Sailors on the Inward Sea (9 page)

Edward, Fox-Bourne went on, had objected to the war on moral grounds. He was willing to go to prison for his beliefs and would have done so except that he knew he would have brought disgrace on his father and likely hobbled his career. Fox-Bourne then asked Conrad if he had any idea how he had felt when he learned of Edward's death. Conrad imagined a thunderous crack inside his head like a huge tree makes when its trunk splits.

“I should think it was unspeakable,” he said.

A good half hour had passed since the lifeboats were lowered. Throughout their conversation Fox-Bourne had sounded the foghorn at one-minute intervals, precise intervals, his eyes darting toward the large, round-faced clock mounted between the windows, the heated words of one or the other of them momentarily obscured by the sorrowful baying. He had just let off another blast and begun a halting description of his state of mind that seemed less for Conrad's benefit than his own, as if he were trying to recapture the moment the news came to him—he had been at home with his wife—when one of the lifeboats appeared off the bow, or rather a gray, impressionistic version of a boat that slowly came into focus. Scorsby stood at the tiller. Ahead of him, on the plank seat, sat two Germans like glistening black cameos. As the boat came alongside, a sailor on deck threw a rope ladder over the port rail that unfurled like a fern. The second lifeboat came out of the fog, three black apparitions huddled side by side. When it was closer Conrad could see another man stretched out on the bottom, his orange life vest
bright against his blackness. The third boat, commanded by Higgins, was empty.

Once the boats were up against the minesweeper's hull Scorsby sent his prisoners up the ladder. As each went over the rail and stepped on board he was handed a blanket by one of the
Brigadier
's crew. The man in the bottom of the second boat was lifted by two sailors while a third tied a rope beneath his arms and signaled to the men on deck, who hauled the German up, his body spinning and banging several times against the hull.

As soon as the lifeboats were brought aboard, Fox-Bourne gave the helmsman a heading and ordered him to proceed at “slow ahead.” The debate with Conrad, the argument was over, neither of them having made a dent in the other's position. Fox-Bourne wandered over to the chart table and picked up a compass, which he twirled absently, his double loss evident in his wide, searching eyes. The dead Germans must have had a place in his thoughts, but Conrad could not guess what it might be. He did not want to. He felt an urgent need to get away from the man and announced that he was going down for a walk.

“We should reach Lowestoft in two hours,” said Fox-Bourne. “You're welcome to use my cabin.”

Given their feelings about each other it was a bizarre offer, but Conrad accepted. Neither looked at the other as he went out. On deck the men were quiet, the officers having wisely put them to work cleaning and swabbing. On the way out there had been the usual banter, the kind of thing you hear on any ship when things are going well. Now they spoke in whispers and fell silent altogether when he approached. If he had been in their shoes he would have felt the same way. He respected those men, Ford. They had not drifted onto the ship looking for an easy berth. They were not conscripts. They were sailors in the Royal Navy representing a hoary tradition that dictated
the decent treatment of the vanquished enemy. He was a guest of their captain, who had dishonored them and the name of their ship. That they hated the German captain and the bedraggled survivors made their respect for tradition all the more impressive.

THE WEAK, WATERY
gray light falling through the cabin's porthole left the objects and furnishings indistinct. There was a switchbox on the wall next to the door fed by a cable coming down from the ceiling. When Conrad turned it on, two large bulbs threw light onto a narrow bunk, a metal table, a cabinet whose partially open doors revealed two or three uniforms, a bookshelf next to the table crammed with navy manuals, the only hint of the personal, two framed photographs screwed into the wall between the door and the table. One showed a woman in a flower-print dress standing in front of a country cottage, the other a young man wearing a tweed suit, his hands in his pockets. Edward, who appeared to be about the same age as Borys, gazed straight into the camera, his somber eyes and set mouth telling of unhappiness, which Conrad guessed was occasioned by a run-in with his father over his beliefs. It struck Conrad as an odd choice since Fox-Bourne must have possessed other, happier pictures of his son. Then he realized it was there as a goad and a flail.

Stepping closer, he saw that the frame was surrounded by a half inch of whiter paint. He was almost certain that it was no accident that this frame was smaller than the one it had replaced, chosen to remind Fox-Bourne of what had been there, a memento of the boy's death. He was impressed by the courage it took to make a shrine of the cabin wall. Fox-Bourne would see those pictures whenever he was there, which spoke to his character, though it did nothing to alter the unambiguous, sickening facts of the drowned sailors. Fox-Bourne could have offered him the use of any number of cabins and
cubbyholes. Why had he made his own available unless he wanted him to see the pictures, hoping to play on his sympathy?

Conrad poured a glass of brandy from the decanter fitted neatly into a rack beside the table and looked again at Edward. The photograph was slightly out of focus, his eyes blurred, perhaps in shadow. He could be looking straight ahead at his father or averting his gaze, and those possibilities brought Conrad back to Fox-Bourne's motive. He preferred to think it was innocent, free of calculation, but there was no way to ignore the other interpretation. He remembered Fox-Bourne twirling the compass leg between his thumb and forefinger, grief-stricken, Edward's death as fresh as Whelan's. He understood how the man felt, how all-consuming the double loss was, how the deaths of those Germans would have lost the initial grim pleasure of revenge, his thoughts spinning this way and that like the compass. Fox-Bourne had reached that volatile time following his action when he could think again. It was a time, Conrad reminded me, that he himself had written about over the years, drawn to its complexity, especially the point at which a character began, however dimly, to see the consequences of his act. For Fox-Bourne they must have seemed horrific and it was natural to do what he could to soften Conrad's view of him.

He had been looking at Edward all that time, and out of that young man's stillness rose Whelan grasping his chest, toppling forward. He would be alive if they had stayed clear of the yellow cylinder of light, the
Brigadier
most likely gliding past the unseen submarine, the sound of her engines terrifying the Germans. The light was a mystery and so was the U-boat's presence. Why had its engines quit, its batteries gone out in that place? She could have been there for hours. It was equally probable that she had surfaced only moments before the minesweeper entered the yellowish patch of light.

Conrad must have spent an hour in the cabin before he happened
to glance toward the porthole and saw clear sky. He went over and looked out: the horizon was a clear line, the sea glittered, there was no trace of fog. He wanted light, wanted to get away from the photographs and Fox-Bourne's intimate presence. As soon as he came out on deck he saw the face of the fog bank in the distance, wider than the Dover cliffs and probably higher. In every other direction the horizon was sharply defined and that was also true for the
Brigadier.
Everything that had been shrouded by the fog, the gallows of the sweeping gear, the superstructure, the winches and guy wires, the guns that remained uncovered, was there before him as if for the first time. Only the gray paint carried a hint of the fog. Before long he saw the coast and could make out low hills dotted with houses, grazing cattle, the dark green line of hedgerows. Lowestoft gleaming beneath the flawless sky, the dock cranes still as sculptures, the ships motionless, the buildings he had barely been able to see in the morning clear and solid and welcoming. The crew came to life, their voices audible again, a general sense of relief palpable in the brisk air and celebration, too, over sinking a U-boat. He glanced up at the bridge half expecting to see Fox-Bourne but the platform was empty and the glare on the windows hid everyone inside.

They sailed by the buoys marking the channel and on into the bay, the jetty off to the left covered with seagulls basking in the sun, the metal frame supporting the navigation light guarded by three seals who seemed to be watching the ship's progress. As the
Brigadier
approached her berth at the far side of the dock, where a crowd had gathered, he saw three officers, their hats and shoulders sparkling with gold braid, none signifying less than fleet rank. Either Fox-Bourne or one of his staff had radioed ahead and the word must have spread like wildfire across the station. The moment the lines were made fast and the gangway lowered the officers came aboard, crossing the deck briskly to the bridge ladder. As they climbed, Fox-Bourne
appeared in the doorway, saluting each man as he came up and quickly following them inside.

The sailors on the dock had massed at the
Brigadier
's bow. Conrad, along with a good number of the crew, joined them, gaping at the hole, which was large enough for a man to stand in. Here and there along the jagged edges he could see traces of the
Valkerie
's black paint. It was pure luck that the minesweeper hadn't sunk. From what he had seen of her during the tour with Whelan and later on, she had seemed decidedly on the tinny side. Lacking a double hull, it was anyone's guess whether her bulkheads could have withstood flooding. He imagined the failure, it was only too real, and had a vision of the two crews in the water together, all their differences obliterated by the oil, an intense, disturbing vision in which he saw the engineer and the men who had jumped holding hands, Scorsby, Higgins, and Chambers bobbling beside them, and, a little farther off, the spirits of Whelan and the German captain arguing as they treaded water. It dissolved when a sailor called out and pointed at the senior officers striding across the dock, followed by Fox-Bourne, all grim-faced and tight-lipped, whatever had passed between them locked up like an official secret. Orderlies opened the car doors, and as soon as the men were inside, they sped away, Fox-Bourne in the front seat of the second one looking straight ahead.

With that,
Lord Jim
came back into Conrad's head. He imagined the
Brigadier
's bulkheads bulging in the exact words of the novel: Jim “came upon the second engineer getting up at the foot of the bridge-ladder: he seemed dazed and told me he thought his left arm was broken; he had slipped on the top step when getting down while I was forward. He exclaimed, ‘My God! That rotten bulkhead'll give way in a minute, and the damned thing will go down under us like a lump of lead.' ” That image had led to Jim's disastrous leap into the lifeboat before his passengers, causing his disgrace.

At that moment Scorsby called to Conrad from above on the deck, so he squeezed through the crowd and walked over to the base of the gangway, where he waited. “There's to be an inquiry in a week's time,” Scorsby said, “and you've been named as a material witness,” delivering the news in a clipped, professional manner and doing a commendable job of hiding his feelings. Conrad had seen enough on board to know where he stood, and from the way Scorsby looked at him it was clear that the young officer knew they shared the same opinion. There had been no way to read the faces of the senior men during their brief appearance. For all he knew, they had closed ranks around Fox-Bourne, rallying around the flag, ready to shield a brother officer despite the horrific nature of the event.

As Conrad was heading back to his quarters there was a commotion among the men. Looking up, he saw two sailors descending the gangway with a stretcher covered by a white sheet. The men silently joined him and Scorsby at the bottom of the gangway, doffing their hats out of respect for Whelan as the stretcher bearers passed, carrying the ensign's body up the walk to the nearest building, their excited talk gone, replaced by solemn quiet. The war had come home to roost. It was real now, no longer an abstract horror happening across the Channel. While they grappled with that, two more stretcher bearers appeared at the edge of the deck with the German who had been hauled on board. Enough oil had been wiped off his face for them to see that he was in pain, gripping the edges of the stretcher with each step they took. The other prisoners were brought forward, all as black as the moment Conrad had first seen them in the lifeboats. Surrounded by sailors with drawn pistols, the leg chains binding their ankles rattled on the boards while catcalls and obscenities rained down on them. As they passed, Conrad could smell the oil.

The
Brigadier
had reached port around five o'clock. It was now well past six and Scorsby suggested that they have dinner but Conrad
begged off, saying he wanted to go up to the headquarters building and send Jessie a telegram. The radioman made short work of the message, leaving him unexpectedly free and wishing that he had told Scorsby to meet him in the mess. He hurried across the compound but when he reached the building there was no sign of Scorsby or any of the other officers. The cook, a kindly soul, served him up a huge piece of corned beef.

Conrad's gout had begun acting up on the way back and he was in considerable pain by the time he reached his quarters. He immediately crawled into bed but was unable to relax. Too many things lay claim to his attention. He could not get out of his mind the way that the
Brigadier
must have looked to the men in the water as she disappeared in the fog. He believed he entered as fully into their anguish as was possible for one man to plumb the distress of another, that his vision must have come very close to the Germans'. The same was true when he tried to see the Germans as Fox-Bourne had, as the incarnation of the evil that took his son. On the way back to port he had thought of Borys, deeply aware of the unappeasable rage that would have followed the news of his death. Those feelings had not abated. As a father, he understood what drove Fox-Bourne, exactly what he must have felt when he first saw the
Valkerie
and when Whelan was shot, but knowing what drove the man did not absolve him. To the contrary, it brought to the foreground the hallowed notion of a fixed standard of conduct that governed every master of every ship, a standard that was necessarily pitiless and blind to lost sons or anything else but its own integrity.