The Shadow Line

J >> Joseph Conrad >> The Shadow Line


I shall never forget the last night, dark, windy, and starry. I steered.
Mr. Burns, after having obtained from me a solemn promise to give him
a kick if anything happened, went frankly to sleep on the deck close
to the binnacle. Convalescents need sleep. Ransome, his back propped
against the mizzen-mast and a blanket over his legs, remained perfectly
still, but I don't suppose he closed his eyes for a moment. That
embodiment of jauntiness, Frenchy, still under the delusion that there
was a "jump" left in him, had insisted on joining us; but mindful of
discipline, had laid himself down as far on the forepart of the poop as
he could get, alongside the bucket-rack.

And I steered, too tired for anxiety, too tired for connected thought.
I had moments of grim exultation and then my heart would sink awfully at
the thought of that forecastle at the other end of the dark deck, full
of fever-stricken men--some of them dying. By my fault. But never mind.
Remorse must wait. I had to steer.

In the small hours the breeze weakened, then failed altogether. About
five it returned, gentle enough, enabling us to head for the roadstead.
Daybreak found Mr. Burns sitting wedged up with coils of rope on the
stern-grating, and from the depths of his overcoat steering the ship
with very white bony hands; while Ransome and I rushed along the decks
letting go all the sheets and halliards by the run. We dashed next up on
to the forecastle head. The perspiration of labour and sheer nervousness
simply poured off our heads as we toiled to get the anchors cock-billed.
I dared not look at Ransome as we worked side by side. We exchanged curt
words; I could hear him panting close to me and I avoided turning my
eyes his way for fear of seeing him fall down and expire in the act of
putting forth his strength--for what? Indeed for some distinct ideal.

The consummate seaman in him was aroused. He needed no directions. He
knew what to do. Every effort, every movement was an act of consistent
heroism. It was not for me to look at a man thus inspired.

At last all was ready and I heard him say:

"Hadn't I better go down and open the compressors now, sir?"

"Yes. Do," I said.

And even then I did not glance his way. After a time his voice came up
from the main deck.

"When you like, sir. All clear on the windlass here."

I made a sign to Mr. Burns to put the helm down and let both anchors go
one after another, leaving the ship to take as much cable as she wanted.
She took the best part of them both before she brought up. The loose
sails coming aback ceased their maddening racket above my head. A
perfect stillness reigned in the ship. And while I stood forward feeling
a little giddy in that sudden peace, I caught faintly a moan or two and
the incoherent mutterings of the sick in the forecastle.

As we had a signal for medical assistance flying on the mizzen it is a
fact that before the ship was fairly at rest three steam launches from
various men-of-war were alongside; and at least five naval surgeons had
clambered on board. They stood in a knot gazing up and down the empty
main deck, then looked aloft--where not a man could be seen, either.

I went toward them--a solitary figure, in a blue and gray striped
sleeping suit and a pipe-clayed cork helmet on its head. Their disgust
was extreme. They had expected surgical cases. Each one had brought
his carving tools with him. But they soon got over their little
disappointment. In less than five minutes one of the steam launches was
rushing shoreward to order a big boat and some hospital people for the
removal of the crew. The big steam pinnace went off to her ship to bring
over a few bluejackets to furl my sails for me.

One of the surgeons had remained on board. He came out of the forecastle
looking impenetrable, and noticed my inquiring gaze.

"There's nobody dead in there, if that's what you want to know," he said
deliberately. Then added in a tone of wonder: "The whole crew!"

"And very bad?"

"And very bad," he repeated. His eyes were roaming all over the ship.
"Heavens! What's that?"

"That," I said, glancing aft, "is Mr. Burns, my chief officer."

Mr. Burns with his moribund head nodding on the stalk of his lean neck
was a sight for any one to exclaim at. The surgeon asked:

"Is he going to the hospital, too?"

"Oh, no," I said jocosely. "Mr. Burns can't go on shore till the
mainmast goes. I am very proud of him. He's my only convalescent."

"You look--" began the doctor staring at me. But I interrupted him
angrily:

"I am not ill."

"No. . . . You look queer."

"Well, you see, I have been seventeen days on deck."

"Seventeen! . . . But you must have slept."

"I suppose I must have. I don't know. But I'm certain that I didn't
sleep for the last forty hours."

"Phew! . . . You will be going ashore presently I suppose?"

"As soon as ever I can. There's no end of business waiting for me
there."

The surgeon released my hand, which he had taken while we talked, pulled
out his pocket-book, wrote in it rapidly, tore out the page and offered
it to me.

"I strongly advise you to get this prescription made up for yourself
ashore. Unless I am much mistaken you will need it this evening."

"What is it, then?" I asked with suspicion.

"Sleeping draught," answered the surgeon curtly; and moving with an air
of interest toward Mr. Burns he engaged him in conversation.

As I went below to dress to go ashore, Ransome followed me. He begged my
pardon; he wished, too, to be sent ashore and paid off.

I looked at him in surprise. He was waiting for my answer with an air of
anxiety.

"You don't mean to leave the ship!" I cried out.

"I do really, sir. I want to go and be quiet somewhere. Anywhere. The
hospital will do."

"But, Ransome," I said. "I hate the idea of parting with you."

"I must go," he broke in. "I have a right!" . . . He gasped and a look
of almost savage determination passed over his face. For an instant he
was another being. And I saw under the worth and the comeliness of
the man the humble reality of things. Life was a boon to him--this
precarious hard life, and he was thoroughly alarmed about himself.

"Of course I shall pay you off if you wish it," I hastened to say. "Only
I must ask you to remain on board till this afternoon. I can't leave Mr.
Burns absolutely by himself in the ship for hours."

He softened at once and assured me with a smile and in his natural
pleasant voice that he understood that very well.

When I returned on deck everything was ready for the removal of the
men. It was the last ordeal of that episode which had been maturing and
tempering my character--though I did not know it.

It was awful. They passed under my eyes one after another--each of them
an embodied reproach of the bitterest kind, till I felt a sort of revolt
wake up in me. Poor Frenchy had gone suddenly under. He was carried
past me insensible, his comic face horribly flushed and as if swollen,
breathing stertorously. He looked more like Mr. Punch than ever; a
disgracefully intoxicated Mr. Punch.

The austere Gambril, on the contrary, had improved temporarily.
He insisted on walking on his own feet to the rail--of course with
assistance on each side of him. But he gave way to a sudden panic at the
moment of being swung over the side and began to wail pitifully:

"Don't let them drop me, sir. Don't let them drop me, sir!" While I kept
on shouting to him in most soothing accents: "All right, Gambril. They
won't! They won't!"

It was no doubt very ridiculous. The bluejackets on our deck were
grinning quietly, while even Ransome himself (much to the fore in
lending a hand) had to enlarge his wistful smile for a fleeting moment.

I left for the shore in the steam pinnace, and on looking back beheld
Mr. Burns actually standing up by the taffrail, still in his enormous
woolly overcoat. The bright sunlight brought out his weirdness
amazingly. He looked like a frightful and elaborate scarecrow set up on
the poop of a death-stricken ship, set up to keep the seabirds from the
corpses.

Our story had got about already in town and everybody on shore was most
kind. The Marine Office let me off the port dues, and as there happened
to be a shipwrecked crew staying in the Home I had no difficulty in
obtaining as many men as I wanted. But when I inquired if I could
see Captain Ellis for a moment I was told in accents of pity for my
ignorance that our deputy-Neptune had retired and gone home on a
pension about three weeks after I left the port. So I suppose that my
appointment was the last act, outside the daily routine, of his official
life.

It is strange how on coming ashore I was struck by the springy step,
the lively eyes, the strong vitality of every one I met. It impressed me
enormously. And amongst those I met there was Captain Giles, of course.
It would have been very extraordinary if I had not met him. A prolonged
stroll in the business part of the town was the regular employment of
all his mornings when he was ashore.

I caught the glitter of the gold watch-chain across his chest ever so
far away. He radiated benevolence.

"What is it I hear?" he queried with a "kind uncle" smile, after shaking
hands. "Twenty-one days from Bangkok?"

"Is this all you've heard?" I said. "You must come to tiffin with me. I
want you to know exactly what you have let me in for."

He hesitated for almost a minute.

"Well--I will," he said condescendingly at last.

We turned into the hotel. I found to my surprise that I could eat quite
a lot. Then over the cleared table-cloth I unfolded to Captain Giles
the history of these twenty days in all its professional and emotional
aspects, while he smoked patiently the big cigar I had given him.

Then he observed sagely:

"You must feel jolly well tired by this time."

"No," I said. "Not tired. But I'll tell you, Captain Giles, how I feel.
I feel old. And I must be. All of you on shore look to me just a lot of
skittish youngsters that have never known a care in the world."

He didn't smile. He looked insufferably exemplary. He declared:

"That will pass. But you do look older--it's a fact."

"Aha!" I said.

"No! No! The truth is that one must not make too much of anything in
life, good or bad."

"Live at half-speed," I murmured perversely. "Not everybody can do
that."

"You'll be glad enough presently if you can keep going even at that
rate," he retorted with his air of conscious virtue. "And there's
another thing: a man should stand up to his bad luck, to his mistakes,
to his conscience and all that sort of thing. Why--what else would you
have to fight against."

I kept silent. I don't know what he saw in my face but he asked
abruptly:

"Why--you aren't faint-hearted?"

"God only knows, Captain Giles," was my sincere answer.

"That's all right," he said calmly. "You will learn soon how not to be
faint-hearted. A man has got to learn everything--and that's what so
many of them youngsters don't understand."

"Well, I am no longer a youngster."

"No," he conceded. "Are you leaving soon?"

"I am going on board directly," I said. "I shall pick up one of my
anchors and heave in to half-cable on the other directly my new crew
comes on board and I shall be off at daylight to-morrow!"

"You will," grunted Captain Giles approvingly, "that's the way. You'll
do."

"What did you think? That I would want to take a week ashore for a
rest?" I said, irritated by his tone. "There's no rest for me till she's
out in the Indian Ocean and not much of it even then."

He puffed at his cigar moodily, as if transformed.

"Yes. That's what it amounts to," he said in a musing tone. It was as
if a ponderous curtain had rolled up disclosing an unexpected Captain
Giles. But it was only for a moment, just the time to let him add,
"Precious little rest in life for anybody. Better not think of it."

We rose, left the hotel, and parted from each other in the street with
a warm handshake, just as he began to interest me for the first time in
our intercourse.

The first thing I saw when I got back to the ship was Ransome on the
quarter-deck sitting quietly on his neatly lashed sea-chest.

I beckoned him to follow me into the saloon where I sat down to write a
letter of recommendation for him to a man I knew on shore.

When finished I pushed it across the table. "It may be of some good to
you when you leave the hospital."

He took it, put it in his pocket. His eyes were looking away from
me--nowhere. His face was anxiously set.

"How are you feeling now?" I asked.

"I don't feel bad now, sir," he answered stiffly. "But I am afraid of
its coming on. . . ." The wistful smile came back on his lips for a
moment. "I--I am in a blue funk about my heart, sir."

I approached him with extended hand. His eyes not looking at me had a
strained expression. He was like a man listening for a warning call.

"Won't you shake hands, Ransome?" I said gently.

He exclaimed, flushed up dusky red, gave my hand a hard wrench--and
next moment, left alone in the cabin, I listened to him going up the
companion stairs cautiously, step by step, in mortal fear of starting
into sudden anger our common enemy it was his hard fate to carry
consciously within his faithful breast.