Youth

J >> Joseph Conrad >> Youth


"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 seaman, 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.