Section 6

42 THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS”
and cowardly. That we knew. Singleton seemed to know nothing, understand nothing. We had thought him till then as wise as he looked, but now we dared, at times, suspect him of being stupid — from old age. One day, however, at dinner, as we sat on our boxes round a tin dish that stood on the deck within the circle of our feet, Jimmy expressed his general disgust with men and things in words that were particularly disgusting. Singleton lifted his head. We became mute. The old man, addressing Jimmy, asked: — “Are you dying?” Thus interrogated, James Wait appeared horribly startled and confused. We all were startled.' Mouths remained open; hearts thumped, eyes blinked; a dropped tin fork rattled in the dish; a man rose as if to go out, and stood still. In less than a minute Jimmy pulled himself together: — “Why? Can’t you see I am?” he answered shakily. Singleton lifted a piece of soaked biscuit (“his teeth” — he declared — “had no edge on them now”) to his lips. — “Well, get on with your dying,” he said with venerable mildness; “don’t raise a blamed fuss with us over that job. We can’t help you.” Jimmy fell back in his bunk, and for a long time lay very still wiping the perspiration off his chin. The dinner-tins were put away quickly. On deck we discussed the incident in whispers. Some showTed a chuckling ex¬ ultation. Many looked grave. Wamibo, after long periods of staring dreaminess, attempted abortive smiles; and one of the young Scandinavians, much tor¬ mented by doubt, ventured in the second dog-watch to approach Singleton (the old man did not encourage us much to speak to him) and ask sheepishly: — “You think he will die?” Singleton looked up. — “Why, of course he will die,” he said deliberately. This seemed decisive. It was promptly imparted to every one by
THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS” 43
him who had consulted the oracle. Shy and eager, he would step up and with averted gaze recite his formula: — “Old Singleton says he will die.” It was a relief! At last we knew that our compassion would not be misplaced, and we could again smile without misgivings — but we reckoned without Donkin. Don¬ kin “didn’t want to ’ave no truck with ’em dirty fur- riners.” When Nilsen came to him with the news: “Singleton says he will die,” he answered him by a spiteful “And so will you — you fat-headed Dutchman. Wish you Dutchmen were all dead — ’stead cornin’ takin’ our money inter your starvin’ country.” We were appalled. We perceived that after all Singleton’s answer meant nothing. We began to hate him for making fun of us. All our certitudes were going; we were on doubtful terms with our officers; the cook had given us up for lost; we had overheard the boatswain’s opinion that “we were a crowd of softies.” We suspected Jimmy, one another, and even our very selves. We did not know what to do. At every insignificant turn of our humble life we met Jimmy overbearing and blocking the way, arm-in-arm with his awful and veiled familiar. It was a weird servitude.
It began a week after leaving Bombay and came on us stealthily like any other great misfortune. Every one had remarked that Jimmy from the first was very slack at his work; but we thought it simply the out¬ come of his philosophy of life. Donkin said: — “You put no more weight on a rope than a bloody sparrer.” He disdained him. Belfast, ready for a fight, ex¬ claimed provokingly: — “You don’t kill yourself, old man!” — “Would you?” he retorted with extreme scorn — and Belfast retired. One morning, as we were washing decks, Mr. Baker called to him: — “Bring your broom over here, Wait.” He strolled languidly.
44 THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS”
“ Move yourself ! Ough ! ” grunted Mr. Baker; “ what’s the matter with your hind legs?” He stopped dead short. He gazed slowly with eyes that bulged out with an expression audacious and sad. — “It isn’t my legs,” he said, “it’s my lungs.” Everybody listened.— “What’s . . . Ough! . . . What’s
wrong with them?” inquired Mr. Baker. All the watch stood around on the wet deck, grinning, and with brooms or buckets in their hands. He said mournfully: — “Going — or gone. Can’t you see I’m a dying man? I know it!” Mr. Baker was disgusted.
■ — “Then why the devil did you ship aboard here?” — “I must live till I die — mustn’t I?” he replied. The grins became audible. — “ Go off the deck — get out of my ^sight,” said Mr. Baker. He was nonplussed. It was a unique experience. James Wait, obedient, dropped his broom, and walked slowly forward. A burst of laughter followed him. It was too funny. All hands laughed. . . . They laughed! . . . Alas!
He became the tormentor of all our moments; he [was worse than a nightmare. You couldn’t see that there was anything wrong with him : a nigger does not show. He was not very fat — certainly — but then he was no leaner than other niggers we had known. He coughed often, but the most prejudiced person could perceive that, mostly, he coughed when it suited his purpose. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do his work — and he wouldn’t lie-up. One day he would skip aloft with the best of them, and next time we would be obliged to risk our lives to get his limp body down. He was reported, he was examined; he was remon¬ strated with, threatened, cajoled, lectured. He was called into the cabin to interview the captain. There were wild rumours. It was said he had cheeked the old man; it was said he had frightened him. Charley
THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS” 45
maintained that the “skipper, weepin,’ ’as giv’ ’im ’is blessin’ an’ a pot of jam.” Knowles had it from the steward that the unspeakable Jimmy had been reeling against the cabin furniture; that he had groaned; that he had complained of general brutality and disbelief; and had ended by coughing all over the old man’s meteorological journals which were then spread on the table. At any rate, Wait returned forward sup¬ ported by the steward, who, in a pained and shocked voice, entreated us: — “Here! Catch hold of him, one of you. He is to lie-up.” Jimmy drank a tin mugful of coffee, and, after bullying first one and then another, went to bed. He remained there most of the time, but when it suited him would come on deck and appear amongst us. He was scornful and brooding; he looked ahead upon the sea, and no one could tell what was the meaning of that black man sitting apart in a medita¬ tive attitude and as motionless as a carving.
He refused steadily all medicine; he threw sago and cornflour overboard till the steward got tired of bring¬ ing it to him. He asked for paregoric. They sent him a big bottle; enough to poison a wilderness of babies. He kept it between his mattress and the deal lining of the ship’s side; and nobody ever saw him take a dose. Donkin abused him to his face, jeered at him while he gasped; and the same day Wait would lend him a warm jersey. Once Donkin reviled him for half an hour, re¬ proached him with the extra work his malingering gave to the watch; and ended by calling him a black-faced swine.” Under the spell of our accursed perversity we were horror-struck. But Jimmy positively seemed to revel in that abuse. It made him look cheerful— and Donkin had a pair of old sea boots thrown at him. “Here, you East-end trash,” boomed Wait, “you may have that.”
46 THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS”
At last Mr. Baker had to tell the captain that James Wait was disturbing the peace of the ship. “Knock discipline on the head — he will, Ough,” grunted Mr. Baker. As a matter of fact, the starboard watch came as near as possible to refusing duty, when ordered one morning by the boatswain to wash out their forecastle. It appears Jimmy objected to a wet floor — and that morning we were in a compassionate mood. We thought the boatswain a brute, and, practically, told him so. Only Mr. Baker’s delicate tact prevented an all-fired row: he refused to take us seriously. He came bustling forward, and called us many unpolite names but in such a hearty and seamanlike manner that we began to feel ashamed of ourselves. In truth, we thought him much too good a sailor to annoy him will¬ ingly: and after all Jimmy might have been a fraud — probably was! The forecastle got a clean up that morning; but in the afternoon a sick-bay was fitted up in the deck-house. It was a nice little cabin opening on deck, and with two berths. Jimmy’s belongings were transported there, and then — notwithstanding his protests — Jimmy himself. He said he couldn’t walk. Four men carried him on a blanket. He complained that he would have to die there alone, like a dog. We grieved for him, and were delighted to have him re¬ moved from the forecastle. We attended him as before. The galley was next door, and the cook looked in many times a day. Wait became a little more cheerful. Knowles affirmed having heard him laugh to himself in peals one day. Others had seen him walking about on deck at night. His little place, with the door ajar on a long hook, was always full of tobacco smoke. We spoke through the crack cheerfully, sometimes abusively, as we passed by, intent on our work. He fascinated us. He would never let doubt
THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS” 47
die. He overshadowed the ship. Invulnerable in his promise of speedy corruption he trampled on our self- respect, he demonstrated to us daily our want of moral courage; he tainted our lives. Had we been a miserable gang of wretched immortals, unhallowed alike by hope and fear, he could not have lorded it over us with a more pitiless assertion of his sublime privilege.
CHAPTER THREE
Meantime the Narcissus, with square yards, ran out of the fair monsoon. She drifted slowly, swinging round and round the compass, through a few days of baffling light airs. Under the patter of short warm showers, grumbling men whirled the heavy yards from side to side; they caught hold of the soaked ropes with groans and sighs, while their officers, sulky and drip¬ ping with rain water, unceasingly ordered them about in wearied voices. During the short respites they looked with disgust into the smarting palms of their stiff hands, and asked one another bitterly: — ‘‘Who would be a sailor if he could be a farmer?” All the tempers were spoilt, and no man cared what he said. One black night, when the watch, panting in the heat and half-drowned with the rain, had been through four mortal hours hunted from brace to brace, Belfast de¬ clared that he would “ chuck the sea for ever and go in a steamer.” This was excessive, no doubt. Captain Allistoun, with great self-control, would mutter sadly to Mr. Baker: — “It is not so bad — not so bad,” when he had managed to shove, and dodge, and manoeuvre his smart ship through sixty miles in twenty-four hours. From the doorstep of the little cabin, Jimmy, chin in hand, watched our distasteful labours with insolent and melancholy eyes. We spoke to him gently — and out of his sight exchanged sour smiles.
Then, again, with a fair wind and under a clear sky, the ship went on piling up the South Latitude. She passed outside Madagascar and Mauritius without a
48
THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS” 49
r
glimpse of the land. Extra lashings were put on the spare spars. Hatches were looked to. The steward in his leisure moments and with a worried air tried to fit washboards to the cabin doors. Stout canvas was bent with care. Anxious eyes looked to the west¬ ward, towards the cape of storms. The ship began to dip into a southwest swell, and the softly luminous sky of low latitudes took on a harder sheen from day to day above our heads: it arched high above the ship vibrating and pale, like an immense dome of steel, reso¬ nant with the deep voice of freshening gales. The sun¬ shine gleamed cold on the white curls of black waves. Before the strong breath of westerly squalls the ship, with reduced sail, lay slowly over, obstinate and yield¬ ing. She drove to and fro in the unceasing endeavour to fight her way through the invisible violence of the winds: she pitched headlong into dark smooth hollows; she struggled upwards over the snowy ridges of great running seas; she rolled, restless, from side to side, like a thing in pain. Enduring and valiant, she answered to the call of men; and her slim spars waving for ever in abrupt semicircles, seemed to beckon in vain for help towards the stormy sky.
It was a bad winter off the Cape that year. The relieved helmsmen came off flapping their arms, or ran stamping hard and blowing into swollen, red fingers. The watch on deck dodged the sting of cold sprays or, crouching in sheltered corners, watched dismally the high and merciless seas boarding the ship time after time in unappeasable fury. Water tumbled in cata¬ racts over the forecastle doors. You had to dash through a waterfall to get into your damp bed. The men turned in wet and turned out stiff to face the redeeming and ruthless exactions of their glorious and obscure fate. Far aft, and peering watchfully to wind-
50 THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS”
ward, the officers could be seen through the mist of squalls. They stood by the weather- rail, holding on grimly, straight and glistening in their long coats; and in the disordered plunges of the hard-driven ship, they appeared high up, attentive, tossing violently above the grey line of a clouded horizon in motionless attitudes.
They watched the weather and the ship as men on shore watch the momentous chances of fortune. Cap¬ tain Allistoun never left the deck, as though he had been part of the ship’s fittings. Now and then the steward, shivering, but always in shirt sleeves, would struggle towards him with some hot coffee, half of which the gale blew out of the cup before it reached the master’s lips. He drank what was left gravely in one long gulp, while heavy sprays pattered loudly on his oilskin coat, the seas swishing broke about his high boots; and he never took his eyes off the ship. He kept his gaze riveted upon her as a loving man watches the unselfish toil of a delicate woman upon the slender thread of whose existence is hung the whole meaning and joy of the world. We all watched her. She was beautiful and had a weakness. We loved her no less for that. We admired her qualities aloud, we boasted of them to one another, as though they had been our own, and the consciousness of her only fault we kept buried in the silence of our profound affection. She was born in the thundering peal of hammers beating upon iron, in black eddies of smoke, under a grey sky, on the banks of the Clyde. The clamorous and sombre stream gives birth to things of beauty that float away into the sunshine of the world to be loved by men. The Narcissus was one of that perfect brood. Less perfect than many perhaps, but she was ours, and, con¬ sequently, incomparable. We were proud of her. In
THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS’' 51
Bombay, ignorant landlubbers alluded to her as that “pretty grey ship.” Pretty! A scurvy meed of com¬ mendation! We knew she was the most magnificent sea-boat ever launched. We tried to forget that, like many good sea-boats, she was at times rather crank. She was exacting. She wanted care in loading and handling, and no one knew exactly how much care would be enough. Such are the imperfections of mere men! The ship knew, and sometimes would correct the presumptuous human ignorance by the wholesome discipline of fear. We had heard ominous stories about past voyages. The cook (technically a seaman, but in reality no sailor) — the cook, when unstrung by some misfortune, such as the rolling over of a saucepan, would mutter gloomily while he wiped the floor: — ■ “There! Look at what she has done! Some voy’ge she will drown all hands! You’ll see if she won’t.”. To which the steward, snatching in the galley a mo¬ ment to draw breath in the hurry of his worried life, would remark philosophically: — “Those that see won’t tell, anyhow. I don’t want to see it.” We derided those fears. Our hearts went out to the old man when he pressed her hard so as to make her hold her own, hold to every inch gained to windward ; when he made her, under reefed sails, leap obliquely at enormous waves. The men, knitted together aft into a ready group by the first sharp order of an officer coming to take charge of the deck in bad weather: — “Keep handy the watch,” stood admiring her valiance. Their eyes blinked in the wind; their dark faces were wet with drops of water more salt and bitter than human tears; beards and moustaches, soaked, hung straight and dripping like fine seaweed. They were fantastically misshapen; in high boots, in hats like helmets, and swaying clumsily, stiff and bulky in glistening oilskins,