Youth, a Narrative Page 5
having theforeyard squared. 'I don't know if there's anybody alive,' said Mahon,almost tearfully. 'Surely,' he said gently, 'there will be enough leftto square the foreyard.'
"The old chap, it seems, was in his own berth, winding up thechronometers, when the shock sent him spinning. Immediately it occurredto him--as he said afterwards--that the ship had struck something, andhe ran out into the cabin. There, he saw, the cabin-table had vanishedsomewhere. The deck being blown up, it had fallen down into thelazarette of course. Where we had our breakfast that morning he saw onlya great hole in the floor. This appeared to him so awfully mysterious,and impressed him so immensely, that what he saw and heard after he goton deck were mere trifles in comparison. And, mark, he noticed directlythe wheel deserted and his barque off her course--and his only thoughtwas to get that miserable, stripped, undecked, smouldering shell ofa ship back again with her head pointing at her port of destination.Bankok! That's what he was after. I tell you this quiet, bowed,bandy-legged, almost deformed little man was immense in the singlenessof his idea and in his placid ignorance of our agitation. He motioned usforward with a commanding gesture, and went to take the wheel himself.
"Yes; that was the first thing we did--trim the yards of that wreck! Noone was killed, or even disabled, but everyone was more or less hurt.You should have seen them! Some were in rags, with black faces, likecoal-heavers, like sweeps, and had bullet heads that seemed closelycropped, but were in fact singed to the skin. Others, of the watchbelow, awakened by being shot out from their collapsing bunks, shiveredincessantly, and kept on groaning even as we went about our work. Butthey all worked. That crew of Liverpool hard cases had in them the rightstuff. It's my experience they always have. It is the sea that givesit--the vastness, the loneliness surrounding their dark stolid souls.Ah! Well! we stumbled, we crept, we fell, we barked our shins on thewreckage, we hauled. The masts stood, but we did not know how much theymight be charred down below. It was nearly calm, but a long swell ranfrom the west and made her roll. They might go at any moment. We lookedat them with apprehension. One could not foresee which way they wouldfall.
"Then we retreated aft and looked about us. The deck was a tangle ofplanks on edge, of planks on end, of splinters, of ruined woodwork. Themasts rose from that chaos like big trees above a matted undergrowth.The interstices of that mass of wreckage were full of something whitish,sluggish, stirring--of something that was like a greasy fog. Thesmoke of the invisible fire was coming up again, was trailing, like apoisonous thick mist in some valley choked with dead wood. Already lazywisps were beginning to curl upwards amongst the mass of splinters. Hereand there a piece of timber, stuck upright, resembled a post. Half of afife-rail had been shot through the foresail, and the sky made a patchof glorious blue in the ignobly soiled canvas. A portion of severalboards holding together had fallen across the rail, and one endprotruded overboard, like a gangway leading upon nothing, like a gangwayleading over the deep sea, leading to death--as if inviting us to walkthe plank at once and be done with our ridiculous troubles. And stillthe air, the sky--a ghost, something invisible was hailing the ship.
"Someone had the sense to look over, and there was the helmsman, who hadimpulsively jumped overboard, anxious to come back. He yelled and swamlustily like a merman, keeping up with the ship. We threw him arope, and presently he stood amongst us streaming with water and verycrestfallen. The captain had surrendered the wheel, and apart, elbow onrail and chin in hand, gazed at the sea wistfully. We asked ourselves,What next? I thought, Now, this is something like. This is great. Iwonder what will happen. O youth!
"Suddenly Mahon sighted a steamer far astern. Captain Beard said, 'Wemay do something with her yet.' We hoisted two flags, which said in theinternational language of the sea, 'On fire. Want immediate assistance.'The steamer grew bigger rapidly, and by-and-by spoke with two flags onher foremast, 'I am coming to your assistance.'
"In half an hour she was abreast, to windward, within hail, and rollingslightly, with her engines stopped. We lost our composure, and yelledall together with excitement, 'We've been blown up.' A man in a whitehelmet, on the bridge, cried, 'Yes! All right! all right!' and he noddedhis head, and smiled, and made soothing motions with his hand as thoughat a lot of frightened children. One of the boats dropped in the water,and walked towards us upon the sea with her long oars. Four Calashespulled a swinging stroke. This was my first sight of Malay seamen. I'veknown them since, but what struck me then was their unconcern: theycame alongside, and even the bowman standing up and holding to ourmain-chains with the boat-hook did not deign to lift his head for aglance. I thought people who had been blown up deserved more attention.
"A little man, dry like a chip and agile like a monkey, clambered up. Itwas the mate of the steamer. He gave one look, and cried, 'O boys--youhad better quit.'
"We were silent. He talked apart with the captain for a time,--seemed toargue with him. Then they went away together to the steamer.
"When our skipper came back we learned that the steamer was the_Sommerville_, Captain Nash, from West Australia to Singapore viaBatavia with mails, and that the agreement was she should tow us toAnjer or Batavia, if possible, where we could extinguish the fire byscuttling, and then proceed on our voyage--to Bankok! The old man seemedexcited. 'We will do it yet,' he said to Mahon, fiercely. He shook hisfist at the sky. Nobody else said a word.
"At noon the steamer began to tow. She went ahead slim and high, andwhat was left of the _Judea_ followed at the end of seventy fathom oftow-rope,--followed her swiftly like a cloud of smoke with mastheadsprotruding above. We went aloft to furl the sails. We coughed on theyards, and were careful about the bunts. Do you see the lot of us there,putting a neat furl on the sails of that ship doomed to arrive nowhere?There was not a man who didn't think that at any moment the masts wouldtopple over. From aloft we could not see the ship for smoke, andthey worked carefully, passing the gaskets with even turns. 'Harbourfurl--aloft there!' cried Mahon from below.
"You understand this? I don't think one of those chaps expected to getdown in the usual way. When we did I heard them saying to each other,'Well, I thought we would come down overboard, in a lump--sticks andall--blame me if I didn't.' 'That's what I was thinking to myself,'would answer wearily another battered and bandaged scarecrow. And, mind,these were men without the drilled-in habit of obedience. To an onlookerthey would be a lot of profane scallywags without a redeemingpoint. What made them do it--what made them obey me when I, thinkingconsciously how fine it was, made them drop the bunt of the foresailtwice to try and do it better? What? They had no professionalreputation--no examples, no praise. It wasn't a sense of duty; they allknew well enough how to shirk, and laze, and dodge--when they had a mindto it--and mostly they had. Was it the two pounds ten a month that sentthem there? They didn't think their pay half good enough. No; it wassomething in them, something inborn and subtle and everlasting. I don'tsay positively that the crew of a French or German merchantman wouldn'thave done it, but I doubt whether it would have been done in the sameway. There was a completeness in it, something solid like a principle,and masterful like an instinct--a disclosure of something secret--ofthat hidden something, that gift, of good or evil that makes racialdifference, that shapes the fate of nations.
"It was that night at ten that, for the first time since we had beenfighting it, we saw the fire. The speed of the towing had fanned thesmoldering destruction. A blue gleam appeared forward, shining below thewreck of the deck. It wavered in patches, it seemed to stir and creeplike the light of a glowworm. I saw it first, and told Mahon. 'Then thegame's up,' he said. 'We had better stop this towing, or she will burstout suddenly fore and aft before we can clear out.' We set up a yell;rang bells to attract their attention; they towed on. At last Mahon andI had to crawl forward and cut the rope with an ax. There was no time tocast off the lashings. Red tongues could be seen licking the wildernessof splinters under our feet as we made our way back to the poop.
"Of course they very soon found out in the steamer that th
e ropewas gone. She gave a loud blast of her whistle, her lights were seensweeping in a wide circle, she came up ranging close alongside, andstopped. We were all in a tight group on the poop looking at her. Everyman had saved a little bundle or a bag. Suddenly a conical flame witha twisted top shot up forward and threw upon the black sea a circleof light, with the two vessels side by side and heaving gently in itscenter. Captain Beard had been sitting on the gratings still and mutefor hours, but now he rose slowly and advanced in front of us, to themizzen-shrouds. Captain Nash hailed: 'Come along! Look sharp. I havemail-bags on board. I will take you and your boats to Singapore.'
"'Thank you! No!' said our skipper. 'We must see the