Hollow Sea

by James Hanley

  'Well, Mr. Walters, I don't think, all things considered, that it's been too bad. There's a war on.'

  'No! Not too bad! But I've done better, Hump! I done better in the Boer War really and that was a long time ago. Anyway, you can't grumble.'

  'We might as well get down to brass-tacks now then,' Mr. Hump said. 'I hear there's only one more meal before we say good-bye to them.'

  'Only one more meal!' Mr. Walters said. He put the hot pipe on the table. 'Oh, yes! Just a minute! I got it down in a book here! Let's see! Monday. Two-fourteen-nine. Tuesday, three-eighteen and a penny. Wednesday, eight pounds two shillings. Not bad for Wednesday, though really it's nowt really. I've done better at the Boer War. Righto! Thursday, eleven pound exactly. That would be raisin and bully-beef day, of course.'

  Well, you needn't go through it like that, Mr. Walters. I never asked you to after all – fair's fair. I'm not being suspicious. Just want my whack. And not a penny more.'

  'I wish it would last another thirty years,' Mr. Walters said.

  He got up from the table, went to a cupboard and took out a cedar box. He emptied the box on the table, littering it with coins, mostly silver, a sprinkling of coppers, two dirty notes. Somebody knocked then.

  'Who's that?'

  'Dowling, sir.'

  What d'you want?'

  'It's about the hot meal for the men, sir.'

  'What about it?'

  'Shall I detail the men for the deck pantries, sir?'

  'No. Go to the devil and wait till I come down! Do that.' He shouted.

  Mr. Hump smiled. No doubt about it, Mr. Walters had a way with him.

  'What do you think of our chances, Mr. Walters?' asked Mr. Hump.

  'Well, I could hardly say, Hump. Be like last time I was here. Get covered with muck and that's about all. Ah! But they're greedy. Still, I don't want to touch on anything like that, Mr. Hump! It's their war, not ours. We have nothing to do with it, we should let them run it. Meanwhile we can pick up the scraps. Eh? Now to business. We've already agreed on takings. Although I have what you call a delicate ability for compound interest, I'm as fair as fair. Over fifty, I said fifteen per cent Under, ten per cent. There's forty-seven ten here – and—'

  'That's only four-seven something. I reckon I ought to get ten out of that. And that's being frank, Mr. Walters, if you don't mind. You see, in the first place, it was entirely my idea about the chicken sandwiches.'

  'But who has charge of the stores, Hump?'

  'Ten or nothing,' went on Hump. 'I don't want to make a bother, Mr. Walters.'

  'No! We agreed on the percentage and I am not going to give you a penny more than five. I don't care what you say; as for what you think, Hump, that counts even less. Here! Five-ten! I've got to pay others out of my share. Dowling, for instance. He knows everything. He has to get his whack. Bleat all over the bloody ship if he didn't. God! Doesn't the whole thing make you greedy, Hump? Only human nature after all.' He yawned, and as he did so his head fell forward. Mr. Hump thought for a moment that the chief steward was going to swallow the money. 'The whole blinking lot,' he thought. He raised his head and looked towards the porthole. There was a little muslin curtain drawn across it. It reminded Mr. Hump of the curtains in the bedroom at home. Mr. Walters got up. He agreed then. 'Five quid. You might as well have it. I'll throw in a silk shirt with it if you like. I got a couple from that chap Percival. He says to me he doesn't need so many shirts where he's going and I agreed. Damn swell shirts they are. Never been worn. Real silk. Well, here's your money.' He picked up the two dirty notes, then counted a pile of silver into the second steward's hand.

  'Just listen,' he said. 'They're all singing down there. I wonder if we have the land yet? We better get below now, Hump. There's the last hot meal. Aye, it's nice to be in your room, sitting down all nice and quiet. It'll seem as queer as queer when this war's over. You can't imagine any colour ever taking the place of khaki. I can't. Natural as grass. Well, let's go.'

  'Righto! Thanks,' Hump said.

  They went out, walking close together down the alleyway, so closely they might have been taken for a courting couple in the dark. 'I'm just going to the glory-hole. You carry on. Dowling should be waiting at number two pantry.' Mr. Walters then disappeared down the ladder. Mr. Hump went on.

  He passed into the staleness of the holds, became one with the sea of murmurous sound. He went into the little pantry. The steward Dowling was sitting there sucking his teeth. He looked a little bewildered. Mr. Hump electrified him. 'Go and see what Gossage is doing aft. I told him to have the tank refilled and tea ready for half-ten.'

  'All right, Mr. Hump! I've been waiting here since ten-past nine. Mr. Walters says he'd be here at nine – and—'

  'Cut,' Hump said. 'We don't want to hear your opinions. And get the cases ready.'

  When Dowling had gone the second steward leaned on the counter, his' face very near the grille, and he looked through this, and said 'Ah!' So they were getting to business at last. Aye! There they were, getting their kits together, the accoutrements rattled, there was a noise like that of stamping hooves, somebody was whistling, all getting ready to go. Well, bloody good luck to them, he thought. Bloody good luck to them. How funny they looked with their life-belts on. And some had them on the wrong way. What a mess it would be if the old packet got a hole in her bulkhead. And one man had an overcoat on, too. He looked as if he were in the family way. His eye wandered about from face to face. Funny there were fourteen hundred of them. And one face seemed the same as the other! You couldn't get to know them all. Wasn't time. Anyhow, favouritism on a transport was a bad thing. What a lot of shouting there was along on that for'ard-deck. He sat listening, but the bubbles of sound came to him incoherently. They were sounds only, not sense. But my, the bloody uproar! Perhaps he ought to go along and see. But at that moment he saw two soldiers approaching. Then he saw them stop. One said to the other, 'Look here, Jack, I can't see how you're going over the side with that gammy leg. I'm surprised you've got this far; though I know you can get through with a wooden leg. Just let's have another look at it under the light.' They stopped right at the pantry door. Mr. Hump they did not notice. The stout little man pulled up his trouser leg and began unrolling a bandage from the calf of his right leg, exposing a hole, a livid hole, the flesh around much swollen and angry looking, a yellowish black pus oozing out as he moved his leg. 'Oo, lumme! Aye, Jack, you'd best come aft. There's two orderlies looking after the hospital there.' He gripped the man's arm. But now the soldier seemed disinclined to go. The light from the pantry lamp fell full upon the wound. 'H'm!' said his friend. 'It's no damn use standing here with that leg. That won't help you. We're going ashore in a few hours. Come on, now! You've bin wingin' half the bloody night, and strike me, Jack, the whole ship knows, they've all seen it.' The other was silent. He was looking down at his leg, his expression was tense. Perhaps now, for the first time, he was really seeing his wound. Yes, really seeing it. Before it was nothing, just a pain, and now it was really a wound. A filthy wound. Suddenly Mr. Walters came along, Dowling following. He gave one look at the man and exclaimed: 'Look here, my man, this isn't the place to show your wounds. The hospital's aft. Here you eat. Now cut along. You men have had warnings enough. When you're not well you don't remain in the 'tween-decks a minute longer than you can help. It affects the others. Go along now like a good lad.'

  Without a word the man rebandaged his leg, dropped the trouser over it, and limped away on the arm of his friend.

  'It's disgusting, that's what I think. Bringing his gammy leg along here. Christ! One would think he was the only person wounded in the confounded war. Got your cans, Dowling? Get them filled right away. These fellers are in clover and don't know it. The last ship I was on they didn't get hot coffee before they went ashore. But the bloody war's like everything else. You get quite indifferent about things. Now, Hump, there's enough for every man. One cup. There's no grub to fool about with. Just coffee. What a row's going on for'ard
. Seems to be a free fight or something.'

  'I wouldn't say no to them,' Mr. Hump said. 'Ready, Dowling? This stuff must be on those tables the moment the bugle goes. You know what they're like. Eyes like saucers and as noisy as – ready?'

  Dowling put up the first large can.

  'Seven bells, I tell you, you silly bastard. Seven bells.' Vesuvius shook Williams. He might have been shaking a sphinx. The man made no reply. He still knelt. He might have been glued to the deck. His eyes had a fixed stare. At his knees a great pile of silver and copper, in his left hand a bunch of notes, his sweaty left hand. The butt of a cigarette hung on his bottom lip. He was watching the money flow to the board. It had flowed, it seemed, for an hour and a half. He paid out, drew in. The pile was getting higher.

  'Have a drink then, sour-face,' Vesuvius said. 'I just been and got a bloke to get me a bottle. Think of it. One and a tanner for a stinking Guinness.'

  'I don't want no drink, I tell you. Shut your bloody mouth, will you? All laid! All laid! One more second to go! What about the old lady? Hey! What about the old lady? Can't desert the old lady. Any more for any more, you goddam crowd of mummies? Any more for any more?' He paused, drew on the cigarette and sent a stream of smoke through his nose. 'Then off we go, off we bloody well go!' He raised his right arm in the air, shook it with sudden frenzy and shouted 'There she goes!' and the dice rolled across the cleared space of deck. 'And up she comes. Crown again: Lucky old bloody crown.' His hand shot to the board, he cleared it with a swipe, and paid out on the crown. 'Well, better luck next time, my hearties. Better luck.' A hand was in the small of his back. Thumping him. He knew it was the hand of pimple-face. Soft galoot! Wanting to go now, just when there was a chance of cleaning out. 'Goddam fool!' he muttered between his teeth. The thumping went on. Suddenly he swung round.

  'Go up, then! For Christ's sake do! That ugly mug of yours puts bad luck on the board. Go up. Jump over the bloody side or whatever you like. Swim across Marmora. But don't hang around here grunting at me. Damn the bells, I say. Come on, soldiers, my bloody lads. Come on! Cover yourself with glory. What about a spot on the old spade? Lucky old spade. I paid more out on that spade to-night than any old club or crown. That's where the money lies, my lucky lads. Thick and fast on the fireman's friend.'

  'Say, mate, you ought to be wearing your life-belt. If anything happens there'll be a scram and you'll be nowhere.'

  'Two on the sergeant-major, lay it down, lads, lay it down,' Williams shouted. 'Nothing like persevering! And remember the gambler's luck. Double your stakes when you lose. You always win in the end.' He thumped on the floor with his fists. 'In a few hours we'll say good-bye. Come on, lads. Get it down. Any more for any more there? Thick and fast, my hearties.' He was hot, sweat-drops stood out on his forehead, the cigarette stump burst, tobacco stuck to his chin. He slobbered as he talked.

  'There's coffee at half-ten,' a voice said. 'Don't forget your coffee, lads. And you don't have to pay for it, either! Nice hot coffee before we say good-bye to this ship. Who wants to see a ship again, say I?'

  'We don't want to see a ship again. Never again! And that's quite plain. We don't want to see a bloody ship again.'

  This chorus made Williams laugh – Hee! Hee! He joined in the singing. Ah, they were good fellers all right. Ah, they were great boys, they were indeed. 'Ah!' he said, showing his black stumps as he smiled. 'Ah, but you seem to forget, my lads, that you'll be coming back again. Standing or prone, you'll have to come back again. You can't just walk from the Dardles to England, my lads. Now! Blast your eyes, lay.'

  The crowd laughed. Again hands went to pockets, coins were fingered, expressions changed, were thoughtful, were vacant and wooden. 'Three cheers for the jolly old Turks,' Williams said. 'Good! Three on the mud-hook! Any now for the lucky old mud-hook?'

  One bell struck. For the first time since he had descended Williams became really conscious of the bell. He even heard the voice above call. It was Vesuvius. Hang that man! He was at one's elbow all the time, like a persistent old woman. Well, let them get the money down anyhow. He cleared about fifteen quid. But goddam, he might clear another fifteen. You never could tell. Keep the pace up. The more they lost the more they laid. 'Don't be down-hearted. It's only a game, anyhow. And who wouldn't take another shot at the lucky old mud-hook?'

  'Come on! Throw her, sailor,' the men grouped about the board shouted in his face. The ring was narrowing, bodies leaned forward still more. Williams was ringed about by faces. Earnest faces, thin and fat ones, old and young ones. He looked at them. Strangers. Soldiers. Strangers. They were men. But he did not know them. He did not know them like he knew Vesuvius, or his father at Merthyr, or his wife at Tonypandy. They were different. He didn't understand them. Birds of passage, he would never see them again. And all the faces looked towards him, at his dirty hands, holding money and dice, and at his thin knees, which seemed to be clutching that pile of money. 'Four on the crown,' he said, not looking at them now. 'Four on the crown' – serious – not smiling.

  Eight bells. One – two – one – two – one – two – one – two. They rang loudly in Williams's ear.

  'Come on, my lucky lads. Who's laying the old mud-hook? I've got to go soon. D'you hear those goddam bells? Lay it down, my lucky lads.'

  The bells were still ringing in his ears. He counted the money on the board. Twelve, and ninepence. Hang it! They were getting mean. He picked up the board, shook it, saying 'Whose? Whose?'

  Hands shot out. 'Sure, take it. Christ! I don't want your goddam money. Keep it. Eat it.' He folded up the board, grinned at them, put the board in his pocket and made for the ladder. 'So long, soldiers,' he said. 'So long. Where'll I meet you next time?' He hung on the ladder, one leg swinging.

  'In Paradise! Where the hell d'you think, sailor?'

  'Goodo! That's a go,' he called back, then he climbed the ladder and was lost in the upper darkness. He slipped over the hatch. 'Phew!' he said. 'Phew!' He heard voices and went in their direction. Ah, there they were.

  As the night deepened activity increased. Upon all lower decks men were feverishly engaged gathering packs and accoutrements, buckling straps, rolling coats. They worked in silence. One could travel from A to D deck to E and hear no sound. It was as though each, vitally concerned with himself, was slave to his own thoughts, each mind fortifying itself for the future. And on each lip the trembling question: Where? Where? and what then? They had had their coffee. Orders had come again. No man must sleep. No man dare be seen without his life-belt. Each deck would muster at half-past seven and they would receive instructions from their officers. No smoking! No shouting! Absolute silence – and wait till the next order.

  A.10 ploughed the water at three-quarter speed, the bridge held its full complement. The watch on were busy, too. They dragged out fenders and heaving lines. They got steam on the winches. Tested them. They rigged derricks – lay falls, went to the boat-deck. Inspected each boat, swinging on its davit, and soon they would haul up stores and baggage, place it port side of number four and five. Below the engines throbbed, furnaces glowed, men worked quietly yet speedily, sending twenty thousand tons through the dark oily waters. There was something in the air, something one realized and felt. The journey was near its close. A driving rain struck the canvas dodges, sounding like whip-lashes.

  'Forty odd miles of clear water to cross,' thought Dunford, 'and then' – 'Blast the moon.' It suddenly appeared, a great white orb flooding A.10 with light. 'Damn the moon!'

  Bradshaw saw it, too. But his thoughts were different. He was saying to himself: 'Agreed we could not get in farther than five hundred yards, on account of the draught we draw, but all the same it's going to be pretty tight – transporting these men to monitors and smaller boats.'

  Purpose was there! But for each it formed a different pattern in the mind. Rochdale standing in the nest thought: 'Well, we're here! And the mail will go aboard a destroyer and it'll ship to Alex, and from there to London.' And Annie and Rosie would be
waiting for it, too. Mr. Walters merely closed a small red-backed account-book in his pocket and said to himself: 'Well, here's to the next time.' Mr. Hump would go ashore in Alex. – touching wood – and he'd buy something dinky for his wife. And Dowling would go to a certain house behind the Australian barracks and drown his misery in Egyptian women, eighteen hours a day, damn their eyes, eighteen hours a day.

  'I hope this doesn't last for long,' Mr. Dunford called across to Bradshaw.

  'I don't like it either, sir. Especially if there are half a dozen of us. Captain Percival was telling me there's something like twenty thousand men cooped up in the bay. But they're waiting for us and for the Hartspill. They are determined that everything will go off without a hitch.'

  'Sounds like it, too, doesn't it?' replied Dunford, and both men stood looking at each other, listening to the muffled roar of guns.

  Suddenly Dunford burst out laughing. 'I was thinking of that peculiar individual. What did they call the man? Rajah?'

  'Why, sir?'

  'Nothing! Nothing!' He walked back into the wing again, still laughing.

  At half-past one [sic] A.10 reduced speed. At 1 a.m. she stopped. Dropped anchor. The Hartspill also had hove to. The moonlight filled the bay. Seven tall ships, twenty thousand men. At ten to two o'clock the order came.

  'Proceed A.10 – Hartspill – dead slow.'

  'Dead slow!'

  'Dead slow, sir.'

  'Port a bit.'

  'Port a bit, sir.'

  The bosun and his watch were going for'ard for coffee.

  'Starboard a bit.'

  'Starboard a bit, sir.'

  'Hear that,' the bosun said, 'hear that?'

  'Sure! We all heard it! When's the fun begin, bosun?'

  'Starboard a bit.'

  'Starboard a bit, sir.'