The Narrow Corner (9 page)

Presently the cook brought them, piping hot, with tea and biscuits.

“God, they smell good,” said the Australian. “Funny thing, you know, I never get tired of bacon and eggs. When I’m at home I have them every day. Sometimes my wife gives me something else for a change, but there’s nothing I like ’alf so much.”

But when the blackfellow was rowing Dr. Saunders
back to the
Fenton
, it struck him that death was a funnier thing even than that the schooner’s captain should like bacon and eggs for breakfast. The flat sea was shining like polished steel. Its colours were pale and delicate like the colours in the boudoir of an eighteenth-century marquise. It seemed very odd to the doctor that men should die. There was something absurd in the notion that this pearl diver, the heir of innumerable generations, the result of a complicated process of evolution that had lasted since the planet was formed, here and now, because of a succession of accidents that confounded the imagination, should be brought to death on this lost and uninhabited spot.

Captain Nichols was shaving when the doctor reached the side and he gave him a hand to help him on board.

“Well, what’s the news?”

“Oh, he’s dead.”

“I thought as much. What’s bein’ done about buryin’ ’im?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask. I suppose they’ll just throw him overboard.”

“Like a dog?”

“Why not?”

The skipper gave signs of an agitation that not a little surprised Dr. Saunders.

“That won’t do at all. Not on a British vessel. He must be buried in the proper way. I mean, he must ’ave a proper service and all that.”

“He was a Buddhist or Shintoist or something like that, you know.”

“I can’t ’elp that. I been at sea, man and boy, for more than thirty years, and when a chap dies on a British ship he must ’ave a British funeral. Death levels all men, doc, you ought to know that, and at a time like this we can’t ’old it up against a fellow that he’s a Jap, or a nigger, or a dago, or anything. Hi, you men, lower a boat and look sharp about it. I’ll go over to the schooner meself. When I see you didn’t come back all this time I said to meself that this was going to ’appen. That’s why I was shavin’ when you come alongside.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m goin’ to talk to the skipper of that there schooner. We must do what’s right. Give that Jap a send-off in style. I’ve always made a point of that on every vessel I’ve commanded. Makes a rare good impression on the crew. Then they know what to expect if anything ’appens to them.”

The dinghy was lowered and the skipper rowed away. Fred Blake came aft. With his tousled hair, his clear skin and blue eyes, his springtime radiance, he looked
like a young Bacchus in a Venetian picture. The doctor, tired after a night of little sleep, felt a moment’s envy of his insolent youth.

“How’s the patient, doctor?”

“Dead.”

“Some fellows have all the luck, don’t they?”

Dr. Saunders gave him a sharp look, but did not speak.

In a little while, they saw the dinghy coming back from the schooner, but without Captain Nichols. The man called Utan spoke English well. He brought them a message that they were all to go over.

“What the hell for?” asked Blake.

“Come on,” said the doctor.

The two white men climbed over the side and the remaining two members of the crew.

“Captain say everybody. China boy, too.”

“Jump in, Ah Kay,” said the doctor to his servant, who was sitting on deck, unconcerned, sewing a button on a pair of trousers.

Ah Kay put down his work and with his friendly little smile stepped down on light feet into the dinghy. They rowed over to the schooner. When they climbed up the ladder, they found Captain Nichols and the Australian waiting for them.

“Captain Atkinson agrees with me that we ought to do the right thing by this poor Jap,” said Nichols,
“and as he ’asn’t the experience what I ’ave, ’e’s asked me to conduct the ceremony in proper style.”

“That’s right,” said the Australian.

“It isn’t my place, I know that. When you ’ave a death at sea it’s the captain’s place to read the service, but ’e don’t ’appen to ’ave a prayer-book on board and ’e don’t know what to do any more than a canary with a rumpsteak. Am I right, Captain?”

The Australian nodded gravely.

“But I thought you were a Baptist,” said the doctor.

“Ordinarily, I am,” said Nichols. “But when it comes to funerals and that-like I always ’ave used the prayer-book and I always shall use the prayer-book. Now, Captain, as soon as your party’s ready we’ll assemble the men and get on with the job.”

The Australian walked forward and in a minute or two rejoined them.

“Looks to me as if they was just putting in the last stitches,” he said.

“A stitch in time saves nine,” said Captain Nichols, somewhat to the doctor’s perplexity.

“What d’you say to a little drink while we’re waiting?”

“Not yet, Captain. We’ll ’ave that afterwards. Business before pleasure.”

Then a man came alone.

“All finished, boss,” he said.

“That’s fine,” said Nichols. “Come on, chaps.”

He was alert. He held himself erect. His little foxy eyes were twinkling with pleasant anticipation. The doctor observed with demure amusement his air of subdued gaiety. It was plain that he enjoyed the situation. They marched aft. The crews of the two boats, blackfellows all of them, were standing about, some with pipes in their mouths, one or two with the fag-end of a cigarette sticking to their thick lips. On the deck lay a bundle in what looked to the doctor like a copra sack. It was very small. You could hardly believe that it contained what had once been a man.

“Are you all ’ere?” asked Captain Nichols, looking round. “No smokin’, please. Respect for the dead.”

They put away their pipes, and spat out the ends of their cigarettes.

“Stand round now. You near me, Captain. I’m only doin’ this to oblige, you understand, and I don’t want you to think I don’t know it’s your place and not mine. Now then, are you all ready?”

Captain Nichols’ recollection of the burial service was somewhat sketchy. He began with a prayer that owed much to his invention, but which he delivered with unction. Its language was florid. He ended with a resounding amen.

“Now we’ll sing a ’ymn.” He looked at the blackfellows. “You’ve all been to missionary schools and I
want you to put your guts in it. Let ’em ’ear you right away to Macassar. Come on, all of you. Onward Christian Soldiers, onwards as to war.”

He burst out singing in a throaty, tuneless strain, but with fervour, and he had hardly started before the crews of the two boats joined in. They sang lustily with rich deep voices and the sound travelled over the peaceful sea. It was a hymn they had all learnt in their native islands, and they knew every word of it; but in their unfamiliar speech, with its queer intonations, it gathered a strange mystery so that it seemed not like a Christian hymn but like the barbaric, rhythmical shouting of a savage multitude. It rang with fantastic sounds, the beating of drums and the clang of curious instruments, and it suggested the night and dark ceremonies by the water’s edge and the dripping of blood in human sacrifice. Ah Kay, very clean in his neat white dress, stood a little apart from the black men in an attitude of negligent grace, and in his lovely liquid eyes was a look of a slightly scornful astonishment. They ended the first verse and without prompting from Captain Nichols sang the second. But when they started on the third he clapped his hands sharply.

“Now then, that’s enough,” he cried. “This ain’t a bloody concert. We don’t want to stay ’ere all night.”

They stopped suddenly and he looked round with severity. The doctor’s eyes fell on that small bundle in
the copra sack that lay on deck in the middle of the circle. He did not know why, but he thought of the little boy the dead diver once had been, with his yellow face and sloe-black eyes, who played in the streets of a Japanese town and was taken by his mother in her pretty Japanese dress, with pins in her elaborately done hair and clogs on her feet, to see the cherry blossom when it was in flower and, on holidays to the temple, where he was given a cake; and perhaps once, dressed all in white, with an ashen wand in his hand, he had gone with all his family on pilgrimage and watched the sun rise from the summit of Fuji Yama the sacred mountain.

“Now I’m going to say another prayer and when I come to the words, ‘we therefore commend ’is body to the deep,’ and mind you watch out for them, I don’t want a hitch or anythin’ like that, you just catch ’old of ’im and pop ’im over, see? Better detail two men to do that, Captain.”

“You, Bob. And Jo.”

The two men stepped forward and made to seize the body.

“Not yet, you damned fools,” cried Captain Nichols. “Let me get the words out of me mouth, blast you.” And then, without stopping to take breath, he burst into prayer. He went on till he could evidently think of nothing more to say, and then raising his voice a little:
“Forasmuch as it ’as pleased Almighty God of ’is great mercy to take unto ’isself the soul of our dear brother ’ere departed: We therefore commend his body to the deep …” He gave the two men a severe look, but they were staring at him with open mouths. “Now then, don’t be all night about it. Pop the bleeder over, blast you.”

With a start they leapt at the little bundle that lay on deck and flung it overboard. It plunged into the water with hardly a splash. Captain Nichols went on with a little satisfied smile on his face.

“To be turned into corruption, lookin’ for the resurrection of the body when the sea shall give up its dead. Now, dearly beloved brethren, we’ll all say the Lord’s Prayer, and no mumblin’, please. God wants to ’ear and I want to ’ear. Our Father which art in ’eaven …”

He repeated it to the crew in a loud voice and all but Ah Kay said it with him.

“Now, men, that’s about all,” he continued, but in the same unctuous voice; “I’m glad to ’ave ’ad the opportunity to conduct this sad ceremony in the proper way. In the midst of life we are in death, and accidents will ’appen in the best regulated families. I want you to know that if you’re taken to the bourne from which no one ever comes back, so long as you’re on a British ship and under the British flag, you can be sure of ’avin’ a decent funeral and bein’ buried like a faithful son of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Under ordinary circumstances I should now call upon you to give three cheers for your captain, Captain Atkinson, but this is a sad occasion upon which we are gathered together and our thoughts are too deep for tears, so I will ask you to give ’im three cheers in your ’earts. And now to God the Father, God the Son and God the ’oly Ghost. A-a-men.”

Captain Nichols turned aside with the manner of a man descending from the pulpit and held out his hand to the captain of the schooner. The Australian wrung it warmly.

“By God, you done that first rate,” he said.

“Practice,” said Captain Nichols modestly.

“Now, boys, what about a tiddly?”

“That’s the idea,” said Captain Nichols. He turned to his crew. “You fellers get back to the
Fenton
and Tom you come back and fetch us.”

The four men shambled along the deck. Captain Atkinson brought up from the cabin a bottle of whisky and some glasses.

“A parson couldn’t have done it better,” he said, raising his glass to Captain Nichols.

“It’s just a matter of feelin’. You ’ave to ’ave the feelin’. I mean, when I was conductin’ that service I didn’t think it was only a dirty little Jap, it was just the same to me as if it been you or Fred or the doctor. That’s Christianity, that is.”

T
HE
monsoon was blowing hard and when they left the shelter of the land they found a heavy sea. The doctor was ignorant of sailing vessels and to his unaccustomed eyes it seemed formidable. Captain Nichols had the water-cask aft lashed down. The waves, crested with white, looked very large and in that small craft one was very near the water. Now and then a heavy sea struck them and a cloud of spoon-drift swept along the deck. They were passing islands and as they passed each one the doctor asked himself if he could swim so far if they were capsized. He was nervous. It exasperated him. He knew there was no need. Two of the blackfellows were sitting on the hatch tying rope together to make a fishing line, and, intent on their job, never so much as gave the sea a glance. The water was muddy and there were reefs all around them. The skipper ordered one of the men to stand on the jib-boom and keep a look-out. The blackfellow guided the skipper with a gesture of one arm or the other. The sun shone and the sky was bright blue, but high above them white clouds raced with a swift and even motion. The doctor tried to read, but he had to duck constantly to avoid the spray when a sea broke over them. Presently there was
a dull scraping and he clutched the gunwale. They had struck a reef. They bumped over and were again in deep water. Nichols shouted a curse at the look-out man for not being more careful. They struck another reef and again bumped off.

“We’d better get out of this,” said the skipper.

He altered his course and made for the open sea. The ketch rolled heavily and righted herself each time with a peevish jerk. Dr. Saunders was wet through.

“Why don’t you go down into the cabin?” the skipper shouted.

“I prefer being on deck.”

“No danger, you know.”

“Is it going to get any worse?”

“I shouldn’t wonder. Looks to me as if it was blowin’ up a bit.”

The doctor, looking over the stern, watched a heavy sea charge down upon them, and he expected the next wave to crash before the ketch had time to recover, but with an agility that was almost human she avoided it just in time and triumphantly rode on. He was not comfortable. He was not happy. Fred Blake came up to him.

“Grand, isn’t it? Exhilarating having a bit of a blow like this.”

His curling hair was all blown about in the wind and his eyes were shining. He was enjoying himself. The
doctor shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer. He looked at a great billow, with overhanging, breaking crest, that came rolling towards them, as though it were not the unconscious result of natural forces, but had a malignant purpose. Nearer and nearer it came and it seemed as though it must inevitably overwhelm them. The frail craft could never withstand that monstrous mountain of water.