第35章

"Next thing George knows, his brother tells him that he had occasion to oblige his partner.And glad of it, too.Likes the partner no end.Took a friend of his as mate.Man had his troubles, been ashore a year nursing a dying wife, it seems.Down on his luck...George protests earnestly that he knows nothing of the person.Saw him once.Not very attractive to look at...And Captain Harry says in his hearty way, That's so, but must give the poor devil a chance...

"So Mr.Stafford joins in dock.And it seems that he did manage to monkey with one of the cables - keeping his mind on Port Elizabeth.

The riggers had all the cable ranged on deck to clean lockers.The new mate watches them go ashore - dinner hour - and sends the ship-keeper out of the ship to fetch him a bottle of beer.Then he goes to work whittling away the forelock of the forty-five-fathom shackle-pin, gives it a tap or two with a hammer just to make it loose, and of course that cable wasn't safe any more.Riggers come back - you know what riggers are: come day, go day, and God send Sunday.Down goes the chain into the locker without their foreman looking at the shackles at all.What does he care? He ain't going in the ship.And two days later the ship goes to sea..."At this point I was incautious enough to breathe out another "Isee," which gave offence again, and brought on me a rude "No, you don't" - as before.But in the pause he remembered the glass of beer at his elbow.He drank half of it, wiped his mustaches, and remarked grimly -"Don't you think that there will be any sea life in this, because there ain't.If you're going to put in any out of your own head, now's your chance.I suppose you know what ten days of bad weather in the Channel are like? I don't.Anyway, ten whole days go by.

One Monday Cloete comes to the office a little late - hears a woman's voice in George's room and looks in.Newspapers on the desk, on the floor; Captain Harry's wife sitting with red eyes and a bag on the chair near her...Look at this, says George, in great excitement, showing him a paper.Cloete's heart gives a jump.Ha! Wreck in Westport Bay.The Sagamore gone ashore early hours of Sunday, and so the newspaper men had time to put in some of their work.Columns of it.Lifeboat out twice.Captain and crew remain by the ship.Tugs summoned to assist.If the weather improves, this well-known fine ship may yet be saved...You know the way these chaps put it...Mrs.Harry there on her way to catch a train from Cannon Street.Got an hour to wait.

"Cloete takes George aside and whispers: Ship saved yet! Oh, damn! That must never be; you hear? But George looks at him dazed, and Mrs.Harry keeps on sobbing quietly:...I ought to have been with him.But I am going to him...We are all going together, cries Cloete, all of a sudden.He rushes out, sends the woman a cup of hot bovril from the shop across the road, buys a rug for her, thinks of everything; and in the train tucks her in and keeps on talking, thirteen to the dozen, all the way, to keep her spirits up, as it were; but really because he can't hold his peace for very joy.Here's the thing done all at once, and nothing to pay.Done.Actually done.His head swims now and again when he thinks of it.What enormous luck! It almost frightens him.He would like to yell and sing.Meantime George Dunbar sits in his corner, looking so deadly miserable that at last poor Mrs.Harry tries to comfort him, and so cheers herself up at the same time by talking about how her Harry is a prudent man; not likely to risk his crew's life or his own unnecessarily - and so on.

"First thing they hear at Westport station is that the life-boat has been out to the ship again, and has brought off the second officer, who had hurt himself, and a few sailors.Captain and the rest of the crew, about fifteen in all, are still on board.Tugs expected to arrive every moment.

"They take Mrs.Harry to the inn, nearly opposite the rocks; she bolts straight up-stairs to look out of the window, and she lets out a great cry when she sees the wreck.She won't rest till she gets on board to her Harry.Cloete soothes her all he can...All right; you try to eat a mouthful, and we will go to make inquiries.

"He draws George out of the room: Look here, she can't go on board, but I shall.I'll see to it that he doesn't stop in the ship too long.Let's go and find the coxswain of the life-boat..

.George follows him, shivering from time to time.The waves are washing over the old pier; not much wind, a wild, gloomy sky over the bay.In the whole world only one tug away off, heading to the seas, tossed in and out of sight every minute as regular as clockwork.

"They meet the coxswain and he tells them: Yes! He's going out again.No, they ain't in danger on board - not yet.But the ship's chance is very poor.Still, if the wind doesn't pipe up again and the sea goes down something might be tried.After some talk he agrees to take Cloete on board; supposed to be with an urgent message from the owners to the captain.

"Whenever Cloete looks at the sky he feels comforted; it looks so threatening.George Dunbar follows him about with a white face and saying nothing.Cloete takes him to have a drink or two, and by and by he begins to pick up...That's better, says Cloete; dash me if it wasn't like walking about with a dead man before.You ought to be throwing up your cap, man.I feel as if I wanted to stand in the street and cheer.Your brother is safe, the ship is lost, and we are made men.

"Are you certain she's lost? asks George.It would be an awful blow after all the agonies I have gone through in my mind, since you first spoke to me, if she were to be got off - and - and - all this temptation to begin over again...For we had nothing to do with this; had we?

"Of course not, says Cloete.Wasn't your brother himself in charge? It's providential...Oh! cries George, shocked...

Well, say it's the devil, says Cloete, cheerfully.I don't mind!

You had nothing to do with it any more than a baby unborn, you great softy, you...Cloete has got so that he almost loved George Dunbar.Well.Yes.That was so.I don't mean he respected him.