“What would you have me to do, Mr. Burns? We can neither furl it nor set it. I only wish the old thing would thrash itself to pieces and be done with it. That beastly racket confuses me.”
Mr. Burns wrung his hands, and cried out suddenly:
“How will you get the ship into harbour, sir, without men to handle her?”
And I couldn’t tell him.
Well—it did get done about forty hours afterward. By the exorcising virtue of Mr. Burns’s awful laugh, the malicious spectre had been laid, the evil spell broken, the curse removed. We were now in the hands of a kind and energetic Providence. It was rushing us on. . . .
I shall never forget the last night, dark, windy, and starry. I steered. Mr. Burns, after having obtained from me a solemn promise to give him a kick if anything happened, went frankly to sleep on the deck close to the binnacle. Convalescents need sleep. Ransome, his back propped against the mizzen-mast and a blanket over his legs, remained perfectly still, but I don’t suppose he closed his eyes for a moment. That embodiment of jauntiness, Frenchy, still under the delusion that there was a “jump” left in him, had insisted on joining us; but mindful of discipline, had laid himself down as far on the forepart of the poop as he could get, alongside the bucket-rack.
And I steered, too tired for anxiety, too tired for connected thought. I had moments of grim exultation and then my heart would sink awfully at the thought of that forecastle at the other end of the dark deck, full of fever-stricken men—some of them dying. By my fault. But never mind. Remorse must wait. I had to steer.
In the small hours the breeze weakened, then failed altogether. About five it returned, gentle enough, enabling us to head for the roadstead. Daybreak found Mr. Burns sitting wedged up with coils of rope on the stern-grating, and from the depths of his overcoat steering the ship with very white bony hands; while Ransome and I rushed along the decks letting go all the sheets and halyards by the run. We dashed next up on to the forecastle head. The perspiration of labour and sheer nervousness simply poured off our heads as we toiled to get the anchors cock-billed. I dared not look at Ransome as we worked side by side. We exchanged curt words; I could hear him panting close to me and I avoided turning my eyes his way for fear of seeing him fall down and expire in the act of putting forth his strength—for what? Indeed for some distinct ideal.
The consummate seaman in him was aroused. He needed no directions. He knew what to do. Every effort, every movement was an act of consistent heroism. It was not for me to look at a man thus inspired.
At last all was ready and I heard him say:
“Hadn’t I better go down and open the compressors now, sir?”
“Yes. Do,” I said.
And even then I did not glance his way. After a time his voice came up from the main deck.
“When you like, sir. All clear on the windlass here.”
I made a sign to Mr. Burns to put the helm down and let both anchors go one after another, leaving the ship to take as much cable as she wanted. She took the best part of them both before she brought up. The loose sails coming aback ceased their maddening racket above my head. A perfect stillness reigned in the ship. And while I stood forward feeling a little giddy in that sudden peace, I caught faintly a moan or two and the incoherent mutterings of the sick in the forecastle.
As we had a signal for medical assistance flying on the mizzen it is a fact that before the ship was fairly at rest three steam launches from various men-of-war were alongside; and at least five naval surgeons had clambered on board. They stood in a knot gazing up and down the empty main deck, then looked aloft—where not a man could be seen, either.
I went toward them—a solitary figure, in a blue and gray striped sleeping suit and a pipe-clayed cork helmet on its head. Their disgust was extreme. They had expected surgical cases. Each one had brought his carving tools with him. But they soon got over their little disappointment. In less than five minutes one of the steam launches was rushing shoreward to order a big boat and some hospital people for the removal of the crew. The big steam pinnace went off to her ship to bring over a few bluejackets to furl my sails for me.
One of the surgeons had remained on board. He came out of the forecastle looking impenetrable, and noticed my inquiring gaze.
“There’s nobody dead in there, if that’s what you want to know,” he said deliberately. Then added in a tone of wonder: “The whole crew!”
“And very bad?”
“And very bad,” he repeated. His eyes were roaming all over the ship. “Heavens! What’s that?”
“That,” I said, glancing aft, “is Mr. Burns, my chief officer.”
Mr. Burns with his moribund head nodding on the stalk of his lean neck was a sight for anyone to exclaim at. The surgeon asked:
“Is he going to the hospital, too?”
“Oh, no,” I said jocosely. “Mr. Burns can’t go on shore till the mainmast goes. I am very proud of him. He’s my only convalescent.”
“You look—” began the doctor staring at me. But I interrupted him angrily:
“I am not ill.”
“No. . . . You look queer.”
“Well, you see, I have been seventeen days on deck.”
“Seventeen! . . . But you must have slept.”
“I suppose I must have. I don’t know. But I’m certain that I didn’t sleep for the last forty hours.”
“Phew! . . . You will be going ashore presently I suppose?”
“As soon as ever I can. There’s no end of business waiting for me there.”
The surgeon released my hand, which he had taken while we talked, pulled out his pocket-book, wrote in it rapidly, tore out the page and offered it to me.
“I strongly advise you to get this prescription made up for yourself ashore. Unless I am much mistaken you will need it this evening.”
“What is it, then?” I asked with suspicion.
“Sleeping draught,” answered the surgeon curtly; and moving with an air of interest toward Mr. Burns he engaged him in conversation.
As I went below to dress to go ashore, Ransome followed me. He begged my pardon; he wished, too, to be sent ashore and paid off.
I looked at him in surprise. He was waiting for my answer with an air of anxiety.
“You don’t mean to leave the ship!” I cried out.
“I do really, sir. I want to go and be quiet somewhere. Anywhere. The hospital will do.”
“But, Ransome,” I said. “I hate the idea of parting with you.”
“I must go,” he broke in. “I have a right!” . . . He gasped and a look of almost savage determination passed over his face. For an instant he was another being. And I saw under the worth and the comeliness of the man the humble reality of things. Life was a boon to him—this precarious hard life, and he was thoroughly alarmed about himself.
“Of course I shall pay you off if you wish it,” I hastened to say. “Only I must ask you to remain on board till this afternoon. I can’t leave Mr. Burns absolutely by himself in the ship for hours.”
He softened at once and assured me with a smile and in his natural pleasant voice that he understood that very well.
When I returned on deck everything was ready for the removal of the men. It was the last ordeal of that episode which had been maturing and tempering my character—though I did not know it.
It was awful. They passed under my eyes one after another—each of them an embodied reproach of the bitterest kind, till I felt a sort of revolt wake up in me. Poor Frenchy had gone suddenly under. He was carried past me insensible, his comic face horribly flushed and as if swollen, breathing stertorously. He looked more like Mr. Punch than ever; a disgracefully intoxicated Mr. Punch.
The austere Gambril, on the contrary, had improved temporarily. He insisted on walking on his own feet to the rail—of course with assistance on each side of him. But he ga
ve way to a sudden panic at the moment of being swung over the side and began to wail pitifully:
“Don’t let them drop me, sir. Don’t let them drop me, sir!” While I kept on shouting to him in most soothing accents: “All right, Gambril. They won’t! They won’t!”
It was no doubt very ridiculous. The bluejackets on our deck were grinning quietly, while even Ransome himself (much to the fore in lending a hand) had to enlarge his wistful smile for a fleeting moment.
I left for the shore in the steam pinnace, and on looking back beheld Mr. Burns actually standing up by the taffrail, still in his enormous woolly overcoat. The bright sunlight brought out his weirdness amazingly. He looked like a frightful and elaborate scarecrow set up on the poop of a death-stricken ship, set up to keep the seabirds from the corpses.
Our story had got about already in town and everybody on shore was most kind. The Marine Office let me off the port dues, and as there happened to be a shipwrecked crew staying in the home I had no difficulty in obtaining as many men as I wanted. But when I inquired if I could see Captain Ellis for a moment I was told in accents of pity for my ignorance that our deputy-Neptune had retired and gone home on a pension about three weeks after I left the port. So I suppose that my appointment was the last act, outside the daily routine, of his official life.
It is strange how on coming ashore I was struck by the springy step, the lively eyes, the strong vitality of every one I met. It impressed me enormously. And amongst those I met there was Captain Giles, of course. It would have been very extraordinary if I had not met him. A prolonged stroll in the business part of the town was the regular employment of all his mornings when he was ashore.
I caught the glitter of the gold watch chain across his chest ever so far away. He radiated benevolence.
“What is it I hear?” he queried with a “kind uncle” smile, after shaking hands. “Twenty-one days from Bangkok?”
“Is this all you’ve heard?” I said. “You must come to tiffin with me. I want you to know exactly what you have let me in for.”
He hesitated for almost a minute.
“Well—I will,” he said condescendingly at last.
We turned into the hotel. I found to my surprise that I could eat quite a lot. Then over the cleared tablecloth I unfolded to Captain Giles the history of these twenty days in all its professional and emotional aspects, while he smoked patiently the big cigar I had given him.
Then he observed sagely:
“You must feel jolly well tired by this time.”
“No,” I said. “Not tired. But I’ll tell you, Captain Giles, how I feel. I feel old. And I must be. All of you on shore look to me just a lot of skittish youngsters that have never known a care in the world.”
He didn’t smile. He looked insufferably exemplary. He declared:
“That will pass. But you do look older—it’s a fact.”
“Aha!” I said.
“No! No! The truth is that one must not make too much of anything in life, good or bad.”
“Live at half-speed,” I murmured perversely. “Not everybody can do that.”
“You’ll be glad enough presently if you can keep going even at that rate,” he retorted with his air of conscious virtue. “And there’s another thing: a man should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes, to his conscience and all that sort of thing. Why—what else would you have to fight against.”
I kept silent. I don’t know what he saw in my face but he asked abruptly:
“Why—you aren’t faint-hearted?”
“God only knows, Captain Giles,” was my sincere answer.
“That’s all right,” he said calmly. “You will learn soon how not to be faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything—and that’s what so many of them youngsters don’t understand.”
“Well, I am no longer a youngster.”
“No,” he conceded. “Are you leaving soon?”
“I am going on board directly,” I said. “I shall pick up one of my anchors and heave in to half-cable on the other directly my new crew comes on board and I shall be off at daylight tomorrow!”
“You will,” grunted Captain Giles approvingly, “that’s the way. You’ll do.”
“What did you think? That I would want to take a week ashore for a rest?” I said, irritated by his tone. “There’s no rest for me till she’s out in the Indian Ocean and not much of it even then.”
He puffed at his cigar moodily, as if transformed.
“Yes. That’s what it amounts to,” he said in a musing tone. It was as if a ponderous curtain had rolled up disclosing an unexpected Captain Giles. But it was only for a moment, just the time to let him add, “Precious little rest in life for anybody. Better not think of it.”
We rose, left the hotel, and parted from each other in the street with a warm handshake, just as he began to interest me for the first time in our intercourse.
The first thing I saw when I got back to the ship was Ransome on the quarterdeck sitting quietly on his neatly lashed sea-chest.
I beckoned him to follow me into the saloon where I sat down to write a letter of recommendation for him to a man I knew on shore.
When finished I pushed it across the table. “It may be of some good to you when you leave the hospital.”
He took it, put it in his pocket. His eyes were looking away from me—nowhere. His face was anxiously set.
“How are you feeling now?” I asked.
“I don’t feel bad now, sir,” he answered stiffly. “But I am afraid of its coming on. . . .” The wistful smile came back on his lips for a moment. “I—I am in a blue funk about my heart, sir.”
I approached him with extended hand. His eyes not looking at me had a strained expression. He was like a man listening for a warning call.
“Won’t you shake hands, Ransome?” I said gently.
He exclaimed, flushed up dusky red, gave my hand a hard wrench—and next moment, left alone in the cabin, I listened to him going up the companion stairs cautiously, step by step, in mortal fear of starting into sudden anger our common enemy it was his hard fate to carry consciously within his faithful breast.
About the Author
Polish author Joseph Conrad is considered to be one of the greatest English-language novelists, a remarkable achievement considering English was not his first language. Conrad’s literary works often featured a nautical setting, reflecting the influences of his early career in the Merchant Navy, and his depictions of the struggles of the human spirit in a cold, indifferent world are best exemplified in such seminal works as Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, Nostromo, and Typhoon. Regarded as a forerunner of modernist literature, Conrad’s writing style and characters have influenced such distinguished writers as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William S. Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, and George Orwell, among many others. Many of Conrad’s novels have been adapted for film, most notably Heart of Darkness, which served as the inspiration and foundation for Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalpyse Now.
About the Series
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Copyright
HarperPerennial Classics
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EPub Edition March 2015 ISBN: 9781443445825
This title is in Canada’s public domain and is not subject to any licence or copyright.
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Joseph Conrad, The Shadow-Line
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