Hollow Sea (17 page)

Sleep closed down all barriers. In another room the ship's doctor and the travelling M.D. sat by Mr. Deveney's bed. They watched him close. Felt his pulse, looked at the temperature. He shivered to the touch. Mr. Ericson was totally invisible. He was partial to warm blankets in any weather, fair or fine, hot or cold. He was covered completely. Therefore one could not see the touch of sleep upon the features. His room was untidy, his desk covered with written pages of a letter beginning 'My dear mother – To-day we.
 
.
 
.
 
'

Mr. Dunford had just got out of bed. He had washed and shaved and was now sitting on the settee. He had the log-book beside him. He had been checking Ericson's entries. He sat very quiet, very still, as though he were waiting for something. A signal, a knock, perhaps even the sound of his own voice. His room, larger than the others, had direct contact with the bridge. He had only to put a foot out and there he was, right in the middle of his world. 'Let me see,' he said to himself. 'I'll bet when light comes we'll find that fellow right on top of us. They have a nasty habit of being surprising.' But he wished there was some sort of method about it all the same. 'One could be surprised today' – but what about tomorrow? Well, at least she would take them as far as – well, the position which he already saw so crystal clear, and then having left them under the tutelage of two contrary forces, two distinct forms of authority, would leave them to it and vanish. All right! That was only as far as method could reach. After that, it was all hands on deck and every man Jack for himself. He knew it all like a book! What made him feel so sick about things, was it this very fact of knowing the book inside out? No! He was just feeling tired, not bodily tired, another kind of tiredness, a tiredness that had the grind and the ache of futility in it.

However, one might hope that they'd get adequate cover – and adequate recognition and protection. But everything was uncertain, the future was flimsy, what you planned yesterday was dead ashes today, and it was going on and on, no rest, ceaseless, blind, heroic, yes, heroic, and a hollow mockery and waste, waste, waste. Mr. Dunford number two talked on – he talked on with the eloquence of the profoundly empty – and Dunford number one listened and whilst he listened he thought of orders, changed courses, mines, large bodies of men, guns, bright sunlight, smooth and choppy seas, his wife in London, Mr. Deveney's temperature, what the world would look like when the craziness had burnt out, the burning purpose was a hollow thing, an empty vessel. He thought of tides and currents, of varnish and carbolic, of Ericson's smile and a dimple in his cheek, of the talkative sailor whose face was covered with repulsive-looking pimples.

How delightful to get a bit of a breeze at last. Time dawdled. He could sit quiet as he was now, obliterate thought, just sit quiet and hear the beat of his own heart. He could also sit and listen to that other Mr. Dunford, whose tongue was long and whose eloquence touched the heights, and all was wind in a bag, or he could think of his wife in London, of their coming together again. Or again he could make a voyage round his room – yes, at three-fifteen in the morning he could make the voyage touching at the ports of memory there, and here a Zeiss glass ten years old, gift of his mother. There a gold-tipped stick – what the devil was it doing in that cabin now? – memories of New York, a world very full of itself, easy-going, and no thought for the future. Oh, yes, and here was a priceless liqueur glass, gift of the Finnish captain who loved strawberries more passionately than his own wife, and that sextant and case from the French Government in nineteen hundred and five. What a voyage and how far away things were, and how remote – remote. He might think of the faces, of the eyes and mouths, of men and boys, expressions and gestures, a now faded map, a panorama of ghosts. And still the hands were greedy, mouths gaped, the maw swelled with pride, with gloating, and now there were more faces, more eyes laughing or sad, or quietly serene, going forward. Aimless and unending journey. Cut off from all things that had meaning, living in the middle of an ocean, the voices of the world once trodden, died down and lost. Even the unthinkable. Yes, the unthinkable. Ransack oneself. Dig deeper. See tomorrow and the day following before even time had released it. He got up from the chair and went out on to the bridge. A light wind was blowing. Bradshaw in white drill looked like a ghost against the greyness, grey bulwarks and bulkhead, grey funnel, grey house and ventilators, grey nose, grey poop. All was grey, the symbol of the time, greyness pungent with meaning.

'Hello, Bradshaw! Quiet!' he said.

He stood close to the tall man – this man so much older than himself. 'I'm glad to see the wind our way. Those poor devils below. Every time I see the open hatch I cry for a hurricane, a gale at ninety miles an hour to swoop down there and explode, explode the air and the smell, and the dirt and bugs, and oh— But it is fine, isn't it, Bradshaw?'

'We shan't have it long all the same, sir,' said Mr. Bradshaw.

'No! That's true enough. Well, I shall leave you sole master. Unless something happens. Perhaps I ought to be asleep. But I'm not.'

He went away, walking right aft, until he could go no farther. He leaned on the rail, looking at the log. And suddenly he saw a shape, a something white in the dark water. A fish! It was darting about madly in the wake of the ship. Dunford stood quite still watching it. The sea was full of fish – one never gave a fish a thought. But here under his eyes was a white flashing body. How beautiful it seemed flashing backwards and forwards, this lone fish so it seemed following them, tracing upon the lashing foam the poetry of its life, the poetry of its movement, patterning its ecstasy upon the water. For a long time Mr. Dunford stood watching it. One saw the thing only in flashes, it never ceased movement, darting hither and thither, he saw the body, head and tail he could not see. Its whole life was movement, threshing and turning and flashing, rushing away beneath the surface, skimming it again. Then it was gone, it had come and gone, visioning action and freedom. A.10 was indifferent to the fish, to all fish, to all water; it pushed on. The moon disappeared and Dunford was lost in the darkness. Seven bells. A quarter to four. Getting light now. Afar off mists. The water turning bluish in colour. A figure turned the corner, and Mr. Dunford stood back. He saw the quartermaster fling the small canvas bag containing the thermometer into the water, then haul it up. He was checking the temperature. He saw him examine the log. Dunford stepped forward. The man jumped with sudden fright.

'All right!' said Mr. Dunford. 'Let me see the thermometer.'

Both of them went into the wheel-house. The quarter-master struck a match.

'Oh!' Dunford said. 'You'd better get along with that report now. Five to four.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Yes,' thought Dunford, 'I'd better be getting along, too. On to that bridge. Things will be happening pretty fast now.'

And he returned to the bridge just as eight bells was ringing.

'H
ALF
-
SPEED
,' Mr. Dunford said. 'Half-speed.' Light was breaking across the waters. And there was the escort, that slim grey object circling her, sheering off into the distance, returning, flashing across A.10's bows. 'Slow.'
 
'Slow.'
 
'Slow.' Signalling.

'Slow,' Dunford said. Yes. Here there were mines. And far off, touching horizon's rim a whiff of smoke. He already knew what that was. No doubts assailed. They were not going to flirt around O, they were not sneaking in to O. They were going to dash in and sit right on top of O, joined by that whiff of smoke on the horizon, which he knew to be the
Hartspill.
If he looked east he saw the queerly coloured sky, mirror of men's actions below. An angry sullen sky. Heat again. Before nine o'clock everybody would be suffocating. More and more men climbed to her decks, the stuffy holds were being deserted.

'Half-speed.'

'Half-speed,' Dunford said. 'Two points.' He repeated it to himself. She was going slowly forward, into the thick of things, and A.10 was different. Somewhere to his left he knew there were cruisers, a battleship, and there right on his nose, the destroyer. Coming towards him yet another. A.10's personality was slowly dissolving. She was part of the machine, the machine had a habit of creaking, with a certain halting uncertainty about its movements. More men filling the decks. He saw firemen, black, bared to the waist, standing on the for'ard deck. They looked east. Their faces seemed very small to him. He thought: 'Damnably hot down below.' How voiceless such men were; they passed to and fro from their work as though they had no eyes at all for the life about them, perhaps only for the bunkers, when they were lost to view. The destroyer was signalling again, then she shot ahead and was lost to view in a whirl of foam and spray. A.10 increased speed. Mr. Dunford looked right ahead. He was free from the personal thing. Deveney never crossed his mind. He had forgotten that thirty men were down with fever. He had forgotten that there had been serious fighting amongst the men in A deck. That Mr. Walters avoided him, that Mr. Hump had made him the best dinner he had had this trip. He saw sailors for'ard handing letters to the bosun for transference to the naval boat. No doubt they would eventually reach their destination. A.10 was slowly drawing down upon the
H
artspill.
He could see her decks lined with soldiers, cheering soldiers. The echo crossed over the waters and the soldiers aboard A.10 heard it. The destroyer had passed out of sight altogether.

'Half-speed,' Mr. Dunford said. He was alone on the bridge. Ericson was below sleeping. Bradshaw and the carpenter were busy in the 'tween-decks. Mr. Dunford had to land these men. That was his only thought now. It wasn't the getting there, the getting clear away, just the landing. So far as Mr. Bradshaw and the carpenter were concerned the landing was as good as over. Their conversation concerned two things: fumigation of the ship, talk of sand-ballast loading at Alexandria. A sailing ship passed them, like some great white bird, something alien in those waters, those waters of unrest and strife.

'Tomorrow,' thought Dunford. 'Probably before daylight.' Today was Tuesday. They were actually a day ahead. 'I hate Saturday mornings,' he said to himself. Yes, he hated Saturdays, on port or at sea, in foul or fine water. Saturdays were generally rotten. Experience told him that. Bradshaw came up, the carpenter went forward, with his sounding rods. 'Well, Mr. Bradshaw.'

Bradshaw seemed unusually silent. Then he said: 'There's two dead men on B deck. Heat or fever. Don't know which.'

Dunford drew himself up. 'Oh! I've heard nothing,' he said; 'where did this occur?'

'An hour ago,' said Bradshaw. 'I think the ship requires a thorough overhaul when we get back.'

'But we may not get back, Mr. Bradshaw! What's the alternative, d'you think?'

'Here is the Adjutant now, Mr. Dunford,' and he swung round. Dunford did not move. He stared down at the crowded deck. Bradshaw said again: 'Here is Captain Percival now, sir.'

'Yes, of course! Good morning, sir! Mr. Bradshaw, take control. I am going below with Mr. Percival. When did these deaths occur, sir?'

The two men walked slowly away, but only disjointed words and phrases reached Bradshaw's ears. As they descended the ladder and walked for'ard, they saw a sailor leaning against the windlass. He seemed to be off duty. He was joking with a number of soldiers.

'You there!' Dunford said. 'Will you follow us, please?'

The man looked up, surprised; there was Captain Dunford right on top of him. 'Yes, sir.' He followed the two officers, keeping at what he thought to be a respectful distance. They reached the lower deck. Captain Percival was saying: 'This way, sir.'

Rochdale, for it was he who was joking with the troops, wondered why Captain Dunford had called him, when he might so easily have got a quartermaster, the fit and proper person to accompany a captain. They descended to the next deck. The whole place was silent, deserted, there was something fantastic and meaningless about all those rows and tiers of empty bunks. All life had sought the highest level.

Keeping behind, but ears attuned for every word, Rochdale heard Captain Percival say, 'Here they are, sir.'

The party halted. 'Yes, here they were, sir,' Rochdale said in his mind. 'Here they were.' Two stiffs, the first casualties aboard. Their faces were covered with the grey blankets.

'All right, I don't want to see them,' said Mr. Dunford, and turned away, standing, hand clasped loosely behind his back.

Captain Percival answered all his questions. When had it occurred? Oh! Nobody knew. He had had reports from the deck N.C.O. The men did not rise to breakfast.

Mr. Dunford went on nodding his head, saying in a sing-song manner, 'I see! I see!' They were only discovered after six o'clock, when the sitting for breakfast for the deck was over. The mess orderlies found them. They thought they had overslept.

'I see! I see!' Dunford said. He wanted to go up on deck again. There was something about this place that made him sick, revolted him. Suddenly he swung round and looked at Rochdale.

'Turn the blankets down, man,' he said, and Rochdale uncovered the dead.

Faces. A man about sixty, a youth about twenty. A hairy face and a hairless one. Closed eyes, empty faces, meaningless.

'All right, cover them up. Go and bring the petty officer on watch.'

Now he did want to get out of it. But here was the Adjutant, a man whom he had spoken to but twice during the whole trip, and here were the dead, and above
all
, the living.

'The accommodation is not perfect, Captain Percival! I won't deny that! Indeed, it's very bad! But my ship was changed overnight. What else could one expect?' There was nothing really perfect. So far as he was concerned he wouldn't carry cattle in the thing. On the other hand there was the question of severely depleted tonnage, a fact to be reckoned with, a certain amount of stupidity, but people were only human, etc., etc.