The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold Page 4

  Waking and sleeping he had lost count of time. It seemed he had been many days at sea in this strange ship. When Glover came into the bar, Mr. Pinfold said affably: “Nice to see you again.”

  Glover looked slightly startled by this greeting.

  “I’ve been down in my cabin,” he said.

  “I had to come up. I was embarrassed by that prayer-meeting. Weren’t you?”

  “Prayer-meeting?” said Glover. “No.”

  “Right under our feet. Couldn’t you hear it?”

  “I heard nothing,” said Glover.

  He began to move away.

  “Have a drink,” said Mr. Pinfold.

  “I won’t thanks. I don’t. Have to be careful in a place like Ceylon.”

  “How’s your dog?”

  “My dog?”

  “Your crypto-dog. The stowaway. Please don’t think I’m complaining. I don’t mind your dog. Nor your gramophone for that matter.”

  “But I haven’t a dog. I haven’t a gramophone.”

  “Oh well,” said Mr. Pinfold huffily. “Perhaps I am mistaken.”

  If Glover did not wish to confide in him, he would not try to force himself on the young man.

  “See you at dinner,” said Glover, making off.

  He was wearing a dinner jacket, Mr. Pinfold noticed, as were several other passengers. Time to change. Mr. Pinfold went back to his cabin. No sound came now from below; the pseudo-priest and the unchaste seaman had left. But the jazz band was going full blast. So it was not Glover’s gramophone. As he changed, Mr. Pinfold considered the matter. During the war he had travelled in troopships which were fitted with amplifiers on every deck. Unintelligible alarms and orders had issued from these devices and at certain hours popular music. The Caliban, plainly, was equipped in this way. It would be a great nuisance when he began to write. He would have to inquire whether there was some way of cutting it off.

  It took him a long time to dress. His fingers were unusually clumsy with studs and tie, and his face in the glass was still blotched and staring. By the time he was ready the gong was sounding for dinner. He did not attempt to wear his evening shoes. Instead he slipped into the soft, fur-lined boots in which he had come aboard. With one hand firmly on the rail, the other on his cane, he made his way laboriously down to the saloon. On the stairs he noticed a bronze plaque recording that this ship had been manned by the Royal Navy during the war and had served in the landing in North Africa and Normandy.

  He was first at his table, one of the earliest diners in the ship. He noticed a small dark man in day clothes sitting at a table alone. Then the place began to fill. He watched his fellow passengers in a slightly dazed way. The purser’s table, as is common in ships of the kind, had the gayest party, the few girls and young women, the more jovial men from the bar. A plate of soup was set before Mr. Pinfold. Two or three colored stewards stood together by a service table talking in undertones. Suddenly Mr. Pinfold was surprised to hear from them three obscene epithets spoken in clear English tones. He looked and glared. One of the men immediately slid to his side.

  “Yes, sir; something to drink, sir?”

  There was no hint of mockery in the gentle face, no echo in that soft South Indian accent of the gross tones he had overheard. Baffled, Mr. Pinfold said: “Wine.”

  “Wine, sir?”

  “You have some champagne on board, I suppose?”

  “Oh yes, sir. Three names. I show list.”

  “Don’t bother about the name. Just bring half a bottle.”

  Glover came and sat opposite.

  “I owe you an apology,” said Mr. Pinfold. “It wasn’t your gramophone. Part of the naval equipment left over from the war.”

  “Oh,” said Glover. “That was it, was it?”

  “It seems the most likely explanation.”

  “Perhaps it does.”

  “Very odd language the servants use.”

  “They’re from Travancore.”

  “No. I mean the way they swear. In front of us, I mean. I daresay they don’t mean to be insolent but it shows bad discipline.”

  “I’ve never noticed it,” said Glover.

  He was not at his ease with Mr. Pinfold.

  Then the table filled up. Captain Steerforth greeted them and took his place at the head. He was an unremarkable man at first sight. A pretty, youngish woman introduced as Mrs. Scarfield sat next to Mr. Pinfold. He explained that he was temporarily a cripple and could not stand up. “My doctor has given me some awfully strong pills to take. They make me feel rather odd. You must forgive me if I’m a dull companion.”

  “We’re all very dull, I’m afraid,” she said. “You’re the writer, aren’t you? I’m afraid I never seem to get any time for reading.”

  Mr. Pinfold was inured to this sort of conversation but tonight he could not cope. He said: “I wish I didn’t,” and turned stupidly to his wine. “She probably thinks I’m drunk,” he thought and made an attempt to explain: “They are big gray pills. I don’t know what’s in them. I don’t believe my doctor does either. Something new.”

  “That’s always exciting, isn’t it?” said Mrs. Scarfield.

  Mr. Pinfold despaired and spent the rest of dinner, at which he ate very little, in silence.

  The Captain rose, his party with him. Mr. Pinfold, slow to move, was still in his chair, fumbling for his stick, when they passed behind him. He got to his feet. He would have dearly liked to go to his cabin, but he was held back, partly by the odd fear that he would be suspected of sea-sickness but more by an odder sentiment, a bond of duty which he conceived held him to Captain Steerforth. It seemed to him that he was in some way under this man’s command and that it would be a grave default to leave him until he was dismissed. So, laboriously, he followed them to the lounge and lowered himself into an armchair between the Scarfields. They were drinking coffee. He offered them all brandy. They refused and for himself he ordered brandy and crème de menthe mixed. As he did so Mr. and Mrs. Scarfield exchanged a glance, which he intercepted, as though to confirm some previous confidence—“My dear, that man next to me, the author, was completely tight.” “Are you sure?” “Simply plastered.”

  Mrs. Scarfield was really extremely pretty, Mr. Pinfold thought. She would not keep that skin long in Burma.

  Mr. Scarfield was in the timber trade, teak. His prospects depended less on his own industry and acumen than on the action of politicians. He addressed the little circle on this subject.

  “In a democracy,” said Mr. Pinfold with more weight than originality, “men do not seek authority so that they may impose a policy. They seek a policy so that they may achieve authority.”

  He proceeded to illustrate this theme with examples.

  At one time or another he had met most of the Government Front Bench. Some were members of Bellamy’s whom he knew well. Oblivious of his audience he began to speak of them with familiarity, as he would have done among his friends. The Scarfields again exchanged glances and it occurred to him, too late, that he was not among people who thought it on the whole rather discreditable to know politicians. These people thought he was showing off. He stopped in the middle of a sentence, silent with shame.

  “It must be very exciting to move behind the scenes,” said Mrs. Scarfield. “We only know what we see in the papers.”

  Was there malice behind her smile? At first meeting she had seemed frank and friendly. Mr. Pinfold thought he discovered sly hostility now.

  “Oh, I hardly ever read the political columns,” he said.

  “You don’t have to, do you? getting it all first hand.”

  There was no doubt in Mr. Pinfold’s mind. He had made an ass of himself. Reckless now of his reputation as a good sailor, he attempted a little bow to include the Captain and the Scarfields.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go to my cabin.”

  He had difficulty getting out of his deep chair, he had difficulty with his stick, he had difficulty keeping his balance. They had barely said
“Good night,” he was still struggling away from them, when something the Captain said made them laugh. Three distinct laughs, all, in Mr. Pinfold’s ears, cruelly derisive. On his way out he passed Glover. Moved to explain himself he said: “I don’t know anything about politics.”

  “No?” said Glover.

  “Tell them I don’t know anything.”

  “Tell who?”

  “The Captain.”

  “He’s just behind you over there.”

  “Oh well, it doesn’t matter.”

  He hobbled away and looking back from the doors saw Glover talking to the Scarfields. They were ostensibly arranging a four for bridge but Mr. Pinfold knew they had another darker interest—him.

  It was not yet nine o’clock. Mr. Pinfold undressed. He hung up his clothes, washed, and took his pill. There were three tablespoonfuls left in his bottle of sleeping-draught. He decided to try and spend the night without it, to delay anyway until after midnight. The sea was much calmer now; he could lie in bed without rolling. He lay at ease and began to read one of the novels he had brought on board.

  Then, before he had turned a page, the band struck up. This was no wireless performance. It was a living group just under his feet, rehearsing. They were in the same place, as inexplicably audible, as the afternoon bible-class; young happy people, the party doubtless from the purser’s table. Their instruments were drums and rattles and some sort of pipe. The drums and rattles did most of the work. Mr. Pinfold knew nothing of music. It seemed to him that the rhythms they played derived from some very primitive tribe and were of anthropological rather than artistic interest. This guess was confirmed.

  “Let’s try the Pocoputa Indian one,” said the young man who acted, without any great air of authority, as leader.

  “Oh not that. It’s so beastly,” said a girl.

  “I know,” said the leader. “It’s the three-eight rhythm. The Gestapo discovered it independently, you know. They used to play it in the cells. It drove the prisoners mad.”

  “Yes,” said another girl. “Thirty-six hours did for anyone. Twelve was enough for most. They could stand any torture but that.”

  “It drove them absolutely mad.” “Raving mad.” “Stark, staring mad.” “It was the worst torture of all.” “The Russians use it now.” The voices, some male, some female, all young and eager, came tumbling like puppies. “The Hungarians do it best.” “Good old three-eight.” “Good old Pocoputa Indians.” “They were mad.”

  “I suppose no one can hear us?” said a sweet girlish voice.

  “Don’t be so wet, Mimi. Everyone’s up on the main deck.”

  “All right then,” said the band leader. “The three-eight rhythm.”

  And off they went.

  The sound throbbed and thrilled in the cabin which had suddenly become a prison cell. Mr. Pinfold was not one who thought and talked easily to a musical accompaniment. Even in early youth he had sought the night-clubs where there was a bar out of hearing of the band. Friends he had, Roger Stillingfleet among them, to whom jazz was a necessary drug—whether stimulant or narcotic Mr. Pinfold did not know. He preferred silence. The three-eight rhythm was indeed torture to him. He could not read. It was not a quarter of an hour since he had entered the cabin. Unendurable hours lay ahead. He emptied the bottle of sleeping-draught and, to the strains of the jolly young people from the purser’s table, fell into unconsciousness.

  He awoke before dawn. The bright young people below him had dispersed. The three-eight rhythm was hushed. No shadow passed between the deck-light and the cabin-window. But overhead there was turmoil. The crew, or a considerable part of it, was engaged on an operation of dragging the deck with what from the sound of it might have been an enormous chain-harrow, and they were not happy in their work. They were protesting mutinously in their own tongue and the officer in command was roaring back at them in the tones of an old sea-dog: “Get on with it, you black bastards. Get on with it.”

  The lascars were not so easily quelled. They shouted back unintelligibly.

  “I’ll call out the Master-at-Arms,” shouted the officer. An empty threat, surely? thought Mr. Pinfold. It was scarcely conceivable that the Caliban carried a Master-at-Arms. “By God, I’ll shoot the first man of you that moves,” said the officer.

  The hubbub increased. Mr. Pinfold could almost see the drama overhead, the half-lighted deck, the dark frenzied faces, the solitary bully with the heavy old-fashioned ship’s pistol. Then there was a crash, not a shot but a huge percussion of metal as though a hundred pokers and pairs of tongs had fallen into an enormous fender, followed by a wail of agony and a moment of complete silence.

  “There,” said the officer more in the tones of a nanny than a sea-dog, “just see what you’ve gone and done now.”

  Whatever its nature this violent occurrence entirely subdued the passions of the crew. They were docile, ready to do anything to retrieve the disaster. The only sounds now were the officer’s calmer orders and the whimpering of the injured man.

  “Steady there. Easy does it. You, cut along to the sick-bay and get the surgeon. You, go up and report to the bridge…”

  For a long time, two hours perhaps, Mr. Pinfold lay in his bunk listening. He was able to hear quite distinctly not only what was said in his immediate vicinity, but elsewhere. He had the light on, now, in his cabin, and as he gazed at the complex of tubes and wires which ran across his ceiling, he realized that they must form some kind of general junction in the system of communication. Through some trick or fault or wartime survival everything spoken in the executive quarters of the ship was transmitted to him. A survival seemed the most likely explanation. Once during the blitz in London he had been given a hotel bedroom which had been hastily vacated by a visiting allied statesman. When he lifted the telephone to order his breakfast, he had found himself talking on a private line direct to the Cabinet Office. Something of that kind must have happened in the Caliban. When she was a naval vessel this cabin had no doubt been the office of some operational headquarters and when she was handed back to her owners and re-adapted for passenger service, the engineers had neglected to disconnect it. That alone could explain the voices which now kept him informed of every stage of the incident.

  The wounded man seemed to have got himself entangled in some kind of web of metal. Various unsuccessful and agonizing attempts were made to extricate him. Finally the decision was taken to cut him out. The order once given was carried out with surprising speed but the contraption, whatever it was, was ruined in the process and was finally dragged across the deck and thrown overboard. The victim continuously sobbed and whimpered. He was taken to the sick-bay and put in charge of a kind but not, it appeared, very highly qualified nurse. “You must be brave,” she said. “I will say the rosary for you. You must be brave,” while the wireless telegraphist got into touch with a hospital ashore and was given instructions in first-aid. The ship’s surgeon never appeared. Details of treatment were dictated from the shore and passed to the sick-bay. The last words Mr. Pinfold heard from the bridge were Captain Steerforth’s “I’m not going to be bothered with a sick man on board. We’ll have to signal a passing homebound ship and have him transferred.”

  Part of the treatment prescribed by the hospital was a sedative injection, and as this spread its relief over the unhappy lascar, Mr. Pinfold too grew drowsy until finally he fell asleep to the sound of the nurse murmuring the Angelic Salutation.

  He was awakened by the colored cabin steward bringing him tea.

  “Very disagreeable business that last night,” said Mr. Pinfold.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How is the poor fellow?”

  “Eight o’clock, sir.”

  “Have they managed to get into touch with a ship to take him off?”

  “Yes, sir. Breakfast eight-thirty, sir.”

  Mr. Pinfold drank his tea. He felt disinclined to get up. The intercommunication system was silent. He picked up his book and began to read. Then with a click the
voices began again.

  Captain Steerforth seemed to be addressing a deputation of the crew. “I want you to understand,” he was saying, “that a great quantity of valuable metal was sacrificed last night for the welfare of a single seaman. That metal was pure copper. One of the most valuable metals in the world. Mind you I don’t regret the sacrifice and I am sure the Company will approve my action. But I want you all to appreciate that only in a British ship would such a thing be done. In the ship of any other nationality it would have been the seaman not the metal that was cut up. You know that as well as I do. Don’t forget it. And another thing, instead of taking the man with us to Port Said and the filth of a Wog hospital, I had him carefully trans-shipped and he is now on his way to England. He couldn’t have been treated more handsomely if he’d been a director of the Company. I know the hospital he’s going to; it’s a sweet, pretty place. It’s the place all seamen long to go to. He’ll have the best attention there and live, if he does live, in the greatest comfort. That’s the kind of ship this is. Nothing is too good for the men who serve in her.”

  The meeting seemed to disperse. There was a shuffling and muttering and presently a woman spoke. It was a voice which was soon to become familiar to Mr. Pinfold. To all men and women there is some sound—grating, perhaps, or rustling, or strident, deep or shrill, a note or inflection of speech—which causes peculiar pain; which literally “makes the hair stand on end” or metaphorically “sets the teeth on edge”; something which Dr. Drake would have called an “allergy.” Such was this woman’s voice. It clearly did not affect the Captain in this way but to Mr. Pinfold it was excruciating.

  “Well,” said this voice. “That should teach them not to grumble.”

  “Yes,” said Captain Steerforth. “We’ve settled that little mutiny, I think. We shouldn’t have any trouble now.”

  “Not till the next time,” said the cynical woman. “What a contemptible exhibition that man made of himself—crying like a child. Thank God we’ve seen the last of him. I liked your touch about the sweet, pretty hospital.”

  “Yes. They little know the hell-spot I’ve sent him to. Spoiling my copper, indeed. He’ll soon wish he were in Port Said.”