IX

The Altair went down on the first of the ebb at half-speed. Colet had not seen those shores since he came up this very reach more years ago than he could accurately count. It does not heighten the present morning light to count years you seem to have lost. But it was twilight, he knew, when he was there last. Not much use peering backwards to discern what has lapsed into an old twilight. All the people who were with him then were shades in a lost year. He could not recognise them. There was a vague woman in a pale dress beside him, whose face he could not see now, but he could feel her consoling fingers rumpling his hair. Here it all was. And an old man stood up there, who, somehow, accorded with the dark and the sound of the warning river. He remembered how the grave murmuring stirred him, while all was still. Who was that old fellow? His dim tall figure was still there. But nobody knew his name. He could hear only Mr. Sinclair’s voice. No doubt about that. We live a dual existence. The people who talk to us in the present are unaware that we are not altogether with them. He was making two voyages now. If that chief officer were asked, he would give an emphatic opinion, which everybody would see was obviously right; but the truth isn’t as easy as that.

He paced the deck, and watched two landscapes unfold, one in an evening without a date, and another that their pilot was watching. He felt that the actual was of less potency, in spite of the spring sun, than the obscure land from which the sun had gone, where the people were so merged in a fading year that nothing of them remained but a gesture of affection and an absurdly solemn premonition about something he didn’t know. It looked as if the doctor who talked at breakfast was right. There is no chart for what is of enduring importance to us, and nobody talks of what is of most importance to us. Infinity cannot be charted. There are only private symbols, but they affect us more than the loud fussiness of the day. Perhaps, in a time not yet, even that aggressive officer on the Altair’s bridge would appear to be shadowy and significant to him. In what way? Mr. Sinclair’s voice could be heard again. He was addressing somebody in the bows, and his voice was like a gun’s. Jimmy saw some fun in that probability. It would not be easy to make an august memory of that redheaded man.

Something was happening. Of course, here was Gravesend. They had anchored. The day was still early. It would be easy to get back. The fellow in the white jacket approached him. “Mr. Sinclair would like to see you, sir. He’s in the chart-room.”

Jimmy went up. Sinclair held out his hand with an embarrassed smile. “I don’t know your name. You’ll excuse me if I’ve seemed inattentive. I’ve been rushed. The pilot will be leaving in ten minutes. He’s talking to the chief engineer. You can push off with him.”

He was assured that all was well. “Have you got an interesting voyage in front of you?”

“I haven’t. I’d stay ashore if I could. I’ve been in this old thing too long. Four years and two sets of owners. It’s time for a change, but she was turned round again so quickly this voyage that I didn’t get a chance to do anything about it.”

Mr. Sinclair now seemed slow and sad. He was opening and closing a pair of dividers. “Look here, I’m sorry I was so busy when you boarded us. No time for a drink, and all that. Things have gone in jumps the last day or two, and I never knew which way they’d jump. The owners, you know. The blessed owners. But perhaps you don’t know ’em. The present owners are worse than the last, and old Perriam was bad enough.”

“What!” muttered Jimmy, suddenly shocked; “did he own her?”

“Under another name. Did you know him?”

“Yes. I worked for him. I was in his office.”

Mr. Sinclair betrayed no interest. “You were?” He put down the dividers, and called to a sailor outside. “Go and see if the pilot is still with Mr. Gillespie.” He pushed back a chart and perched himself on the table. “I saw in a paper that the old swine is dead. Found dead in his office. About time, too. What was the matter with him; heart? Couldn’t have been. He hadn’t got one. What was it?”

Jimmy took a steady look at his watch. “So far as I know, it was a punch on the jaw.”

Mr. Sinclair looked up with amused interest. “No. It was a jolly good one then. Who hit him for us?”

“I did.”

Mr. Sinclair threw up an astonished leg and laughed. He laughed with his head thrown back, loudly and with complete abandon to his enjoyment. He slapped his raised leg with his hand. He was wiping his eyes when he turned to Jimmy, who was speaking to him.

“Please tell me what the paper said about it.”

“Eh? Oh, nothing much. I don’t remember. Said he was dead. That’s all. Found in his office, on the floor. Just dead. I say, what the devil are you doing here? It didn’t say anyone had hit him. I don’t believe it did.”

“Well, somebody did, and here he is, though God knows why.”

A sailor came to the door, and announced that the pilot was ready to go. Mr. Sinclair slid off the table, hesitated, and snapped his fingers. “All right, Wilson. Tell him⁠ ⁠… tell him there’s nobody for the shore.”

He turned to Jimmy. “You’d better be in no hurry. You want time for this. No harm in running round to Plymouth with us. The skipper knows you, doesn’t he? Nothing in it. A little loafing is all right. Besides,” he grinned, “old Perriam. That old dear. I want to hear all about it.”