The violent rolling of the ship did not relent. That seemed senseless, when she was crippled. She ought to be let off, now she could not steer. Impossible to think, with that rolling.
Colet, to his great annoyance, found that his knees were shaking. He had not told them to. He did not want them to shake. He damned those quivering members of his body, and would have stiffened them, but that he was flung against a bulkhead, and so brought down some of the master’s pipes from a rack. Something to do, anyway. He could recover tobacco pipes while others found a rudder. Better men had to look after the ship for those who attended to pipe-racks, while waiting.
They also serve, who only look after the tobacco pipes. If there was no wind when he first went into that room, something was howling now all right. It was no good waiting for the captain. Hale was not likely to return till—well, he wasn’t likely to return. The best thing to do would be to go and find the men at the centre of things, because that cabin had precious little interest now. It was useless to wait there, at that time of night, when for all he knew they soon might be taking to the boats.
He heard a heavy concussion. The cabin shook. The papers on which he had been working fell to the floor. The boats! Colet watched the papers sprawling and scattering. They had lost their meaning. They were just as well where they were. But there would be no boats for the sea which could make that sound. The cabin reversed, and as it did so a tongue of water shot over the carpet straight for the papers. Colet dived for them and snatched them out of its way. Save the stationery!
He straightened them on the desk. With measured deliberation he sought carefully for the sheet on which he had been working. They were all in a mess, these sheets, but so was everything else. At least the ship’s papers could be put in order. No more water seemed to be coming in. That was only a splash. Not foundering yet. He settled the papers into their sequence, and began again on them at the mark. The captain had said wait.
It was the only thing to do, but that lad Casabianca deserved a better poem. It would be easy to wait on a deck diminishing in dissolution if one but knew the reason for it. But this was only an idiot joke, dutifully completing a ship’s papers when the mysterious reason was trying to turn the ship over. Now the infernal water was under the desk. Reason! No more reason in it than there was in the hot gas which congealed to a mud ball, on which grew the truth, and crosses and nails for those who dared to mention it. What a joke; and nobody to get a laugh out of it!
Let her roll. He could not stop it. Time for a pipe. Not his affair. Funny, that a man should curse the stars in their courses, when he was beset. Same thing as a rat biting his trap, maybe. Best to call himself lucky. Lucky to have a job to do, if only a job of checking packages of pots and pans, when the heaven itself was cracking. “We are but little children meek.” The tune of this hymn, for some uninvited cause, was running through his head. The movements of the ship kept it going. “Not born in any high estate.” Couldn’t very well call this estate puffed up. “What can we do for Jesus’ sake?” Well, Jesus, I was checking this ship’s manifest when I went down. Sorry it’s wet.
What was the time? To his surprise, the clock said it was another morning again. The skipper’s cabin was in a sorry state. Somebody was attempting the door, but the slant of the ship held it fast. The door rattled, and then Hale entered. He showed no surprise at finding the purser still busy. He took a towel and wiped his face. “I should drop that now,” he remarked.
Colet told him he had just finished it. Hale looked at the clock, and thanked him. The purser modestly waited for the master to give a word on the business without, but Hale merely balanced himself patiently to the movements of his room, and sought for something in a drawer.
“By the way, Colet, you could turn in here. It would save you the run to your own place.”
But Colet felt a sudden dislike of the suggestion of that isolation.
“Oh, thank you. But I’ll make for my own cubbyhole. It’ll do me good, to run for it.”
That was all. Not a word about the rudder. And perhaps it would be better not to ask questions. Perhaps rudders were indelicate. By Hale’s manner, too, it might be only a rather wet night. It would be nobler to assume the night was merely wet.
Hale led on to the head of the companion to the quarterdeck.
“Can’t open the lower door,” he explained. The master stood there, with his hand on the upper door, as though listening for someone who would let them out. “Now,” he muttered, opened it on the instant, and they were both in the night.
The night engulfed them with a roar as though it saw them instantly. Colet was separated from Hale. There was no ship. There was but a pealing and a shouting. The darkness was full of driving water. It was hard to breathe. Hale had gone. Colet forgot which was the head and which the stern. A burst of spray raked past. Then he felt a grip on his arm, and a warm mouth sought his ear. Hale was saying something but his words were torn away.
“What?”
The skipper’s voice was at once superior to the
