The Cruise of The Breadwinner by H.E. Bates Page B

He had never seen it before. It gave to the dumpy, war-painted
Breadwinner
an exciting loftiness; it made her seem a larger ship. It even seemed to dwarf the enormous figure of Gregson, pressing his belly rather harder than usual against the wheel, the peak of his cap rather harder down on his head.
    â€œTea, Mr. Gregson,” the boy said. “Just made.”
    â€œAin’t got time!” Gregson roared at him.
    The boy stood in the attitude of someone stunned on his feet; he was more shocked than he had been by the sight of the dead engineer. He stared at the face of Gregson pressingitself forward with a sort of pouted savagery against the driving rain, eyes popped forward, chin sunk hard into doubled and redoubled folds of inflamed flesh on the collar of his jersey. It was some moments before he could think of anything to say.
    â€œJust ready,” he said at last. It did not seem remotely credible that Gregson could reject tea. “I can bring it up.”
    â€œAin’t got time I tell yer!” Gregson said. “Ain’t got time for nothing. That wind’s gittin’ up. Look at that sea too! Look at it! We gotta git them chaps in.”
    The boy turned and saw, for the first time since the shooting, what had happened to the weather. Rain and wind beating up the Channel had already ploughed the sea into shallow and ugly troughs of foam. The distances had narrowed in, so that the skyline was no longer divisible from the smoky and shortened space of sea. Overhead he saw lumpy masses of rain-cloud skidding north-eastward. “Another hour and it’ll blow your guts out!” Gregson said. “We went too far west. I knowed it.” He had nursed the old superstitions in his mind, placing them against events. The boy remembered the desperate sarcasms of the dead Jimmy, appealing for a second auxiliary, but he said nothing. It was too late now.
    â€œYou git below,” Gregson said, “and look after them two.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell, don’t stand there!”
    The boy was startled by the fury of Gregson’s words and turned instantly and went back to the companionway. As he did so he saw the covered heap of the dead engineer’s body, blackened now with rain, the blood washed into diluted and glistening blotches of crimson on the wet deck,and this forlorn heap of deathliness that somehow still did not seem dead brought back suddenly all the chaos and terror of the thing, all the nearness and all the pain. He went below in a cold black sweat and stood at the table and poured himself tea and drank it in hot violent gulps of relief. The boat had begun to sway a little, in short brisk lurches, still shallow. Already they were increasing and he knew they would not stop now. Soon she would pitch forward too, and if the wind rose enough she would fall into the regular violence of double pitch and roll that would not cease until she was within half a mile of shore.
    The tea did something to dispel the horror of memory. He drained the cup before becoming aware that other things were happening in the cabin.
    The English pilot had stretched out one hand until he could reach the table leg. By grasping the leg he had pulled himself, on the stretcher, a foot or two across the cabin floor. Now he could touch the German on the shoulder.
    â€œMessner,” he was saying. “Messner. I’m talking to you, Messner.”
    He looked up at the boy.
    â€œHe doesn’t answer me,” he said. “He’s been coughing and groaning like hell, and now he doesn’t answer.” He pulled at the German’s jacket. “Messner,” he said. “Messner.”
    The boy bent down by the German, who had turned his face away from the English boy. The blood he had been coughing up had now an amazing and frightening brightness on his jacket, the cabin floor and his white face. It was still fresh, and a new stream of it poured out of his mouth with sudden gentleness as