Little God Ben

The Fruits of Panic (#ulink_8b131287-8b77-5a01-b4c4-fc7dcf1fb6f8)

Ben never learned what happened immediately after the submerged wreckage struck the ship, for the impact toppled him over to the deck just beneath the bridge, and the suddenly descending rain pinned him there with the effectiveness of a vast moist weight. He never learned that, although water poured through the wound in the ship’s side, flooding it with devastating rapidity, shifting cargo, bursting fresh cracks, and eventually sending the ship to its doom, not a single life was lost. That was another story, not Ben’s; and, incredible though it was, Ben’s story was the more incredible. Indeed, since Ben was destined like the rest to continue life, no one could have predicted the circumstances that coupled his continued existence with such enduring ignorance.

Above him, as he lay on the edge of his biggest adventure, the Captain was staggering to his feet. The Captain, the First Officer, and the Junior Wireless Operator had also been bowled over, and the two former had only one thought in their minds. The Captain was the first to regain himself and act upon it. He staggered towards the lever that worked the water-tight doors. He was too late, however. His half-blinded eyes watched the indicator move to ‘Quarter-shut’ and ‘Half-shut’—and there it stopped. ‘Three-quarters-shut’ and ‘Shut’ were unattainable goals. Something had jammed.

Below, human pandemonium joined the pandemonium of the elements. It is perhaps less discreditable than is popularly imagined by critics in comfortable arm-chairs that certain people should develop panic during the first moments of a wreck. In this case the damage had occurred with nerve-shattering suddenness, and quite a number of folk lost their heads. It was during this preliminary period, which would have spelt complete chaos had it endured, that two incidents occurred beyond the control of a ship’s discipline.

The first incident occurred at one of the boats. There was a mad, unintelligent rush for it. A few people scrambled in. The Third Officer, followed by Ruth Sheringham whom he had been conducting inside when the crash occurred, did his best to stem the rush, and then to organise it. ‘Yes, get in, get in!’ he shouted to the hesitating girl. As she climbed she stumbled, and he lurched forward to her assistance. The mad crowd behind him carried him forward with her. The ship heaved, the boat swung outwards, partly through the violent movement of the ship and partly through the insane work of clumsy, frenzied hands at the davits. Something gave way. The boat slid down, and the ocean rose dizzily to meet it. As the boat smacked the water, and the Third Officer endured the worst moment of his life, he bawled. ‘Unhook! Unhook! Release the hook!’ He was releasing one as he bawled. He told Ruth Sheringham later that she had unhooked the other, but she had no memory of it. The great, wounded ship towered over them. It shot away from them. Somebody was sick …

That incident was noticed, and served as an awesome example to quell the panic on board and substitute a sense of numb discipline. The second incident was not noticed. The same violent lurch that had sent the little boat down also sent Ben down. In perfect, unprotesting obedience to the laws of gravitation, Ben rolled along the sloping deck, bounced, and shot into the Pacific.

He sank like a log. He rose like the Great War. The sudden immersion somewhat anomalously brought him back to life, and his arms and legs worked as arms and legs had never worked before. He was unable to swim but he had an excellent sense of self-protection, and it told him that he would not sink so long as he kept every part of him moving at the same time. Possibly the sea held him on its surface for a while out of sheer interest. It did not often receive such astonishing gifts, and he was passed from crest to crest for moist examination. But at last it wearied of him and began to draw him down. Ben, after all, was very small fry for so large a host.

His mould was not that of the hero who dies but once. He was the coward—and the first to admit it—who dies many times before his death, and he now added another demise to his unfinished record. In the space of five seconds he died, went up to heaven, was thrown, went down to hell, was thrown up, wondered who wanted him, decided to speak to God about it, climbed a golden ladder, told God it wasn’t fair, asked if he were going to receive the same treatment in this new world that he’d received in the last, asked why it was so wet, asked why it was so cold, asked why everything was bobbing up and down, asked whether he were on a blinkin’ dancing floor, thought of the girl in the blue frock—and then found the girl in the blue frock looking at him. Of course, it was impossible!

‘Oi!’ he sputtered. ‘Wot’s ’appenin’?’

‘Sh!’ replied the impossible vision.

‘Yus, but I ain’t ’ere!’ he protested.

Another voice answered him.

‘We picked you up. Stay still, and don’t talk.’

It was the Third Officer’s voice. Quiet and commanding. But a shower of water spilling over a great watery wall was more effective in securing Ben’s obedient silence.

He gave up trying to work things out. He was in a boat. The boat was racing up and down mountains. That was enough to go on with.

Time passed. The boat continued to race up and down mountains. He lost count of both time and the mountains. They seemed endless. He also lost count of himself. He had been through a number of shattering evolutions and his saturated form was full of bumps and bruises. If one detached one’s mind from the past and the future—particularly the future—and regarded oneself as a sort of tree-trunk, it was pleasant to remain inactive and do nothing. Ben’s spirit drifted while his body tossed.

Grey became dark grey. Dark grey became black. In blackness, Ben opened his eyes again.

‘Oi!’ he mumbled. ‘Wot’s ’appenin’?’

‘If you ask that again,’ replied the Third Officer, ‘I’ll scrag you.’

‘Any assistance you desire in that line,’ came another voice, ‘will be gladly offered.’

That was Lord Wot’s-’is-name. So he was in the boat, too, was he?

‘’Oo’s arst wot agine?’ murmured Ben.

‘Every time you open your eyes,’ Lord Cooling informed him, ‘you ask what is happening. This, I think, is the tenth occasion. It becomes slightly monotonous.’

Ben had no recollection of the other nine times.

‘Well, wot is ’appenin’?’ he inquired.

‘Can’t someone keep that fellow quiet?’ groaned a man at the other end of the boat. He was a film star, who concealed his modest origin under the name of Richard Ardentino. The public would not have recognised his voice at that moment. In a film of a wreck it had been very different.

‘Don’t excite him, don’t excite him!’ exclaimed another sufferer, who had never attempted to change his own modest name of Smith. ‘If you do, he’ll only upset the boat!’

The reference to excitement produced the condition. Smarting under a sense of the world’s injustice, Ben suddenly became emotional.

‘Why ain’t I ter be told nothin’?’ he cried. ‘One minit I’m on the Captin’s bridge—nex’ minit I’m on the deck—nex’ minit I’m in the sea—nex’ minit I’m ’ere! Corse, that don’t matter! It ain’t int’restin’! And if nex’ minit I find meself on top o’ the Hifle Tower, that’s orl right, I mustn’t arsk no questions, carry on!’

He had raised his head to offer this protest. Now he sank back, coming to roost—though in the dark he did not know this—in the lap of the girl. The Third Officer replied, quietly:

‘Take it easy, sonny. I expect you’ve been through worse than the rest of us, but we’re none of us having a picnic. What’s happened is that the ship has been wrecked and that we have been saved, so let’s all be grateful and leave it at that for the moment, eh? As a member of the crew, you’ll know I’ve got a job on, and that I need discipline to carry it through.’

‘Sorry, sir,’ muttered Ben. ‘Blime the bump on me ’ead.’

The boat slid down into a watery trough, took a dose, climbed to the next crest, shivered, and slid down again. Ben was forgotten.

Then passed a succession of hours that were devastating in their varying hopes and fears. If this were a saga of the sea, each hour would be described in detail. If it were a treatise on psychology, the effect on each separate nerve-centre would be analysed and ticketed. But our tale does not aspire to be a classic or a work of reference. It is merely an amazing adventure, which did not separate itself from other adventures and gain its own individuality until a night and a day and then another night had passed, until storms had been endured (one, during the second night, of special violence), until winds, tides and rain had driven the boat across countless miles of unknown ocean, and until the terrifying monotony of the hazardous voyage came to a conclusion.

It came to a conclusion just before dawn on a dark, unseen beach. Though unseen, the beach was heard, and the Third Officer’s eyes—the only eyes that had never closed—strained fruitlessly to pierce the booming blackness. ‘This is the end!’ he thought. But he did not relinquish his efforts. For thirty-six hours he had kept the boat right side up, and now he steeled himself for the stiffest test of all. He gave a few quiet orders as the boat rushed onwards. A black mass rose and missed them by a few feet. He managed to avoid another by inches. Rock scraped the boat’s bottom. The boat shivered, then lurched forward again. Ahead were more black masses, and a shouting white line. The boat raced through the line, hit something, staggered, swung round, reared and kicked. It could advance no farther, but the kick shot its human contents towards the goal it could not reach …

Ben descended in a shallow, sandy pool. ‘Now I am dead—proper this time!’ he decided, as the pool shrieked around him. Finding that he wasn’t dead, he rose with a bellow and scrambled forward. Did someone pull him along as he went, or did he pull someone along? He did not know. All he knew was that the five oceans were after him, excluding the considerable portions he had swallowed. Those were with him.

Then he tripped over something and fell flat.

4 (#ulink_de8b3d93-ee0d-530a-bf70-717c66cede9a)

What the Dawn Brought (#ulink_de8b3d93-ee0d-530a-bf70-717c66cede9a)

Ben had something of the ostrich in him. When he fell flat he remained flat, hoping that trouble would pass over him. He remained flat now.

Nothing happened. This, in a world where nine-tenths of the happenings were unpleasant, was satisfactory. A condition not to be disturbed. He stayed where he was till he forgot where he was, and drifted into a series of entirely new adventures. The only one he remembered when he returned from them to consciousness was a unique journey in a boat made entirely of cheese. This should have been agreeable, since he liked cheese and was very hungry, but every time he ate the cheese he made a hole in the boat and the sea poured in. It was the sea that woke him up. Dampness slid round his boots and along to his knees. The cheese, on the other hand, vanished, and in its place against his mouth was sand.

He turned over and sat up. Around him were vague forms, enjoying the lethargy from which he had just emerged. In the dim light of dawn he counted them. Six wet little heaps. With himself, seven. He, the seventh, was the most conspicuous but the least complete. Recent rigours had deprived him of all garments above the waist, betraying the tattooings of a regretted youth.

The heap nearest to him was Lord Cooling. His leg was only a few inches away, and the once-immaculate trouser was rucked up, revealing a sodden sock and suspender. Another heap, almost as close, was Ruth Sheringham. She, also, showed more leg than seemed to Ben respectable. He wondered whether he ought to do something about it. The other heaps were not, to him, identifiable; but we may identify them, and compare them with their normal attitudes.

One was the film star, Richard Ardentino; his normal attitude was splendidly erect, with face raised to the light. One was Henry Smith; his favourite attitude was under a suburban rose-arch (he grew the best roses in Wembley), or playing cards in the 8.59 to Broad Street. One was Ernest Medworth, whose more familiar attitude was poring over Stock Exchange figures to discover whether, scrupulously or otherwise, they could be turned to his advantage. And the last was Elsie Noyes. Her attitude was best expressed at the head of a line of girl guides …

‘Yus, but where’s the Third Orficer?’ wondered Ben suddenly.

He should have made an eighth little heap.

The absence of the Third Officer began to worry Ben even more than the absence of skirt over Ruth Sheringham’s leg. He rose slowly to his feet, and peered beyond the heaps.

He could not see much. Just a misty, creepy dimness. A grey veil that screened—what? Away to the east, beyond the wicked breakers and across the heaving sea, faint light began to illuminate the horizon, but here the grey veil still reigned supreme, concealing all but the nearest objects.

‘It’s narsty,’ thought Ben.

Nevertheless, he stole forward, slowly and uneagerly, stepping carefully among the mounds and envying them their immobility. He had been much happier before he had ceased to be a mound himself. But somewhere through that grey veil, Ben decided, was the Third Officer, and if he’d got into trouble—well, somebody would have to find him, wouldn’t they?