"C Q", or, In the Wireless House/Chapter 6
VI
In which Micky tucks the son of a Marquis in his bed and mixes some drinks and the news.
FOR possibly ten seconds—a period which seemed like so many hours to both of them—Cloud and Micky struggled on the trembling stern of the Pavonia. Then as the turtle-back rose towards the moon on a huge roller, they slipped, lost their footing instantly, and plunged head foremost towards the deck-house. Had the Pavonia’s stern been dropping into the hollow of the waves instead of lifting upon the swell, they would as certainly have shot in the other direction and been sucked down into the green, weltering whirlpool that roared and foamed behind the chains. But by some instinct Micky had timed his rush to the second, and now they came sliding inwards over the stern, cursing, clawing and feebly striking at each other until Cloud 's head hit squarely against one of the stanchions that held the guard-rail in place and his adversary man-aged to drag him, white and motionless, but safe, upon the deck.
Cloud lay there upon his back, his face ghastly in the waning light of the moon, his eyes closed and the blood oozing from a broad scalp wound in his high forehead. His coat still hung idly upon the rail, flopping to and fro with every rise and fall of the ship. Micky, faint now that the horrible danger of the moment was over, sank weakly upon the wooden bench and rested his head on his hands. Both their hats had slipped overboard in the melee, and one arm of Cloud’s coat hanging free of the rest of the garment waved almost like a human thing and seemed to beckon Micky towards the stern. He shuddered at the thought of what they had escaped, and yet his action had been so utterly instinctive, so automatically altruistic, that not until this moment when the man was lying at his feet did he fully perceive the significance of his act. He gazed curiously at this inanimate thing who was in fact no second-class passenger, or shabby adventurer, but the son of an earl, a high-rolling, hunting swell to whom by the curse of the high gods his Lady of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem had plighted her troth, forgetful of her faithful Micky, forgetful of the wistaria arbor and of the grove behind the second gamekeeper's, of their little gold rings and of the post-card bearing the cabalistic “I. L. Y.”
Here, alone with this silent corpse of a man, on the wallowing stern of the Pavoma, it suddenly came to Micky that he had been jilted—chucked—given the mitten, just as he might have anticipated had he been a few years older when he had marched out of the vicarage and trudged so independently, if not arrogantly, to the station. Yes, by Gad—he had hauled back the very man that had spoiled his dream for him—his “hated rival!” Micky made a wry little grimace at the ashen face in front of him. There was a "note" for you! Yet as moment by moment it grew clearer to him that he had lost the Hon. Evelyn, that his poor little collateral branch of a romance had been kicked into the street like a yellow dog with a tin can tied to its tail, that he had been a fool and an ass to suppose that he would have the ghost of a chance in inbred England to make a girl happy, simply because he loved her, nevertheless second by second there welled up in his heart something that drew him to this sad, motionless figure upon the deck, something—of chivalry perhaps (though he was only a son of a second son!)—of the comradeship of those who are fighting against odds on a losing side, of motherhood for a life that had been saved, of proprietorship for the same reason, of pity! For this bally ass had won the Hon. Evelyn in the correct, aristocratic, legal and recognized way (and not behind the second gamekeeper’s), and then had proceeded to get gay and do fool things!
“My God, man!” thought Micky, “when you had her—whether you got her by fair means or foul—whether she did it herself or whether it was a stinking game of that bloody old sneak the Earl, why—why—why in God’s name—did n’t you sit tight and behave yourself and hang on to her? For now you ’ve lost a thousand times more than I have! You poor, foolish, blundering devil!”
And a great surge of sympathy welled into Micky’s breast and (he was shaking and dizzy) the tears came into his eyes, and, being only twenty-three and not a hero at all, he suddenly felt for this other fool of an Englishman the same kind of loyalty that sends gray-haired Eton boys into battle shouting, “Floreat Etona!”—the same stupid, blind affection that led dozens of English officers in the Mutiny or the Malakand campaign to cut their way into a howling mob of Kaffirs or Afghans and carry out on their backs comrades that they hated—in a friendly sort of way. For something told him that in essence this man was a brother—one of his own clean kind, and that whatever he might have done, however desperate its character, there must be—must be—some extenuating circumstance, if not justification.
“Yes, my friend, we ’re both in the same boat, but having saved your life, I now propose to go the whole hog and make a man of you,” was the unconscious drift of Micky’s dazed cerebrations, and before he knew what he was doing he was doing precisely what he ought to have been doing, namely, dragging Cloud towards the deck-house with the idea of tucking him up in his little bed with a brandy-and-soda inside him just as Mrs. Trevelyan had said he ought to be—at Parsley Croft.
It was a dead weight that Micky had to lug along the deck for some hundred feet before he reached the door of Cloud’s state-room. Quite out of breath, he dropped him flat outside while he entered the stuffy little room, turned on the electric light and poured out a basin of water. Than he ran up his ladder, fished a bottle of brandy from his locker, and descended again to where Cloud was lying. His one present fear was that the watch might notice what was doing, or that some steward might be loafing about for a last pipe before turning in, and report the matter, for he felt a fierce determination to protect his property rights in Cloud at all costs,—the man was his and should remain so.
He lifted Cloud’s head as gently as he could and let a few drops of the brandy slide down his throat. Then he dampened a towel, bathed his forehead and wiped off the blood. The man gave a groan and opened his eyes. For an instant he gazed stupidly at Micky—then:
“What ’s the matter?” he asked quietly.
“Hit your bloomin’ nut,” answered Micky lightly. “Lie still a minute and then we ’ll tumble off to beddie!”
Cloud closed his eyes wearily.
“Have ‘a wee doc and doris’?” urged his attendant. “You knocked yourself out for fair.”
He poured out a strong quarter tumbler and held it to Cloud’s lips.
“Now just hang on to me, if you can,” wheedled Micky, “and we ’ll soon have you where you belong.”
He put his arms under Cloud's shoulders and lifted him, after an effort, to his feet. Then he guided the still half unconscious man into his state-room and tumbled him into his bunk.
“I must have given myself a nasty crack!” whispered Cloud. “My head feels as if I ’d been chucked at a water jump and landed head on—in a pile of stones.”
“It was almost as bad as that,” said Micky, as he closed the door and loosened Cloud’s collar and cravat. “Now I ’m going to undress you as well as I can, and after you ’ve had another nip of brandy I ’m going to leave you until morning.”
He fussed over Cloud as lovingly as a young mother over her babe, and the other, still confused from the blow of the stanchion, suffered himself to be made ready for the night.
“Now!” exclaimed Micky as, after having bandaged Cloud's head, he turned him so that the light would not fall upon his eyes, “try to go to sleep. I ’ll come in and see how you are every half hour or so, and whatever you do, don’t ring for the steward. Understand?”
Cloud made no answer, and Micky slipped the soiled silk curtain along its wire and enclosed him in his bunk. Quietly he turned out the light, locked the door on the outside and put the key in his pocket. So that was done!
He leaned heavily against the deck-house. It was now nearly seven bells. Half an hour more and the yellow disk of the moon would begin to whiten, the stars would draw away to minute points in a paling sky,—then would come the moment when the faded magic of the moonlight would be shattered as with a single blow by the reality of the down. You could n’t say just when it happened on one of those white nights,—but take that jolly-boat, over there. One minute it floated in a sort of indistinct yellow haze, not quite focusable, getting dimmer and dimmer, grayer and grayer, and then—bang! it anchored itself—a plain ordinary jolly-boat in its natural green and white, and the sea which had been quite bright and color-less towards the east with the reflection of the moon suddenly became dark blue, almost black, against the burning dawn.
Micky climbed wearily up to the wireless house, pausing at each step. The mystery of the night was wholly gone. He felt jaded, disgruntled, depressed,—perhaps a bit the way Cloud had felt when he walked sternwards not so long ago twisting his hands. The joy of living had been knocked clean out of him and there was a dull ache in his heart that became a poignant agony of soul as he pressed the electric button in his little office and went over to where the picture of the little girl with the dog was fastened above his bunk.
Whatever might have happened to the real Evelyn in the three years last past, the little girl in the picture had not changed. Under the bushy curls that dung around her shoulders and fell almost to her waist she gazed smilingly out at him, with a glance archly innocent. Micky gave a kind of hiccough and with eyes suffused with burning tears took out his jack-knife and pried the photograph off the wall. Then he opened the drawer of his desk and pushed it under a pile of papers at the back. It was a fool thing to have a girl’s photograph on your wall anyway, he decided. Mechanically he stuffed some tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, but he did not strike a match, and exhausted though he was, he stood looking out of the window towards the east.
The long antennæ of the day were stretching up into the lightening sky. In a few hours the Captain—that irascible, illogical, altogether detestable captain—would be yawning in his bunk and ringing for his coffee, marmalade and—the news. Oh, he 'd want the news, all right, in spite of his jaw that morning,—want it all and growl because there was n’t more! Micky gave a mornful laugh. Well, there was on bit he would n’t get—at least not for some time, —the bit about the murder of the Earl of Roakby and the flight of Cosmo Graeme. Micky had no question about that. It was n’t even debatable. Save a man, and turn him over to be hanged? Not on your life—not even if the murderer was your rival and by so doing you could get rid of him one and for all! No, so far as Graeme and he were concerned the Hon. Evelyn could choose between them and do as she liked. But wouldn't the Captain roar, though, when he reached New York and discovered how he 'd been fooled, and would n't he send in a fine, eloquent complaint to the Marconi Company? Think of it! A captain with a chance to duplicate the Crippen case cheated clean out of it. Why, if Micky handed him everything Poldhu had sent out that morning old Ponsonby would be all over the ship by eight o’clock and have every passenger lined up for inspection. He 'd have Cloud or Graeme, if that was his name, in irons and tossed into the brig before you would say knife! Not much! And yet—the dawn brightened—it was a hell of a hole for a well-meaning Marconi man to find himself in,—made you think of one of those paper novels the first-cabin female passengers were always giving you,—where whatever you did you were bound to do the wrong thing.
His eyelids drooped and his head began to feel as if it were made of lead. He wondered if it was n’t time to go down and see how Cloud was getting along. His head fell forward. Why was he so done up? But were n’t there some special circumstances in this particu-lar case, that rendered it almost imperative that he should disclose the fact of Roakby’s murder and the presence of his murderer on board the Pavonia? Would n’t the Marconi people kick up a jolly row, eh! He laughed sleepily. What did he care! Cloud belonged to him. He was a decent sort, after all, he ’d be bound, if you only knew the whole truth, and Roakby was a swine—everybody knew that anyhow! He drew some paper towards him and began laboriously to copy his notes taken at one o’clock.
“Poldhu reports famine spreading in China. Germany not yet replied to France's ultimatum regardmg Morocco. Considerable uneasiness in financial circles. Bank of England raises rate one-half per centum. Brother John died this mornubg—Shall I sell? Terrible fire in New York factory. Scores of operators suffocated. Situation diplomatique tres grave—”
Was n’t that all? He fumbled with half-shut eyes among his papers. Was n’t there something about the Carmania? Oh, yes here it was.
“Cunard steamship Carmania breaks turbine and is laid up for repairs; passengers transferred to other ships. Consols up ¾ per cent. Earl of Roakby reported dead—” No, not that! He rubbed it furiously out. Not that! Not that! And with the scrawled sheet askew in front of him Micky slid forward upon the desk and fell into a coma of utter exhaustion with his auburn head pillowed upon his arm.
The sun seared the horizon with a scarlet pencil, then poked a burnished disk above the waves, but the red beams which shot across the sea and into the wireless house did not awaken the sleeping boy. Groups of sailors in bare feet appeared and silently began to play the hose over decks already scrupulously clean, while others on hands and knees scoured them with holystone. The ensign was shot up. A champagne drummer disclosed himself on the boat deck in pink pajamas and disheveled hair, smoking a cigar. Below decks you could hear electric bells being rung for breakfast, or for trousers sent to be pressed over-night. Vague noises came from the scullery. Up forward somewhere echoed the faint notes of a bugle. Two or three gulls were already hovering high over the stern, their wings ever and anon winking white in the sunlight. To the north a huge freighter running parallel to the Pavonia was proudly breasting the rollers. The breeze was fresh. It was going to be a good day. It was in the air.
At eight bells a white-coated steward came running along the deck and clearing the second-cabin reserve in two leaps bounded up the ladder to the wireless house. He was the Captain’s steward—after the news. Just on the point of shouting indignantly to Micky, he stopped short in the doorway and smiled. The boy was still sleeping the sleep of oblivion, the scrawled copy between his fingers.
“Well, I’m blowed!” he muttered. "Poor little tyke’s pl’yed out! Damned if I ’ll wyke ’im!”
He took the sheet with care from Micky’s fingers and glanced over it hurriedly. What was the use of being the Captain’s steward if you did n’t get something out of it? Then his brow wrinkled.
“Germany not yet replied to France's ultimatum regarding Morocco.—Brother John died this morning.—Shall I sell?”
“Holy cats!” he grinned. “Micky must ’a’ kinder mixed things up. That ’s the damndest bloomin' noosepaper I ’ve ’ad yet!”
And so thought the purple captain, but he held his peace, for reasons best known to himself.