The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

  The night wore on, the charges became wilder and wider, the threats more bloody. The two young men were like prancing savages working themselves into a frenzy of blood-lust. Mr. Pinfold awaited their attack and prepared for it. He made an operational plan. They would come through the door singly. The cabin was not spacious but there was room to swing a stick. He turned out the light and stood by the door. The young men coming suddenly into the dark from the lighted corridor would not know where to lay hands on him. He would fell the first with his blackthorn, then change this weapon for the malacca cane. The second young man no doubt would stumble over his fallen friend. Mr. Pinfold would then turn on the light and carefully thrash him. They were far too drunk to be really dangerous. Mr. Pinfold was quite confident of the outcome. He awaited them calmly.

  The incantations were rising to a climax.

  “Now’s the time. Ready, Fosker?”

  “Ready.”

  “In we go then. You first, Fosker.”

  Mr. Pinfold stood ready. He was glad that Fosker should be the man to be painlessly stunned; the instigator, the man to receive full punishment. There was justice in that order.

  Then came anticlimax. “I can’t get in,” said Fosker. “The bastard has locked the door.”

  Mr. Pinfold had not locked the door. Moreover Fosker had not tried it. There had been no movement of the handle. Fosker was afraid.

  “Go on. What are you waiting for?”

  “I tell you he’s locked us out.”

  “That’s torn it.”

  Crestfallen, the two returned to the deck.

  “We’ve got to get him. We must get him tonight,” said the one who was not Fosker, but the fire had gone out of him and he added: “I feel awfully sick suddenly.”

  “Better put it off for tonight.”

  “I feel frightful. Oh!”

  There followed the ghastly sounds of vomiting and then a whimper; the same abject sound that seemed to re-echo through the Caliban, the sob of the injured seaman, of the murdered steward.

  His mother was there now to comfort him.

  “I haven’t been to bed, dear. I couldn’t leave you like that. I’ve been waiting and praying for you. You’re ready to come now, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Mother. I’m ready.”

  “I love you so. All loving is suffering.”

  Silence fell. Mr. Pinfold put his weapons away and drew back the shutter. It was dawn. He lay on his bed wide awake, his rage quite abated, calmly considering the events of the night.

  There had been no funeral. So much seemed certain. Indeed the whole incident of Captain Steerforth and Goneril and the murdered steward had become insubstantial under the impact of the new assault. Mr. Pinfold’s orderly, questing mind began to sift the huge volume of charges which had been made against him. Some—that he was Jewish and homosexual, that he had stolen a moonstone and left his mother to die a pauper—were totally preposterous. Others were inconsistent. If, for example, he were a newly arrived immigrant, he could not have been a rowdy undergraduate at Oxford; if he were so anxious to establish himself as a countryman, he would not have slighted his neighbors. The young men in their drunken rage had clearly roared out any abuse that came to mind, but there emerged from the chaotic uproar the basic facts that he was generally disliked on board the Caliban, that two at least of his fellow passengers were possessed by fanatical hate, and that they had some sort of indirect personal acquaintance with him. How else could they have heard, even in its wildly garbled form, of his wife’s transactions with Hill (who was well and prosperous when Mr. Pinfold last heard of him)? They came from his part of the country. It was not unlikely that Hill, while boasting of his astuteness among his cronies, had told a story of oppression elsewhere. If that was the sort of thing that was being said in the district, Mr. Pinfold should correct it. Mr. Pinfold had to consider also his comfort during the coming voyage. He required peace of mind in which to work. These dreadful young men were likely, whenever they got drunk, to come caterwauling outside his cabin. On a later occasion, moreover, they might attempt physical assault, might even succeed in it. The result could only be humiliating; it might be painful. The world teemed with journalists. He imagined his wife reading in her morning paper a cable from Aden or Port Soudan describing the fracas. Something must be done. He could lay the matter before the Captain, the natural guardian of law in his ship, but with this thought there emerged again from oblivion the matter of the Captain’s own culpability. Mr. Pinfold was going to have the Captain arrested for murder at the earliest opportunity. Nothing would suit that black heart better than to have the only witness against him involved in a brawl—or silenced in one. A new suspicion took shape. Mr. Pinfold had been indiscreet at dinner in revealing his private knowledge. Was it not probable that Captain Steerforth had instigated the whole attack? Where had the young men been drinking after the bar was shut, if not in the Captain’s cabin?

  Mr. Pinfold began to shave. This prosaic operation recalled him to strict reason. The Captain’s guilt was not proven. First things first. He must deal with the young men. He studied the passenger list. There was no Fosker on it. Mr. Pinfold himself, when crossing the Atlantic, avoided interviewers by remaining incognito. It seemed unlikely that Fosker would have the same motive. Perhaps the police were after him. The other man was ostensibly respectable; four of a name should be easy to find. But there seemed to be no family of father, mother, son and daughter in that list. Mr. Pinfold lathered his face for the second shave. He was puzzled. It was unlikely that so large a party would join the ship at the last moment, after the list had been printed. They did not sound the kind of people given to impetuous dashes abroad—and anyway, such people travelled by air nowadays. And there was that other general travelling with them. Mr. Pinfold gazed at his puzzled, soapy face. Then he saw light. Step-father, that was it. He and the mother would bear one name, the children another. Mr. Pinfold would keep his eyes and ears open. It should not be difficult to identify them.

  Mr. Pinfold dressed carefully. He chose a Brigade tie to wear that morning and a cap that matched his tweed suit. He went on deck, where seamen were at work swabbing. They had already cleaned up all traces of the night’s disgusting climax. He ascended to the main, promenade deck. It was a morning such as at any other time would have elated him. Even now, with so much to harass him, he was conscious of exhilaration. He stood alone breathing deeply, making light of his annoyances.

  Margaret, somewhere quite near, said: “Look, he’s left his cabin. Doesn’t he look smart today? Now’s our chance to give him our presents. It’s much better than giving them to his steward as we meant to. Now we can arrange them ourselves.”

  “D’you think he’ll like them?” said the other girl.

  “He ought to. We’ve taken enough trouble. They’re the best we could possibly get.”

  “But Meg, he’s so grand.”

  “It’s because he’s grand he’ll like them. Grand people are always pleased with little things. He must have his presents this morning. After the silly way the boys behaved last night it will show him we weren’t in it. At least not in it in the way they were. He’ll see that as far as we’re concerned it was all fun and love.”

  “Suppose he comes in and finds us?”

  “You keep cave. If he starts going down sing.”

  “ ‘When first I saw Mabel?’ ”

  “Of course. Our song.”

  Mr. Pinfold was tempted to trap Margaret. He relished the simple male pleasure, rather rare to him in recent years, of being found attractive, and was curious to see this honey-tongued girl. But she inevitably would lead him to the brother and to Fosker, and he was constrained by honor. These presents, whatever they were, constituted a flag of truce. He could not snatch advantage from the girls’ generosity.

  Presently Margaret rejoined her friend.

  “He hasn’t moved.”

  “No, he’s just stood there all the time. What do you suppose he’s thinking about?”
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  “Those beastly boys, I expect.”

  “Do you think he’s very upset?”

  “He’s so brave.”

  “Often brave people are the most sensitive.”

  “Well it will be all right when he gets back to his cabin and finds our presents.”

  *

  Mr. Pinfold walked the decks for an hour. No passengers were about.

  As the gong sounded for breakfast, Mr. Pinfold went below. He stopped first at his cabin to see what Margaret had left for him. All he found was the cup of tea, cold now, which the steward had put there. The bed was made. The place was squared up and shipshape. There were no presents.

  As he left, he met the cabin-steward.

  “I say, did a young lady leave anything for me in my cabin?”

  “Yes, sir, breakfast now, sir.”

  “No. Listen. I think something was left for me here about an hour ago.”

  “Yes, sir, gong for breakfast just now.”

  “Oh,” said Margaret, “he hasn’t found it.”

  “He must look.”

  “Look for it, Gilbert, look.”

  He searched the little wardrobe. He peered under the bunk. He opened the cupboard over the wash-hand-basin. There was nothing there.

  “There’s nothing there,” said Margaret. “He can’t find it. He can’t find anything,” she said on a soft note of despair. “The sweet brave idiot, he can’t find anything.”

  So he went down alone to breakfast.

  He was the first of the passengers to appear. Mr. Pinfold was hungry. He ordered coffee and fish and eggs and fruit. He was about to eat when, ping; the little, rose-shaded electric lamp which stood on the table before him came into action as a transmitter. The delinquent youths were awake and up on the air again, their vitality unimpaired by the excesses of the night.

  “Halloo-loo-loo-loo-loo. Hark-ark-ark-ark-ark,” they hallooed. “Loo in there. Fetch him out. Yoicks.”

  “I fear Fosker is not entirely conversant with sporting parlance,” said the general.

  “Hark-ark-ark-ark. Come out, Peinfeld. We know where you are. We’ve got you.” A whip-crack. “Ow,” from Fosker, “look out what you’re doing with that hunting crop.”

  “Run, Peinfeld, run. We can see you. We’re coming for you.”

  The steward at that moment was at Mr. Pinfold’s side serving him with haddock. He seemed unconscious of the cries emanating from the lamp; to him presumably they were all one with the unreasonable variety of knives and forks and the superfluity of inedible foods; all part of the complexity of this remote and rather disgusting Western way of life.

  Mr. Pinfold ate stolidly. The young men resumed the diatribe repeating again in clear, morning voices the garbled accusations of the night before. Interspersed with them was the challenge: “Come and meet us, Gilbert. You’re afraid, Peinfeld. We want to talk to you, Peinfeld. You’re hiding, aren’t you? You’re afraid to come and talk.”

  Margaret spoke: “Oh, Gilbert, what are they doing to you? Where are you? You mustn’t let them find you. Come to me. I’ll hide you. You never found your presents and now they are after you again. Let me look after you, Gilbert. It’s me, Mimi. Don’t you trust me?”

  Mr. Pinfold turned to his scrambled eggs. He had forgotten, when he ordered them, that they would not be fresh. Now he beckoned to the steward to remove them.

  “Off your feed, Gilbert? You’re in a funk, aren’t you? Can’t eat when you’re in a funk, can you? Poor Gilbert, too scared to eat.” They began to give instructions for a place of meeting. “… D Deck, turn right. Got that? You’ll see some lockers. The next bulk-head. We’re waiting for you. Better come now and get it over. You’ve got to meet us some time, you know. We’ve got you, Gilbert. We’ve got you. There’s no escape. Better get it over…”

  Mr. Pinfold’s patience was exhausted. He must put a stop to this nonsense. Recalling some vague memories of signal procedure in the army, he drew the lamp towards him and spoke into it curtly: “Pinfold to Hooligans. Rendezvous Main Lounge 0930 hours. Out.”

  The lamp was not designed to be moved. His pull disconnected it in some way. The bulb went out and the voices abruptly ceased. At the same moment Glover came in to breakfast. “Hullo, something gone wrong with the light?”

  “I tried to move it. I hope you slept better last night?”

  “Like a log. No more disturbances, I hope?”

  Mr. Pinfold considered whether or not to confide in Glover and decided immediately, no.

  “No,” he said, and ordered some cold ham.

  The dining-saloon filled. Mr. Pinfold exchanged greetings. He went on deck, keeping alert, hoping to spot his persecutors, thinking it possible that Margaret would make herself known to him. But he saw no hooligans; half a dozen healthy girls passed him, some in trousers and duffle coats, some in tweed skirts and sweaters; one might be Margaret but none gave him a sign. At half past nine he took an armchair in a corner of the lounge and waited. He had his blackthorn with him; it was just conceivable that the youths were so frenzied that they might attempt violence even here, in the daylight.

  He began to rehearse the coming interview. He was the judge. He had summoned these men to appear before him. Something like a regimental orderly room, he thought, would be the proper atmosphere. He was the commanding officer hearing a charge of brawling. His powers of punishment were meager. He would admonish them severely, and threaten them with civil penalties.

  He would remind them that they were subject to British law in the Caliban just as much as on land; that defamation of character and physical assault were grave crimes which would prejudice their whole future careers. He would “throw the whole book” at them. He would explain icily that he was entirely indifferent to their good or bad opinion; that he regarded their friendship and their enmity as equally impertinent. But he would also hear what they had to say for themselves. A good officer knows the enormous ills that can arise from men brooding on imaginary grudges. These defaulters were clearly suffering from a number of delusions about himself. It was better that they should get it off their chests, hear the truth, and then shut up for the rest of the voyage. Moreover if, as seemed certain, these delusions derived from rumors which were in circulation among Mr. Pinfold’s neighbors, he must plainly investigate and scotch them.

  He had the lounge to himself. The rest of the passengers were ranged along the deck in their chairs and rugs. The unvarying hum of marine mechanical-life was the only sound. The clock over the little bandstand read a quarter to ten. Mr. Pinfold decided to give them till ten; then he would go to the wireless office and inform his wife of his recovery. It was beneath his dignity to attend on these dreadful young men.

  Some similar point of pride seemed to influence them. Above the hum he presently heard them discussing him. The voices came from the paneling near his head. First in his cabin, then in the dining-saloon, now here, the surviving strands of wartime intercommunication were fitfully active. The whole wiring of the ship was in need of a thorough overhaul, Mr. Pinfold thought; for all he knew there might be a danger of fire.

  “We’ll talk to Peinfeld when it suits us and not a moment before.”

  “Who’ll do the talking?”

  “I will, of course.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to say?”

  “Of course.”

  “Not really much point in my coming at all, is there?”

  “I may need you as a witness.”

  “All right, come on then. Let’s see him now.”

  “When it suits me, Fosker, not before.”

  “What are we waiting for?”

  “To let him get into a thorough funk. Remember at school one was always kept waiting for a beating? Just to make it taste sweeter? Well, Peinfeld can wait for his beating.”

  “He’s scared stiff.”

  “He’s practically blubbing now.”

  At ten o’clock Mr. Pinfold took out his watch, verified the time shown on the clock, and rose
from the corner. “He’s going away,” “He’s running away,” “Funk” came faintly from the fumed oak paneling. Mr. Pinfold climbed to the wireless office on the boat-deck, composed a message and handed it in: Pinfold. Lychpole. Entirely cured. All love. Gilbert.

  “Is that address enough?” asked the clerk.

  “Yes. There’s only one telegraph office called Lychpole in the country.”

  He walked the decks, thought his blackthorn superfluous and returned to his cabin where the B.B.C. was loudly in possession. “… in the studio Jimmy Lance, who is well known to all listeners, and Miss June Cumberleigh, who is new to listeners. Jimmy is going to let us see what is probably a unique collection. He has kept every letter he ever received. That’s so, isn’t it, Jimmy?”

  “Well, not letters from the Income Tax Collector.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  A great burst of unrestrained laughter from the unseen audience.

  “No, none of us like to be reminded of that kind of letter, Jimmy, do we? Ha ha. But I think in your time you have had letters from a great many celebrities?”

  “And from some pretty dim people, too.”

  “Ha. Ha.”

  “Ha. Ha. Ha.”

  “Well, June is going to take letters at random out of your file and read them. Ready, June? Right. The first letter is from—”

  Mr. Pinfold knew June Cumberleigh and liked her. She was a wholly respectable, clever, funny-faced girl who had got drawn into Bohemia through her friendship with James Lance. It was not her natural voice that she now used. Through some mechanical distortion she spoke in almost identical tones to Goneril’s.

  “Gilbert Pinfold,” she said.

  “And do you count him among the celebrities or the dim people, Jimmy?”

  “A celebrity.”

  “Do you?” said June. “I think he’s a dreadfully dim little man.”

  “Well, what’s the dim little man got to say?”

  “It is so badly written I can’t read it.”