Best Short Stories - [9]

‘“Quite right.”

‘The commanding officer, after communing with his suspicions for a time, called his second aside.

‘“What if she were the very ship which had been feeding some infernal submarine or other?” he said in an undertone.

‘The other started. Then, with conviction:

‘“She would get off scot-free. You couldn’t prove it, sir.”

‘“I want to look into it myself.”

‘“From the report we’ve heard I am afraid you couldn’t even make a case for reasonable suspicion, sir.”

‘“I’ll go on board all the same.”

‘He had made up his mind. Curiosity is the great motive power of hatred and love. What did he expect to find? He could not have told anybody — not even himself.

‘What he really expected to find there was the atmosphere, the atmosphere of gratuitous treachery, which in his view nothing could excuse; for he thought that even a passion of unrighteousness for its own sake could not excuse that. But could he detect it? Sniff it? Taste it? Receive some mysterious communication which would turn his invincible suspicions into a certitude strong enough to provoke action with all its risks?

‘The master met him on the after-deck,[12] looming up in the fog amongst the blurred shapes of the usual snip’s fittings. He was a robust Northman, bearded, and in the force of his age. A round leather cap fitted his head closely. His hands were rammed deep into the pockets of his short leather jacket. He kept them there while lie explained that at sea he lived in the chart-room,[13] and led the way there, striding carelessly. Just before reaching the door under the bridge he staggered a little, recovered himself, flung it open, and stood aside, leaning his shoulder as if involuntarily against the side of the house, and staring vaguely into the fog-filled space. But he followed the commanding officer at once, flung the door to, snapped on the electric light, and hastened to thrust his hands back into his pockets, as though afraid of being seized by them either in friendship or in hostility.

‘The place was stuffy and hot. The usual chart-rack overhead was full, and the chart on the table was kept unrolled by an empty cup standing on a saucer half-full of some spilt dark liquid. A slightly nibbled biscuit reposed on the chronometer[14] — case. There were two settees, and one of them had been made up into a bed with a pillow and some blankets, which were now very much tumbled. The Northman let himself fall on it, his hands still in his pockets.

‘“Well, here I am,” he said, with a curious air of being surprised at the sound of his own voice.

‘The commanding officer from the other settee observed the handsome, flushed face. Drops of fog hung on the yellow beard and moustaches of the Northman. The much darker eyebrows ran together in a puzzled frown, and suddenly he jumped up.

‘“What I mean is that I don’t know where I am. I really don’t,” he burst out, with extreme earnestness. “Hang it all! I got turned around somehow. The fog has been after me for a week. More than a week. And then my engines broke down. I will tell you how it was.”

‘He burst out into loquacity. It was not hurried, but it was insistent. It was not continuous for all that. It was broken by the most queer, thoughtful pauses. Each of these pauses lasted no more than a couple of seconds, and each had the profoundity of an endless meditation. When he began again nothing betrayed in him the slightest consciousness of these intervals. There was the same fixed glance, the same unchanged earnestness of tone. He didn’t know. Indeed, more than one of these pauses occurred in the middle of a sentence.

‘The commanding officer listened to the tale. It struck him as more plausible than simple truth is in the habit of being. But that, perhaps, was prejudice. All the time the Northman was speaking the commanding officer had been aware of an inward voice, a grave murmur in the depth of his very own self, telling another tale, as if on purpose to keep alive in him his indignation and his anger with that baseness of greed or of mere outlook which lies often at the root of simple ideas.

‘It was the story that had been already told to the boarding officer an hour or so before. The commanding officer nodded slightly at the Northman from time to time. The latter came to an end and turned his eyes away. He added, as an afterthought:

‘“Wasn’t it enough to drive a man out of his mind with worry? And it’s my first voyage to this part, too. And the ship’s my own. Your officer has seen the papers. She isn’t much, as you can see for yourself. Just an old cargo-boat. Bare living for my family.”

‘He raised a big arm to point at a row of photographs plastering the bulkhead. The movement was ponderous, as if the arm had been made of lead. The commanding officer said, carelessly:

‘“You will be making a fortune yet for your family with this old ship.”

‘“Yes, if I don’t lose her,” said the Northman, gloomily.

‘“I mean — out of this war,” added the commanding officer.

‘The Northman stared at him in a curiously unseeing and at the same time interested manner, as only eyes of a particular blue shade can stare.