CHAPTER IX
THE WOOLEY
It was the wind. The Wooley, which is the fist of Kerguelen suddenlyclenched and hitting out from the shoulder of the great islands nowsuddenly stormed about with foam and veiled in spray.
Half stunned, she twisted round, still lying but fronting it now withher arm protecting her face. The beach had loudened up in thunder fromend to end but the yelling Wooley as it met the cliffs and howled inlandalmost drowned the thunder of the waves. Then it died down as suddenlyas it had come, and the boom of the surf rose high, as the girl,gathering herself together, got up and struggled on.
She was no longer thinking of her hair. It was the first lesson of theschool of Kerguelen. "Here you shall think of nothing but the moment, ofthe ground beneath your feet, of the bite you put in your mouth, of therock that stands before you."
When she reached the cave with her petticoats thrusting about her shewas met by the two men and as she came up to them La Touche was cursingthe wind. The Wooley had all but blown him down too. He had got upsooner than Bompard and had received the full face of it "in the pit ofthe stomach." He seemed to look on it as a personal matter affecting himalone.
Even as he spoke a sudden calm fell, lasted for a moment, and wasfollowed by a howl from inland.
At a stroke the wind had changed right round and was blowing now fromthe mountains. Here in the shelter of the cliffs they scarcely felt itbut the shift had raised an appalling cross sea. Right away to theislands there was nothing but tumbling foam, waves standing up andfighting waves in a battle that spread for leagues.
"It's well for us we didn't fall in with this yesterday," said Bompard"a ship couldn't stand it."
"And what ship will ever poke her nose in here to take us off do youthink?" asked La Touche. "This is what you get every day of the week, ifall accounts are true--this, and worse. I tell you we've come to thewrong place. There's no getting over it. We've come to the wrong place."
"Well, right or wrong, here we are," said Bompard "Mon Dieu! to hear youtalk you'd think we'd come here on purpose--come, get a move on andlet's have some grub."
He turned into the cave and they fetched out the can of beef they hadopened yesterday, some biscuits, and a water breaker, and sitting at thecave mouth they ate just as the men of the Stone Age ate, with the palmsof their hands for plates and their fingers for forks. They spokescarcely at all. The ill-humor of La Touche seemed like a contagiousdisease, even Bompard, the imperturbable, seemed glum.
It was the girl who broke the strain.
Suddenly she began to speak as if giving voice to carefully thought outideas. Yet what she said was absolutely spontaneous, the result of aquick, educated mind suddenly grasping the essentials of their position,suggestion breeding suggestion.
"There's no use in grumbling," said she. "That wind knocked me down as Iwas coming along the beach. I didn't grumble, and there is no use inthinking. I was thinking as I walked along that I had no brush and combto do my hair with, you two have short hair and you can't imagine whatit is to a person with long hair when they find themselves without abrush and comb. I was grumbling to myself about it when the wind knockedme down. I want just to tell you what is in my mind: we will die or gomad if we do not forget everything as much as we can and not think ofto-morrow or yesterday or ships coming to take us off. We have to fightall sorts of things that don't care in the least for us and we have towork. Everything here is at work in its own way. Well, we must do aseverything else does or die."
"It's easy to say work," said La Touche munching a biscuit, "but what isone to work at?"
"We want food for one thing, our provisions won't last forever."
"There's rabbits enough," said Bompard. "Remember those rabbits we sawrunning out on the beach last evening?"
"I can snare rabbits all right," said La Touche, "but where's the wireto make snares with--see--we're caught everywhere."
"Wait," said Bompard.
He got up and went down to the boat, hunted in one of the lockers andreturned with a spool of wire.
He flung it at La Touche.
"There's your wire," said he.
Cleo's eyes brightened. The spool of wire seemed to her a fruit suddenlyborn from her words; she had accomplished something, it was perhaps thefirst real accomplishment in her life.
"Where did you get it from?" asked La Touche.
"The forward locker," replied Bompard.
"Are there any other things in the locker?" asked the girl.
"Oh, Mon Dieu, yes," replied the old fellow. "There's a lot of truck,but it's no use to us."
"Let's go and see," said Cleo. She rose up and came down the beachfollowed by the others. The wind from the mountains died away but thesea torment remained and, though the tide was beginning to ebb, thespray of the waves almost reached the boat.
It had been listed to one side by the Wooley but was undamaged and theforward locker was still open as it had been left by the carelessBompard.
It was one of the boats used for fishing and deep sea work, hence thecontents of the locker.
The steel head of a two pronged fish spear, a fisherman's knife in itssheath with belt, a paternoster, invaluable for the fathoms of fishingline attached, a small American axe with the head vaselined, a canvashousewife with sail-needles, a few darning needles and some pack thread,and a number of odds and ends including some extra heavy lead sinkers.
Bompard looked on apathetically and La Touche stood with his hands inhis pockets as the girl fished the things out one by one, placing them,some on the sands and some on the thwarts of the boat.
The things seemed to have no interest for the men. Accustomed all theirlives to being looked after as far as shelter and food were concernedthey seemed absolutely helpless in front of new conditions. Men are likethat, especially men of the people, and when you read of Crusoes andtheir wonderful doings on desert islands you read Romance.
The quick, trained mind of the girl seemed to see clearly where theycould scarcely see at all, she had imagination and she was a woman--thatis to say a being more gifted than man, with prevision in affairs purelymaterial.
Bompard did not see any use in the axe and said so. The girl, with herhand resting on the gunnel of the boat, stood like a housekeeper tryingto explain to a mere male creature the use of some household implement.
"We will want a fire and an axe will chop wood," said she.
"Ay, and where are you to get the wood?" asked La Touche. "There's not atree on this blasted place, nor the sign of one."
"Well, we'll have to look--there may be trees inland--there's sure to bebushes of some sort--anyhow we will take these things up to the cave,they will be safer there."
The baling tin of the boat caught her eye, she included it amongst herprizes.
This baling tin, like a psychological instrument, exhibited the mind ofBompard as though that said mind had been scooped out and placed in it.
To him it was a baling tin; here there were no boats to be baledout--where was the use of it?
To the woman it was a possible pot to boil things in if they could get afire and things to boil.
She explained and Bompard saw the light. La Touche saw it, too, butpromptly pointed out that they had no fire and nothing to boil. Heseemed to find an odious satisfaction in the fact, a satisfaction whichBompard faintly reflected, and for a moment the girl seemed to glimpsein the two men a lethargy of mind almost unthinkable. A lethargy andlaziness, mulish, and kicking at anything that disturbed it, thatactually fought against betterment because betterment meant exercise ofintellect and action.
She felt angry with them, just as a grown person feels angry with lazychildren, and putting the belt with the knife round her waist andpicking up some of her treasures she ordered the others to follow withthe rest.
When they had been placed in the cave with the provisions, Bompard,after his great labours, cut himself some tobacco and La Touche lit hispipe. Then they sat down at their cave opening to smoke and restthemselve
s whilst the girl, who could not keep still, went back to theboat to explore the other lockers and see if by chance anything else ofa useful nature might be found. The two men seated smoking at the cavemouth watched her as she went. She felt their eyes upon her and guessedthat they were discussing her, but she did not mind.
The ceaseless activity of old Madame de Warens seemed to have descendedon her through the air of Kerguelen. The will that Prince Selm haddivined in her had been aroused; the surroundings seemed to call her toaction from every side; the past and the future seemed phantoms beforethe tremendous and insistent present. Fate could perhaps have broken herspirit only in one way, by casting her upon the sordid. If she had beensocially shipwrecked and thrown onto a Paris slum she might have goneunder. Here where everything was clean, where the air was life, wherenothing was sordid, she swam; here she was miraculously filled with anew energy and an extraordinary new interest as though she were peepingat things for the very first time.
The forward locker was now empty, she hunted in the others anddiscovered two more Maconochie tins that Bompard had overlooked, somecotton waste, a roll of thick copper wire and a bradawl.
She collected the lot and brought them up to the cave before which hercompanions were seated.
She handed them to La Touche, who, without getting up, leaned back andpushed them as far into the cave as he could reach, then he resumed hispipe whilst Cleo standing and shading her eyes looked away up and downthe beach as though measuring its possibilities.
"I found a lot of things down there this morning before the tide washigh," said she. "There were star-fish, big ones like what I have seenon the beach at Bordighera; the Italian people eat them. I'm sure theremust be lots of food to be found here on the beach. Then there is a bigbreak in the cliffs lower down that seems to lead inland. I think thebest thing we can do is to start now and hunt about and see what we canfind. You two can go inland, and I will go along the beach. It'sabsolutely necessary to find any sort of food, and wood to make a fire."
The smokers were disposed to argue.
Yes, it was quite true, one must look round, but there was grub enoughfor a month and there was plenty of time before them. Then La Touchebegan to argue about star-fish. He had never heard of people eatingstar-fish. If they were to be condemned to eat stuff like that it wouldbe better to quit. One might have fancied from his tone that it wasCleo's fault that such a suggestion should be made.
Cleo listened patiently and Bompard sat evidently approving. It wasalmost as though the two were in league against her, just as childrenget in league against an adult who insists on unpleasant duties oruncongenial food.
But a will was at work stronger than theirs and presently, tapping outtheir pipes, they rose up. La Touche, at her direction, placed the newfound Maconochie tins, the cotton waste, the bradawl and wire with therest of the stores, far back in the cave, and then, following her, theylumbered along down the beach in the direction of the cliff break liketwo schoolboys after a governess.
The cliff break was a narrow gully piercing the basalt and bending uponitself; here they parted, the men striking up the gulley and the girlcontinuing her way along the beach.
"And be sure to look out for some wood," she cried after them, "any sortof wood."
"Ay, ay," said Bompard, "we'll be on the look out right enough."
Then they vanished and she pursued her way alone, picking up things asshe went, turning over shells and thinking of her companions.
The wind had fanned up again to a strong breeze but the sound of thesurf had fallen with the receding tide and the stretch of wet sandbelow high tide mark was strewn with huge kelp ribbons, masses ofseaweed, shells, all empty, cuttle fish bones and the star-fishdespised of La Touche.
Then she came upon something that gave her a grue, it seemed at firstlike a white rock, it was a skull. The skull of some enormous creaturehalf-bedded in the sand just above the tide mark, possibly cast up insome storm. She thought it might be the skull of a whale and as shestood looking at it, suddenly, the desolation around came in upon herwith the fact that she was absolutely alone.
Suppose the men lost their way--suppose that they never came back? Thethought clutched her heart like a hand. To be here, alone, absolutelyalone, forever!
For a moment panic seized her and the wild impulse came upon her to turnand run back to the cave. Then she mastered herself, fighting down thesurging in her throat, and continuing her way steadily and with renewedstrength. She had not cast the thought away, she had mastered it and asshe went she contemplated it as a victor contemplates the dead body ofan assailant.
Then she saw the penguins, she had not noticed them before, they weredrawn up in long lines at the base of the cliff and the sight of themdestroyed the desolation just as the skull had crystallized it aroundher.
A great pow-wow was going on amongst the penguins. Three birds,separate from the others, were standing, two facing one another bowingand discussing something, the third standing by, putting in a word nowand then and now and then coming right between the disputants.
She watched them for awhile and then went on. She had no time to waste.The thought of coming back empty handed after all her talk to the menpursued her. She was looking for food and had found none--nothing butthe star-fish.
The gulls evidently found plenty of food. But for a human being thereseemed nothing, and as she went on and on the thought of what wouldhappen when those tins in the cave were empty came at her just as theterror of finding herself alone had come, and this thought was not to becombated by an effort of will simply because it was born of Reason.
Her clear and practical mind saw starvation, over-leaped the slenderfood barrier that held hunger only a month away from them and wanderedin a wilderness where nothing was.
She had reached the rock surface now that stretched away level andsmooth, broken by cracks and pot holes and strewn here and there withweed. The cliffs had fallen away, giving a view of the broken countryand the mountains with their snow-covered tops, immense, wrapped indistance under the dull grey day, remote, yet clearly defined in thatair, crystal clear as the air of Iceland.
It was like looking at Silence herself, silence set off and explainedby the beach noises, the sound of the surf, the calling of the terns,the mewing of the great white gulls.
She saw Kerguelen as it is, as it was, as it ever will be. Standingthere alone she saw it for the first time in all its utter nakedness. Ifno food were to be found on the busy beach, what food could be found inthat carved, silent, cruel land where not a single tree shewed in allthe miles of desolation?
A stealthy scraping sound behind her made her wheel round.
Up from a rock pond which she had passed without examining had risen acrab, its body was not bigger than the two fists of a man put together,yet it moved standing high up like a spider on slender stilts that ifstretched out would have measured four feet or more. She watched it withdilated eyes as it scrambled and hurried along, vanishing at last like aspectre in some cleft of the rock. There was something of a skeletonabout it as well as something of a spider, it was like a caricature offood drawn by Famine. It made the whole beach hideous for a moment andit made the food hunter almost afraid to go on. She crushed the fear andwent on, reaching a place where the rocks ceased and a broad level ofsand stretched to where the rocks began again and further on the riverran down.
Where the sand met the further rocks a huge conical stone stood with agull roosting on its top, and just as a person fixes on some object asthe limit of his walk she determined to go as far as this stone and thenturn back.
As she drew close to it the gull flapped its wings and flew away and shesaw that the thing was not a stone but the figure-head of a ship, theform of a woman with ample breasts, broken and scarred by years ofweather and stained with the droppings of gulls. The arms were gone, butthe great face remained almost in its entirety staring away across thesands and the sea.
It had once worn a crown, but the crown was broken away all but a lit
tlebit on the left side of the head and it had an appearance of life thatalmost daunted the girl as she stood looking, watching it, and listeningto the singing sound of the beach echoes and the mewing and crying ofthe gulls.
Then as she moved closer her foot struck on something half buried in thesand, it was a balk of timber, ships timber was all about, sanded over,and in places half uncovered. Here was firewood enough for twenty years.In the figure-head alone there was enough to supply their wants for along time to come.
She sat down to rest on a projecting piece of this timber near thefigure. Close up to it like this it lost its touch of life and becamesimply a block of wood, and from this point she could see the beach overwhich she had travelled stretching away and away to the Lizard Pointwith the foam breaking around it and flown about by the never-restinggulls.
She had come nearly three miles and she had found something worthfinding by just keeping on.
She remembered the spectre crab. It had nearly turned her backempty-handed, but she had kept on and she registered that fact deeply inher mind, dwelling on it with a pleasure she had never felt before.
Then she fell to thinking of the ship that all this belonged to and thestorm that must have driven it here. The weeds of the high tide mark didnot come within ten feet of the wreckage, so the waves must have come ahundred feet or more beyond where she was sitting. Perhaps it was atnight with all this coast roaring in the darkness and the wind yellingabove the shouting of the waves. And all that must have happened yearsago, to judge by the work of the weather on the once gaily painted womanand the depth the timbers had sunk in the sand.
She rose up, and before starting back she glanced inland towards themountains across the broken country.
Then she shaded her eyes.
Beyond the fringe of the beach and amongst the high broken rocks stood across.