Our Time Is Gone (78 page)

‘Glorious! Glorious! It's the name of a hymn too,' she said.

She wiped splashes of muddy water from her face. She moved to a new patch of deck. She hummed this hymn.

CHAPTER XIII

I

‘Don't you think we're lucky?' said the man, leaning over the ship's rail.

The sea was blue.

‘I suppose we are,' replied Mr. Fury, and watched the man beside him spit into the sea.

‘Luck's everything,' the man said, and turning away, went off towards the fo'c'sle.

Denny Fury left the rail too, went on with his pacing of the deck. The fore-well deck was at this moment the limit of the world. He walked up and down. The enormous sun bent down its heat, and the sea trembled under the light. But the air was good. And that was what mattered to Denny Fury at this moment. One came from the heat and stench of stokehold, or one tired of the stuffy fo'c'sle and went out on deck. There, hands in pockets, one paced the clean, bare deck. One enjoyed the quiet, the good air, this reflective hour.

Mr. Fury could count many such hours spent thus upon the fore-decks of ships. But he did not always reflect. He was a world, just as those who passed him by were worlds, and no man took count upon what he had put into a thousand hours, but what might come out of them. The sea might roll by, through great calms, or through tempests. The sun magnificently explore the many-coloured surfaces of different seas. But what mattered to Mr. Fury was that for a few hours the world of action had ceased to beat, its giant pendulum hung still, more silent than silence, and the fore-deck was the whole world to tread.

He thought of Fanny. In the fo'c'sle, in the engine-room, and stokehold, pacing this deck. He thought of her as he lay in his bunk between the watches. He wondered about her, but did not worry. There was something so
certain
about her. When he came home she would be there, just as she had always been. She was a fine woman. And didn't he know it! The substance of forty years or more they shared between them. And in his mind she had grown into something wonderful. He always told himself this. The things that Fanny had done, the things they had seen, the patience, the wonderful patience of that woman. And nothing could break her. In the reflective hour such thoughts passed through Denny Fury's head. And this evening he wondered as he always did, but did not worry.

Fanny was positive. She was definite. She was now grown into the most satisfying permanence. She was a cathedral. ‘A fine woman!' he said to himself. ‘Fanny! A fine woman. It makes me wish sometimes that I could have done more.' But then, yes, there were times when he had said he would, promised he would, and he had done them. Some he hadn't done. And that mucked everything.

‘Those children,' he would say. ‘Those children, why if I had
my
way, I'd have every one of them working. Good hard work won't kill any of them. But you—you have other ideas, and you want to stuff them into their heads. Fire away, Fanny, and stuff all you like.'

‘Of course,' she would reply, ‘you
would
say that! All right for you. Once you get on your old ship nothing matters. You're free. Lucky you, I wish I was a man. How easy it is to talk from far-away distances.'

Yes. They had often talked like that.

‘Well, what the hell does it matter now? The children are all off on their own, and now maybe we'll be able to settle down in peace.'

This was a thought in his head now, and it shone like a light. Be able to settle down to a bit of peace. All the struggles over. ‘Well—I don't say she didn't try. She did. By heavens she did. And I suppose I tried in my own funny way. But I've done a lot of hard work, and can't see much for it. Perhaps when I was a younger man I might have followed her advice, got away to the States. Ah—sure what's the use of talking now?'

It was waste of time. Up, down, round and round he went, hands dug into his trousers' pockets. Nobody disturbed. This patch of deck was his own.

‘I wonder how she's getting on? Shifted again. That's twice in a year, or something. Must be getting more ideas into that head of hers. Ah, sure, I've been a foolish man! She was too damned good for me. Ought to have married an ambassador or something, Fanny should,'stead of marrying me, an old lick-spit, with never two thoughts in his head about to-morrow! A good woman.'

It always amazed him that through all her struggles, her patience never gave way, her faith ever held out. ‘She's a brick and I feel god-damned ashamed of myself that I didn't move. Bought her a hat now and again, took her to the Lyric. But what's that? Nothing! Well, just wait. We'll have good times together yet. I'll make up for all this. We haven't seen much of each other, Fanny, have we?'

He stood shaking his head. No. They hadn't! Well, she'd see. She'd see. He hadn't forgotten. They were closer together now than ever they'd been. ‘But I was a damned fool not taking her out to the States at first. Here I am stuck in this bloody stokehold at the end of my life!'

He could kick himself for all such foolishness, such indifference, such devil-may-care attitude towards the whole of living. One bell rang out sharp and clear. Mr. Fury made his way to the bulwarks, and leaned on them. Well, here was the place for remembering those things, for thinking and being full of regrets, over this and that, and the other thing. ‘She often thinks that all I have to do is to sail away and forget everything. Little she knows,' he told himself.

Sometimes he would pull one of her letters out of his canvas hold-all, and read it. There were never more than two letters. Out of the hundreds she had written him, he only had two. The others were simply rolled into balls and flung into the sea. He began to wonder if she had had any news from that solicitor chap. If she had gained a hope of seeing Peter.

‘A nice mess.' This was Denny's only comment on the whole affair. ‘A nice mess.'

It was hard to look back now on all that struggle and waste, that obstinacy, that amazing determination that had put a halo round a lad's head who was never meant for such things. ‘But to work! Damned hard work! That's what he would have done had he had his road.'

But where was he in all this, where had he ever been? Nowhere! He didn't count. He sailed away and home again, turned up his money, a day or two of freedom, and then he was off again. It was difficult to believe that you had spent almost forty-seven years doing the same thing. ‘And you're no better off in the end, whichever way you look at it.'

Suddenly he laughed to himself, wondering if ever they would make that Irish trip. Perhaps it would be like that ‘wonderful cottage,' that first John, then Peter, then all in turn had said was the one thing they wanted to get for Fanny and him.

‘What bloody cock-eyed nonsense it all was! The damned lot of it. Well, I've kept my independence any old how, and not one of them can ever say I asked them for a penny.' Fanny couldn't do that. No! She went down on her knees to the lot of them. Fool of a woman.

He spat far into the sea, a dark blue sea whose surface was like glass, and upon which the sun beat and wavered. A sea like an enormous carpet, a silent sea, through which the ship passed alone, for nothing could be seen. Horizon's line and nothing more. It was the zone of calm, of an abnormal silence. Mr. Fury turned and looked along the line of the ship. The deck throbbed under his feet from the engine's powerful pulse. He knew that she had increased her speed. All knew, and why. His eye took in the deserted decks, the hollow corridors, the silent alleyways, and yet two days ago the whole ship had vibrated with life, fifteen hundred soldiers scattered over her decks. This morning she steamed at high speed, carrying only her crew, and a ballast of sand. ‘No doubt,' he thought, ‘she'll start that zig-zagging business about an hour now.'

‘Months,' he said to himself, ‘months away.' It seemed like years. He would remember that going away as long as ever he lived. But thank heavens she was out of hospital now, and whether Desmond or Kilkey or any of them called or didn't call to see their mother, it didn't matter a hang now. She had said as much. ‘That's why she damned well shifted, I know,' thought Mr. Fury. ‘Yes. I know. Thought she might seem like she was depending on them.'

‘Well, that was all right, but it was a pity she hadn't been a bit more independent all along. Hanging on to a crew like that. The whole thing in a nutshell was that they didn't give a damn. All right so long as
they
were all right.' He shifted from one foot to the other. Here was the sea, a beautiful sea, a red-hot sun, a clear blue sky. But you had looked at those things so often that now it was just as boring as having to look at your own face every time you shaved. Of course you thought about those things. In a world like this you couldn't dodge them. He had thought of his life and her life, and all the children's lives for the whole of his voyaging life. You
had to
.

‘But Fanny thinks it's marvellous being a sailor. No responsibilities, no nothing. Good old stubborn Fanny, who doesn't know one end of a rope from the other!'

You had to laugh. Well, could she see him now she might alter her opinions. Here was the forty-seventh year of voyaging, and they wouldn't go on for ever.

Sometimes you wondered what you would do when you packed your bag for the last time, and said good-bye to your mates. You wondered about that armchair, and the quiet life, but all the time you knew it was all a cod. ‘All a cod! I'm no better off than when I began. And if Fanny and me can get back to Ireland we'll think it's just grand.'

Eight bells rang out. Mr. Fury rushed into the fo'c'sle, and taking some cotton waste from his bunk he stuffed some wads of it into his pockets and went off down the deck with the other man. Their feet rang out on the bare deck like so many hammer-taps. The blue sea was there for every eye to see, but hardly any glanced its way. In groups of twos and threes they threaded their way down the alleyway, so reaching the door that led down to the engine room.

One after another made his way, worm-like, down the dizzying and shiny steel ladders. One whistled as he went. One paused to clear his throat. Mr. Fury reached deck level and made his way into the stokehold. The sudden change of air made him cough. Lately he had been very conscious of this cough. The cough was a voice, it was a word telling him what he could never dodge, the truth. He was afraid of it. It worried him. Only the young and inexperienced coughed like that when moving into the stokehold that belched acrid fumes into the air. As he went towards his furnace the door was thrown open, and the relieved man's last act was to draw forth a torrent of flame as he replenished the fire's mouth.

‘'Lo, Denny,' he said. ‘How's she making it on top?' and then he threw down the long steel rake, wiped down his naked body with a rag.

‘Nothing to shout about,' replied Mr. Fury. ‘The sea's blue like yesterday and there's nothing to be seen. All clear below?' he asked, as he drew off his jacket, then pulled his shirt over his head, and rolling them into a ball put them into the small wooden box that stood near the passage that made way to the bunkers.

His mate looked at him. ‘Ribs beginning to show, Fury,' he said, putting on his shirt and jacket.

‘They always did,' replied Mr. Fury, laughing. ‘I was never a fleshy man.'

‘Well, you haven't dried up yet, anyhow,' commented the other, and he gave Mr. Fury a resounding slap on the shoulder. ‘How's your missus? You were telling me some time back she was bad. D'you hear from her now?'

‘Oh aye! I'd a letter when we called to Mudros. She's up and about again. One thing about my missus is that she doesn't believe in lying on her back too long. Fanny's a sticker,' he went on, smiling. ‘I believe she could fire as good as meself if she were to try.'

‘You're an old boaster, Fury. You and your missus! Well, so-long.'

The man tramped heavily out of the stokehold and up the ladder towards purer air. Mr. Fury disappeared for a moment down the passage to the boilers. Then returned again. He began to rake off hot ashes.

When a neighbouring furnace door opened the whole stokehold was drenched in the glow, and a huge shadow was flung across the floor. There was no daylight and no darkness, only the interminable glow, and climbing the acrid air the planes of heat. Near by the engine's throb was gigantic. Having raked the ashes, Mr. Fury drew back, sat down on a load of coal just deposited by his trimmer.

‘Funny that fellow Ledlow asking me how Fanny was. Don't even remember telling him about her being in hospital. Nice of him to ask, anyhow.' He ran his fingers over his ribs, laughing to himself. All the thousands of times he had stripped to work, to wash, to rest, he had never taken much notice of himself. But the cough. Yes, he took notice of that. You had to. It meant you couldn't take it much longer.

‘I suppose forty-seven years
is
a long time,' he would say to himself, and he remembered that more vividly, now that Ledlow had noticed this. It had never happened before. Half his life in the stokehold and here he was coughing and spluttering just like a youngster taking his first smoke. It made him think of a particular day. He'd have to get out, of course. Couldn't last for ever. It made him think of Fanny. Made him remember those hard-earned savings taken by her, and now they were down the drain-pipe. ‘She's changed, but I wish she'd done it sooner,' he told himself. ‘She sees the waste, the silliness of the whole thing, and now she's making frantic efforts to make up for it.' He had to admire her. ‘I know she's working somewhere. Yes, she is working and she hasn't let on.'

When he thought over this, he realized how little he had done. He'd be through with the sea after this war, and beyond the old-age pension he could offer her nothing.

‘We'll see!' he would say. ‘We'll see about all that.'