Chance Part 2

"Charles! At first, I declare to you, it didn't seem possible that he was addressing himself to me. I even looked round for that Charles but there was n.o.body behind me except the thin-necked chap still hard at his writing, and the other three Shipping Masters who were changing their coats and reaching for their hats, making ready to go home. It was the industrious thin-necked man who without laying down his pen lifted with his left hand a flap near his desk and said kindly:--

"'Pa.s.s this way.'

"I walked through in a trance, faced Mr Powell, from whom I learned that we were bound to Port Elizabeth first, and signed my name on the Articles of the ship _Ferndale_ as second mate--the voyage not to exceed two years.

"'You won't fail to join--eh?' says the captain anxiously. 'It would cause no end of trouble and expense if you did. You've got a good six hours to get your gear together, and then you'll have time to s.n.a.t.c.h a sleep on board before the crew joins in the morning.'

"It was easy enough for him to talk of getting ready in six hours for a voyage that was not to exceed two years. He hadn't to do that trick himself, and with his sea-chest locked up in an outhouse the key of which had been mislaid for a week as I remembered. But neither was I much concerned. The idea that I was absolutely going to sea at six o'clock next morning hadn't got quite into my head yet. It had been too sudden.

"Mr Powell, slipping the Articles into a long envelope, spoke up with a sort of cold half-laugh without looking at either of us.

"'Mind you don't disgrace the name, Charles.'

"And the skipper chimes in very kindly:--

"'He'll do well enough I dare say. I'll look after him a bit.'

"Upon this he grabs the Articles, says something about trying to run in for a minute to see that poor devil in the hospital, and off he goes with his heavy swinging step after telling me sternly: 'Don't you go like that poor fellow and get yourself run over by a cart as if you hadn't either eyes or ears.'

"'Mr Powell,' says I timidly (there was by then only the thin-necked man left in the office with us and he was already by the door, standing on one leg to turn the bottom of his trousers up before going away).

'Mr Powell,' says I, 'I believe the Captain of the _Ferndale_ was thinking all the time that I was a relation of yours.'

"I was rather concerned about the propriety of it, you know, but Mr Powell didn't seem to be in the least.

"'Did he?' says he. 'That's funny, because it seems to me too that I've been a sort of good uncle to several of you young fellows lately. Don't you think so yourself? However, if you don't like it you may put him right--when you get out to sea.' At this I felt a bit queer. Mr Powell had rendered me a very good service:--because it's a fact that with us merchant sailors the first voyage as officer is the real start in life. He had given me no less than that. I told him warmly that he had done for me more that day than all my relations put together ever did.

"'Oh, no, no,' says he. 'I guess it's that shipment of explosives waiting down the river which has done most for you. Forty tons of dynamite have been your best friend to-day, young man.'

"That was true too, perhaps. Anyway I saw clearly enough that I had nothing to thank myself for. But as I tried to thank him, he checked my stammering.

"'Don't be in a hurry to thank me,' says he. 'The voyage isn't finished yet.'

"Our new acquaintance paused, then added meditatively: 'Queer man. As if it made any difference. Queer man.'"

"It's certainly unwise to admit any sort of responsibility for our actions, whose consequences we are never able to foresee," remarked Marlow by way of a.s.sent.

"The consequence of his action was that I got a ship," said the other.

"That could not do much harm," he added with a laugh which argued a probably unconscious contempt of general ideas.

But Marlow was not put off. He was patient and reflective. He had been at sea many years and I verily believe he liked sea-life because upon the whole it is favourable to reflection. I am speaking of the now nearly vanished sea-life under sail. To those who may be surprised at the statement I will point out that this life secured for the mind of him who embraced it the inestimable advantages of solitude and silence.

Marlow had the habit of pursuing general ideas in a peculiar manner, between jest and earnest.

"Oh, I wouldn't suggest," he said, "that your namesake Mr Powell, the Shipping Master, had done you much harm. Such was hardly his intention.

And even if it had been he would not have had the power. He was but a man, and the incapacity to achieve anything distinctly good or evil is inherent in our earthly condition. Mediocrity is our mark. And perhaps it's just as well, since, for the most part, we cannot be certain of the effect of our actions."

"I don't know about the effect," the other stood up to Marlow manfully.

"What effect did you expect anyhow? I tell you he did something uncommonly kind."

"He did what he could," Marlow retorted gently, "and on his own showing that was not a very great deal. I cannot help thinking that there was some malice in the way he seized the opportunity to serve you. He managed to make you uncomfortable. You wanted to go to sea, but he jumped at the chance of accommodating your desire with a vengeance. I am inclined to think your cheek alarmed him. And this was an excellent occasion to suppress you altogether. For if you accepted he was relieved of you with every appearance of humanity, and if you made objections (after requesting his a.s.sistance, mind you) it was open to him to drop you as a sort of impostor. You might have had to decline that berth for some very valid reason. From sheer necessity perhaps!

The notice was too uncommonly short. But under the circ.u.mstances you'd have covered yourself with ignominy."

Our new friend knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"Quite a mistake," he said. "I am not of the declining sort, though I'll admit it was something like telling a man that you would like a bath and in consequence being instantly knocked overboard to sink or swim with your clothes on. However, I didn't feel as if I were in deep water at first. I left the shipping office quietly and for a time strolled along the street as easy as if I had a week before me to fit myself out. But by and by I reflected that the notice was even shorter than it looked. The afternoon was well advanced; I had some things to get, a lot of small matters to attend to, one or two persons to see: One of them was an aunt of mine, my only relation, who quarrelled with poor father as long as he lived about some silly matter that had neither right nor wrong to it. She left her money to me when she died. I used always to go and see her for decency's sake. I had so much to do before night that I didn't know where to begin. I felt inclined to sit down on the kerb and hold my head in my hands. It was as if an engine had been started going under my skull. Finally I sat down in the first cab that came along and it was a hard matter to keep on sitting there I can tell you, while we rolled up and down the streets, pulling up here and there, the parcels acc.u.mulating round me and the engine in my head gathering more way every minute. The composure of the people on the pavements was provoking to a degree, and as to the people in shops, they were benumbed, more than half frozen--imbecile. Funny how it affects you to be in a peculiar state of mind: everybody that does not act up to your excitement seems so confoundedly unfriendly. And my state of mind what with the hurry, the worry and a growing exultation was peculiar enough.

That engine in my head went round at its top speed hour after hour till at about eleven at night it let up on me suddenly at the entrance to the Dock before large iron gates in a dead wall."

These gates were closed and locked. The cabby, after shooting his things off the roof of his machine into young Powell's arms, drove away leaving him alone with his sea-chest, a sail cloth bag and a few parcels on the pavement about his feet. It was a dark, narrow thoroughfare he told us. A mean row of houses on the other side looked empty: there wasn't the smallest gleam of light in them. The white-hot glare of a gin palace a good way off made the intervening piece of the street pitch-black. Some human shapes appearing mysteriously, as if they had sprung up from the dark ground, shunned the edge of the faint light thrown down by the gateway lamps. These figures were wary in their movements and perfectly silent of foot, like beasts of prey slinking about a camp fire. Powell gathered up his belongings and hovered over them like a hen over her brood. A gruffly, insinuating voice said:

"Let's carry your things in, Capt'in! I've got my pal 'ere."

He was a tall, bony, grey-haired ruffian with a bulldog jaw, in a torn cotton shirt and moleskin trousers. The shadow of his hobnailed boots was enormous and coffin-like. His pal, who didn't come up much higher than his elbow, stepping forward exhibited a pale face with a long drooping nose and no chin to speak of. He seemed to have just scrambled out of a dust-bin in a tam-o'-shanter cap and a tattered soldier's coat much too long for him. Being so deadly white he looked like a horrible dirty invalid in a ragged dressing-gown. The coat flapped open in front and the rest of his apparel consisted of one brace which crossed his naked, bony chest, and a pair of trousers. He blinked rapidly as if dazed by the faint light, while his patron, the old bandit, glowered at young Powell from under his beetling brow.

"Say the word, Capt'in. The bobby'll let us in all right. 'E knows both of us."

"I didn't answer him," continued Mr Powell. "I was listening to footsteps on the other side of the gate, echoing between the walls of the warehouses as if in an uninhabited town of very high buildings dark from bas.e.m.e.nt to roof. You could never have guessed that within a stone's throw there was an open sheet of water and big ships lying afloat. The few gas lamps showing up a bit of brick work here and there, appeared in the blackness like penny dips in a range of cellars-- and the solitary footsteps came on, tramp, tramp. A dock policeman strode into the light on the other side of the gate, very broad-chested and stern.

"'Hallo! What's up here?'

"He was really surprised, but after some palaver he let me in together with the two loafers carrying my luggage. He grumbled at them however and slammed the gate violently with a loud clang. I was startled to discover how many night prowlers had collected in the darkness of the street in such a short time and without my being aware of it. Directly we were through they came surging against the bars, silent, like a mob of ugly spectres. But suddenly, up the street somewhere, perhaps near that public-house, a row started as if Bedlam had broken loose: shouts, yells, an awful shrill shriek--and at that noise all these heads vanished from behind the bars.

"Look at this," marvelled the constable. "It's a wonder to me they didn't make off with your things while you were waiting."

"I would have taken good care of that," I said defiantly. But the constable wasn't impressed.

"'Much you would have done. The bag going off round one dark corner; the chest round another. Would you have run two ways at once? And anyhow you'd have been tripped up and jumped upon before you had run three yards. I tell you you've had a most extraordinary chance that there wasn't one of them regular boys about to-night, in the High Street, to twig your loaded cab go by. Ted here is honest... You are on the honest lay, Ted, ain't you?'

"'Always was, orficer,' said the big ruffian with feeling. The other frail creature seemed dumb and only hopped about with the edge of its soldier coat touching the ground.

"'Oh yes, I dare say,' said the constable. 'Now then, forward, march...

He's that because he ain't game for the other thing,' he confided to me. 'He hasn't got the nerve for it. However, I ain't going to lose sight of them two till they go out through the gate. That little chap's a devil. He's got the nerve for anything, only he hasn't got the muscle. Well! Well! You've had a chance to get in with a whole skin and with all your things.'

"I was incredulous a little. It seemed impossible that after getting ready with so much hurry and inconvenience I should have lost my chance of a start in life from such a cause. I asked: 'Does that sort of thing happen often so near the dock-gates?'

"'Often! No! Of course not often. But it ain't often either that a man comes along with a cab-load of things to join a ship at this time of night. I've been in the dock police thirteen years and haven't seen it done once.'

"Meantime we followed my sea-chest which was being carried down a sort of deep narrow lane, separating two high warehouses, between honest Ted and his little devil of a pal who had to keep up a trot to the other's stride. The skirt of his soldier's coat floating behind him nearly swept the ground so that he seemed to be running on castors. At the corner of the gloomy pa.s.sage a rigged jib boom with a dolphin-striker ending in an arrow-head stuck out of the night close to a cast iron lamp-post. It was the quay side. They set down their load in the light and honest Ted asked hoa.r.s.ely: 'Where's your ship, guv'nor?'

"I didn't know. The constable was interested at my ignorance.

"'Don't know where your ship is?' he asked with curiosity. 'And you the second officer! Haven't you been working on board of her?'

"I couldn't explain that the only work connected with my appointment was the work of chance. I told him briefly that I didn't know her at all.

At this he remarked: 'So I see. Here she is, right before you. That's her.'

"At once the head-gear in the gas light inspired me with interest and respect; the spars were big, the chains and ropes stout and the whole thing looked powerful and trustworthy. Barely touched by the light her bows rose faintly alongside the narrow strip of the quay; the rest of her was a black smudge in the darkness. Here I, was face to face with my start in life. We walked in a body a few steps on a greasy pavement between her side and the towering wall of a warehouse and I hit my shins cruelly against the end of the gangway. The constable hailed her quietly in a ba.s.s undertone '_Ferndale_ there!' A feeble and dismal sound, something in the nature of a buzzing groan, answered from behind the bulwarks.

"I distinguished vaguely an irregular round k.n.o.b, of wood, perhaps, resting on the rail. It did not move in the least; but as another broken-down buzz like a still fainter echo of the first dismal sound proceeded from it I concluded it must be the head of the ship-keeper.

The stalwart constable jeered in a mock-official manner.