waited a second or two. The long terror through which he was to reach the strangest salvation he had ever known began to grip him. He didn’t like his memory of the Third Officer’s tone. He had studied tones. He knew whether ‘That’s all right’ meant that it was or it wasn’t and whether ‘Come here’ meant a kiss or a kick. He knew that the Third Officer’s ‘That’s an order’ meant trouble.
This, however, was not the entire cause of Ben’s new anxiety. He had an instinct for the tone of a gale as well as the tone of a human being. The instinct was now informing him that the gale was ‘behaving funny.’ Possibly not another person on board received the warning in precisely the way Ben received it. As though to compensate in some degree for his colossal ignorance, he had been granted an uncomfortable sensitiveness to certain impending occasions. The sensitiveness was variously expressed in various parts of his anatomy. Itching knuckles—that meant general danger. Twitching knee-caps—that meant personal danger. A sort of tickle in his nose—that meant cheese in the vicinity. A violent throbbing of his ear-lobes—that meant the wind was about to behave funny. You couldn’t get away from it.
Well, no matter how one throbbed and tickled and twitched and itched, one could not remain behind a ventilator for ever; and so, creeping from a concealment no longer necessary, he skated—first uphill and then downhill—to the rails. He wanted to know whether he could see what the girl had thought she had seen, and devoutly hoped that he wouldn’t. The hope was so devout that at first he searched with his eyes shut. Then he opened them.
‘Vizerbility nil,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t see nothing!’
Nothing, that was, beyond the most unpleasant ocean he had ever gazed at. It seemed to be in a kind of white fright and to be attempting to escape from the low clouds and the tearing wind, but the wind was chasing it mercilessly, emitting sounds that clearly came from some elemental madhouse; and the rain was in its wake. In a few moments the rain would add its stinging dampness to the starboard bow.
‘Lumme, we’re goin’ ter git it!’ gulped Ben.
He turned to complete his interrupted journey. Perhaps it seemed a little footless now. The Captain on his bridge did not need the information of a fireman that the weather was not fine! But, having started on his ridiculous mission, Ben wanted to finish it. He had detached himself from normal, sensible routine, and he was like a bit of homeless, wind-blown chaff. Things beyond his power were buffetting him about, and he would have to go on being buffetted about until he was buffetted to rest.
He might have hesitated, however, if impulse had not caused him to turn his head for one more glance over the starboard bow, towards the oncoming rain. In that glance he saw what the girl had seen; and because it was closer, and because his eyes were more experienced, he interpreted it before it was wiped into oblivion again.
‘’Eving ’elp us!’ he gasped.
And he sped up the third companion-way to the boat deck.
As he did so the Junior Wireless Officer emerged from the wireless-room aft and began walking hurriedly towards him. The Junior Wireless Officer had a T T T message in his hand—a message which ranks second in importance to an S.O.S.—but Ben did not know this, nor would he have paused if he had. He paid no attention to the approaching officer, or to the notice that warned passengers and unauthorised persons away from the Captain’s deck, or to the unspeakable transgression of mounting the ladder without permission to the bridge. In a flash he was on the Captain’s deck and clambering up the ladder. The Junior Wireless Officer saw him, stopped dead for an instant, and then came forward again at increased speed.
The Captain also saw him. He was standing on the bridge with the First Officer, and he was looking very grim. His grimness increased tenfold as Ben’s head popped amazingly into view below him.
‘What the hell—!’ bawled the First Officer, speaking the Captain’s thoughts.
‘Something ter report, sir!’ Ben bawled back.
As his head rose higher the First Officer seized it and spun it. Ben felt like a top. He had not finished spinning before he received a fresh impetus from below, and found himself projected towards the starboard cab. It was the Junior Wireless Officer, mounting the ladder at express speed.
The Junior Wireless Officer’s voice, however, was contrastingly composed. The wireless-room permits itself pace, but never panic.
‘Navigation Warning, sir,’ said the Junior Wireless Officer, saluting and holding out his envelope.
The Captain took it and opened it.
‘Hallo—floating wreckage,’ he exclaimed, glancing at the First Officer. ‘Latitude—’
‘Lattertood ’Ere and Lojitood ’Ere!’ bellowed Ben. ‘Unner the surface—water-logged—I jest seed it orf the starboard bow!’
Then the starboard bow got it.
Ben never learned what happened immediately after the submerged wreckage struck the ship, for the impact toppled him over to the deck just beneath the bridge, and the suddenly descending rain pinned him there with the effectiveness of a vast moist weight. He never learned that, although water poured through the wound in the ship’s side, flooding it with devastating rapidity, shifting cargo, bursting fresh cracks, and eventually sending the ship to its doom, not a single life was lost. That was another story, not Ben’s; and, incredible though it was, Ben’s story was the more incredible. Indeed, since Ben was destined like the rest to continue life, no one could have predicted the circumstances that coupled his continued existence with such enduring ignorance.
Above him, as he lay on the edge of his biggest adventure, the Captain was staggering to his feet. The Captain, the First Officer, and the Junior Wireless Operator had also been bowled over, and the two former had only one thought in their minds. The Captain was the first to regain himself and act upon it. He staggered towards the lever that worked the water-tight doors. He was too late, however. His half-blinded eyes watched the indicator move to ‘Quarter-shut’ and ‘Half-shut’—and there it stopped. ‘Three-quarters-shut’ and ‘Shut’ were unattainable goals. Something had jammed.
Below, human pandemonium joined the pandemonium of the elements. It is perhaps less discreditable than is popularly imagined by critics in comfortable arm-chairs that certain people should develop panic during the first moments of a wreck. In this case the damage had occurred with nerve-shattering suddenness, and quite a number of folk lost their heads. It was during this preliminary period, which would have spelt complete chaos had it endured, that two incidents occurred beyond the control of a ship’s discipline.
The first incident occurred at one of the boats. There was a mad, unintelligent rush for it. A few people scrambled in. The Third Officer, followed by Ruth Sheringham whom he had been conducting inside when the crash occurred, did his best to stem the rush, and then to organise it. ‘Yes, get in, get in!’ he shouted to the hesitating girl. As she climbed she stumbled, and he lurched forward to her assistance. The mad crowd behind him carried him forward with her. The ship heaved, the boat swung outwards, partly through the violent movement of the ship and partly through the insane work of clumsy, frenzied hands at the davits. Something gave way. The boat slid down, and the ocean rose dizzily to meet it. As the boat smacked the
