To the Ends of the Earth (11 page)

“You said I would ‘Spread the responsibility’. Let me do so now.
You
are the man most responsible—”

“Christ in his heaven, Summers, you are the—”

“Wait! Wait!”

“Are you drunk?”

“I said I would be plain. I will stand shot, sir, though my career is now in far more danger from you than it ever was from the French! They, after all, could do no more than kill or maim me—but you—”

“You
are
drunk—you must be!”

“Had you not in a bold and thoughtless way outfaced our captain on his own quarterdeck—had you not made use of your rank and prospects and connections to strike a blow at the very foundations of his authority, all this might not have happened. He is brusque and he detests the clergy, he makes no secret of it. But had you not acted as you did at that time, he would never in the very next few minutes have crushed Colley with his anger and
continued
to humiliate
him
because he could not humiliate
you
.”

“If Colley had had the sense to read Anderson’s
Standing
Orders—”

“You are a passenger as he is. Did you read them?”

Through my anger I thought back. It was true to some extent—no, wholly true. On my first day Wheeler had murmured something about them—they were to be found outside my cabin and at a suitable opportunity I should—

“
Did
you read them, Mr Talbot?”

“No.”

Has your lordship ever come across the odd fact that to be seated rather than erect induces or at least tends towards a state of calm? I cannot say that my anger was sinking away but it was stayed. As if he, too, wished us both to be calm, Summers sat on the edge of my bunk, thus looking slightly down at me. Our relative positions seemed to make the
didactic
inevitable.

“The captain’s Standing Orders would seem to you as brusque as he is, sir. But the fact is they are wholly
necessary
. Those applying to passengers lie under the same necessity, the same urgency, as the rest.”

“Very well, very well!”

“You have not seen a ship at a moment of crisis, sir. A ship may be taken flat aback and sunk all in a few moments. Ignorant passengers, stumbling in the way, delaying a necessary order or making it inaudible—”

“You have said enough.”

“I hope so.”

“You are certain I am responsible for nothing else that has gone awry? Perhaps Mrs East’s miscarriage?”

“If our captain could be induced to befriend a sick man—”

“Tell me, Summers—why are you so curious about
Colley
?”

He finished his drink and stood up.

“Fair play,
noblesse oblige
. My education is not like yours, sir, it has been strictly practical. But I know a term under which both phrases might be—what is the word?​—​subsumed. I hope you will find it.”

With that, he went quickly out of my hutch and away somewhere, leaving me in a fine mixture of emotions! Anger, yes, embarrassment, yes—but also a kind of rueful amusement at having been taught two lessons in one day by the same schoolmaster! I damned him for a busybody, then half undamned him again, for he is a likeable fellow, common or not. What the devil had he to do with
my
duty?

Was that the word? An odd fellow indeed! Truly as good a translation as yours, my lord! All those countless leagues from one end of a British ship to the other! To hear him give orders about the deck—and then to meet him over a glass—he can pass between one sentence and the next from all the jargoning of the Tarpaulin language to the plain exchanges which take place between
gentlemen
. Now the heat was out of my blood I could see how he had thought himself professionally at risk in speaking so to me and I laughed a little ruefully again. We may characterize him in our theatrical terms as—enter a Good Man!

Well, thought I to myself, there is this in common between Good Men and children—we must never
disappoint
them! Only half of the confounded business had been attended to. I had visited the sick—now I must try my influence in adjusting matters between Colley and our gloomy captain. I own the prospect daunted me a little. I returned to the passenger saloon and brandy and in the evening, to tell the truth, found myself in no condition to exercise judgement. I think this was deliberate and an endeavour to postpone what I knew must be a difficult interview. At last I went with what must have been a stately gait to my bunk and have some recollection of Wheeler assisting me into it. I was bosky indeed and fell into a profound sleep to wake later with the headache and some queasiness. When I tried my repeater I found it was
yet early in the morning. Mr Brocklebank was snoring. There were noises coming from the hutch next to mine from which I inferred that the fair Zenobia was busy with yet another lover or, it may be, client. Had
she
, I
wondered
, also wanted to reach the governor’s ear? Should I one day find myself approached by her to get an official portrait of the governor executed by Mr Brocklebank? It was a sour consideration for the early hours that stemmed straight from Summers’s frankness. I damned him all over again. The air in my hutch was thick, so I threw on my greatcoat, scuffed my feet into slippers and felt my way out on deck. Here there was light enough to make out the difference between the ship, the sea, and the sky but no more. I remembered my resolution to speak with the captain on Colley’s behalf with positive revulsion. What had seemed a boring duty when I was elevated with drink now presented itself as downright unpleasant. I called to mind that the captain was said to take a constitutional on the quarterdeck at dawn, but such a time and place was too early for our interview.

Nevertheless, the early morning air, unhealthy as it may have been, seemed in a curious way to alleviate the headache, the queasiness and even my slight uneasiness at the prospect of the interview. I therefore set myself to marching to and fro between the break of the quarterdeck and the mainmast. While I did so, I tried to see all round the situation. We had yet more months of sea travel before us in the captain’s company. I neither liked nor esteemed Captain Anderson nor was able to think of him as anything but a petty tyrant. Endeavour—it could be no more—to assist the wretched Colley could not but
exacerbate
the dislike that lay just beyond the bounds of the unacknowledged truce between us. The captain accepted my position as your lordship’s godson,
et cetera
. I accepted his as captain of one of His Majesty’s ships. The
limit of his powers in respect of passengers was obscure; and so was the limit of my possible influence with his superiors! Like dogs cautious of each other’s strength we stepped high and round each other. And now I was to try to influence his behaviour towards a contemptible
member
of the profession he hated! I was thus, unless I was very careful, in danger of putting myself under an
obligation
to him. The thought was not to be borne. At one time and another in my long contemplation I believe I uttered a deal of oaths! Indeed, I had half a mind to abandon the whole
project
.

However, the damp but soft air of these latitudes, no matter what the subsequent effect on one’s health, is
certainly
to be recommended as an antidote to an aching head and sour stomach! As I came more and more to myself I found it more and more in my power to exercise judgement and contemplate action. Those ambitious of attaining to statecraft or whose birth renders the exercise of it inevitable would do well to face the trials of a voyage such as ours! It was, I remember, very clearly in my mind how your lordship’s benevolence had got for me not only some years of employment in a new and unformed society but had also ensured that the preliminary voyage should give me time for reflection and the exercise of my not inconsiderable powers of thought. I decided I must
proceed
on the principle of the use of
least force
. What would move Captain Anderson to do as I wished? Would there be anything more powerful with him than self-interest? That wretched little man, Mr Colley! But there was no doubt about it. Whether it was, as Summers said,
my
fault in part or not, there was no doubt he had been persecuted. That he was a fool and had made a cake of himself was neither here nor there. Deverel, little Tommy Taylor, Summers himself—they all implied that Captain
Anderson
for no matter what reason had deliberately made the
man’s life intolerable to him. The devil was in it if I could find any word to sum up both Summers’s phrase of “
Noblesse Oblige
 ” and mine of “Fair Play” other than “Justice”. There’s a large and schoolbook word to run directly on like a rock in mid-ocean! There was a kind of terror in it too since it had moved out of school and the university onto the planks of a warship—which is to say the planks of a tyranny in little! What about
my
career?

Yet I was warmed by Summers’s belief in my ability and more by his confident appeal to my sense of justice. What creatures we are! Here was I, who only a few weeks before had thought highly of myself because my mother wept to see me go, now warming my hands at the small fire of a lieutenant’s approval!

However, at last I saw how to go on.

Well! I returned to my hutch, washed, shaved and dressed with care. I took my morning draught in the saloon and then drew myself up as before
a regular stitcher
. I did not enjoy the prospect of the interview, I can tell you! For if I had established my position in the ship, it was even more evident that the captain had
established
his! He was indeed our moghool. To remove my foreboding I went very briskly to the quarterdeck,
positively
bounding up the ladders. Captain Anderson, the wind now being on the starboard quarter, was standing there and facing into it. This is his privilege; and is said by seamen to rise from the arcane suggestion that “
Danger
lies to windward” though in the next breath they will assure you that the most dangerous thing in the world is “a lee shore”. The first, I suppose, refers to a possible enemy ship, the second to reefs and suchlike natural
hazards
. Yet I have, I believe, a more penetrating suggestion to make as to the origin of the captain’s privilege.
Whatever
sector of the ship is to windward is almost free from the stench she carries everywhere with her. I do not mean the stink of urine and ordure but that pervasive stench from the carcass of the ship herself and her rotten bilge of gravel and sand. Perhaps more modern ships with their iron ballast may smell more sweetly; but captains, I dare say, in this Noah’s service will continue to walk the
windward
side even if ships should run clean out of wind and take to rowing. The tyrant must live as free of stink as possible.

I find that without conscious intention I have delayed this description as I had dallied over my draught. I live
again those moments when I drew myself together for the jump!

Well then, I stationed myself on the opposite side of the quarterdeck, affecting to take no notice of the man other than to salute him casually with a lifted finger. My hope was that his recent gaiety and elevation of spirits would lead him to address me first. My judgement was correct. His new air of satisfaction was indeed apparent, for when he saw me he came across, his yellow teeth showing.

“A fine day for you, Mr Talbot!”

“Indeed it is, sir. Do we make as much progress as is common in these latitudes?”

“I doubt that we shall achieve more than an average of a knot over the next day or two.”

“Twenty-four sea miles a day.”

“Just so, sir. Warships are generally slower in their advance than most people suppose.”

“Well sir, I must confess to finding these latitudes more agreeable than any I have experienced. Could we but tow the British Isles to this part of the world, how many of our social problems would be solved! The mango would fall in our mouths.”

“You have a quaint fancy there, sir. Do you mean to include Ireland?”

“No sir. I would offer her to the United States of America, sir.”

“Let them have the first refusal, eh, Mr Talbot?”

“Hibernia would lie snugly enough alongside New England. We should see what we should see!”

“It would remove half a watch of my crew at a blow.”

“Well worth the loss, sir. What a noble prospect the ocean is under a low sun! Only when the sun is high does the sea seem to lack that indefinable air of Painted Art which we are able to observe at sunrise and sunset.”

“I am so accustomed to the sight that I do not see it.
Indeed, I am grateful—if the phrase is not meaningless in the circumstances—to the oceans for another quality.”

“And that is?”

“Their power of isolating a man from his fellows.”

“Of isolating a captain, sir. The rest of humanity at sea must live only too much herded. The effect on them is not of the best. Circe’s task must not have been hindered, to say the least, by the profession of her victims!”

Directly I had said this I realized how cutting it might sound. But I saw by the blankness of the captain’s face, then its frown, that he was trying to remember what had happened to any ship of that name.

“Herded?”

“Packed together, I ought to have said. But how balmy the air is! I declare it seems almost insupportable that I must descend again and busy myself with my journal.”

Captain Anderson checked at the word “journal” as if he had trodden on a stone. I affected not to notice but continued cheerfully.

“It is partly an amusement, captain, and partly a duty. It is, I suppose, what you would call a ‘log’.”

“You must find little to record in such a situation as this.”

“Indeed, sir, you are mistaken. I have not time nor paper sufficient to record all the interesting events and personages of the voyage together with my own
observations
on them. Look—there is Mr Prettiman! A
personage
for you! His opinions are notorious, are they not?”

But Captain Anderson was still staring at me.

“Personages?”

“You must know,” said I laughing, “that had I not his lordship’s direct instructions to me I should still have been scribbling. It is my ambition to out-Gibbon Mr Gibbon and this gift to a godfather falls conveniently.”

Our tyrant was pleased to smile, but quiveringly, like a
man who knows that to have a tooth pulled is less painful than to have the exquisite torturer left in.

“We may all be famous, then,” said he. “I had not looked for it.”

“That is for the future. You must know, sir, that to the unhappiness of us all, his lordship has found himself
temporarily
vexed by the gout. It is my hope that in such a disagreeable situation, a frank, though private account of my travels and of the society in which I find myself may afford him some diversion.”

Captain Anderson took an abrupt turn up and down the deck, then stood directly before me.

“The officers of the ship in which you travel must bulk large in such an account.”

“They are objects of a landsman’s interest and
curiosity
.”

“The captain particularly so?”

“You sir? I had not considered that. But you are, after all, the king or emperor of our floating society with
prerogatives
of justice and mercy. Yes. I suppose you do bulk large in my journal and will continue to do so.”

Captain Anderson turned on his heel and marched away. He kept his back to me and stared up wind. I saw that his head was sunk again, his hands clasped behind his back. I supposed that his jaw must be projecting once more as a foundation on which to sink the sullenness of his face. There was no doubt at all of the effect of my words, either on him or on
me
! For I found myself
quivering
as the first lieutenant had quivered when he dared to beard Mr Edmund Talbot! I spoke, I know not what, to Cumbershum, who had the watch. He was discomforted, for it was clean against the tyrant’s Standing Orders and I saw, out of the corner of my eye, how the captain’s hands tightened on each other behind his back. It was not a
situation
that should be prolonged. I bade the lieutenant
good day and descended from the quarterdeck. I was glad enough to get back into my hutch, where I found of all things that my hands still had a tendency to tremble! I sat, therefore, getting my breath back and allowing my pulse to slow.

At length I began to consider the captain once more and try to predict his possible course of action. Does not the operation of a
statist
lie wholly in his power to affect the future of other people; and is not that power founded directly on his ability to predict their behaviour? Here, thought I, was the chance to observe the success or failure of my prentice hand! How would the man respond to the hint I had given him! It was not a subtle one; but then, I thought, from the directness of his questions that he was a simple creature at bottom. It was possible that he had not noticed the suggestiveness of my mentioning Mr
Prettiman
and his extreme beliefs! Yet I felt certain that
mention
of my journal would force him to look back over the whole length of the voyage and consider what sort of figure he might cut in an account of it. Sooner or later he would stub his toe over the Colley affair and remember how he had treated the man. He must see that however I myself had provoked him, nevertheless, by indulging his animosity against Colley, he had been cruel and unjust.

How would he behave then? How had I behaved when Summers had revealed to me my portion of responsibility in the affair? I tried out a scene or two for our floating
theatre
. I pictured Anderson descending from the
quarterdeck
and walking in the lobby casually, so as not to seem interested in the man. He might well stand consulting his own fading Orders, written out in a fair and clerkly hand. Then at a convenient moment, no one being by—oh no! he would have to let it be seen so that I should record it in my journal!—he would march into the hutch where Colley lay, shut the door, sit by the bunk and chat till they
were a couple of bosoms. Why, Anderson might well stand in for an archbishop or even His Majesty! How could Colley not be roused by such amiable
condescension
? The captain would confess that he himself had
committed
just such a folly a year or two before—

I could not imagine it, that is the plain truth. The
conceit
remained artificial. Such behaviour was beyond Anderson. He might, he might just come down and gentle Colley somewhat, admitting his own brusqueness but saying it was habitual in a captain of a ship. More likely he would come down but only to assure himself that
Colley
was lying in his bunk, prone and still and not to be roused by a jesting exordium. But then, he might not even come down. Who was I to dip into the nature of the man, cast the very waters of his soul and by that
chirurgeonly
experiment declare how his injustice would run its course? I sat before this journal, upbraiding myself for my folly in my attempt to play the politician and
manipulator
of his fellow men! I had to own that my knowledge of the springs of human action was still in the egg. Nor does a powerful intellect do more than assist in the
matter
. Something more there must be, some distillation of experience, before a man can judge the outcome in
circumstances
of such quantity, proliferation and confusion.

And then,
then
can your lordship guess? I have saved the sweet to the last! He did come down. Before my very eyes he came down as if my prediction had drawn him down like some fabulous spell! I am a wizard, am I not? Admit me to be a prentice-wizard at least! I had said he would come down and come down he did! Through my louvre I saw him come down, abrupt and grim, to take his stand in the centre of the lobby. He stared at one hutch after another, turning on his heel, and I was only just in time to pull my face away from the spyhole before his louring gaze swept over it with an effect I could almost
swear like the heat from a burning coal! When I risked peeping again—for somehow it seemed positively
dangerous
that the man should know I had seen him—he had his back to me. He stepped to the door of Colley’s hutch and for a long minute stared through it. I saw how one fist beat into the palm of the other hand behind his back. Then he swung impatiently to his left with a movement that seemed to cry out—
I’ll be damned if I will!
He stumped to the ladder and disappeared. A few seconds later I heard his firm step pass along the deck above my head.

This was a modified triumph, was it not? I had said he would come down and he had come down. But where I had pictured him endeavouring to comfort poor Colley he had shown himself either too heartless or too little
politic
to bring himself to do so. The nearer he had come to
dissimulating
his bile the higher it had risen in his throat. Yet now I had some grounds for confidence. His
knowledge
of the existence of this very journal would not let him be. It will be like a splinter under the nail. He would come down again—