“Wheeler! You are a ghost. You were drowned, I said!”
Wheeler turned from the canvas basin into which he had poured a can of cold water. His gaze reached my neck but came no further.
“Yes, sir. But only after three days, sir. I believe it was three days. But you are right, of course, sir. Then I drowned.”
My hair prickled. His eyes rose now to meet mine. They never blinked.
“I drowned, sir. I did—and the life in me so strong!”
Really, it was disconcerting and disturbing to be talked at so. Besides, the man needed calming.
“Well, Wheeler, you are a lucky dog. You was picked up and there’s an end to it. Tell Bates I shall no longer require his services.”
Wheeler paused. He opened his mouth and for a moment I thought he had some more to say, but he closed it again, bowed slightly and withdrew. I stripped to my shirtsleeves and washed as much blood as possible from my face and hands. When I had done I collapsed in my canvas chair, exhausted. It was becoming evident that I must pass this strange time in a wounded state where all was like a dream. I tried to realize what the news meant and could not. The war—except for the brief and deceitful peace of the year ’08—had been the only state I knew. Now the war was gone, the state changed and I could not fill emptiness with anything which had meaning. I tried to think of a Louis XVIII on the throne of France and could not. I tried to think of all the glories of the ancient regime—now surely to be called the modern regime!—and found that I could not believe they would ever come again; common sense, a political awareness would not suffer it! The state of the world was too changed by catastrophes—the state of France, the ruin of her great families, a generation exposed first to the seduction of an impossible liberty and equality, then to the hardships imposed by tyranny, poverty and the draining of her conscripted blood—it would be a sad world which our people were greeting so noisily, that was my unwilling thought. But my head still rang with noises of its own; and though no man could think of sleep at such a moment I did not know if my strength was sufficient for the ordeal of our rejoicing! I tried once more to realize the fact—a turning point in history, one of the world’s great occasions, we stood on a watershed and so on—but it was no use. My head became the arena of confused images and thoughts. A full shot garland such as the one I had crouched by on the gundeck seemed emblem of all the millions of tons of old iron lying about in corners of the civilized world—now never to be used, rusting cannon which would do for rubbing posts, muskets and musket balls sold as curios, swords, my famous cutlass—there seemed in my head no end to iron and lead. Then the ships newly built but now never to be launched!
I must own to a most eccentric feeling in the circumstances. It was one of fear. For a moment the reality of the situation did at last penetrate to my confused awareness. The fear was not a gross, common fright such as had rooted my feet to the deck when I heard as I thought my first shot fired in anger, but wider, almost a universal fright at the prospect of peace! The peoples of Europe and our own country were now set free from the simple and understandable duty of fighting for their king and country. It was an extension of that liberty which had already turned ordered societies into pictures of chaos. I told myself that one of the “political branch” should welcome this since affairs were now no longer put to the mortal arbitrament of swords. It was the politician’s turn, our turn, my turn! But the moment of realization had passed and my head was all confusion again. The fact is that, for a while, I believe I wept.
But I could hear our ladies laughing and chattering as they passed by my door and issued into the waist. I even heard Miss Granham exclaim in a high voice: “And the skirt quite, quite beyond cleaning or repair!” It was time I emerged. I went into the waist, which was now full of light and people busy rather than hysterical with rejoicing. Our two ships were now fastened together by cables and though Alcyone was lower than we, it was no more than by the height of a deck. The whole area of our little world had expanded. There were so many new people! Good God, the Emperor of China had no more crowded and confused a country! But our “tumblehome” and theirs kept the people a few feet apart. Our officers were in a state of grave displeasure with the people: and the petty officers for the first time in my experience were using their “starters” in earnest. It was, of course, the prospect of a release from the discipline of the service coupled with those minutes of complete indiscipline which had done the damage! I reminded myself, selfishly enough I fear, that we could now hang up our arms and let common sense take charge. I climbed to the quarterdeck and then to the poop. Captain Anderson was standing by the larboard rail, hat in hand. Sir Henry Somerset, a gentleman of a full habit and a somewhat florid complexion, was perched in the mizzen shrouds of Alcyone so that he and our captain were at an equal height. Sir Henry had one foot on each of two rungs, sat on the third, held the fourth with his right hand and his hat in the left. He was speaking.
“—bound for India with utmost dispatch and may arrive there with the news just in time to prevent a very pretty battle! Devil take it, sir, if I succeed I shall be the most unpopular man east of Suez!”
“What of the Navy, sir?”
“Oh, Lord, sir, not a day passes but the order comes down to lay up another dozen ships or so. The streets are full of seamen waiting to be paid and begging. I never knew we had so many rascals in our ships! We are well out of it together, sir. But that’s peace for you, curse it. Who is this gentleman?”
Captain Anderson, his hand on the rail where Deverel’s sword had almost divided it, introduced me. He mentioned my godfather and his brother and my prospective employment. Sir Henry was affable. He hoped to further our acquaintance and to present me to Lady Somerset. Captain Anderson interrupted our exchange of courtesies with his customary lack of savoir-faire. He hoped until we got a wind to have the pleasure of Sir Henry and Lady Somerset’s company. But now the people, or his people at least, should be brought up smartly with a round turn and a couple of half-hitches. Meanwhile—
Sir Henry agreed, letting himself down the shrouds with the casual dexterity of an old seaman, and went to address an officer on his deck.
Captain Anderson vented his roar. “Mr Summers!”
Poor Summers came running aft like a midshipman. In the glare of the lights from both ships I could see that his usually composed face was flushed and sweating. He thrust this man and that out of the way in his attempt to obey the captain’s summons. I thought it undignified and unworthy of him.
“Mr Summers, the men are breaking ship!”
“I know it, sir, and am doing my best.”
“You had best do better! Look at that—and that! Devil take it, man—we shall be robbed like a hen roost!”
“Their rejoicing, sir—”
“Rejoicing? This is plunder! You may say the last man out of Alcyone shall be strapped with a dozen and I promise the like from Sir Henry!”
Summers saluted and ran off again. Anderson aimed a grimace at me with a bit of tooth in the middle, then set himself to stump up and down the larboard side of the quarterdeck, hands behind his back, sour face staring this way and that. Once he stopped by the forrard rail and roared again. Summers answered him from the fo’castle but, unlike the captain, used a speaking trumpet.
“Mr Askew has taken in the packets of powder, sir, and had the quick match stowed. He is now drawing the shot.”
Captain Anderson nodded and resumed his unaccustomedly swift stumping up and down. He ignored me and I thought it best to withdraw. By the time I got to the waist I understood some at least of our moody captain’s concern. There was too free laughter among the people. It was evident that some of them by means unknown to me, or I think to their officers, had obtained strong drink. The operation of Newton’s laws, if that is what it was—what else?—in bringing two ships together that had not intended the encounter was setting the Rigid Navy—my private phrase for the Royal Navy—some problems which were not in the book. For I saw a bottle fly fro
m one ship to the other and disappear among a group of men who were engaged in securing the bridge, or should I say gangway, between the two ships; and though I watched as closely as my ringing head would allow I never saw it emerge from them. It vanished as completely and mysteriously as the cards in the hands of a stage magician. I could not but think that the gangway made the unlawful interchange of our crews even easier than before. But the confusion continued and the way was opened across the gap for social intercourse and thievery. My restlessness seemed endless. For all my buzzing head and the weariness of my limbs I could not endure the thought of my bunk. What, sleep when this hollow space in the hot mists of the tropics was lighted brilliantly as a fairground and as noisy? I remember that in my dazed state I felt it necessary to do something, but could not think what to do. I thought of drink and ducked into the lobby by my hutch but was almost knocked sprawling by a young fellow who rushed out. Phillips and Wheeler and another man came after him but gave up when they saw me. It did seem to me that a faint aroma, not of rum but of brandy, emanated from Phillips’s person. He addressed me breathlessly.
“That bugger was an Alcyone, sir. You best keep all locked.”
I nodded to him and went immediately to the passenger saloon. Here, who should be present but little Pike, his tears all dried and his chest out like the breast of a pouter pigeon! He trusted at once that I had recovered from my injury, though he believed I looked sadly. He left me no time to reply, however. I had noticed in him normally a marked modesty in the presence of other men, but now there was no quelling him.
“Only think, Mr Talbot, I have served at the guns! Then I stood by the tackle while the charge was drawn.”
“My congratulations.”
“Oh, it was nothing, of course. All the same—Mr Askew remarked before he dismissed us that a few days of gun drill and he would have turned us out as prime gunners!”
“He did?”
“Why, he said we would be fit to fight all the Frogs in the world let alone the damned Yankees!”
“That was gratifying. Yes, the brandy, Bates. Bates—would you consult Wheeler about leaving a bottle of brandy and a glass in my cabin?”
“Very good, sir.”
“A glass of brandy for Mr Pike here.”
“Oh no, sir, I could not! I am unaccustomed to brandy, Mr Talbot. It burns my mouth. Ale, if you please, sir.”
“You hear, Bates? That will be all.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“I was very sorry to see you struck down, Mr Talbot. At the time when you hit your head on the ceiling—I mean the deckhead, as we ought to call it—I had to laugh it seemed so comical though of course it must have been very painful.”
“It is.”
“But we were so, what shall I say, strung taut as a violin string and the least thing set us off like it used to be in the office, for we were sometimes in the utmost distress not to laugh at Mr Wilkins—and when Mr Askew said you had come so close to the mid-point that—well—”
“I remember, Mr Pike.”
“Call me Dick, sir, will you not, though in the office I was called Dicky or even Dickybird—”
“Mr Pike!”
“Sir?”
“I wish to forget the whole lamentable episode. I should be obliged therefore—”
“Oh, of course, sir, if you wish. Why, we were all comical it seemed to Mr Askew. Once I was standing there at the gun with my mouth open I suppose, though I was not conscious of it, but Mr Askew said, ‘Now you, Mr Pike, sir, have you swallowed the tompion?’ How the others laughed! A tompion, you know, Mr Talbot, is the plug at the end of the—”
“Yes, I do know. The ale is for Mr Pike, Bates.”
“Well then, Mr Talbot, confusion to the—oh, we should not say that now, should we? A health to King Louis, then. Dear me, I shall be nigh on half seas over.”
“You are still excited, sir.”
“Well, I was and I am. It was exciting and it is exciting. Will you not allow me to buy you some brandy?”
“Not now. Presently perhaps.”
“Only to think I have stood at a gun! I served at a gun on the, the larboard beam, it would be, would it not?”
“God knows, Mr Pike. The guns as I recollect were about half-way along the left-hand side of the ship as one looks forrard—towards the bow, the front end.”
“Mr Pike.”
It was Miss Granham. We rose to our feet.
“Mrs Pike asked me to be kind enough to say that she would value your assistance with the twins. They are so excited.”
“Of course, ma’am!”
Pike dashed off, carrying his excitement where it might well not be appreciated. As far as I could see, his ale was untasted.
“Pray be seated, ma’am. Allow me. This cushion—”
“I had expected to find my, Mr Prettiman. Phillips was to cut his hair.”
It was faintly comical to hear how she shied at the word fiancé. It was faintly human, dare I say, and unexpected.
“I will find him for you, ma’am.”
“No, please, no indeed. Be seated, Mr Talbot—I insist—there! Good heavens, your head is wounded indeed! You do not look at all the thing!”
I laughed and winced.
“My skull now contains a large fragment of the ship’s deck.”
“It is a lacerated contusion.”
“Pray, ma’am—”
“But there will be a surgeon aboard Sir Henry’s ship, I believe.”
“I have taken harder knocks at fisticuffs, ma’am. I beg you pay no attention to it.”
“The episode was made to seem a little comical but now I see the result I rebuke myself for being amused by it.”
“It seems I covered myself with blood but not glory.”
“Not as far as the ladies are concerned, sir. Our initial amusement was soon lost in a positively tearful admiration. It would appear that you came from the guns, your face covered in blood, and immediately volunteered for the most perilous enterprise the mind of man can imagine.”
This, of course, was my cutlass—also my two feet that had adhered so firmly to the place they found themselves in when the signal gun went off in the fog! I wondered for a moment in what way to accept the unexpected tribute to my courage. Perhaps it was the equally unexpected and faintly human look in Miss Granham’s severe face which determined me in this instance to tell the truth.
“Indeed, ma’am, it was only partly so,” said I, laughing again. “For looking back I see that when the comical fellow staggered up from the guns he was so abroad in his wits that they volunteered him before he knew what he was doing!”
Miss Granham looked on me kindly! This lady I had thought composed of vinegar, gunpowder, salt and pepper looked on me kindly.
“I understand you, Mr Talbot, and my admiration is in no way lessened. As a lady, I must thank you for your protection.”
“Oh, Lord, ma’am, say no more—any gentleman—and Englishman—indeed—good God! But it must have been distressing for you down in the orlop!”
“It was distressing,” she said simply, “not because of danger but because it was disgusting.”
The door sprang open and little Mrs Brocklebank fairly bounced in.
“Letitia—Mr Talbot—our play! The party!”
“I had forgotten.”
“A play, ma’am? Party?”
“We are quite unready,” said Miss Granham, with some return to her customary bleakness. “The weather will not hold for it.”
“Oh fudge! We may do it immediately as the Italians do, we might do it tonight—”
“It is already ‘tonight’.”
“Tomorrow then.”
“My dear Mrs Brocklebank—”
“Down in that horrid place you was pleased to call me ‘Celia’ as I asked and even held my hand, Mr Talbot, for I am the greatest coward imaginable and what with the odours and the darkness and the rumbling and the, the—I was within an ace of swooning away.”
“I
will continue to address you as ‘Celia’ if you wish,” said Miss Granham distantly, “though what difference—”
“Well then that is settled. But the most exciting thing—our captains are agreed that if the weather, I will not repeat how Sir Henry described it but if we are held for another twenty-four hours without wind—what do you think, sir?”
“I cannot imagine, ma’am, except perhaps they may agree that we shall all whistle for a wind together.”
“Oh, get along with you, Mr Talbot, do, you will always be funning. You are just like Mr Brocklebank.”
There must have been some instant expression in my face which showed the ladies how this comparison appealed to me. It set Miss Granham smiling and even impeded Mrs Brocklebank for a moment.
“I mean, sir, in the article of funning. Why, hardly a day passes but Mr Brocklebank makes a joke which has me positively screaming with laughter. Indeed I sometimes fear I am so noisy that I irritate the other passengers.”
My head was singing and opening and shutting. The ladies were a long way away.
“You said that you had news for us, ma’am.”
“Oh yes! Why, if we are still detained tomorrow they are agreed we may have a ball! Only think of it! The officers in full dress, and the little band from Alcyone to play for us—why, it will be a most elegant occasion!”
The confusion of my head merged with incredulity.
“Captain Anderson agreed to a ball? Surely not!”
“No, not at first, sir, he is said to have been most upright. But then Lady Somerset managed Sir Henry who visited Captain Anderson—but is it not remarkable—oh heavenly! More!”
“More, ma’am? What can be more heavenly than the opportunity—”
“This was unexpected . . . they say Sir Henry having gained Captain Anderson’s agreement went on to assume that we had all had our boxes up on entering the tropics and was quite demolished when he found it was not so! Apparently all ships that carry passengers declare a day for airing and changing and arranging and—why, you will understand it all, Letitia, even if Mr Talbot does not! They say Captain Anderson had omitted this ceremony in sheer bad temper at being—what do you think he called it? I heard from Miss Chumley who heard from Lady Somerset who was told in the strictest confidence by Sir Henry that Captain Anderson had described his anger at being concerned to carry the emigrants, I suppose, as being loaded with a cargo of pigs! But the upshot of all is that we may have our trunks and boxes brought up at dawn and the ball is to open at five o’clock with dusk.”