dream of tiredness or forgetfulness or pain. It did not occur to the boy that there might be in this long and silent inertia a savage struggle to behave with decent normality, without fuss, to accomplish the simple task of revolving the screws and say something about it without the shadow of even a small agony.
After some longer interval the pilot let the glasses rest slowly back on his chest. To the boy it seemed that he grasped them with extraordinary tightness. He gave a worried sort of smile. It was very quiet and strengthless, but quite calm, and seemed as if it were intended to be reassuring.
âNeeds adjustment, thatâs all,â he said. His words were hard, gasped out quickly. âI can do it. Quite easy. Nice pair.â
He held the glasses hard against his chest and stared straight beyond the boy with a sort of lost vehemence. His eyes seemed to have difficulty in focussing on somepoint in very obscure and difficult distance far beyond the varnished pitch-pine walls of the cabin. They were terribly desperate.
But what worried the boy was that the glasses were held also with this same rigid desperation. He waited for some moments for the pilot to give them back to him. Then it became clear that they were not coming back. The pilot grasped them still harder against the blankets which covered him and then shut his eyes.
The boy stood gazing down for some moments, troubled and waiting for something to happen. Suddenly he knew that he was forgotten. It was no use. He remembered the tea. He took a last look at the figure of the pilot lying absolutely still and rigid, grasping the binoculars as he had sometimes seen dying men in pictures grasping a cross, and then pushed the kettle on to the galley fire. He poured the stale cold tea out of the dirty cups into the slop bucket by the galley. He was sick of tea; he was sick of a succession of daily crises in all of which Gregson demanded tea, only to let it get cold without drinking it, and then demanded still more tea as another crisis created itself, letting it get cold again. He jangled the half-dirty cups together on the table, banging them against the pan of peeled potatoes.
About this time Messner turned on his back and began to moan. His lips were very blue and dry but his eyes were not open, so that it seemed as though he were turning and crying in his sleep. The boy heard him with something between sickness and indifference, and ignored him for some moments with callousness. He had made up his mind that the only virtue in Messner was that he owned the binoculars. He regarded him at the same time with a certain distant awe. Messner was an enemy; so that even though you had never seen him before in your life he was a wrong,criminal, despicably cruel, dynamically dangerous person. It was men like Messner who came in low over the sand-dunes, the sea-marshes and the little towns of the coast, using cannon-shell at low range on whatever living thing they could find. There was no doubt about that; the boy had seen it happen. It was perfectly acceptable that Messner was no different from the rest of them; but when after a time Messner ceased moaning for an interval and lay rigid on his back and staring upward with quiet lips there did not seem very much difference in the appearance of the two men lying on the floor.
Reluctantly making fresh tea at last, the boy remembered that he ought to call Gregson. He went to the bottom of the companionway and shouted, âMr. Gregson, skipper, tea!â But there was no movement and no answering shout above the sound of rain. Also, as he looked upward and saw the rain flicking in steady white drizzle across the section of dark sky, he felt there was something odd about
The Breadwinner
, and when he had taken two or three steps up the companionway he saw what it was. He saw that Gregson had rigged a sail. The boy went slowly on deck and marvelled at this strange copper-brown triangle with a sort of reluctant wonder.
After some longer interval the pilot let the glasses rest slowly back on his chest. To the boy it seemed that he grasped them with extraordinary tightness. He gave a worried sort of smile. It was very quiet and strengthless, but quite calm, and seemed as if it were intended to be reassuring.
âNeeds adjustment, thatâs all,â he said. His words were hard, gasped out quickly. âI can do it. Quite easy. Nice pair.â
He held the glasses hard against his chest and stared straight beyond the boy with a sort of lost vehemence. His eyes seemed to have difficulty in focussing on somepoint in very obscure and difficult distance far beyond the varnished pitch-pine walls of the cabin. They were terribly desperate.
But what worried the boy was that the glasses were held also with this same rigid desperation. He waited for some moments for the pilot to give them back to him. Then it became clear that they were not coming back. The pilot grasped them still harder against the blankets which covered him and then shut his eyes.
The boy stood gazing down for some moments, troubled and waiting for something to happen. Suddenly he knew that he was forgotten. It was no use. He remembered the tea. He took a last look at the figure of the pilot lying absolutely still and rigid, grasping the binoculars as he had sometimes seen dying men in pictures grasping a cross, and then pushed the kettle on to the galley fire. He poured the stale cold tea out of the dirty cups into the slop bucket by the galley. He was sick of tea; he was sick of a succession of daily crises in all of which Gregson demanded tea, only to let it get cold without drinking it, and then demanded still more tea as another crisis created itself, letting it get cold again. He jangled the half-dirty cups together on the table, banging them against the pan of peeled potatoes.
About this time Messner turned on his back and began to moan. His lips were very blue and dry but his eyes were not open, so that it seemed as though he were turning and crying in his sleep. The boy heard him with something between sickness and indifference, and ignored him for some moments with callousness. He had made up his mind that the only virtue in Messner was that he owned the binoculars. He regarded him at the same time with a certain distant awe. Messner was an enemy; so that even though you had never seen him before in your life he was a wrong,criminal, despicably cruel, dynamically dangerous person. It was men like Messner who came in low over the sand-dunes, the sea-marshes and the little towns of the coast, using cannon-shell at low range on whatever living thing they could find. There was no doubt about that; the boy had seen it happen. It was perfectly acceptable that Messner was no different from the rest of them; but when after a time Messner ceased moaning for an interval and lay rigid on his back and staring upward with quiet lips there did not seem very much difference in the appearance of the two men lying on the floor.
Reluctantly making fresh tea at last, the boy remembered that he ought to call Gregson. He went to the bottom of the companionway and shouted, âMr. Gregson, skipper, tea!â But there was no movement and no answering shout above the sound of rain. Also, as he looked upward and saw the rain flicking in steady white drizzle across the section of dark sky, he felt there was something odd about
The Breadwinner
, and when he had taken two or three steps up the companionway he saw what it was. He saw that Gregson had rigged a sail. The boy went slowly on deck and marvelled at this strange copper-brown triangle with a sort of reluctant wonder.
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