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Chapter three

Jim tells his story

The big hotel dining-room was more than half full of people, eating, drinking and talking, while the dark-faced waiters hurried from table to table. And opposite me sat Jim, with his blue, boyish eyes looking straight into mine. I liked his young, honest face and his seriousness. He was the right kind; he was one of us. But how could he talk so calmly? Was it because he was controlling himself, or because he did not care?

Towards the end of dinner, I mentioned the inquiry. ‘It must be awfully hard for you,’ I said.

I was surprised by what happened next. He put out a hand quickly and held my arm, staring fixedly at me. ‘It is - hell,’ he cried. People at tables near us turned to look. I stood up, and we went outside, to sit on the veranda with our coffee and cigars. From our chairs we looked out at the sea, where the lights of the ships shone like stars in the thick, warm darkness.

‘I couldn’t run away,’ Jim began. ‘The captain did, but that’s no good for me. The others have got out of it too, but I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t. I can never go home now, you know. I’m sure my dear old Dad has seen the story in the newspapers by now. I can never explain all this to the poor old man. He wouldn’t understand.’

I looked up. I had the feeling he was extremely fond of his ‘old Dad’, and I imagined how proud the country vicar had been of his sailor son.

Jim went on, ‘Look, you mustn’t think I’m like those others - you know, the captain and the engineers. What happened to me was different.’ I said nothing to agree or disagree with this, but I didn’t know if he really believed what he was saying. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do after the inquiry. Nobody will employ me as an officer again. I haven’t any money to go anywhere else. I’ll have to get occasional work on a ship, as an ordinary seaman.’

‘Do you think you can?’ I asked. I wanted to hurt him, to break his self-control.

He jumped up and turned away, then came back and looked miserably down at me. ‘Why did you say that? You’ve been very kind to me. You didn’t laugh when I-‘ here his voice trembled ‘-made that stupid mistake.’ Looking away from me, he stared into the darkness. ‘It’s a question of being ready. I wasn’t, not then.’ And then, turning to me, ‘Look, I’d like to explain - I’d like somebody to understand - one person at least! You! Why not you? Ah! What a chance I missed! My God! What a chance I missed!’

He was silent for a while, with a quiet, distant look in his eyes, as he thought of that lost opportunity. I watched him moving into his own private world of heroic dreams and adventures. Ah, he was romantic! He was very far away from me, although his chair was only a metre away from mine. Suddenly I saw from his delighted expression that he had reached the heart of his impossible world, and come to the end of his perfect dream. His young face wore a smile that your faces will never wear, my friends, nor mine either.

I brought him roughly back to the present by saying, ‘You missed a chance when you left the ship, you mean!’

He turned quickly towards me, his dream broken and his eyes suddenly full of pain. ‘You see,’ he said after a moment, ‘the hole in the side of the ship was so big! A piece of metal as big as my hand fell off while I was looking at it!’

‘That made you feel bad,’ I said.

‘Do you suppose I was thinking of myself? There were eight hundred people on that ship, and only seven boats. I expected to see the hole widen and the water flow over them as they lay sleeping… What could I do?’ He passed a hand over his head. ‘The captain had sent me to check the damage again. At first I wanted to wake all the passengers up, but my mouth was too dry, and I couldn’t speak. I felt completely helpless. When I looked at the unconscious sleepers around me, I saw dead men. Nothing could save them! There was no time! I could not repair the damage, and I could not save eight hundred people in seven boats! I saw, as clearly as I see you now, that there was nothing I could do. It seemed to take all the life out of my body. I just stood there and waited. Do you think I am afraid of death?’ He banged his hand angrily on the table, so that the coffee cups danced. ‘My God! I tell you I am not!’

He was not afraid of death, perhaps, but, my friends, I’ll tell you what he was afraid of - the emergency. He was able to imagine, only too well, all the horrors of the end - water filling the ship, people screaming, boats sinking - all the terrible details of a disaster at sea. I think he was ready to die, but I suspect he wanted to die quietly, peacefully. Not many men are prepared to continue their fight to the end, when they find themselves losing to a much stronger enemy, like the sea.

‘The engines had stopped, and it seemed very quiet on the ship,’ he went on. ‘I ran back up to the bridge, and found the captain and the two engineers trying to lower one of the ship’s boats down into the sea. “Quick!” the captain whispered to me. “Help us, man!”

“Aren’t you going to do something?” I asked.

“Yes! I’m going to get away,” he said over his shoulder.

‘I didn’t understand then what he meant. The three of them were desperately pulling and pushing at the boat, and calling each other names, but something was wrong with the ropes and the boat wouldn’t move. I stood away from them, watching the sea, black and calm and deadly. My head was full of ideas, and I was thinking hard, but I couldn’t see any chance of survival for us. You think I’m a coward, because I just stood there, but what would you do? You can’t tell - nobody can. I needed time…’

He was breathing quickly. He was not speaking to me, but seemed to be on trial in front of an unseen judge, who was responsible for his soul. This was a matter too difficult for the court of inquiry to decide. It was about the true nature of life, about light and darkness, truth and lies, good and evil.

As he spoke, his eyes shone. ‘Ever since I was a boy, I’ve been preparing myself for difficulties and danger. I was ready, I tell you! Ready for anything! But-‘ and the light went out of his face ‘-this was so unexpected! Well, I’ll tell you the rest. As I was standing there on the bridge, the second engineer ran up and begged me to help them. I pushed him away, in fact I hit him. “Won’t you save your own life - you coward?” he cried. ‘Coward! That’s what he called me. Ha! ha! ha!’

Jim threw himself back in his chair and laughed loudly. I had never heard anything as bitter as that noise. All around us on the veranda conversation stopped. People stared at him.

After a while he continued with his story. ‘I was saying to the Patna, “Sink! Go on, sink!” I wanted it to finish. Then in the sky I saw a big black thunder cloud coming towards us, and I knew the ship couldn’t survive a storm. I saw that George, the third engineer, had now joined the other three, who were still trying to get the boat lowered. Suddenly George fell backwards, and lay without moving on the deck. He was dead. Heart trouble, I think. And just then there was a loud crash as the captain and the two others managed to get the boat down into the water. They were in the boat, and I could hear them shouting from below, “Jump, George! Jump!”’

Jim trembled a little, and then sat very still, as he relived the awful moment. ‘There were eight hundred living people on that ship, and they were shouting for the one dead man to jump! “Jump, George, we’ll catch you!” I felt the ship move - I thought she was going down, under me…’ Jim put his hand to his head again, and paused for a moment. ‘I had jumped… it seems,’ he added. His clear blue eyes looked miserably at me, and I felt like an old man helplessly watching a childish disaster.

‘It seems you did,’ I agreed.

‘When I was in the boat, I wished I could die. But I couldn’t go back. I’d jumped into an everlasting deep hole…’

Nothing could be more true. He described to me the full horror of the hours he spent in that small boat with the three men. They called him evil names, angrily accused him of killing George, even talked of throwing him out of the boat. ‘I didn’t care what happened to me,’ Jim went on. ‘I wondered if I would go crazy, or kill myself. You see, I had saved my own life, while everything that was important to me had sunk with the ship in the night. We were certain the ship had sunk, you know. As we rowed away, we couldn’t hear any cries, or see her lights. The captain said we were lucky to survive. And I decided not to kill myself. The right thing was to go on, wait for another chance, test myself…’ After a long silence, he continued, ‘Another ship picked us up the next day. The captain and the others pretended we had tried to save the passengers, but the Patna had sunk too fast. The story didn’t matter to me. I had jumped, hadn’t I? That’s what I had to live with. It was like cheating the dead.’

‘And there were no dead,’ I said.

He turned away from me at that. I knew that a French ship had found the Patna sailing out of control. The captain had put several of his officers on board, and they sailed her to the nearest port, Aden. Although the Patna was badly damaged, it had not sunk, and nobody had died, except George, the third engineer, whose body was found on the bridge. The pilgrims were all put on to other ships to continue their journey to Mecca.

But everybody went on talking about the Patna. And now, when seamen meet in the Eastern ports, they very often discuss the strange story of the pilgrim ship, and the officers who ran away, just as I am telling you about it tonight.