Coronach, page 95
At eight bells, four in the morning, he dressed and attempted to lie in the chair, went again to the quarter gallery, returned after half an hour and drank the cognac, spilling a little of it.
He said, “For God’s sake, don’t remember me like this. Remember me as your lover,” and then, “Christ, I’m so ashamed.”
Perhaps an hour later, he could no longer sit and walked ceaselessly, bending his head beneath the beams, as though oblivious to the heavy rise and fall of the deck. A faint greyness of dawn was visible through the salt-encrusted glass. He left me again, and returned.
“Blood,” he said.
At half past seven he drank a great quantity of undiluted purgative from the surgeon’s chest he kept in the sleeping cabin. Its effects on him throughout that afternoon and the night that followed were so severe that I believed he was dying; it is possible that he thought the same. The night was unspeakable. I lived it with him, sometimes in an intimacy he would not otherwise have permitted, cherishing his body in its spasms of bloody diarrhoea: he did not now speak of shame. On the morning of the third he slept for the first time in forty hours, in the leather chair: I slept on damp bedding on the deck beside him, as though on the breast of the sea. When I woke in early afternoon he was not there. I did not see that the tarpaulin coat had been taken, and searched frantically, foolishly, for him, opening the louvred doors of the sleeping cabin, the quarter galleries, the chartroom, encountering only Harris.
“Cap’n’s on deck,” he said.
I returned to the great cabin and fell asleep in his chair.
The sound of the rudder woke me. The lantern overhead was burning: there was darkness on the sea which might have been midnight or evening, or early morning. He was seated at the desk as though he had been writing, the logbook opened, and the pocketbook in which he kept his pencilled observations and alterations of course, but the entry was unfinished, the final line undrawn. Beneath it he had written Thursday, January fourth, and his hand was resting on the dim expanse of the page, as though its blankness were legible.
He said, “I shall not do this again... and it was very wrong of me to have expected you to endure it. My life has fallen into perspective. The night made some things very clear.” Then, “I want to love you tonight. I don’t think I can.”
“There will be other nights.”
“So I tell myself.” Silence, the sea’s silence and the ship’s, an impenetrable silence between us. “Give me something of yours for tomorrow.”
He would accept only a handkerchief, nondescript but for its perfume. In the night he asked for my love, which I was as incapable of giving as he of receiving. There was little sweetness, only desperation and futility; the spirit and the exhausted flesh failed. I did not bear his beloved weight again: the words of a lifetime were never spoken.
I breakfasted at seven bells, half past seven. He came down and drank half a cup of coffee, standing, warming his hands around the cup, snow melting on the tarpaulin coat; he had been on deck since leaving me, at perhaps half past three. Pain remained in the lower right of his abdomen: he was, he said, otherwise well.
At eight the log was hove. She was making good nine knots, driven by a southwesterly wind, steering northwest, close-hauled on the larboard tack. The sea was heavy but moderating. After a night of sleet, the glass had risen and the temperature dropped; the cordage had swollen in the sheaves, the deck was icy, the glazed ratlines offering a perilous foothold for those required aloft.
At noon there were snow squalls, and the sea was obscured in a driving curtain of white: bitter hard flakes cutting into eyes, the skin of the face, the ungloved hands of every man aboard, and the naked feet of topmen. The light was strange, opaque, the sextants useless: her position was calculated by dead reckoning alone. Now I knew his destination, although on principle he never mentioned it. We were some twenty miles off Newburyport, two hours away with, at best, four hours of daylight, and in these shoaling waters sometimes seventy and sometimes eighteen fathoms beneath the keel.
Perhaps an hour passed. Axes chopped the ice from her washports; her scuppers ran with the sea; the spray froze in fantastic patterns; my lips were cracked and dried with salt. I wore the breeches I had had his tailor make, and two shirts and a waistcoat and long riding coat, and was shrouded in a boat cloak, with a soft woollen shawl drawn over my head and shoulders: I was relatively warm, and had the advantage of gloves. My fingers, therefore, could more easily accommodate him when St. James asked for the time. It was nine minutes to two.
“My watch has stopped,” he said, and returned to the weather side, leaving me in the comparative shelter of the companion near the wheel, although I would have preferred to have been with him. It was two o’clock precisely when the cry came from the masthead.
“Sail on the larboard quarter!”
There was a suggestion of light before the darkness of the winter closed down... I saw how snow is grey like rain, like veils of rain on a clearing horizon, and then the light was lost again. The telescope came into my hands, although I do not remember him giving it to me or how long either he or I held it, only the silent miniature in the lens, a pyramid of tan sails emerging from the snow, no colours visible on this tack, her hull, throwing up an impressive spray from that sullen sea, shining black and buff. The glass was gently taken, the voices oddly detached. I did not hear his among them.
I reckon she’s come around Cape Ann.
Well, she ain’t no bloody invitation to the dance.
He said, “Alter course. Let her fall off three points. Steer north by west.”
The voices ceased their speculative murmuring, and I heard Ransom shouting for hands to the braces: men ran, heaving, slipping, ice falling like shards of glass from shrouds, stays, canvas. St. James stood, immobile in the tarpaulin coat, the snow in his hair, leaning to the angle of the deck, his eyes not upon me or the oncoming vessel but on the sails. There were two men on the wheel, as always except in calm weather: they were both unfamiliar to me.
One said, “Steady she goes, sir, nor’ by west.”
I left the shelter of the companion again, felt for handholds. It was suddenly very necessary to be with him. He was gazing aft, the telescope resting on his shoulder, his face, although drawn, deeply composed: he seemed not to notice my presence, and I did not interrupt his thoughts.
The lookout called, “She makes more sail, sir!”
He observed it through the telescope, his breath a faint cloud whipped away by the wind.
“She’s setting her t’ gallants, sir!”
Ransom came up, and was standing in silence.
“Setting her royals, sir!”
The telescope did not waver, although its weight was considerable.
He said, “You young fool.”
Ransom said, “Shall we follow suit?”
“No. Too visible.”
Ladywynd was lifting beneath us, smashing down in a cross current, answering to her helm with spirit, the wind right across her quarter. Spray cascaded over the beakhead: I imagined the gilded eyes and pure white face sheathed in the sea’s salt ice.
“Time,” he said to me, and waited patiently as I took off my glove and fumbled for my watch.
“Three— no, four minutes to three.”
He looked at the sky.
“Come, darkness,” he said.
The brig opened fire on us at approximately three, at extreme range, a single shot from her bowchaser, a thirty-two pounder: this signal to heave to was followed by another. The shots were barely visible, spouting spray like a dolphin, a deadly procession of waterspouts, well clear. A little snow was falling, twisting like sand across the deck. There was no jubilation around me, and no retaliation: every man was needed to work the ship; there was neither time nor leisure for loading or running out, only a deadly concentration on the next minute and the order it might bring. I prayed for darkness.
The brig altered course, to due north, it was thought, although it was impossible to determine her position precisely. By this alteration she would overreach us, and had revealed her full length and presented her broadside. She was clearly now a ship of war, and her colours were visible, the scarlet ensign almost black in the fading light. He stood watching her, removed from me and from this hour, with no emotion in his face, concentrating his full attention upon her, his mind alive with the possibilities of the immediate future and the visions of the past. Through his eyes, I saw his ghosts.
The second mate, Eyre, loitering by the wheel in a pretense of indifference, remarked, “He’s cutting it fine,” and then the tongues of fire flashed from the brig’s side: a single shot found its mark. Spray rose from the sea and fell heavily across the deck; the impact was muffled and there was no indication of damage. The carpenter, Vetch, was below inspecting the hold when St. James said, “Oh— Jesus Christ,” and turned a little away, as though from the onslaught of the weather.
The brig had struck, intent on her pursuit of us and under full canvas, heedless or ignorant of the danger of shoals and sandbars, although the chart was littered with them. Her foremast had carried away, taking with it jib, yards, rigging, men: from a living thing of vengeful beauty she became a chaotic wreck, the seas bursting over her. Her mainmast fell with a distinct crack, like a careless shot. She had only minutes to live.
He had turned back and was staring at her with no apparent pity. But his arm, beneath my fingers, was trembling.
He said, “My blood is very thin these days,” and then, “What a waste.”
Mark Ransom came up, ignoring me or, perhaps, what he had heard.
“Shall we cast a boat adrift, or put a broadside into her?”
“Leave her to the sea.” He turned his back on the wreck, I thought deliberately. “Stand by to come about. Put your helm down.”
“Helm a-lee, sir!”
“Off tacks and sheets.”
Forward, they were barefoot on the icy deck, letting go the headsail sheets to allow us to swing into the wind, all sails, topsails, jib, forecourse, driver, maincourse in confusion as she came round and further round, almost into the wind.
“Mains’l haul!”
Eyre, at the compass, was rasping his hands, muttering, “Come around, you bitch, come around—”
“Let go and haul!”
Ransom said, “Southeast by east, sir. As close as she’ll come.”
Ladywynd had crossed the wind’s eye; the men at the braces had hauled her yards round. As the sails were sheeted home she came steady, leaning into the wind on the starboard tack, her sails taut and bulging, shrouds vibrating, water pouring over her lee side, men grasping for handholds, falling, cursing, the topmen still aloft, shivering witnesses to the advent of the night. My teeth were chattering so violently that I could not speak.
He said to me, almost inaudibly, “And now, if it please my God, I will take you home.”
Let her fly, lads— let her fly....
Reckoned we’d never see they Caribbee girls again.
Nor done I neither, by Jesus.
The rasping hands again, like roughened leather: Eyre, jocular, almost impudent with relief.
“I seen eternity a few times afore, but never that close, by Christ.”
And St. James’s voice in the dimness: its elegance, now sought vainly in the speech of other men.
“Then you haven’t lived.”
Mark Ransom, near me at the binnacle, consulting the compass, was singing under his breath.
Who would true valour see, let him come hither... one here will constant be, come wind, come weather....
Let her fly, boys, let her fly....
There’s no discouragement, shall make him once relent....
Some one shouted then, and he was silent: all was silent, save the vibration of the rigging, the sluicing of the sea, the heavy fall of spray. The newcomer, two or three miles away to the northwest, was visible to the naked eye.
Eyre said, “She’s a frigate,” and a sigh seemed to pass through the men, not hauling, not working ship, but stilled: spectators, striving to hear the next words from their captain.
He was staring through the telescope across the starboard quarter, beyond the tumult of sea and spindrift which was the dying brig. He seemed to stand badly, as though the pain of the forenoon had worsened.
He said, “No. Sloop of war.”
I was close to him; he gave the glass to me. The sloop was leaning steeply to larboard, pinned at that angle by the strength of the wind that drove her: she opened fire with her bowchaser as I watched. Had the range been closed the shot would have smashed into our stern, destroying all below.
He said, “Young,” not urgently, and stepped away from me, walking a pace or two with the gunner, steadying him as he slipped in the gathering snow.
The gunner left him, with a stiff-legged, delicate tread, like a man walking on ice; his mate detached himself from the others and followed him. There were no names called, no shouting, only a great economy of effort.The silence on deck was profound.
I renounced him then, whom I loved, and gave him again to the life which had made him. This was no hour for me, for love, or the expression of my fears: love and dread and the future were here renounced. My claim upon him was finished.
Two courses remained open to him. He could run to the northeast, which would present Ladywynd’s full length as a target if the sloop luffed, or crowd on canvas and hope for darkness and the open sea. His mind, always mercurial, did not linger upon its decision.
“Get the t’gallants on her.” And, perhaps at a mild question, “We have no bloody choice, man. She’ll overhaul us otherwise.”
The topmen were still aloft, clinging with stiffened fingers; the effect of the increased canvas was felt immediately. Vetch, the carpenter, loomed out of the shadows. They conferred.
He said, “Good,” and then unexpectedly came to me, with little expression either in his face, in the absence of light which was not yet darkness, or in his voice.
“What time is it?”
“..... four... I think.”
“Destroy the log and the muster book. When you leave me, walk slowly. When you go below, don’t linger.”
“And the sword?”
“Bring the sword to me.”
I prayed in the great cabin, which was undamaged and in darkness; his pistols had been taken and I knew he wore them; my gloved hands fumbled, removing his sword from the bulkhead. I prayed for courage, that if we should die it should be together, that he should not suffer, that I should not see him die, nor he me. I knew why I should not linger in this place, which had been our sanctuary. I knew, upon leaving it, that I would not see it again.
Harris met me in the cold darkness of the companionway. Beyond him I was aware of some one, perhaps Chatto, unlocking the arms chest. Overhead there were sounds which, as though borne in my blood, I recognized, although I could not have known them.
My strange, whispered confrontation with Harris continued, he asking me for the sword, in more words than he had ever spoken, and me refusing to give it to him. Finally he said, “I was his coxswain at the Havana. Let me do him the honour.”
St. James was walking slowly up and down the weather side, a few paces in either direction; he had taken off the tarpaulin coat, which some one had tossed by the binnacle. Beyond him, the sloop was crossing our quarter. He showed no surprise at Harris’s appearance on deck, and spoke to Ransom over his shoulder as he extended his arms for the sword belt.
“Alter course three points to larboard. Steer due east.”
Movement through the final minutes of light; sails flapping in confusion, and Ransom’s voice, far hoarser now than in the sweetness of his hymn.
“Another pull on the weather forebrace, there— now belay!”
There was an abrupt, fragmented exchange with Eyre, who seemed to express the opinion, unsolicited, that the cargo should be discarded, the colours identifying this ship as British bent on and run up.
St. James said, “There’s no damned time for that,” and then, “For Christ’s sake, man, do you think I’m a magician? They want our blood. What does a flag signify to them?”
I heard Harris murmur, “... luffed...” and the sloop opened fire, a full broadside, each gun in succession as was customary in failing light, the flames hideously vivid, illuminating the drifting snow... the noise and shock of impact were unspeakable. The foremast fell, snapped where it was lashed to the top, foremast, topgallant mast, yards, men, over the starboard side. Ladywynd slewed, wounded although not yet fatally, wreckage clinging to the bulwarks, her miles of rigging a killing net for those who were trapped on the forecastle beneath it. Some one was shouting for Hook to clear it, although Hook was dead. Chatto was stumbling forward with an axe, the sailor’s futile instinct. The weight of wreckage had already crippled her: the next broadside would pass through her unprotected stern.
I heard St. James shouting and the gunner’s reply, saw the slow-match burning. Only four or five guns would bear, and Young fired them himself, the rearmost, closest to us, first, with savage recoil. There was now no order but insanity, obscenities of rage and defiance and encouragement.... I was not among these men, I had no existence. In this, I knew the prelude and the aftermath... the substance of his life was in the sloop’s response.
She fired, in succession, many guns, too many for me to remember, each gun inflicting a greater degree of devastation, each firing more precise, more distinctive, louder than her previous broadside, and I believe he knew by their very sound the nature of the charges before they shattered the stern, the boats, the taffrail, exploding in a whistling hail of grape, because some one, perhaps he himself, threw me face down, with an impact that injured me. I struggled to rise, winded, gasping: they were all dead around me at the wheel, Harris’s disembodied arm twitching, steaming at the stump, his fingers clenched around my wrist, his entrails spattered, viscous fragments clinging to my hair and sleeve. The next broadside threw me bodily across the deck. Braces, scythed cleanly and released from enormous tension, became instruments of decapitation. Mark Ransom was near me now, close enough for me to recognize by the compass light, which still burned, illuminating hell. He was dying: by his voice and his clothing alone, I knew him.
