In Hazard (11 page)

There were latrines both ends of the ship: forward, latrines for the firemen and the seamen: aft, latrines for the pilgrims—male to port, female to starboard. Ships ought to have special arrangements for hand-pumping oil onto troubled waters: but they have not, and latrines are the next best thing. The only trouble with latrines is the baffle on the outside, which stops the oil from dropping really clear of the ship.

There was a reserve tank of lubricating oil in the top of the engine-room, up by the door. Captain Edwardes had it broached, for it was in a convenient position: the Chinese engine-room staff filled five-gallon drums from it, and trundled them as far as the well-decks, fore and aft. They would not go out into the open: so the deck-officers took over from there.

Watchett was sent to take charge of the forward latrine.

Just then the boy Bennett appeared again, out of the Captain's cabin, looking fit as a fiddle now: the slight boy, not very strong; so they sent him aft, into the female latrine, to do the pouring there, while Buxton and the other bigger boy Phillips were to keep them both supplied. Bennett had a bundle of tow to use as a stopper, so that he could let the oil drip out slowly and regularly, instead of in one big wasteful splodge. You only want a very little oil to control leaping water: even for so big a ship, one drum ought to last for an hour or two.

Bennett made a dash, and managed to win the big iron slice-shaped room, with its long row of squatting-places: they rolled a drum in after him, and the big iron door clanged to. It was pitch dark, the air charged with the smell of citronella (Essential Oil had been stored there, to avoid tainting the holds). The ship's list had laid this starboard latrine down almost to water-level: and as she rolled the sea came up through the vent, gurgling like the waste of a gigantic bath, swirling about the boy's knees. He made a dash for the door, in a panic: but it would not open: the iron latch, outside, was a swing one, and the angle the ship was heeled to kept it swung into the locked position: it could only be opened from without. If the ship rolled just a little more, of course, the room would fill, and drown him. Coal-miners, in an accident, have sometimes been saved from drowning by the air-pressure: fleeing to the end of an ascending gallery, the water has not been able to rise to them because there was nowhere for the present air to escape. But latrines are properly ventilated, in accordance with strict regulations: in fact are designed to drown anyone locked inside them for sure, as neat as a mouse in a mousetrap.

Well, never mind; at present it did not seem to come above his knees, and only that once in a while. So he got busy. Fixed his tow plug, broached his drum, began pouring. He could not tell if it was doing any good: only the chaps outside could tell that.

The chaps outside could see that the effect of the oil was magical. A thin film only a few molecules in thickness (once it had spread out), it bound millions of tons of water. Huge spires of water would dash at the ship, like maddened cathedrals: then the oil spread over them: they rounded, sank, passed away as harmless as a woman's bosom. Or even if they broke, it was only harmless dead water.

In an hour and a half Bennett's drum was finished: and no one came with more.

They did not come, because at the time they thought they could not. The wind was in one of its worst paroxysms. A man might manage to cross the well-deck in a wild dash emptyhanded: but not carrying a drum of oil. So the engineers started pouring it over amidships, with buckets. A wasteful way; but better than nothing, they thought.

Wasteful, and not nearly so effective. It was soon plain that somehow they
must
get a fresh lot forward to Bennett. So the Mate and Phillips accepted the risk: stood waiting their bare chance for a dash, with a drum apiece: though it still seemed impossible.

Phillips was not looking when the Mate made his dash: when he looked back, the Mate was gone.

Gone? Gone overboard, that must mean. Phillips dropped his drum and ran for the saloon. “Mate's overboard” he yelled through the door. The few engineers inside listened politely but without consternation. Then he ran back: caught up his drum and dashed for the after-castle himself: he took it to be a necessity, since he thought he was the only one left, but he hardly expected to get through.

He did, though, and wrenched open the door. Buxton tumbled out on top of him. Somehow, Phillips had been so sure that Buxton was drowned: the shock of seeing the Mate alive nearly sent the boy himself overboard.

Bennett had two drums now: enough to last him nearly till the evening. He settled down to the job.

It is only human to take a pride in what you are doing: to want to do it well. It is one of the chief springs of effort: pride in perfecting the means, not just the wanting the object. You expect artists and poets to have that pride: you can understand a fine craftsman—carpenter or seaman—having it. But really nearly everyone has it, whatever his job. The dustman is proud of the quality of the refuse he tends. The experienced sewerman knows that of all the careless footfalls passing above his head, not one man, not Duke nor taxi-driver, could clear a choked main drain with so deft a hand as he. You might have thought Bennett's job monotonous, dribbling oil slowly down a half-flooded latrine in the half-dark? Not a bit of it. As the hours passed his technique improved! And the improvement was itself fascinating. Just how much oil to slop in at a time. Just how far, and how often, to withdraw the tow plug, in order to let it trickle through. Just what to cling on to, when the water came up. You would have thought he would get bored? No: the fact is that the boy stuck to his post, pouring oil, without food or rest, for twenty hours on end—till mid-day Saturday: and though at the end he was so dog-tired as to be dreaming on his feet, he never felt bored.

Nor had it been long before dreams and technique had woven themselves together.

Most frequently he imagined himself in a lecture-room, where a dreary lecturer droned out a discourse on pouring oil. Sometimes he was himself the lecturer, explaining in balanced periods the Whole Art of Oil-pouring, its every thrust and parry and riposte; while an entranced audience of students scribbled down his sections, and sub-sections
a
and
b
, his riders and exceptions, in their notebooks.

A jerk of the mind, and he would find that he was in fact doing what he thought he was saying. Then a slow glissade down the slope of consciousness, till once more he believed himself to be saying what he was in fact doing.

Never, during the whole twenty hours, did it enter his head to want to give up. It is at times very difficult to draw the line between a hero and an artist. Without doubt it was the pouring of the oil which saved the ship at that time. Without doubt it was the way Bennett stuck to his post in the after latrine, and Watchett to his post in the forward one, that made the pouring of oil so successful.

When the tank of oil in the engine-room was exhausted, the engineers broke off one of those hooked ventilators I told you about, in the side decks, which release the gases from the fuel-tanks below, and thence dipped it up with buckets.

Perhaps it was a pity ever to have brought the engine-room Chinese up on deck at all. They had been all right below: but now they could see how bad things were. It did not do them any good. For after a while they refused even to carry the oil in the shelter of the centre-castle. They did not go comatose like the deck-hands, they went a bit ugly. This was not what they had signed on for. If this was what they were expected to go through, they ought to have been told. The English, in taking them into a storm like this without telling them when they signed on, had broken the bargain: it was as bad as lying to them. This, on top of the food ramp (they were now feeling very hungry) was more than they could be expected to stand. They gave very little sign; but one and all were ready to make serious trouble if a match was put to the powder.

Mr. MacDonald was not only sensitive about his machines: he was highly sensitive about his men. He knew at once that the loyalty of his men was gone from him, that he could not trust them. That did not do
him
any good. He took to swivelling round suddenly, with a glare of his hot red eyes, to see if there was a Chinaman behind him. Soutar, also, was on edge about it. He could see that MacDonald was nervy about the men; and he resented it. If the Chinks gave trouble, couldn't he bash them? And my God, how he would like the chance! What was the good of the Chief getting all worked up about it? Being
afraid
of them?

Two Chinamen, their faces wooden and angry, were in Soutar's way as he trundled a drum. With an unexpectedly falsetto oath he kicked out at them—and missed. They vanished. But MacDonald saw and turned on Soutar.

“Gin ye distrust the men, Mr. Soutar,” he said, “can ye nae hau'd yoursel' in, an' nae shaw it?”

He, distrust them! When the Chief was in dithering terror of them!

Bitter anger burst up between the two men, who glared in each other's faces: MacDonald, half his grey moustache burnt off in the donkey-room, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot: Soutar, his pasty white face screwed up, and wearing a blackish hue as if diluted ink ran in his veins: his meagre eyelashes almost entirely hidden between the puffed lids.

It was at that moment Gaston spoke quietly to the Chief.

“I've got water, Sir,” he said: “not much, but enough for a wet.”

Water! The first for a day and a half! At the very word the glands in their gums twinged with pain.

“I thought of unscrewing the valves off the winches,” Gaston explained. “There is water condensed there: a cupful or two.”

(There would be, of course, from the cooling of the steam which once had turned them.)

So that was the next thing. They won the water from the winches with the scrupulous care of men winning gold from the gravel. Each man was able to wet his lips. Each man, except Watchett pouring oil in the forward latrine, and Bennett in the after one. No one remembered them.

Night was falling: the obscurity turned once more from white to black. The sea was still madly broken: oiling must without doubt continue all night.

Edwardes, with a little electric torch, examined the sheaf of notes which one day would be the ship's official log. They were scribbled on the backs of wireless forms, and stuffed into the rack for signal flags on the Bridge. Where was he? It seemed impossible to tell, except by instinct. No stars or sun for a sight, nor any hope of them. They were being carried along by the storm: but where was it taking them? Its path was anyhow so erratic, no one could tell where it might now be heading. That bank must have been Serrana or Serranilla, though ... but where would they end up? Hurricanes are bound to hit the land sometime. When this one struck Cuba, or Yucatan, or Florida, would they still be in it?

The night which followed was one which no one would ever forget: yet one which no one could ever clearly remember.

Dick had an easier job than Bennett to keep awake: for he had not slept at all, the crust of his wakefulness was still unbroken. But in some ways he was worse off. The fo'c'sle was more battered than the poop. Bigger seas swept up through the vent. Moreover, it was a latrine that until the storm had been in use. Still, he was not imprisoned, like Bennett: the door had broken clean off.

His head ached; and his tongue, instead of being flat and moist in his mouth, was round and dry. Consequently it kept trying to push its way out between his lips, like the thin end of a wedge. Only it could not, it stuck to his lips each time, as if they were smeared with the best glue; and it had to be loosened carefully, so as not to tear the skin.

“You see,” he said to Sukie, “You have to be very careful. Once it gets a chance really to stick to the skin it will rip it off. Very gently, back and fore—that frees it, and I can put it back in my mouth.”

But Sukie did not answer: though surely she ought to have been interested. She was looking past him, and humming a tune. She did not care. So with an effort of mind he shifted her out of his way; shifted her up about four feet, and a bit to the left. There was nothing for her to sit on up there: but all the same there she was, sitting in just the same position as before. Presently she did have somewhere to sit, however, for he saw she was now in the mouth of a ferny cave. So with a spasm of pleasure he picked up his oil-drum and stepped through her, into the cave, pouring oil as he went (so as to be able to find his way back, he told himself).

“You see,” he said when he met her again, about a hundred yards further down the cave, “pouring oil out of this drum is my job.”

“Sure,” said Sukie: and leaning forward she stared close into his eyes, laying her beautiful cool eyes almost to touch his briny, swollen lids.

“Oh, sure!” she said again: and turning, hopped away on her unnaturally elongated feet, nervously folding and unfolding her ears. So he took hold of the tow plug at the end of the cave and lifted it; and this time quite a lot of oil ran out.

“I must be more careful,” he thought: “I'll be using it up too soon at this rate.”

But only half the drum was gone: and just then the Mate and Phillips arrived with two new drums.

“Keep one drum in reserve,” said the Mate.

“That's the Captain's orders.”

“Very good sir,” Dick tried to say, but it hurt his tongue too much. Talking to Sukie had not hurt his tongue at all.

The road from Fakenham Station to the town runs past a meadow, with willows.

In Dick's day an old horse-bus still traversed it, back and forth, to meet every train. The horse never did more than walk: you never saw anyone getting in, or getting out; the bus was painted black, but on the glass of the back window transparent lilies were painted.

After the willows comes a printing-works: and then the town.

In the market-place there is a chemist's shop: and the chemist is a long-established sort of chap, who knows the old-fashioned names for things. He knows that Sal Prunella is only salt-petre with the water expelled, for instance. That was useful; because Dick's mother had come across an old cookery-book, written in different hands but all at least two hundred years old, and she wanted to try a recipe for curing Westphalia Hams Mrs. Estrigge. So she copied out the queer names of the things on a piece of paper and sent Dick down to the chemist for them on his bicycle.