To the Ends of the Earth (56 page)

“I have recognized your quality, which is independent of ‘worlds’—though why you for your part should be willing to make one in a conversation—”

“Oh, that. It is even more mysterious than the body, I think. Let us say no more about it. Besides”—there was a smile in his voice—“‘who would not be a friend with a young gentleman who promises him the moon and the stars?’”

“Promotion is much more down to earth.”

“How would you define my promotion—for so it seemed and indeed was—from seaman to midshipman? It was all through getting into trouble.”

“I cannot believe you were ever in trouble!”

“How dull you make me sound! Well, perhaps I am.”

“Tell me.”

His face glimmered towards me in the gloom.

“You will not laugh?”

“You know me better than that!”

“Do I? Well—you see in a fo’castle there must be live and let live, since there is hardly room to swing
hammocks
. No one minds a man reading a book, whatever it is. Are you listening?”

“I am all ears.”

“We were at anchor. It was a make and mend but I was one of the anchor watch. There was no harm in my reading
but the divisional officer caught me at it. He rebuked me at some length to show how strict he was, when suddenly he and everyone else was called to attention. It was Admiral Gambier.”

“Dismal Jimmy?”

“Some people called him that. Now he
was
a good man. He asked me what I had done wrong and I told him I had been reading on duty. He told me to show him the book so I brought it out from behind my back and he looked at it.

“‘There’s a time and a place for everything,’ he said and went away. The divisional officer told the petty officer to give me some cleaning to do during the make and mend as a punishment. But before the day was out I was sent for by Captain Wentworth.

“‘Summers, that was very clever,’ he said. ‘Get your gear together, you’re going to the flagship to be a midshipman. I’m disappointed in you, Summers. Don’t come back.’”

“But what was the book? Oh, I see! The Bible!”

“Captain Wentworth was not a religious man.”

“And that is how you got a footing on the ladder?”

“Just so.”

I was confounded. Miles separated the two of us! I could think of nothing to say. It was my turn to work my way to the rail and stare at the wake. I came back and
pretended
to look critically at the set of our sails.

“You are right, Edmund. We can shake out a reef.”

He called to the bosun’s mate who piped the order from the forrard rail of the quarterdeck, then lumbered forrard by way of a safety line, the water washing round his knees, and did the same thing on the fo’castle. The black shapes of men moved up the ratlines and along the yards.

“Is it giving us more speed?”

“No more than we had before.”

I was silent again.

“At least you did not laugh, Edmund.”

“It does not match you. You do not do yourself justice!”

“Oh yes. I owe everything to that good man—after you, that is!”

“Gambier? Will you think me cynical, I wonder. But I believe the account of Captain Anderson’s strictures and the story of why Gambier had you made midshipman had best be kept between us.”

“The first yes. But why the second?”

“My dear fellow! Dismal Jimmy’s recommendation might have helped you had you chosen the Church—what is the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“But it will not see you very far in a fighting service! Good God! It would be about as much use as a
testimonial
to your courage from poor Byng.”

“That is a sad comment on the service!”

“No, no!”

“Well, at least we have made you forget your miseries for the time being. Go off watch now, and sleep.”

“I must see the watch out with you.”

He seemed surprised at my serious and determined tone and even laughed a little. As I have said, I think, I had not then understood why he had got me an excuse to be out of my cabin for four hours of the night and I did really believe I was useful! Now I laugh a little as he did then. But in fact the watch changed soon after he had spoken. I went to my bunk, wading through water which coursed and
cornered
from side to side in the lobby. The wind howled but at least it did not drone. I cannot say I slept, for I lay listening for Prettiman who I thought must have been in a drugged sleep, for he did not cry out.

The rest of that night was a bad one for me. I went off to sleep at last but in what must have been broad daylight
outside. I woke, nevertheless, with the determination to stay where I was and where it seemed I could at least do no harm to anyone else. I felt that I could have cried out now in a way which Prettiman did not.

When at last I tried my repeater I found it was already a quarter to ten! I took the instrument out from under my pillow and examined it with some incredulity, but sure enough, the hands confirmed the message of the chimes. I came to the conclusion that I had indeed slept but could not think how or when. Nor did I feel the benefit of sleep. I was fully clothed and reproached myself for this decline in my own standards. Once a man will turn into his bunk “all standing”, as it were, there is no knowing where the thing will end! It is the next way to decline into Continental standards or lack of them. However, the omission was not to be repaired. I stood out of my bunk into the seaboots which were ready and made my way, first to the necessity, then to the passenger saloon. Early though it was in the forenoon, little Pike was there with a glass of brandy in his hand. Indeed, it soon became
evident
that as far as he was concerned the time was not early but late. I learnt later that he had been dismissed from his cabin by his unloving wife—though it seems far more likely that he had dismissed himself—and he had roused Bates to provide him with liquor at what was really an unsuitable hour. He was elevated indeed and careless of the booming wind and sea. He offered to “buy me a drink” which I declined with point, asking him at once how his family did.

“Family, Mus’Talbot? I ’ate families.”

He peered at me, blinking the while.

“She ’ates me.”

“I think, Mr Pike, you are not yourself and should not say things you will come to regret.”

But Mr Pike had looked away and appeared to brood. Then as if he had come to a satisfactory conclusion he turned back to me, helped by a movement of the ship.

“Well, thass awri, innit? I ’ate ’er. I ’ate ’er. Sodder. Pardon my French.”

“I think that—”

“I don’ ’ate them. But they ’ate me, because she says—she says—”

I lost my temper and went blind. I say that advisedly. Then I saw, but it was red. I saw red. It was literally red. My mouth opened and I shouted at him. I heaped on him every contumely, every insult my tongue could find, and when I had done I could not remember what I had said. It left me weak though, for the time being. I could hardly cope with the ship’s movement though I was sitting. Pike was leaning his elbows on the table and sniggering and laughing weakly. He pointed at me with his right
forefinger
, his elbow still resting on the table. His hand was slack as though it supported a heavy pistol but was only just able to do so. What with the motion of the ship and his
drunkenness
, let alone his silly, weak laughter, his finger circled like—like the hounds of a foremast broken in the step! I got my breath back. Far from feeling that I should apologize for my burst of rage I felt it was entirely justified.

“In fact, Pike, you are a disgusting little man.”

But his sniggering, giggling laughter went on and on.

“Thass wha’ she sez!”

More laughter. Bates, the steward, appeared loyally, my mug of small beer in his hand, a napkin over the other arm. He entered straddling, slipped in water, saved himself cleverly, then ran
down
the saloon under “
force majeur
” to end balancing the mug within my reach. I took it and drained it and would have had another but Bates had gone as cleverly as he had come. Pike was now screaming with laughter.

“Bates! Bates!”

Then as if he had changed his mind the silly little man laid his cheek on the table and appeared to go to sleep. His glass fell and went crosswise to the side of the saloon where it clattered for a while before shooting back. I tried to trap it with my foot but failed. It struck the other side of the saloon and at last shattered. The door opened. Bowles and the young Army officer, Oldmeadow, laboured in,
followed
by random wetness as a wave struck the outside of the chock in the doorway. Bates, as one having
foreknowledge
, came in with two mugs of beer in one hand and one in the other. He stood swaying and gesticulating by the table as if about to perform a conjuring trick. Perhaps, in effect, he did perform one, for he got all three of us served and went away again without breaking a glass or his neck. Pike slid against Oldmeadow.

“Is this fellow dead?”

“Dead drunk.”

Oldmeadow shoved the man away who moved a foot or two then came back again.

“I wish I was myself, Talbot, that’s a fact.”

“Oh no! We have enough trouble as it is. Cumbershum has fallen and I believe we should treat ourselves as precious objects and help each other!”

Oldmeadow gave Pike a positively vicious shove. It moved him to a position where one arm fell off the end of the long table and held him from returning with the roll.

Bowles looked up at me over his mug.

“According to Mrs Prettiman, Mr Prettiman is in a bad way. His condition is dreadful and he cannot last. He does not even cry out.”

“He is dying peacefully then, Bowles. I am glad of that at least.”

“Mr Oldmeadow—have you seen Mrs Prettiman?”

“No, I have not, Bowles. I’ve avoided her since she rigged herself out as a common seaman. It’s indecent.”

“Bates! Bates! Where the devil are you? Take these mugs away!”

“Go easy, Talbot! I have not finished with mine yet! Good God—as if Summers ain’t enough!”

Oldmeadow at normal times is so mild-mannered I found it easy to forgive him his irritation.

“Why, what has Charles done?”

“Taken my men for good, that’s what he’s done. I said I didn’t think it was proper to use my men when there were so many emigrants about. Why shouldn’t he sweat the lard off that idle lot? He would have none of it. ‘Your men are disciplined,’ he said. ‘They are young and strong and you have often bemoaned to me the difficulty of
finding
them employment to keep them out of mischief! I promise you that a few hours a day at the pumps and they will be as gentle as lambs.’”

“Was that the end of the argument?”

“What do you think, Talbot? I wasn’t going to have a damned navy man taking over my command! I told him that I’d see him further first and that I proposed to get the captain to enter my protest in the ship’s log.”

“That is an awful threat to a naval officer! It might jeopardize his whole career!”

“Well, I know that! But I got no further, for he said as cool as you like, ‘If your men do not continue to help with the pumping, sir, no one will ever hear your protest.’ So it is as bad as that.”

Bowles grinned round at us both.

“We often hear that danger brings men together. I see no evidence of it.”

“We are civilians, you and I. Why should the Navy bother with us? This is not a company ship and the officers do not know quite what their attitude should be.
Oldmeadow’s men are not marines. Willis said to me—but I suppose I should tell you that I am a civilian no longer. Lord Talbot has been promoted to midshipman.”

“You intend that as a pleasantry, sir.”

“God, Bowles, a pleasantry! Colley, Wheeler and now Prettiman—oh well! To revert: the fact is, I act as the first lieutenant’s midshipman during the middle watch. The middle watch is the one which—”

Astonishingly enough, Bowles, that quiet and
composed
man, positively shouted an interruption.

“Yes, sir, we do know what the middle is! God have mercy on us. Soldiers turned into sailors and now
passengers
put in charge of the ship!”

“After all, Bowles, he couldn’t do much more damage to the ship than the new officer, what’s ’is name—Benét. The man has lugged a lump off the ship’s bottom and damned nearly set the front end on fire! Now he wants to find out where we are without using their clocks and things. I tell you what, Talbot. We should get all this raised in the House! My God, what a boat! There’s that fool Smiles on the quarterdeck supposed to be in charge but simply
grinning
at the weather as if it were a friend of his, and that old fool Brocklebank standing outside the lobby door in the wind and rain, with seawater washing round his knees, and waiting for his morning fart to develop—”

“So that’s why! I’ve wondered—Every day he stands out there in the waist, wind, rain or shine—”

“Well, that’s what it is. The girls won’t have him in the cabin until he’s fired off a blank charge like a saluting gun!”

The very image set us all three laughing like jackasses.

“Did I hear someone mention my name?”

It was the man himself. The deck left us and he swung hard on the door handle. He was an old man after all. Oldmeadow and I got to him before he fell and lugged him
to the table, while Bowles heaved the door shut against the inclinations of the sea. I believe that the old man recovered his breath before any of us.

“I could not stand it any longer, gentlemen, that is the truth of the matter. Soaked above the waist, buffeted, nigh on washed away, this good old coach cloak, which has
protected
me so well, now as wet inside as out—”

“Why, Mr Brocklebank, you should be in your cabin—in your bunk if possible!”

“The fact is, I need the company of men.”

“Good God, sir, anyone privileged to be the companion of Mrs Brocklebank—”

“No, Mr Talbot, it is not so. She endeavours to cheer me but the truth is, already she regards me with a widow’s eye.”

“Oh, come, sir! I have often seen Mrs Brocklebank about the ship and never less than smiling—never less than merry!”

“That is what I mean, Mr Talbot, though you
exaggerate
a little. She may look merrily on you but not on me. I do not like widows, sir, and have taken care to avoid them in the only truly logical way. But despite that, Celia, in the privacy of our cabin, has just that air of sad triumph, that almost holy smile with which a widow contemplates a
job
well done, an account paid in full: and that”—here the old man did seem passionate—“and that she is not entitled to!”

“Mr Brocklebank!”

“Now you are going to accuse me of conduct unbecoming to a gentleman, Mr Talbot. Be that as it may, I say no more under that heading. But I could not endure to return, you know, even though I had fulfilled Celia’s stipulation. Yes, Bates! Good Bates, it is I! Have you put the brandy in it?”

Bates delivered the mug but looked conscious at Mr Brocklebank’s words.

“Just a lick, sir, no more than a smell of it, you might say.”

“Bates, you dog, you’ve been giving him brandy from the wardroom whereas I—”

“Your’n was mine, sir, Mr Talbot!”

“I would share my mug with you, Mr Talbot, but I am a martyr to fears of contagion.”

“Devil take it! I believe the contagion would be the other way about!”

The deck fell away from us monstrously. I clutched at the table but found I had hold of Bowles. He struggled free of me just as the deck came up again and hit him. He swore in a way I would not have thought possible in such a man.

“And the food,” said Mr Brocklebank, following a train of thought to which he had given no voice, “the food is just as bad. Why, only the other day when I tried to bite, or rather I should say
effect an entry
like a felon, into a lump of cold pork, what should ensue but this?”

The disgusting old man fished round in the many folds that clung about him and produced from some recess of his garments or person a blackened tooth.

“Oh my God, this really is the outside edge of enough!”

I leapt to my feet and went to the door, and was deluged with spray from the block which was supposed to keep salt water out of the saloon. Benét was there. Like everyone else in the ship he was holding on but with two fingers to the rail between the cabin doors. He was staring at Mr Prettiman’s cabin. His lips were moving and I suppose he was in what are called the throes of composition. The sight maddened me. I still do not know why.

“Mr Benét!”

He seemed to see me but as a vexation.

“Mr Benét, I wish to have some plain answers!”

He was frowning and perplexed.

“Have I accepted your apology?”

“
You
should apologize! The relationship between
you and a certain lady has caused a certain other lady—that is, has caused me—my opinion of her—I called your name—”

“Have you anything against my name, sir? Was that derision?”

“I called out your name—”

“Twice! I am proud of my name, Mr Talbot, and if my father used it ruefully as a reminder of his flight—”

“You are putting me off! I do not care about your name which is French, I suppose. I want a plain answer. What did she see? Was it a criminal connection?”

“Well really, Mr Talbot, after our late differences—”

“I wish to understand clearly the relationship between you and a certain lady!”

“You mean Miss Chumley, I suppose. Oh dear. Well, as I told you she kept
cave
for us, or if the Latin tongue is unfamiliar to you—”

“It is not, I assure you!”

“Now you are going red in the face like poor Prettiman.”

I fought down my rising irritation.

“I am more concerned with you and a lady of maturer years!”

“So you have found me out! She is—oh, she is—”

Mr Benét seemed uniquely bereft of speech. He closed his eyes and began to recite.

“So you did have a criminal connection! Miss Chumley did indeed understand! She did indeed see!”

“What connection?”

“Lady Somerset!”

“The heart grows with understanding. Profound though my esteem for the lady is—”

I shouted. It was fortunate perhaps that the words were audible in that weather to no one but him.

“Did you have her? Did Miss Chumley
see
?”

A look of compassionate understanding came into his face.

“I might resent your words, Mr Talbot, on her behalf and my own. Your mind evidently cannot rise above the farmyard level.”

“Do not talk to me about farmyards!”

“You are passionately moved and hardly responsible for what you say. I knelt before the lady. She offered me her right hand. I took it in mine and dared to imprint a kiss on it. Then—and I beg you will understand what passionate chastity was implied in the gesture—remembering my childhood and dearest mama coming to say good night to me in the nursery, with an irresistible flood of emotion I turned the white hand over, dropped a kiss in the dewy palm and closed the slender fingers over it!”