To the Ends of the Earth (55 page)

The door of Prettiman’s cabin opened and Mrs Prettiman looked out. She had changed back into slops. She saw who were standing outside and quickly disappeared again. Mrs Prettiman’s ample hair was wholly undone. There had been little of her visible but her face and the hair. In the silence between Benét and me that followed her appearance and swift disappearance we heard Mr Prettiman cry out. But the silence cleared our confusion and deepened the quarrel.

Briefly then, Benét and I had more words outside the door. I taxed him plainly with stealing my idea for the treatment of Pike’s little girls—hammocks, à la Nelson. He denied it, saying that he had arrived at the same
conclusion
as I but independently. He was more inclined to believe that I had obtained the idea from him than the other way about! We reached a foolish state of pushing and shoving, during which I claimed to know how to help
Mr Prettiman; at which point I think he claimed the same knowledge and had come to the lobby with that in view. The brandy had much heated me. Perhaps I
misunderstood
him. At this point, Mrs Prettiman, her hair now decently concealed, appeared at the door and rebuked us in a way which would have sent us off had we not been mad. Talking and doing at the same time, quarrelling and thrusting, we entered the cabin. We told the man and woman what we intended, but both talking at once. Prettiman shouted:

“Anything, anything to stop the agony! Yes! Turn me if you will!”

Benét got his shoulders up, Mrs Prettiman
expostulating
. His legs were over the edge of the bunk and he was trying not to cry out. I got an arm under his swollen waist—the skin was disgusting to the touch, hard as a board and burning as a dinner plate. Benét thrust me, shouting something, and I fell on poor Prettiman’s legs. Had the edge of the bunk not held him I should have pulled him to the deck. Before my eyes the man’s face drained of blood, went paper white. He fainted. Benét and I, now crestfallen and ashamed, got the helpless body round, replaced the pillows, exercised the most delicate care in the adjustment of the bedclothes—Mrs Prettiman spoke in her stony, governess’s voice.

“You have killed him.”

Eyes really do flash. I saw them do so.

I was the first to leave the cabin. I stumbled out, not
daring
to confront those eyes or what words she might speak to me. As I left I did not see her face but only Benét’s, appalled, white and anxious. I got to my cabin and climbed into my bunk as if it were a hole I could curl up in. I believe I had my hands over my ears.
You have killed him
. It is useless to try to describe the anguish I felt. During the voyage I had received a few shocks and found out a few things about myself which I did not much like. But this new event was like falling into the darkness of a measureless pit. The fact is that, in the end, somewhere in the darkness, I found myself articulating spontaneous prayers which I knew as they burst from my lips were
useless
, for they were made to a God in whom I did not believe. It was thus I suppose that gods were invented, for I found myself praying for a miracle—
Let it not have happened!
I do not think anything should be made of these “prayers” unless subjecting them to ridicule should be thought the adequate response. There was little
consideration
for Prettiman in them, some for Mrs Prettiman, widowed even earlier than she had expected; but in gross those “prayers” were for Edmund Talbot! He even went so far as to glance at the law as it applies to such concepts as murder, manslaughter, bodily harm and
intent
! Only slowly as the droning wind sounded an ever lower note did I see that legally none of these applied and the deepest of penalties I should suffer would be the disapproval of the passengers and officers and the implacable dislike, the vicious, female enmity of Mrs Prettiman! Let this be a full account of my folly—I even saw myself, after the man’s
death, offering my hand, the ultimate sacrifice of all I held dear, to the lady! But even in my despair that would not fadge. She would be a widow of substance and could pick and choose where she would and her choice would not be Edmund Talbot. It might—and with a flash of positive insight I felt myself assured that it would be—Benét! She would buy Benét with his yellow hair!

It was evening when I dared to venture forth from my cabin. I stole into the empty saloon and went to look for Bates, found him and asked for water in a whisper. On the way back, having drunk, I paused furtively outside Prettiman’s cabin but heard nothing. I had heard nothing from him, no scream nor moan since the fatal occasion. I went to my cabin and sat in my canvas chair. Truly, I did not wish to hurt the lady. However much I might
disapprove
of her morals I still did not wish her to suffer. Indeed, I told myself that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, but this is only an indication of the confusion of thought and feeling in which I found myself. If I had picked “the odd flower by the wayside” it was no more than might be expected of a young fellow, whereas Mrs Prettiman—oh, how different that was!

Late that evening, towards eleven o’clock, I dared once more to venture out. There was still no sound from Prettiman’s cabin. I tapped very gently but Mrs Prettiman did not come to the door nor did Prettiman answer. I went to the saloon, thinking I might get a drink which would in its turn make me able to face a meal, for I knew that I had to eat, however I felt and whatever happened. I opened the door of the saloon and stood, unable to move. Mrs Prettiman sat in my accustomed place at the great stern window. Bates was taking a plate and a knife and fork from her. He glanced at me as he turned but said nothing. Neither did I.

“Come in, Mr Talbot.”

Bates shut the door behind me. I advanced carefully to the nearer table and sat on the bench facing her. Of the two lanterns which swung in time from the deckhead only one was lighted on the larboard side. It lit the left side of her face. She waited.

“I am desperately sorry, ma’am.”

She was silent still.

“Ma’am—what can I say?”

She was looking at me and still saying nothing.

“For God’s sake, ma’am! Is he—has he—”

She was motionless as a judge.

“He is breathing.”

“Oh, thank God!”

“He is still unconscious. The pulse is hardly to be felt.”

Now it was my turn to be silent, imagining the heart fainting in its work, the chest hardly able to rise to take in stale, shipboard air. Mrs Prettiman put her small hands together on the table before her. It was a posture of judgement rather than prayer.

“Mrs East is with him. I shall return now. Mr East has taken the news through the ship.”

“The news, ma’am?”

“Mr Prettiman is dying.”

I believe I moaned or groaned. No words.

Mrs Prettiman spoke again. But her voice had altered. There was in it the vibration of extreme and hardly
controlled
anger.

“You do not know, do you? You never have, have you? This voyage, Mr Talbot, will be famous in history—not for you, nor for any of them, but for him. You thought it was a comedy, Mr Talbot. It is a tragedy—oh, not for you!—but for the world, for this new world which we are approaching and hope to reach. Your concerns will be forgotten and vanish as the wake of a ship vanishes. I saw
you come aboard with your privileges about you like a cloud of, of pinchbeck glory! Now you have trodden with your clumsy feet into a place which you do not
understand
and where you are not welcome. He will regard you indifferently, not as a man but as an agent of his death, as it might be a spar fallen from the mast. He will be above forgiving you. But I am not above it, sir, and I will never, never forgive you!”

She stood up, swaying. I scrabbled round to stand but she stopped me with a gesture.

“Do not insult me by standing in my presence. Once, I remember, when the movement was too much for my weak limbs, you assisted me to my cabin. Do not stand up, Mr Talbot. Above all, do not touch me!”

This last was said with a positive venom which made my hair lift. She went away quickly. I heard the door open and close but did not look round. I sat huddled at the table—not even my usual one—crushed by
humiliation
and grief. All the things I might have said, the excuses, the pleas, even perhaps the bravado of carelessness, had fallen round my “clumsy feet”.

I cannot tell how long it was before I felt a touch on my shoulder and a familiar voice in my ear.

“Here you are, sir. Brandy, sir. You need it.”

The man’s sympathy was too much for me. Hot tears fell on the table between my hands.

“Thank you, Bates—thank you—”

“Now don’t you take on so, sir. She’s a right terror, isn’t she—I wouldn’t like to be a nipper when she was around!”

That made me laugh, though I choked on it.

“Nor I, Bates. But she made me feel like a nipper, I can tell you!”

Bates answered me in tones of dark dislike.

“That’s ladies for you, sir. Women is different. You can hit a woman if she gives you too much lip.”

“You sound as if you know all about it.”

“Married, sir.”

“Thank you, Bates. You can go now.”

Once more I was alone and cradling my glass. It seemed to me that the motion was if anything a little more
noticeable
but I did not care. I can honestly say it was a point at which I was indifferent to whether we sank or not.

Somewhere a bosun’s mate was piping a call. It was my watch to muster, time for me to stand the middle with Charles in the islanding darkness. I took the glass to the shelf and put it in an appropriate hole, then went to the lobby. There were people about but not the duty watch. Four emigrants—three women and a man—were waiting outside Prettiman’s cabin. I saw what it was. They had come, so soon after greeting him as a bridegroom, to say farewell to a dying man! It was too much. I felt my way into the waist, then burrowed up into the wind. There were others doing the same thing, Charles among them. He took over on the quarterdeck from Cumbershum. I stood against the bulkhead under the poop. Presently Charles came and leaned against it by me.

“We have a very slight decrease in the wind. It will lessen gradually, I think. But it may take a long time.”

He heaved himself away from the bulkhead, went to the side of the ship and stared back at our wake. There was a little less storm light. He came back again.

“Our oil is holding up. Indeed, I think at this moment we hardly need it. But I daresay if we got the bags in, the wind would get up and we should have to put them out again. It is vexing. The great thing, other than keeping the crests of waves down, is to make sure the oil does not come aboard. That’s why I insisted on this elaborate way of hanging the bags of oil under the stern rather than over the bow. If we had hung them over the bow every time we shipped green water—and even white, come to that—we
should have left a film of oil on the deck. Imagine in the weather we have had trying to keep your footing with oil to tread on!”

He was silent for a while, went to the other side of the ship, looked aft and forrard, then came back again.

“At least we are making famous way for a ship under bare poles. Nigh on five knots! I should be happy with that—but you know all this as well as I do. Well, let us be cheerful until something happens.”

The bosun’s mate approached.

“A message from Mr Cumbershum, sir. There’s a lot of movement on the gundeck, sir. It’s people trying to get aft to see Mr Prettiman and they can’t hardly do it for the hammocks which is slung. Mr Cumbershum requests to forbid the waist to all but the duty watch in case these people take it into their heads to come that way, sir.”

The man stopped talking and blew out his breath.

“You got that very well, bosun!”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Tell Mr Cumbershum I agree. We don’t want any more men topsides than is necessary in this weather.”

“Women too, sir.”

“Even more so. Carry on.”

The man hurried away with the message. For a while the waist foamed white and the safety lines were visible, blackly stretched along it.

“You are silent, Edmund.”

I swallowed but did not speak.

“Come, Edmund. What is it?”

“I have killed Prettiman.”

Charles said nothing for a while. He worked his way
forward
, stared into the binnacle, went to the side and stared back at our glistening wake, then came back to stand by me.

“You are talking of the quarrel between you and Benét.”

“There is death in my hands. I kill people without knowing it.”

“That is too much like the theatre.”

“Colley, Wheeler and now the third—Prettiman.”

“You have killed no one to my knowledge. If you had really killed someone the way a seaman does, you would not talk about it.”

“Oh, God.”

“Come. Do you know he is dead?”

“He is unconscious. His pulse and breathing are weak. The people are crowding to see him. She—”

“Were you drunk? Or ‘disguised’, as you call it?”

“I had had a couple of glasses of brandy. Nothing out of the way. I was turning him end for end—”

To my astonishment Charles burst out laughing. He quickly controlled himself.

“I beg your pardon, old fellow, but really, ‘end for end’! Your grasp of the language of the sea is far firmer than a sailor’s! Now be a little easier. You have killed no one and must not make a tragedy.”

“They—the emigrants and, I think, the seamen—are flocking to bid him farewell.”

“They are just as previous as you are. As far as my information goes you were trying to help—”

“How did you know that?”

“Good Heavens, do you suppose the news of your
quarrel
and its outcome were not immediately known
throughout
the ship? At least it took their minds off our situation.”

“I fell on him.”

“You do really find it difficult to know where your extremities are, old fellow. I daresay you will learn to
control
them when you are—older.”

“How long will it be?”

“Before what?”

“Before he dies.”

“I am moved by your faith in me, Edmund. We do not know he is going to die. The body is mysterious. Would it make you easier if I sent to find out how he is?”

“Please.”

Charles called the bosun’s mate and sent him below. We waited in silence. Charles stared critically into the rigging. Sails had appeared there since I had last been on deck. There was even a tops’l replacing the one I had seen blown out of its boltropes. There was also a difference in what I could discern of the water round us—the shapes of waves where, before, the surface had seemed to be planed off and blown flat.

The bosun’s mate came trotting back, leaning into the wind.

“The lady says there is no change, sir.”

“Very well.”

The man went back to his station by the forrard rail of the quarterdeck. Charles turned to me.

“You heard? So we must not worry before we need to.”

“I cannot help it.”

“Now what have I done! My dear boy, you have been foolish, impulsive, clumsy. If he dies, or rather when he dies—”

“So he will die, then!”

“He was dying before you fell on him! Good Heavens, do you suppose a man can live in our circumstances with his body swoln like a melon and the colour of an overripe beetroot? He is smashed up inside where I doubt a
surgeon
could do anything. You may have hastened the process, that is all.”

“It is bad enough. She hates me, despises me. How can I stay in the same ship!”

“You cannot do anything else. Be sensible. Good Heavens, I wish I had as little to be sorry for as you have.”

“That is nonsense. I have never known so good a man.”

“Do not say it!”

“I can do so and have. I have found that the middle is the time for confidences between man and man. I believe that when I look back on this voyage these middle watches will be precious memories, old fellow.”

“For me too, Edmund.”

For a time we said nothing after that. At last Charles broke the silence between us.

“All the same we have lived in such different worlds it is astonishing that we have anything to say to each other.”