IV
All that the boatswain, out of a superabundance of yells, could makeclear to Captain MacWhirr was the bizarre intelligence that "All themChinamen in the fore 'tween deck have fetched away, sir."
Jukes to leeward could hear these two shouting within six inches ofhis face, as you may hear on a still night half a mile away two menconversing across a field. He heard Captain MacWhirr's exasperated"What? What?" and the strained pitch of the other's hoarseness. "In alump . . . seen them myself. . . . Awful sight, sir . . . thought . . .tell you."
Jukes remained indifferent, as if rendered irresponsible by the forceof the hurricane, which made the very thought of action utterly vain.Besides, being very young, he had found the occupation of keeping hisheart completely steeled against the worst so engrossing that he hadcome to feel an overpowering dislike towards any other form of activitywhatever. He was not scared; he knew this because, firmly believing hewould never see another sunrise, he remained calm in that belief.
These are the moments of do-nothing heroics to which even good mensurrender at times. Many officers of ships can no doubt recall a casein their experience when just such a trance of confounded stoicism wouldcome all at once over a whole ship's company. Jukes, however, hadno wide experience of men or storms. He conceived himself to becalm--inexorably calm; but as a matter of fact he was daunted; notabjectly, but only so far as a decent man may, without becomingloathsome to himself.
It was rather like a forced-on numbness of spirit. The long, longstress of a gale does it; the suspense of the interminably culminatingcatastrophe; and there is a bodily fatigue in the mere holding on toexistence within the excessive tumult; a searching and insidious fatiguethat penetrates deep into a man's breast to cast down and sadden hisheart, which is incorrigible, and of all the gifts of the earth--evenbefore life itself--aspires to peace.
Jukes was benumbed much more than he supposed. He held on--very wet,very cold, stiff in every limb; and in a momentary hallucination ofswift visions (it is said that a drowning man thus reviews all his life)he beheld all sorts of memories altogether unconnected with his presentsituation. He remembered his father, for instance: a worthy businessman, who at an unfortunate crisis in his affairs went quietly to bedand died forthwith in a state of resignation. Jukes did not recall thesecircumstances, of course, but remaining otherwise unconcerned he seemedto see distinctly the poor man's face; a certain game of nap played whenquite a boy in Table Bay on board a ship, since lost with all hands;the thick eyebrows of his first skipper; and without any emotion, ashe might years ago have walked listlessly into her room and found hersitting there with a book, he remembered his mother--dead, too, now--theresolute woman, left badly off, who had been very firm in his bringingup.
It could not have lasted more than a second, perhaps not so much. Aheavy arm had fallen about his shoulders; Captain MacWhirr's voice wasspeaking his name into his ear.
"Jukes! Jukes!"
He detected the tone of deep concern. The wind had thrown its weighton the ship, trying to pin her down amongst the seas. They made a cleanbreach over her, as over a deep-swimming log; and the gathered weightof crashes menaced monstrously from afar. The breakers flung out of thenight with a ghostly light on their crests--the light of sea-foam thatin a ferocious, boiling-up pale flash showed upon the slender body ofthe ship the toppling rush, the downfall, and the seething mad scurryof each wave. Never for a moment could she shake herself clear ofthe water; Jukes, rigid, perceived in her motion the ominous sign ofhaphazard floundering. She was no longer struggling intelligently. Itwas the beginning of the end; and the note of busy concern in CaptainMacWhirr's voice sickened him like an exhibition of blind and perniciousfolly.
The spell of the storm had fallen upon Jukes. He was penetrated by it,absorbed by it; he was rooted in it with a rigour of dumb attention.Captain MacWhirr persisted in his cries, but the wind got between themlike a solid wedge. He hung round Jukes' neck as heavy as a millstone,and suddenly the sides of their heads knocked together.
"Jukes! Mr. Jukes, I say!"
He had to answer that voice that would not be silenced. He answered inthe customary manner: ". . . Yes, sir."
And directly, his heart, corrupted by the storm that breeds a cravingfor peace, rebelled against the tyranny of training and command.
Captain MacWhirr had his mate's head fixed firm in the crook of hiselbow, and pressed it to his yelling lips mysteriously. SometimesJukes would break in, admonishing hastily: "Look out, sir!" or CaptainMacWhirr would bawl an earnest exhortation to "Hold hard, there!" andthe whole black universe seemed to reel together with the ship. Theypaused. She floated yet. And Captain MacWhirr would resume, his shouts.". . . . Says . . . whole lot . . . fetched away. . . . Ought to see. . . what's the matter."
Directly the full force of the hurricane had struck the ship, every partof her deck became untenable; and the sailors, dazed and dismayed, tookshelter in the port alleyway under the bridge. It had a door aft, whichthey shut; it was very black, cold, and dismal. At each heavy fling ofthe ship they would groan all together in the dark, and tons of watercould be heard scuttling about as if trying to get at them from above.The boatswain had been keeping up a gruff talk, but a more unreasonablelot of men, he said afterwards, he had never been with. They were snugenough there, out of harm's way, and not wanted to do anything, either;and yet they did nothing but grumble and complain peevishly like so manysick kids. Finally, one of them said that if there had been at leastsome light to see each other's noses by, it wouldn't be so bad. It wasmaking him crazy, he declared, to lie there in the dark waiting for theblamed hooker to sink.
"Why don't you step outside, then, and be done with it at once?" theboatswain turned on him.
This called up a shout of execration. The boatswain found himselfoverwhelmed with reproaches of all sorts. They seemed to take it illthat a lamp was not instantly created for them out of nothing. Theywould whine after a light to get drowned by--anyhow! And though theunreason of their revilings was patent--since no one could hope to reachthe lamp-room, which was forward--he became greatly distressed. He didnot think it was decent of them to be nagging at him like this. He toldthem so, and was met by general contumely. He sought refuge, therefore,in an embittered silence. At the same time their grumbling and sighingand muttering worried him greatly, but by-and-by it occurred to him thatthere were six globe lamps hung in the 'tween-deck, and that there couldbe no harm in depriving the coolies of one of them.
The Nan-Shan had an athwartship coal-bunker, which, being at times usedas cargo space, communicated by an iron door with the fore 'tween-deck.It was empty then, and its manhole was the foremost one in the alleyway.The boatswain could get in, therefore, without coming out on deck atall; but to his great surprise he found he could induce no one to helphim in taking off the manhole cover. He groped for it all the same, butone of the crew lying in his way refused to budge.
"Why, I only want to get you that blamed light you are crying for," heexpostulated, almost pitifully.
Somebody told him to go and put his head in a bag. He regretted he couldnot recognize the voice, and that it was too dark to see, otherwise,as he said, he would have put a head on that son of a sea-cook, anyway,sink or swim. Nevertheless, he had made up his mind to show them hecould get a light, if he were to die for it.
Through the violence of the ship's rolling, every movement wasdangerous. To be lying down seemed labour enough. He nearly brokehis neck dropping into the bunker. He fell on his back, and was sentshooting helplessly from side to side in the dangerous company of aheavy iron bar--a coal-trimmer's slice probably--left down there bysomebody. This thing made him as nervous as though it had been awild beast. He could not see it, the inside of the bunker coated withcoal-dust being perfectly and impenetrably black; but he heard itsliding and clattering, and striking here and there, always in theneighbourhood of his head. It seemed to make an extraordinary noise,too--to give heavy thumps as though it had been as big as a bridgegirder. This was remarkable
enough for him to notice while he was flungfrom port to starboard and back again, and clawing desperately thesmooth sides of the bunker in the endeavour to stop himself. The doorinto the 'tween-deck not fitting quite true, he saw a thread of dimlight at the bottom.
Being a sailor, and a still active man, he did not want much of a chanceto regain his feet; and as luck would have it, in scrambling up he puthis hand on the iron slice, picking it up as he rose. Otherwise he wouldhave been afraid of the thing breaking his legs, or at least knockinghim down again. At first he stood still. He felt unsafe in this darknessthat seemed to make the ship's motion unfamiliar, unforeseen, anddifficult to counteract. He felt so much shaken for a moment that hedared not move for fear of "taking charge again." He had no mind to getbattered to pieces in that bunker.
He had struck his head twice; he was dazed a little. He seemed to hearyet so plainly the clatter and bangs of the iron slice flying abouthis ears that he tightened his grip to prove to himself he had it theresafely in his hand. He was vaguely amazed at the plainness with whichdown there he could hear the gale raging. Its howls and shrieks seemedto take on, in the emptiness of the bunker, something of the humancharacter, of human rage and pain--being not vast but infinitelypoignant. And there were, with every roll, thumps, too--profound,ponderous thumps, as if a bulky object of five-ton weight or so had gotplay in the hold. But there was no such thing in the cargo. Something ondeck? Impossible. Or alongside? Couldn't be.
He thought all this quickly, clearly, competently, like a seaman, andin the end remained puzzled. This noise, though, came deadened fromoutside, together with the washing and pouring of water on deck abovehis head. Was it the wind? Must be. It made down there a row like theshouting of a big lot of crazed men. And he discovered in himselfa desire for a light, too--if only to get drowned by--and a nervousanxiety to get out of that bunker as quickly as possible.
He pulled back the bolt: the heavy iron plate turned on its hinges; andit was as though he had opened the door to the sounds of the tempest.A gust of hoarse yelling met him: the air was still; and the rushingof water overhead was covered by a tumult of strangled, throaty shrieksthat produced an effect of desperate confusion. He straddled his legsthe whole width of the doorway and stretched his neck. And at firsthe perceived only what he had come to seek: six small yellow flamesswinging violently on the great body of the dusk.
It was stayed like the gallery of a mine, with a row of stanchionsin the middle, and cross-beams overhead, penetrating into the gloomahead--indefinitely. And to port there loomed, like the caving in ofone of the sides, a bulky mass with a slanting outline. The whole place,with the shadows and the shapes, moved all the time. The boatswainglared: the ship lurched to starboard, and a great howl came from thatmass that had the slant of fallen earth.
Pieces of wood whizzed past. Planks, he thought, inexpressibly startled,and flinging back his head. At his feet a man went sliding over,open-eyed, on his back, straining with uplifted arms for nothing: andanother came bounding like a detached stone with his head between hislegs and his hands clenched. His pigtail whipped in the air; he made agrab at the boatswain's legs, and from his opened hand a bright whitedisc rolled against the boatswain's foot. He recognized a silver dollar,and yelled at it with astonishment. With a precipitated sound oftrampling and shuffling of bare feet, and with guttural cries, the moundof writhing bodies piled up to port detached itself from the ship's sideand sliding, inert and struggling, shifted to starboard, with a dull,brutal thump. The cries ceased. The boatswain heard a long moan throughthe roar and whistling of the wind; he saw an inextricable confusion ofheads and shoulders, naked soles kicking upwards, fists raised, tumblingbacks, legs, pigtails, faces.
"Good Lord!" he cried, horrified, and banged-to the iron door upon thisvision.
This was what he had come on the bridge to tell. He could not keep itto himself; and on board ship there is only one man to whom it isworth while to unburden yourself. On his passage back the hands in thealleyway swore at him for a fool. Why didn't he bring that lamp? Whatthe devil did the coolies matter to anybody? And when he came out, theextremity of the ship made what went on inside of her appear of littlemoment.
At first he thought he had left the alleyway in the very moment of hersinking. The bridge ladders had been washed away, but an enormous seafilling the after-deck floated him up. After that he had to lie on hisstomach for some time, holding to a ring-bolt, getting his breath nowand then, and swallowing salt water. He struggled farther on his handsand knees, too frightened and distracted to turn back. In this wayhe reached the after-part of the wheelhouse. In that comparativelysheltered spot he found the second mate.
The boatswain was pleasantly surprised--his impression being thateverybody on deck must have been washed away a long time ago. He askedeagerly where the Captain was.
The second mate was lying low, like a malignant little animal under ahedge.
"Captain? Gone overboard, after getting us into this mess." The mate,too, for all he knew or cared. Another fool. Didn't matter. Everybodywas going by-and-by.
The boatswain crawled out again into the strength of the wind; notbecause he much expected to find anybody, he said, but just to get awayfrom "that man." He crawled out as outcasts go to face an inclementworld. Hence his great joy at finding Jukes and the Captain. But whatwas going on in the 'tween-deck was to him a minor matter by that time.Besides, it was difficult to make yourself heard. But he managed toconvey the idea that the Chinaman had broken adrift together with theirboxes, and that he had come up on purpose to report this. As to thehands, they were all right. Then, appeased, he subsided on the deck ina sitting posture, hugging with his arms and legs the stand of theengine-room telegraph--an iron casting as thick as a post. When thatwent, why, he expected he would go, too. He gave no more thought to thecoolies.
Captain MacWhirr had made Jukes understand that he wanted him to go downbelow--to see.
"What am I to do then, sir?" And the trembling of his whole wet bodycaused Jukes' voice to sound like bleating.
"See first . . . Boss'n . . . says . . . adrift."
"That boss'n is a confounded fool," howled Jukes, shakily.
The absurdity of the demand made upon him revolted Jukes. He was asunwilling to go as if the moment he had left the deck the ship were sureto sink.
"I must know . . . can't leave. . . ."
"They'll settle, sir."
"Fight . . . boss'n says they fight. . . . Why? Can't have . . .fighting . . . board ship. . . . Much rather keep you here . . . case. . . I should . . . washed overboard myself. . . . Stop it . . . someway. You see and tell me . . . through engine-room tube. Don't want you. . . come up here . . . too often. Dangerous . . . moving about . . .deck."
Jukes, held with his head in chancery, had to listen to what seemedhorrible suggestions.
"Don't want . . . you get lost . . . so long . . . ship isn't. . . . .Rout . . . Good man . . . Ship . . . may . . . through this . . . allright yet."
All at once Jukes understood he would have to go.
"Do you think she may?" he screamed.
But the wind devoured the reply, out of which Jukes heard only the oneword, pronounced with great energy ". . . . Always. . . ."
Captain MacWhirr released Jukes, and bending over the boatswain, yelled,"Get back with the mate." Jukes only knew that the arm was gone offhis shoulders. He was dismissed with his orders--to do what? He wasexasperated into letting go his hold carelessly, and on the instantwas blown away. It seemed to him that nothing could stop him from beingblown right over the stern. He flung himself down hastily, and theboatswain, who was following, fell on him.
"Don't you get up yet, sir," cried the boatswain. "No hurry!"
A sea swept over. Jukes understood the boatswain to splutter that thebridge ladders were gone. "I'll lower you down, sir, by your hands,"he screamed. He shouted also something about the smoke-stack beingas likely to go overboard as not. Jukes thought it very possible, andimagined the fires out, the ship helples
s. . . . The boatswain by hisside kept on yelling. "What? What is it?" Jukes cried distressfully; andthe other repeated, "What would my old woman say if she saw me now?"
In the alleyway, where a lot of water had got in and splashed in thedark, the men were still as death, till Jukes stumbled against one ofthem and cursed him savagely for being in the way. Two or three voicesthen asked, eager and weak, "Any chance for us, sir?"
"What's the matter with you fools?" he said brutally. He felt as thoughhe could throw himself down amongst them and never move any more. Butthey seemed cheered; and in the midst of obsequious warnings, "Lookout! Mind that manhole lid, sir," they lowered him into the bunker. Theboatswain tumbled down after him, and as soon as he had picked himselfup he remarked, "She would say, 'Serve you right, you old fool, forgoing to sea.'"
The boatswain had some means, and made a point of alluding to themfrequently. His wife--a fat woman--and two grown-up daughters kept agreengrocer's shop in the East-end of London.
In the dark, Jukes, unsteady on his legs, listened to a faint thunderouspatter. A deadened screaming went on steadily at his elbow, as it were;and from above the louder tumult of the storm descended upon these nearsounds. His head swam. To him, too, in that bunker, the motion of theship seemed novel and menacing, sapping his resolution as though he hadnever been afloat before.
He had half a mind to scramble out again; but the remembrance of CaptainMacWhirr's voice made this impossible. His orders were to go and see.What was the good of it, he wanted to know. Enraged, he told himself hewould see--of course. But the boatswain, staggering clumsily, warned himto be careful how he opened that door; there was a blamed fight goingon. And Jukes, as if in great bodily pain, desired irritably to knowwhat the devil they were fighting for.
"Dollars! Dollars, sir. All their rotten chests got burst open. Blamedmoney skipping all over the place, and they are tumbling after it headover heels--tearing and biting like anything. A regular little hell inthere."
Jukes convulsively opened the door. The short boatswain peered under hisarm.
One of the lamps had gone out, broken perhaps. Rancorous, guttural criesburst out loudly on their ears, and a strange panting sound, the workingof all these straining breasts. A hard blow hit the side of the ship:water fell above with a stunning shock, and in the forefront of thegloom, where the air was reddish and thick, Jukes saw a head bang thedeck violently, two thick calves waving on high, muscular arms twinedround a naked body, a yellow-face, open-mouthed and with a set wildstare, look up and slide away. An empty chest clattered turning over;a man fell head first with a jump, as if lifted by a kick; and fartheroff, indistinct, others streamed like a mass of rolling stones downa bank, thumping the deck with their feet and flourishing their armswildly. The hatchway ladder was loaded with coolies swarming on itlike bees on a branch. They hung on the steps in a crawling, stirringcluster, beating madly with their fists the underside of the battenedhatch, and the headlong rush of the water above was heard in theintervals of their yelling. The ship heeled over more, and they beganto drop off: first one, then two, then all the rest went away together,falling straight off with a great cry.
Jukes was confounded. The boatswain, with gruff anxiety, begged him,"Don't you go in there, sir."
The whole place seemed to twist upon itself, jumping incessantly thewhile; and when the ship rose to a sea Jukes fancied that all these menwould be shot upon him in a body. He backed out, swung the door to, andwith trembling hands pushed at the bolt. . . .
As soon as his mate had gone Captain MacWhirr, left alone on the bridge,sidled and staggered as far as the wheelhouse. Its door being hingedforward, he had to fight the gale for admittance, and when at last hemanaged to enter, it was with an instantaneous clatter and a bang, asthough he had been fired through the wood. He stood within, holding onto the handle.
The steering-gear leaked steam, and in the confined space the glass ofthe binnacle made a shiny oval of light in a thin white fog. The windhowled, hummed, whistled, with sudden booming gusts that rattledthe doors and shutters in the vicious patter of sprays. Two coils oflead-line and a small canvas bag hung on a long lanyard, swung wide off,and came back clinging to the bulkheads. The gratings underfoot werenearly afloat; with every sweeping blow of a sea, water squirtedviolently through the cracks all round the door, and the man at thehelm had flung down his cap, his coat, and stood propped against thegear-casing in a striped cotton shirt open on his breast. The littlebrass wheel in his hands had the appearance of a bright and fragiletoy. The cords of his neck stood hard and lean, a dark patch lay in thehollow of his throat, and his face was still and sunken as in death.
Captain MacWhirr wiped his eyes. The sea that had nearly taken himoverboard had, to his great annoyance, washed his sou'-wester hat offhis bald head. The fluffy, fair hair, soaked and darkened, resembled amean skein of cotton threads festooned round his bare skull. His face,glistening with sea-water, had been made crimson with the wind, withthe sting of sprays. He looked as though he had come off sweating frombefore a furnace.
"You here?" he muttered, heavily.
The second mate had found his way into the wheelhouse some time before.He had fixed himself in a corner with his knees up, a fist pressedagainst each temple; and this attitude suggested rage, sorrow,resignation, surrender, with a sort of concentrated unforgiveness. Hesaid mournfully and defiantly, "Well, it's my watch below now: ain'tit?"
The steam gear clattered, stopped, clattered again; and the helmsman'seyeballs seemed to project out of a hungry face as if the compass cardbehind the binnacle glass had been meat. God knows how long he had beenleft there to steer, as if forgotten by all his shipmates. The bells hadnot been struck; there had been no reliefs; the ship's routine had gonedown wind; but he was trying to keep her head north-north-east. Therudder might have been gone for all he knew, the fires out, the enginesbroken down, the ship ready to roll over like a corpse. He wasanxious not to get muddled and lose control of her head, because thecompass-card swung far both ways, wriggling on the pivot, and sometimesseemed to whirl right round. He suffered from mental stress. He washorribly afraid, also, of the wheelhouse going. Mountains of water kepton tumbling against it. When the ship took one of her desperate divesthe corners of his lips twitched.
Captain MacWhirr looked up at the wheelhouse clock. Screwed to thebulk-head, it had a white face on which the black hands appeared tostand quite still. It was half-past one in the morning.
"Another day," he muttered to himself.
The second mate heard him, and lifting his head as one grieving amongstruins, "You won't see it break," he exclaimed. His wrists and his kneescould be seen to shake violently. "No, by God! You won't. . . ."
He took his face again between his fists.
The body of the helmsman had moved slightly, but his head didn't budgeon his neck,--like a stone head fixed to look one way from a column.During a roll that all but took his booted legs from under him, andin the very stagger to save himself, Captain MacWhirr said austerely,"Don't you pay any attention to what that man says." And then, with anindefinable change of tone, very grave, he added, "He isn't on duty."
The sailor said nothing.
The hurricane boomed, shaking the little place, which seemed air-tight;and the light of the binnacle flickered all the time.
"You haven't been relieved," Captain MacWhirr went on, looking down. "Iwant you to stick to the helm, though, as long as you can. You'vegot the hang of her. Another man coming here might make a mess of it.Wouldn't do. No child's play. And the hands are probably busy with a jobdown below. . . . Think you can?"
The steering-gear leaped into an abrupt short clatter, stoppedsmouldering like an ember; and the still man, with a motionless gaze,burst out, as if all the passion in him had gone into his lips: "ByHeavens, sir! I can steer for ever if nobody talks to me."
"Oh! aye! All right. . . ." The Captain lifted his eyes for the firsttime to the man, ". . . Hackett."
And he seemed to dismiss this matter from his min
d. He stooped to theengine-room speaking-tube, blew in, and bent his head. Mr. Rout belowanswered, and at once Captain MacWhirr put his lips to the mouthpiece.
With the uproar of the gale around him he applied alternately his lipsand his ear, and the engineer's voice mounted to him, harsh and as ifout of the heat of an engagement. One of the stokers was disabled,the others had given in, the second engineer and the donkey-man werefiring-up. The third engineer was standing by the steam-valve. Theengines were being tended by hand. How was it above?
"Bad enough. It mostly rests with you," said Captain MacWhirr. Was themate down there yet? No? Well, he would be presently. Would Mr. Routlet him talk through the speaking-tube?--through the deck speaking-tube,because he--the Captain--was going out again on the bridge directly.There was some trouble amongst the Chinamen. They were fighting, itseemed. Couldn't allow fighting anyhow. . . .
Mr. Rout had gone away, and Captain MacWhirr could feel against his earthe pulsation of the engines, like the beat of the ship's heart. Mr.Rout's voice down there shouted something distantly. The ship pitchedheadlong, the pulsation leaped with a hissing tumult, and stopped dead.Captain MacWhirr's face was impassive, and his eyes were fixed aimlesslyon the crouching shape of the second mate. Again Mr. Rout's voicecried out in the depths, and the pulsating beats recommenced, with slowstrokes--growing swifter.
Mr. Rout had returned to the tube. "It don't matter much what they do,"he said, hastily; and then, with irritation, "She takes these dives asif she never meant to come up again."
"Awful sea," said the Captain's voice from above.
"Don't let me drive her under," barked Solomon Rout up the pipe.
"Dark and rain. Can't see what's coming," uttered the voice."Must--keep--her--moving--enough to steer--and chance it," it went on tostate distinctly.
"I am doing as much as I dare."
"We are--getting--smashed up--a good deal up here," proceeded the voicemildly. "Doing--fairly well--though. Of course, if the wheelhouse shouldgo. . . ."
Mr. Rout, bending an attentive ear, muttered peevishly something underhis breath.
But the deliberate voice up there became animated to ask: "Jukes turnedup yet?" Then, after a short wait, "I wish he would bear a hand. I wanthim to be done and come up here in case of anything. To look after theship. I am all alone. The second mate's lost. . . ."
"What?" shouted Mr. Rout into the engine-room, taking his head away.Then up the tube he cried, "Gone overboard?" and clapped his ear to.
"Lost his nerve," the voice from above continued in a matter-of-facttone. "Damned awkward circumstance."
Mr. Rout, listening with bowed neck, opened his eyes wide at this.However, he heard something like the sounds of a scuffle and brokenexclamations coming down to him. He strained his hearing; and all thetime Beale, the third engineer, with his arms uplifted, held betweenthe palms of his hands the rim of a little black wheel projecting at theside of a big copper pipe.
He seemed to be poising it above his head, as though it were a correctattitude in some sort of game.
To steady himself, he pressed his shoulder against the white bulkhead,one knee bent, and a sweat-rag tucked in his belt hanging on his hip.His smooth cheek was begrimed and flushed, and the coal dust on hiseyelids, like the black pencilling of a make-up, enhanced the liquidbrilliance of the whites, giving to his youthful face something of afeminine, exotic and fascinating aspect. When the ship pitched he wouldwith hasty movements of his hands screw hard at the little wheel.
"Gone crazy," began the Captain's voice suddenly in the tube. "Rushed atme. . . . Just now. Had to knock him down. . . . This minute. You heard,Mr. Rout?"
"The devil!" muttered Mr. Rout. "Look out, Beale!"
His shout rang out like the blast of a warning trumpet, between the ironwalls of the engine-room. Painted white, they rose high into the dusk ofthe skylight, sloping like a roof; and the whole lofty space resembledthe interior of a monument, divided by floors of iron grating, withlights flickering at different levels, and a mass of gloom lingering inthe middle, within the columnar stir of machinery under the motionlessswelling of the cylinders. A loud and wild resonance, made up of all thenoises of the hurricane, dwelt in the still warmth of the air. There wasin it the smell of hot metal, of oil, and a slight mist of steam. Theblows of the sea seemed to traverse it in an unringing, stunning shock,from side to side.
Gleams, like pale long flames, trembled upon the polish of metal; fromthe flooring below the enormous crank-heads emerged in their turnswith a flash of brass and steel--going over; while the connecting-rods,big-jointed, like skeleton limbs, seemed to thrust them down and pullthem up again with an irresistible precision. And deep in the half-lightother rods dodged deliberately to and fro, crossheads nodded, discsof metal rubbed smoothly against each other, slow and gentle, in acommingling of shadows and gleams.
Sometimes all those powerful and unerring movements would slow downsimultaneously, as if they had been the functions of a living organism,stricken suddenly by the blight of languor; and Mr. Rout's eyes wouldblaze darker in his long sallow face. He was fighting this fight in apair of carpet slippers. A short shiny jacket barely covered his loins,and his white wrists protruded far out of the tight sleeves, as thoughthe emergency had added to his stature, had lengthened his limbs,augmented his pallor, hollowed his eyes.
He moved, climbing high up, disappearing low down, with a restless,purposeful industry, and when he stood still, holding the guard-rail infront of the starting-gear, he would keep glancing to the right at thesteam-gauge, at the water-gauge, fixed upon the white wall in the lightof a swaying lamp. The mouths of two speaking-tubes gaped stupidly at hiselbow, and the dial of the engine-room telegraph resembled a clock oflarge diameter, bearing on its face curt words instead of figures. Thegrouped letters stood out heavily black, around the pivot-head of theindicator, emphatically symbolic of loud exclamations: AHEAD, ASTERN,SLOW, Half, STAND BY; and the fat black hand pointed downwards to theword FULL, which, thus singled out, captured the eye as a sharp crysecures attention.
The wood-encased bulk of the low-pressure cylinder, frowning portly fromabove, emitted a faint wheeze at every thrust, and except for thatlow hiss the engines worked their steel limbs headlong or slow with asilent, determined smoothness. And all this, the white walls, the movingsteel, the floor plates under Solomon Rout's feet, the floors ofiron grating above his head, the dusk and the gleams, uprose and sankcontinuously, with one accord, upon the harsh wash of the waves againstthe ship's side. The whole loftiness of the place, booming hollow to thegreat voice of the wind, swayed at the top like a tree, would go overbodily, as if borne down this way and that by the tremendous blasts.
"You've got to hurry up," shouted Mr. Rout, as soon as he saw Jukesappear in the stokehold doorway.
Jukes' glance was wandering and tipsy; his red face was puffy, as thoughhe had overslept himself. He had had an arduous road, and had travelledover it with immense vivacity, the agitation of his mind correspondingto the exertions of his body. He had rushed up out of the bunker,stumbling in the dark alleyway amongst a lot of bewildered men who, trodupon, asked "What's up, sir?" in awed mutters all round him;--down thestokehold ladder, missing many iron rungs in his hurry, down into aplace deep as a well, black as Tophet, tipping over back and forth likea see-saw. The water in the bilges thundered at each roll, and lumps ofcoal skipped to and fro, from end to end, rattling like an avalanche ofpebbles on a slope of iron.
Somebody in there moaned with pain, and somebody else could be seencrouching over what seemed the prone body of a dead man; a lusty voiceblasphemed; and the glow under each fire-door was like a pool of flamingblood radiating quietly in a velvety blackness.
A gust of wind struck upon the nape of Jukes' neck and next momenthe felt it streaming about his wet ankles. The stokehold ventilatorshummed: in front of the six fire-doors two wild figures, stripped to thewaist, staggered and stooped, wrestling with two shovels.
"Hallo! Plenty of draught now," yelled the secon
d engineer at once, asthough he had been all the time looking out for Jukes. The donkeyman,a dapper little chap with a dazzling fair skin and a tiny, gingerymoustache, worked in a sort of mute transport. They were keeping a fullhead of steam, and a profound rumbling, as of an empty furniture vantrotting over a bridge, made a sustained bass to all the other noises ofthe place.
"Blowing off all the time," went on yelling the second. With a sound asof a hundred scoured saucepans, the orifice of a ventilator spat uponhis shoulder a sudden gush of salt water, and he volleyed a stream ofcurses upon all things on earth including his own soul, ripping andraving, and all the time attending to his business. With a sharp clashof metal the ardent pale glare of the fire opened upon his bullet head,showing his spluttering lips, his insolent face, and with another clangclosed like the white-hot wink of an iron eye.
"Where's the blooming ship? Can you tell me? blast my eyes! Underwater--or what? It's coming down here in tons. Are the condemned cowlsgone to Hades? Hey? Don't you know anything--you jolly sailor-man you. . . ?"
Jukes, after a bewildered moment, had been helped by a roll to dartthrough; and as soon as his eyes took in the comparative vastness, peaceand brilliance of the engine-room, the ship, setting her stern heavilyin the water, sent him charging head down upon Mr. Rout.
The chief's arm, long like a tentacle, and straightening as if workedby a spring, went out to meet him, and deflected his rush into aspin towards the speaking-tubes. At the same time Mr. Rout repeatedearnestly:
"You've got to hurry up, whatever it is."
Jukes yelled "Are you there, sir?" and listened. Nothing. Suddenly theroar of the wind fell straight into his ear, but presently a small voiceshoved aside the shouting hurricane quietly.
"You, Jukes?--Well?"
Jukes was ready to talk: it was only time that seemed to be wanting. Itwas easy enough to account for everything. He could perfectly imaginethe coolies battened down in the reeking 'tween-deck, lying sick andscared between the rows of chests. Then one of these chests--or perhapsseveral at once--breaking loose in a roll, knocking out others, sidessplitting, lids flying open, and all these clumsy Chinamen rising up ina body to save their property. Afterwards every fling of the ship wouldhurl that tramping, yelling mob here and there, from side to side, in awhirl of smashed wood, torn clothing, rolling dollars. A struggle oncestarted, they would be unable to stop themselves. Nothing could stopthem now except main force. It was a disaster. He had seen it, and thatwas all he could say. Some of them must be dead, he believed. The restwould go on fighting. . . .
He sent up his words, tripping over each other, crowding the narrowtube. They mounted as if into a silence of an enlightened comprehensiondwelling alone up there with a storm. And Jukes wanted to be dismissedfrom the face of that odious trouble intruding on the great need of theship.
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