"Secure amidst perils!" replied Gissing courteously. It was the phrase engraved upon the ship"s notepaper, on which he had been writing, and it had impressed itself on his mind.
"You said you had been a General Manager."
Gissing told, with some vivacity, of his experiences in the world of trade. The Captain poured another small liqueur.
"They"re fine halesome liquor," he said.
"Sincerely yours," said Gissing, nodding over the gla.s.s. He was beginning to feel quite at home in the navigating quarters of the ship, and hoped the potato-peeling might be postponed as long as possible.
"How far had you got in your essay?" asked the Captain.
"Not very far, I fear. I was beginning by laying down a few psychological fundamentals."
"Excellent! Will you read it to me?"
Gissing went to get his ma.n.u.script, and read it aloud. The Captain listened attentively, puffing clouds of smoke.
"I am sorry this is such a short voyage," he said when Gissing finished.
"You have approached the matter from an entirely naif and instinctive standpoint, and it will take some time to show you your errors. Before I demolish your arguments I should like to turn them over in my mind. I will reduce my ideas to writing and then read them to you."
"I should like nothing better," said Gissing. "And I can think over the subject more carefully while I peel the potatoes."
"Nonsense," said the Captain. "I do not often get a chance to discuss theology. I will tell you my idea. You spoke of your experience as General Manager, when you had charge of a thousand employees. One of the things we need on this ship is a staff-captain, to take over the management of the personnel. That would permit me to concentrate entirely on navigation. In a vessel of this size it is wrong that the master should have to carry the entire responsibility."
He rang for the steward.
"My compliments to Mr. Pointer, and tell him to come here."
Mr. Pointer appeared shortly in oilskins, saluted, and gazed fixedly at his superior, with one foot raised upon the bra.s.s door-sill.
"Mr. Pointer," said Captain Scottie, "I have appointed Captain Gissing staff-captain. Take orders from him as you would from me. He will have complete charge of the ship"s discipline."
"Aye, aye, sir," said Mr. Pointer, stood a moment intently to see if there were further orders, saluted again, and withdrew.
"Now you had better turn in," said the skipper. "Of course you must wear uniform. I"ll send the tailor up to you at once. He can remodel one of my suits overnight. The trousers will have to be lengthened."
On the chart-room sofa, Gissing dozed and waked and dozed again. On the bridge near by he heard the steady tread of feet, the mysterious words of the officer on watch pa.s.sing the course to his relief. Bells rang with sharp double clang. Through the open port he could hear the alternate boom and hiss of the sea under the bows. With the stately lift and lean of the ship there mingled a faint driving vibration.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The first morning in any new environment is always the most exciting.
Gissing was already awake, and watching the novel sight of a patch of sunshine sliding to and fro on the deck of the chart-room, when there was a gentle tap at the door. The Captain"s steward entered, carrying a handsome uniform.
"Six bells, sir," he said. "Your bath is laid on."
Gissing was not very sure just what time it was, but the steward held out a dressing gown for him to slip on, so he took the hint, and followed him to the Captain"s private bathroom where he plunged gaily into warm salt water. He was hardly dressed before breakfast was laid for him in the chart-room. It was a breakfast greatly to his liking--porridge, scrambled eggs, grilled kidneys and bacon, coffee, toast, and marmalade. Evidently the hardships of sea life had been greatly exaggerated by fiction writers.
He was a trifle bashful about appearing on the bridge in his blue and bra.s.s formality, and waited a while thinking Captain Scottie might come.
But no one disturbed him, so by and bye he went out. It was a brisk morning with a fresh breeze and plenty of whitecaps. Dancing rainbows hovered about the bow when an occasional explosion of spray burst up into sunlight. Mr. Pointer was on the bridge, still gazing steadily into the distance. He saluted Gissing, but said nothing. The quartermaster at the wheel also saluted in silence. A seaman wiping down the paintwork on the deckhouse saluted. Gissing returned these gestures punctiliously, and began to pace the bridge from side to side. He soon grew accustomed to the varying slant of the deck, and felt that his footing showed a nautical a.s.surance.
Now for the first time he enjoyed an untrammelled horizon on all sides.
The sea, he observed, was not really blue--not at any rate the blue he had supposed. Where it seethed flatly along the hull, laced with swirls of milky foam, it was almost black. Farther away, it was green, or darkly violet. A ladder led to the top of the charthouse, and from this commanding height the whole body of the ship lay below him. How alive she seemed, how full of personality! The strong funnels, the tall masts that moved so delicately against the pale open sky, the distant stern that now dipped low in a comfortable hollow, and now soared and threshed onward with a swimming thrust, the whole vital organism spoke to the eye and the imagination. In the centre of this vast circle she moved, royal and serene. She was more beautiful than the element she rode on, for perhaps there was something meaningless in that pure vacant round of sea and sky. Once its immense azure was grasped and noted, it brought nothing to the mind. Reason was indignant to conceive it, sloping endlessly away.
The placid, beautifully planned routine of shipboard pa.s.sed on its accustomed course, and he began to suspect that his staff-captaincy was a sinecure. Down below he could see the pa.s.sengers briskly promenading, or drowsing under their rugs. On the hurricane deck, aft, a sailor was chalking a shuffleboard court. It occurred to him that all this might become monotonous unless he found some actual part in it. Just then Captain Scottie appeared on the bridge, took a quick look round, and joined him on top of the charthouse.
"Good morning!" he said. "You won"t think me rude if you don"t see much of me? Thinking about those ideas of yours, I have come upon some rather puzzling stuff. I must work the whole thing out more clearly. Your suggestion that Conscience points the way to an integration of personality into a higher type of divinity, seems to me off the track; but I haven"t quite downed it yet. I"m going to shut myself up to-day and consider the matter. I leave you in charge."
"I shall be perfectly happy," said Gissing. "Please don"t worry about me."
"You suggest that all the conditions of life at sea, our mastery of the forces of Nature, and so on, seem to show that we have perfect freedom of will, and adapt everything to our desires. I believe just the contrary. The forces of Nature compel us to approach them in their own way, otherwise we are shipwrecked. It is in the conditions of Nature that this ship should reach port in eight days, otherwise we should get nowhere. We do it because it is our destiny."
"I am not so sure of that," said Gissing. But the Captain had already departed with a clouded brow.
On the chart-room roof Gissing had discovered an alluring instrument, the exact use of which he did not know. It seemed to be some kind of steering control. The dial was lettered, from left to right, as follows HARD A PORT, PORT, STEADY, COURSE, STEADY, STARBD, HARD A STARBD. At present the handle stood upon the section marked COURSE. After a careful study of the whole seascape, it seemed to Gissing that off to the south the ocean looked more blue and more interesting. After some hesitation he moved the handle to the PORT mark, and waited to see what would happen. To his delight he saw the bow swing slowly round, and the Pomerania"s gleaming wake spread behind her in a whitened curve. He descended to the bridge, a little nervous as to what Mr. Pointer might say, but he found the Mate gazing across the water with the same fierce and unwearying attention.
"I have changed the course," he said.
Mr. Pointer saluted, but said nothing.
Having succeeded so far, Gissing ventured upon another innovation.
He had been greatly tempted by the wheel, and envied the stolid quartermaster who was steering. So, a.s.suming an air of calm certainty, he entered the wheelhouse.
"I"ll take her for a while," he said.
"Aye, aye, sir," said the quartermaster, and surrendered the wheel to him.
"You might string out a few flags," Gissing said. He had been noticing the bright signal buntings in the rack, and thought it a pity not to use them.
"I like to see a ship well dressed," he added.
"Aye, aye, sir," said Dane. "Any choice, sir?"
Gissing picked out a string of flags which were particularly lively in colour-scheme, and had them hoisted. Then he gave his attention to the wheel. He found it quite an art, and was surprised to learn that a big ship requires so much helm. But it was very pleasant. He took care to steer toward patches of sea that looked interesting, and to cut into any particular waves that took his fancy. After an hour or so, he sighted a fishing schooner, and gave chase. He found it so much fun to run close beside her (taking care to pa.s.s to leeward, so as not to cut off her wind) that a mile farther on he turned and steered a neat circle about the bewildered craft. The Pomerania"s pa.s.sengers were greatly interested, and lined the rails trying to make out what the fishermen were shouting. The captain of the schooner seemed particularly agitated, kept waving at the signal flags and barking through a megaphone. During these manoeuvres Mr. Pointer gazed so hard at the horizon that Gissing felt a bit embarra.s.sed.
"I thought it wise to find out exactly what our turning-circle is," he said.
Mr. Pointer saluted. He was a well-trained officer.
Late in the afternoon the Captain reappeared, looking more cheerful.
Gissing was still at the helm, which he found so fascinating he would not relinquish it. He had ordered his tea served on a little stand beside the wheel so that he could drink it while he steered. "Hullo!"
said the Captain. "I see you"ve changed the course."
"It seemed best to do so," said Gissing firmly. He felt that to show any weakness at this point would be fatal.
"Oh, well, probably it doesn"t matter. I"m coming round to some of your ideas."