Sailors on the Inward Sea

by Lawrence Thornton

  All that remained to do was weld the joints. With a quick jerk of his head, a welder brought his mask down and a moment later his torch flared to life, sending out a blue-white flame that thinned as he adjusted the oxygen, the stiletto shape reflected in the square of dark glass. Conrad averted his eyes, imagining the steel melting into small circular knobs that would be ground flat and smoothed before the painters went to work. Within days no one would ever know the Brigadier had suffered a grievous wound. The injury sustained by the navy and its tradition would be smoothed over in the same way, Fox-Bourne going off to the fate decreed by the board, the officers and helmsman returning to duty. He would go home, the sun would shine on the sea, the outward signs of the tragedy gone except in memory, which could neither be welded nor ground smooth nor repainted. In memory the fog would remain, the yellow cylinder, Whelan pitching forward, the Germans in the water, the sound of their voices.

  With these thoughts Conrad returned and found the others where he had left them. Fox-Bourne was standing off some distance, looking drawn and worn. They waited half an hour before the door swung open and Worthy’s aide emerged, beckoning to them. They went over, expecting to be conducted inside. Instead, the aide said that the board would reconvene in the morning at nine o’clock sharp.

  “We all smelled something,” Conrad told me. “We didn’t know what it was, but none of us liked it.”

  THERE WAS AN unbearable dinner that night in the mess. They were pariahs, the center of attention for every officer regardless of rank, for the steward and his assistants, even the servers, everyone in the room conscious of what they had been doing on the far side of the base and unconcerned, so far as Conrad could tell, with whatever facts may have come their way. Their sympathy lay with Fox-Bourne, who had had the good sense to stay away. There was little conversation and that was conducted in subdued voices, the sound of cutlery clicking against plates steady as a dripping faucet. Conrad felt sorry for his companions. Retaliation, shunning, all the tribal manifestations of anger over betraying one of the clan was suddenly real. He did the only thing he could think of, bringing up the various reasons for the board’s delay. The board of inquiry might be reluctant to pass judgment on one of their own. They might want Fox-Bourne to stew in his own juices. They might have gone aground over some issue and could not make up their minds about the degree of his guilt or the severity of his punishment. All the while he thought of Fox-Bourne lying in bed, staring into the darkness at his ruined career figured in an image of the Brigadier’s mangled bow, the Germans black as seals, the yellow cylinder, the fog, wondering what the man felt in the way of regret, remorse, shame, aware that if he suffered from any of those emotions he had separated them from what he felt in his heart of hearts as Edward’s father and champion.

  As they walked out of the mess, the other officers watched them silently, the clicks of their knifes and forks muted, their footsteps ringing, echoing; Chambers, Higgins, and Scorsby pale, chagrined, frightened by the consequences of their testimony. Conrad admired them all the more and he was angry enough so that after the four of them were outside and went their separate ways he thought seriously of returning to the mess and speaking from the doorway, saying that he had seen everything, that Fox-Bourne was guilty as sin, that he had disgraced them, every one of them, disgraced what they stood for, that those junior officers were only doing their duty and in the process risking their careers. The only reason he refrained was that he knew every word he spoke would have made matters worse.

  He could not sleep. He felt uncomfortable in his skin, as if his nerves were exposed, and so he turned on the light and rummaged through his Gladstone bag for the books he had brought along, Turgenev’s A Hunter’s Notes and Crane’s Red Badge. He had begun rereading “Bezhin Meadow” on the train and finished it, wishing again that he knew Russian so he could enjoy the flavor of Turgenev’s style undiluted. He then leafed through Stephen’s book, looking for the passage where Henry Fleming turned tail under the red sun. He was drawn to it by the remembered gravity of the language that limned the young soldier’s disgrace and he also remembered, as he read, his own words about Jim, seeing the power of that emotion as more subtle than it appeared on the surface because it harbored within itself, like a seed in a pod, both destruction and confession, and that by allowing oneself to feel disgrace, as Henry Fleming did and Jim could not, the emotion was like a prelude to redemption. He sat there under the light of the reading lamp a long time thinking about how elegantly, how truly Stephen allowed his young hero to see himself, thinking at the same time about the scene that would unfold in the morning at Lowestoft, the officers delivering their verdict while Fox-Bourne sat unmoving, staring straight ahead, wondering if the man had the strength to see himself as the board did or whether, like Jim, he would discount the verdict and wander down the years believing that he had been misunderstood.

  At that point he regarded me with half-closed eyes and asked if I had an opinion as to how Fox-Bourne would respond. Breaking into the story like that, fracturing its plane, surprised me. My thoughts were flowing along with his, indistinguishable from them, really, and that swerve into the present irritated me. Anyway, I said that as he had mentioned nothing so far that remotely suggested the man had much in the way of conscience, I thought it pretty clear that he would resist.

  “Yes, I can see why you say that. I wasn’t so sure,” he said, adding, rather oddly I thought, “I’m still not.”

  THE DAY AFTER the inquiry, Conrad woke at first light, agitated and unrested. He burrowed under the covers, drifting in and out of sleep for an hour until anxiety got the best of him and he got up, dressed, headed down to the mess. Gulls circled the Union Jack that fluttered on an offshore breeze. The rhododendrons growing against a low retaining wall seemed out of place. He was worried that the officers in the mess would be as boorish as they were at dinner and it was a great relief to find the hall almost empty, the half dozen or so men inside paying no attention to him. He hungrily wolfed down eggs and two large slices of brown bread smeared with strawberry jam, enough food to fortify him for a long walk along the perimeter of the base on a path that conveniently came out on the far side and led him down to the building a few minutes before nine o’clock. Chambers, Scorsby, and their solicitor were there, standing by the door when Higgins and the helmsman arrived. A few minutes later Fox-Bourne came along the walk, stopping a short distance away, where he waited with his back turned until Worthy’s aide-decamp opened the doors and ushered them inside.

  The admirals, already seated at the head table, were framed by the network of scaffolding visible behind them. Conrad glanced at Fox-Bourne, wishing that a man could be as easily repaired as a ship, the damaged parts cut out and replaced with new ones. The captain sat straight, his face rigid, eyes fixed on the admirals, who were paging through stacks of papers. Wilson leaned in Worthy’s direction, whispering. The admiral nodded and looked up, saying that the board would now reconvene. Fox-Bourne’s solicitor lay a hand on his arm and immediately the captain rose and stood at attention.

  “Captain Fox-Bourne,” said Worthy after clearing his throat, “the grievous loss of life even in wartime is a matter of the utmost gravity. It has called for a thorough review in which the board have made every effort to be fair. After due consideration, we find that you operated within the bounds of your authority and therefore conclude that there was neither error nor culpability. For reasons of state, this case falls under the Official Secrets Act. As such, you are all enjoined from discussing these issues with anyone, including your families. Doing so is a crime punishable by the severest sanctions of the law. The hearing stands adjourned.”

  Fox-Bourne blinked as he had at the Germans’ voices, his face crimson, a vein beating in his left temple. He had been prepared for the worst, for a guilty verdict, and the blood rising in his cheeks was in response to the end of his career. At that moment he was still disgraced. The rest of them were pale, including the solicitors. It was like being in a the
ater when a play ends and the audience is still so caught up in the action that they remain silent even as the curtain comes down, in this case a thick, magisterially designed red-and-blue curtain bearing the Crown’s coat of arms erasing as it descended inch by bloody inch the collision, Whelan’s death, the water pouring into the gaping hole in the Valkerie, the forward gun of the minesweeper exploding, the U-boat rising up like a thing in agony and slipping below the surface, the men in the water, the Brigadier steaming away, the facts Worthy cherished, erasing history, the blot on Fox-Bourne’s record. No applause, of course, when they came back to themselves, no hoots or hisses or derisive whistles, only the turgid movement of people in shock. Fox-Bourne’s solicitor clamped his hand on the captain’s shoulder, squeezed, stood up. So did the solicitor representing the junior officers and the helmsman, nodding to Fox-Bourne’s man as if acknowledging his skill, though what had happened had nothing to do with advocacy. Conrad had a vision of a man in an office on the upper floors of a government building hanging up a phone and going over to the window, looking out on the lights of London. It was he or whomever he represented who was responsible for the fall of the curtain, his words to Worthy that brought it down and negated the idea of a fixed standard of conduct to which every man in the service had pledged himself.

  The solicitors approached the table deferentially, shaking hands with the admirals, speaking in low voices, leaving together, followed by Fox-Bourne and the others until only Worthy and Conrad remained. As he watched Worthy stuff papers into his briefcase he smelled diesel fuel, the thick, earthy scent pervading the room as if the blue carpet, the tables, the chairs, the photographs, Worthy and he were covered with it. He could tell the man what he thought, that justice had been savaged, that if the admiral were to attend carefully he too would smell the oil and see it dripping from his hands, and he would have done just that if it had not been clear that it was futile and would make no difference since Worthy was merely the spokesman for the unknown man in Whitehall.

  He was heading toward the door when Worthy called his name.

  “An ugly business,” the admiral said when he turned round, “no way to put a pretty face on it. I want to thank you for your testimony. You were quite compelling.”

  “All I did was relate the facts.”

  Worthy glanced at him sharply.

  “And a few opinions.”

  “Based on the facts,” Conrad said, “on what I saw.”

  “Yes, well, it was complicated, no doubt about that. So much to consider. I, for one, am glad it’s over.”

  “So is Fox-Bourne.”

  “Everyone. An ugly business, as I said. We should put it behind us,” smiling as he spoke, and nodding as if he were advising a younger man, telling him that he knew best.

  Conrad shifted his gaze to the window framing the Brigadier. Part of the scaffold was being dismantled. With the top section gone, the ship’s name in large white letters was visible again.

  “As if she’s being reborn,” Conrad said. “The Brigadier.”

  Worthy looked and turned back.

  “I suppose she is.”

  “Good as new. So is Fox-Bourne, except for the voices. They were remarkable. You’d think that the sound of the engines would have made them inaudible, but it was quite the opposite. They were very distinct, as distinct as telegraph chimes.”

  Not until Worthy searched his eyes did Conrad sense any subtlety in the man. It burst forth in a brief flicker that seemed to acknowledge the influence of some personage greater than himself, doing so in a way that so much as told Conrad to let it go, that there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do. A moment later he was back in character. Reaching into his briefcase, he extracted a copy of Lord Jim and put it on the table, opening it to the title page.

  “I wonder if I might impose on you? My wife, Diana, is an admirer of yours. Quite taken by your work. Her birthday is next week. If you could sign this, perhaps address it to her, she’ll be delighted.”

  Of all the things Worthy might have said, including admitting that the hearing had been a sham, a request for an autograph under those circumstances was the furthest thing from Conrad’s mind. To make it worse, the admiral smiled, the kind of smile you expect from a man used to getting what he wants. And then he compounded the insult by smoothing down the title page with the heel of his left hand and holding out a pen with his right.

  “A few words.”

  “Damn you,” Conrad said as he pushed the pen aside. “Do you think I come so cheap?”

  The smile was still pasted on his lips as Conrad headed for the door, intent on getting out of that room as fast as possible, away from the stench of diesel fumes, which seemed to have sucked up all the air. The photographs on the walls spun across his field of vision as he turned away from Worthy, ships and sailors spattered with gouts of oil, the windows too, the creamy wallpaper, the polished floor in the long corridor, the stench following him through the outer door and onto the quadrangle. If it weren’t for his bad knee, he thought he might well have walked all the way up to the Scottish Highlands for one clarifying whiff of a loch’s chill air.

  THANKS TO THE care Conrad took in describing the appearance of the men on the board of inquiry, I had a clear mental picture of everyone, particularly Admiral Worthy, whose type had become familiar over the years. You know it as well as I do, Ford, men who from the day they leave the service school bear the weight of a hoary tradition on their shoulders along with their insignias of rank and epaulets. They are decent fellows for the most part, faithful paladins unswerving in their devotion to duty and the Crown, willing to lay down their lives in defense of the motherland. No one would ever know exactly what words were exchanged over the phone, but I was certain that they were the big abstract ones that had formed Worthy’s sense of himself since his cadet days—honor, loyalty, patriotism—and they made it easier for him to acquiesce to that nudge from on high, perhaps from the top floor of Whitehall. Though Conrad had not said so directly, we both knew that Brittania herself stood at the bar in the guise of Fox-Bourne and that the powers had concluded that too much was at stake for a guilty verdict. Not only was it clear that the call of patriotism and duty outweighed the question of justice, but neither Worthy nor his colleagues suffered from a sense of betrayal because they were sheltered by the chain of command.

  As Conrad and I watched two tugboats work a sorry-looking hulk with streaks of rust running down her hull into a berth nearby, the smoke from their stacks drifting toward us like dirty heraldic banners carried a stench that put me in mind of the pollution he had imagined in the hearing room. Suddenly it occurred to me that the outrageous manipulation of the facts could have been even more Byzantine than I thought, namely that Northcliffe himself might have been the one who ordered the verdict. I asked Conrad if he had ever considered the possibility.

  “Of course,” he said. “It was unavoidable. He had the authority.”

  “What a galling end,” I interjected.

  “Galling, yes, whether or not he was responsible, sickening, disgusting. But that wasn’t the end.”

  His gaze beneath those heavy eyelids was somberly ironic, Ford, brighter than I expected under the circumstances, his eyes hinting at something I ought to know. You remember that unsettling quality of his, I wager, since you saw more of it than I did. Just then, the horn of one of the tugboats sounded and I looked away to see it moving down the estuary before asking what he meant.

  “Can’t you guess?”

  I wondered if the board had reversed its verdict, if Fox-Bourne had suffered a belated crisis of conscience and admitted his guilt. But surely if either scenario had occurred Conrad would have mentioned it already, relishing the irony. And then it came to me.

  “My God!” I said. “You wrote about it.”

  Nodding, he said, “A novel. The best I’ve done in years.”

  I suspect you’ve entertained the possibility for some time, Ford, since you would have noticed the similarity between
some of his fictions and the story of the Brigadier. “Hullo,” I can hear you say, “what’s this? It sounds as if Conrad is paraphrasing.” In the wake of Conrad’s admission I realized there had been a formality in his voice and manner and telling that he never used in conversation, a rhythm that I now understood matched the pace of a tale already perfected on the page. I thought of Lord Jim and how the overarching shape of that book matched his story about the Brigadier—routine sea journeys that suddenly took a nasty turn followed by ill-considered decisions that left Jim and Fox-Bourne teetering on the edge of ruin with nobody but themselves to blame.

  “I had to tell the story,” Conrad said, “for reasons that are public and private.”

  The Official Secrets Act, he continued, swept the truth under the rug—those responsible for invoking it no doubt believed for the greater good. This kind of governmental intervention set his teeth on edge. The cynicism behind it forced him to consider his position as a writer and whether acquiescing to it made him culpable, too. In the days following the inquiry, he thought of little besides the Act, and the longer he considered it the larger and more imposing it seemed, as if it were an open-pit mine that scarred the countryside, a great ugly thing that dominated its surroundings, or, even more appropriately, one of those ocean canyons too deep to be measured where anything tossed in would never be seen again.