JOSEPH CONRAD: 9 Quintessential Books in One Collection. Джозеф Конрад
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the Company, always expecting the next command — more fool I. Says he, just like this: ‘Come in here, Mr. Jones,’ in that swagger voice of his — ‘Come in here, Mr. Jones.’ In I went. ‘We’ll lay down her position,’ says he, stooping over the chart, a pair of dividers in hand. By the standing orders, the officer going off duty would have done that at the end of his watch. However, I said nothing, and looked on while he marked off the ship’s position with a tiny cross and wrote the date and the time. I can see him this moment writing his neat figures: seventeen, eight, four A. M. The year would be written in red ink at the top of the chart. He never used his charts more than a year, Captain Brierly didn’t. I’ve the chart now. When he had done he stands looking down at the mark he had made and smiling to himself, then looks up at me. ‘Thirty-two miles more as she goes,’ says he, ‘and then we shall be clear, and you may alter the course twenty degrees to the southward.’
‘“We were passing to the north of the Hector Bank that voyage. I said, ‘All right, sir,’ wondering what he was fussing about, since I had to call him before altering the course anyhow. lust then eight bells were struck: we came out on the bridge, and the second mate before going off mentions in the usual way — ‘Seventy-one on the log.’ Captain Brierly looks at the compass and then all round. It was dark and clear, and all the stars were out as plain as on a frosty night in high latitudes. Suddenly he says with a sort of a little sigh: ‘I am going aft, and shall set the log at zero for you myself, so that there can be no mistake. Thirty-two miles more on this course and then you are safe. Let’s see — the correction on the log is six per cent. additive; say, then, thirty by the dial to run, and you may come twenty degrees to starboard at once. No use losing any distance — is there?’ I had never heard him talk so much at a stretch, and to no purpose as it seemed to me. I said nothing. He went down the ladder, and the dog, that was always at his heels whenever he moved, night or day, followed, sliding nose first, after him. I heard his boot-heels tap, tap on the after-deck, then he stopped and spoke to the dog — ‘Go back, Rover. On the bridge, boy! Go on — get.’ Then he calls out to me from the dark, ‘Shut that dog up in the chart-room, Mr. Jones — will you?’
‘“This was the last time I heard his voice, Captain Marlow. These are the last words he spoke in the hearing of any living human being, sir.” At this point the old chap’s voice got quite unsteady. “He was afraid the poor brute would jump after him, don’t you see?” he pursued with a quaver. “Yes, Captain Marlow. He set the log for me; he — would you believe it? — he put a drop of oil in it too. There was the oil-feeder where he left it near by. The boat — swain’s mate got the hose along aft to wash down at half-past five; by-and-by he knocks off and runs up on the bridge — ‘Will you please come aft, Mr. Jones,’ he says. ‘There’s a funny thing. I don’t like to touch it.’ It was Captain Brierly’s gold chronometer watch carefully hung under the rail by its chain.
‘“As soon as my eyes fell on it something struck me, and I knew, sir. My legs got soft under me. It was as if I had seen him go over; and I could tell how far behind he was left too. The taffrail-log marked eighteen miles and three-quarters, and four iron belaying-pins were missing round the mainmast. Put them in his pockets to help him down, I suppose; but, Lord! what’s four iron pins to a powerful man like Captain Brierly. Maybe his confidence in himself was just shook a bit at the last. That’s the only sign of fluster he gave in his whole life, I should think; but I am ready to answer for him, that once over he did not try to swim a stroke, the same as he would have had pluck enough to keep up all day long on the bare chance had he fallen overboard accidentally. Yes, sir. He was second to none — if he said so himself, as I heard him once. He had written two letters in the middle watch, one to the Company and the other to me. He gave me a lot of instructions as to the passage — I had been in the trade before he was out of his time — and no end of hints as to my conduct with our people in Shanghai, so that I should keep the command of the Ossa. He wrote like a father would to a favourite son, Captain Marlow, and I was five-and-twenty years his senior and had tasted salt water before he was fairly breeched. In his letter to the owners — it was left open for me to see — he said that he had always done his duty by them — up to that moment — and even now he was not betraying their confidence, since he was leaving the ship to as competent a seaman as could be found — meaning me, sir, meaning me! He told them that if the last act of his life didn’t take away all his credit with them, they would give weight to my faithful service and to his warm recommendation, when about to fill the vacancy made by his death. And much more like this, sir. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It made me feel queer all over,” went on the old chap, in great perturbation, and squashing something in the corner of his eye with the end of a thumb as broad as a spatula. “You would think, sir, he had jumped overboard only to give an unlucky man a last show to get on. What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week. But no fear. The captain of the Pelion was shifted into the Ossa — came aboard in Shanghai — a little popinjay, sir, in a grey check suit, with his hair parted in the middle. ‘Aw — I am — aw — your new captain, Mister — Mister — aw — Jones.’ He was drowned in scent — fairly stunk with it, Captain Marlow. I dare say it was the look I gave him that made him stammer. He mumbled something about my natural disappointment — I had better know at once that his chief officer got the promotion to the Pelion — he had nothing to do with it, of course — supposed the office knew best — sorry. . . . Says I, ‘Don’t you mind old Jones, sir; dam’ his soul, he’s used to it.’ I could see directly I had shocked his delicate ear, and while we sat at our first tiffin together he began to find fault in a nasty manner with this and that in the ship. I never heard such a voice out of a Punch and Judy show. I set my teeth hard, and glued my eyes to my plate, and held my peace as long as I could; but at last I had to say something. Up he jumps tiptoeing, ruffling all his pretty plumes, like a little fighting-cock. ‘You’ll find you have a different person to deal with than the late Captain Brierly.’ ‘I’ve found it,’ says I, very glum, but pretending to be mighty busy with my steak. ‘You are an old ruffian, Mister — aw — Jones; and what’s more, you are known for an old ruffian in the employ,’ he squeaks at me. The damned bottle-washers stood about listening with their mouths stretched from ear to ear. ‘I may be a hard case,’ answers I, ‘but I ain’t so far gone as to put up with the sight of you sitting in Captain Brierly’s chair.’ With that I lay down my knife and fork. ‘You would like to sit in it yourself — that’s where the shoe pinches,’ he sneers. I left the saloon, got my rags together, and was on the quay with all my dunnage about my feet before the stevedores had turned to again. Yes. Adrift — on shore — after ten years’ service — and with a poor woman and four children six thousand miles off depending on my half-pay for every mouthful they ate. Yes, sir! I chucked it rather than hear Captain Brierly abused. He left me his night-glasses — here they are; and he wished me to take care of the dog — here he is. Hallo, Rover, poor boy. Where’s the captain, Rover?” The dog looked up at us with mournful yellow eyes, gave one desolate bark, and crept under the table.
‘All this was taking place, more than two years afterwards, on board that nautical ruin the Fire-Queen this Jones had got charge of — quite by a funny accident, too — from Matherson — mad Matherson they generally called him — the same who used to hang out in Hai-phong, you know, before the occupation days. The old chap snuffled on —
‘“Ay, sir, Captain Brierly will be remembered here, if there’s no other place on earth. I wrote fully to his father and did not get a word in reply — neither Thank you, nor Go to the devil! — nothing! Perhaps they did not want to know.”
‘The sight of that watery-eyed old Jones mopping his bald head with a red cotton handkerchief, the sorrowing yelp of the dog, the squalor of that fly-blown cuddy which was the only shrine of his memory, threw a veil of inexpressibly mean pathos over Brierly’s remembered figure, the posthumous revenge of fate for that belief in his own splendour which had almost cheated his life of its legitimate terrors. Almost! Perhaps wholly. Who can tell what flattering view he had induced himself to take of his own suicide?
‘“Why did he commit the rash act, Captain Marlow — can you think?” asked Jones, pressing his palms together. “Why? It beats me! Why?” He slapped his low and wrinkled forehead. “If he had been