When Colet next saw Sinclair that officer was climbing the ladder amidships, as happy and unexpected a token as an angelic visitor. The purser put his arm round his friend’s shoulder.
“All right. Done it, Colet.”
She was steering again.
“See that out there?” Sinclair thrust out his arm.
Something was to be seen in the murk. What was it? Smoke?
“Yes. It’s a liner. She’ll be passing us in an hour.”
Colet went to his room in gratitude. He felt as though the sky had gone up to its friendly height. They were let off. They were getting out of it. The violence meant nothing now. His cabin seemed larger, more intimate. He was comforted by even the society of distant but brotherly smoke. They were not alone, either. He was thinking he would go out presently to watch their neighbour pass them when Sinclair entered, and something about Sinclair made him rise as though this were an important meeting.
“The liner’s almost abeam. Go up with the old man, Colet. He’s going to signal her. There’s something not right—Gillespie says the furnace footplates are awash. That and our steering-gear together … he wants a tow, I expect. I’m going below now to find what I can.”
There was light enough to see the signals of the stranger. It was impossible for Colet to make out what was passing between the two ships. The tumbling of their wounded steamer was accentuated, it was sickening, when things were happening, and you did not know what.
“Did you make out her last signal, Lycett?” asked the captain.
“Yes, sir, distinctly. He says he cannot tow. Got the mails. He asks whether you will abandon.”
“No. Signal, no.”
XVIII
Young Lycett faintly hesitated over that signal; or so Colet imagined. Never before had he watched his fellows so closely. But the lad turned to the rack where rolled flags waited in their pigeonholes to cue any fate that might come, and went out to his duty. There came another smear of bunting for them on the liner—too late; the light was not good enough. But a star began to wink at her bridge, and they all watched it till it ceased. Lycett returned to them.
“He says he will report us, sir.”
The master nodded. “Of course.”
That was ended. Nobody spoke. The seaman at the useless wheel was aloof. He had no part in this. He appeared not to have heard anything, not to be interested in what was passing. He was merely waiting for the wheel to show a better spirit, and he could wait forever. He did not even turn his head to look at the departing liner. Only Lycett did that. The master had his hands spread on a desk, and was considering, so it appeared, a diagram before him. He had dismissed the liner. He had forgotten her already? And there she went. Colet, like young Lycett, watched her fade. She was already becoming unsubstantial; the upheavals and the twilight were taking her. Through a side-window Colet noticed a stoker below, clutching the bulwarks, his grimy flimsies shuddering in the wind, and he, too, was peering after the ship that was leaving them.
“Take over,” said the captain to Lycett, and went out.
The boyish officer at that turned from the place on the seas where the promise of the other ship was dying, as if he had petulantly resolved not to look that way again, and instead stood gazing at the Altair’s head uneasy in the surge, though not as if he saw it. He was silent. The man at the wheel might not have been there. What were the others doing? There was no sound but that of the swash and parade of the ocean. Lycett became aware of the diagram of the ship before him, and with a new interest began to examine it. He addressed the image at the wheel without lifting his head.
“Wilson, I say, do you think she is a bit by the head?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you have noticed it. How long since you first thought so?”
The image continued its fixed regard of nothing for a while, its jaws moving as though it were making its words. When they were ready, it spoke.
“About an hour.”
The youngster bent closer to the diagram, and ended his inspection with a calculation on an old envelope he took from his pocket.
“Why, but in that case she won’t last till morning.”
Wilson eased his position slightly, and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. His voice was so deep and effortless that it sounded like the easy impersonal utterance of the room itself.
“She may. You can’t tell.”
He might have experienced a full life of such nights and occasions, and so could, if it were worth while, advise youth out of a, privy knowledge which was part of the nature of ships and the sea.
“Something may be done,” said Wilson.
Colet made as if he were about to leave them.
“Don’t go, Mr. Colet,” urged the officer in charge. “Wait here, will you, till somebody comes along.”
Colet let go the handle of the door, went over to look at the diagram with Lycett, and endured the quiet, while listening to the seas, which were now invisible. The boy began to whistle a tune softly in a hesitating way.
What were the others doing? Sometimes Colet thought he felt the far thumping of human handiwork under their feet. Hale and Sinclair were there, anyhow, and old Gillespie and his men; it was comforting, that certitude. It warmed the world, that secure thought of its good men holding fast. And while his faith was sustained that they could save her, it was not altogether because he himself was there. The ship herself meant something. She had become important. That image at the wheel was admonishing; that figure might be, perchance, the secret familiar of their ship. It was more than
