V. Getting ready for action

When Gray came up to the deck of the Secret, he stood motionless for several minutes, running his hand over his hair from behind to the forehead in a gesture of utter confusion. Distraction – cloudy emotional impulses – reflected in the blank smile of a sleep-walker on his face. At that time Panten, his mate, was going along the quarterdeck with a plate of fried fish. When he saw Gray he noted the captain’s strange state of mind.
“Have you hurt yourself, perhaps?” he asked cautiously. “Where have you been? What have you seen? However, that is none of my business, of course. There is a broker who offers a remunerative freight with a bonus. Oh, but what’s the matter with you?..”
“Thank you,” Gray said, heaving a sigh, like one who had just been untied. “Your homely clever voice was just what I needed. It’s like cold water. Panten, tell the crew that today we are weighing anchor and moving into the mouth of the Liliana, about ten miles from here. Its stream alternates with shoals everywhere. We can get into the mouth only from the sea. Come and take the map. Do not take a pilot. That is all for the time being... Oh, yes, the remunerative freight is as important for me, as snows of yester-year. You may tell that to the broker. I am going to town where I’ll stay till the evening.”
“What on earth has happened?”
“Absolutely nothing, Panten. I want you to take into consideration my wish to avoid all sorts of questions. When the right moment comes, I will let you know of what it’s all about. Tell the sailors that we are going to do some repairs and that the local dock is occupied.”
“Very good, sir,” Panten said vacantly at the back of Gray who was going away. “Everything will be carried out.”
Though the captain’s orders were clear enough, the mate opened his eyes wide and rushed anxiously to his cabin with the plate in his hand, muttering: “You’ve been puzzled, Panten. Does he want to try smuggling? Are we going to set out under the black flag of piracy?” But at that point Panten was lost in the most outrageous conjectures. While he was doing away with the fish in nervous excitement, Gray came down into his cabin, took some money and crossed the bay to make his appearance in the shopping blocks of Liss.
Now he acted with resolution and calm, being aware in detail of everything, which he would face with on his marvellous way. His every motion, a thought or an action, warmed him up with delicate enjoyment as if he created a work of art. His plan took shape instantly and vividly. His notions of life were subjected to the last stroke of a chisel after which marble looked serene in its beautiful magnificence.
Gray visited three shops, attaching particular importance to the exactness of his choice, as he already saw the right colour and tint in his thoughts. In the first two shops they showed him silks of flashy colours meant to satisfy unpretentious vain tastes. In the third one he found patterns of composite colour effects. The owner of the shop bustled about readily, spreading out his unsold materials, but Gray was as serious as an anatomist. He examined the rolls patiently. He put aside, unrolled and looked through such a great number of scarlet lengths that the counter heaped up with them seemed to be just about to blaze up. A purple wave fell over the toe of Gray’s high boot. A pink reflection shone on his hands and face. Rummaging in slightly resistant silk, he distinguished the colours: red, pale pink and dark pink ones, rich flashes of cherry, orange and sombre reddish-brown hues. There were tints of various intensity and meaning that differed in their sham likeness like the words “charming”, “beautiful”, “splendid” and “perfect”. The folds exposed the shades that were too difficult for the language of vision. But the true scarlet colour did not rise before the captain’s eyes for a long time. What the shop-keeper brought was good, but it did not provoke his clear and firm “yes”. At last one colour attracted the buyer’s disarmed attention. He sat down in an armchair by the window, drew a long end out of the silk, rustling in his hands, threw it about on his knees and settled back with a pipe in his mouth in motionless contemplation.
The colour, which was absolutely pure like a scarlet stream of morning and which was full of noble mirth and splendour, was just the very majestic colour that Gray had been searching for. There were no mixed tints of fire or poppy-petals, no violet or lilac shades playing in it. There was neither blue nor any other shadow – nothing that gave rise to doubt. It glowed like a smile with its charm of a reflected spiritual life. Gray was so lost in thought that he forgot about the shopkeeper, who was waiting behind his back as strained as a gun dog at point. Being tired of waiting, the tradesman reminded of himself by tearing off a piece of material.
“It’s enough of patterns,” Gray said, standing up. “I will take this silk.”
“The whole length?” the tradesman asked with respectful doubt. But Gray looked in his face without a word, so the shop-keeper became a little more free-and-easy. “How many metres will you take then?”
Gray nodded, asking him to wait a little, took a pencil and calculated the required amount on a sheet of paper.
“Two thousand metres.” He looked over the shelves with doubt. “Yes, no more than two thousand metres.”
“Two?” the shopkeeper asked, jumping up convulsively as if he were on springs. “Thousand? Metres? Won’t you sit down, captain! Would you like to have a look at the materials of the latest pattern? Well, as you wish. Here are matches, here is a fine tobacco. Help yourself, please! Two thousand... Two thousand at...” He told a price which bore as much relation to the real one as an oath did to a simple “yes”. But Gray was satisfied as he did not feel like bargaining anyway. “It’s the amazing silk, the best kind of it,” the shopkeeper went on. “The article is beyond comparison. Only in my shop you can find that sort of thing.”
When at last he became exhausted of his own ecstasy, Gray made arrangements about the delivery, taking upon himself all the expenses. He paid the bill and left honoured and escorted to the door by the shopkeeper as if he were a Chinese king. Meanwhile, across the street, where the shop was, a vagrant musician, having tuned his cello, made its light stick sound sadly and beautifully. A flutist, his companion, strewed the singing of the strings with modulations of guttural piping. Their simple song, which filled the courtyard, slumbering in the heat, reached Gray’s ears and he understood at once what he should do next. Generally speaking, all those days he was equal to the lucky spiritual vision that allowed him to make out all hints and prompts of the reality distinctly. When he heard those sounds drowned in the rumble of carriages passing by, he went into the focus of the most important impressions and thoughts caused by the music in conformity with his character. He already felt why everything he intended to do would be good and how good it would be. Having passed the side street, Gray went through the gate to the courtyard where the musical performance took place. By that time the musicians were about to leave. The tall flutist, with an air of downtrodden dignity, was gratefully waving his hat at the windows from which coins fell. The cello had already gone back under the arm of its owner who, wiping his sweaty forehead, was waiting for the flutist.
“Well, if it isn’t you, Zimmer!” Gray addressed him, as he identified him with the fiddler who entertained sailors, the visitors of the Cash Down tavern, with his beautiful playing in the evenings. “How could you have given up your violin?”
“My dearest captain,” Zimmer returned complacently, “I play everything that sings or rings. When I was young I was a musical clown. Now I am longing to art and I see, to my sorrow, that I’ve ruined an outstanding gift. That is precisely why I love both viol and fiddle at once, out of my belated eagerness. I play the cello in the day-time and the violin in the evenings, as though mourning and sobbing over my lost talent. Won’t you treat us to a glass of liquor, eh? The cello is my Karmen while the violin is...”
“Asoule,” Gray said.
Zimmer did not catch what he said.
“Yes,” he nodded assent. “A solo on cymbals or on copper trumpets – that’s another matter. What is it to me, though?! Let jack puddings of art show off. I know that fairies always take refuge in a violin and a cello.”
“And what is concealed in my “tur-lyur-lyu”?” the flutist, a stalwart lad with blue sheep’s eyes and a fair beard, asked, coming up. “Now then, can you tell me?”
“It’s up to how much you’ve drunk from the morning. Sometimes it’s a bird and sometimes it’s fumes of alcohol. Captain, this is my companion Dousse. I’ve told him how you squander gold coins when you drink and he’s loved you without seeing.”
“Yes,” Dousse said. “I like a fine gesture and an open hand. But I am sly, don’t believe my gross flattery.”
“Now look here,” Gray said laughing. “I am pressed for time and the matter brooks no delay. I offer you to earn some good money. Get me an orchestra, but not one consisting of fops with their ceremonial lifeless faces who, in their musical pedantry or, what is still worse, in their sound gastronomy, forgot about the soul of music, mortifying stages quietly with their complicated noises. No! Get me some of your people who make simple hearts of cooks and servants weep. Get your vagrant musicians. Sea and love do not stand pedants. I would gladly sit and split not a single bottle with you, but I have to go. I have many things to do. Take this and drink to the letter A. If you like my proposal, come aboard the Secret this evening. She lies not far away from the head dam.”
“Agreed!” Zimmer exclaimed, as he knew that Gray paid like a tsar. “Dousse, bow, say “yes” and toss up your hat with joy! Captain Gray is going to get married!”
“Yes, I am,” Gray said simply. “I’ll tell you all the details on board the Secret. And you...”
“To the letter A!” Dousse nudged Zimmer and winked at Gray. “But... there are so many letters in the alphabet! You should grant anything for phi too...”
Gray gave some more money. The musicians left. Then he called at a commission office and gave a secret assignment for a big sum to be fulfilled urgently, in the course of six days. At the same time that Gray was going back to his ship, the agent of the office was already boarding a steamer. Towards evening the silk was delivered. There were five sailmakers that Gray had hired, with the sailors aboard. Wingy had not returned yet, nor had the musicians arrived. Pending them, Gray went to have a talk with Panten.
It should be noted that Gray had sailed with the same members of the crew for several years. At first the captain puzzled the sailors with his whimsical unexpected voyages and stops, sometimes lasting for months, at the most unmarketable and uninhabited places. But little by little they were inspired with Gray’s “grayism”. He often sailed with ballast only, refusing to take a remunerative freight merely because he did not like the cargo offered. Nobody could persuade him to ship soap, nails, machinery parts and other things that lay in the holds in gloomy silence, giving raise to the lifeless pictures of dull necessity. But he was glad to load fruit, china, animals, spices, tea, tobacco, coffee, silk and valuable sorts of wood such as ebony, sandal and palm. All that answered the aristocratism of his imagination and created a vivid atmosphere. No wonder that the Secret crew, brought up in such a spirit of originality, looked slightly down on all other ships shrouded in the haze of trivial gain. This time, however, Gray read questions in their physiognomies. Even the most slow-witted of his sailors knew perfectly well that there was no need to carry out repairs in the bed of a forest river.
Panten had certainly informed them of Gray’s order. When the latter came in, his mate had been finishing the sixth cigar, pacing up and down his cabin, stupefied from the thick smoke, and bumping against the chairs. Evening was coming. A goldish beam of light penetrated through the open porthole and lit up the glossy peak of the captain’s cap.
“Everything is ready,” Panten said gloomily. “We can weigh anchor, if you wish.”
“You should know me slightly better, Panten,” Gray remarked gently. “There is no secret in what I am doing. As soon as we drop anchor on the bottom of the Liliana, I’ll tell you everything and then you won’t waist so many matches on bad cigars. Go and weigh anchor.”
Panten, grinning awkwardly, scratched his eyebrow.
“So it is, to be sure,” he said. “It’s all right with me anyway.”
When he went out, Gray sat for a while, looking fixedly at the half-open door, and then went to his cabin. There he sat first and then lay down. At one moment, lending his ear to the creak of the windlass rolling out the ringing chain, he was about to go out to the forecastle. But at another he became lost in thought again, went back to the table and drew a straight quick line on the oilcloth with his finger. A punch on the door took him out of his maniacal state. He turned the key and let Wingy in. The sailor stood, panting, with the air of a messenger who had arrived just in time to prevent an execution.
“Fly like a fly, Wingy, I said to myself,” he burst out speaking, “when I saw from the cable pier our lads dancing around the windlass and spitting on their palms. I have a sharp eye. And so I flew. I breathed so hard down the boatman’s neck that he broke into a sweat from agitation. Captain, were you going to leave me ashore?”
“Wingy,” Gray said looking attentively at his red eyes, “I’ve expected you no later than this morning. Have you poured cold water on the back of your head?”
“Yes, I have. Not as much as I had taken inwards, but I’ve poured some. Everything is done.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I don’t need to tell about it, captain. All is written down right here. Take and read it. I’ve tried my best. I’ll go away.”
“Where?”
“I see from the reproachful eyes of yours that I have poured not enough cold water on the back of my head yet.”
He turned round and went out with queer movements of a blind man. Gray unfolded the sheet of paper. A pencil must have marvelled when it traced out all those hieroglyphs, which resembled a rickety fence. Here is what Wingy wrote: “According to the instruction. After five o’clock I walked along the street. The house has a grey roof, two windows on each side and a kitchen garden attached to it. The aforesaid person came out twice: for water, once, and for kindlings, second. When it grew dark I cast a covert glance into the window, but saw nothing by reason of a curtain.”
Then there were some notes of family matters which Wingy seemed to have got by means of a table-talk, as the memorandum ended rather unexpectedly with the words: “On account of expenses I added a bit of my own.”
But the essence of the report added nothing to what we have learnt from the first chapter. Gray put the sheet of paper into his bureau, whistled for the watchman and sent for Panten. But, instead of his mate, the boatswain Atwood presented himself, pulling down his rolled-up sleeves.
“We’ve made fast by the dam,” he said. “Panten sent me to find out what you want. He is busy: some people with trumpets, drums and all that sort of musical stuff are attacking him. Did you invite them aboard the Secret? Panten asks you to come. He says, his mind is in a haze.”
“Yes, Atwood,” Gray said. “I invited the musicians indeed. Go and tell them to go to the crew’s quarters for now. We’ll see later where to settle them. Atwood, tell them and the crew that I’ll come out on the deck in a quarter of an hour. I want all of them to be there. Of course, you and Panten will also listen to what I’ve got to say.”
Atwood cocked his left eyebrow, stood, half-turned by the door for a while, and went out. Gray spent ten minutes with his face buried in his hands. He neither prepared for anything nor calculated anything. He wanted to be mentally silent for a while. Meanwhile, everybody was already waiting for him impatiently with curiosity full of conjectures. He went out and read in their faces an expectation of unbelievable things. But since he considered everything, that was happening, quite natural, he was slightly annoyed by the emotional tension of the others.
“There’s nothing out of the way,” Gray said, sitting down on the bridge ladder. “We will stay in the mouth of the river until we change all the rigging. You’ve seen that red silk has been brought. It will be used, under the guidance of master sailmaker Blent, to make new sails for the Secret. Then we will set off, but I won’t tell you where. Anyway, it will be not far from here. I am going to my wife. She is not my wife yet, but she will be one. I need scarlet sails so that she could notice me yet from a distance, as it has been arranged. That’s all. As you see, there is nothing mysterious about it. And that’s enough of that.”
“Well,” Atwood said, seeing from the sailors’ smiling faces that they were puzzled and pleased and too embarrassed to speak. “So that is what it’s all about, captain... We cannot judge such things, of course. It will be the way you wish. I congratulate you.”
“Thank you!” Gray squeezed the hand of the boatswain, who made a supreme effort and in turn pressed his hand so tight that the captain had to give in. Then everybody came up, one after another, looking with shy warm-heartedness and mumbling their congratulations. No one shouted or made a fuss. The sailors felt that there was something not quite ordinary in the short-spoken words of the captain. Panten sighed with relief and cheered up – his heart was not heavy any more. Only the shipwright remained displeased with something. He held Gray’s hand inertly in his own one for a while and asked gloomily: “How has it come into your mind, captain?”
“It has come like a stroke of your axe,” Gray said. “Zimmer! Show me your boys.”
The fiddler, clapping the musicians on their backs, pushed forward seven men dressed extremely untidily.
“Well,” Zimmer said, “this one plays the trombone. He does not actually play – he booms like a cannon. These two callow youths play the trumpets. When they begin to play, you feel like fighting right away. Then comes the clarinet, the cornet-a-piston and the second violin. All of them are great experts at getting round the playful first violin, that is to say, me. And here is the chief master of our jolly trade – Fritz, the drummer. Drummers, you know, usually have a disappointed air, but this one beats with dignity and enthusiasm. In his playing there is something overt and straight, like his drumsticks. Is everything done right, captain Gray?”
“Perfectly right,” Gray said. “All of you will get settled in the hold. So this time it will be loaded with various “scherzos”, “adagios” and “fortissimos”. You may break up. Panten, cast off and set out. I will relieve you in two hours.”
He did not notice those two hours, since they passed in the same inward music that had become as much a part of his consciousness as pulse is a part of arteries. He thought about one thing, wanted one thing, strove for one thing. A man of action, he looked ahead of the course of events in his thoughts, being sorry only that he could not move them forward as quickly and easily as one moved draughts. Nothing in his calm appearance revealed his emotional strain, which, like a huge bell ringing over his head, resounded in the whole of his being as a deafening nervous moan. That finally drove him into such a state when he began to count to himself: “One... two... thirty...” and so on, until he reached “one thousand”. Such an exercise had its effect: at last he was able to take a detached view on the whole undertaking. At that point he was rather surprised, as he could not imagine the inner life of Asoule since he had never even talked to her. He had read somewhere that it was possible, at least vaguely, to get an idea about a person by putting oneself in his place and imitating his expression. Gray’s eyes already began to assume an unusual strange expression while his lips with moustache began to take shape of a faint gentle smile, when suddenly he recovered himself, burst out laughing and went out to relieve Panten.
It was dark. Panten, with the collar of his jacket turned up, was walking back and forth at the compass, instructing the helmsman: “Port the helm at a quarter of a point. Port the helm. Wait, a quarter more.” The Secret sailed free with half of the sails set.
“You know,” Panten told Gray, “I am glad.”
“About what?”
“About the same thing as you are. I’ve understood everything, right here on the bridge.” He winked slyly and the fire in his pipe lit up his smiling face.
“Now then,” Gray said, as he suddenly guessed what the point was. “What else have you understood?”
“It’s the best way of smuggling,” Panten whispered. “Anyone may have any sails he likes. You have a great brain, Gray!”
“Poor Panten!” the captain said, not knowing whether to be angry or to laugh. “Your conjecture is witty but absolutely unfounded. Go to bed. I give you my word that you are wrong. I am doing just what I’ve said.”
He sent him away to sleep, checked the course and sat down. We will leave him now, as he needs to be alone for some time.


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