“That was flotsam caught under the forefoot, Mr Summers.”
“The dragrope had worked past the forefoot, sir. I believe that was a piece of the keel.”
The captain snarled.
“It was flotsam, sir! Flotsam! Do you hear?”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Come with me.”
The two officers stumped towards us. Captain Anderson ignored us but continued to issue orders.
“Let the men stand by. Check in the hold.”
“Aye aye, sir. Mr Cumbershum—”
And then as they went up the stairway Summers continued in an angry voice. “It was indeed the keel, sir. I saw it. A scarfing must be rotted and the rope able to catch under it then work along.”
“No, no, Mr Summers, it was not! And do not talk so loud!”
I believe that in circumstances such as ours were at that time there comes to an educated and thinking man something as strange and perhaps in its kind as awesome as the wooden monster itself. There is an ingrained habit of dignity which asserts the positive necessity of proclaiming to a world of blind force and material something like—I am a man. I am more than blind nature! At this imperative discovery or command I found I was searching my mind for some word or action which would make this evident.
“I suppose the keel may still be called ‘flotsam’.”
Mr Jones at my shoulder cleared his throat ineffectually, then tried again. He did not turn his face towards me but continued to watch the place where the ancient baulk of timber had appeared and disappeared.
“How can it be flotsam, Mr Talbot? It has sunk.”
I found myself nodding sagely. But as the import of his words came home, my feet stuck to the deck as they had done at the cannon shot, or only just now at the captain’s roar. Aware of this, I surveyed the scene before me as if searching for something—a friend perhaps. The men were standing idly but quietly now. The emigrants were crowded back into the fo’castle, but visible by their pale faces in the opening to it. Mr Benét emerged from the depths below the fo’castle in company with Mr Gibbs. They came down the deck towards us, Mr Benét accommodating his pace to that of his fellow. Round us the sun was bright, the billows white and bounding as Mr Benét had bounded on every other occasion when I had seen him moving from one part of the ship to another. All crests in that lively sea were exactly delineated and the horizon was taut as a rope under strain. Mr Gibbs was talking in an aggrieved tone of voice.
“What did you expect, Mr Benét, you and him? Though there’s but the one through-bolt drawn that’s bad enough.”
“Well, plug it!”
“What do you think I was about down there? Water may come in, but not that way from now on!”
Mr Jones shifted his feet as if they too had been stuck. He cleared his throat again.
“Well, Mr Talbot. At least I have taken every precaution I can.” He shook his head admiringly. “I’m odd like that, you know. My boat on the boom is supplied with every necessity.”
“I have no boat, sir! I do not see accommodation in boats even for the children and ladies!”
Mr Jones nodded slowly, as if he, too, had noticed that lack. Then, as slowly, he shook his head.
Mr Benét came down the stairs, bounding again, and went forward in the same fashion as if he were the very personification of this bright air and wind and sea. Mr Gibbs followed him like a dull after-thought. Then at the last came Charles Summers, pale and thoughtful. I spoke to him by name as he passed but he seemed deep in some consideration and did not hear me. Nor did Mr Brocklebank who now stood between me and the way back to my hutch.
“After all it was given back to me and I am positive I put it away in the lower drawer. You have not seen it by any chance, Mr Talbot?”
But Mrs Brocklebank was shaking him by the sleeve.
“Oh, let it go, Wilmot dear! I am sure I am very glad to see the back of the horrid thing!”
They walked their wet way together before me into the lobby. Mr Brocklebank was speaking with that painful clarity and emphasis which a man employs to make clear his own patience and understanding in difficult circumstances, particularly, I have noticed, when addressing his wife.
“It was in the bottom drawer under my bed. Bunk, I suppose I must call it, for never was bed so uncomfortable—and now it is gone. We have a thief and I shall tell Mr Summers.”
Mrs Brocklebank, who all the while had been talking, prattling rather, like a kind of descant on his base, fairly thrust him through the door of their hutch and pulled it to behind them.
I made my way towards my own hutch, the one that for some time had been used by the late Reverend James Colley.
Life should serve up its feast of experience in a series of courses. We should have time to assimilate, if not digest one before we attack another. We should have a pause, not so much for contemplation as for rest. However, life does not operate in such a reasonable fashion but huddles its courses together, sometimes two, three or what seems to be the whole meal on a single dish. Thus it was with me—with us. I will try to report what happened next as accurately as I can. That grim baulk of waterlogged timber was still, I suppose, sinking towards the ooze where Colley stood on his cannon balls when I approached my hutch—his hutch. I see it still and try to change what happened but cannot. I saw that Wheeler was inside. I could tell it was Wheeler though only his baldness and the two puffs of white hair on either side of it was visible through the louvre. Then as my mouth opened to dismiss him with a severe injunction against his haunting of my cabin beyond the necessity of cleaning it, his head tilted and lifted. His eyes were shut, his expression peaceful. He raised towards his lips a gold or brass goblet. Then his head exploded and disappeared after or with or before, for all I know, a flash of light. Then everything disappeared as a wave of acrid smoke burst out of the louvre. My left eye was, or had been, struck and filled with a wet substance.
I heard nothing. Is that not impossible? Though others heard the explosion of the blunderbuss I who saw it heard nothing.
I have tried again and again to put what I saw in logical order but come always to the fact that there was no order but only instantaneity. The brass goblet which Wheeler held to his peaceful face was the bell of Mr Brocklebank’s blunderbuss, but realization of that fact came to me later. What I experienced was the peaceful face, the head bursting, the flash, the smoke—and silence!
I staggered away from the door, fanned smoke, tried to smear my stuck left eye open—saw at once the colour of the mess in my hand and made a rush for the open deck, reached the rail by Mr Jones and vomited over it.
“Are you injured, Mr Talbot? Are you shot?”
For answer, I did no more than vomit again.
“You do not speak, Mr Talbot. Are you injured? What has happened?”
The voice of the lawyer’s clerk, Mr Bowles, came to me.
“It is the steward Wheeler, Mr Jones. He has killed himself in the cabin which Mr Talbot is at present occupying.”
Mr Jones’s uncomprehending and calm voice answered him.
“What did he do that for, Mr Bowles? He had been rescued. He was a most fortunate man. You could say he was the object of a special providence.”
My knees were loosed. I sank to the deck and voices faded far away as a wave of faintness engulfed me.
*
I came to lying on my back, my head supported in a lap. Someone was sponging my face with cold water. I opened the other eye and examined a dazzle of light reflected on a wooden ceiling. It was the passenger saloon and I was lying on a bench. Miss Granham’s voice spoke above me!
“Poor boy. He has far more sensibility than he knows.”
There was a long period of pendulum movement. I became aware that my coat had been removed, my stock undone and my shirt opened. I sat up slowly. The lap belonged to Mrs Brocklebank.
“I believe you should lie still for a while, sir.”
I embarked on what would have had to be a lengthy expression of
thanks and excuse, but Miss Granham had other ideas.
“You must lie still, sir. Celia will fetch a cushion.”
I tried to get off the bench but she held me with surprising firmness.
“Thank you, Miss Granham, but believe me I am able to return now.”
“Return, sir?”
“Why, to my hutch—cabin, I would say!”
“It would be most inadvisable. At least sit for a while.”
What I remembered more than anything was the mess in my eye. I gulped and looked at my hand. It had been washed but there was an indefinable tinge of what I suppose was the remains of dried blood and brains on it. I gulped again. It now came to me that I was homeless! What still puzzles me is that I felt this strange “homelessness” more than anything else and had some difficulty in restraining my tears—tears for the seclusion of that cabin or one like it where I had spent such hours—what am I saying—such weeks and months of boredom! But Zenobia now lay in the bunk which once had been mine, and Colley’s was not to be thought of.
“I have been in a faint I suppose and for no reason! Ladies, I do most sincerely—”
“Better, Mr Talbot?”
It was Charles Summers.
“I am quite recovered, thank you.”
“He is not, Mr Summers!”
“I have questions to ask him, Miss Granham.”
“No, sir!”
“Believe me, ma’am, I regret the necessity. But you must see that in a case like this the questions are official and not to be delayed. Now, Mr Talbot. Who did it?”
“Mr Summers, really!”
“Excuse me, Miss Granham. Well, sir? You heard the question. Shall I repeat it? The sooner you answer, the sooner Colley’s—that is, your—cabin is able to be—tidied.”
“Tidied, sir? That is landsman’s talk. You should have said ‘made all shipshape’.”
“You see, ma’am, he is recovered. Well, Mr Talbot. As I said, ‘Who did it?’”
“Good God. You know already. He did it himself!”
“You saw it happen?”
“Yes. Do not remind me!”
“Really, Mr Summers, he should be—”
“Please, Miss Granham. Only one more question. He had constituted himself your servant. He may have let fall some observation—have you any knowledge of why the wretched man did it?”
I thought for a while. But against the bloody fact my thoughts were trivial and wandering.
“No, sir. None whatever.”
All at once and as it were on the rebound, the full fact of my homelessness came over me.
“Oh, God! What shall I do? Where shall I go?”
“He cannot use that cabin, Mr Summers! It is impossible!”
Charles Summers was staring down at me. With a dreary sense of loss and a foreboding that the feeling would grow to a real pain, I perceived a look of evident dislike on his face.
“I am supposed to make special arrangements for you again, Mr Talbot. We have kept the wardroom out of bounds to passengers. We lieutenants are, after all, entitled to our own place. But the circumstances are unusual as is your position. Come with me if you are able to withstand the movement of the ship. I will find you a cot.”
“I beg you will be careful, Mr Talbot!”
Charles Summers led the way down, waiting for me now and then when the swift roll made the descent difficult. He opened the door of the wardroom and gestured me through. It was a large room with many doors leading off it, a long table and a variety of instruments and objects which I had neither the time nor the inclination to examine. The whole was lighted by what I suppose was the lowest register of our great stern windows.
“But this is big enough for every officer in the ship and you have only yourself, Cumbershum and Benét!”
He said nothing but opened one of the doors. The cot was empty, the folded blankets lying ready on the thin mattress.
“This is for me?”
“For the time being.”
“It is small.”
“What did you expect, Mr Talbot? It was good enough for your friend Mr Deverel and is good enough for your new friend, Mr Benét. It is designed, sir, for a mere lieutenant, some poor man with no prospects, no hope; designed perhaps for a man thrust out of his legitimate place by a, a—”
“My dear Mr Summers!”
“Do not protest, sir. At least I may say what I choose now you have found a new friend for your patronage!”
“My what?”
“That patronage which you once promised me but have now withdrawn as is evident from the—”
“What is all this? There is some dreadful mistake! I never promised you my patronage, for I have none to bestow!”
The first lieutenant laughed briefly and angrily.
“I understand. Well, it is as good a way of ending the affair as another. So. He has everything then.”
I seized the door and hung on to the handle as a roll promised to throw me across the wardroom.
“Who has everything?”
“Mr Benét.”
“You are talking in riddles. What has Mr Benét to do with us? Where on earth did you get the idea that I had the gift of a ship or a place in my pocket?”
“Do you not remember? Or is it more convenient for you to forget?”
“I think you had better explain. What have I said which promised you anything?”
“Since you have forgotten the words it would shame me to repeat them.”
“Once and for all, before my brain bursts—no, not that!—once and for all will you not tell me what you think I have said?”
“It was in your old cabin when we were concerned with Colley. I said, ‘I have no patron.’ You answered immediately, ‘Do not be so certain, Mr Summers!’ Those were your very words! Deny it if you choose!”
“But that was not an offer of patronage! It was an expression of esteem, of my sincerely proffered friendship! I am as far beneath the possibility of exercising patronage as I thought you was above it!”
“Say no more. I have mistaken us both. I will wish you good day.”
“Mr Summers! Come back!”
There was a long pause.
“To what end, sir?”
“You compel me—we are down among embarrassments. And the ship may sink, good God! Are we not laughable? But enough of that. The journal which I kept for my godfather and which you suppose to contain nothing but a description of our good captain’s injustice—you may read it if you choose. It will lie before my godfather, a nobleman of much influence in our country’s affairs. He will read every page. Take it away, sir, slit the canvas, read every word. I—you will find there a positive hymn in your praise. There can hardly be a page on which your name, your conduct and character is not set down in terms of admiration and dare I say—esteem and—affection. That was all I could do for you and it is what I have done.”
There was now an even longer pause. I believe we did not look at one another. When at last his voice answered me, it was hoarse.
“Well, now you know better, Mr Talbot. I am not worthy of your admiration or regard.”
“Do not say so!”
We were facing each other, each, as usual, with one leg straight, the other bending and stretching. Despite or perhaps because of the high seriousness of our exchange I could not but be aware of a certain comedy in the situation. But it was no time for pointing this out. Mr Summers was speaking. His voice vibrated with emotion.
“I have no family, Mr Talbot, and I do not believe myself inclined to marriage. Yet my attachments are deep and strong. Men, like cables, have each their breaking strain. To lose my place in your regard, to see a younger man, one with all the advantages which were denied me, achieve on every level what I could never hope for—”
“Wait, wait! If you were only aware of my meanness, my attempts at manipulation, let alone a self-esteem which I now perceive to be—I cannot explain myself. Measured against you I am a paltry fellow, that is the fact of the matter! But I
would be honoured above all things if you would agree to continue my friend.”
He took a sudden step forward.
“It is more than I could hope for or deserve. Oh, do not look so distressed, sir! These clouds will pass. You have been sorely tried of late on several counts and I am much to blame in adding to your cares.”
“I am learning too much, that is the fact of the matter. Men and women—I beg you will not laugh but I had proposed myself a political and detached observation of the nature of both, yet in my association with you and her too and with poor Wheeler—these tears are involuntary and the result of my repeated blows to the head. I beg you will disregard them. Good God, a man of—”
“How old are you?”
When I repeated the figure, he cried out.
“No more than that?”
“Why so astonished? How old did you think I was?”
“Older. Much older.”
The forbidding distance in his face disappeared, to be replaced by quite another expression. Hesitantly I held out my hand; and like the generous-hearted Englishman that he is, he seized it with both his own in a thrilling and manly grip.
“Edmund!”
“My dear fellow!”
Still conscious as I was of a certain comical element in our situation, it was a moment at which reserve was no longer possible and I returned the pressure.
Postscriptum
I must record here in this same folio an explanation and apology for the abrupt ending of my journal. A possible reader—a dear reader—might tease himself or herself endlessly in pursuit of that explanation without ever coming to the right one. The reason for my abandoning my pen was in a sense trivial and even vexing, yet at the same time the cause of much hilarity. Now I am safely ashore and have got back my landlegs I have begun to suspect—though it may seem unkind to say so—that our hilarity was a kind of madness throughout the ship as if the sailing master, Mr Smiles, had been right!
Briefly then.
While I and my dear friend Charles Summers were ridding ourselves of a foolish misunderstanding Cumbershum came off watch. I myself was not witness to what followed, for the suicide of poor Wheeler before my very eyes came to work on me strongly and I was forced to retire to the cabin Charles had found for me and lay there for a long time shuddering as if the blunderbuss had wounded me in addition to killing Wheeler. But I was given an exact account of what occurred.