Chapter Chapter 8 · ‘How long he stood stock-still by the hatch expecting every moment to

. ‘How long he stood stock-still by the hatch expecting every moment to

feel the ship dip under his feet and the rush of water take him at the

back and toss him like a chip, I cannot say. Not very long--two minutes

perhaps. A couple of men he could not make out began to converse

drowsily, and also, he could not tell where, he detected a curious

noise of shuffling feet. Above these faint sounds there was that awful

stillness preceding a catastrophe, that trying silence of the moment

before the crash; then it came into his head that perhaps he would have

time to rush along and cut all the lanyards of the gripes, so that the

boats would float as the ship went down.

‘The Patna had a long bridge, and all the boats were up there, four on

one side and three on the other--the smallest of them on the port-side

and nearly abreast of the steering gear. He assured me, with evident

anxiety to be believed, that he had been most careful to keep them ready

for instant service. He knew his duty. I dare say he was a good enough

mate as far as that went. “I always believed in being prepared for the

worst,” he commented, staring anxiously in my face. I nodded my approval

of the sound principle, averting my eyes before the subtle unsoundness

of the man.

‘He started unsteadily to run. He had to step over legs, avoid stumbling

against the heads. Suddenly some one caught hold of his coat from below,

and a distressed voice spoke under his elbow. The light of the lamp he

carried in his right hand fell upon an upturned dark face whose eyes

entreated him together with the voice. He had picked up enough of the

language to understand the word water, repeated several times in a tone

of insistence, of prayer, almost of despair. He gave a jerk to get away,

and felt an arm embrace his leg.

‘“The beggar clung to me like a drowning man,” he said impressively.

“Water, water! What water did he mean? What did he know? As calmly as

I could I ordered him to let go. He was stopping me, time was pressing,

other men began to stir; I wanted time--time to cut the boats adrift.

He got hold of my hand now, and I felt that he would begin to shout. It

flashed upon me it was enough to start a panic, and I hauled off with

my free arm and slung the lamp in his face. The glass jingled, the light

went out, but the blow made him let go, and I ran off--I wanted to get

at the boats; I wanted to get at the boats. He leaped after me from

behind. I turned on him. He would not keep quiet; he tried to shout; I

had half throttled him before I made out what he wanted. He wanted some

water--water to drink; they were on strict allowance, you know, and

he had with him a young boy I had noticed several times. His child was

sick--and thirsty. He had caught sight of me as I passed by, and was

begging for a little water. That’s all. We were under the bridge, in

the dark. He kept on snatching at my wrists; there was no getting rid of

him. I dashed into my berth, grabbed my water-bottle, and thrust it into

his hands. He vanished. I didn’t find out till then how much I was in

want of a drink myself.” He leaned on one elbow with a hand over his

eyes.

‘I felt a creepy sensation all down my backbone; there was something

peculiar in all this. The fingers of the hand that shaded his brow

trembled slightly. He broke the short silence.

‘“These things happen only once to a man and . . . Ah! well! When I got

on the bridge at last the beggars were getting one of the boats off the

chocks. A boat! I was running up the ladder when a heavy blow fell on

my shoulder, just missing my head. It didn’t stop me, and the chief

engineer--they had got him out of his bunk by then--raised the

boat-stretcher again. Somehow I had no mind to be surprised at anything.

All this seemed natural--and awful--and awful. I dodged that miserable

maniac, lifted him off the deck as though he had been a little child,

and he started whispering in my arms: ‘Don’t! don’t! I thought you were

one of them niggers.’ I flung him away, he skidded along the bridge and

knocked the legs from under the little chap--the second. The skipper,

busy about the boat, looked round and came at me head down, growling

like a wild beast. I flinched no more than a stone. I was as solid

standing there as this,” he tapped lightly with his knuckles the wall

beside his chair. “It was as though I had heard it all, seen it all,

gone through it all twenty times already. I wasn’t afraid of them. I

drew back my fist and he stopped short, muttering--

‘“‘Ah! it’s you. Lend a hand quick.’

‘“That’s what he said. Quick! As if anybody could be quick enough.

‘Aren’t you going to do something?’ I asked. ‘Yes. Clear out,’ he

snarled over his shoulder.

‘“I don’t think I understood then what he meant. The other two had

picked themselves up by that time, and they rushed together to the boat.

They tramped, they wheezed, they shoved, they cursed the boat, the ship,

each other--cursed me. All in mutters. I didn’t move, I didn’t speak.

I watched the slant of the ship. She was as still as if landed on the

blocks in a dry dock--only she was like this,” He held up his hand,

palm under, the tips of the fingers inclined downwards. “Like this,” he

repeated. “I could see the line of the horizon before me, as clear as a

bell, above her stem-head; I could see the water far off there black

and sparkling, and still--still as a-pond, deadly still, more still than

ever sea was before--more still than I could bear to look at. Have you

watched a ship floating head down, checked in sinking by a sheet of old

iron too rotten to stand being shored up? Have you? Oh yes, shored up? I

thought of that--I thought of every mortal thing; but can you shore up a

bulkhead in five minutes--or in fifty for that matter? Where was I going

to get men that would go down below? And the timber--the timber! Would

you have had the courage to swing the maul for the first blow if you

had seen that bulkhead? Don’t say you would: you had not seen it; nobody

would. Hang it--to do a thing like that you must believe there is a

chance, one in a thousand, at least, some ghost of a chance; and you

would not have believed. Nobody would have believed. You think me a

cur for standing there, but what would you have done? What! You can’t

tell--nobody can tell. One must have time to turn round. What would you

have me do? Where was the kindness in making crazy with fright all those

people I could not save single-handed--that nothing could save? Look

here! As true as I sit on this chair before you . . .”

‘He drew quick breaths at every few words and shot quick glances at my

face, as though in his anguish he were watchful of the effect. He was

not speaking to me, he was only speaking before me, in a dispute with

an invisible personality, an antagonistic and inseparable partner of his

existence--another possessor of his soul. These were issues beyond the

competency of a court of inquiry: it was a subtle and momentous quarrel

as to the true essence of life, and did not want a judge. He wanted

an ally, a helper, an accomplice. I felt the risk I ran of being

circumvented, blinded, decoyed, bullied, perhaps, into taking a definite

part in a dispute impossible of decision if one had to be fair to all

the phantoms in possession--to the reputable that had its claims and

to the disreputable that had its exigencies. I can’t explain to you who

haven’t seen him and who hear his words only at second hand the mixed

nature of my feelings. It seemed to me I was being made to comprehend

the Inconceivable--and I know of nothing to compare with the discomfort

of such a sensation. I was made to look at the convention that lurks in

all truth and on the essential sincerity of falsehood. He appealed to

all sides at once--to the side turned perpetually to the light of day,

and to that side of us which, like the other hemisphere of the moon,

exists stealthily in perpetual darkness, with only a fearful ashy light

falling at times on the edge. He swayed me. I own to it, I own up. The

occasion was obscure, insignificant--what you will: a lost youngster,

one in a million--but then he was one of us; an incident as completely

devoid of importance as the flooding of an ant-heap, and yet the mystery

of his attitude got hold of me as though he had been an individual

in the forefront of his kind, as if the obscure truth involved were

momentous enough to affect mankind’s conception of itself. . . .’

Marlow paused to put new life into his expiring cheroot, seemed to

forget all about the story, and abruptly began again.

‘My fault of course. One has no business really to get interested. It’s

a weakness of mine. His was of another kind. My weakness consists in not

having a discriminating eye for the incidental--for the externals--no

eye for the hod of the rag-picker or the fine linen of the next man.

Next man--that’s it. I have met so many men,’ he pursued, with momentary

sadness--‘met them too with a certain--certain--impact, let us say; like

this fellow, for instance--and in each case all I could see was merely

the human being. A confounded democratic quality of vision which may be

better than total blindness, but has been of no advantage to me, I can

assure you. Men expect one to take into account their fine linen. But

I never could get up any enthusiasm about these things. Oh! it’s a

failing; it’s a failing; and then comes a soft evening; a lot of men too

indolent for whist--and a story. . . .’

He paused again to wait for an encouraging remark, perhaps, but nobody

spoke; only the host, as if reluctantly performing a duty, murmured--

‘You are so subtle, Marlow.’

‘Who? I?’ said Marlow in a low voice. ‘Oh no! But _he_ was; and try as I

may for the success of this yarn, I am missing innumerable shades--they

were so fine, so difficult to render in colourless words. Because he

complicated matters by being so simple, too--the simplest poor

devil! . . . By Jove! he was amazing. There he sat telling me that just

as I saw him before my eyes he wouldn’t be afraid to face anything--and

believing in it too. I tell you it was fabulously innocent and it was

enormous, enormous! I watched him covertly, just as though I had

suspected him of an intention to take a jolly good rise out of me. He

was confident that, on the square, “on the square, mind!” there was

nothing he couldn’t meet. Ever since he had been “so high”--“quite a

little chap,” he had been preparing himself for all the difficulties

that can beset one on land and water. He confessed proudly to this kind

of foresight. He had been elaborating dangers and defences, expecting

the worst, rehearsing his best. He must have led a most exalted

existence. Can you fancy it? A succession of adventures, so much glory,

such a victorious progress! and the deep sense of his sagacity crowning

every day of his inner life. He forgot himself; his eyes shone; and with

every word my heart, searched by the light of his absurdity, was growing

heavier in my breast. I had no mind to laugh, and lest I should smile I

made for myself a stolid face. He gave signs of irritation.

‘“It is always the unexpected that happens,” I said in a propitiatory

tone. My obtuseness provoked him into a contemptuous “Pshaw!” I suppose

he meant that the unexpected couldn’t touch him; nothing less than the

unconceivable itself could get over his perfect state of preparation. He

had been taken unawares--and he whispered to himself a malediction upon

the waters and the firmament, upon the ship, upon the men. Everything

had betrayed him! He had been tricked into that sort of high-minded

resignation which prevented him lifting as much as his little finger,

while these others who had a very clear perception of the actual

necessity were tumbling against each other and sweating desperately over

that boat business. Something had gone wrong there at the last moment.

It appears that in their flurry they had contrived in some mysterious

way to get the sliding bolt of the foremost boat-chock jammed tight, and

forthwith had gone out of the remnants of their minds over the deadly

nature of that accident. It must have been a pretty sight, the fierce

industry of these beggars toiling on a motionless ship that floated

quietly in the silence of a world asleep, fighting against time for the

freeing of that boat, grovelling on all-fours, standing up in despair,

tugging, pushing, snarling at each other venomously, ready to kill,

ready to weep, and only kept from flying at each other’s throats by

the fear of death that stood silent behind them like an inflexible and

cold-eyed taskmaster. Oh yes! It must have been a pretty sight. He

saw it all, he could talk about it with scorn and bitterness; he had a

minute knowledge of it by means of some sixth sense, I conclude, because

he swore to me he had remained apart without a glance at them and at the

boat--without one single glance. And I believe him. I should think he

was too busy watching the threatening slant of the ship, the suspended

menace discovered in the midst of the most perfect security--fascinated

by the sword hanging by a hair over his imaginative head.

‘Nothing in the world moved before his eyes, and he could depict to

himself without hindrance the sudden swing upwards of the dark sky-line,

the sudden tilt up of the vast plain of the sea, the swift still rise,

the brutal fling, the grasp of the abyss, the struggle without hope, the

starlight closing over his head for ever like the vault of a tomb--the

revolt of his young life--the black end. He could! By Jove! who

couldn’t? And you must remember he was a finished artist in that

peculiar way, he was a gifted poor devil with the faculty of swift and

forestalling vision. The sights it showed him had turned him into cold

stone from the soles of his feet to the nape of his neck; but there

was a hot dance of thoughts in his head, a dance of lame, blind, mute

thoughts--a whirl of awful cripples. Didn’t I tell you he confessed

himself before me as though I had the power to bind and to loose? He

burrowed deep, deep, in the hope of my absolution, which would have been

of no good to him. This was one of those cases which no solemn deception

can palliate, where no man can help; where his very Maker seems to

abandon a sinner to his own devices.

‘He stood on the starboard side of the bridge, as far as he could get

from the struggle for the boat, which went on with the agitation

of madness and the stealthiness of a conspiracy. The two Malays had

meantime remained holding to the wheel. Just picture to yourselves

the actors in that, thank God! unique, episode of the sea, four beside

themselves with fierce and secret exertions, and three looking on in

complete immobility, above the awnings covering the profound ignorance

of hundreds of human beings, with their weariness, with their dreams,

with their hopes, arrested, held by an invisible hand on the brink of

annihilation. For that they were so, makes no doubt to me: given the

state of the ship, this was the deadliest possible description of

accident that could happen. These beggars by the boat had every reason

to go distracted with funk. Frankly, had I been there, I would not have

given as much as a counterfeit farthing for the ship’s chance to keep

above water to the end of each successive second. And still she

floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their

whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end. It was as if the

Omnipotence whose mercy they confessed had needed their humble testimony

on earth for a while longer, and had looked down to make a sign,

“Thou shalt not!” to the ocean. Their escape would trouble me as a

prodigiously inexplicable event, did I not know how tough old iron can

be--as tough sometimes as the spirit of some men we meet now and then,

worn to a shadow and breasting the weight of life. Not the least

wonder of these twenty minutes, to my mind, is the behaviour of the two

helmsmen. They were amongst the native batch of all sorts brought over

from Aden to give evidence at the inquiry. One of them, labouring under

intense bashfulness, was very young, and with his smooth, yellow,

cheery countenance looked even younger than he was. I remember perfectly

Brierly asking him, through the interpreter, what he thought of it at

the time, and the interpreter, after a short colloquy, turning to the

court with an important air--

‘“He says he thought nothing.”

‘The other, with patient blinking eyes, a blue cotton handkerchief,

faded with much washing, bound with a smart twist over a lot of grey

wisps, his face shrunk into grim hollows, his brown skin made darker by

a mesh of wrinkles, explained that he had a knowledge of some evil thing

befalling the ship, but there had been no order; he could not remember

an order; why should he leave the helm? To some further questions he

jerked back his spare shoulders, and declared it never came into his

mind then that the white men were about to leave the ship through

fear of death. He did not believe it now. There might have been secret

reasons. He wagged his old chin knowingly. Aha! secret reasons. He was

a man of great experience, and he wanted _that_ white Tuan to know--he

turned towards Brierly, who didn’t raise his head--that he had acquired

a knowledge of many things by serving white men on the sea for a great

number of years--and, suddenly, with shaky excitement he poured upon

our spellbound attention a lot of queer-sounding names, names of

dead-and-gone skippers, names of forgotten country ships, names of

familiar and distorted sound, as if the hand of dumb time had been at

work on them for ages. They stopped him at last. A silence fell upon

the court,--a silence that remained unbroken for at least a minute, and

passed gently into a deep murmur. This episode was the sensation of

the second day’s proceedings--affecting all the audience, affecting

everybody except Jim, who was sitting moodily at the end of the first

bench, and never looked up at this extraordinary and damning witness

that seemed possessed of some mysterious theory of defence.

‘So these two lascars stuck to the helm of that ship without

steerage-way, where death would have found them if such had been their

destiny. The whites did not give them half a glance, had probably

forgotten their existence. Assuredly Jim did not remember it. He

remembered he could do nothing; he could do nothing, now he was alone.

There was nothing to do but to sink with the ship. No use making a

disturbance about it. Was there? He waited upstanding, without a sound,

stiffened in the idea of some sort of heroic discretion. The first

engineer ran cautiously across the bridge to tug at his sleeve.

‘“Come and help! For God’s sake, come and help!”

‘He ran back to the boat on the points of his toes, and returned

directly to worry at his sleeve, begging and cursing at the same time.

‘“I believe he would have kissed my hands,” said Jim savagely, “and,

next moment, he starts foaming and whispering in my face, ‘If I had

the time I would like to crack your skull for you.’ I pushed him away.

Suddenly he caught hold of me round the neck. Damn him! I hit him. I

hit out without looking. ‘Won’t you save your own life--you infernal

coward?’ he sobs. Coward! He called me an infernal coward! Ha! ha! ha!

ha! He called me--ha! ha! ha! . . .”

‘He had thrown himself back and was shaking with laughter. I had never

in my life heard anything so bitter as that noise. It fell like a blight

on all the merriment about donkeys, pyramids, bazaars, or what not.

Along the whole dim length of the gallery the voices dropped, the pale

blotches of faces turned our way with one accord, and the silence

became so profound that the clear tinkle of a teaspoon falling on

the tesselated floor of the verandah rang out like a tiny and silvery

scream.

‘“You mustn’t laugh like this, with all these people about,” I

remonstrated. “It isn’t nice for them, you know.”

‘He gave no sign of having heard at first, but after a while, with a

stare that, missing me altogether, seemed to probe the heart of some

awful vision, he muttered carelessly--“Oh! they’ll think I am drunk.”

‘And after that you would have thought from his appearance he would

never make a sound again. But--no fear! He could no more stop telling

now than he could have stopped living by the mere exertion of his will.’