“Eight bells,” said Gillespie, “and all’s well. Change over.”
Colet’s teeth chattered on their own account. They got into full speed before they were checked. And nobody would have guessed that night itself could be so dark, when there was nothing in it but the sound of unseen waters in flight, and the thin protests of their frail security as it was hurled along through nothing.
Colet took a seat beside the steersman.
“Well, what have you got to say. Something good?” asked Collins. “Get any sleep?”
“Tell him about featherbeds,” murmured a voice.
Then another voice piped up, with a quaver in it. “No. Tell him about all the pubs you know, sir. I know a nice warm little place kept by a widder.”
“Shut up. You’d better go to sleep,” said Collins.
“How can I sleep, sir? There’s a bloke’s boots in my mouth. Besides, she wants baling.”
“Is there much water there?”
“Only enough for a drop of gin, as you might say, sir. It’ll all soak in my shirt, the next time she heels.”
Someone drawled a protest.
“It’s a lie, Jim. You fellers on the lee side are as well orf as what we are. Our shirts ’ere got no more stowage.”
“I don’t wonder at it, Dave. It was Dave spoke, wasn’t it? I know you, Dave, and I know that shirt of yourn. It’s the same one, ain’t it?”
There was a thumping on the boards forward.
“Put a stopper in it, aft. We’re trying to forget it, up here.”
“Then yore wasting yore perishing time, Alec, my lad. Only brass monkeys could forget it.” She lurched, and a heavy shower fell across her, by the mast. The men up there groaned and swore. But they heard a laugh in the dark at the after end.
“Got that lot, Alec? Try to forget it.”
XX
The interminable days merged for those open boats. Time lapsed into an uneventful fortitude, a thirsty desert, to which apathy could see no end. The sail of each boat was double-reefed and goose-winged, perhaps because Sinclair was afraid of running too far, or because he thought exhaustion would make his men careless. Smoke was sighted, one day. It was a smear which persisted for so long that the castaways thought they could make to windward till they were seen. They never lifted that steamer. And more than once a light had been glimpsed at night, when Collins’ boat was on the back of a high sea.
“Light ahead!”
The men waited hopefully for the next lucky impulse which would lift them to a clear view towards the horizon. Yes.
“There it is. A light!”
But Mr. Collins had sighted it too. “That? That’s a star.”
The men huddled down again without another word.
“Better luck next time,” their officer assured them. “Keep a good lookout. We’re in the way of traffic.”
It was strange. Colet, if he stood, was now easily thrown out of his balance by a movement of the boat. He was a little surprised by that. It was not, of course, that he was weak. He wasn’t weak. He did not care much; that was all. But he ought not to fall over, though that would be the easiest thing to do. No good. Almost sure to knock against somebody. Pull yourself together, old son. Look at young Collins. Fine fellow, Collins; and he’d hardly had a word with him till after the ship went down. Never thought there was much in Collins. But that youngster’s pasture, wherever it was, was the place for mettle. And Wilson, too. The whole lot of them. Not a murmur. There was something damned fine in this ordinary stuff.
If he could only keep seated he could last till domesday. He could steer that boat into the Styx, and save the passage money. Hullo, Charon, now watch a bit of real boat work. Beat that. He was only thirsty. Not hungry. It would be all right if that thick slime could be washed out of the mouth.
“You off biscuits?” asked Collins that morning. “So am I. I can’t make anything of ’em, except to spit dust.”
A few of the men lay as if dead on the bottom boards. If they were trodden on they did not move, and did not speak. You had to look at their faces again to make sure. The unshaven faces of the men were like those of destitute but bearded children. The purser sat considering vacancy, steering the boat. The way she was going, you kept the draught on your left jaw.
“We ought to see something any time,” Collins soliloquised, a little querulously. “No need to worry.”
The purser smiled, with his eye on the quivering luff of the sail. He felt resigned.
“I’m not worrying.” That was the strange thing about it. He imagined his mind had never been clearer. It was like a steady light inside him. Nothing could blow that out. No wind could flicker it. Never knew before he had a mind. Sure of it now. He felt pale and lucid inside, but he did not want to move. He could look on, a sort of lamp, till the last wave of the sea had unrolled. The sea and sky could pass away, if they liked. They were passing away. They had got more distant, and less impressive.
