Hollow Sea

by James Hanley

  'Three cheers for the good old war! Three cheers for the soldiers buried in muck.'

  'Dead slow!'

  'O God! My sodden leg. My leg! I can't move it.'

  'Christ! You'd've laughed! Aye! Wanted to go round the corner just as he was climbing in.'

  'The water was full of them! Brave lads! They'll win the goddam war.'

  'They're only kidding, you balmy cow! Just kiddin'! We're going round in circles.'

  These were voices in Dunford's ears. He thought now of signals, of fresh orders. He thought of the wounded and their landing, the dead and their burying. He was ready, his mind was fixed upon the event to come. But the voices still clamoured in his ears. He had sat alone in the mess-room for over an hour, for a long time, and the vile smell was in his nostrils. And that was the answer to the conundrum! He had seen the wounded, heard their voices, he had remembered in minute detail all the events of the past four days. But always the voices were in his ears, running parallel with the uproar in his mind – that was the panorama of memories. And standing here, he still wondered, wondered how they had come through so miraculously, wondered at the fate of the remainder of that suicide squadron, wondered at the quietness of the men. But he was glad of that quietness. There was nothing of which he might any longer be afraid. They had come through! Danger was past. All that was unique, magnificent, stupid, glorious, mean, had been lived through and he would remember it. But there were some for whom that could mean nothing. 'Thank God!' he said to himself. 'If I get in with one man alive I shall be happy. There are some who cannot wonder any longer. But they are not yet worthless. Let them stink to high heaven!' That is answer enough! Yes. Let them stink to high heaven! He picked up his glasses. 'Hello!' he said. He hurried over to the officers. 'Can you see that thing approaching us?'

  'Yes! It looks like a ship. Yet somehow when you look closely it seems like a quay or something. I wonder if it's one of those fishermen's boats,' asked Ericson. Neither answered him. They were watching the strange looking vessel. Dusk was falling. The sea suddenly appeared choppy. Sheafs of white cloud, like gusts of smoke, scudded across the sky. Suddenly rain began to fall.

  'Tell the Chief Steward to move those men into the saloon Mr. Ericson!'

  'Very good, sir.'

  'Mr. Deveney! What do you suppose that queer-looking thing really is?'

  'It looks to me like a sort of patrol-boat, sir – but it seems strange to me. We are moving pretty close to the land, sir. I mean it's rather quiet. One ought to see traffic dotted about here and there. And we can't be more than fifty odd miles from port.' He looked through the glasses again.

  'Very odd,' Dunford said. 'Yesterday we passed a ship; she suddenly changed her course, she got windward of us. Maybe that hatch has something to do with it.'

  'Probably. I've wanted to mention that matter to you, sir! I'm afraid there will be some trouble with the authorities about those soldiers in the hold.'

  'Why?' asked Dunford, suddenly all attention. 'Why trouble? It would be most unnatural if they weren't there, Deveney! They're the products of events, they're part of the machinery of purpose. They fit in with the general pattern. I agree the odour is foul. But that doesn't rob them of any meaning. They're dead. They have to be accounted for. What were the orders? You know them as well as I do, Mr. Deveney. Purpose is one thing. Chance another. So is idiocy. They seem to have got them a little mixed up. But what has that to do with us, with you? We don't give orders. We take them!'

  Mr. Deveney suddenly smiled. 'I know, I know, sir! But sometimes one goes a little further, goes over the margin. Be reasonable, Mr. Dunford. Sometimes one closes an eye, like Nelson did.'

  'Who is more reasonable? I've done my best. One can't do more than that.'

  'There's a rumour going about, Mr. Dunford, a most unfortunate rumour. I heard the men talking about it. They say we'll never reach any port.'

  Dunford laughed. 'Maybe! There is such a thing as getting lost, Mr. Deveney.'

  Suddenly a violent ring of the bell. As though it had suddenly shot from beneath the surface of the water, or fallen from the sky, a destroyer appeared on the horizon. The two men looked at each other. What was this? Had they been looking at the cut of each other's clothes, or counting the lines on the deck, or had they just stood there talking, with their eyes closed. Here was a destroyer, plain for all to see. And suddenly she was signalling. A voice in the wilderness. Through the glasses Dunford followed the message, NAME, DESTINATION, PORT OF EMBARKATION, PORT OF REGISTRY. CARRYING—?

  'A.10 PROCEEDING ALEXANDRIA UNDER ORDERS. PORT OF REGISTRY, GLASGOW. NUMBER—. PORT OF EMBARKATION, SEAHAM. PROCEEDING WITH REMNANTS OF DRAFTS. EIGHTY-ONE WOUNDED. CARGO NONE. SAND BALLAST. TWO HUNDRED DEAD SOLDIERS ON BOARD.' 'PROCEED.'

  'Phew!' Dunford sighed. How wide – how closely spun the net. 'We are not forgotten, Mr. Deveney. We are still of some importance, serve some purpose. These last few days my head's been full of wild imaginings. I felt there was something desolate, forlorn – something about us that put us beyond the pale of decency – outside Reality altogether! It's been rather a crazy trip.' He put his hand on Deveney's shoulder. He felt a warmth, warmth of contact. Feelings had shifted him, left him cold, all seemed so miserable, and he hated it, hated it all. 'I want to laugh, Deveney! I want to laugh.'

  'Then laugh, sir,' replied the officer, and burst out himself. His face reddened.

  'I wish I could,' Dunford said, and without another word went back to his cabin.

  'So we're safe after all! And if we are, then there was some meaning after all – yes, meaning in their madness – a magnanimity of purpose in that fusion of bravery and idiocy. Poor devils! Poor devils! What life is this? What face is it? What hour is it? The life's misshaped, the face is the same face, the hour is full of hope. What the hell am I getting into my head now? Life, faces, hour! All faces are one face, look at it. There! An abominable face. No! It's not the face of that monkey I saw standing at the gangway-head. No. This face is different. Many hands have touched it, many lights have shone upon it, many feelings traced their way upon it. You can transfigure this face, not the monkey's face.' He began walking up and down the cabin floor. He thrust the thumbs under the armpits of his vest, let his eye fall upon such familiar objects as his sextant, his glasses, his writing-pad. The picture of his home, the bronzed Buddha which served as paper-weight. Insignificant, the eye took them in, one with the general pattern, but now they were destined. Their significance stamped itself into that cabin. The essence of memory, of association, was stirred in him as he looked at them.

  A steward was knocking at his door. 'Tea, sir?' The door opened an inch, shut again. 'Yes. Thank you,' he said. Tea! Of course! Tea. He would have to be back on that bridge shortly. Extraordinary! The number of men I see, the immense number who speak to me. I don't know them, all strangers somehow.

  He went to the mess. 'Mr. Ericson had better come down here now,' he told the steward. He stirred the tea, tasted it. It was very black, very strong. Trust the Irish for that,' he thought. Something made him pay the same minute attention to the various articles lying about the mess-room. Perhaps his mind had a particular view for the insignificant at this moment. All the things he had looked at had been huge, were near to him, there was something so different in studying the curve of the sugar-basin, or that dead water, that false wash about the bows of A.10 limned upon an oleograph. Red funnels, white lines, white bow; different days, different things. All was clouded in grey now, all grey. He sat up suddenly as Mr. Ericson came in. 'All will be rush now, papers and documents will fly, everybody'll talk, we'll be surrounded by chatterers, and a thousand different tales will fall from as many tongues. And then we'll go in, lie up. More questions, more papers, more pompousness, the serious face, the quick eye, the sense of importance, the whisper that enhances it.' He went on mumbling to himself, whilst Ericson put more salty butter upon his toast.

  'I'm talking to you, Ericson,' Dunford said. 'You seem to have gone suddenly deaf.
'

  'Yes! They took him aft at six o'clock. Screaming like a pig. I didn't wonder! The fellow was balmy from the moment he got hit. That's two balmy now! What kind of flag d'you reckon we ought to fly when we get in. I bin thinking a red one with a white clown on it.'

  'We are really going in then?'

  'Course we are! They already know we're coming by now. Why? Don't you believe it?'

  'No, I don't. And I won't either until I see the bight of the rope go over the bitt.'

  'But Christ Almighty, you only got to look to your left. There's Egypt staring at you!'

  'Doesn't mean anything to me. Why did they separate us. Why didn't we stay there with the rest? Leave with the rest. That's what I want to know. A bit fishy.'

  'When you get an order you got to carry it out. Right or wrong. Everybody knows that.'

  'Orders my behind! They're on some fresh lay now. I once knew a ship like this here. But we had dead horses. They stunk worse than this one does and, d'you know, the damn swine, they refused to recognize us. They wouldn't let us enter any port without a clean bill of health. We went to half a dozen places and before we could get a smell of it, they were out in their boats telling us to clear to the devil. We dumped nine hundred horses. Damn fine ones they were.'

  'Yes. But this is different. You see you have to reason a thing out, haven't you? Maybe those nuts, when they see their mistake, suddenly decided to let us go, clear out, take as many live men as we could, soften the blow so to speak. On the other hand they may have wanted us to rush down to Alexandria, bring back a couple of thousand more, chuck 'em out, slaughter more. It's all a lot of bull stuff to me. But I shouldn't worry, m'lad! We aren't carrying horses. They'd have to let us in. You're talking through your hat.'

  'Am I? You wait. You'll see. Bloody fact is, mate, they've forgotten us already. Quite easy for a ship to be forgotten about, considering there's thousands of them sailing all over the bloody place, all with different orders. They have to make mistakes sometimes. All wars are the same. Take the Boer War, for instance.'

  'What the devil are you men chattering about? What are you doing here?'

  The door of the officers' mess had suddenly opened, and Dunford was standing there looking at the tiger and quartermaster arguing with each other. Then Mr. Ericson came out. He was white, he looked sick, he hurried to his room. 'You have no right hanging about here,' Mr. Dunford said. 'Get to the devil.'

  The two men slunk away. Dunford suddenly laughed, went into the mess again, banged the door. Well, confound it, he supposed men had to talk. 'Yes, they must talk. Keeps them from going crazy.' He looked at Ericson's cup of cold tea, the uneaten toast. 'Yes. The smell is foul. Foul! But I'll bury them. By God, I'll bury them!' He hurried out to answer the whistle that blew from the bridge.

  The water had changed to a dull brown colour, its surface like mud. Ahead they saw dhows, tugs, a great liner to port, a cruiser to starboard. At last. The traffic lane at last. 'Have the soundings been taken, Mr. Deveney?'

  'Yes, sir. Sand and gravel.' Mr. Deveney paced the bridge, stopped only to speak to Mr. Dunford. 'They say this is a dangerous hole about here, Mr. Dunford.'

  'Half-speed!' Dunford said, and the telegraph rang. Following the bells. He saw the man climbing the mast. Darkness was falling. Below he saw the winches being tested, derricks struck. Things were moving. They were fast leaving that wilderness. The sense of isolation was diminishing, the world still moved, life was ahead. The personality of the ship, long dissolved, took body and shape, was alive again. A.10 was no longer outside things. She was once again a part of the great body, the world of ships. In the wastes she was nothing, in the narrow waters she was something. She was alive, had purpose, meaning, was the bearer of tidings, the lost thread meshed to the pattern again. 'Watch for the light,' Dunford said. 'Watch for the light.'

  'Yes. sir! Where is Mr. Ericson, I wonder? I told him to be back here in half an hour.'

  'Mr. Ericson had a little sickness in the stomach. But he won't be long. Slow,' he added. 'Quartermaster! The bosun and two men are aft with the lead. Tell them to lower again.' He said this without looking at the men. In any case it was fast growing dark. The moon was there somewhere.

  'Very good, sir.' The man's footsteps sounded thunderous on the quiet deck.

  'Mr. Deveney, I'm becoming drunk. And on top of that, Mr. Walters tells me he has lost nearly a stone in weight. Disastrous! Disastrous! But I'm sick of this dirty business, Deveney. Sick of it. I could have told them it was all a cod. I could have gathered these men together for'ard. Told them the same thing.'

  'But I don't understand you, sir,' Mr. Deveney was saying. He stood a few feet away behind the starboard telegraph. He was listening, but his eyes were busy. He was watching, waiting for the flashing light to appear.

  'There's your light, sir,' Dunford said. 'There's your light. Now we're really moving.'

  The light flashed, struck the dark waters like lightning, vanished. Flashed again. The powerful eye ransacked, warned, beckoned, urged on. More bobbing lights appeared.

  'What time is it?' Dunford looked at the clock under the rail. An hour and a half to go. Good! He could still see as far as the well-deck. Saw figures moving about. Heard voices exclaiming: 'It is! It is! I know that light as well as I know my own grandmother. We're nearly in, mates.' How excited they were. Like children. One might imagine they hadn't seen land for months.

  'Keep your eye on the light to starboard, Mr. Deveney,' Dunford said. He then went into the chart-room. He wanted to sit down for a minute or two, and look over some notes he had made. Rough notes. ' "Proceeded under orders to a point 38 degrees east of—" Now what the hell, hanged if I can read it. Damn it! I can't. I brushed the whole thing out, somehow.' He looked at the ink smudge. ' "Established contact with the Hartspill. Joined convoy crossing the bay. Under fire at five-five. Three boats blown to pieces. Mr. Bradshaw killed. Struck for'ard twice. Once aft. Dr. Donaldson killed. Mr. Trent killed. Three times amidships. Two hundred soldiers on board at eight-ten. Ordered Alexandria." Yes, yes, that's right.' He looked at the log. The last entry. ' "Two men missing! Presumed washed over in the middle watch." Yes, correct.' He went on reading, scratching his chin as he read. He put log and notes back in the drawer and returned to the bridge.

  'Hello,' he said. 'Hello.' Then he said, 'Dead slow, Mr. Deveney.' Something was approaching. But what? At the moment it was only a shape. Slowly the shape became a destroyer. She was signalling. 'Christ! What tiresome questions! What? Let my cable go! Here? Good God!' That was impossible. He stood right against Deveney, arm to arm.

  'YOU MUST ANCHOR HERE UNTIL FURTHER ORDERS.'

  'Extraordinary,' Deveney said.

  Everybody seemed to be out on deck now. Stewards, firemen, sailors, engineers.

  'YOU MUST LIE IN THE STREAM AND AWAIT ORDERS. THE HARBOUR IS FULL.'

  'MUST MAKE WAY! WOUNDED ON BOARD.'

  'DROP YOUR ANCHOR AND AWAIT ORDERS,' came the reply. The two men on the bridge just stared at each other. What could it mean? Dunford saw only the same unreason, the same idiocy. Mr. Deveney on the other hand saw reason.

  'There is every reason for all berthings being occupied, Mr. Dunford,' he said.

  'Yes. But damn it, man, I can't carry this responsibility much further. Goddam! Why proceed under orders at all? Why not have one's own? We're only a confounded number to them! Where's the flesh and blood behind this? Does it exist? Or are we listening to some wooden puppet? We are ordered here, it is essential that way be given us, they're cracked.'

  'But we may only anchor an hour or two.'

  'That had nothing whatever to do with it. You see, she's veered off. Do you know what the position is, Mr. Deveney? I'll tell you! They've suddenly remembered us. And now they've gone off; they want a few hours to collect their scattered wits, understand? They want time to think it over. And meanwhile, the wounded can fester, the dead rot, the living shut their mouths and keep silent. H'm! Are we living in Bedlam, or are we only dream
ing? Of course the harbour's full, and ships are full, and ships are empty, the water is choked with them, men are herded together, waiting. Waiting for orders. So are we, whilst this deity thinks it out.'

  'I really think,' began Mr. Deveney, but Mr. Dunford burst out in anger:

  'Then don't! For Heaven's sake, don't! You only insult them by thinking! Well, let her go! Quartermaster, tell the bosun to get his men on the fo'c'sle-head. Carpenter, stand by the windlass.' Dunford looked into the wheel-house. Dead silence there! An immovable figure, a floating needle.

  'Stop, Mr. Deveney. The responsibility is all theirs. Not mine.'

  The telegraph rang again. The sudden stoppage of the engines brought everybody out on deck. The silence which followed was a kind of awed silence, the cessation of sound, like the cessation of ringing in the ears, and the temporary dizziness that follows. The silence was clear, unmistakable, something you could almost touch, men stared at one another. 'She's stopped,' a voice said. That was quick, wasn't it? Where the hell are we?'

  One voice now grew to many voices, the air was filled with questionings. 'But beggar me! They've got the crowd on the fo'c'sle-head. There's the windlass.' What could it mean? Why, there were lights flashing everywhere. Surely they had reached Alex. They were in the river. But what the hell was wrong? Wasn't she going in after all? And somebody standing under the starboard fo'c'sle-head ladder, laughing. 'Well, my lucky lads, who's right? Me or bloody you? What'd I tell you! We're only a goddam muck ship. We're not respectable enough, eh? That's it, isn't it? Ah! You can't tell me things and reckon I'll swallow them like a mug. She's going to stick here, sailors! Yes, sir! We're going to be a target for the bloody forts now, unless of course one of those damned submarines happens along, then you'll have a clean break with fibs and stinks and all the rest of it. Listen! There she goes! There she goes! You might as well put your money back in your pockets, mates. Yes, sir, and turn in, cover yourself with the clothes and forget about it. They'll wake you soon a bloody enough if anything happens. Listen 'em gabbling on the bridge! Christ! These top-nots don't half like talking. Like to hear themselves now and again. Well, I say that on the lot of them, Alexandria included.' He snapped his fingers angrily.