Title: Youth, a Narrative
Author: Conrad, Joseph
Language: English
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YOUTH

A NARRATIVE


By Joseph Conrad



  “... But the Dwarf answered: No; something human is dearer to me
  than the wealth of all the world.” GRIMM’S TALES.



TO MY WIFE



YOUTH


This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea
interpenetrate, so to speak--the sea entering into the life of most men,
and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of
amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.

We were sitting round a mahogany table that reflected the bottle, the
claret-glasses, and our faces as we leaned on our elbows. There was a
director of companies, an accountant, a lawyer, Marlow, and myself. The
director had been a _Conway_ boy, the accountant had served four years at
sea, the lawyer--a fine crusted Tory, High Churchman, the best of old
fellows, the soul of honour--had been chief officer in the P. & O.
service in the good old days when mail-boats were square-rigged at least
on two masts, and used to come down the China Sea before a fair monsoon
with stun’-sails set alow and aloft. We all began life in the merchant
service. Between the five of us there was the strong bond of the sea,
and also the fellowship of the craft, which no amount of enthusiasm for
yachting, cruising, and so on can give, since one is only the amusement
of life and the other is life itself.

Marlow (at least I think that is how he spelt his name) told the story,
or rather the chronicle, of a voyage:

“Yes, I have seen a little of the Eastern seas; but what I remember best
is my first voyage there. You fellows know there are those voyages that
seem ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand for a symbol
of existence. You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do
kill yourself, trying to accomplish something--and you can’t. Not
from any fault of yours. You simply can do nothing, neither great nor
little--not a thing in the world--not even marry an old maid, or get a
wretched 600-ton cargo of coal to its port of destination.

“It was altogether a memorable affair. It was my first voyage to the
East, and my first voyage as second mate; it was also my skipper’s first
command. You’ll admit it was time. He was sixty if a day; a little man,
with a broad, not very straight back, with bowed shoulders and one leg
more bandy than the other, he had that queer twisted-about appearance
you see so often in men who work in the fields. He had a nut-cracker
face--chin and nose trying to come together over a sunken mouth--and it
was framed in iron-grey fluffy hair, that looked like a chin strap of
cotton-wool sprinkled with coal-dust. And he had blue eyes in that
old face of his, which were amazingly like a boy’s, with that candid
expression some quite common men preserve to the end of their days by
a rare internal gift of simplicity of heart and rectitude of soul.
What induced him to accept me was a wonder. I had come out of a crack
Australian clipper, where I had been third officer, and he seemed to
have a prejudice against crack clippers as aristocratic and high-toned.
He said to me, ‘You know, in this ship you will have to work.’ I said
I had to work in every ship I had ever been in. ‘Ah, but this is
different, and you gentlemen out of them big ships;... but there! I
dare say you will do. Join to-morrow.’

“I joined to-morrow. It was twenty-two years ago; and I was just twenty.
How time passes! It was one of the happiest days of my life. Fancy!
Second mate for the first time--a really responsible officer! I wouldn’t
have thrown up my new billet for a fortune. The mate looked me over
carefully. He was also an old chap, but of another stamp. He had a Roman
nose, a snow-white, long beard, and his name was Mahon, but he insisted
that it should be pronounced Mann. He was well connected; yet there was
something wrong with his luck, and he had never got on.

“As to the captain, he had been for years in coasters, then in the
Mediterranean, and last in the West Indian trade. He had never been
round the Capes. He could just write a kind of sketchy hand, and didn’t
care for writing at all. Both were thorough good seamen of course,
and between those two old chaps I felt like a small boy between two
grandfathers.

“The ship also was old. Her name was the _Judea_. Queer name, isn’t it?
She belonged to a man Wilmer, Wilcox--some name like that; but he has
been bankrupt and dead these twenty years or more, and his name don’t
matter. She had been laid up in Shadwell basin for ever so long. You may
imagine her state. She was all rust, dust, grime--soot aloft, dirt on
deck. To me it was like coming out of a palace into a ruined cottage.
She was about 400 tons, had a primitive windlass, wooden latches to the
doors, not a bit of brass about her, and a big square stern. There was
on it, below her name in big letters, a lot of scroll work, with the
gilt off, and some sort of a coat of arms, with the motto ‘Do or Die’
underneath. I remember it took my fancy immensely. There was a touch of
romance in it, something that made me love the old thing--something that
appealed to my youth!

“We left London in ballast--sand ballast--to load a cargo of coal in a
northern port for Bankok. Bankok! I thrilled. I had been six years at
sea, but had only seen Melbourne and Sydney, very good places, charming
places in their way--but Bankok!

“We worked out of the Thames under canvas, with a North Sea pilot on
board. His name was Jermyn, and he dodged all day long about the galley
drying his handkerchief before the stove. Apparently he never slept.
He was a dismal man, with a perpetual tear sparkling at the end of his
nose, who either had been in trouble, or was in trouble, or expected
to be in trouble--couldn’t be happy unless something went wrong. He
mistrusted my youth, my common-sense, and my seamanship, and made a
point of showing it in a hundred little ways. I dare say he was right.
It seems to me I knew very little then, and I know not much more now;
but I cherish a hate for that Jermyn to this day.

“We were a week working up as far as Yarmouth Roads, and then we got
into a gale--the famous October gale of twenty-two years ago. It was
wind, lightning, sleet, snow, and a terrific sea. We were flying light,
and you may imagine how bad it was when I tell you we had smashed
bulwarks and a flooded deck. On the second night she shifted her ballast
into the lee bow, and by that time we had been blown off somewhere on
the Dogger Bank. There was nothing for it but go below with shovels and
try to right her, and there we were in that vast hold, gloomy like a
cavern, the tallow dips stuck and flickering on the beams, the gale
howling above, the ship tossing about like mad on her side; there we
all were, Jermyn, the captain, everyone, hardly able to keep our feet,
engaged on that gravedigger’s work, and trying to toss shovelfuls of wet
sand up to windward. At every tumble of the ship you could see vaguely
in the dim light men falling down with a great flourish of shovels.
One of the ship’s boys (we had two), impressed by the weirdness of the
scene, wept as if his heart would break. We could hear him blubbering
somewhere in the shadows.

“On the third day the gale died out, and by-and-by a north-country tug
picked us up. We took sixteen days in all to get from London to the
Tyne! When we got into dock we had lost our turn for loading, and they
hauled us off to a tier where we remained for a month. Mrs. Beard (the
captain’s name was Beard) came from Colchester to see the old man. She
lived on board. The crew of runners had left, and there remained only
the officers, one boy, and the steward, a mulatto who answered to the
name of Abraham. Mrs. Beard was an old woman, with a face all wrinkled
and ruddy like a winter apple, and the figure of a young girl. She
caught sight of me once, sewing on a button, and insisted on having my
shirts to repair. This was something different from the captains’ wives
I had known on board crack clippers. When I brought her the shirts, she
said: ‘And the socks? They want mending, I am sure, and John’s--Captain
Beard’s--things are all in order now. I would be glad of something to
do.’ Bless the old woman! She overhauled my outfit for me, and meantime
I read for the first time _Sartor Resartus_ and Burnaby’s _Ride to
Khiva_. I didn’t understand much of the first then; but I remember I
preferred the soldier to the philosopher at the time; a preference
which life has only confirmed. One was a man, and the other was either
more--or less. However, they are both dead, and Mrs. Beard is dead, and
youth, strength, genius, thoughts, achievements, simple hearts--all dies
.... No matter.

“They loaded us at last. We shipped a crew. Eight able seamen and two
boys. We hauled off one evening to the buoys at the dock-gates, ready to
go out, and with a fair prospect of beginning the voyage next day. Mrs.
Beard was to start for home by a late train. When the ship was fast
we went to tea. We sat rather silent through the meal--Mahon, the old
couple, and I. I finished first, and slipped away for a smoke, my cabin
being in a deck-house just against the poop. It was high water, blowing
fresh with a drizzle; the double dock-gates were opened, and the steam
colliers were going in and out in the darkness with their lights burning
bright, a great plashing of propellers, rattling of winches, and a lot
of hailing on the pier-heads. I watched the procession of head-lights
gliding high and of green lights gliding low in the night, when suddenly
a red gleam flashed at me, vanished, came into view again, and remained.
The fore-end of a steamer loomed up close. I shouted down the cabin,
‘Come up, quick!’ and then heard a startled voice saying afar in the
dark, ‘Stop her, sir.’ A bell jingled. Another voice cried warningly,
‘We are going right into that barque, sir.’ The answer to this was a
gruff ‘All right,’ and the next thing was a heavy crash as the steamer
struck a glancing blow with the bluff of her bow about our fore-rigging.
There was a moment of confusion, yelling, and running about. Steam
roared. Then somebody was heard saying, ‘All clear, sir.’... ‘Are
you all right?’ asked the gruff voice. I had jumped forward to see the
damage, and hailed back, ‘I think so.’ ‘Easy astern,’ said the gruff
voice. A bell jingled. ‘What steamer is that?’ screamed Mahon. By that
time she was no more to us than a bulky shadow maneuvering a little
way off. They shouted at us some name--a woman’s name, Miranda or
Melissa--or some such thing. ‘This means another month in this beastly
hole,’ said Mahon to me, as we peered with lamps about the splintered
bulwarks and broken braces. ‘But where’s the captain?’

“We had not heard or seen anything of him all that time. We went aft to
look. A doleful voice arose hailing somewhere in the middle of the dock,
‘_Judea_ ahoy!’... How the devil did he get there?... ‘Hallo!’ we
shouted. ‘I am adrift in our boat without oars,’ he cried. A belated
waterman offered his services, and Mahon struck a bargain with him for
half-a-crown to tow our skipper alongside; but it was Mrs. Beard that
came up the ladder first. They had been floating about the dock in that
mizzly cold rain for nearly an hour. I was never so surprised in my
life.

“It appears that when he heard my shout ‘Come up,’ he understood at once
what was the matter, caught up his wife, ran on deck, and across,
and down into our boat, which was fast to the ladder. Not bad for a
sixty-year-old. Just imagine that old fellow saving heroically in his
arms that old woman--the woman of his life. He set her down on a thwart,
and was ready to climb back on board when the painter came adrift
somehow, and away they went together. Of course in the confusion we
did not hear him shouting. He looked abashed. She said cheerfully, ‘I
suppose it does not matter my losing the train now?’ ‘No, Jenny--you go
below and get warm,’ he growled. Then to us: ‘A sailor has no business
with a wife--I say. There I was, out of the ship. Well, no harm done
this time. Let’s go and look at what that fool of a steamer smashed.’

“It wasn’t much, but it delayed us three weeks. At the end of that time,
the captain being engaged with his agents, I carried Mrs. Beard’s bag to
the railway-station and put her all comfy into a third-class carriage.
She lowered the window to say, ‘You are a good young man. If you see
John--Captain Beard--without his muffler at night, just remind him from
me to keep his throat well wrapped up.’ ‘Certainly, Mrs. Beard,’ I said.
‘You are a good young man; I noticed how attentive you are to John--to
Captain--’ The train pulled out suddenly; I took my cap off to the old
woman: I never saw her again... Pass the bottle.

“We went to sea next day. When we made that start for Bankok we had been
already three months out of London. We had expected to be a fortnight or
so--at the outside.

“It was January, and the weather was beautiful--the beautiful sunny
winter weather that has more charm than in the summer-time, because it
is unexpected, and crisp, and you know it won’t, it can’t, last long.
It’s like a windfall, like a godsend, like an unexpected piece of luck.

“It lasted all down the North Sea, all down Channel; and it lasted till
we were three hundred miles or so to the westward of the Lizards: then
the wind went round to the sou’west and began to pipe up. In two days it
blew a gale. The _Judea_, hove to, wallowed on the Atlantic like an old
candlebox. It blew day after day: it blew with spite, without interval,
without mercy, without rest. The world was nothing but an immensity of
great foaming waves rushing at us, under a sky low enough to touch
with the hand and dirty like a smoked ceiling. In the stormy space
surrounding us there was as much flying spray as air. Day after day and
night after night there was nothing round the ship but the howl of the
wind, the tumult of the sea, the noise of water pouring over her deck.
There was no rest for her and no rest for us. She tossed, she pitched,
she stood on her head, she sat on her tail, she rolled, she groaned, and
we had to hold on while on deck and cling to our bunks when below, in a
constant effort of body and worry of mind.

“One night Mahon spoke through the small window of my berth. It opened
right into my very bed, and I was lying there sleepless, in my boots,
feeling as though I had not slept for years, and could not if I tried.
He said excitedly--

“‘You got the sounding-rod in here, Marlow? I can’t get the pumps to
suck. By God! it’s no child’s play.’

“I gave him the sounding-rod and lay down again, trying to think of
various things--but I thought only of the pumps. When I came on deck
they were still at it, and my watch relieved at the pumps. By the light
of the lantern brought on deck to examine the sounding-rod I caught a
glimpse of their weary, serious faces. We pumped all the four hours.
We pumped all night, all day, all the week,--watch and watch. She was
working herself loose, and leaked badly--not enough to drown us at once,
but enough to kill us with the work at the pumps. And while we pumped
the ship was going from us piecemeal: the bulwarks went, the stanchions
were torn out, the ventilators smashed, the cabin-door burst in. There
was not a dry spot in the ship. She was being gutted bit by bit. The
long-boat changed, as if by magic, into matchwood where she stood in her
gripes. I had lashed her myself, and was rather proud of my handiwork,
which had withstood so long the malice of the sea. And we pumped. And
there was no break in the weather. The sea was white like a sheet of
foam, like a caldron of boiling milk; there was not a break in the
clouds, no--not the size of a man’s hand--no, not for so much as ten
seconds. There was for us no sky, there were for us no stars, no sun,
no universe--nothing but angry clouds and an infuriated sea. We pumped
watch and watch, for dear life; and it seemed to last for months, for
years, for all eternity, as though we had been dead and gone to a hell
for sailors. We forgot the day of the week, the name of the month, what
year it was, and whether we had ever been ashore. The sails blew away,
she lay broadside on under a weather-cloth, the ocean poured over
her, and we did not care. We turned those handles, and had the eyes of
idiots. As soon as we had crawled on deck I used to take a round turn
with a rope about the men, the pumps, and the mainmast, and we turned,
we turned incessantly, with the water to our waists, to our necks, over
our heads. It was all one. We had forgotten how it felt to be dry.

“And there was somewhere in me the thought: By Jove! this is the deuce
of an adventure--something you read about; and it is my first voyage as
second mate--and I am only twenty--and here I am lasting it out as well
as any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to the mark. I was pleased.
I would not have given up the experience for worlds. I had moments of
exultation. Whenever the old dismantled craft pitched heavily with her
counter high in the air, she seemed to me to throw up, like an appeal,
like a defiance, like a cry to the clouds without mercy, the words
written on her stern: ‘_Judea_, London. Do or Die.’

“O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To
me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal
for a freight--to me she was the endeavour, the test, the trial of life.
I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret--as you would
think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her....
Pass the bottle.

“One night when tied to the mast, as I explained, we were pumping
on, deafened with the wind, and without spirit enough in us to wish
ourselves dead, a heavy sea crashed aboard and swept clean over us. As
soon as I got my breath I shouted, as in duty bound, ‘Keep on, boys!’
when suddenly I felt something hard floating on deck strike the calf of
my leg. I made a grab at it and missed. It was so dark we could not see
each other’s faces within a foot--you understand.

“After that thump the ship kept quiet for a while, and the thing,
whatever it was, struck my leg again. This time I caught it--and it was
a saucepan. At first, being stupid with fatigue and thinking of nothing
but the pumps, I did not understand what I had in my hand. Suddenly it
dawned upon me, and I shouted, ‘Boys, the house on deck is gone. Leave
this, and let’s look for the cook.’

“There was a deck-house forward, which contained the galley, the cook’s
berth, and the quarters of the crew. As we had expected for days to see
it swept away, the hands had been ordered to sleep in the cabin--the
only safe place in the ship. The steward, Abraham, however, persisted
in clinging to his berth, stupidly, like a mule--from sheer fright
I believe, like an animal that won’t leave a stable falling in an
earthquake. So we went to look for him. It was chancing death, since
once out of our lashings we were as exposed as if on a raft. But we
went. The house was shattered as if a shell had exploded inside. Most
of it had gone overboard--stove, men’s quarters, and their property,
all was gone; but two posts, holding a portion of the bulkhead to which
Abraham’s bunk was attached, remained as if by a miracle. We groped in
the ruins and came upon this, and there he was, sitting in his bunk,
surrounded by foam and wreckage, jabbering cheerfully to himself. He
was out of his mind; completely and for ever mad, with this sudden shock
coming upon the fag-end of his endurance. We snatched him up, lugged him
aft, and pitched him head-first down the cabin companion. You understand
there was no time to carry him down with infinite precautions and wait
to see how he got on. Those below would pick him up at the bottom of
the stairs all right. We were in a hurry to go back to the pumps. That
business could not wait. A bad leak is an inhuman thing.

“One would think that the sole purpose of that fiendish gale had been to
make a lunatic of that poor devil of a mulatto. It eased before morning,
and next day the sky cleared, and as the sea went down the leak took up.
When it came to bending a fresh set of sails the crew demanded to put
back--and really there was nothing else to do. Boats gone, decks swept
clean, cabin gutted, men without a stitch but what they stood in, stores
spoiled, ship strained. We put her head for home, and--would you believe
it? The wind came east right in our teeth. It blew fresh, it blew
continuously. We had to beat up every inch of the way, but she did
not leak so badly, the water keeping comparatively smooth. Two hours’
pumping in every four is no joke--but it kept her afloat as far as
Falmouth.

“The good people there live on casualties of the sea, and no doubt were
glad to see us. A hungry crowd of shipwrights sharpened their chisels
at the sight of that carcass of a ship. And, by Jove! they had pretty
pickings off us before they were done. I fancy the owner was already in
a tight place. There were delays. Then it was decided to take part
of the cargo out and calk her topsides. This was done, the repairs
finished, cargo re-shipped; a new crew came on board, and we went
out--for Bankok. At the end of a week we were back again. The crew said
they weren’t going to Bankok--a hundred and fifty days’ passage--in a
something hooker that wanted pumping eight hours out of the twenty-four;
and the nautical papers inserted again the little paragraph: _‘Judea_.
Barque. Tyne to Bankok; coals; put back to Falmouth leaky and with crew
refusing duty.’

“There were more delays--more tinkering. The owner came down for a day,
and said she was as right as a little fiddle. Poor old Captain Beard
looked like the ghost of a Geordie skipper--through the worry and
humiliation of it. Remember he was sixty, and it was his first command.
Mahon said it was a foolish business, and would end badly. I loved the
ship more than ever, and wanted awfully to get to Bankok. To Bankok!
Magic name, blessed name. Mesopotamia wasn’t a patch on it. Remember I
was twenty, and it was my first second mate’s billet, and the East was
waiting for me.

“We went out and anchored in the outer roads with a fresh crew--the
third. She leaked worse than ever. It was as if those confounded
shipwrights had actually made a hole in her. This time we did not even
go outside. The crew simply refused to man the windlass.

“They towed us back to the inner harbour, and we became a fixture, a
feature, an institution of the place. People pointed us out to visitors
as ‘That ‘ere bark that’s going to Bankok--has been here six months--put
back three times.’ On holidays the small boys pulling about in boats
would hail, ‘_Judea_, ahoy!’ and if a head showed above the rail
shouted, ‘Where you bound to?--Bankok?’ and jeered. We were only three
on board. The poor old skipper mooned in the cabin. Mahon undertook
the cooking, and unexpectedly developed all a Frenchman’s genius for
preparing nice little messes. I looked languidly after the rigging. We
became citizens of Falmouth. Every shopkeeper knew us. At the barber’s
or tobacconist’s they asked familiarly, ‘Do you think you will ever get
to Bankok?’ Meantime the owner, the underwriters, and the charterers
squabbled amongst themselves in London, and our pay went on.... Pass
the bottle.

“It was horrid. Morally it was worse than pumping for life. It seemed as
though we had been forgotten by the world, belonged to nobody, would get
nowhere; it seemed that, as if bewitched, we would have to live for ever
and ever in that inner harbour, a derision and a by-word to generations
of long-shore loafers and dishonest boatmen. I obtained three months’
pay and a five days’ leave, and made a rush for London. It took me a day
to get there and pretty well another to come back--but three months’
pay went all the same. I don’t know what I did with it. I went to a
music-hall, I believe, lunched, dined, and supped in a swell place in
Regent Street, and was back to time, with nothing but a complete set of
Byron’s works and a new railway rug to show for three months’ work. The
boatman who pulled me off to the ship said: ‘Hallo! I thought you had
left the old thing. _She_ will never get to Bankok.’ ‘That’s all _you_
know about it,’ I said scornfully--but I didn’t like that prophecy at
all.

“Suddenly a man, some kind of agent to somebody, appeared with full
powers. He had grog-blossoms all over his face, an indomitable energy,
and was a jolly soul. We leaped into life again. A hulk came alongside,
took our cargo, and then we went into dry dock to get our copper
stripped. No wonder she leaked. The poor thing, strained beyond
endurance by the gale, had, as if in disgust, spat out all the oakum of
her lower seams. She was recalked, new coppered, and made as tight as a
bottle. We went back to the hulk and re-shipped our cargo.

“Then on a fine moonlight night, all the rats left the ship.

“We had been infested with them. They had destroyed our sails, consumed
more stores than the crew, affably shared our beds and our dangers, and
now, when the ship was made seaworthy, concluded to clear out. I called
Mahon to enjoy the spectacle. Rat after rat appeared on our rail, took
a last look over his shoulder, and leaped with a hollow thud into the
empty hulk. We tried to count them, but soon lost the tale. Mahon said:
‘Well, well! don’t talk to me about the intelligence of rats. They ought
to have left before, when we had that narrow squeak from foundering.
There you have the proof how silly is the superstition about them. They
leave a good ship for an old rotten hulk, where there is nothing to eat,
too, the fools!... I don’t believe they know what is safe or what is
good for them, any more than you or I.’

“And after some more talk we agreed that the wisdom of rats had been
grossly overrated, being in fact no greater than that of men.

“The story of the ship was known, by this, all up the Channel from
Land’s End to the Forelands, and we could get no crew on the south
coast. They sent us one all complete from Liverpool, and we left once
more--for Bankok.

“We had fair breezes, smooth water right into the tropics, and the
old Judea lumbered along in the sunshine. When she went eight knots
everything cracked aloft, and we tied our caps to our heads; but mostly
she strolled on at the rate of three miles an hour. What could you
expect? She was tired--that old ship. Her youth was where mine is--where
yours is--you fellows who listen to this yarn; and what friend would
throw your years and your weariness in your face? We didn’t grumble at
her. To us aft, at least, it seemed as though we had been born in her,
reared in her, had lived in her for ages, had never known any other
ship. I would just as soon have abused the old village church at home
for not being a cathedral.

“And for me there was also my youth to make me patient. There was all
the East before me, and all life, and the thought that I had been tried
in that ship and had come out pretty well. And I thought of men of old
who, centuries ago, went that road in ships that sailed no better, to
the land of palms, and spices, and yellow sands, and of brown nations
ruled by kings more cruel than Nero the Roman and more splendid than
Solomon the Jew. The old bark lumbered on, heavy with her age and the
burden of her cargo, while I lived the life of youth in ignorance and
hope. She lumbered on through an interminable procession of days; and
the fresh gilding flashed back at the setting sun, seemed to cry out
over the darkening sea the words painted on her stern, ‘_Judea_, London.
Do or Die.’

“Then we entered the Indian Ocean and steered northerly for Java Head.
The winds were light. Weeks slipped by. She crawled on, do or die, and
people at home began to think of posting us as overdue.

“One Saturday evening, I being off duty, the men asked me to give them
an extra bucket of water or so--for washing clothes. As I did not wish
to screw on the fresh-water pump so late, I went forward whistling, and
with a key in my hand to unlock the forepeak scuttle, intending to serve
the water out of a spare tank we kept there.

“The smell down below was as unexpected as it was frightful. One would
have thought hundreds of paraffin-lamps had been flaring and smoking in
that hole for days. I was glad to get out. The man with me coughed and
said, ‘Funny smell, sir.’ I answered negligently, ‘It’s good for the
health, they say,’ and walked aft.

“The first thing I did was to put my head down the square of the midship
ventilator. As I lifted the lid a visible breath, something like a thin
fog, a puff of faint haze, rose from the opening. The ascending air was
hot, and had a heavy, sooty, paraffiny smell. I gave one sniff, and
put down the lid gently. It was no use choking myself. The cargo was on
fire.

“Next day she began to smoke in earnest. You see it was to be expected,
for though the coal was of a safe kind, that cargo had been so handled,
so broken up with handling, that it looked more like smithy coal than
anything else. Then it had been wetted--more than once. It rained all
the time we were taking it back from the hulk, and now with this
long passage it got heated, and there was another case of spontaneous
combustion.

“The captain called us into the cabin. He had a chart spread on the
table, and looked unhappy. He said, ‘The coast of West Australia is
near, but I mean to proceed to our destination. It is the hurricane
month too; but we will just keep her head for Bankok, and fight the
fire. No more putting back anywhere, if we all get roasted. We will try
first to stifle this ‘ere damned combustion by want of air.’

“We tried. We battened down everything, and still she smoked. The smoke
kept coming out through imperceptible crevices; it forced itself through
bulkheads and covers; it oozed here and there and everywhere in slender
threads, in an invisible film, in an incomprehensible manner. It made
its way into the cabin, into the forecastle; it poisoned the sheltered
places on the deck, it could be sniffed as high as the main-yard. It
was clear that if the smoke came out the air came in. This was
disheartening. This combustion refused to be stifled.

“We resolved to try water, and took the hatches off. Enormous volumes
of smoke, whitish, yellowish, thick, greasy, misty, choking, ascended as
high as the trucks. All hands cleared out aft. Then the poisonous cloud
blew away, and we went back to work in a smoke that was no thicker now
than that of an ordinary factory chimney.

“We rigged the force pump, got the hose along, and by-and-by it burst.
Well, it was as old as the ship--a prehistoric hose, and past repair.
Then we pumped with the feeble head-pump, drew water with buckets, and
in this way managed in time to pour lots of Indian Ocean into the main
hatch. The bright stream flashed in sunshine, fell into a layer of
white crawling smoke, and vanished on the black surface of coal. Steam
ascended mingling with the smoke. We poured salt water as into a barrel
without a bottom. It was our fate to pump in that ship, to pump out
of her, to pump into her; and after keeping water out of her to save
ourselves from being drowned, we frantically poured water into her to
save ourselves from being burnt.

“And she crawled on, do or die, in the serene weather. The sky was a
miracle of purity, a miracle of azure. The sea was polished, was blue,
was pellucid, was sparkling like a precious stone, extending on all
sides, all round to the horizon--as if the whole terrestrial globe had
been one jewel, one colossal sapphire, a single gem fashioned into a
planet. And on the luster of the great calm waters the _Judea_ glided
imperceptibly, enveloped in languid and unclean vapours, in a lazy cloud
that drifted to leeward, light and slow: a pestiferous cloud defiling
the splendour of sea and sky.

“All this time of course we saw no fire. The cargo smoldered at the
bottom somewhere. Once Mahon, as we were working side by side, said to
me with a queer smile: ‘Now, if she only would spring a tidy leak--like
that time when we first left the Channel--it would put a stopper on this
fire. Wouldn’t it?’ I remarked irrelevantly, ‘Do you remember the rats?’

“We fought the fire and sailed the ship too as carefully as though
nothing had been the matter. The steward cooked and attended on us. Of
the other twelve men, eight worked while four rested. Everyone took
his turn, captain included. There was equality, and if not exactly
fraternity, then a deal of good feeling. Sometimes a man, as he dashed
a bucketful of water down the hatchway, would yell out, ‘Hurrah for
Bankok!’ and the rest laughed. But generally we were taciturn and
serious--and thirsty. Oh! how thirsty! And we had to be careful with the
water. Strict allowance. The ship smoked, the sun blazed.... Pass the
bottle.

“We tried everything. We even made an attempt to dig down to the fire.
No good, of course. No man could remain more than a minute below. Mahon,
who went first, fainted there, and the man who went to fetch him out
did likewise. We lugged them out on deck. Then I leaped down to show
how easily it could be done. They had learned wisdom by that time,
and contented themselves by fishing for me with a chain-hook tied to a
broom-handle, I believe. I did not offer to go and fetch up my shovel,
which was left down below.

“Things began to look bad. We put the long-boat into the water. The
second boat was ready to swing out. We had also another, a fourteen-foot
thing, on davits aft, where it was quite safe.

“Then behold, the smoke suddenly decreased. We re-doubled our efforts
to flood the bottom of the ship. In two days there was no smoke at all.
Everybody was on the broad grin. This was on a Friday. On Saturday no
work, but sailing the ship of course was done. The men washed their
clothes and their faces for the first time in a fortnight, and had a
special dinner given them. They spoke of spontaneous combustion with
contempt, and implied _they_ were the boys to put out combustions.
Somehow we all felt as though we each had inherited a large fortune. But
a beastly smell of burning hung about the ship. Captain Beard had hollow
eyes and sunken cheeks. I had never noticed so much before how twisted
and bowed he was. He and Mahon prowled soberly about hatches and
ventilators, sniffing. It struck me suddenly poor Mahon was a very, very
old chap. As to me, I was as pleased and proud as though I had helped to
win a great naval battle. O! Youth!

“The night was fine. In the morning a homeward-bound ship passed us hull
down,--the first we had seen for months; but we were nearing the land at
last, Java Head being about 190 miles off, and nearly due north.

“Next day it was my watch on deck from eight to twelve. At breakfast the
captain observed, ‘It’s wonderful how that smell hangs about the cabin.’
About ten, the mate being on the poop, I stepped down on the main-deck
for a moment. The carpenter’s bench stood abaft the mainmast: I leaned
against it sucking at my pipe, and the carpenter, a young chap, came to
talk to me. He remarked, ‘I think we have done very well, haven’t we?’
and then I perceived with annoyance the fool was trying to tilt the
bench. I said curtly, ‘Don’t, Chips,’ and immediately became aware of a
queer sensation, of an absurd delusion,--I seemed somehow to be in
the air. I heard all round me like a pent-up breath released--as if
a thousand giants simultaneously had said Phoo!--and felt a dull
concussion which made my ribs ache suddenly. No doubt about it--I was
in the air, and my body was describing a short parabola. But short as
it was, I had the time to think several thoughts in, as far as I can
remember, the following order: ‘This can’t be the carpenter--What is
it?--Some accident--Submarine volcano?--Coals, gas!--By Jove! we are
being blown up--Everybody’s dead--I am falling into the after-hatch--I
see fire in it.’

“The coal-dust suspended in the air of the hold had glowed dull-red
at the moment of the explosion. In the twinkling of an eye, in an
infinitesimal fraction of a second since the first tilt of the bench, I
was sprawling full length on the cargo. I picked myself up and scrambled
out. It was quick like a rebound. The deck was a wilderness of smashed
timber, lying crosswise like trees in a wood after a hurricane; an
immense curtain of soiled rags waved gently before me--it was the
mainsail blown to strips. I thought, The masts will be toppling over
directly; and to get out of the way bolted on all-fours towards the
poop-ladder. The first person I saw was Mahon, with eyes like saucers,
his mouth open, and the long white hair standing straight on end round
his head like a silver halo. He was just about to go down when the
sight of the main-deck stirring, heaving up, and changing into splinters
before his eyes, petrified him on the top step. I stared at him in
unbelief, and he stared at me with a queer kind of shocked curiosity.
I did not know that I had no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, that my
young moustache was burnt off, that my face was black, one cheek laid
open, my nose cut, and my chin bleeding. I had lost my cap, one of my
slippers, and my shirt was torn to rags. Of all this I was not aware. I
was amazed to see the ship still afloat, the poop-deck whole--and, most
of all, to see anybody alive. Also the peace of the sky and the serenity
of the sea were distinctly surprising. I suppose I expected to see them
convulsed with horror.... Pass the bottle.

“There was a voice hailing the ship from somewhere--in the air, in the
sky--I couldn’t tell. Presently I saw the captain--and he was mad. He
asked me eagerly, ‘Where’s the cabin-table?’ and to hear such a question
was a frightful shock. I had just been blown up, you understand, and
vibrated with that experience,--I wasn’t quite sure whether I was alive.
Mahon began to stamp with both feet and yelled at him, ‘Good God! don’t
you see the deck’s blown out of her?’ I found my voice, and stammered
out as if conscious of some gross neglect of duty, ‘I don’t know where
the cabin-table is.’ It was like an absurd dream.

“Do you know what he wanted next? Well, he wanted to trim the yards.
Very placidly, and as if lost in thought, he insisted on having the
foreyard squared. ‘I don’t know if there’s anybody alive,’ said Mahon,
almost tearfully. ‘Surely,’ he said gently, ‘there will be enough left
to square the foreyard.’

“The old chap, it seems, was in his own berth, winding up the
chronometers, when the shock sent him spinning. Immediately it occurred
to him--as he said afterwards--that the ship had struck something, and
he ran out into the cabin. There, he saw, the cabin-table had vanished
somewhere. The deck being blown up, it had fallen down into the
lazarette of course. Where we had our breakfast that morning he saw only
a great hole in the floor. This appeared to him so awfully mysterious,
and impressed him so immensely, that what he saw and heard after he got
on deck were mere trifles in comparison. And, mark, he noticed directly
the wheel deserted and his barque off her course--and his only thought
was to get that miserable, stripped, undecked, smouldering shell of
a ship back again with her head pointing at her port of destination.
Bankok! That’s what he was after. I tell you this quiet, bowed,
bandy-legged, almost deformed little man was immense in the singleness
of his idea and in his placid ignorance of our agitation. He motioned us
forward with a commanding gesture, and went to take the wheel himself.

“Yes; that was the first thing we did--trim the yards of that wreck! No
one was killed, or even disabled, but everyone was more or less hurt.
You should have seen them! Some were in rags, with black faces, like
coal-heavers, like sweeps, and had bullet heads that seemed closely
cropped, but were in fact singed to the skin. Others, of the watch
below, awakened by being shot out from their collapsing bunks, shivered
incessantly, and kept on groaning even as we went about our work. But
they all worked. That crew of Liverpool hard cases had in them the right
stuff. It’s my experience they always have. It is the sea that gives
it--the vastness, the loneliness surrounding their dark stolid souls.
Ah! Well! we stumbled, we crept, we fell, we barked our shins on the
wreckage, we hauled. The masts stood, but we did not know how much they
might be charred down below. It was nearly calm, but a long swell ran
from the west and made her roll. They might go at any moment. We looked
at them with apprehension. One could not foresee which way they would
fall.

“Then we retreated aft and looked about us. The deck was a tangle of
planks on edge, of planks on end, of splinters, of ruined woodwork. The
masts rose from that chaos like big trees above a matted undergrowth.
The interstices of that mass of wreckage were full of something whitish,
sluggish, stirring--of something that was like a greasy fog. The
smoke of the invisible fire was coming up again, was trailing, like a
poisonous thick mist in some valley choked with dead wood. Already lazy
wisps were beginning to curl upwards amongst the mass of splinters. Here
and there a piece of timber, stuck upright, resembled a post. Half of a
fife-rail had been shot through the foresail, and the sky made a patch
of glorious blue in the ignobly soiled canvas. A portion of several
boards holding together had fallen across the rail, and one end
protruded overboard, like a gangway leading upon nothing, like a gangway
leading over the deep sea, leading to death--as if inviting us to walk
the plank at once and be done with our ridiculous troubles. And still
the air, the sky--a ghost, something invisible was hailing the ship.

“Someone had the sense to look over, and there was the helmsman, who had
impulsively jumped overboard, anxious to come back. He yelled and swam
lustily like a merman, keeping up with the ship. We threw him a
rope, and presently he stood amongst us streaming with water and very
crestfallen. The captain had surrendered the wheel, and apart, elbow on
rail and chin in hand, gazed at the sea wistfully. We asked ourselves,
What next? I thought, Now, this is something like. This is great. I
wonder what will happen. O youth!

“Suddenly Mahon sighted a steamer far astern. Captain Beard said, ‘We
may do something with her yet.’ We hoisted two flags, which said in the
international language of the sea, ‘On fire. Want immediate assistance.’
The steamer grew bigger rapidly, and by-and-by spoke with two flags on
her foremast, ‘I am coming to your assistance.’

“In half an hour she was abreast, to windward, within hail, and rolling
slightly, with her engines stopped. We lost our composure, and yelled
all together with excitement, ‘We’ve been blown up.’ A man in a white
helmet, on the bridge, cried, ‘Yes! All right! all right!’ and he nodded
his head, and smiled, and made soothing motions with his hand as though
at a lot of frightened children. One of the boats dropped in the water,
and walked towards us upon the sea with her long oars. Four Calashes
pulled a swinging stroke. This was my first sight of Malay seamen. I’ve
known them since, but what struck me then was their unconcern: they
came alongside, and even the bowman standing up and holding to our
main-chains with the boat-hook did not deign to lift his head for a
glance. I thought people who had been blown up deserved more attention.

“A little man, dry like a chip and agile like a monkey, clambered up. It
was the mate of the steamer. He gave one look, and cried, ‘O boys--you
had better quit.’

“We were silent. He talked apart with the captain for a time,--seemed to
argue with him. Then they went away together to the steamer.

“When our skipper came back we learned that the steamer was the
_Sommerville_, Captain Nash, from West Australia to Singapore via
Batavia with mails, and that the agreement was she should tow us to
Anjer or Batavia, if possible, where we could extinguish the fire by
scuttling, and then proceed on our voyage--to Bankok! The old man seemed
excited. ‘We will do it yet,’ he said to Mahon, fiercely. He shook his
fist at the sky. Nobody else said a word.

“At noon the steamer began to tow. She went ahead slim and high, and
what was left of the _Judea_ followed at the end of seventy fathom of
tow-rope,--followed her swiftly like a cloud of smoke with mastheads
protruding above. We went aloft to furl the sails. We coughed on the
yards, and were careful about the bunts. Do you see the lot of us there,
putting a neat furl on the sails of that ship doomed to arrive nowhere?
There was not a man who didn’t think that at any moment the masts would
topple over. From aloft we could not see the ship for smoke, and
they worked carefully, passing the gaskets with even turns. ‘Harbour
furl--aloft there!’ cried Mahon from below.

“You understand this? I don’t think one of those chaps expected to get
down in the usual way. When we did I heard them saying to each other,
‘Well, I thought we would come down overboard, in a lump--sticks and
all--blame me if I didn’t.’ ‘That’s what I was thinking to myself,’
would answer wearily another battered and bandaged scarecrow. And, mind,
these were men without the drilled-in habit of obedience. To an onlooker
they would be a lot of profane scallywags without a redeeming
point. What made them do it--what made them obey me when I, thinking
consciously how fine it was, made them drop the bunt of the foresail
twice to try and do it better? What? They had no professional
reputation--no examples, no praise. It wasn’t a sense of duty; they all
knew well enough how to shirk, and laze, and dodge--when they had a mind
to it--and mostly they had. Was it the two pounds ten a month that sent
them there? They didn’t think their pay half good enough. No; it was
something in them, something inborn and subtle and everlasting. I don’t
say positively that the crew of a French or German merchantman wouldn’t
have done it, but I doubt whether it would have been done in the same
way. There was a completeness in it, something solid like a principle,
and masterful like an instinct--a disclosure of something secret--of
that hidden something, that gift, of good or evil that makes racial
difference, that shapes the fate of nations.

“It was that night at ten that, for the first time since we had been
fighting it, we saw the fire. The speed of the towing had fanned the
smoldering destruction. A blue gleam appeared forward, shining below the
wreck of the deck. It wavered in patches, it seemed to stir and creep
like the light of a glowworm. I saw it first, and told Mahon. ‘Then the
game’s up,’ he said. ‘We had better stop this towing, or she will burst
out suddenly fore and aft before we can clear out.’ We set up a yell;
rang bells to attract their attention; they towed on. At last Mahon and
I had to crawl forward and cut the rope with an ax. There was no time to
cast off the lashings. Red tongues could be seen licking the wilderness
of splinters under our feet as we made our way back to the poop.

“Of course they very soon found out in the steamer that the rope
was gone. She gave a loud blast of her whistle, her lights were seen
sweeping in a wide circle, she came up ranging close alongside, and
stopped. We were all in a tight group on the poop looking at her. Every
man had saved a little bundle or a bag. Suddenly a conical flame with
a twisted top shot up forward and threw upon the black sea a circle
of light, with the two vessels side by side and heaving gently in its
center. Captain Beard had been sitting on the gratings still and mute
for hours, but now he rose slowly and advanced in front of us, to the
mizzen-shrouds. Captain Nash hailed: ‘Come along! Look sharp. I have
mail-bags on board. I will take you and your boats to Singapore.’

“‘Thank you! No!’ said our skipper. ‘We must see the last of the ship.’

“‘I can’t stand by any longer,’ shouted the other. ‘Mails--you know.’

“‘Ay! ay! We are all right.’

“‘Very well! I’ll report you in Singapore.... Good-bye!’

“He waved his hand. Our men dropped their bundles quietly. The steamer
moved ahead, and passing out of the circle of light, vanished at once
from our sight, dazzled by the fire which burned fiercely. And then I
knew that I would see the East first as commander of a small boat. I
thought it fine; and the fidelity to the old ship was fine. We should
see the last of her. Oh the glamour of youth! Oh the fire of it, more
dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing a magic light on
the wide earth, leaping audaciously to the sky, presently to be quenched
by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea--and like
the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night.”

*****

“The old man warned us in his gentle and inflexible way that it was part
of our duty to save for the under-writers as much as we could of the
ship’s gear. According we went to work aft, while she blazed forward to
give us plenty of light. We lugged out a lot of rubbish. What didn’t we
save? An old barometer fixed with an absurd quantity of screws nearly
cost me my life: a sudden rush of smoke came upon me, and I just got
away in time. There were various stores, bolts of canvas, coils of rope;
the poop looked like a marine bazaar, and the boats were lumbered to the
gunwales. One would have thought the old man wanted to take as much as
he could of his first command with him. He was very very quiet, but off
his balance evidently. Would you believe it? He wanted to take a length
of old stream-cable and a kedge-anchor with him in the long-boat. We
said, ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ deferentially, and on the quiet let the thing slip
overboard. The heavy medicine-chest went that way, two bags of green
coffee, tins of paint--fancy, paint!--a whole lot of things. Then I was
ordered with two hands into the boats to make a stowage and get them
ready against the time it would be proper for us to leave the ship.

“We put everything straight, stepped the long-boat’s mast for our
skipper, who was in charge of her, and I was not sorry to sit down for a
moment. My face felt raw, every limb ached as if broken, I was aware
of all my ribs, and would have sworn to a twist in the back-bone. The
boats, fast astern, lay in a deep shadow, and all around I could see the
circle of the sea lighted by the fire. A gigantic flame arose forward
straight and clear. It flared there, with noises like the whir of wings,
with rumbles as of thunder. There were cracks, detonations, and from
the cone of flame the sparks flew upwards, as man is born to trouble, to
leaky ships, and to ships that burn.

“What bothered me was that the ship, lying broadside to the swell and to
such wind as there was--a mere breath--the boats would not keep astern
where they were safe, but persisted, in a pig-headed way boats have,
in getting under the counter and then swinging alongside. They were
knocking about dangerously and coming near the flame, while the ship
rolled on them, and, of course, there was always the danger of the masts
going over the side at any moment. I and my two boat-keepers kept them
off as best we could with oars and boat-hooks; but to be constantly
at it became exasperating, since there was no reason why we should not
leave at once. We could not see those on board, nor could we imagine
what caused the delay. The boat-keepers were swearing feebly, and I had
not only my share of the work, but also had to keep at it two men who
showed a constant inclination to lay themselves down and let things
slide.

“At last I hailed ‘On deck there,’ and someone looked over. ‘We’re ready
here,’ I said. The head disappeared, and very soon popped up again. ‘The
captain says, All right, sir, and to keep the boats well clear of the
ship.’

“Half an hour passed. Suddenly there was a frightful racket, rattle,
clanking of chain, hiss of water, and millions of sparks flew up into
the shivering column of smoke that stood leaning slightly above the
ship. The cat-heads had burned away, and the two red-hot anchors had
gone to the bottom, tearing out after them two hundred fathom of red-hot
chain. The ship trembled, the mass of flame swayed as if ready to
collapse, and the fore top-gallant-mast fell. It darted down like
an arrow of fire, shot under, and instantly leaping up within an
oar’s-length of the boats, floated quietly, very black on the luminous
sea. I hailed the deck again. After some time a man in an unexpectedly
cheerful but also muffled tone, as though he had been trying to speak
with his mouth shut, informed me, ‘Coming directly, sir,’ and vanished.
For a long time I heard nothing but the whir and roar of the fire. There
were also whistling sounds. The boats jumped, tugged at the painters,
ran at each other playfully, knocked their sides together, or, do what
we would, swung in a bunch against the ship’s side. I couldn’t stand it
any longer, and swarming up a rope, clambered aboard over the stern.

“It was as bright as day. Coming up like this, the sheet of fire facing
me, was a terrifying sight, and the heat seemed hardly bearable at
first. On a settee cushion dragged out of the cabin, Captain Beard,
with his legs drawn up and one arm under his head, slept with the light
playing on him. Do you know what the rest were busy about? They were
sitting on deck right aft, round an open case, eating bread and cheese
and drinking bottled stout.

“On the background of flames twisting in fierce tongues above their
heads they seemed at home like salamanders, and looked like a band
of desperate pirates. The fire sparkled in the whites of their eyes,
gleamed on patches of white skin seen through the torn shirts. Each
had the marks as of a battle about him--bandaged heads, tied-up arms, a
strip of dirty rag round a knee--and each man had a bottle between his
legs and a chunk of cheese in his hand. Mahon got up. With his handsome
and disreputable head, his hooked profile, his long white beard, and
with an uncorked bottle in his hand, he resembled one of those reckless
sea-robbers of old making merry amidst violence and disaster. ‘The last
meal on board,’ he explained solemnly. ‘We had nothing to eat all
day, and it was no use leaving all this.’ He flourished the bottle and
indicated the sleeping skipper. ‘He said he couldn’t swallow anything,
so I got him to lie down,’ he went on; and as I stared, ‘I don’t know
whether you are aware, young fellow, the man had no sleep to speak of
for days--and there will be dam’ little sleep in the boats.’ ‘There
will be no boats by-and-by if you fool about much longer,’ I said,
indignantly. I walked up to the skipper and shook him by the shoulder.
At last he opened his eyes, but did not move. ‘Time to leave her, sir,’
I said, quietly.

“He got up painfully, looked at the flames, at the sea sparkling round
the ship, and black, black as ink farther away; he looked at the stars
shining dim through a thin veil of smoke in a sky black, black as
Erebus.

“‘Youngest first,’ he said.

“And the ordinary seaman, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
got up, clambered over the taffrail, and vanished. Others followed. One,
on the point of going over, stopped short to drain his bottle, and with
a great swing of his arm flung it at the fire. ‘Take this!’ he cried.

“The skipper lingered disconsolately, and we left him to commune alone
for awhile with his first command. Then I went up again and brought
him away at last. It was time. The ironwork on the poop was hot to the
touch.

“Then the painter of the long-boat was cut, and the three boats, tied
together, drifted clear of the ship. It was just sixteen hours after the
explosion when we abandoned her. Mahon had charge of the second boat,
and I had the smallest--the 14-foot thing. The long-boat would have
taken the lot of us; but the skipper said we must save as much property
as we could--for the under-writers--and so I got my first command. I had
two men with me, a bag of biscuits, a few tins of meat, and a breaker of
water. I was ordered to keep close to the long-boat, that in case of bad
weather we might be taken into her.

“And do you know what I thought? I thought I would part company as soon
as I could. I wanted to have my first command all to myself. I wasn’t
going to sail in a squadron if there were a chance for independent
cruising. I would make land by myself. I would beat the other boats.
Youth! All youth! The silly, charming, beautiful youth.

“But we did not make a start at once. We must see the last of the ship.
And so the boats drifted about that night, heaving and setting on the
swell. The men dozed, waked, sighed, groaned. I looked at the burning
ship.

“Between the darkness of earth and heaven she was burning fiercely upon
a disc of purple sea shot by the blood-red play of gleams; upon a disc
of water glittering and sinister. A high, clear flame, an immense and
lonely flame, ascended from the ocean, and from its summit the black
smoke poured continuously at the sky. She burned furiously, mournful
and imposing like a funeral pile kindled in the night, surrounded by
the sea, watched over by the stars. A magnificent death had come like
a grace, like a gift, like a reward to that old ship at the end of her
laborious days. The surrender of her weary ghost to the keeping of stars
and sea was stirring like the sight of a glorious triumph. The masts
fell just before daybreak, and for a moment there was a burst and
turmoil of sparks that seemed to fill with flying fire the night patient
and watchful, the vast night lying silent upon the sea. At daylight
she was only a charred shell, floating still under a cloud of smoke and
bearing a glowing mass of coal within.

“Then the oars were got out, and the boats forming in a line moved round
her remains as if in procession--the long-boat leading. As we pulled
across her stern a slim dart of fire shot out viciously at us, and
suddenly she went down, head first, in a great hiss of steam. The
unconsumed stern was the last to sink; but the paint had gone, had
cracked, had peeled off, and there were no letters, there was no word,
no stubborn device that was like her soul, to flash at the rising sun
her creed and her name.

“We made our way north. A breeze sprang up, and about noon all the boats
came together for the last time. I had no mast or sail in mine, but I
made a mast out of a spare oar and hoisted a boat-awning for a sail,
with a boat-hook for a yard. She was certainly over-masted, but I had
the satisfaction of knowing that with the wind aft I could beat the
other two. I had to wait for them. Then we all had a look at the
captain’s chart, and, after a sociable meal of hard bread and water, got
our last instructions. These were simple: steer north, and keep together
as much as possible. ‘Be careful with that jury rig, Marlow,’ said the
captain; and Mahon, as I sailed proudly past his boat, wrinkled his
curved nose and hailed, ‘You will sail that ship of yours under water,
if you don’t look out, young fellow.’ He was a malicious old man--and
may the deep sea where he sleeps now rock him gently, rock him tenderly
to the end of time!

“Before sunset a thick rain-squall passed over the two boats, which were
far astern, and that was the last I saw of them for a time. Next day I
sat steering my cockle-shell--my first command--with nothing but water
and sky around me. I did sight in the afternoon the upper sails of a
ship far away, but said nothing, and my men did not notice her. You see
I was afraid she might be homeward bound, and I had no mind to turn back
from the portals of the East. I was steering for Java--another blessed
name--like Bankok, you know. I steered many days.

“I need not tell you what it is to be knocking about in an open boat. I
remember nights and days of calm when we pulled, we pulled, and the
boat seemed to stand still, as if bewitched within the circle of the sea
horizon. I remember the heat, the deluge of rain-squalls that kept us
baling for dear life (but filled our water-cask), and I remember sixteen
hours on end with a mouth dry as a cinder and a steering-oar over the
stern to keep my first command head on to a breaking sea. I did not know
how good a man I was till then. I remember the drawn faces, the dejected
figures of my two men, and I remember my youth and the feeling that
will never come back any more--the feeling that I could last for ever,
outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that
lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort--to death; the
triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of
dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold,
grows small, and expires--and expires, too soon--before life itself.

“And this is how I see the East. I have seen its secret places and have
looked into its very soul; but now I see it always from a small boat, a
high outline of mountains, blue and afar in the morning; like faint mist
at noon; a jagged wall of purple at sunset. I have the feel of the oar
in my hand, the vision of a scorching blue sea in my eyes. And I see a
bay, a wide bay, smooth as glass and polished like ice, shimmering in
the dark. A red light burns far off upon the gloom of the land, and
the night is soft and warm. We drag at the oars with aching arms, and
suddenly a puff of wind, a puff faint and tepid and laden with strange
odors of blossoms, of aromatic wood, comes out of the still night--the
first sigh of the East on my face. That I can never forget. It was
impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a whispered promise of
mysterious delight.

“We had been pulling this finishing spell for eleven hours. Two pulled,
and he whose turn it was to rest sat at the tiller. We had made out the
red light in that bay and steered for it, guessing it must mark some
small coasting port. We passed two vessels, outlandish and high-sterned,
sleeping at anchor, and, approaching the light, now very dim, ran the
boat’s nose against the end of a jutting wharf. We were blind with
fatigue. My men dropped the oars and fell off the thwarts as if dead. I
made fast to a pile. A current rippled softly. The scented obscurity of
the shore was grouped into vast masses, a density of colossal clumps of
vegetation, probably--mute and fantastic shapes. And at their foot the
semicircle of a beach gleamed faintly, like an illusion. There was not
a light, not a stir, not a sound. The mysterious East faced me, perfumed
like a flower, silent like death, dark like a grave.

“And I sat weary beyond expression, exulting like a conqueror, sleepless
and entranced as if before a profound, a fateful enigma.

“A splashing of oars, a measured dip reverberating on the level of
water, intensified by the silence of the shore into loud claps, made me
jump up. A boat, a European boat, was coming in. I invoked the name of
the dead; I hailed: _Judea_ ahoy! A thin shout answered.

“It was the captain. I had beaten the flagship by three hours, and I
was glad to hear the old man’s voice, tremulous and tired. ‘Is it you,
Marlow?’ ‘Mind the end of that jetty, sir,’ I cried.

“He approached cautiously, and brought up with the deep-sea lead-line
which we had saved--for the under-writers. I eased my painter and fell
alongside. He sat, a broken figure at the stern, wet with dew, his hands
clasped in his lap. His men were asleep already. ‘I had a terrible time
of it,’ he murmured. ‘Mahon is behind--not very far.’ We conversed
in whispers, in low whispers, as if afraid to wake up the land. Guns,
thunder, earthquakes would not have awakened the men just then.

“Looking around as we talked, I saw away at sea a bright light travelling
in the night. ‘There’s a steamer passing the bay,’ I said. She was not
passing, she was entering, and she even came close and anchored. ‘I
wish,’ said the old man, ‘you would find out whether she is English.
Perhaps they could give us a passage somewhere.’ He seemed nervously
anxious. So by dint of punching and kicking I started one of my men into
a state of somnambulism, and giving him an oar, took another and pulled
towards the lights of the steamer.

“There was a murmur of voices in her, metallic hollow clangs of the
engine-room, footsteps on the deck. Her ports shone, round like dilated
eyes. Shapes moved about, and there was a shadowy man high up on the
bridge. He heard my oars.

“And then, before I could open my lips, the East spoke to me, but it was
in a Western voice. A torrent of words was poured into the enigmatical,
the fateful silence; outlandish, angry words, mixed with words and even
whole sentences of good English, less strange but even more surprising.
The voice swore and cursed violently; it riddled the solemn peace of the
bay by a volley of abuse. It began by calling me Pig, and from that went
crescendo into unmentionable adjectives--in English. The man up there
raged aloud in two languages, and with a sincerity in his fury that
almost convinced me I had, in some way, sinned against the harmony of
the universe. I could hardly see him, but began to think he would work
himself into a fit.

“Suddenly he ceased, and I could hear him snorting and blowing like a
porpoise. I said--

“‘What steamer is this, pray?’

“‘Eh? What’s this? And who are you?’

“‘Castaway crew of an English barque burnt at sea. We came here
to-night. I am the second mate. The captain is in the long-boat, and
wishes to know if you would give us a passage somewhere.’

“‘Oh, my goodness! I say... This is the Celestial from Singapore on
her return trip. I’ll arrange with your captain in the morning...
and,... I say... did you hear me just now?’

“‘I should think the whole bay heard you.’

“‘I thought you were a shore-boat. Now, look here--this infernal lazy
scoundrel of a caretaker has gone to sleep again--curse him. The light
is out, and I nearly ran foul of the end of this damned jetty. This is
the third time he plays me this trick. Now, I ask you, can anybody stand
this kind of thing? It’s enough to drive a man out of his mind. I’ll
report him.... I’ll get the Assistant Resident to give him the
sack, by... See--there’s no light. It’s out, isn’t it? I take you to
witness the light’s out. There should be a light, you know. A red light
on the--’

“‘There was a light,’ I said, mildly.

“‘But it’s out, man! What’s the use of talking like this? You can see
for yourself it’s out--don’t you? If you had to take a valuable steamer
along this God-forsaken coast you would want a light too. I’ll kick him
from end to end of his miserable wharf. You’ll see if I don’t. I will--’

“‘So I may tell my captain you’ll take us?’ I broke in.

“‘Yes, I’ll take you. Good night,’ he said, brusquely.

“I pulled back, made fast again to the jetty, and then went to sleep
at last. I had faced the silence of the East. I had heard some of its
languages. But when I opened my eyes again the silence was as complete
as though it had never been broken. I was lying in a flood of light, and
the sky had never looked so far, so high, before. I opened my eyes and
lay without moving.

“And then I saw the men of the East--they were looking at me. The whole
length of the jetty was full of people. I saw brown, bronze, yellow
faces, the black eyes, the glitter, the colour of an Eastern crowd.
And all these beings stared without a murmur, without a sigh, without
a movement. They stared down at the boats, at the sleeping men who at
night had come to them from the sea. Nothing moved. The fronds of palms
stood still against the sky. Not a branch stirred along the shore,
and the brown roofs of hidden houses peeped through the green foliage,
through the big leaves that hung shining and still like leaves forged
of heavy metal. This was the East of the ancient navigators, so old, so
mysterious, resplendent and somber, living and unchanged, full of
danger and promise. And these were the men. I sat up suddenly. A wave
of movement passed through the crowd from end to end, passed along
the heads, swayed the bodies, ran along the jetty like a ripple on the
water, like a breath of wind on a field--and all was still again. I see
it now--the wide sweep of the bay, the glittering sands, the wealth of
green infinite and varied, the sea blue like the sea of a dream,
the crowd of attentive faces, the blaze of vivid colour--the water
reflecting it all, the curve of the shore, the jetty, the high-sterned
outlandish craft floating still, and the three boats with tired men
from the West sleeping unconscious of the land and the people and of the
violence of sunshine. They slept thrown across the thwarts, curled on
bottom-boards, in the careless attitudes of death. The head of the old
skipper, leaning back in the stern of the long-boat, had fallen on his
breast, and he looked as though he would never wake. Farther out old
Mahon’s face was upturned to the sky, with the long white beard spread
out on his breast, as though he had been shot where he sat at the
tiller; and a man, all in a heap in the bows of the boat, slept with
both arms embracing the stem-head and with his cheek laid on the
gunwale. The East looked at them without a sound.

“I have known its fascination since: I have seen the mysterious shores,
the still water, the lands of brown nations, where a stealthy Nemesis
lies in wait, pursues, overtakes so many of the conquering race, who are
proud of their wisdom, of their knowledge, of their strength. But for me
all the East is contained in that vision of my youth. It is all in that
moment when I opened my young eyes on it. I came upon it from a tussle
with the sea--and I was young--and I saw it looking at me. And this is
all that is left of it! Only a moment; a moment of strength, of
romance, of glamour--of youth!... A flick of sunshine upon a strange
shore, the time to remember, the time for a sigh,
and--good-bye!--Night--Good-bye...!”

He drank.

“Ah! The good old time--the good old time. Youth and the sea. Glamour
and the sea! The good, strong sea, the salt, bitter sea, that could
whisper to you and roar at you and knock your breath out of you.”

He drank again.

“By all that’s wonderful, it is the sea, I believe, the sea itself--or
is it youth alone? Who can tell? But you here--you all had something out
of life: money, love--whatever one gets on shore--and, tell me, wasn’t
that the best time, that time when we were young at sea; young and
had nothing, on the sea that gives nothing, except hard knocks--and
sometimes a chance to feel your strength--that only--what you all
regret?”

And we all nodded at him: the man of finance, the man of accounts, the
man of law, we all nodded at him over the polished table that like a
still sheet of brown water reflected our faces, lined, wrinkled; our
faces marked by toil, by deceptions, by success, by love; our weary eyes
looking still, looking always, looking anxiously for something out of
life, that while it is expected is already gone--has passed unseen, in
a sigh, in a flash--together with the youth, with the strength, with the
romance of illusions.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Youth, a Narrative" ***

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