by John Harris
“Gawd!” Yorky had said when I arrived back at the boatyard. “I telled him! You know I telled ’im! But when I come aboard ’e was flaked out ’ere already, see?” He grabbed at the old man’s shoulder and shook it. “You drunken old bastard, you! Boozed up! Stinking! Rotten ripe!” he yelled in his high-pitched voice. “What bloody good are you to us like this?”
Dig was worried for a while by Old Boxer’s state, but I reassured him.
“He hasn’t been to sea sober yet,” I said. “When he comes round he’ll be all right.”
My voice as I spoke felt flat and emotionless. The shock of finding Minnie in Pat’s flat had knocked all the stuffing out of me. I’d walked slowly back to the boat-yard, still unable to hate Pat Fee and Minnie, all the time saying to myself: “I told you so. I told you so.”
I wasn’t the first sailor to come home and find his wife playing cuckoo in someone else’s bed. It was among the chances a sailor took when he went to sea, and had been ever since Columbus sailed for America.
I ought to have known long before that Minnie was no more trustworthy than Pat. They were grown in the same garden.
I’d felt old as I turned into the boat-yard and as I climbed over the crowded decks towards the launch they’d given me I realised I’d been walking for hours.
When I arrived Dig was on the foredeck sorting out the mass of equipment he’d unearthed – an old duffel coat, sou’-westers, oilskins, jerseys, binoculars even, and a sextant.
“I thought you might need it, Jess,” he explained shyly.
“We’ll need no sextant,” Yorky said bluntly. “It’ll be guesswork, a bleeden lot o’ luck and Gawd ’elp ’im ’oo ’elps ’isself where we’re goin’.”
I made my way into the forecastle, a little closet of a cabin where sea-sick passengers had been in the habit of lying down on the boat’s trips round the lighthouse. It was lit by a couple of tiny bulbs in the deck-head, and in the forrard corner, half in shadow, Old Boxer sprawled, stinking of rum, his mouth open and snoring.
Half under his great flabby body was the naval sword that was all he had left of a career. Some drunken whim had persuaded him to buckle the tarnished belt round his sagging waist, either because it was easier to carry that way or because his twisted mind saw in it a parody of gallantry. Perhaps he saw himself in some private joke – drunken and old and unwanted as he headed for glory stinking of booze. He lay with its shabby scabbard protruding from beneath him, a mockery of courage and high tradition.
I sat down wearily, my brain numb with too much thinking, and glanced at the old man huddled in his corner, his head crooked to that impossible angle only a drunk can manage. There was a lot we had to talk about when he was sober again, but for the moment, in my mind, there was only that ugly knowledge that Minnie had been playing me dirty all our married life and even before. And with it came that unhappy, unwanted feeling of loneliness – just as I’d felt when I found out about my parentage, a feeling that seemed to have been recurring throughout my whole life.
I sat in silence for what seemed hours, then Dig called me to go to the office for briefing.
“Last-minute instructions, Jess, boy,” he said. He must have been aware that something had happened to me. So must Yorky. My eye was bruised, and my lips were split. But Dig said nothing. “The Navy people want to go over it again with the cox’ns,” was his only remark.
I only dimly heard the lieutenant-commander who told us what we had to do. My mind was still busy elsewhere, and I wasn’t completely conscious of the scene in the little room, and the tense, taut faces that were greyish in the high, yellow light in the ceiling. The voice of the calm, confident officer, apparently undisturbed by the magnitude of the task we were undertaking, grated on my raw nerves yet still only skimmed the surface of my consciousness, so that I knew what I had to do without really absorbing it.
I can remember what he said now better than I could then: “We don’t know how long we’ve got. I’ve no signals and no notes. I’ve even no plans. Events are moving too fast for ’em. They’re out of date before they’re put into operation. We can’t help you with maintenance or supplies. All I know is that we’ve got to throw in everything we have.”
“Which way do we go?” somebody asked.
“They’ll tell you that at Dover – if you’re going,” the commander said. “The normal route’s impassable because of shore batteries. I expect it’ll be from the North Goodwin Light direct.”
“Blimey, that’ll be nearly a hundred miles!” the chap next to me burst out. “It’s only thirty straight across.”
“It’s either that or be blown out of the water,” the commander pointed out, his alert, handsome face calm. “The Pongos are on the beaches of Malo-les-bains and we’ve got to fetch ’em off.”
“Where’s Malo-les-bains?” someone asked.
“You’ll find it all right. Don’t worry.”
“And what about the shoals off Dunkirk, mister?” The old boy who spoke this time sounded like a retired master mariner, and he seemed to be addressing his first mate.
“There’ll be charts. The printing presses at Dover’ll be red-hot by now.”
“What about pensions if we stop one? What about our kids? We ain’t in the Navy, y’know.” It was a little bloke in an outsize oilskin who asked the question.
The commander’s face was flushed for the first time as he replied: “I don’t know about pensions. I don’t know about anything like that. I only know the Pongos are waiting to be taken off and we’ve got to do it. If you don’t like the idea no one’s forcing you to go.”
Nobody else asked any questions.
We made our way back to the boats, mostly in silence. There was a long journey ahead of us, a journey that several of us would never complete, and beyond that there was only a big question mark.
I stopped as I saw Kate Fee standing near the edge of the wharf. She smiled wryly, no happiness in the gesture.
“Well, Jess,” she said in that soft voice of hers that was still steady in spite of the hysteria and emotion and excitement of the day. “This is it. Goodbye and God bless you. I’ll be here when you come back.”
I smiled without speaking and kissed her gently. Her lips were cold but her fingers gripped my arms tightly. Then I turned away, aware that she was still on the wharf, motionless and silent, huddled inside an overcoat borrowed from a bobby. I felt a soothing glow of comfort for the first time that night, like the warmth that comes from rum in a cold body, a consciousness of affection and an odd feeling that I wasn’t entirely unwanted.
Yorky met me as I climbed aboard. “’Ow long we got, love?” he demanded soberly. “Are we off straightaway?”
I nodded.
“Everything’s ready, Jess,” Dig was saying. “Everything you’re likely to need.”
I nodded my thanks, and we arranged watches, with Old Boxer taking the last trick at the wheel to give him time to sober up.
A naval tug in the river was signalling by lamp to the launch that was to lead us, then Yorky arrived and took my attention with a chatter that jarred on my tired nerves.
“She’s OK, kid,” he said. “Off we go. Sixpence round the bleeden light’ouse. ’Er engines is lovely. She’ll cruise from ’ere to Singapore so long as you take ’er nice and easy. I’ll give you a ’and at castin’ off, then I’ll nip below and mash a cup of char afore I get me ’ead down. P’r’aps it’ll bring Old ’Orace round. Silly old fool,” he muttered as he moved towards the stern rope. “All ’e does is go to bloody sleep…”
The hours passed slowly. They were long and weary and marked by mugs of scalding tea that were accompanied by the north-country twang of a man in love with life. To Yorky everything was exciting and important and interesting, as it always had been to him, whether it was a gleaming engine or merely a dockside carousal.
I killed the time by forcing my mind to stay away from that picture of Minnie I still had in my eyes, naked and mean and sly, holding Pat Fee’s head to
her breast, passionately defiant, a stream of filthy, obscene abuse coming from her mouth, a Minnie I’d never imagined even in my wildest moments. I’d been aware for a long time she wasn’t all I’d expected when I married her, but the shabbiness of her sly little mind had been hidden by her laughter and her passionate nature. Now I’d seen her stripped of the few pleasant things in her character, raw and ugly and mean.
I stood at the wheel almost until dawn broke, then Dig took over from me, cautiously, nervous of the job. He seemed to regard me as if I were a stranger to him.
“Will we get there today, Jess?” he asked.
“Doubt it,” I said, my mind only half on what he said. “Might stay the night somewhere. Let the engines cool and give everybody a sleep. Probably make Dover tomorrow or the day after.”
“I see.” Dig paused and I hesitated for a moment before going below, for he obviously wanted to talk to me.
“I’ll manage all right now, Jess,” he said, indicating the wheel. He seemed to be trying to pluck up courage to say something. “I’m glad I had a bit of a go at this job, Jess,” he suddenly burst out. “I feel it’s the first man-sized thing I’ve done.”
I said nothing and Dig went on, shyly, not looking at me, but for once with no book to hide his eyes: “I’m proper glad, Jess. I’m not frightened now, and I wasn’t very sick during the night. You see, Jess,” he said quietly, “I’m a bit old and daft and a bit dusty. It’ll do nobody any harm if I don’t come back.”
I looked quickly at him, and he went on. Not as though he was tormenting himself with the idea of death, but with a complete calm, as though he’d spent the night in deliberate thought.
“I’ve been a bit of a failure, really, Jess,” he said. “I made a mess of marriage, and I reckon I’ve been no great value to the boat-yard neither.” He sighed. “Your Ma’ll be well provided for in case I don’t come back,” he said. “I’ve always tried to do me best for her, though she’s been a bit of a trial at times.”
He paused, then he said, as though in conclusion, “I hope I’ll not be too much in the way, Jess boy.”
I put a hand on his skinny shoulder and squeezed it. “You’re doing fine,” I said, and went below.
I was stumbling with weariness when I reached the cabin, where Yorky was just rising from one of the seats.
“Been ’avin’ a nap, Jess, for ten minutes,” he said as he ascended the ladder. “Old ’Orace ’as sobered up now. ’E’ll be able to take a trick at the wheel soon.”
Old Boxer was sitting up squinting in the early sunshine that fell on his haggard face through the porthole. He was huddled in a corner, a mug of tea on the deck between his feet. The old overcoat he wore was screwed round his body so that he looked like an untidily wrapped parcel. The shabby naval sword, its tarnished silver almost black, lay discarded on the leather cushions by his side.
He gave me a sidelong glance as I sat down at the opposite side of the forecastle, and there was silence for a while except for the creaking of timbers and the slap of water outside. The engines were nothing more than a pulsing vibration here in the forrard part of the vessel.
“How do you feel?” I asked, lighting a cigarette.
“All right now.” His voice was dry and harsh. “Fit as a fiddle. Sorry. Don’t know how it happened. Only had one or two while I was waiting.”
His face was grey, and he looked older than ever and frail despite his bulk.
I said nothing but drew his wallet out of my pocket and tossed it across to him.
“I didn’t get your gear,” I said as he pocketed it. “I had a bit of bother with Pat Fee and came away without it. You can borrow some, though. There’ll be plenty to spare where we’re going.”
He nodded dully, and I fished again in my pocket and withdrew a photograph. I tossed it across and it fell alongside his hand. He picked it up idly and glanced at it, then he looked sharply at me.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“It was in your wallet,” I said. “It fell out and I picked it up.”
There was a long silence, then I spoke again. “It’s my Ma,” I said, and Old Boxer’s trembling fingers became still as he held the photograph half in and half out of the wallet. “There’s one exactly like it at home.”
He said nothing, and I went on, “Dig kept it there because it was a photograph of her when she was young and pretty.”
Old Boxer suddenly began to stuff the picture away in the wallet with clumsy fingers.
“God, the booze’s got me proper,” he said.
I watched as he lit a cigarette and stuffed the wallet awkwardly into his pocket again; then I said, “You’re my father, aren’t you?”
I felt no emotion as I spoke, only an emptiness inside me, a sudden returning of that chilly loneliness.
Old Boxer pushed the wallet into his hip pocket in silence. Then he took a deep puff at his cigarette and blew out the smoke before answering.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
We were silent for a long time, staring at each other; then I went on, “Go on, it’s about your turn now.”
Old Boxer drew on his cigarette and for a moment his face was in shadow. He appeared to be thinking. On deck I could hear Dig and Yorky conversing in low tones and the click of the chain as the helm moved.
Old Boxer seemed to be searching his mind not only for words but for comprehensive thought. I expect it was still fuddled with drink and the shock of what I’d said had fogged it even more. He appeared to be groping into it, calling into it for advice. But it was re-echoing like an empty hall to him, deserted and cobwebbed. He looked as though a trick had been played on him – as though something he’d been trying to forget for years was now in front of him, as vast and lifelike and frightening as if it had happened the day before, as if a long-forgotten nightmare had suddenly been repeated.
He looked across at me. I was still waiting for a reply.
“Give me a moment, Jess,” he said. “My mind’s limping along like a flat foot just now.”
He drew a deep breath. “I knew you were my son, Jess,” he said, and the words seemed to drag heavy-footed one after the other. “I always knew. I thought I’d manage to forget, but I didn’t. It’s not as easy as that. You’re the spittin’ image of me when I was young. I saw myself often in you, the way I’d hoped to be and knew I never would be.” He seemed to be speaking to himself.
“I suppose I’m not what you expected as a father,” he went on, and he appeared to be asking a question. “But after they threw me out of the Navy I couldn’t go home and it was easier to drink than remember. Do you see? God, Jess,” he said suddenly, as though trying to excuse himself – and excuse himself to himself rather than to me, it seemed – “it’s awful when you know there’s no one who gives a damn about what happens to you.”
“There was no one to give a damn about what happened to me, either,” I said, and I was bitter as I recalled my own loneliness.
I suddenly felt angry at him sitting there, whining about having no one to care for him. I’d spent all my life with no one to give me any affection, in a loneliness that was caused even before I was born.
His humiliation infuriated me. He’d been full of bounce all his life and, now he was having a dose of what I’d known all through my childhood, he was complaining.
Then his next words took away all the malice in me and made me realise what he must have gone through.
“All the time,” he said, “I had to watch you growing up, trying to do my best to cultivate the spirit in you that I knew was there. And yet all the time I was scared stiff you’d realise who I was.”
“If I’d found out twenty years ago,” I said slowly, “we might both have enjoyed ourselves a bit more.”
He was silent for a moment. “It sounds easy now, Jess,” he admitted, “but it never seemed easy to me.”
“Reckon you’ve been running away from a shadow all your life,” I said. “Other people have illegitimate kids and still manage
to get over it.”
“But some of us are weak, Jess,” he pleaded, lighting another cigarette from the stub of the old one. “You’re not. Thank God you’ve got more backbone than I ever had.
“Besides,” he went on, throwing the fag-end away and grinding it flat with his boot, “there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t accept responsibility for you. I could only sit back and thank God you were growing up as I’d hoped you would. Don’t you understand, lad? I’d no right to anything else. I’d nothing to give you. I’ve still nothing to give you. I’ll never have anything to give you.”
I listened, watching the smoke of my cigarette as it moved, oddly and jerkily when the boat bumped in the waves. I wasn’t shocked, either by my discovery or by the humiliation of Old Boxer and his grovelling desire to explain himself. There was so little to admire in this father of mine and I had a sudden mental picture of him as I’d seen him so often: debauched, stale, and smelling of booze, with people laughing at him or dodging out of his way as he stumbled along, wretched and jaded and tormented by his own thoughts.
“What are we going to do about it, Jess?” he said.
“Do?” I tossed my fag-end out of the open porthole behind me. “Nothing, I suppose. Just now we’ve got a bit of a job to do. We’ll think about this lot later on.”
I lifted my legs on to the cushions and pulled a blanket over me. My eyelids drooped with weariness and I felt too tired to care much one way or the other what we did.
“You’re on watch next,” I said. “You’ve got about ten minutes. Drink your tea.”
I noticed the roughness had gone out of my voice.
I lay back, my head on a life-jacket. Old Boxer must have thought I was asleep, but I could see him through half-closed eyes. He picked up his mug of tea, long since cold, and seemed to shrink within himself.
