[1]The Chilean Condors.
[2]The twenty piastre piece of California (the whalers usually turn their savings into this money).
We had not long to sleep that night, my brother and I, in our little beds in the cupboard.
As soon as the old cottage cuckoo had announced four o'clock in its cracked voice, quickly, we had to get up. We were due at Paimpol before daybreak, to catch there at six o'clock the diligence for Guincamp.
At half-past four, on this cold winter's morning, the poor little door opened to let us out; it closed on a last kiss for Yves from his weeping mother, on a last handshake for me. We set off in the cold rain and the dark night, and for five years we saw them no more.
That is what happens in the families of sailors.
When we were half-way on our road we heard the Angelus sounding behind us at Plouherzel. We thought we were late and began to run. Our faces were bathed in perspiration when we reached Paimpol.
But we had been mistaken; the hour of the Angelus had been put forward.
We found a refuge in a tavern already open, where we had breakfast with some Icelanders and other seafaring folk.
And on the night of the same day, at eleven o'clock, we arrived back in Brest to put to sea once more.
I was aware that I had accepted a heavy responsibility in adopting this refractory brother, the more so because I took my oath very seriously.
But fate separated us on the second day following, and soon we were half the world apart.
Yves set sail for the Atlantic, and I left for the Levant, for Stamboul.
It was not until fifteen months later, in May, 1877, that we met again on board the Médée, which was cruising between India and China.
On board the Médée, May, 1877.
"This suits me as gaiters suit a rabbit," said Yves, with a boyish air, as he contemplated his pagoda sleeves and his blue robe of Burmese silk.
It was at Yé, a Siamese town, on the Bay of Bengal. He was sitting in the background of a sailors' tavern on a stool of Chinese design.
He was very drunk, and after he had smiled thus to see himself clothed in the fashion of a Chinese mandarin, his eyes became dull and lustreless, his lip curled and disdainful. At such moments there was nothing he might not do, as in his bad days of old.
By his side was big Kerboul, also a foresail topman, who had just had brought to him fifteen glasses of a very expensive Singapore liquor, and had drained them one after the other, breaking them afterwards with blows of his fist, in the deadly serious way characteristic of the drunken Breton. And the debris of these fifteen glasses covered the table on which now he had put his feet.
And Barrada, the gunner, was there too, handsome and calm as usual, smiling his feline smile. The topman had invited him, exceptionally, to their feast. And Le Hello also, and Barazère, and half a dozen others of the mainsail and four of the bow-sprit—all attitudinizing, with superb airs, in their Eastern robes.
And even Le Hir was there, a half-witted fellow from the island of Sein, whom they had brought as a laughing-stock, and who was drinking refuse mixed with his bowl of rum. And, to complete the tale, two sea-rovers, two blacklisted, deserters from every flag, old acquaintances of Yves', who had found them, that evening, on the beach and, out of kindness, brought them along.
It was to celebrate the feast of Saint Epissoire, the patron saint of the topmen, that they had foregathered here, and custom required that I should put in an appearance among them, as navigating officer.
For a year past they had not put foot on land. And the Commander, who was well satisfied with his crew, had permitted them, as being the most meritorious, to celebrate as in France the anniversary of their patron saint. He had selected this town of Yé, because it seemed to him the least dangerous for us, the people there being more inoffensive than elsewhere and more easily appeased.
In this room, which was large and low-pitched, with paper walls, there was, at the same time as us, a band of sailors from an American merchantship, who were drinking with sandy-haired, long-toothed women escaped from the brothels of British India.
And these intruders annoyed the topmen who wanted to be alone and let them see it.
Eleven o'clock. The candles had just been renewed in the coloured lanterns, and outside the Siamese town was asleep in the warm night. Inside one felt that trouble was brewing, that arms and fists were itching for a fight.
"Who are these fellows?" said one of the Americans, who spoke with a Marseilles accent. "Who are these Frenchies who come here to lay down the law? And that one who is with them"—this was meant for me—"the youngest of them all, who gives himself airs and seems to be in command?"
"That one," said Yves, with the air of one who did not deign to turn his head, "that one—any one who touches him will need to be a man!"
"That one!" said Barrada. "Do you want to know who he is? Wait a moment and we will tell you, without troubling him to speak for himself; and you will see, my boys, if that will enlighten you!"
Yves had already hurled at them his Chinese stool, which had burst the wall just above their heads, and Barrada, with a first blow, had knocked over two of them. The others overthrown in turn on top of the first two, all struggling on the ground. Kerboul began to belabour the mass unmercifully with his table, scattering over his enemies the debris of his fifteen glasses.
Then we heard outside the sounding of gongs and the ringing of bells, rustlings of silk and shrill little laughs of women.
And the dancing-girls entered. (The topmen had asked for dancing-girls.)
The fighting stopped when they appeared, for they were strange to see. Painted like Chinese idols, covered with gold and glistening stones, the eyes half-closed, looking like little white slits, they advanced into our midst with the smiles of dead women, holding their arms in the air and spreading out their slender fingers, the long nails of which were enclosed in golden sheaths.
At the same time came perfumes of balm and incense; little sticks had been set alight in a warming-dish, and an odorous, languorous smoke spread in a blue cloud.
The gongs sounded louder now and the phantoms began to dance, keeping their feet motionless, executing a kind of rhythmic movement of the stomach with twistings of the wrists. Always the same set smile, the same white mask of death. It seemed that the only life there was in them was concentrated in their rounded hips and arched stomachs which moved with lascivious wrigglings; and in the rigid arms, the disturbing outspread hands which writhed unceasingly.
Le Hello who, for some time past, had been asleep on the floor, hearing the loud sounding of the gongs, woke up, startled.
"Why, you fool, it's the dancing-girls!" explained Barrada, jeering, laughing at him.
"Oh! yes! the dancing-girls!"
He got up and with his large paw, which groped in the air, uncertain, he tried to beat down these upraised arms and these gilded claws, stuttering, thick-voiced.
"It's not good, you white faced guy, it's not good to move your hands like that, it's vulgar. . . . I think it's . . . I think it's . . . damnation!" And he sank to the floor again and went to sleep.
Barrada, who also this evening had drunk more than was usual with him, reproached them for their yellow skin and told them about his, which was white. "White! White! White!" He insisted over and over again on this whiteness, which as a matter of fact he much exaggerated, and proceeded presently to show it to them. First his arm, then his chest. "Look!" he said. "Is it not true?"
The little yellow dolls of Asia continued their slow, lugubrious, beast-like wrigglings, preserving always the mystery of their rictus and of their white elongated eyes. And now Barrada, completely nude, was dancing before them, looking like a Greek marble which had suddenly taken life for some ancient bacchanal.
But the Burmese ladies, wound up like automata, danced on and on for long after he was tired. And presently, when all was over and the gongs were silent, the sailors were seized with fear at the idea that these women, paid for their pleasure, were waiting for them. One after another they slunk away in the direction of the shore, not daring to approach them.
This Barrada, who had "wangled" things so that he sailed for a third time on the same ship with us, was the great friend of Yves.
An illegitimate child, born and reared in the open on the quays of Bordeaux. Very vicious, but with a good heart; full of contrasts, certain elementary notions of human dignity were entirely wanting in him; it was his pride to be better-looking than the others, more agile, stronger, and a more artful "wangler." ("Wangler" and "wangling" are two words which resume in themselves almost the whole life of the navy; they have no academic equivalent.)
In return for payment, Barrada taught on board every kind of exercise in vogue among sailors: boxing, single-stick, fencing, with gymnastics into the bargain, and singing and dancing. Supple as a clown; the friend of all the travelling strongmen who posed in the studios of sculptors; fighting for money in mountebank shows.
An outstanding personality at the sailors' feastings, but always as a guest, drinking freely, but never paying; drinking freely, but never beyond his capacity, and passing through all sorts of revelry, without losing his upright carriage, his smile, or his freshness.
He was always ready with a mocking repartee which would never have occurred to anyone else; his Gascon accent rendered his sallies more comical; and then he used to punctuate his phrases with a kind of noise that was peculiarly his own; a half laugh which sounded in his deep chest like the hoarse yawning of a lion.
Withal, honest, grateful, obliging to everyone, and faithful to his friends; unequivocal in speech and answering always with the disconcerting frankness of a child.
And yet making money by any and every means, even by his beauty when the occasion offered. And that, naïvely, with his unspoilt good nature, in such a way that the others, who knew it, pardoned him as they would one more like a child than themselves. Yves contented himself with saying:
"That's not good, Barrada, I assure you . . ." and loved him none the less.
And all this was amassed, was condensed as it were in the form of large pieces of gold sewn about his waist in a leathern belt. And its object was to enable him, after his five years' re-engagement, to marry a little Spanish dressmaker at Bordeaux, who worked in a large shop in the Passage Sainte Catherine; a refined little workwoman whose photograph he always carried with him, a photograph showing her in profile with a fringe and an elegant fur toque trimmed with a bird's wing.
"What can one do! She was my little sweetheart when I was a boy," he used to say, as if it was necessary to make an excuse.
And, while he was waiting for this little sweetheart, he abandoned himself to many others, deliberately often, but sometimes in sheer goodness of heart in the manner of Yves, because he shrank from giving pain.
AT SEA, May, 1877.
For two days now, the great sinister voice had been groaning round us. The sky was very dark. It was like the sky in that picture in which Poussin has tried to paint the deluge; only all the clouds were moving, tormented by a wind that awakened fear.
And this great voice continued to swell, growing deeper, incessant; it was like a fury which was becoming exasperated. In our progress we ran into enormous masses of water which came on in white-crested volutes and passed as if in pursuit one of another; they rushed upon us with their full force; and then there were mighty shocks and great dull sounds.
Sometimes the Médée reared, mounted over them, as if she, too, in turn, was seized with fury against them. And then she descended again, head first, into the treacherous hollows which lurked behind; she touched the bottom of these kinds of valleys which opened rapidly between high walls of water; and then made haste to climb once more, to escape from between these curved, glistening, greenish walls, which threatened to overwhelm her.
An icy rain streaked the air with long white arrows, whipping, stinging, like the blows of a lash. We had drawn nearer the north, in advancing along the Chinese coast, and the unexpected cold bit into us.
Aloft, in the rigging, they were trying to take in the topsails already close hauled; the stormsail was already hard to carry and now, it was necessary, at any cost, to make head against the wind, on account of the doubtful countries which lay behind us.
For two long hours the topmen were at work, blinded, lashed, stung by all that fell over them, sheets of spray from the sea, sheets of rain and hail from the sky; trying, with hands cramped with cold and bleeding, to take in the stiff wet canvas which bellied in the furious wind.
But one saw nothing, heard nothing.
It was difficult enough merely to prevent oneself from being swept away, merely to hold fast to all these moving, wet and slippery things—but they had besides to work high up in the air on their yards which, swaying, had sudden, irregular movements, like the last beating of wings of a great wounded bird in its death-throes.
Cries of pain came from aloft, from this kind of hanging bunch of human grapes. Cries of men, hoarse cries, more ominous than those of women, because one is less accustomed to hear them; cries of horrible suffering: a hand caught somewhere, fingers jammed, from which the flesh was torn as they were drawn away—or maybe, some unfortunate fellow, less strong than the others, numbed with cold, who felt that he could hold out no longer, that his head was beginning to swim, that he was about to let go and fall. And the others, out of pity, bound him and tried to lower him to the deck.
For two hours this lasted; they were exhausted, beat; flesh and blood could do no more.
Then they were ordered down, and in their place were sent up the men of the larboard watch, who had been resting and were not so cold.
They came down, pale, wet, with icy water streaming down their chest and down their back, hands bleeding, nails torn, teeth chattering. For two days they had lived in water, had scarcely eaten, had scarcely slept, and their vitality was at an ebb.
It is this long watching, this long labour in the damp cold, which are the true horrors of the sea. Often poor fellows die, who, before they utter their last cry, their last sob of agony, have remained for days and nights wet through, dirty, covered with a muddy coating of cold sweat and salt, with a kind of veneer of death.
And still the wind increased. There were times when it whistled, shrill and strident, as in a paroxysm of evil exasperation; and others again, when its voice became deep, cavernous, powerful as the immense sounds of cataclysm. And we continued to leap from wave to wave, and, save for the sea which preserved still its unholy whiteness of foam and froth, everything was becoming darker. A glacial twilight was falling upon us; behind these dark curtains, behind all these masses of water which climbed to the sky, the sun had disappeared at its due hour; it abandoned us, and left us to find our way as best we could in the darkness. . . .
Yves had climbed with the larboard men into the disarray of the rigging, and then I kept my eyes aloft, blinded myself also, and only seeing momentarily now the human cluster in the air.
And, suddenly, in a lurch more violent than any that had gone before, the silhouette of this group was broken brusquely and changed its form; two bodies broke away from it and fell with outspread arms into the roaring volutes of the sea, while another crashed on the deck, without a cry, falling as a man might who was already dead.
"The foot-rope broken again!" said the officer of the watch, stamping his foot with rage. "Some rotten rope which they gave us in that damned port of Brest! Big Kerboul in the sea. And the other one, who was he?"
Others, clinging to ropes, swung for some moments in the void and then climbed, hand over hand, very rapidly, as monkeys might.
I recognized Yves as one of the climbers, and breathed again.
They threw out life-buoys as a matter of course for those who were in the sea. But what was the use? The hope rather was that we should not see them reappear, for if we did, on account of the danger of getting broadside on to the rollers, we should not have been able to stop to rescue them and should have needed the horrible courage to abandon them. But a roll was called of those who remained in order to find out the name of the second who had been lost: he was a very steady little apprentice, whom his mother, a widow well on in years, had commended to the care of the boatswain before the departure from France.
The other, the one who had crashed on the deck, they carried below as best they could, with great difficulty, letting him fall again on the way; and lay him in the infirmary which had become a foul sink in which swirled two feet of filthy, dark water, with broken bottles and odours of all sorts of spilt remedies. Not even a place where he might die in peace, for the sea had no pity on the sufferer; it continued to make him dance, to toss him more than ever. A kind of sound came now from his throat, a rattling which persisted for some little time, lost in the great uproar of things. One might have been able to succour him perhaps, to prolong his agony, with a little calm. But he died there quickly enough, in the hands of the sick-berth attendants who had become stupid with fear, and tried to make him eat.
Eight o'clock at night. At this time the responsibility of the watch was heavy and it was my turn to take it.
We carried on as best we might. We could see nothing now. We were in the midst of so much noise that the voices of the men seemed no longer to have any sound; the blasts of the whistles, blown with full might, came faintly, like the flute-like pipings of very small birds.
We heard terrible blows struck against the sides of the ship, as by some enormous battering-ram. And everywhere and always great hollows opened, gaping wide; we felt ourselves being hurled into them, head lowered, in the pitch darkness. And then a force struck us with a brutal strength, carrying us high into the air, and the Médée vibrated in its whole being, as it were, like a monstrous drum. In vain then we tried to hold fast; we were forced to let go and quickly cling more strongly to something else, shutting our mouths and eyes as we did so, because we knew by instinct, without seeing, that it was the moment when a great mass of water would sweep through the air and maybe sweep us away with it.
And this went on continuously, these headlong plunges, followed by these leaps with their accompanying terrifying drum-like sounds.
And, after each of these shocks came again the streaming of water pouring in from all sides; the sound of a thousand things breaking, a thousand fragments rolling in the darkness. And all this prolonged in a sinister trail the horror of the first concussion.
And the topmen and my poor Yves, what were they doing aloft? We could see the masts, the yards, now and then in the darkness, in silhouette, when the smarting pain caused by the hail allowed us to open our eyes and look; we could see the shapes of the great crosses, with double arms, after the fashion of Russian crosses, rocking in the darkness with movements of distress, with crazy gestures.
"Bring them down," said the Commander, who preferred the danger of the unfurled sail to the fear of losing more of his men.
I gave the order quickly, with a feeling of relief. But Yves, from aloft, replied to me with the help of his whistle, that they had almost finished; that they had only to replace one gasket which was broken, by a makeshift knot, and then they would all come down, having taken in their sail and completed their work.
Afterwards when they were all down I breathed more freely. No one now aloft, nothing more to be done up there, nothing to be done now but to watch and wait. Then it seemed to me that the weather was almost fair, that it was almost comfortable on this bridge, now that I was relieved of the heavy weight of my anxiety.
Midnight. The end of the watch; the hour when we could go and seek shelter.
Below, in the padded gun-room, one saw another aspect of the tempest, the grim reality of the misery it caused in the entrails of the ship.
Seen from end to end it was a kind of long dark hall dimly lighted by flickering lanterns. The big guns, supported on their mountings, remained more or less in position by virtue of their lashings of iron cables. And this whole place was in motion; it had the movements of a thing which is shaken in a sieve, shaken without respite, without mercy, perpetually, with a blind rage; it creaked everywhere, it trembled like an animate thing in pain, racked, exhausted, as if it were about to burst and die.
And the great waters outside, for ever seeking to enter, penetrated here and there in little streams, in sinister spoutings.
You were lifted up so quickly that your knees gave way—and then suddenly things slipped from under you, sank beneath your feet—and you descended with them, stiffening in spite of yourself, as for a kind of resistance.
There were shrill, discordant, alarming noises which came from all round; all this framework in the form of a fish which was the Médée was loosening little by little, and groaning under the terrible strain. And outside, on the other side of the wooden wall, always the same immense deep sound, the same deep voice of horror.
But all held fast nevertheless. The long gun-room remained intact, one saw it still from end to end, sometimes tilted, half-overturned, sometimes rising almost upright in a concussion, looking longer still in this darkness in which the lanterns were lost, seeming to change its shape and grow larger, in all this noise, as if it were some vague place of dreamland.
On the low ceiling were hung interminable rows of canvas pockets, swollen all of them by their heavy contents, looking like the little pockets which spiders hang to walls—grey pockets enclosing each a human being, the sailors' hammocks.
Here and there one saw an arm hanging out, or a bare leg. Some slept peacefully, exhausted by their labours; others moved restlessly and talked aloud in bad dreams. And all their hammocks swung and jostled one another in a perpetual movement, and sometimes came in violent collision and heads suffered.
On the floor, beneath the hapless sleepers, was a lake of dark water which swirled this way and that, carrying with it soiled articles of clothing, pieces of bread and biscuit, spilt porridge, every sort of debris and unclean refuse. And from time to time came men, pale, exhausted, half-naked, shivering in their wet shirts, who wandered beneath these rows of grey hammocks, seeking theirs, seeking their poor little suspended bed, the only place where they might find a little warmth, a little dryness, and what would have to serve for rest. They stumbled as they passed, holding on to anything that offered to prevent themselves from falling, and bumping their heads against those who slept. Every man for himself in times such as this; none cared what happened to another. Their feet slipped in the pools of water and filth; they gave no more thought to their dirtiness than animals in distress.
A suffocating reek filled the gun-room; all this filth which slid about the floor gave the impression of a lair of sick beasts, and one smelt the acrid stench which is peculiar to the hold of a ship in times of bad weather.
At midnight, Yves, in turn, descended into the gun-room with the other men of the larboard watch; their spell of duty had been extended for an hour on account of the necessity for securing the boats. They slid down through the half-opened hatchway which closed upon them, and mingled with this floating misery below.
They had spent five hours at their rough work, rocked in the void, lashed by the furious winds above, and soaked to the skin by the stinging rain which seared their faces. They made a grimace of disgust as they entered this closed place where the atmosphere savoured of death.
And Yves said, in his big disdainful way:
"It's those Parisians[3] again, I'll bet, who have made this place stink."
They were not ill, these fellows who were real sailors: their lungs were still filled with the wind of the masthead, and the healthy fatigue which they had just endured assured them now of a wholesome sleep.
They stepped on the rings, on the angle-blocks, on the ends of the gun-carriages, with precaution, in order to avoid the dirty water and the filth—placing their bare feet on any projection that offered, using the precarious footholds of cats. Near their hammocks they undressed, hung up their caps, hung up their large leather-chained knives, their soaked clothing, hung up everything and hung up themselves; and when they were stripped they brushed off with their hands the water which trickled still down their muscular chests.
After that, they raised themselves to the ceiling with the lightness of acrobats, and stretched themselves, against the white beams, in their narrow little canvas beds. Overhead, above them, after each shock, one heard what seemed the passage of a cataract: the waves, the great masses of water which swept the bridge. But the row of their hammocks assumed nevertheless the slow swinging motion of the neighbouring rows, grinding on the iron hooks, and they slept soundly in the midst of the mighty uproar.
Soon, around Yves' hammock, the Burmese women came and danced. In the midst of a cloud of incense, rendered more murky by his dream, they came one after another with their dead smile, in strange silken costumes, covered with glistening stones.
They swayed their haunches slowly, to the sound of the gong, their hands upraised in the air, their fingers outspread, like so many phantoms. They twisted their wrists in epileptic movements, and their long nails enclosed in the golden sheaves became entangled.
The gong—it was the tempest which sounded it, outside, against the sides. . . .
[3]"Parisian" is a term of insult as used by sailors; it means: no sailor, a weakling, a sick man.
I, too, at midnight, when my watch was over and I had seen Yves descend, returned to my room to try to sleep. After all, the fate of the ship concerned us now no longer, me no more than them. We had done our spell of watching and of work. We might sleep now with that absolute freedom from care which one has at sea when the hours of duty are finished.
In my own room, which was on the bridge, there was no lack of air—on the contrary. Through the broken panes the wind and the furious rain entered freely: the curtains twisted themselves into spirals and mounted to the ceiling with the sound of wings.
Like Yves, I hung up my wet clothes. The water streamed down my chest.
Although my little bed could scarcely be said to be comfortable I fell quickly asleep nevertheless, worn out by fatigue. Rolled, shaken, half thrown out of bed, I felt myself swung from right and from left, and my head bumped against the wood, painfully. I was conscious of all this in my sleep, but I slept on. I slept on and dreamt of Yves. Seeing him fall during the day had left me with a kind of uneasiness, as if some sinister thing had brushed against me in passing.
I dreamt I was lying in a hammock, as formerly during my first years at sea. Yves' hammock was near mine. We were swinging violently and his became unhooked. Beneath us there was a confused movement of something dark which it seemed to me was deep water, and he, Yves, was about to fall into it. I stretched out my hands to save him, but they seemed to have no strength, they were nerveless as in dreams. I tried then to seize him round the body, to knot my hands about his chest, remembering that his mother had entrusted him to me; and I realized with anguish that I could not do it, that I was no longer capable of it; he was going to slip from me and to disappear in all this moving blackness which roared beneath us. . . . And then, what struck me with a horror of fear, was that he did not waken and he was icy cold, with a cold which penetrated me also, to the marrow of my bones; and the canvas of his hammock had become rigid like the sheath of a mummy. . . .
And I felt in my head the real concussions, the real pain of all these shocks, I mixed the real with the imaginary of my dream, as happens in conditions of extreme fatigue, and on this account the sinister vision assumed all the more intensity and life.
Afterwards, I lost consciousness of everything, even of the movement and noise, and then only did my rest begin.
When I awoke it was morning. The first light was of that yellow colour which is peculiar to the sunrise on days of tempest; and the roaring of the wind persisted still.
Yves came and opened my door a little and looked in. He propped himself in the doorway, holding on by one hand, bending his body now this way and now that, according to the needs of the moment, in order to preserve his equilibrium. He had put on again his damp clothes, and was covered with sea salt which was deposited in his hair, in his beard, in the form of a white powder.
He smiled, looking very calm and good-humoured.
"I wanted to see you," he said, "for I dreamt about you a lot in the night. All night long I saw those good Burmese ladies with their long golden nails, you know. They surrounded you with their evil monkeyings, and I could not drive them away. At last they wanted to eat you. Fortunately the réveillé sounded then; I was in a cold sweat when I awoke."
"And I, too, am very glad to see you, my dear Yves, for I have dreamt a lot about you also. Is it as rough as yesterday?"
"Perhaps a little more manageable. And, anyhow, it's day. As long as it's light, you know, it's always easier to work at the masthead. But when it's as black as the devil's pit, as last night, I don't like it at all."
Yves glanced with satisfaction all round my room, arranged by him in anticipation of bad weather. Nothing had budged, thanks to his contrivance. On the floor there was indeed a pool of salt water in which divers things floated; but the objects to which I attached more or less value had remained suspended or fixed, like furniture, to the panels of the walls by bolts or angle-irons. Everything had been corded, tied, secured with an extreme care by means of tarred rope of various thicknesses. Arms and bronzes had been wrapped in articles of clothing in a strange higgledly-piggledly. Japanese masks with long human hair gazed at us through a network of tarred thread; they had the same remote smile, the same tilting of the eyes as the golden-nailed Burmese women who, in Yves' dream, had wanted to eat me. . . .
A bugle-call suddenly, brisk and joyful: the summons to "wash deck!"
The bugle sounded a little thin, a little silvery, in the formidable bellowing of the wind.
To wash the deck when the seas were breaking over it might seem a somewhat senseless operation to people who live on land. But we found nothing very extraordinary in it; it was done every morning, without fail and in all circumstances; it is one of the primordial rules of life at sea. And Yves left me saying, as if it was the most natural thing in the world:
"I must be off to my washing station."
Nevertheless the bugle had sinned by excess of zeal, and sounded without order, at its usual hour; for this morning the deck was not to be washed.
One felt that things were more manageable, as Yves had said; the movements were longer, more regular, more like the rollings of the swell. The sea was less angry, and the deep, heavy-sounding concussions were less frequent.
And then it was day—a vile day, it is true, with a strange livid yellowness, but day nevertheless, less sinister than the night.
Our hour, it seemed, had not yet come, for on the second day following we ran into calm water, in a port in China, at Hong Kong.
September, 1877.
The Médée had been homeward bound for many a day.
Wind and current had favoured her. She sailed rapidly, so rapidly, for days and nights on end, that one lost the notion of places and distances. Vaguely we had seen pass the Straits of Malacca, taken in our course; the Red Sea, ascended under steam in a blaze of sunlight; then the point of Sicily, and at last the great couchant lion of Gibraltar. Now we are watching the horizon and the first land, which may appear at any moment, will be the land of Brittany.
I had joined the Médée only during the latter part of the voyage and, this time, my tour with Yves will have lasted less than five months.
Amid the grey expanse little white lines now appear; then a tower with dark little islets scattered about: all this still very distant and scarcely visible in the dull wan daylight which envelopes us.
We might imagine without any trouble that we were still at the other side of the world, in that extreme Asia which we have lately left; for things on board have not changed, nor faces either. We are still encumbered with Chinese knick-knacks; we continue to eat fruits gathered on the other side and still green; we carry with us odours, savours of China.
But no; our house has been translated very quickly; this tower and these islets are the Pierres-Noires; Brest is there, quite near us, and before night we shall have anchored there.
Always an emotion of remembrance, when this great roadstead of Brest appears, imposing and solemn, and these great sailing ships which one rarely sees elsewhere. All my first impressions of the navy, all my first impressions of Brittany—and then, too, it is France.
There is the Borda beyond; as I look at it, I can see again in my mind's eye the desk over which I have pored in long hours of study; and the blackboard on which I wrote feverishly, before the examination, the complicated formulæ of mechanics and astronomy.
Yves at that time was a small boy with a very serious and thoughtful air, a little round-faced Breton apprentice, who dwelt in the near-lying ship, the Bretagne, the neighbour and companion of the Borda. We were children then—to-day we are grown men—to-morrow . . . old age—the day after, death.
Sunday, a day of great "boozing" in Brest.
Ten o'clock. A calm night, with a moonlit, tranquil sea; on board the Médée the sailors have finished singing their endless songs and silence has supervened.
Since the fall of darkness my eyes have been turned in the direction of the lights of the town. I am awaiting with uneasiness the return of the cutter of which Yves is in charge: it went ashore and has not returned.
At last I see its red light approaching, two hours late!
The sea is sonorous at night; in the distance I can hear cries mingling with the sound of the oars; strange things seem to be happening in the cutter.
She has scarcely come alongside when three drunken petty officers, in a state of fury, hasten on board and demand of me the head of Yves:
"He must be put in irons straightway; he must be tried and shot afterwards, for he has struck his superior officers."
Yves was standing there, trembling from the conflict in which just now he was engaged. These three petty officers have fought with him, or at any rate have tried to make him fight.
"They wanted to put me in the wrong!" he said disdainfully; and he swore that he had not returned the blows of the three men; for that matter he could have knocked all three of them over with his open hand. No; he let them lay hold of him and pull him about; they scratched his face and tore his clothes into ribbons, because he refused to allow them to take charge of the cutter, drunk as they were.
All the crew of the cutter were drunk also, by the fault of Yves, who had allowed them to drink.
And the three petty officers remained standing there, quite near him, continuing to shout, to revile, to threaten, three old drunkards, grotesque in their stuttering fury, very ridiculous if discipline, that implacable thing, had not been on their side to make the scene terribly grave.
Yves, upright, his fists clenched, his hair over his forehead, his shirt torn, his chest all bare, tried almost beyond endurance by these insults, itching to strike, appealed to me with his eyes, in his distress.
Oh! discipline, discipline! There are times when it is harsh indeed. I am the officer of the watch and it is contrary to all rules that I should interfere except to speak non-committal words, and to hand them all over to the justice of the ship's police.
Contrary to all rules, however, I leap down from the bridge and throw myself on Yves—it was none too soon!—I pass my arms round his arms, and thus restrain him at the very moment when he is about to strike.
And I fix my eyes on the others, who then, in the presence of this turn in the situation, beat a retreat in the manner of dogs before their master.
Happily it is dark—and there are no witnesses. Only the cutter's crew and they are drunk—and, moreover, I am sure of them: they are good fellows all and if it is necessary to go before a courtmartial, they will not bear witness against us.
Then I take Yves by the shoulders and passing in front of his three enemies, who fall back to let us pass, I lead him to my room and lock him in. There for the moment he is safe.
I am summoned before the Commander who has been awakened by the noise. Unfortunately I have to explain the matter to him.
And I explain, extenuating as much as possible the fault of my poor Yves. I explain; and then, for some mortal minutes, I beg; I believe that never in my life had I begged before, it seems to me that it is no longer I who am speaking. And all I can say and all I can do breaks down against the cold logic of this man who holds in his hands the very existence of Yves, which has been entrusted to me.
I have, however, succeeded in removing the gravest of the matters, the question of striking a superior officer; but the insults remain and the refusal to obey. Yves has done these things: in substance, the charges are unfair and revolting; in the letter, they are true.
He is ordered to be put in irons at once, to begin with, and to be sent below under guard, on account of the disturbance and scandal.
Poor Yves! An unrelenting fatality has pursued him, for, this time, he was not really culpable. And this misfortune came upon him at the very time when he was becoming steadier, when he was making great efforts to give up drinking and behave himself.
When I returned to my room to tell him that he was to be put in irons, I found him sitting on my bed, his fists and teeth clenched with rage. His passionate Breton temper had got possession of him.
Stamping his foot, he declared that he would not go—it was too unjust!—unless they carried him by force, and that he would kill the first man that came to take him.
Then I saw that he was lost indeed, and my heart ached for him. What could be done? The guard was there, outside my door, waiting to lead him away and I dared not open; seconds and minutes passed and I could find no pretext for further delay.
An idea came to me, suddenly: I entreated him very gently, in the name of his mother, reminding him of my oath and, for the second time in my life, calling him brother.
Yves wept. It was over; he was vanquished and docile.
I threw some water over his forehead, adjusted his shirt a little and opened my door. All this had not lasted three minutes.
The guard appeared. He rose and followed, meek as a child. He looked back and smiled at me, went and replied with calmness to the interrogatory of the Commander, and proceeded peacefully to the hold to be put in irons.
About midnight, when this arduous watch was over, I went to bed, sending to Yves a blanket and a cloak. (For the nights already were cold.) And this in my helplessness was all that I could now do for him.
The next day, a Monday, the Commander sent for me early, and I entered his room with a feeling of resentment in my heart, with bitter words ready on my lips, which I would have uttered at the outset in revenge for my supplications of yesterday, if I had not feared to aggravate Yves' lot.
I was mistaken, however: he had been touched the previous night and had understood me.
"You may go to your friend. Give him a good talking to, but say that I pardon him. The affair will go no farther and will be put right by a simple disciplinary punishment. He will remain eight days in irons, and that will be all. I inflict on the three petty officers, at your instance, the equivalent punishment of eight days' close arrest. I do this for you, who look upon him as a brother, and for his sake also, for, after all, he is the best man we have on board."
And I went away with feelings very different from those with which I had come, regarding him indeed with gratitude and affection.
A corner of the hold of the Médée, in all the disarray of laying up. A lantern illumines a vast medley of heterogeneous objects more or less nibbled by rats.
A dozen or so sailors—Barrada, Guiaberry, Barazère, Le Hello, all the little band of friends—are grouped about a man lying on the floor. It is Yves in irons, stretched on the damp boards, his head supported on his elbow, his foot in the padlocked ring of the "bar of justice."
The most implacable of his three enemies. Petty Officer Lagatut, stands before him, threatening him in his old drunken voice. He threatens him with revenge for that affair of the cutter, in which, to his mind, I had taken too large a part.
He has quitted his close arrest to come and abuse him—and I, whose watch it is and who am making a round, enter from behind and find him there—the old rogue is very neatly caught! The sailors who saw me enter, chuckle quietly in their sleeves, in anticipation of what is about to happen. Yves makes no reply, contenting himself with turning over and presenting his back to his tormentor with supreme insolence. For he, too, had seen me enter.
"We have begun a game of écarté together," said Petty Officer Lagatut; "you, Kermadec, boatswain; I, Lagatut, chief gunner, decorated with the Legion of Honour. Thanks to certain officers who protect you, you have taken the first two tricks: it remains to see who is going to take the three others."
"Petty Officer Lagatut," said I from behind, "we will play a three-handed game, if you are agreeable: a game of rams, that will be more amusing. And you, my good Yves, take another trick."
A chicken finding a knife, a thief who stumbles against a policeman, a mouse, which, by inadvertence, puts its paw on a cat, have not a longer face than Petty Officer Lagatut at that moment.
This little pleasantry of mine was not perhaps in the best of form. But the gallery, which was very friendly to us, greatly enjoyed this triumph of Yves.
Eight days afterwards our frigate was completely disarmed and laid up in a remote part of the dockyard, the crew was paid off and the Médée might be described as a dead ship.
I was going away, and Yves accompanied me to the railway. The station was crowded with sailors; all those of the Médée who also were leaving; and others again who, taking French leave, had come to see them off.
Amongst them were many old acquaintances of ours, protégés and friends of Yves. And all these good fellows, rather tight, doffed their caps and bade us good-bye with effusion. It was a scene such as is usual when a ship is paid off; for a ship which finishes in this way is something apart; it marks the end of so many acquaintances, so many rancours, so many hates, so many sympathies.
At the entrance to the waiting-room, as I gripped Yves' hand, I said to him:
"You will write to me at any rate?"
And he replied:
"I was going to explain to you," and he hesitated still, with an amiable, shamefaced smile. "Well, here goes! I was going to explain to you that I do not know what to put at the beginning."
And it was true that the appellations "Captain, Dear Captain," and others of the same kind, would scarcely any longer do. What should it be, then? I replied:
"Why, but that's very simple," and I cast about for a long time for this simple thing and could not find it. "That's very simple. Put . . . put: 'My dear brother'; that will be true in the first place, and, for the purpose of a letter, very suitable."
It was about six weeks after the Médée had been laid up at Brest and I had separated from Yves, when one day, at Athens, I think, I received this surprising letter:
"BREST, 15th September, 1877.
"MY DEAR BROTHER,—I write you these few words, in haste to let you know that I got married yesterday. And, you may be sure, I would have asked your advice in advance, but, you must understand, I had no time to lose having been named to join the Cornélie, and having only eight days before me to spend with my wife.
"I think that you will find, you also, my dear brother, that this is better than being always moving about, as you know, from one ship to another. My wife's name is Marie Keremenen; I may tell you I am very proud of her and think we shall get on very well together if only I can settle down.
"I will write you a longer letter before I leave, my dear brother, and I can assure you I am very sad at the idea of embarking without you.
"I end by embracing you with all my heart.
"Your loving brother,
"YVES KERMADEC.
"P.S.—I have just learnt that my destination is altered; I am embarking on the Ariane which does not leave until the middle of November. That gives me nearly two months to spend with my wife. We shall have good time in which to get to know one another, and you may be sure I am very pleased."
On their return from their voyages, sailors are wont to do all sorts of stupid things with their money; it is a thing excused by tradition. And seaport towns have reason to know their rather wild eccentricities.
Sometimes, even, they marry, by way of pastime, the first woman that offers in order to have an occasion for donning a black coat.
And Yves, who had already in times past exhausted all kinds of foolishness, he, too, for a change, had finished by marrying.
Yves married! And to whom in heaven's name? Perhaps some shameless hussy of the town, picked up by chance in an hour when he was tipsy!
I had good reason to be uneasy, remembering a certain creature in a feathered hat whom he had been on the point of marrying for a lark—when he was twenty—in this same town of Brest.
Two months later, when the Ariane was about to depart, fate decreed that I, too, should be appointed, at the last moment, to join its staff.
At the moment of leaving I saw this Marie Keremenen, whom I had half dreaded to meet. She was a young woman of about twenty years of age, dressed in the costume of the village of Toulven, in lower Brittany.
Her fine dark eyes were clear and frank. Without being absolutely pretty, she had a certain charm in her embroidered bodice, her white wide-winged head-dress, and her large collarette recalling a Medici ruff.
There was about her something candid, something wholesome which it did you good to see. It seemed to me that she was exactly what I should have looked for if it had fallen to me to choose for my brother Yves.
Chance had brought the two together, one day when she was on a visit to her godmother in Brest.
The lover lost no time, and she, won over by Yves' manly air, by his honest, winning smile, had been induced to consent—not without a certain uneasiness, nevertheless—to this precipitate marriage, which was going, for a start, to make her a widow for some seven or eight months.
She had a little fortune as they say in the country, and was going to return, as soon as we had left, to her parents' home in her village of Toulven.
Yves confided to me that they were expecting the arrival of a child.
"You will see," he said. "I bet that he will arrive just in time for our return."
And he embraced his wife, who was weeping. We departed. Once more we were going to cruise in the blue domain of the flying fish and dorados.
15th November, 1877.
On the day before we sailed, Yves had obtained a special permission to go ashore during the day in order that he might see, in the naval hospital, his eldest brother, Gildas, the fisher of whales, who had just arrived in a half dead condition, and whom he had not seen for ten years.
Gildas Kermadec was a man of about forty, tall, with features more regular than Yves'. In his eyes there was still a kind of dead fire. He must at one time have been exceedingly handsome.
He was paralysed and dying, destroyed by alcohol and excess of all kinds; he had lived a life of pleasure, sown his wild oats, and spent his strength on all the world's highways.
He came forward slowly, leaning on a stick, upright and well-set still, but dragging a leg, and with haggard eyes.
"Oh, Yves!" he said, and he repeated it three times: "Oh, Yves! Oh, Yves!"
It was scarcely articulate; for he was paralysed in speech also. He opened his arms to embrace Yves and tears ran down his bronzed cheeks.
There were tears in Yves' eyes also. . . . And then, quick, it was time to go. The leave that had been given him was only for an hour.
For that matter, Gildas found nothing more to say. He had made Yves sit down beside him on a hospital bench, and, holding his hand, looked at him with bewildered eyes that were near to dying. At first indeed he did try to say many things which seemed to press in his head; but there issued from his lips only inarticulate sounds, hoarse, deep, painful to hear. No, he could speak no more; and he contented himself with holding Yves' hand and gazing at him with an infinite sadness.
. . . . . . . . . .
Yves carried away a profound impression of this last interview with his brother Gildas. They had only seen each other twice since Gildas had gone to sea. But they were brothers, brothers of the same cottage and of the same blood, and in that there is something mysterious, a bond which nothing can break.
A month later, at our first place of call, we learnt that Gildas was dead. And Yves put a band of mourning on his woollen sleeve.
On board the Ariane, May, 1878.
The island of Teneriffe appears before us like a kind of large pyramidal edifice, placed on an immense reflecting mirror which is the sea. The rugged sides, the gigantic ridges of the mountains are brought near, in little, by the extreme, unbelievable clearness of the air. One can distinguish everything: the sharp angles touched with rose, the hollows touched with blue. And the whole rests on the sea like a picture in a child's scrap-book, infinitely light, weightless. A sharp line of clouds pearly-grey in colour cuts Teneriffe horizontally in two, and, above, the peak rears its great cone bathed in sunlight.
The gulls are making an extraordinary racket around us; they cry and beat the air with their white wings in one of those accessions of frenzy, which seize them sometimes for what reason it is impossible to say.
Midday. The crew had just finished dinner. The whistle had sounded: "The port watch will clear away!" And Yves, who was on the port watch on board the Ariane, came up on deck and approached me, blowing his whistle softly to assure himself that it was still in good order.
"What is the matter with the gulls to-day? They were puling all the time during dinner, did you hear them?"
To be sure I did not know what was the matter with the gulls. But, since it was necessary, out of politeness, to make some sort of reply to Yves, I answered him in this wise:
That the gulls had asked to speak to the officer of the watch, who to be precise was myself. They wanted news of their little cousin Pierre Kermadec; and I had replied to them: "My good sirs, little Pierre Kermadec, my godson, is not yet born; you are too soon, come back in a few days' time, when we are at Brest." On that, as you see, they have departed. Look over there how they have all made off.
"You have given me a very pretty answer," said Yves, who did not often smile. "But I tell you, I dreamt much about this again last night and, do you know, a fear has come to me. It is that it may be a little girl."
It would indeed be a sad disappointment if the expected godson should turn out to be a little girl! It would not then be possible to call the newcomer Pierre.
This kinship of Yves' little child with the gulls was not of my invention: "gull" was the name given to the topmen on board the Ariane, and the name they gave to one another amongst themselves. It was not surprising, therefore, that my little godson should be deemed a blood relation of this bird of the sea.
And so, when we talked of him in our conversations at night, we used always to say:
"When will the 'little seagull' arrive?"
And we never referred to him in any other way.
BREST, 13th June, 1878.
We are staying for to-day at a casual lodging in the Rue de Siam at Brest, where the Ariane anchored this morning.
In reply to the advice of his arrival, Yves received from Toulven, from his wife's father, the following telegram:
"Little son born last night. Is going on very well. Marie also.
"CORENTIN KEREMENEN."
When night came and we were in bed it was impossible to sleep. I heard Yves turning in his bed, "going about" as he said in his Breton accent. At the thought that on the morrow he would be on the road to Toulven to see his little firstborn, his honest manly heart overflowed with all kinds of sentiments which were quite new to him.
Two days after him, I, too, would be due at Toulven for the baptism.
And he made a thousand and one projects for this ceremony:
"I hardly dare to say it, but, if you would like, at Toulven, to stay with us. . . . At my father-in-law's place, you know. . . . To be sure it is not like the town, as I need not tell you. . . ."
BREST, 15th June, 1878.
In the early morning I set out for Toulven where Yves has been awaiting me since yesterday.
The weather is magnificent. Old Brittany is green and decked with flowers. Along the road are large woods and rocks.
Yves is waiting for me on the arrival of the diligence which I caught at Bannalec. Beside him is a girl of eighteen or nineteen, who blushes, looking very pretty in her large coif.
"This is Anne," says Yves to me, "my sister-in-law, the godmother."
There is still some distance between the little town and the cottage in which they live at Trémeulé in Toulven.
Some village lads lift my luggage on their shoulders, and I set out to make my visit to the sea-gull which has just been born; to make the acquaintance also of this Breton family, into which Yves has entered in his headlong way without very clearly knowing why.
What will they be like, these new relations of my brother Yves—and this new country which is to become his?
We make our way all three along sunken lanes, which vanish in front of us under the shade of beech trees and are overgrown with ferns.
It is evening; the sky is overcast, and in these lanes there is a kind of night which is perfumed with honeysuckle.
Here and there, on the roadside, are grey cottages, very old and covered with moss.
From one of them comes a lullaby, sung in slow cadence by a voice which also is very old:
"Boudoul, boudoul, galaïchen![4]
Boudoul, boudoul, galaïch du!"
"It is he they are rocking," said Yves, smiling. "Come in!"
This cottage of the old Keremenen people is half-buried and overgrown with moss. Above it the oaks and beeches spread their green vault; it seems as old as the earth of the lanes.
Inside the light is dim; one sees the press-beds in line with cupboards along the rough granite of the walls.
A grandmother in a large white collarette is within, singing beside the new-born son, singing an air of the time of her own childhood.
In an old-fashioned Breton cradle, which, before him, had rocked his forbears, lies the little sea-gull: a fat baby three days old, very round, very dark, already tanned like a mariner, and sleeping now with his closed fists under his chin. He has a growth of short hair, which appears below his bonnet on his forehead, like the coat of a mouse. I kiss him affectionately, for he is Yves' baby.
"Poor little sea-gull!" I say as I touch as gently as possible the little mouse's coat, "he has not so far got many feathers."
"That's true!" says Yves, smiling. "And look," he added, opening with infinite precaution the little closed fist and spreading it on his rough hand. "I have not been very successful: he is not web-footed."
We are told that Marie Keremenen is lying in one of the beds, the little perforated wooden door of which has been closed on her, because she has just fallen asleep; we lower our voices for fear of awakening her, and Yves and I go out, for we have many things to see to in the village in view of to-morrow's ceremony.