, tout le monde
.’

I climbed on a berth, waving my hands in the air.

‘
Moi, je suis
conductor,’ I shouted, ‘
suivez
, everybody.’ I kicked the Dutch fireman in the pants. ‘Wake up, you lousy bum, and sing.’ He turned over, cursing, shaking his great fat head at me. The Belgians laughed, the boy climbed up beside me, screaming his mouth-organ in my ear. He played something, and we all joined in the chorus, whistling, yelling and stamping our feet. Somebody started improvising words to another tune, the boy followed it up, and I bent forward gravely, swaying from the waist.

‘
Messieurs, mesdames, permettez-moi de vous présenter ma petite camarade . . .
’

The boy and I clung to each other lovingly, the Belgians hooted and jeered, singing at the top of their voices.

The ship rolled heavily from side to side, and we crashed down from the bunk, struggling, cursing, and we tried to dance on the floor, the boy sobbing for breath on his mouth-organ, the others clapping and stamping their feet.

There was a song about ‘
une blonde
’, whose something-or-other was ‘
profonde
’. We sang, with actions of course, I following the words and grimaces of the boy, scarcely knowing what I said, shaking with laughter, forcing myself. ‘
Il y avait une blonde
,’ answering a back-chat of questions.

‘
C’était comme ça?
’

‘
Deux fois ça, mon vieux.
’

‘
Quoi! Plus grande encore? Pas possible.
’

‘
Cherche-la - alors, ta blonde. Tout le monde va passer dedans.
’

There was another burst of laughter as the ship lurched again, and we lost our balance, sliding helplessly into a corner.

I saw Jake push the door, and a gust of wind came tearing through, sending the lamp a-quiver, while he kept his head and shoulder in the entrance, watching the weather.

I could tell that the seas had increased, and at that moment a sheet of water ran along the deck, sweeping its way for’ard, and part of it washing through the open door of the fo’c’sle.

‘Keep it shut, you damn fool,’ I said to Jake; ‘d’you want to drown us?’ - and one glimpse had shown us that the mist had now become part of the dark night, shrouded, horrible, and we could not even see the bridge because of it. We were sober in an instant, the laughter dying away, and the mouth-organ breaking off suddenly in the middle of a note. The bell rang then from the direction of the bridge, and we heard the voice of the mate shouting, while one of the watch staggered along the deck towards us from amidships, a swaying ineffectual figure in his streaming oilskin, his head bent, the wind tugging at him. We came out on deck as we were, I close to Jake, somebody following behind me dragging at a boot, muttering under his breath, and I saw one man look at another with white scared eyes.

The
Romanie
rolled now like a turtle in the water. The bell rang again, and she plunged from side to side, as though she had no power within her, but must drift wherever the seas should sweep her.

We were making no progress now, our speed was dead slow, and we stood about peering at each other in the gloom, waiting for orders, waiting for some signal.The men called to one another excitedly, each one suggesting what should have been done, no one listening to anyone but himself.The hoarse cries of the mate seemed to come from very far away. I looked up at Jake standing beside me; he was very still, as though drawn within himself, and quieter than I had ever seen him. Then he turned to me with the smile I knew, bringing relief and a denial of trouble.

‘If there’s a panic,’ he said, ‘you’ll be all right, won’t you?’ He spoke calmly, without a suggestion of fear, and I knew that wherever he was there would be safety.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ll be all right.’

We stood by, ready, expectant, straining our eyes through the mist and the darkness, turning our heads first one way and then another, listening - always listening.

It seemed to me that many hours must have passed, and there was no change, no new thing to force itself upon us, making a diversion however terrible, and we went on waiting there with the ship rising and falling in the high seas, and the soft rain blowing on our faces.

I wondered why the jerky, horrible rhythm of the tune of the mouth-organ should turn and twist itself in my mind, its little patter and jingle hurting me, keeping me from the full realization of what might come. I thought of the
Romanie
lying beside the wharf at Stockholm, the tall crane above her, the lights, and the thunder of the coal pouring down the shaft into the hold.