Hollow Sea (6 page)

He undressed and turned in. But not to sleep. He was tired, but he wouldn't sleep now. Not until they had got clear of the land, got clear of the official net. He lit his pipe. 'There are really two Dunfords, but from one minute to another I really don't know which I am. I wish I was one of the men for'ard. Hang it, Dunford, you're letting yourself go.' He smiled, put the pipe down. The only thing he could do then was to lie there. Lie there in silence, but not for long. Somebody was already knocking at his door, only a quarter of an hour after he had retired, for his three-hour stretch. It was Bradshaw.

'Well! What is it, Bradshaw? Do come in. Shut the door. What is it? The German Navy on the horizon?'

'No,' replied Bradshaw with a grin. 'Only an English bosun. He has just come to me. His mate is worried over those ventilators.'

'Ventilators, Bradshaw, what in heaven's name have they got to do with me? And didn't you tell him what to do about them?' He sat up in his bunk and looked bewilderedly at his officer.

'The bosun wants them put ashore and new ones substituted.'

'And you tell me this? Oh, go away, man. Have you no sense?'

'There's this message from Mr. Hinks also.' Bradshaw handed him a note from the engineer. But Dunford got out of bed then. A note from Hinks. Secretly he hoped there wasn't going to be any trouble with Hinks – the coal, the men.

'All right, Bradshaw. Go now! I'll think about those ventilators.'

Damn the people! And the bosun, and Bradshaw and the war and all the fools who were running it. And he opened the note from Hinks. He only half read it, then tore it across and flung it into the wastepaper basket. He looked at his watch. Two hours. Then he would be busy. Very busy. Hang it. Fancy coming to him crying about ventilators. That was patriotism and devotion to duty for you. Well! Well! He put on his coat and slid back into the bunk again. Anything might happen – now. He'd better get ready. Yes, and he must sink that interfering conscience of his. It had put him in a most awkward position. He could see himself very clearly now, standing before those three men, those figures from the mysterious place where they were running the war. And they had asked his advice. Dear me! And he had said nothing. Kept silent. That was conscience for you. Even when one said: 'It is a matter of many lives, Mr. Dunford. It's the course. We'd like your advice on that.' H'm! Those fools. They'd like his advice. Well, damn them, he hadn't even considered satisfying their curiosity. Let them ask that grinning monkey, that figure he couldn't get out of his mind. Rajah! Old devil. He could give them a tip or two. No, sir! He was giving no advice. He was only a listener and not a very good one at that. He did as he was told, right or wrong. The two Mr. Dunfords – unlike the Siamese twins – could exist separate from each other.

Suddenly, curiosity getting the better of him, he dressed again and went out on the bridge. He stood by the door of his cabin. He saw the third mate standing just behind the fog-clock. Bradshaw was nowhere in sight. Probably gone for'ard. And the second, well, he was having his well-earned rest. He stood there, listening, looking ahead. The two Mr. Dunfords were at war. Already one was beseeching him to go down and look into that black abyss again, and see the many men's handiwork, the other held fast, urged for quietness, for rest. He looked at the sky again. Fourteen thousand tons, sixty men. Fourteen thousand tons – thirteen – no, fourteen hundred men. Conundrum. Damn them. Why don't they say straight out, 'Look here, Dunford, you're to embark fourteen hundred young soldiers at Avonmouth and depart for Salonika at once; no, the Narrows; no, the Island. The war depends on two things. Intelligence and the absence of it. You represent one of those things? Yes. Why didn't they say that? God damn. Why
hadn't
he opened his mouth? Why hadn't he said, When we reach "O"
 
' – Dunford smiled – 'when we reach "O" I'll place no more value on those men than on my sand ballast'? And then, before he realized it, he was walking away aft, descending the ladder, halting, listening, then resuming his slow pace aft. He went into the wheelhouse, looked around, came out again. The ship, water, nothing in sight. All very peaceful. Ought to go to bed really. He passed into the alleyway. The bosun's night watch were repairing a faulty hydrant. He stood watching them. Their conversation ceased abruptly. One man hummed a tune to himself.

'Good chaps, these,' he thought. 'Good, decent, honest fellows! But it's nothing to them. An adventure. And money in it. They were living, showing strength, endeavour, intelligence hadn't destroyed them.'

Well! He went on, turned into the saloon, looked about him. Aye! He had stood just there, just there, on the red carpet and he had refused to help. He ought to have said—

But that wasn't possible. There was a reason. At the moment he couldn't examine this reason, it had sunk down far into an obscure, a hidden corner of his mind. Yes. It was the damned secrecy. He sat down on a box, and there was something about the great pile of wood-shavings that caught his eye. Should have been cleared away before this. He stared at these for a while, and then looked round at the forest of wood. Wood everywhere. Wood, wire, tin, smells. Suddenly he said aloud: 'Must have those shavings shifted at once. Yes. And those ventilators had better be rigged up right away. The whole of the three decks want thoroughly cleaning.'

Slowly he climbed the ladder. When he passed along the saloon alleyway the men had gone. He went up on the bridge. Bradshaw was just going below. They left the bridge together. 'Let's have a drink, Bradshaw.' They went to the little mess-room abaft the bridge. The steward gave them drinks.

'Bradshaw!' Mr. Dunford looked at the tall red-headed mate.

He was all attention. He watched Dunford fingering the glass.

'I've something to say to you,' went on Mr. Dunford. 'Did it ever occur to you that those men were quite angry?'

'What men?' asked Bradshaw.

'Oh, you know. The Sahibs ashore. You remember. We discussed alternate routes with them, at least I did, and I objected to being paired, spliced. It hasn't worked very well up to now.'

'Yes – I —'

'Well, isn't it crazy? I feel so isolated in this matter. The truth is, Bradshaw' – he looked right into the man's face – 'the truth is I am worried. Not about the route – not about the accommodation – but the
 
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oh, hang it. We're getting down to rock bottom now.'

Bradshaw laughed. 'I don't understand you, Mr. Dunford.'

'D'you remember when we took those Light Horse men? The Colonials, I mean. And we saw the whole hang lot go up in the air? You remember?' Mr. Dunford's expression puzzled Bradshaw.

'Oh, yes, It
was
a job, wasn't it?' Mr. Bradshaw smiled then.

'Look here, Bradshaw. Do you believe in this business? I mean the war.'

'War! I never think about it, Mr. Dunford. It's just a job to me. That's all. Earning a living. I never give it a single thought.' He drank.

Mr. Dunford replied quietly: 'Of course! I understand you, Bradshaw. You might tell the bosun before you retire, that all those ventilators must go up – and the next watch up must get below and make less of a pig-sty of the three decks. Men will be going down there to live, Bradshaw. That's all now.'

Mr. Bradshaw thought he had better go for'ard right away, leave word with the bosun and then quietly retire. He was rather glad Mr. Dunford had changed the conversation – an awkward position. It seemed surprising to Bradshaw that anybody should have opinions on the war. Especially at this time. He had had a sort of idea about Dunford. He hadn't really wanted to sail. That was it. In fact he knew that Mr. Dunford looked on with horror as the men overnight turned his ship upside down. 'God damn it, he'll change his tune bloody quick,' The man must be living in dreamland. He didn't seem to realize the seriousness of the occasion at all. And as for the matter of the Australian Light Horse – well, a pure accident.

Where would they be if they all aired opinions? Nowhere. No! It was beyond him. He could not understand, and why should Dunford come to him, particularly him, he didn't give two bloody hoots about what they did. He was earning his living. If Dunford didn't like the way they were running the war let him retire at once.

Five minutes later Mr. Bradshaw went to his room. He shut the door, and in shutting it he shut out the worried Mr. Dunford, the war, and everything else. Bradshaw always slept well. He would sleep well this watch too.

Back in the mess Mr. Dunford was still sitting over his glass. He wasn't thinking about the talk with Bradshaw. He was thinking of the work to come. In a few hours they'd drop anchor. At that moment a quartermaster knocked at the door. 'Come in.' The door opened. He looked at the man. 'Well, what is it?'

'Mr. Ericson would like you to go up, sir. There's a destroyer signalling us, sir.' The man stood there, waiting, looking at Mr. Dunford's half-filled glass. Was it whisky? Perhaps wine, champagne.

'Thank you,' said Mr. Dunford. The door closed.

Dunford went to the bridge at once. Mr. Ericson was too busy to notice his arrival. He was looking through the glasses, every now and again dictating to the waiting quartermaster. Mr. Dunford went across and looked at the card in the man's hand. 'Give me that card,' he said.

Hearing the voice, Ericson turned round. 'Oh you, sir.' He still held the glasses to his eye. 'They want us to anchor a quarter-mile outside the harbour. We will board troops by tender. It seems the quays are already occupied. A tender is leaving shore now, sir. I think they intend—'

'Quartermaster.' Mr. Dunford's voice sounded like a whip-crack.

'Yes, sir.'

'Go down and inform the bosun I want him here at once.'

And as the man departed Mr. Dunford shouted: 'At once.'

'Very good, sir.'

He watched the man slip down the ladder. He waited for him to come out to the flush-deck. He looked over the dodger. The man was already running for'ard. 'And now, Mr. Ericson,' he said, 'the work begins. Mr. Bradshaw had better be called in half an hour.'

The bosun came along and stood waiting for his orders. Mr. Dunford ignored him. He went on giving instructions to Mr. Ericson. Then he turned and looked at the P.O.

'Get your men standing by the wireless at once, bosun. The carpenter is already up there. And tell your mate that the anchor-lights must be rigged up. When you go below tell the lamp-trimmer I want him up here, right away. The two-day men had better go below and get those three decks ship-shape. That's all.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Very good.' He turned to Ericson again. 'Now, Mr. Ericson.'

H
E
could see them climbing. Their faces looked like many bobbing lights. Their bodies seemed one with the intense darkness. There was no end to this long line. They kept coming up. He lost count of them. He could hear the tender scraping against her side. He ordered Mr. Bradshaw to have more fenders slung over. Still they came on. The rope ladders swayed, flung off their burden at the top of the rail, then sank from sight again as more feet took the rungs. Fifteen hundred. Last time it had only been eight hundred. He heard them tramping the decks. He thought of cattle loading. The beasts stamping about in the holds, their wild aimless movements mirroring their bewilderment. Their feet sang upon the steel ladders. He could hear clatter after clatter, like a series of sharp detonations, and he saw them flinging their heavy packs into those newly made wooden bunks. He saw the area opposite the saloon door suddenly flooded with light, and he called angrily, 'Shut that door! Shut that confounded door.' He heard it bang. The air seemed to ring with the noises of feet, of enquiring and answering voices, of coughs, laughs, curses. They had been lying there a whole hour, waiting. Then the tender had come alongside. This was the third tender. There were two more to come. He could see the shapes grouped about the rail where the men would climb over. Officers were standing in the saloon door. He heard Bradshaw giving orders. Somewhere for'ard a man burst into song. He did not know why, but he smiled, wondering what had been the cause of that sudden burst of song. Still they came on, an endless line of faces. He wanted to send for Ericson, but the man was already behind him. Mr. Ericson had just come up from the 'tween-decks.

'Managing all right?' asked Mr. Dunford.

'Yes, sir. Mr. Deveney has just taken my place.'

'He's all right now, then?' enquired Mr. Dunford.

Mr. Deveney had only just made his appearance on deck. He had been stricken down with his old complaint of malaria from the time he boarded her. He was a man turned fifty years of age, quiet, reticent. He had not long left the senior service. Suddenly the line of faces came to an end. Mr. Dunford heard the chug of the tender's engine. She was slowly veering away. Then she disappeared into the darkness. When Bradshaw appeared, Mr. Dunford left the bridge. He went straight to the saloon. He saw the group of officers standing at the head of the staircase. They stopped talking on his entrance. They saluted him, and one said, 'Good morning, sir,' but the man did not answer but passed them by, descending the ladder to the lower deck. He walked along the alleyway. He could hear the loud voices of men, the rattle of accoutrements, the sound of running taps, of baggage being flung down. He stopped suddenly. He could see these men now. A forest of legs hanging suspended over the bunks. Their backs were to him. He stood there for a while as though meditating, but when he heard one of them laugh he walked away, stopping again on the for'ard deck. Here, men had already made themselves comfortable, the same din of conversation, but no dangling legs, no rattle of accoutrements, no noise of packs being flung here and there. The canvas ventilator billowed in the breeze. His eye followed it right up to the derrick above. If they had adopted his suggestion about those hatch-covers it would have saved bother. However
 
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Then he heard another tender come alongside. He stepped suddenly on to the hatch-cover, making men start up from their bunks, for he had been concealed behind a pillar. Now he stood there in front of them. He looked up, put his foot on the ladder and passed out of sight. He went along to the deck and came across Bradshaw. They stood watching the men climb the ladders. They were mostly young men. They clambered awkwardly down to the deck, their packs interfering with their movements. Mr. Dunford turned to Bradshaw.