English fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, English
“When they get aboard, the coxswain tells Cloete to go aft along one side
of the ship and he would go along the other so as not to miss the
captain. . . And feel about with your hands, too, says he; he might have
fallen and be lying insensible somewhere on the deck. . . When Cloete
gets at last to the cabin companion on the poop the coxswain is already
there, peering down and sniffing. I detect a smell of smoke down there,
says he. And he yells: Are you there, sir? . . . This is not a case for
shouting, says Cloete, feeling his heart go stony, as it were. . . Down
they go. Pitch dark; the inclination so sharp that the coxswain, groping
his way into the captain’s room, slips and goes tumbling down. Cloete
hears him cry out as though he had hurt himself, and asks what’s the
matter. And the coxswain answers quietly that he had fallen on the
captain, lying there insensible. Cloete without a word begins to grope
all over the shelves for a box of matches, finds one, and strikes a
light. He sees the coxswain in his cork jacket kneeling over Captain
Harry. . . Blood, says the coxswain, looking up, and the match goes out.
. .
“Wait a bit, says Cloete; I’ll make paper spills. . . He had felt the
back of books on the shelves. And so he stands lighting one spill from
another while the coxswain turns poor Captain Harry over. Dead, he says.
Shot through the heart. Here’s the revolver. . . He hands it up to
Cloete, who looks at it before putting it in his pocket, and sees a plate
on the butt with _H. Dunbar_ on it. . . His own, he mutters. . . Whose
else revolver did you expect to find? snaps the coxswain. And look, he
took off his long oilskin in the cabin before he went in. But what’s
this lot of burnt paper? What could he want to burn the ship’s papers
for? . . .
Cloete sees all, the little drawers drawn out, and asks the coxswain to
look well into them. . . There’s nothing, says the man. Cleaned out.
Seems to have pulled out all he could lay his hands on and set fire to
the lot. Mad—that’s what it is—went mad. And now he’s dead. You’ll
have to break it to his wife. . .
“I feel as if I were going mad myself, says Cloete, suddenly, and the
coxswain begs him for God’s sake to pull himself together, and drags him
away from the cabin. They had to leave the body, and as it was they were
just in time before a furious squall came on. Cloete is dragged into the
life-boat and the coxswain tumbles in. Haul away on the grapnel, he
shouts; the captain has shot himself. . .
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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