Part 25 (1/2)
Over-confidence and an unusually violent antic of the _Elsinore_ caused the disaster. She flung down to starboard with such suddenness and at such a pitch that the flooring seemed to go out from under me and I hustled helplessly down the incline. I missed a frantic clutch at the newel-post, flung up my arm in time to save my face, and, most fortunately, whirled half about, and, still falling, impacted with my shoulder muscle-pad on Captain West's door.
Youth will have its way. So will a s.h.i.+p in a sea. And so will a hundred and seventy pounds of a man. The beautiful hardwood door-panel splintered, the latch fetched away, and I broke the nails of the four fingers of my right hand in a futile grab at the flying door, marring the polished surface with four parallel scratches. I kept right on, erupting into Captain West's s.p.a.cious room with the big bra.s.s bed.
Miss West, swathed in a woollen dressing-gown, her eyes heavy still with sleep, her hair glorious and for the once ungroomed, clinging in the doorway that gave entrance on the main cabin, met my startled gaze with an equally startled gaze.
It was no time for apologies. I kept right on my mad way, caught the foot stanchion, and was whipped around in half a circle flat upon Captain West's bra.s.s bed.
Miss West was beginning to laugh.
”Come right in,” she gurgled.
A score of retorts, all deliciously inadvisable, tickled my tongue, so I said nothing, contenting myself with holding on with my left hand while I nursed my stinging right hand under my arm-pit. Beyond her, across the floor of the main cabin, I saw the steward in pursuit of Captain West's Bible and a sheaf of Miss West's music. And as she gurgled and laughed at me, beholding her in this intimacy of storm, the thought flashed through my brain:
_She is a woman_. _She is desirable_.
Now did she sense this fleeting, unuttered flash of mine? I know not, save that her laughter left her, and long conventional training a.s.serted itself as she said:
”I just knew everything was adrift in father's room. He hasn't been in it all night. I could hear things rolling around . . . What is wrong?
Are you hurt?”
”Stubbed my fingers, that's all,” I answered, looking at my broken nails and standing gingerly upright.
”My, that _was_ a roll,” she sympathized.
”Yes; I'd started to go upstairs,” I said, ”and not to turn into your father's bed. I'm afraid I've ruined the door.”
Came another series of great rolls. I sat down on the bed and held on.
Miss West, secure in the doorway, began gurgling again, while beyond, across the cabin carpet, the steward shot past, embracing a small writing- desk that had evidently carried away from its fastenings when he seized hold of it for support. More seas smashed and crashed against the for'ard wall of the cabin; and the steward, failing of lodgment, shot back across the carpet, still holding the desk from harm.
Taking advantage of favouring spells, I managed to effect my exit and gain the newel-post ere the next series of rolls came. And as I clung on and waited, I could not forget what I had just seen. Vividly under my eyelids burned the picture of Miss West's sleep-laden eyes, her hair, and all the softness of her. _A woman and desirable_ kept drumming in my brain.
But I forgot all this, when, nearly at the top, I was thrown up the hill of the stairs as if it had suddenly become downhill. My feet flew from stair to stair to escape falling, and I flew, or fell, apparently upward, until, at the top, I hung on for dear life while the stern of the _Elsinore_ flung skyward on some mighty surge.
Such antics of so huge a s.h.i.+p! The old stereotyped ”toy” describes her; for toy she was, the sheerest splinter of a plaything in the grip of the elements. And yet, despite this overwhelming sensation of microscopic helplessness, I was aware of a sense of surety. There was the Samurai.
Informed with his will and wisdom, the _Elsinore_ was no cat's-paw.
Everything was ordered, controlled. She was doing what he ordained her to do, and, no matter what storm-t.i.tans bellowed about her and buffeted her, she would continue to do what he ordained her to do.
I glanced into the chart-room. There he sat, leaned back in a screw-chair, his sea-booted legs, wedged against the settee, holding him in place in the most violent rolls. His black oilskin coat glistened in the lamplight with a myriad drops of ocean that advertised a recent return from deck. His sou'wester, black and glistening, was like the helmet of some legendary hero. He was smoking a cigar, and he smiled and greeted me. But he seemed very tired and very old--old with wisdom, however, not weakness. The flesh of his face, the pink pigment quite washed and worn away, was more transparent than ever; and yet never was he more serene, never more the master absolute of our tiny, fragile world. The age that showed in him was not a matter of terrestrial years.
It was ageless, pa.s.sionless, beyond human. Never had he appeared so great to me, so far remote, so much a spirit visitant.
And he cautioned and advised me, in silver-mellow beneficent voice, as I essayed the venture of opening the chart-house door to gain outside. He knew the moment, although I never could have guessed it for myself, and gave the word that enabled me to win the p.o.o.p.
Water was everywhere. The _Elsinore_ was rus.h.i.+ng through a blurring whirr of water. Seas creamed and licked the p.o.o.p-deck edge, now to starboard, now to port. High in the air, over-towering and perilously down-toppling, following-seas pursued our stern. The air was filled with spindrift like a fog or spray. No officer of the watch was in sight. The p.o.o.p was deserted, save for two helmsmen in streaming oilskins under the half-shelter of the open wheel-house. I nodded good morning to them.
One was Tom Spink, the elderly but keen and dependable English sailor.
The other was Bill Quigley, one of a forecastle group of three that herded uniquely together, though the other two, Frank Fitzgibbon and Richard Oiler, were in the second mate's watch. The three had proved handy with their fists, and clannish; they had fought pitched forecastle battles with the gangster clique and won a sort of neutrality of independence for themselves. They were not exactly sailors--Mr. Mellaire sneeringly called them the ”bricklayers”--but they had successfully refused subservience to the gangster crowd.
To cross the deck from the chart-house to the break of the p.o.o.p was no slight feat, but I managed it and hung on to the railing while the wind stung my flesh with the flappings of my pyjamas. At this moment, and for the moment, the _Elsinore_ righted to an even keel, and dashed along and down the avalanching face of a wave. And as she thus righted her deck was filled with water level from rail to rail. Above this flood, or knee- deep in it, Mr. Pike and half-a-dozen sailors were bunched on the fife- rail of the mizzen-mast. The carpenter, too, was there, with a couple of a.s.sistants.
The next roll spilled half a thousand tons of water outboard sheer over the starboard-rail, while all the starboard ports opened automatically and gushed huge streams. Then came the opposite roll to port, with a clanging shut of the iron doors; and a hundred tons of sea sloshed outboard across the port-rail, while all the iron doors on that side opened wide and gushed. And all this time, it must not be forgotten, the _Elsinore_ was das.h.i.+ng ahead through the sea.