Complete works of ford m.., p.733
Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 733
She had had the proud idea that rocking babies injured their brains. He could still hear the inflection of her voice as she told other mothers that Henry Martin had never been rocked.... That was the baby-raising craze those years....
Perhaps that was why he and the boys born about then were now the Lost Generation. They probably needed rocking to form their characters. Well, Providence was about to make up for it. He was going to be.... What was the old song?
‘Rocked in the cradle of the deep!’
His throat was deplorably dry, the missing beat of the engine exasperated his brain. He might go ashore in the little cove called St. Mejean where there was an estaminet: he might stop the engine and try sailing. There was a bright little breeze from behind.
If he went ashore it would look as if he were faltering in his purpose: if he took to sailing he would appear to be playing for delay. Besides he had not a penny in the world beside the hundred franc note in his bill-fold.... Hugh Monckton had not in the end returned the three hundred and ninety-four francs... was it three hundred and ninety-four? He could not remember. The momentary recollection of last night gave him pleasure. It reminded him of the dark girl. He wondered if she was wearing his ring or had hocked it. He would never know.
There were five bright sails in the bay before him. Pleasure craft. It was Sunday. There would be hundreds of them before the day was done. There was a very full-membered sailing boat club at a little place called Mourillon that had a seventeenth-century castle and a tiny harbour behind a mole. The little space of water was as thick with them as if they had been sardines in a tin. Before noon they would be all out and the bay would be as gay as Miami in a record season.
He was glad of it. It pleased him to think of going out of the world in a sort of watery Coney Island. Besides he might be seen to go overboard.... Then they would be fairly certain to look out for his body. It was his body he was anxious about.
Dreadful fear beset him at the thought of his last minute. He imagined that you struggled, suffocated. At last you breathed. What happened then? When the water entered your lungs? Apparently you died then. You became for the rest of the world no longer ‘he’ but ‘it.’ But what exactly happened to you? A desperate running together of thoughts. Panic? Regret? Your lungs no longer supplied your heart with air and the want of aeration of your blood stupefied your brain.
... So you died poisoned.... He had wanted to avoid dying poisoned. Poison distorted your face and caused pain like flame. Similarly he disliked the idea of cutting his throat. It would make you repulsive. So would death by shooting. Besides he had hocked his gun long ago.
He would not have been averse to putting his head inside a gas oven and turning on the gas. But he disliked the idea of dying in a room. He wanted to see a bright sky with his dying eyes.... And he had heard that the drowned had serene faces. He had never actually seen a dead man. Mother’s coffin had been screwed down before he reached Springfield from Dartmouth. He had imagined that that had been an act of spite on the part of father. But, of course, it had not been. He heard afterwards that mother had had a look of terrible agony and father wanted to spare his children.
He had misjudged father. Father had told the cook to cook Luxemburg-fashion and had taken his gold-headed cane out of the drawer immediately after he had come back from the funeral. That had looked like callousness. It hadn’t been. Long after, father had told Sister Carrie that he had done it as a tribute to mother. He had been so certain of her saintliness that he knew she had gone straight to Heaven. If he had had any doubt or considered that she had earned a period in Purgatory he would have waited till he thought that period had ended. But, in Heaven, she would see all things in the right light. She would see that Luxemburg-fashion cooking was the best for him, and that gold-knobbed canes became men of his generation. She would be glad when from the battlements in the sky she saw him eating his first plat de côte and Kramyk.
A queer old fellow, father - In some ways his mind worked singularly like his son’s.
Of course Henry Martin had thought that death by drowning would be the most painless.
He stopped the engine and throwing up one of the deck boards took out two heavy pigs of iron ballast. He dropped one into either pocket. That was to show that though he might be delaying his death he was still determined on it. After all there was no hurry. If he had set six o’clock for the hour of his rising he had set none for his death. And he had all eternity before him. And a lovely day. He had always luxuriated in that sort of brightness. He imagined that Heaven would be all sunlight and little bright objects.
As soon as the boat had lost way the scarlet, triangular sail bellied out nicely. Henry Martin had never ascertained what such sails were called in English. ‘Lateen’ he imagined. But he had a vague idea that lateen sails were made of rush. Probably that was wrong. He was pretty sure that the rig when there were several masts was called ‘felucca.’ A brave word, felucca. It made you think of Salee rovers, corsairs. He was familiar with the look of the rig from a set of nacred tea-trays that his mother had had. They showed Mediterranean scenes with the curved felucca yards bending romantically this way and that.
It was a nice rig. So extraordinarily easy to handle that he had often wondered why it was not used all the world over. This particular boat had the disadvantage that, when the sail was furled, if you had forgotten, or if you had not had time, to secure the yard it would swing round and round on the mast and might catch you a tidy crack if you were in the way - say in the rounded seat behind the joy-stick. Then it swung round again and caught you on the other side. Precisely like a vindictive boxer delivering a left and right.
That had happened to him three days ago, the nose of the yard catching him such a crack on each shoulder that he had two immense bruises on his upper arms.
He retreated to the stern where there was a tiller that he used instead of the motorwheel when the engine was not running. The stern seat was the more comfortable. You could stretch your legs to the full with one arm over the bar. It was one of his favourite positions. From there he could handle the sheet of the main-sail without getting up.
He lay for a long time with a completely vacant mind. The very high bow of the boat towered up to a sharp point and hid the greater part of the roads before him. It was complete luxury. This was how he had imagined it.
After a time the wind fell completely. The sail flapped now and then against the mast. Why not be delayed when you could suffer it in complete luxury? The sails of the approaching flotilla of pleasure seekers grew brighter and brighter. He could see them beyond the side of the port bow if he leaned his head over to one side. It pleased him to see them. They were like a gay fleet coming to lead him to a feast of garlands.
The sunlight grew whiter and more white. The day hung breathless. The sea was like a looking-glass: infinitely blue and getting bluer and ever more blue against the bright green of the promontory. He was by now well into the roads.
But, by Jove, the water was not blue between him and the mainland. It was a reddish chocolate. And opaque! There must have been an immense rainstorm somewhere in the mountains during the night. Old Marius Vial’s trombin. Henry Martin had seen the water looking like that once already after an immense storm, taking up exactly half the inlet so that, from above, it had seemed to be two streaks... of red-brown and blue. The storm had gone pounding along the foothills of the Alps and then out to sea beyond Hyères. Cyclonic! These storms with a circular itinerary were not unusual in that neighbourhood during early August. The amount of water that fell during one of them was incredible. You could tell that because though the actual number of days on which rain fell in that neighbourhood was the lowest in all Western Europe the rainfall itself was the highest in all France. It was of course practically the tropics.
A feeling of unease was coming over him. He felt as if someone was watching him from behind his back. That was absurd. But the feeling grew until it was as if the something was an immense feline creature. That was more absurd. You should not yield to these feelings. There was no knowing how your character might not deteriorate if you did!...
With his face looking backwards, his right hand, mechanically, but with frantic speed, released the sheet of the sail from its cleat. He had seen three boats against a grey curtain - slate grey triangles of supernatural leaden-whiteness! They had stood out against the leaden curtain. One: two: three! They had gone over, flat. One: two: three! It was incredible that they could have capsized. But the air was moaning for them.
The immense grey-black curtain towered up to the peak of the heavens. It advanced with unbelievable rapidity. Before it the white villas half hidden in the tropical trees, the fort of the top on Cap Brun, the white semaphore over the highest part of St. Mandrier - all these things sparkled and were distinct in the sunlight. When it reached them they disappeared. There was nothing but the leaden grey pall with the fringe of sea beaten into an agony of whiteness.
It threatened unimaginable horrors. It advanced with the speed of a racehorse. God knew what went on within it. Lightning tore it and glowed from within. The screams of the drowning were thin but incessant. Those three sails had gone over, flat, with the precision of flaps on the edge of a machine.... It was Hell that was advancing - the hell of primitive imagination.
If he could get the boat round! He had sprung to the engine. There was no time to let down the yard. The sail, let free, might not exercise much leverage. Not enough to turn that large boat over. The noise was now so great that he could not hear if the engine responded.... It had sounded out of order!...
It had sounded out of order. But, if he could not get her head round they were lost. Her stern was so low that those white seas would poop her, without a chance of escape. He jammed and jammed at the starting lever. He cursed but could not hear his oaths. The sounds advancing were like the screams of demoniac birds.... Like the scream of that bird. He did not dare to look behind him. He had been contemplating a sin — Hell was advancing on him.
She could never run before it. She had a trick of speed: she was a good filly. They must not be lost: they must not be lost. Time moved so slowly that when, in the now steaming heat he moved his hand from the wheel to wipe his wet forehead with the back it seemed to take whole minutes to get it up to his head.... One day is as a thousand years in hell. Then perhaps the engine was not refusing. It was time that had broken down.
There was a faint vibration on the wheel in his hands.... He felt his body sway back in his seat. If he could get her round. She must know she could never stand those seas on her broadside. She had way on. She was starting engrossedly over the still placid sea in the sunlight that was already livid.
He said:
‘Now for it, old girl.’
He pressed on the wheel a little but steadily. A big boat like that could not be turned very sharply. It was at any rate not one of her virtues. Besides, if that sea caught her heeling for the turn it would swamp her in a minute.
To his breathlessness her high bow moved slowly to the right. Along the flank of the mountain that is over Les Sablettes. Behind the inner harbour. A heavy, squarish mass of cloud was attached to the peak, going away to the right like a shock of hair. The bow moved round, obscuring in its deliberate motion, grey-white ravines and little trees each of which had its separate shadow. He was then in the shadow and chill of what was advancing. But out there the sunlight still fell. Objects were amazingly distinct: seven miles away. But the shadows were ink-black.
On the beach at Les Sablettes there would already be a thick, gay, unsuspecting crowd of Sunday holiday seekers. As they said there: You would not be able to smell the sea for the babies.... And unsuspecting!
She had come half round. The bows were obscuring the flowered gardens and the palms and pines of the mainland. He had made the inland turn. He would have preferred to make for the open, left-handed. But there might be some shelter near the land. He was about a mile out. People in white clothes were running in crowds along the smugglers’ path. Along the face of the rock.
Suddenly he looked at the approaching trombio. She was now broadside on to it and turning slowly. As if unconcernedly. Like a woman occupied with her cooking during a bombardment. He still lay back. Luxuriously! Leaning slackly on the tiller. He considered for a moment and then sprang for the wheel. The tiller might be jerked out of his hand in the approaching torrent.
That Thing of God appeared to go perfectly straight across the inlet. Like a great wall with a whitewashed foot. It towered completely up into invisibility. But, as she moved slowly round, he saw that the face of the wall was in vaporous motion. It was as if cloudy beings rushed violently to right or left or upwards. Or as if....
He said:
‘By God!’
It was now that he was taking his call before the mocking beings of the Universe. It was now... now... now that he was going behind the curtain.
As soon as she was round he had unthrottled the engine. The sea was now agitated. She had come alive. Under the new force she seemed to spring toward her doom. He discovered that he was panting.
Darkness descended on him. It came like a whip. With a roaring rush. The air was full of missiles. It was as if a hundred pails of wheat had been hurled at him. Just before the darkness he had looked at the compass. Whilst he could still see the land. By steering due east with a little south to allow for drift if the wind beat inshore he ought just to shave the headland behind which lay Carqueiranne. But he was blinded. Heavy veils of water were in his eyelashes as he shivered. They seemed glutinous, one succeeding another as he brushed them away with the back of his hand. The rain drove straight through his shirt. It was icy and impelled him to rage. He would best this damned imbecility of the elements.
And save the boat. It was as if she trusted him to save her. He exclaimed:
‘By God, she is the only friend I have.’
Damn all women! A woman by now would have been shrieking or fainting. Not Alice perhaps. But she had gone Lesbian.
The noise was as if a thousand lunatics were rubbing sheets of corundum paper one on the other. The rain was solid on his skin. It was as if he were at the bottom of the sea.
He remembered the little flask in his pocket: the one he had not offered to Hugh Monckton the night before. That was fiery, cheap stuff. Having drunk half of it he seemed to be on fire within and frozen outside. What pastry-cooks call a chaud-froid. It seemed to fill him with savage gaiety.
She was labouring slowly into the teeth of the wind. She took the short seas as if she were a hunter at a horse-show taking in and out fences. It was impossible to see what progress she made if she made any. He steered to the left, towards the land. Very gradually. She shipped a little water. He imagined himself to be about level with Cap Brun.
He knew all the beaches along there. But he was not enough of a sailor to know how she would take landing on the shingle in this sea. He was, however, certain that she would be all right if she struck a patch of sand. Or, if he got under the lea of Carqueiranne mole he might risk landing on the hard stones.
Suddenly land loomed up before him. Reddish perpendicular rocks with the spindrift shooting before it. She was going at it, nose on. And travelling rather fast.
That would not do. Even in smooth water she would stave her bows in if she charged red granite rocks. He wanted her to come off without a scratch, and he felt full of confidence that he could do it. He headed her seawards. It was no doubt the brandy that had given him confidence. But that did not matter. He caught, near his left hand in large white letters the word RESERVE. He must be within ten yards of the land but the water was deep there. He knew the place but not its name. He was more than half way back to Carqueiranne and he knew approximately the pace at which they were travelling.
Out of the shelter of the land the storm blew again more furiously. She began once more her gait of the jumping hunter. It made his teeth chatter. He reckoned it would cut her travelling down to about half. They would have to stand it for a full hour more.
The wind howled: the rain beat upon him: the engine ran well now. He could feel its pulsations on the wheel. The monotony grew insupportable. Once there was a moment of calm in the air. He put her at it, cramming in the gasoline. He imagined himself to have made three hundred yards at racing speed. Then she washed into it again. As if she had gone at.... What was it called? A bullfinch. The sort of hedge Hugh Monckton had said he was going to put his car at.
There must be a pocket of calm travelling in the middle of the storm. He thought they called it the cyclonic centre. That must mean they were in the middle of the disastrous affair. They would have to go through as much again as they had already gone through. He doubted if he could do it. He was insufferably weary and cold. His hands on the wheel ached with cramp. His eyes were painful with gazing into the wind. He would have given anything to lie down on dry land. On pine-needles.... What a hope! as Hugh Monckton had said.
The fumes of the brandy were surging up within him.
... You had to remember that his stomach must be quite empty. He had eaten nothing since dinner-time last night. He remembered to have read that, taken on an empty stomach brandy reached its maximum effect in a quarter of an hour. After that it acted as a soporific. Weakening you.
It was perhaps half an hour since he had taken that gulp. Then he must be feeling the weakening effect. That was damnable.
Suddenly he put her about. It was perhaps the recklessness of brandy. He must have underestimated her seaworthiness. The la Seyne boatbuilders probably knew their job and those waters. She was like a cork. Even when she was broadside on to the direction of the wind she shipped next to no water. Before the wind she fairly raced the wave crests.
