II: CASTAWAY
On my return I married and put my savings into my father-in-law’s brush-making business, which was almost at once ruined, and I had to go to sea again. Government money had been got for the expedition I told you of, and I knew that pay would be higher on that account. I sent in an application, and, having an uncle well placed, was taken on as third officer. A dirty little gunboat had been put in commission, and directly I set eyes on her I knew the voyage would be unlucky. We were but three days out when we had trouble with the propeller shaft and were carried far north among the ugliest ice I ever saw, and narrowly escaped being caught in a floe. Fortunately we ran into a southward current in the nick of time and, with a fresh wind springing up, were quickly out of danger. However, the years of war had added another peril to those of nature. We fouled a mine among the islands of Smugland and were blown to bits. At the time I was standing near a number of petrol cans, and when I came to the surface of the water I found some of them floating near me. I tied six of them together and they made a tidy little raft, though it was very uncomfortable. On them I drifted for four days until hunger and thirst were too much for me and I swooned away. I was then past agony and my swoon was more like passing into an enchantment than a physical surrender.
I was not at all astonished, therefore, when I came to my senses to find myself in a bed with a man sitting by my bedside. Very glad was I to see him, and I cried out in a big voice:
“Kerbosh! If I ain’t got into heaven by mistake.”
The man shook his head sadly and said:
“Heaven? No.”
But I could not shake off the feeling that I was in Heaven. The man had long hair and a beard, and I could be pardoned for taking him for Peter. He wore a rough shift, a long kilt below his knees, and thick stockings, and by his elbow on a little table, was another stocking which he had been knitting. He gave me food and drink, and I at once felt stronger, but somewhat squeamish, so that the sense of hallucination clung about me. When I asked where I was, the man tiptoed to the door, opened it and listened, then returned to my bedside and said in a whisper:
“It is as much as my place is worth, but I would warn you as man to man to make good your escape while you may. As man to man, I say it, man to man.”
He was so terribly excited as he said this that I decided in my own mind that he was a harmless lunatic, one of the many whom the great wars had rendered idiotic. To humour him I repeated:
“As man to man.”
And I put out my hand. He seized it and said in a desperate voice:
“I am old enough to be your fa——”
Footsteps sounded on the stairs and in absolute terror he stopped, took up his knitting and plied the needles frantically.