In Hazard (8 page)

A well-found schooner of a mere two hundred tons, supposing she had weathered that storm, would not have been dead like that. Her pumps would have still been working, because they would have been worked by men: they could be worked as long as her crew lived. Her masts, of course, would have gone overboard; but once the storm relaxed, it would have needed mere carpentry to step spars against their stumps, rig jury-sails, repair the rudder, and so limp home. The very distance a great modern steamer has advanced beyond the little schooner is the measure of what a steamer's crew have to face, once her power has failed. Captain Edwardes, in charge of this lifeless log, in command of all these willing but unusable men, was well aware of that.

He found Mr. MacDonald in his room, still (after half an hour) changing his clothes; and they returned to the engine room together.

At mid-night, Captain Edwardes went to the saloon. A gimballed oil lamp was burning. The place was a horrid mess. It was tilted steeply on one end, and the lower end was awash; with splintered chairs and smaller rubbish floating in it, and the water slapping up occasionally to the higher end. There deck-officers, boys, and a few engineers—all mixed for once—had wedged themselves behind a table, upright. No one would have thought of sleep, even if it had been possible: they were waiting for the expected lull, now so long overdue. The Chief Steward (a rotund, butler-like chap) was with them. What little food—mostly biscuits—he had in the pantry, he had locked up pending the Captain's orders; for it would have to serve officers and crew both, English and Chinese. The storeroom was flooded, he could not get out any more till the pumps were working again. The only thing he had plenty of in the pantry was spirits. But, curiously, no one seemed to want any, not even a nip.

There was a smell of stale sea, stale food, and stale air: but there was another smell too: bitter, ammoniac. It was quite faint, but the Captain knew it. You do not forget it, if you have ever smelt it. It was the smell of fear. Disciplined men can control their muscles, even their facial expressions. But they cannot control the chemistry of their sweat-glands.

Captain Edwardes sniffed, and knew that the men needed some encouragement; so he gave it; his shaggy eyebrows sticking out like horns over his brilliant eyes, his tubby body planted like a light-house on a rock. For he felt himself full of power, like a prophet, with enough courage to serve out round the ship in ladles.

When the storm began, he had been worried: for this was not the first time he had run his ship into a tropical storm. Once before, when a young man, he had been caught in a typhoon, in his first command. It had not been a storm as fierce as this one, of course, and he had come through it without damage; but there is no need to get caught in typhoons nowadays, the text-books tell you: it is your own fault: and Owners believe the text-books. Moreover, what he had done that time had been deliberate: he had deliberately run into its expected path, though if he had stayed where he was the storm would have missed him. Yes; but where he was, that was an intricate net-work of channels and islands. There might be not one chance in ten that the storm would catch him, there: but if the tenth chance did catch him, with no room to move, his ship was as good as lost. On the other hand, if he put out to the open sea, it was nine chances out of ten the storm would catch him. Yes, but with plenty of room to move, there was no real danger if it did. He had argued like that; gone out: got caught in it, and came through safely. Still, it had been difficult to prove his policy to his Owners. In the end, they had forgiven him: but not forgotten. Owners do not forget. Or, if they do, they have only to consult their files to be reminded of everything.

So now that ill-luck had repeated history, and he was caught a second time, he might not be forgiven a second time. True, this time he had not flouted the text-books, he had done everything they recommend: and even then had got caught. Not a deliberate risk taken this time, just ill-luck. But he knew well that while a wise, deliberate risk may sometimes be forgiven, ill-luck is never forgiven.

Yes, he had been worried. But that was only at first. For soon the storm reached such a height that plainly this was no longer an issue between himself and his Owners, but become an issue between himself and his Maker. That altered things. That suited him better. From then on, he was like an artist in a bout of inspiration.

The boys were the turning-point; when they came rushing up on to the bridge, courageous themselves, and confident in him. It was they who lit him. Then, later, as the storm increased to its immense height, so the flame brightened: his whole mind and body were possessed by intense excitement. No room for thought of his Owners. No room in him for anything but a gigantic exhilaration, and a consciousness that for the time-being all his abilities were heightened.

But back to the saloon. He was talking about the coming lull. “—shall need all hands then,” he was saying. “There may be trouble with the Chinese. I rely on you gentlemen to put that right. You know, as well as I do, there's no danger to the ship if we all do our duty. By the afternoon it will all be over: be out in the sunshine. But the Chinese don't know that: they think they're going down. They're ignorant, and they got the wind-up. And when a Chinaman gets the wind-up he sits on his behind and don't do damn-all. It's up to you to show 'em, gentlemen. Let 'em see in your faces there's nothing to be afraid of. Then they'll do all you ask 'em. Cheerfulness.
You
know we're right as rain: well, let the Chinese see you know it.”

A few moments later he popped his head back into the saloon. “When the lull comes, all Deck-officers will report on the Bridge.”

He had to roar all that, to make himself heard.

It was not till nearly two in the morning that the behaviour of the weather showed any change. Up till then, the wind had come upon them from the northeast almost in a single movement continuously. Now it grew fitful. It came from all sides, in blasts, as if big shells were being burst close about them. Gusts still very strong, but totally uncertain in direction.

Some of these gusts, coming up from what had been leeward with the lifting-force of an explosion, almost seemed as if they could blast the heeled ship back on to an even keel. But the weight of her sodden cargo held her implacably down: and other gusts, coming again out of the east and north, instead pinned her even lower.

Such an area of violent chaos, Edwardes knew, was commonly the torn fringe of the dead windlessness of a hurricane's centre. That centre must at last be near. It might not give a long respite: they must be ready for it. He whistled down to the saloon to call the officers. He sent Buxton on a tour of the Chinese quarters.

Buxton took his chance, in a dash across the well-deck, to reach the “sailors' fo'c'sle.” It was a single large room, with bunks all along one side and both ends, each bunk with a different coloured curtain (for Chinese seamen are particular about privacy). The whole room is usually very neat and clean: practically no smell: a Chinese calendar hanging on the bulkhead. But it looked different now. It was washed right out. No curtains, no bedding, no calendar: swirling water, and some burst straw mattresses floating: bare bunks.

No Chinamen there.

On the opposite side were the petty-officers' rooms. These, being meant for Europeans when the ship was built, were more comfortable than might seem necessary for the Chinese petty-officers that now used them (roughly, any specialist counts as a petty-officer: “idlers,” they are called in sail). These too were deserted—except the carpenter's room. The carpenter was not there. But Mr. Rabb was.

He was standing, as if in meditation, holding on to the side of the bunk. Mr. Buxton told him to report on the Bridge: and he went without answering. Buxton wondered how long he had been there: it was a long time, he suddenly realised, since he had seen Mr. Rabb about anywhere.

Mr. Buxton made another dash across the well-deck, back to the centre-castle. It was there, in the two open spaces each side of the engine-room, that he found the Chinese seamen. They had gone hardly human. They were piled up, like a pile of half-dead fish on a quay. A lot of them were sick. With each lurch of the ship the pile spilt, or even skiddered entire against one bulkhead or the other; when the men in it showed they were alive by a faint bleat.

Mr. Buxton looked at them, appalled. How on earth would it be possible to get any useful work out of them? It was no good beginning to try to rouse them now. Wait till the lull came: they might feel better then. He returned to the Bridge.

All the other officers were already there, when he got there. Even Dr. Frangcon, and “Sparks,” were there. Waiting. The lull should have come by now.

But by now, Buxton had begun to doubt if it ever would come. Many hurricanes are like that, he knew: no really calm centre at all, only a turmoil. They do not all do what the Air Ministry tells you.

Or again, perhaps the true centre was not going to pass directly over their ship. Perhaps it would pass a little to one side; this fringe would be all of it they would touch. He caught the Captain's eye: saw the Captain was thinking the same thing. Captain Edwardes, moreover, was doing some calculating in his head. They had taken a rather unusually long time to reach this centre—seventeen hours. It was quite on the cards it would take them another seventeen hours to come out on the far side. A lot of water can go down open hatches in that time. If as much went down as had gone already, she would capsize. The hatches
must
be repaired before the second bout.

“We'll begin right away,” he said: “The wind's easing. Mr. Buxton will take charge of the fore-hatches, Mr. Rabb will take charge of the after-hatches. Mr. Watchett will go with Mr. Buxton. Mr. Foster, you see to getting the timber along: the engineers have it ready. Doctor, you stand by.”

“If I were to speak to the Chinese, Sir, they know me better than the deck-officers,” said Dr. Frangcon (which was true, for he had made a hobby of them in his search for strange music).

“Do what you can, Doctor.”

Then, just as they turned to go, a terrific wave shivered the ship; tore the starboard gangway loose, so that it began to pound on the ship's side like a steam-hammer. Captain Edwardes crabbed his way to the bridge end, peering down with his torch to see what made the racket. He guessed what it was: but could guess no way to secure it. Luckily however the sea found its own way: after a few minutes it tore the gangway off altogether, and swallowed it, before it had time to batter a hole.

Then the Captain returned to the wheelhouse. That place was a wreck. He flashed his torch round. The wind had not only smashed the windows, it had blown nearly every last chip of glass out of the frames, and now poured through the gaps. He had thought it deserted: but his light showed two men there, crouched down out of the wind-stream as if it were bullets.

Captain Edwardes flashed his torch again. They were Rabb, and Dick Watchett.

Dick, you know, had been shut in his room, unable to do anything except try to keep still, all day: ever since two in the afternoon, when the steering went. For the first hour he had thought about the ship going down: and claustrophobia clawed at him till he nearly went mad. He must find some way to banish it. He must compel himself to think hard about something else. At first therefore he tried to think about God: but God slipped about, and was shadowy. His home likewise: that slipped about, and cheated him. There was only one thing brilliant enough to hold his mental eye, during that time of strain: Sukie's body. He could hold that all right, he found. It was something brightly-lit and solid, among shadows.

Presently, though, his thinking turned to a queer quirk: for the image of her nakedness began to take hold of his body as well as his mind. He was sad about this, in a way; because he knew that he could not love her as he believed he did, if he could think about her like that. Yet he deliberately continued. For his plight was
so
desperate: it was worth even spoiling his love, to keep himself sane.

But at last one of the huge buffets, when the wind unsteadied after mid-night, released the jamming of his door, and he got out. The prolonged effort of imagination had left him weakened: and with an added cause for fear, in that he felt God could hardly favour him now. He went straight from his room to the saloon, without going on deck: and stayed there with the others, till the order came for them all to report on the Bridge.

Thus his arrival on the Bridge had been his first contact with what the air was really doing now: he had not come to it gradually, as the others had.

Even then he was all right up to the very last minute, when the Captain gave his orders; he was on the very point of following Mr. Buxton down the companion when that terrific thud, which tore loose the gangway, flung him suddenly on his hands and knees. The next thing happened in a moment: instead of crawling down the companion after the others he found he had, almost without knowing it, crawled into the wheelhouse to hide.

He certainly did not know that Mr. Rabb had done the same.

As for Mr. Rabb, he had gone straight there from the Chinese carpenter's room. He was not really conscious any more. His actions were automatic as a sleep-walker's, with the unswerving tenacity of purpose of pure instinct—like a shark snapping. He had been like that almost continuously, ever since he first gave in to his fear over the first attempt to mend the hatches.

Now he crouched down in a corner, his face immobile, his eyes shut: while Thomas, with the absorption of a handicraftsman, his own nocturnal eyes glowing like lamps in the light of the torch, was endeavouring to pick those clamped eye-lids open again in vain.

Captain Edwardes cuffed the little lemur away, as you would drive a vulture off a dead body. Then he paused a few seconds to conserve his strange new energy, which now must be used to re-inflate these two collapsed figures.