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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 *** 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 *** 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.
*** 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 *** 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 ***-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 *** 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 *** 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 *** 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 *** 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 ***. 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 ***, 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 traveling 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 Youth A Narrative
by Joseph Conrad