Patrick White - The Fringe of Leaves

As the Roxburghs looked on and waited they did as they had been told by Spurgeon. Although Mrs Roxburgh almost revolted in swallowing a lump of rancid fat, and splinters of lean stuck between their teeth, the wholly physical act of chewing began to pacify their squeamish souls. The biscuit was more austere than the meat, but responded to gnawing and sucking; reduced to a wholly insipid pap, it trickled down easily enough, and encouraged a sense of melancholy fulfilment in revived stomachs.

In the course of the afternoon the crew finished patching the damaged boat, with lead, leather, and scraps of blanket, their handiwork copiously daubed with pitch. It was past five by the time the boats were clear of the wreck. Mr Pilcher, in charge of the pinnace, had with him the boatswain, four seamen, and a lad, while Captain Purdew in the long-boat was accompanied by his first officer, the steward, a carpenter, five seamen, the boy Oswald Dignam — and the two passengers in addition. As the boats parted from Bristol Maid none of the survivors was able to believe that any of this had truly happened, so their dazed eyes seemed to express, their mouths either clenched, tight and resentful, or hanging slack with a look of watery injury.

Of all the company, Mrs Roxburgh was perhaps the most deeply moved: to be ejected thus from the cramped cabin and rather inhospitable saloon which her own moods, thoughts, and attempts at occupation had furnished as a dwelling place. Now she could not bear to visualize even the lumpy palliasse on which she had learnt to sleep, or the mirror in which her face had floated, often unconvincingly, amongst the frosting and the blemishes.

Here they were, however, in long-boat and pinnace. Mr Courtney was using his quadrant to make calculations, as the result of which, a course was set for the mainland, an estimated thirty miles to the west.

‘Bye-bye, Bristol Maid !’ a seaman aboard the long-boat shouted from the depths of his lungs.

He began at once to laugh and cough, exposing the ruins of some brown teeth set in expansive though bloodless gums, the tendons in his neck showing in relief like a protective bulwark.

Mrs Roxburgh decided not to turn her head, much as she was drawn to the hulk they were abandoning.

Despite the presence of gentry the crews of the rival boats started shouting ribaldries at one another. The burr and clash of their men’s voices seemed to give them courage.

‘See you in Wapping, Nat!’ yelled a tiger from the pinnace.

‘We’ll wap in other parts afore we ever see bloody Wappin’!’ answered a hitherto speechless youth.

‘Ay,’ a grizzled fellow beside him snuffled back the snot in his pug’s nose, ‘there’ll be rocks aplenty with shag on ’en for those who fancies.’

The men fell into a gloom after that. Whether the object of their outburst was to disguise tender feelings in themselves, or to shock a lady they had at their mercy, they failed either way; for the lady, who showed no signs of being hard of hearing, continued taking a clear-eyed if somewhat exaggerated interest in the empty sea surrounding them.

If Ellen Gluyas resented their obscenities it was on account of Mr Roxburgh: that his sensibility might be offended, or that he should suspect her of countenancing ‘men’s talk’. But he gave no indication of having heard or understood, and soon they were all immersed in preoccupations of greater moment.

The sea which had appeared gentle enough as they drew away from the wrecked ship slapped at the boat’s sides with increasing vigour, and a stately ice-pudding of a cloud evolved less passive forms and blacker intentions as it was moved towards them. The gold of a rampant sun and the threatening obscurity of storm and night offered an intolerable contrast to the more fearful among the castaways. Any of those who looked her way saw such a substantial Bristol Maid it pierced their conscience to know that they were abandoning her. Heeled over as she was on the reef, the little ship held firm, even when the sea raised a great white arm and brought it crashing down across her bows.

The restraint she had been taught to cultivate made it difficult for Mrs Roxburgh to cry, when Ellen Gluyas would probably have blubbered out loud, for witnessing something of the slow death of a ship. But Mrs Roxburgh did at last gently weep, hoping that none of the men, least of all Mr Roxburgh, would see.

‘Ma’am, look! Yer shawl’s trailin’ over th’ gunnel. ’Tis soaked!’ It was Oswald Dignam’s voice; he had wormed close, then closer she noticed, since boarding.

‘Oh,’ she sighed, ‘the shawl,’ and smiled at the boy like the benevolent patroness she was expected to be.

She had bundled the shawl over an arm, and forgotten about it. Now she hauled it in and wrung out the water from the drowned fringe.

‘Thank you, Oswald. But will it, I wonder, matter?’

Because he did not altogether understand, and was afraid of damaging a delicate relationship, he did not answer.

The boats were blown on their reckless course.

Mrs Roxburgh realized that water had seeped beyond the soles into the uppers of her boots.

‘Mr Roxburgh,’ she asked, ‘have you wrapped up?’

The crew sat staring at the passengers with a half-dreamy incredulity bordering on insolence.

‘Yes,’ he assured her, baring his teeth in the convention of a smile.

The sun was blinding in its last moments. It provided Austin Roxburgh with an excuse for closing his eyes and shutting out at least the visible signs of his wife’s solicitude for him. What he could not shut out was the sight of Captain Purdew. So he opened them again. Did this scarecrow of a man, under whose command they had placed themselves, still possess the wits and the self-respect required in an emergency? Involved in a personal disaster, the loss of his ship, the captain sat grinning at the horizon, until suddenly taking off his cap, and producing a comb, he started attacking his surviving strands of hair.

Something occurred so forcibly to Mrs Roxburgh that she elbowed her husband in the ribs, twisting and turning in the cramped space in which she was sitting. ‘Mr Roxburgh,’ she called, although he was beside her, ‘where is the bag?’ as she felt or kicked around with sodden feet for the dressing-case which should have been there.

He answered slowly, ‘I’ve forgot it, I think. But what use, Ellen, would it be?’ The fragment of a so-called ‘memoir’, the bilious journal! (His Elzevir Virgil was buttoned safely inside the bosom of his coat.)

Again Mr Roxburgh bared his teeth.

‘Oh dear!’ She began openly to cry, however he might deplore the show she was making of them. ‘The bag! We have so little!’

Like a lover, the boy could not gaze at her enough.

‘Ellen! Ellen!’ Mr Roxburgh coaxed.

None of those who were listening understood, least of all Captain Purdew, his eyes trained on distance in the abstract, or the pinnace ploughing on ahead.

Mr Roxburgh had taken his wife’s hand, plaiting his fingers together with hers, grinding the rings into them. It was a source of deep interest to the boy. He watched until darkness came down upon their heads.

It was becoming evident, not only to the sailors, but to the landsmen in their midst, that the long-boat was barely seaworthy. Her jury-rig was of little more use than a broken wing to a bird, and in the absence of a rudder, a boat’s oar had to be pressed into service. By their first dawn, with the sleep still sticky on their faces, the most optimistic of the company could not very well ignore the fact that their vessel was leaky. So that bailing was included in the orders for the day. Those who were detailed for the duty set to it, not so much with a will, as with the hope that monotony would drug their minds. The Roxburghs were secretly glad of a forced labour in which they might join. Mr Roxburgh even discovered a method which he first demonstrated to his wife, and later went so far as to explain to members of the crew. (Ellen Gluyas simply bailed, head bowed almost to her knees; until the random twinge of pain began darting through the disused muscles of her back.)