Captain Caution (18 page)

To Marvin it seemed as though the air had suddenly been heated by a giant stove. It had the feel, he thought, of an animal's breath the breath of an enormous beast that had preyed on carrion and with the thought, a black depression filled his brain, so that the realization of his lamentable state came fully to him. In his mind's eye he saw Morlaix once more, cold and drab at the end of the narrow estuary, and as distant as those far-off Chinese cities that seemed less real than dreams. It was, indeed, like a figure in a dream that Corunna trembled in a sad perspective before him; a figure remote and small, and surely beyond the reach of one who lay, like these unfortunates, half clothed, half fed, and only half alive.

"I suppose he will," Marvin responded at length, becoming aware that Newton was contemplating him curiously.

"Yes, he'll get along," Newton repeated. "Now, you take these men here on this deck; they're in prison for nothing, all of 'em. Every last one of 'em, nearly, is in the same box I am. They were hauled out of American ships by British press gangs before the war broke out, and made to serve aboard British cruisers hell-ships, they're called by some, and 'hell-ship' is the proper word for 'em. When the war came on, they said they wouldn't fight against America. That's all just wouldn't lay a gun against a Yankee craft. For that they catted us, the bloody lobsters; whipped us like balky horses; chopped our backs to hash, and threw us into these hulks, so that we came into 'em feeling pretty bad pretty badl"

Newton laughed mildly. "If we were felons, we'd have better treatment. If we'd murdered our mothers, we'd be put in a prison ship, same as this; but we'd have more room and better food. The British never put more than four hundred criminals in a prison ship; but we're more than criminals. We're prisoners of war. We won't fight for 'em; so they jam as many as nine hundred of us into each hulk us who never did anything to 'em."

He laughed a laugh so mirthless that it ended in a cough. "Not yet we haven't done anything to 'em, but some day we willI"

He stared down at Marvin unwinkingly. "I give 'em credit!" he said. "They did what they could to keep us just barely breathing. They underfed us, so they could make money out of our food; and they gave us no clothes to wear if so be our clothes wore out; and

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worst of all, they took our air from us at night; but it hasn't killed us not any of usl We're alive, all of usl"

He studied Marvin's face intently, and seemed, even, to measure his great body with his eyes. "It's easy to see you've had enough air and plenty of victuals. You look as if you could stand some punish ment swim ashore, event"

"Swim ashore!" Marvin exclaimed thickly. So heavy had the air become that Newton's hammock, dimly seen above him, seemed to have descended on his chest. The mere act of breathing had grown to be a labor, and there was a ringing in his ears a ringing broken by short silences that must, he told himself, be sleep, but that seemed more like lapses into a poisoned stupor. He shook his head to free it of the rank fog that enveloped him, and into his mind came the sallow face of Slade, its drooping eyelid giving it an expression of malicious triumph.

"Swim ashore!" he repeated. "I'd swim a hundred miles to get to shore and to Francel"

He moved to rise to his feet, but his head struck the bottom of Newton's hammock and he fell back again.

Newton disappeared, and his hammock sagged as if he had lost interest in the subject. "Well," he said, "sweet dreamst I'll see you in the morning."

It seemed to Marvin, staring up with hot eyes into the dark, that he was caught in a tomb. Through the web of noises that surrounded him he could hear Argandeau close beside him, squirming and scratching.

"In some circumstances it is a terrible thing to be too alluring," Argandeau sighed. "I think all the fleas upon this Crown Prince hulk must be females, because I do not believe that anybody else but me is receiving attention from any of them."

At seven in the morning, the ports were raised and the gratings removed from the hatches; and Marvin, shouldering his hammock and bedding, followed his fellow prisoners up the ladders to be counted. In the dusk of the day before, the French prisoners had seemed miserable, but the naked creatures who came up into the brilliant sunlight of that October day were purely horrible. To Marvin, waiting his turn, after the counting, to stack his hammock on the covered platform over the main hatch, they had the look of vicious and repulsive animals as they scuttled down the ladders again to their den on the orlop deck.

Newton came to him through the press of prisoners. "Here,"

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he told Marvin, "come up on the forecastle. I want to show you something."

Marvin, drawing Argandeau with him, followed the small swaggering figure in the overlong greatcoat as it bustled forward and mounted nimbly to the high forecastle, from which a reek of smoke rose through a score of pipes. Four marines in threadbare scarecrow uniforms growled glumly at Newton as he stopped before them to strike an attitude that had something of the heroic about it.

"Hoi" one of the marines exclaimed. "'Ere'sthebloomin' hactorl Well, we ain't got nuffin' for yer! No tobaccer; no ale clo'es; no needles ner thread ner nails ner nuffin'l"

Clasping his hands before him, Newton raised sad eyes to the speaker's face. "Pityl" he whispered. "Have pity on a pore unfortunate woman turned into the snow with her two tender children" he gestured dramatically toward Marvin and Argandeau "by an unnatural and inhuman father, with never so much as a sup of rum or a measly piece of twist to hearten them against the bitter winter windsl Ah, my children! My pore, pore children! Ah, the pity of it, to see them waste before my very eyes for lack of the barest necessities of lifer" He seemed to sob and droop.

One of the marines snorted. Another said angrily, "We ain't got none, I tell yerl"

"Ah, say not sol" Newton cried. He drew himself erect and thrust a hand into the bosom of his greatcoat. "Nonel Nonel In all this broad demesne, no single piece of twistl No twist in all this royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war, this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this Englandl No twistl Good God, no twist in Englandl" Passionately he struck his brow with his clenched fist, and staggered.

"Oh, 'elll" one of the marines growled. He drew a fragment of rope tobacco from his pocket and reluctantly handed it to Newton who examined it suspiciously, dusted it against the front of his coat, and suddenly bit off the larger part of it. He returned the remainder to the marine and, deaf to his hoarse outcries, herded Marvin and Argandeau to the starboard bulwarks.

"Now we're all right," Newton said. "Those lobsters won't bother us, for fear of losing the rest of their tobacco. Still, it's best to talk low and keep your eyes open."

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The three of them stared out over the wind-swept waters of the Medway. Ahead and astern extended the long line of soiled and misshapen hulks, each one attended, as though it had spawned during the night, by a small fleet of vegetable and supply boats. Along the main channel of the river, between the hulks and the windmills and neatly hedged fields, moved brigs and ships and sloops, bound to or from the docks of Chatham.

Newton turned an uncertain eye on Argandeau. "There's some situations that require frank speaking," he said to Marvin. "Now I've got nothing against this French friend of yours; but what I've got to say is important; and if anyone should be careless enough to blab, it might be the death of us."

Marvin nodded. "What you've got to say can be said before Argandeau or not at all. He's here himself because of helping me try to stay away. If I get out, he gets out too."

"All right," Newton said hastily. "All rightl That's understood. Now look here." He spat negligently at a passing supply-boat. "Opposite this hulk, on shore, is a village. See it?"

"We see it," Marvin said.

"All right," Newton whispered. "That's Jillingum, that village is. Spelled 'Gillingham,' but pronounced 'Jillingum,' the way they do here. To the right of the village there's two windmills. In line with 'em, and fifty yards off shore, there's a mud bank. See it?"

Marvin nodded.

"That bank runs all the way along this reach, out of water most of the time. Sometimes only a little out. Could you swim that far at night in cold water real cold water?"

"Easy," Marvin said.

"The mud in those banks is like glue," Newton remarked. "You go into it pretty near up to your middle. That's the trouble with getting to shore if you swim as far as the banks, you're pretty tired, on account of having to carry things with you; so when you strike the mud, you can't get through it, sometimes. Sometimes, when the ports are opened in the morning, we see men in the mud, dead. The British leave 'em there all day two days, sometimes so they'll be a lesson to the rest of us." In a thoughtful voice, he added: "The crows eat 'cm."

The three men stared silently at the square green fields and the slowly turning windmills, toy-like against the clear sky.

"Well?" Newton asked.

"Well what?" Marvin demanded.

"Do you think you could get through the mud?"

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"Why, I'd have to," Marvin said.

"Men have got through it, no?" Argandeau asked.

Newton nodded. "Three out of five got through it a month ago Americans. Frenchmen have got through it, but mostly they were new men privateer captains. Tom Souville got through it four times, and reached France twice, but he was captured three times and brought back."

Argandeau laughed silently. His close-cropped black head wagged gently from side to side. "Tom Souvillel" he exclaimed. "When I am a young man in Calais, I have taught Tom Souville tricks in swimming. There is nothing Tom Souville can do that I cannot do."

They were silent again, staring at the distant and harmless-seeming grey thread of the mud bank.

"There's one more thing," Newton said at length. "How much can you fight?"

Marvin looked thoughtfully at his knuckles. "I don't rightly know. I never had to fight very hard. What I've had to do has come easy."

Newton felt of his upper arm and appraised him carefully.

"Well," he said slowly, "well, I'll tell you. I'll tell you just how it is. It's a hard job to escape from these hulks a dreadful chore! 'Tisn't as if you just escaped whenever you felt like it; you've got to have money, and you've got to protect yourself from informers, and you've got to be prepared, and you've got to have the good will of the rest of the prisoners, and you've got to have the permission of the governing committee, and you've got to be relieved of your prisoner duties. Then, when all those things have been arranged, you're obliged to go to work and cut your way out. It's the hardest work in the world If you laid out on a topgallant yard night and day for a month, trying to hand a sail that's stiff with ice, and never got it handed, it wouldn't be as hard work as getting out of these hulks, even after you've got the permission and the money."

"My money was stolen when I came aboard last night," Marvin said. "How much money does it take?"

"Wait," Newton said. "I'm coming to that. Now I'll tell you how it is: I want to get out of this placer 'Tisn't that I can't stand the bad food and the bad air and the bad clothes or the bad Frenchmen. These bad Frenchmen, they're a joker They're so eager to take advantage of us Americans that all you got to do is to give 'em an inch of rope and they'll hang themselves. See this overcoat?"

Marvin nodded.

"ThaYs a French coat," Newton said. "They think I'm easy because I'm little and look worried when I gamble with 'em. The Frenchmen

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aren't anything as long as you watch 'em not anything! What I can't stand is wanting to get at these English and not being able tol Listenl"

He took Marvin by the upper arms and seemed to shiver in the grip of a violent emotion. "Do you know why they take so many prisoners and starve us the way they do? IYs because half of England's fattening on our hunger and nakedness and cold. The more of us they capture, the fatter England grows. Seventy-five thousand of us, French and Americans together, and the contractors take money for clothes we're supposed to get, but never do, and for food thaYs never fed to usl The commander of this ship, the drunken hog, fought to get the jobl It pays him seven shillings a day, but he'll be a rich man in three years, hunting foxes in a red coat and talking about filthy Americansl I was secretary to a captain, I tell you, and I know what I'm talking aboutl I've got to get out of herel I'll blow up if I can't fight 'eml"

"I don't blame you," Marvin said thoughtfully, "but if ids as hard to escape as you say, you'd be better off, wouldn't you, to stop talking about it?"

Newton gripped the high bulwarks of the prison ship and laughed exultantly. "StopP" he cried. "Stop? Why, not I've just started! I've been waiting for the right menl For the right menl It's my turn to go and you're the man I want to go with. You're strong and you're big. You'll make it, and if I go with you, Ill have no trouble. This man, too" he whirled to poke Argandeau's arched chest "he'd get through, and the Indian you brought aboard. There's nobody else aboard this hulk I'd risk it with. I don't think the others could make it. They're weak and hungry. Most of 'em are sick. Most of 'em have been in jail too long. You're different When I saw you come aboard, it seemed to me you must be the man I've been waiting for ever since they threw me into this" he laughed again "this demi-paradise; this precious stone set in the silver sea; this Englandl"

Marvin looked quickly over his shoulder at the four marines, lounging at the forecastle rail; then stared intently at Newton.

The small man hitched up his long overcoat around him. "I'll tell you how it is," he said, and his crinkly yellow side whiskers seemed to quiver. "If you can lick a man as big as you are, and maybe a little bigger if you've got the heart to take a pounding and give back better than you get I can contrive for the three of you to have a chance to go. I can do ill There's only one stipulation, and that is that you take me." He shivered. "You're the man I've been looking fort Yes, sir, you'll make itl"