XI

The steward had warned Colet that they were at Plymouth, and he was by the rail, watching a thin mist change into the hills of a Devon morning, when Sinclair came along.

“No hurry, but the old man is aboard. Give him time to find himself, then go to him. I’ve had a talk with him.”

Captain Hale, in his shirtsleeves, but wearing a bowler hat, was in his cabin advising the steward how he desired his property to be stowed. When Jimmy entered the room his step had to be stretched over a mound of clothes. The captain showed no surprise at his presence. “Come in, Mr. Colet. Sinclair has reported to me.” He motioned the steward out of the cabin. “Come back in five minutes.”

They talked, but the captain never took his eyes off a stack of shirts on the floor. Jimmy got an impression that somehow there was a difficulty with the laundry. They were discussing that. Some collars were missing? Even the neat pile of clean linen before him did not appear to interest the captain very much. Perhaps it was only old stuff which had gone astray; not much good. A grey and shy little man. The captain stooped and picked up a garment; turned it about as though in depreciating examination. Neither of them spoke for so long a spell that Jimmy was on the nervous point of bringing the encounter to a close and, going out to find Sinclair arid a boat. The captain silently considered the garment in his hands.

“It’s irregular,” he murmured at last, as if in dispraise of those pants. “A bit off the course. But I can log it, I suppose.” He changed his regard to Colet, though not to his face; about as high as his knees. Merely comparing their pants?

“We leave as soon as our engineers are ready. They’ve uncoupled something below, but they won’t be long. Well, what will you do then? Go on with us?”

“What? Yes, if I may.”

“Well. It’s your affair. I suppose it’s in order. We’ll know some day. Only thing to do is what seems best at the time. I’ll see you at dinner.”

That night at dinner hardly a general word went across the table. The captain was new to the ship, and he presided over the soup as though he were not sure that the others would care for the stuff. “Too much onion in this, steward. Remember that.” Sinclair’s stern interest was fixed where nothing could be seen. He was merely performing a duty in eating, and he picked up his cap from a sideboard and left the saloon as though glad to get out of it. The captain and the chief engineer then conversed in undertones of some technical matters. Jimmy wished to learn to where in the world the ship was bound, but he had to do without it.

Yet, when he got away from that confinement with strangers who were talking apart and confidentially of much which he did not understand and more that he did not hear, and was alone on deck, their destination, wherever it was, did not loom importantly. It was incidental. They were outward bound. Enough for one day; and one day at a time. He leaned on the lee-rail, amidships, watching a distant light. That was the last spark of the old interests. It was low down. It was a wonder that it could persist. Sometimes it did go out, but reappeared, to attach and remind them. Then a big warm presence bringing the smell of a cheroot was beside him. He did not hear it approach. He smelt it first. A dark night. It said nothing. Occasionally the cigar glowed. The chief engineer? They didn’t know each other yet. That warm shadow also seemed to be contemplating the light. It remained there in solid ease for some time, but it did not speak. Then it stood up, and stretched. “Aye?” it soliloquised interrogatively; and then, as though in confirmation, “aye”; and that was all. Its place was empty.

So this, conjectured Jimmy, groping over his clammy door for its handle, is romance. There’s no fuss about it. You wouldn’t know it, unless you were told what it was. Altogether casual and insignificant; as if it were as silly as life itself.