I WOULD have gladly dispensed with the mournful opportunity of becoming acquainted by sight with all my fellow-captains at once. However I found my way to the cemetery. We made a considerable group of bareheaded men in sombre garments. I noticed that those of our company most approaching to the now obsolete sea-dog type were the most moved-perhaps because they had less "manner" than the new generation. The old sea-dog, away from his natural element, was a simple and sentimental animal. I noticed one-he was facing me across the grave-who was dropping tears. They trickled down his weather-beaten face like drops of rain on an old rugged wall. I learned afterwards that he was looked upon as the terror of sailors, a hard man; that he had never had wife or chick of his own, and that, engaged from his tenderest years in deep-sea voyages, he knew women and children merely by sight.
Perhaps he was dropping those tears over his lost opportunities, from sheer envy of paternity and in strange jealousy of a sorrow which he could never know. Man, and even the sea-man, is a capricious animal, the creature and the victim of lost opportunities. But he made me feel ashamed of my callousness. I had no tears.
I listened with horribly critical detachment to that service I had had to read myself, once or twice, over childlike men who had died at sea. The words of hope and defiance, the winged words so inspiring in the free immensity of water and sky, seemed to fall wearily into the little grave.
What was the use of asking Death where her sting was, before that small, dark hole in the ground? And then my thoughts escaped me altogether-away into matters of life-and no very high matters at that-ships, freights, business. In the instability of his emotions man resembles deplorably a monkey. I was disgusted with my thoughts-and I thought: Shall I be able to get a charter soon? Time"s money. . . . Will that Jacobus really put good business in my way? I must go and see him in a day or two.
Don"t imagine that I pursued these thoughts with any precision. They pursued me rather: vague, shadowy, restless, shamefaced. Theirs was a callous, abominable, almost revolting, pertinacity. And it was the presence of that pertinacious ship-chandler which had started them. He stood mournfully amongst our little band of men from the sea, and I was angry at his presence, which, suggesting his brother the merchant, had caused me to become outrageous to myself. For indeed I had preserved some decency of feeling. It was only the mind which-
It was over at last. The poor father-a man of forty with black, bushy side-whiskers and a pathetic gash on his freshly-shaved chin-thanked us all, swallowing his tears. But for some reason, either because I lingered at the gate of the cemetery being somewhat hazy as to my way back, or because I was the youngest, or ascribing my moodiness caused by remorse to some more worthy and appropriate sentiment, or simply because I was even more of a stranger to him than the others-he singled me out.
Keeping at my side, he renewed his thanks, which I listened to in a gloomy, conscience-stricken silence. Suddenly he slipped one hand under my arm and waved the other after a tall, stout figure walking away by itself down a street in a flutter of thin, grey garments:
"That"s a good fellow-a real good fellow"-he swallowed down a belated sob-"this Jacobus."
And he told me in a low voice that Jacobus was the first man to board his ship on arrival, and, learning of their misfortune, had taken charge of everything, volunteered to attend to all routine business, carried off the ship"s papers on sh.o.r.e, arranged for the funeral-
"A good fellow. I was knocked over. I had been looking at my wife for ten days. And helpless. Just you think of that! The dear little chap died the very day we made the land. How I managed to take the ship in G.o.d alone knows! I couldn"t see anything; I couldn"t speak; I couldn"t.
. . . You"ve heard, perhaps, that we lost our mate overboard on the pa.s.sage? There was no one to do it for me. And the poor woman nearly crazy down below there all alone with the . . . By the Lord! It isn"t fair."
We walked in silence together. I did not know how to part from him. On the quay he let go my arm and struck fiercely his fist into the palm of his other hand.
"By G.o.d, it isn"t fair!" he cried again. "Don"t you ever marry unless you can chuck the sea first. . . . It isn"t fair."
I had no intention to "chuck the sea," and when he left me to go aboard his ship I felt convinced that I would never marry. While I was waiting at the steps for Jacobus"s boatman, who had gone off somewhere, the captain of the _Hilda_ joined me, a slender silk umbrella in his hand and the sharp points of his archaic, Gladstonian shirt-collar framing a small, clean-shaved, ruddy face. It was wonderfully fresh for his age, beautifully modelled and lit up by remarkably clear blue eyes. A lot of white hair, glossy like spun gla.s.s, curled upwards slightly under the brim of his valuable, ancient, panama hat with a broad black ribbon. In the aspect of that vivacious, neat, little old man there was something quaintly angelic and also boyish.
He accosted me, as though he had been in the habit of seeing me every day of his life from my earliest childhood, with a whimsical remark on the appearance of a stout negro woman who was sitting upon a stool near the edge of the quay. Presently he observed amiably that I had a very pretty little barque.
I returned this civil speech by saying readily:
"Not so pretty as the _Hilda_."
At once the corners of his clear-cut, sensitive mouth dropped dismally.
"Oh, dear! I can hardly bear to look at her now."
Did I know, he asked anxiously, that he had lost the figurehead of his ship; a woman in a blue tunic edged with gold, the face perhaps not so very, very pretty, but her bare white arms beautifully shaped and extended as if she were swimming? Did I? Who would have expected such a things . . . After twenty years too!
n.o.body could have guessed from his tone that the woman was made of wood; his trembling voice, his agitated manner gave to his lamentations a ludicrously scandalous flavour. . . . Disappeared at night-a clear fine night with just a slight swell-in the gulf of Bengal. Went off without a splash; no one in the ship could tell why, how, at what hour-after twenty years last October. . . . Did I ever hear! . . .
I a.s.sured him sympathetically that I had never heard-and he became very doleful. This meant no good he was sure. There was something in it which looked like a warning. But when I remarked that surely another figure of a woman could be procured I found myself being soundly rated for my levity. The old boy flushed pink under his clear tan as if I had proposed something improper. One could replace masts, I was told, or a lost rudder-any working part of a ship; but where was the use of sticking up a new figurehead? What satisfaction? How could one care for it? It was easy to see that I had never been shipmates with a figurehead for over twenty years.
"A new figurehead!" he scolded in unquenchable indignation. "Why! I"ve been a widower now for eight-and-twenty years come next May and I would just as soon think of getting a new wife. You"re as bad as that fellow Jacobus."
I was highly amused.
"What has Jacobus done? Did he want you to marry again, Captain?" I inquired in a deferential tone. But he was launched now and only grinned fiercely.
"Procure-indeed! He"s the sort of chap to procure you anything you like for a price. I hadn"t been moored here for an hour when he got on board and at once offered to sell me a figurehead he happens to have in his yard somewhere. He got Smith, my mate, to talk to me about it. "Mr.
Smith," says I, "don"t you know me better than that? Am I the sort that would pick up with another man"s cast-off figurehead?" And after all these years too! The way some of you young fellows talk-"
I affected great compunction, and as I stepped into the boat I said soberly:
"Then I see nothing for it but to fit in a neat fiddlehead-perhaps. You know, carved scrollwork, nicely gilt."
He became very dejected after his outburst.
"Yes. Scrollwork. Maybe. Jacobus hinted at that too. He"s never at a loss when there"s any money to be extracted from a sailorman. He would make me pay through the nose for that carving. A gilt fiddlehead did you say-eh? I dare say it would do for you. You young fellows don"t seem to have any feeling for what"s proper."
He made a convulsive gesture with his right arm.
"Never mind. Nothing can make much difference. I would just as soon let the old thing go about the world with a bare cut.w.a.ter," he cried sadly.
Then as the boat got away from the steps he raised his voice on the edge of the quay with comical animosity:
"I would! If only to spite that figurehead-procuring bloodsucker. I am an old bird here and don"t you forget it. Come and see me on board some day!"
I spent my first evening in port quietly in my ship"s cuddy; and glad enough was I to think that the sh.o.r.e life which strikes one as so pettily complex, discordant, and so full of new faces on first coming from sea, could be kept off for a few hours longer. I was however fated to hear the Jacobus note once more before I slept.
Mr. Burns had gone ash.o.r.e after the evening meal to have, as he said, "a look round." As it was quite dark when he announced his intention I didn"t ask him what it was he expected to see. Some time about midnight, while sitting with a book in the saloon, I heard cautious movements in the lobby and hailed him by name.
Burns came in, stick and hat in hand, incredibly vulgarised by his smart sh.o.r.e togs, with a jaunty air and an odious twinkle in his eye. Being asked to sit down he laid his hat and stick on the table and after we had talked of ship affairs for a little while:
"I"ve been hearing pretty tales on sh.o.r.e about that ship-chandler fellow who s.n.a.t.c.hed the job from you so neatly, sir."
I remonstrated with my late patient for his manner of expressing himself.
But he only tossed his head disdainfully. A pretty dodge indeed: boarding a strange ship with breakfast in two baskets for all hands and calmly inviting himself to the captain"s table! Never heard of anything so crafty and so impudent in his life.
I found myself defending Jacobus"s unusual methods.
"He"s the brother of one of the wealthiest merchants in the port." The mate"s eyes fairly snapped green sparks.
"His grand brother hasn"t spoken to him for eighteen or twenty years," he declared triumphantly. "So there!"
"I know all about that," I interrupted loftily.
"Do you sir? H"m!" His mind was still running on the ethics of commercial compet.i.tion. "I don"t like to see your good nature taken advantage of. He"s bribed that steward of ours with a five-rupee note to let him come down-or ten for that matter. He don"t care. He will shove that and more into the bill presently."
"Is that one of the tales you have heard ash.o.r.e?" I asked.
He a.s.sured me that his own sense could tell him that much. No; what he had heard on sh.o.r.e was that no respectable person in the whole town would come near Jacobus. He lived in a large old-fashioned house in one of the quiet streets with a big garden. After telling me this Burns put on a mysterious air. "He keeps a girl shut up there who, they say-"
"I suppose you"ve heard all this gossip in some eminently respectable place?" I snapped at him in a most sarcastic tone.
The shaft told, because Mr. Burns, like many other disagreeable people, was very sensitive himself. He remained as if thunderstruck, with his mouth open for some further communication, but I did not give him the chance. "And, anyhow, what the deuce do I care?" I added, retiring into my room.
And this was a natural thing to say. Yet somehow I was not indifferent.
I admit it is absurd to be concerned with the morals of one"s ship-chandler, if ever so well connected; but his personality had stamped itself upon my first day in harbour, in the way you know.
After this initial exploit Jacobus showed himself anything but intrusive.
He was out in a boat early every morning going round the ships he served, and occasionally remaining on board one of them for breakfast with the captain.