CHAPTER V
And swift tropic night smote the Arangi, as she alternately rolled
in calms and heeled and plunged ahead in squalls under the lee of
the cannibal island of Malaita. It was a stoppage of the south-east
trade wind that made for variable weather, and that made cooking on
the exposed deck galley a misery and sent the return boys, who had
nothing to wet but their skins, scuttling below.
The first watch, from eight to twelve, was the mate's; and Captain
Van Horn, forced below by the driving wet of a heavy rain squall,
took Jerry with him to sleep in the tiny stateroom. Jerry was weary
from the manifold excitements of the most exciting day in his life;
and he was asleep and kicking and growling in his sleep, ere
Skipper, with a last look at him and a grin as he turned the lamp
low, muttered aloud: "It's that wild-dog, Jerry. Get him. Shake
him. Shake him hard."
So soundly did Jerry sleep, that when the rain, having robbed the
atmosphere of its last breath of wind, ceased and left the stateroom
a steaming, suffocating furnace, he did not know when Skipper,
panting for air, his loin cloth and undershirt soaked with sweat,
arose, tucked blanket and pillow under his arm, and went on deck.
Jerry only awakened when a huge three-inch cockroach nibbled at the
sensitive and hairless skin between his toes. He awoke kicking the
offended foot, and gazed at the cockroach that did not scuttle, but
that walked dignifiedly away. He watched it join other cockroaches
that paraded the floor. Never had he seen so many gathered together
at one time, and never had he seen such large ones. They were all
of a size, and they were everywhere. Long lines of them poured out
of cracks in the walls and descended to join their fellows on the
floor.
The thing was indecent--at least, in Jerry's mind, it was not to be
tolerated. Mister Haggin, Derby, and Bob had never tolerated
cockroaches, and their rules were his rules. The cockroach was the
eternal tropic enemy. He sprang at the nearest, pouncing to crush
it to the floor under his paws. But the thing did what he had never
known a cockroach to do. It arose in the air strong-flighted as a
bird. And as if at a signal, all the multitude of cockroaches took
wings of flight and filled the room with their flutterings and
circlings.
He attacked the winged host, leaping into the air, snapping at the
flying vermin, trying to knock them down with his paws.
Occasionally he succeeded and destroyed one; nor did the combat
cease until all the cockroaches, as if at another signal,
disappeared into the many cracks, leaving the room to him.
Quickly, his next thought was: Where is Skipper? He knew he was
not in the room, though he stood up on his hind-legs and
investigated the low bunk, his keen little nose quivering
delightedly while he made little sniffs of delight as he smelled the
recent presence of Skipper. And what made his nose quiver and
sniff, likewise made his stump of a tail bob back and forth.
But where was Skipper? It was a thought in his brain that was as
sharp and definite as a similar thought would be in a human brain.
And it similarly preceded action. The door had been left hooked
open, and Jerry trotted out into the cabin where half a hundred
blacks made queer sleep-moanings, and sighings, and snorings. They
were packed closely together, covering the floor as well as the long
sweep of bunks, so that he was compelled to crawl over their naked
legs. And there was no white god about to protect him. He knew it,
but was unafraid.
Having made sure that Skipper was not in the cabin, Jerry prepared
for the perilous ascent of the steep steps that were almost a
ladder, then recollected the lazarette. In he trotted and sniffed
at the sleeping girl in the cotton shift who believed that Van Horn
was going to eat her if he could succeed in fattening her.
Back at the ladder-steps, he looked up and waited in the hope that
Skipper might appear from above and carry him up. Skipper had
passed that way, he knew, and he knew for two reasons. It was the
only way he could have passed, and Jerry's nose told him that he had
passed. His first attempt to climb the steps began well. Not until
a third of the way up, as the Arangi rolled in a sea and recovered
with a jerk, did he slip and fall. Two or three boys awoke and
watched him while they prepared and chewed betel nut and lime
wrapped in green leaves.
Twice, barely started, Jerry slipped back, and more boys, awakened
by their fellows, sat up and enjoyed his plight. In the fourth
attempt he managed to gain half way up before he fell, coming down
heavily on his side. This was hailed with low laughter and
querulous chirpings that might well have come from the throats of
huge birds. He regained his feet, absurdly bristled the hair on his
shoulders and absurdly growled his high disdain of these lesser,
two-legged things that came and went and obeyed the wills of great,
white-skinned, two-legged gods such as Skipper and Mister Haggin.
Undeterred by his heavy fall, Jerry essayed the ladder again. A
temporary easement of the Arangi's rolling gave him his opportunity,
so that his forefeet were over the high combing of the companion
when the next big roll came. He held on by main strength of his
bent forelegs, then scrambled over and out on deck.
Amidships, squatting on the deck near the sky-light, he investigated
several of the boat's crew and Lerumie. He identified them
circumspectly, going suddenly stiff-legged as Lerumie made a low,
hissing, menacing noise. Aft, at the wheel, he found a black
steering, and, near him, the mate keeping the watch. Just as the
mate spoke to him and stooped to pat him, Jerry whiffed Skipper
somewhere near at hand. With a conciliating, apologetic bob of his
tail, he trotted on up wind and came upon Skipper on his back,
rolled in a blanket so that only his head stuck out, and sound
asleep.
First of all Jerry needs must joyfully sniff him and joyfully wag
his tail. But Skipper did not awake and a fine spray of rain,
almost as thin as mist, made Jerry curl up and press closely into
the angle formed by Skipper's head and shoulder. This did awake
him, for he uttered "Jerry" in a low, crooning voice, and Jerry
responded with a touch of his cold damp nose to the other's cheek.
And then Skipper went to sleep again. But not Jerry. He lifted the
edge of the blanket with his nose and crawled across the shoulder
until he was altogether inside. This roused Skipper, who, half-
asleep, helped him to curl up.
Still Jerry was not satisfied, and he squirmed around until he lay
in the hollow of Skipper's arm, his head resting on Skipper's
shoulder, when, with a profound sigh of content, he fell asleep.
Several times the noises made by the boat's crew in trimming the
sheets to the shifting draught of air roused Van Horn, and each
time, remembering the puppy, he pressed him caressingly with his
hollowed arm. And each time, in his sleep, Jerry stirred
responsively and snuggled cosily to him.
For all that he was a remarkable puppy, Jerry had his limitations,
and he could never know the effect produced on the hard-bitten
captain by the soft warm contact of his velvet body. But it made
the captain remember back across the years to his own girl babe
asleep on his arm. And so poignantly did he remember, that he
became wide awake, and many pictures, beginning, with the girl babe,
burned their torment in his brain. No white man in the Solomons
knew what he carried about with him, waking and often sleeping; and
it was because of these pictures that he had come to the Solomons in
a vain effort to erase them.
First, memory-prodded by the soft puppy in his arm, he saw the girl
and the mother in the little Harlem flat. Small, it was true, but
tight-packed with the happiness of three that made it heaven.
He saw the girl's flaxen-yellow hair darken to her mother's gold as
it lengthened into curls and ringlets until finally it became two
thick long braids. From striving not to see these many pictures he
came even to dwelling upon them in the effort so to fill his
consciousness as to keep out the one picture he did not want to see.
He remembered his work, the wrecking car, and the wrecking crew that
had toiled under him, and he wondered what had become of Clancey,
his right-hand man. Came the long day, when, routed from bed at
three in the morning to dig a surface car out of the wrecked show
windows of a drug store and get it back on the track, they had
laboured all day clearing up a half-dozen smash-ups and arrived at
the car house at nine at night just as another call came in.
"Glory be!" said Clancey, who lived in the next block from him. He
could see him saying it and wiping the sweat from his grimy face.
"Glory be, 'tis a small matter at most, an' right in our
neighbourhood--not a dozen blocks away. Soon as it's done we can
beat it for home an' let the down-town boys take the car back to the
shop."
"We've only to jack her up for a moment," he had answered.
"What is it?" Billy Jaffers, another of the crew, asked.
"Somebody run over--can't get them out," he said, as they swung on
board the wrecking-car and started.
He saw again all the incidents of the long run, not omitting the
delay caused by hose-carts and a hook-and-ladder running to a cross-
town fire, during which time he and Clancey had joked Jaffers over
the dates with various fictitious damsels out of which he had been
cheated by the night's extra work.
Came the long line of stalled street-cars, the crowd, the police
holding it back, the two ambulances drawn up and waiting their
freight, and the young policeman, whose beat it was, white and
shaken, greeting him with: "It's horrible, man. It's fair
sickening. Two of them. We can't get them out. I tried. One was
still living, I think."
But he, strong man and hearty, used to such work, weary with the
hard day and with a pleasant picture of the bright little flat
waiting him a dozen blocks away when the job was done, spoke
cheerfully, confidently, saying that he'd have them out in a jiffy,
as he stooped and crawled under the car on hands and knees.
Again he saw himself as he pressed the switch of his electric torch
and looked. Again he saw the twin braids of heavy golden hair ere
his thumb relaxed from the switch, leaving him in darkness.
"Is the one alive yet?" the shaken policeman asked.
And the question was repeated, while he struggled for will power
sufficient to press on the light.
He heard himself reply, "I'll tell you in a minute."
Again he saw himself look. For a long minute he looked.
"Both dead," he answered quietly. "Clancey, pass in a number three
jack, and get under yourself with another at the other end of the
truck."
He lay on his back, staring straight up at one single star that
rocked mistily through a thinning of cloud-stuff overhead. The old
ache was in his throat, the old harsh dryness in mouth and eyes.
And he knew--what no other man knew--why he was in the Solomons,
skipper of the teak-built yacht Arangi, running niggers, risking his
head, and drinking more Scotch whiskey than was good for any man.
Not since that night had he looked with warm eyes on any woman. And
he had been noted by other whites as notoriously cold toward
pickanninnies white or black.
But, having visioned the ultimate horror of memory, Van Horn was
soon able to fall asleep again, delightfully aware, as he drowsed
off, of Jerry's head on his shoulder. Once, when Jerry, dreaming of
the beach at Meringe and of Mister Haggin, Biddy, Terrence, and
Michael, set up a low whimpering, Van Horn roused sufficiently to
soothe him closer to him, and to mutter ominously: "Any nigger
that'd hurt that pup. . . "
At midnight when the mate touched him on the shoulder, in the moment
of awakening and before he was awake Van Horn did two things
automatically and swiftly. He darted his right hand down to the
pistol at his hip, and muttered: "Any nigger that'd hurt that pup .
. ."
"That'll be Kopo Point abreast," Borckman explained, as both men
stared to windward at the high loom of the land. "She hasn't made
more than ten miles, and no promise of anything steady."
"There's plenty of stuff making up there, if it'll ever come down,"
Van Horn said, as both men transferred their gaze to the clouds
drifting with many breaks across the dim stars.
Scarcely had the mate fetched a blanket from below and turned in on
deck, than a brisk steady breeze sprang up from off the land,
sending the Arangi through the smooth water at a nine-knot clip.
For a time Jerry tried to stand the watch with Skipper, but he soon
curled up and dozed off, partly on the deck and partly on Skipper's
bare feet.
When Skipper carried him to the blanket and rolled him in, he was
quickly asleep again; and he was quickly awake, out of the blanket,
and padding after along the deck as Skipper paced up and down. Here
began another lesson, and in five minutes Jerry learned it was the
will of Skipper that he should remain in the blanket, that
everything was all right, and that Skipper would be up and down and
near him all the time.
At four the mate took charge of the deck.
"Reeled off thirty miles," Van Horn told him. "But now it is
baffling again. Keep an eye for squalls under the land. Better
throw the halyards down on deck and make the watch stand by. Of
course they'll sleep, but make them sleep on the halyards and
sheets."
Jerry roused to Skipper's entrance under the blanket, and, quite as
if it were a long-established custom, curled in between his arm and
side, and, after one happy sniff and one kiss of his cool little
tongue, as Skipper pressed his cheek against him caressingly, dozed
off to sleep.
Half an hour later, to all intents and purposes, so far as Jerry
could or could not comprehend, the world might well have seemed
suddenly coming to an end. What awoke him was the flying leap of
Skipper that sent the blanket one way and Jerry the other. The deck
of the Arangi had become a wall, down which Jerry slipped through
the roaring dark. Every rope and shroud was thrumming and
screeching in resistance to the fierce weight of the squall.
"Stand by main halyards!--Jump!" he could hear Skipper shouting
loudly; also he heard the high note of the mainsheet screaming
across the sheaves as Van Horn, bending braces in the dark, was
swiftly slacking the sheet through his scorching palms with a single
turn on the cleat.
While all this, along with many other noises, squealings of boat-
boys and shouts of Borckman, was impacting on Jerry's ear-drums, he
was still sliding down the steep deck of his new and unstable world.
But he did not bring up against the rail where his fragile ribs
might well have been broken. Instead, the warm ocean water, pouring
inboard across the buried rail in a flood of pale phosphorescent
fire, cushioned his fall. A raffle of trailing ropes entangled him
as he struck out to swim.
And he swam, not to save his life, not with the fear of death upon
him. There was but one idea in his mind. Where was Skipper? Not
that he had any thought of trying to save Skipper, nor that he might
be of assistance to him. It was the heart of love that drives one
always toward the beloved. As the mother in catastrophe tries to
gain her babe, as the Greek who, dying, remembered sweet Argos, as
soldiers on a stricken field pass with the names of their women upon
their lips, so Jerry, in this wreck of a world, yearned toward
Skipper.
The squall ceased as abruptly as it had struck. The Arangi righted
with a jerk to an even keel, leaving Jerry stranded in the starboard
scuppers. He trotted across the level deck to Skipper, who,
standing erect on wide-spread legs, the bight of the mainsheet still
in his hand, was exclaiming:
"Gott-fer-dang! Wind he go! Rain he no come!"
He felt Jerry's cool nose against his bare calf, heard his joyous
sniff, and bent and caressed him. In the darkness he could not see,
but his heart warmed with knowledge that Jerry's tail was surely
bobbing.
Many of the frightened return boys had crowded on deck, and their
plaintive, querulous voices sounded like the sleepy noises of a
roost of birds. Borckman came and stood by Van Horn's shoulder, and
both men, strung to their tones in the tenseness of apprehension,
strove to penetrate the surrounding blackness with their eyes, while
they listened with all their ears for any message of the elements
from sea and air.
"Where's the rain?" Borckman demanded peevishly. "Always wind
first, the rain follows and kills the wind. There is no rain."
Van Horn still stared and listened, and made no answer.
The anxiety of the two men was sensed by Jerry, who, too, was on his
toes. He pressed his cool nose to Skipper's leg, and the rose-kiss
of his tongue brought him the salt taste of sea-water.
Skipper bent suddenly, rolled Jerry with quick toughness into the
blanket, and deposited him in the hollow between two sacks of yams
lashed on deck aft of the mizzenmast. As an afterthought, he
fastened the blanket with a piece of rope yarn, so that Jerry was as
if tied in a sack.
Scarcely was this finished when the spanker smashed across overhead,
the headsails thundered with a sudden filling, and the great
mainsail, with all the scope in the boom-tackle caused by Van Horn's
giving of the sheet, came across and fetched up to tautness on the
tackle with a crash that shook the vessel and heeled her violently
to port. This second knock-down had come from the opposite
direction, and it was mightier than the first.
Jerry heard Skipper's voice ring out, first, to the mate: "Stand by
main-halyards! Throw off the turns! I'll take care of the
tackle!"; and, next, to some of the boat's crew: "Batto! you fella
slack spanker tackle quick fella! Ranga! you fella let go spanker
sheet!"
Here Van Horn was swept off his legs by an avalanche of return boys
who had cluttered the deck with the first squall. The squirming
mass, of which he was part, slid down into the barbed wire of the
port rail beneath the surface of the sea.
Jerry was so secure in his nook that he did not roll away. But when
he heard Skipper's commands cease, and, seconds later, heard his
cursings in the barbed wire, he set up a shrill yelping and clawed
and scratched frantically at the blanket to get out. Something had
happened to Skipper. He knew that. It was all that he knew, for he
had no thought of himself in the chaos of the ruining world.
But he ceased his yelping to listen to a new noise--a thunderous
slatting of canvas accompanied by shouts and cries. He sensed, and
sensed wrongly, that it boded ill, for he did not know that it was
the mainsail being lowered on the run after Skipper had slashed the
boom-tackle across with his sheath-knife.
As the pandemonium grew, he added his own yelping to it until he
felt a fumbling hand without the blanket. He stilled and sniffed.
No, it was not Skipper. He sniffed again and recognized the person.
It was Lerumie, the black whom he had seen rolled on the beach by
Biddy only the previous morning, who, still were recently, had
kicked him on his stub of a tail, and who not more than a week
before he had seen throw a rock at Terrence.
The rope yarn had been parted, and Lerumie's fingers were feeling
inside the blanket for him. Jerry snarled his wickedest. The thing
was sacrilege. He, as a white man's dog, was taboo to all blacks.
He had early learned the law that no nigger must ever touch a white-
god's dog. Yet Lerumie, who was all of evil, at this moment when
the world crashed about their ears, was daring to touch him.
And when the fingers touched him, his teeth closed upon them. Next,
he was clouted by the black's free hand with such force as to tear
his clenched teeth down the fingers through skin and flesh until the
fingers went clear.
Raging like a tiny fiend, Jerry found himself picked up by the neck,
half-throttled, and flung through the air. And while flying through
the air, he continued to squall his rage. He fell into the sea and
went under, gulping a mouthful of salt water into his lungs, and
came up strangling but swimming. Swimming was one of the things he
did not have to think about. He had never had to learn to swim, any
more than he had had to learn to breathe. In fact, he had been
compelled to learn to walk; but he swam as a matter of course.
The wind screamed about him. Flying froth, driven on the wind's
breath, filled his mouth and nostrils and beat into his eyes,
stinging and blinding him. In the struggle to breathe he, all
unlearned in the ways of the sea, lifted his muzzle high in the air
to get out of the suffocating welter. As a result, off the
horizontal, the churning of his legs no longer sustained him, and he
went down and under perpendicularly. Again he emerged, strangling
with more salt water in his windpipe. This time, without reasoning
it out, merely moving along the line of least resistance, which was
to him the line of greatest comfort, he straightened out in the sea
and continued so to swim as to remain straightened out.
Through the darkness, as the squall spent itself, came the slatting
of the half-lowered mainsail, the shrill voices of the boat's crew,
a curse of Borckman's, and, dominating all, Skipper's voice,
shouting:
"Grab the leech, you fella boys! Hang on! Drag down strong fella!
Come in mainsheet two blocks! Jump, damn you, jump!"
