The Secret Sharer

J >> Joseph Conrad >> The Secret Sharer


He reddened and went off, but I believe made some jeering remark to
the carpenter as to the sensible practice of ventilating a ship's
quarter-deck. I know he popped into the mate's cabin to impart the fact
to him because the whiskers came on deck, as it were by chance, and
stole glances at me from below--for signs of lunacy or drunkenness, I
suppose.

A little before supper, feeling more restless than ever, I rejoined,
for a moment, my second self. And to find him sitting so quietly was
surprising, like something against nature, inhuman.

I developed my plan in a hurried whisper.

"I shall stand in as close as I dare and then put her round. I will
presently find means to smuggle you out of here into the sail locker,
which communicates with the lobby. But there is an opening, a sort
of square for hauling the sails out, which gives straight on the
quarter-deck and which is never closed in fine weather, so as to give
air to the sails. When the ship's way is deadened in stays and all the
hands are aft at the main braces you will have a clear road to slip out
and get overboard through the open quarter-deck port. I've had them both
fastened up. Use a rope's end to lower yourself into the water so as
to avoid a splash--you know. It could be heard and cause some beastly
complication."

He kept silent for a while, then whispered, "I understand."

"I won't be there to see you go," I began with an effort. "The rest
. . . I only hope I have understood, too."

"You have. From first to last"--and for the first time there seemed to
be a faltering, something strained in his whisper. He caught hold of my
arm, but the ringing of the supper bell made me start. He didn't though;
he only released his grip.

After supper I didn't come below again till well past eight o'clock. The
faint, steady breeze was loaded with dew; and the wet, darkened sails
held all there was of propelling power in it. The night, clear and
starry, sparkled darkly, and the opaque, lightless patches shifting
slowly against the low stars were the drifting islets. On the port bow
there was a big one more distant and shadowily imposing by the great
space of sky it eclipsed.

On opening the door I had a back view of my very own self looking at a
chart. He had come out of the recess and was standing near the table.

"Quite dark enough," I whispered.

He stepped back and leaned against my bed with a level, quiet glance.
I sat on the couch. We had nothing to say to each other. Over our heads
the officer of the watch moved here and there. Then I heard him move
quickly. I knew what that meant. He was making for the companion; and
presently his voice was outside my door.

"We are drawing in pretty fast, sir. Land looks rather close."

"Very well," I answered. "I am coming on deck directly."

I waited till he was gone out of the cuddy, then rose. My double moved
too. The time had come to exchange our last whispers, for neither of us
was ever to hear each other's natural voice.

"Look here!" I opened a drawer and took out three sovereigns. "Take this
anyhow. I've got six and I'd give you the lot, only I must keep a little
money to buy some fruit and vegetables for the crew from native boats as
we go through Sunda Straits."

He shook his head.

"Take it," I urged him, whispering desperately. "No one can tell what--"

He smiled and slapped meaningly the only pocket of the sleeping jacket.
It was not safe, certainly. But I produced a large old silk handkerchief
of mine, and tying the three pieces of gold in a corner, pressed it on
him. He was touched, I supposed, because he took it at last and tied it
quickly round his waist under the jacket, on his bare skin.

Our eyes met; several seconds elapsed, till, our glances still mingled,
I extended my hand and turned the lamp out. Then I passed through the
cuddy, leaving the door of my room wide open. . . . "Steward!"

He was still lingering in the pantry in the greatness of his zeal,
giving a rub-up to a plated cruet stand the last thing before going to
bed. Being careful not to wake up the mate, whose room was opposite, I
spoke in an undertone.

He looked round anxiously. "Sir!"

"Can you get me a little hot water from the galley?"

"I am afraid, sir, the galley fire's been out for some time now."

"Go and see."

He flew up the stairs.

"Now," I whispered, loudly, into the saloon--too loudly, perhaps, but I
was afraid I couldn't make a sound. He was by my side in an instant--the
double captain slipped past the stairs--through a tiny dark passage
. . . a sliding door. We were in the sail locker, scrambling on our knees
over the sails. A sudden thought struck me. I saw myself wandering
barefooted, bareheaded, the sun beating on my dark poll. I snatched
off my floppy hat and tried hurriedly in the dark to ram it on my other
self. He dodged and fended off silently. I wonder what he thought had
come to me before he understood and suddenly desisted. Our hands met
gropingly, lingered united in a steady, motionless clasp for a second.
. . . No word was breathed by either of us when they separated.

I was standing quietly by the pantry door when the steward returned.

"Sorry, sir. Kettle barely warm. Shall I light the spirit lamp?"

"Never mind."

I came out on deck slowly. It was now a matter of conscience to shave
the land as close as possible--for now he must go overboard whenever the
ship was put in stays. Must! There could be no going back for him. After
a moment I walked over to leeward and my heart flew into my mouth at the
nearness of the land on the bow. Under any other circumstances I would
not have held on a minute longer. The second mate had followed me
anxiously.

I looked on till I felt I could command my voice.

"She will weather," I said then in a quiet tone.

"Are you going to try that, sir?" he stammered out incredulously.

I took no notice of him and raised my tone just enough to be heard by
the helmsman.

"Keep her good full."

"Good full, sir."

The wind fanned my cheek, the sails slept, the world was silent. The
strain of watching the dark loom of the land grow bigger and denser was
too much for me. I had shut my eyes--because the ship must go closer.
She must! The stillness was intolerable. Were we standing still?

When I opened my eyes the second view started my heart with a thump. The
black southern hill of Koh-ring seemed to hang right over the ship
like a towering fragment of everlasting night. On that enormous mass of
blackness there was not a gleam to be seen, not a sound to be heard. It
was gliding irresistibly towards us and yet seemed already within reach
of the hand. I saw the vague figures of the watch grouped in the waist,
gazing in awed silence.

"Are you going on, sir?" inquired an unsteady voice at my elbow.

I ignored it. I had to go on.

"Keep her full. Don't check her way. That won't do now," I said
warningly.

"I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman answered me, in strange,
quavering tones.

Was she close enough? Already she was, I won't say in the shadow of the
land, but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up as it were,
gone too close to be recalled, gone from me altogether.

"Give the mate a call," I said to the young man who stood at my elbow as
still as death. "And turn all hands up."

My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from the height of the
land. Several voices cried out together: "We are all on deck, sir."

Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding closer, towering
higher, without a light, without a sound. Such a hush had fallen on
the ship that she might have been a bark of the dead floating in slowly
under the very gate of Erebus.

"My God! Where are we?"

It was the mate moaning at my elbow. He was thunderstruck, and as it
were deprived of the moral support of his whiskers. He clapped his hands
and absolutely cried out, "Lost!"

"Be quiet," I said, sternly.

He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowy gesture of his despair. "What
are we doing here?"

"Looking for the land wind."

He made as if to tear his hair, and addressed me recklessly.

"She will never get out. You have done it, sir. I knew it'd end in
something like this. She will never weather, and you are too close now
to stay. She'll drift ashore before she's round. O my God!"

I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his poor devoted head,
and shook it violently.

"She's ashore already," he wailed, trying to tear himself away.

"Is she? . . . Keep good full there!"

"Good full, sir," cried the helmsman in a frightened, thin, childlike
voice.

I hadn't let go the mate's arm and went on shaking it. "Ready about,
do you hear? You go forward"--shake--"and stop there"--shake--"and hold
your noise"--shake--"and see these head-sheets properly
overhauled"--shake, shake--shake.

And all the time I dared not look towards the land lest my heart should
fail me. I released my grip at last and he ran forward as if fleeing for
dear life.

I wondered what my double there in the sail locker thought of this
commotion. He was able to hear everything--and perhaps he was able to
understand why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close--no less. My
first order "Hard alee!" re-echoed ominously under the towering shadow
of Koh-ring as if I had shouted in a mountain gorge. And then I watched
the land intently. In that smooth water and light wind it was impossible
to feel the ship coming-to. No! I could not feel her. And my second self
was making now ready to ship out and lower himself overboard. Perhaps he
was gone already . . . ?

The great black mass brooding over our very mastheads began to pivot
away from the ship's side silently. And now I forgot the secret stranger
ready to depart, and remembered only that I was a total stranger to the
ship. I did not know her. Would she do it? How was she to be handled?

I swung the mainyard and waited helplessly. She was perhaps stopped, and
her very fate hung in the balance, with the black mass of Koh-ring like
the gate of the everlasting night towering over her taffrail. What would
she do now? Had she way on her yet? I stepped to the side swiftly, and
on the shadowy water I could see nothing except a faint phosphorescent
flash revealing the glassy smoothness of the sleeping surface. It was
impossible to tell--and I had not learned yet the feel of my ship. Was
she moving? What I needed was something easily seen, a piece of paper,
which I could throw overboard and watch. I had nothing on me. To run
down for it I didn't dare. There was no time. All at once my strained,
yearning stare distinguished a white object floating within a yard of
the ship's side. White on the black water. A phosphorescent flash passed
under it. What was that thing? . . . I recognized my own floppy hat. It
must have fallen off his head . . . and he didn't bother. Now I had what
I wanted--the saving mark for my eyes. But I hardly thought of my other
self, now gone from the ship, to be hidden forever from all friendly
faces, to be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, with no brand of
the curse on his sane forehead to stay a slaying hand . . . too proud to
explain.

And I watched the hat--the expression of my sudden pity for his mere
flesh. It had been meant to save his homeless head from the dangers of
the sun. And now--behold--it was saving the ship, by serving me for a
mark to help out the ignorance of my strangeness. Ha! It was drifting
forward, warning me just in time that the ship had gathered sternaway.

"Shift the helm," I said in a low voice to the seaman standing still
like a statue.

The man's eyes glistened wildly in the binnacle light as he jumped round
to the other side and spun round the wheel.

I walked to the break of the poop. On the over-shadowed deck all hands
stood by the forebraces waiting for my order. The stars ahead seemed to
be gliding from right to left. And all was so still in the world that
I heard the quiet remark, "She's round," passed in a tone of intense
relief between two seamen.

"Let go and haul."

The foreyards ran round with a great noise, amidst cheery cries. And
now the frightful whiskers made themselves heard giving various orders.
Already the ship was drawing ahead. And I was alone with her. Nothing!
no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow on
the way of silent knowledge and mute affection, the perfect communion of
a seaman with his first command.

Walking to the taffrail, I was in time to make out, on the very edge
of a darkness thrown by a towering black mass like the very gateway of
Erebus--yes, I was in time to catch an evanescent glimpse of my white
hat left behind to mark the spot where the secret sharer of my cabin and
of my thoughts, as though he were my second self, had lowered himself
into the water to take his punishment: a free man, a proud swimmer
striking out for a new destiny.