Little God Ben

‘In that case I must not detain you,’ replied Lord What’s-his-name. Other people knew him as Lord Cooling. It was a name that had appeared on many glowing company prospectuses, the prospectus usually being more glowing than the company. ‘I trust we may meet again one day in less urgent circumstances. Good-evening.’

Then Ben escaped to the second companion-way leading from the main deck to the saloon deck. The higher he got the more anxious he grew. He was permitted on the main deck, provided he did not linger and merely used it as a passage from the quarters where he slept to the quarters where he worked, but the saloon deck was taboo, and he hoped there would be no more awkward meetings. Fortunately for this hope the weather had driven most of the passengers inside, and apart from slipping on a step, tripping over a rope, hitting a rail, and nearly being shot into a ventilator, he passed safely through the next few seconds. But just as he was about to ascend the third companion-way to the boat deck he heard voices; and, still being near the ventilator that had just failed to suck him down into the unknown region it ventilated, he slipped behind it. The manœuvre was necessary since one of the voices he recognised as the Third Officer’s.

‘You’d better go in, Miss Sheringham,’ the Third Officer was urging.

‘It’s certainly blowy,’ came the response, and then Ben recognised that voice also. It was the voice of the pretty girl in the blue frock. But now she was wearing oilskins.

‘And it’s going to get worse,’ answered the Third Officer. ‘Nothing whatever to worry about, you know, but it’s pleasanter inside.’

‘Why did you say there was nothing to worry about?’ asked the girl.

‘Because there isn’t,’ returned the Third Officer.

‘Or because there is?’

The Third Officer laughed.

‘That’s much too clever for me! I’ve been through gales that make this seem like a sea breeze, but—’

‘But it’s a jolly good sea breeze!’ Now the girl laughed too. ‘Won’t the dancing floor be wobbly tonight? I wonder how many will be on it!’

‘If you’re on it, I expect you’ll be dancing a solo.’

‘I have a higher opinion of British manhood, Mr Haines! I shall certainly be on it. I rather like the idea of trying to do a slow fox-trot up a moving mountain—’

‘Look out!’

Ben accepted the warning as well as the girl, but none of them ducked quickly enough. The sudden fountain drenched all three.

‘Really, Miss Sheringham, I wish you’d go in!’ exclaimed the Third Officer, after the drench. He made no attempt now to hide his anxiety.

‘I think I will!’ gasped the girl. ‘I’m soaked! But how did you know I was out?’

‘Well—I’ve eyes.’

‘Jolly quick ones! I hadn’t been out two minutes before you pounced on me!’

‘We try to look after our passengers.’

‘Beautifully put! Still, you’re quite right—I’d no idea it was so awful … I say, what’s that?’

‘What?’

‘Over there! Towards the horizon—where I’m pointing!’

There came a short silence. The wind rose to a shriek, then died down again. Ben could only hear the voices because the gale was blowing in his direction.

‘I can’t see anything,’ said the Third Officer.

‘Nor can I now. That mist has blotted it out. It was dark—like a whale. If I saw it at all.’

‘And that isn’t mist, it’s rain,’ answered the Third Officer briskly. ‘It’ll be here in a moment and drown you! Go inside at once. It’s not a request this time, it’s an order!’

Ben heard a little laugh, and then the voices ceased. Footsteps sounded, and faded away. Ben was alone again.

He waited a second or two. The long terror through which he was to reach the strangest salvation he had ever known began to grip him. He didn’t like his memory of the Third Officer’s tone. He had studied tones. He knew whether ‘That’s all right’ meant that it was or it wasn’t and whether ‘Come here’ meant a kiss or a kick. He knew that the Third Officer’s ‘That’s an order’ meant trouble.

This, however, was not the entire cause of Ben’s new anxiety. He had an instinct for the tone of a gale as well as the tone of a human being. The instinct was now informing him that the gale was ‘behaving funny.’ Possibly not another person on board received the warning in precisely the way Ben received it. As though to compensate in some degree for his colossal ignorance, he had been granted an uncomfortable sensitiveness to certain impending occasions. The sensitiveness was variously expressed in various parts of his anatomy. Itching knuckles—that meant general danger. Twitching knee-caps—that meant personal danger. A sort of tickle in his nose—that meant cheese in the vicinity. A violent throbbing of his ear-lobes—that meant the wind was about to behave funny. You couldn’t get away from it.

Well, no matter how one throbbed and tickled and twitched and itched, one could not remain behind a ventilator for ever; and so, creeping from a concealment no longer necessary, he skated—first uphill and then downhill—to the rails. He wanted to know whether he could see what the girl had thought she had seen, and devoutly hoped that he wouldn’t. The hope was so devout that at first he searched with his eyes shut. Then he opened them.

‘Vizerbility nil,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t see nothing!’

Nothing, that was, beyond the most unpleasant ocean he had ever gazed at. It seemed to be in a kind of white fright and to be attempting to escape from the low clouds and the tearing wind, but the wind was chasing it mercilessly, emitting sounds that clearly came from some elemental madhouse; and the rain was in its wake. In a few moments the rain would add its stinging dampness to the starboard bow.

‘Lumme, we’re goin’ ter git it!’ gulped Ben.

He turned to complete his interrupted journey. Perhaps it seemed a little footless now. The Captain on his bridge did not need the information of a fireman that the weather was not fine! But, having started on his ridiculous mission, Ben wanted to finish it. He had detached himself from normal, sensible routine, and he was like a bit of homeless, wind-blown chaff. Things beyond his power were buffetting him about, and he would have to go on being buffetted about until he was buffetted to rest.

He might have hesitated, however, if impulse had not caused him to turn his head for one more glance over the starboard bow, towards the oncoming rain. In that glance he saw what the girl had seen; and because it was closer, and because his eyes were more experienced, he interpreted it before it was wiped into oblivion again.

‘’Eving ’elp us!’ he gasped.

And he sped up the third companion-way to the boat deck.

As he did so the Junior Wireless Officer emerged from the wireless-room aft and began walking hurriedly towards him. The Junior Wireless Officer had a T T T message in his hand—a message which ranks second in importance to an S.O.S.—but Ben did not know this, nor would he have paused if he had. He paid no attention to the approaching officer, or to the notice that warned passengers and unauthorised persons away from the Captain’s deck, or to the unspeakable transgression of mounting the ladder without permission to the bridge. In a flash he was on the Captain’s deck and clambering up the ladder. The Junior Wireless Officer saw him, stopped dead for an instant, and then came forward again at increased speed.

The Captain also saw him. He was standing on the bridge with the First Officer, and he was looking very grim. His grimness increased tenfold as Ben’s head popped amazingly into view below him.

‘What the hell—!’ bawled the First Officer, speaking the Captain’s thoughts.

‘Something ter report, sir!’ Ben bawled back.

As his head rose higher the First Officer seized it and spun it. Ben felt like a top. He had not finished spinning before he received a fresh impetus from below, and found himself projected towards the starboard cab. It was the Junior Wireless Officer, mounting the ladder at express speed.

The Junior Wireless Officer’s voice, however, was contrastingly composed. The wireless-room permits itself pace, but never panic.

‘Navigation Warning, sir,’ said the Junior Wireless Officer, saluting and holding out his envelope.

The Captain took it and opened it.

‘Hallo—floating wreckage,’ he exclaimed, glancing at the First Officer. ‘Latitude—’

‘Lattertood ’Ere and Lojitood ’Ere!’ bellowed Ben. ‘Unner the surface—water-logged—I jest seed it orf the starboard bow!’

Then the starboard bow got it.

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