Section 14

The consummate seaman in him was aroused. He needed no directions. He knew what to do. Every effort, every movement was an act of consistent heroism. It was not for me to look at a man thus inspired.
At last all was ready, and I heard him say, “Hadn’t I better go down and open the compressors now, sir?”
“Yes. Do,’ I said. And even then I did not glance his way. After a time his voice came up from the main deck:
“When you like, sir. All clear on the windlass here.”
I made a sign to Mr. Burns to put the helm down and then I let both anchors go one after another, leav- ing the ship to take as much cable as she wanted. She took the best part of them both before she brought up.
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The loose sails coming aback ceased their maddening racket above my head. A perfect stillness reigned in the ship. And while I stood forward feeling a little giddy in that sudden peace, I caught faintly a moan or two and the incoherent mutterings of the sick in the forecastle.
As we had a signal for medical assistance flying on the mizzen it is a fact that before the ship was fairly at rest three steam-launches from various men-of-war arrived alongside; and at least five naval surgeons clambered on board. They stood in a knot gazing up and down the empty main deck, then looked aloft—where not a man could be seen either.
I went towards them—a solitary figure in a blue and grey striped sleeping suit and a pipe-clayed cork helmet on its head. Their disgust was extreme. They had expected surgical cases. Each one had brought his carving tools with him. But they soon got over their little disappointment. In less than five minutes one of the steam-launches was rushing shorewards to order a big boat and some hospital people for the re- moval of the crew. The big steam-pinnace went off to her ship to bring over a few bluejackets to furl my sails for me.
One of the surgeons had remained on board. He came out of the forecastle looking impenetrable, and noticed my inquiring gaze.
“There’s nobody dead in there, if that’s what you want to know,” he said deliberately. Then added in a tone of wonder: “‘ The whole crew!”
“And very bad?”
“And very bad,” he repeated. His eyes were roam- ing all over the ship. “Heavens! What’s that?”
“That.” I said, glancing aft, “is Mr. Burns, my chief officer.”
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Mr. Burns with his moribund head nodding on the stalk of his lean neck was a sight for any one to exclaim at. The surgeon asked:
“Is he going to the hospital too?”
“Oh, no,” I said jocosely. “Mr. Burns can’t go on shore till the mainmast goes. I am very proud of him, He’s my only convalescent.”
“You look . . .” began the doctor staring at me. But I interrupted him angrily:
“I am not ill.”
“No. . . . You look queer.”
“Well, you see, I have been seventeen days on deck.”
“Seventeen! . . . But you must have slept.”
“I suppose I must have. I don’t know. But Pm certain that I didn’t sleep for the last forty hours.”
“Phew! . . . You will be going ashore pres- ently, I suppose?”
“As soon as ever I can. There’s no end of business waiting for me there.”
The surgeon released my hand, which he had taken while we talked, pulled out his pocket-book, wrote in it rapidly, tore out the page, and offered it to me.
“I strongly advise you to get this prescription made up for yourself ashore. Unless I am much mistaken you will need it this evening.”
“What is it then?” I asked with suspicion.
“Sleeping draught,” answered the surgeon curtly: and moving with an air of interest towards Mr. Burns he engaged him in conversation.
As I went below to dress to go ashore, Ransome fol- lowed me. He begged my pardon; he wished, too, to be sent ashore and paid off.
I looked at him in surprise. He was waiting for my answer with an air of anxiety.
“You don’t mean to leave the ship!” I cried out.
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“I do really, sir. I want to go and be quiet some- where. Anywhere. The hospital will do.”
“But, Ransome,” I said, “I hate the idea of parting with you.”
“I must go,” he broke in. “I have a right!” He gasped and a look of almost savage determination passed over his face. For an instant he was another being. And I saw under the worth and the comeliness of the man the humble reality of things. Life was a boon to him—this precarious hard life—and he was thoroughly alarmed about himself.
“Of course I shall pay you off if you wish it,” I hastened to say. “Only I must ask you to remain on board till this afternoon. I can’t leave Mr. Burns absolutely by himself in the ship for hours.”
He softened at once and assured me with a smile and in his natural pleasant voice that he understood that very well. |
When I returned on deck everything was ready for the removal of the men. It was the last ordeal of that episode which had been maturing and tempering my character—though I did not know it.
It was awful. They passed under my eyes one after another—each of them an embodied reproach of the bitterest kind, till I felt a sort of revolt wake up in me. Poor Frenchy had gone suddenly under. He was car- ried past me insensible, his comic face horribly flushed and as if swollen, breathing stertorously. He looked more like Mr. Punch than ever; a disgracefully intoxi- cated Mr. Punch.
The austere Gambril, on the contrary, had improved temporarily. He insisted on walking on his own feet to the rail—of course with assistance on each side of him. But he gave way to a sudden panic at the moment of being swung over the side and began to wail pitifully:
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“Don’t let them drop me, sir. Don’t let them drop me, sir!”? While I kept on shouting to him in most soothing accents: “All right, Gambril. They won’t! They won't!”
It was no doubt very ridiculous. The bluejackets on our deck were grinning quietly, while even Ransome himself (much to the fore in lending a hand) had to en- large his wistful smile for a fleeting moment.
I left for the shore in the steam-pinnace, and on looking back beheld Mr. Burns actually standing up by the taffrail, still in his enormous woolly overcoat. The bright sunlight brought out his weirdness amaz- ingly. He looked like a frightful and elaborate scare- crow set up on the poop of a death-stricken ship, to keep the seabirds from the corpses.
Our story had got about already in town and every- body on shore was most kind. The marine office let me off the port dues, and as there happened to be a shipwrecked crew staying in the Home I had no diff- culty in obtaining as many men as I wanted. But when I inquired if I could see Captain Ellis for a mo- ment I was told m accents of pity for my ignorance that our deputy-Neptune had retired and gone home on a pension about three weeks after I left the port. Se I suppose that my appointment was the last act, out- side the daily routine, of his official life.
It is strange how on coming ashore I was struck by the springy step, the lively eyes, the strong vitality of everyone I met. It impressed me enormously. And amongst those I met there was Captain Giles of course. It would have been very extraordinary if I had not met him. A prolonged stroll in the business part of the town was the regular employment of all his mornings when he was ashore.
I caught the glitter of the gold watch-chain across
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his chest ever so far away. He radiated benevo- lence.
“What is it I hear?” he queried with a “kind uncle” smile, after shaking hands. “Twenty-one days from Bankok?”
“Is this all you’ve heard?” I said. “You must come to tiffin with me. I want you to know exactly what you have let me in for.”
He hesitated for almost a minute.
“Well—I will,” he decided condescendingly at last.
We turned into the hotel. I found to my surprise that I could eat quite a lot. Then over the cleared table-cloth I unfolded to Captain Giles all the story since I took command in all its professional and emo- tional aspects, while he smoked patiently the big cigar I had given him.
Then he observed sagely:
“You must feel jolly well tired by this time.”
“No,” I said. “Not tired. But I'll tell you, Captain Giles, how I feel. I feel old. And I must be. All of you on shore look to me just a lot of skittish youngsters that have never known a care in the world.”
He didn’t smile. He looked insufferably exemplary. He declared:
“That will pass. But you do look older—it’s a fact.”
“Aha!” I said.
“No! No! The truth is that one must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad.”
“Live at half-speed,” I murmured perversely. “Not everybody can do that.”
“You'll be glad enough presently if you can keep going even at that rate,” he retorted with his air of conscious virtue. ‘“‘And there’s another thing: a map
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should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience, and all that sort of thing. Why—what else would you have to fight against?”
I kept silent. I don’t know what he saw in my face, but he asked abruptly:
“ Why—you aren’t faint-hearted?”
“God only knows, Captain Giles,” was my sincere answer.
“That’s all right,” he said calmly. “You will learn soon how not to be faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything—and that’s what so many of those youngsters don’t understand.”
“Well I am no longer a youngster.”
“No,” he conceded. “‘Are you leaving soon?”
“I am going on board directly,” I said. “I shall pick up one of my anchors and heave in to half-cable on the other as soon as my new crew comes on board and I shall be off at daylight to-morrow.”
“You will?” grunted Captain Giles approvingly. “That’s the way. You'll do.”
“What did you expect? That I would want to take a week ashore for a rest?” I said, irritated by his tone. “There’s no rest for me till she’s out in the Indian Ocean and not much of it even then.”
He puffed at the cigar moodily, as if transformed.
“Yes, that’s what it amounts to,” he said in a musing tone. It was as if a ponderous curtain had rolled up disclosing an unexpected Captain Giles. But it was only for a moment, merely the time to let him add: “Precious little rest in life for anybody. Better not think of it.”
We rose, left the hotel, and parted from each other in the street with a warm handshake, just as he began to interest me for the first time in our intercourse.
The first thing I saw when I got back to the ship was
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Ransome on the quarter-deck sitting quietly on his neatly lashed sea-chest.
I beckoned him to follow me into the saloon where I sat down to write a letter of recommendation for him to a man I knew on shore.
When finished I pushed it across the table. “It may be of some good to you when you leave the hos- pital.”
He took it, put it in his pocket. His eyes were looking away from me—nowhere. His face was anx- iously set.
“How are you feeling now?” I asked.
“I don’t feel bad now, sir,” he answered stiffly. “But I am afraid of its coming on. ...” The wistful smile came back on his lips for a moment. “‘I— I am in a blue funk about my heart, sir.”
I approached him with extended hand. His eyes, not looking at me, had a strained expression. He was like a man listening for a warning call.
“Won’t you shake hands, Ransome?” I said gently.
He exclaimed, flushed up dusky red, gave my hand a hard wrench—and next moment, left alone in the cabin, I listened to him going up the companion stairs cautiously, step by step, in mortal fear of starting into sudden anger our common enemy it was his hard fate to carry consciously within his faithful breast.
THE END
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