CHAPTER 1
He was an
inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced
straight at you with a
slight stoop of the shoulders, head
forward, and a fixed from-under
stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of
dogged self-assertion which had nothing
aggressive in it. It seemed a
necessity, and it was directed
apparently as much at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in
immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the
various Eastern ports where he got his living as ship-chandler's water-clerk he was very
popular.
A water-clerk
need not pass an
examination in anything under the sun, but he must have Ability in the
abstract and
demonstrate it
practically. His work consists in racing under
sail, steam, or oars against other water-clerks for any ship about to
anchor, greeting her captain cheerily, forcing upon him a card-the business card of the ship-chandler-and on his first visit on
shore piloting him firmly but without
ostentation to a
vast, cavern-like shop which is full of things that are eaten and drunk on
board ship; where you can get everything to make her seaworthy and beautiful, from a set of chain-hooks for her
cable to a book of gold-
leaf for the carvings of her
stern; and where her
commander is received like a brother by a ship-chandler he has never seen before. There is a cool parlour, easy-chairs, bottles, cigars, writing implements, a copy of harbour regulations, and a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of a three months'
passage out of a seaman's
heart. The
connection thus begun is kept up, as long as the ship remains in harbour, by the daily visits of the water-clerk. To the captain he is
faithful like a friend and
attentive like a son, with the
patience of Job, the unselfish
devotion of a woman, and the
jollity of a
boon companion. Later on the bill is sent in. It is a beautiful and
humane occupation. Therefore good water-clerks are
scarce. When a water-clerk who possesses Ability in the
abstract has also the
advantage of having been brought up to the sea, he is worth to his
employer a lot of money and some humouring. Jim had always good wages and as much humouring as would have bought the
fidelity of a
fiend. Nevertheless, with black ingratitude he would
throw up the
job suddenly and
depart. To his employers the reasons he gave were
obviously inadequate. They said 'Confounded fool!' as soon as his back was turned. This was their
criticism on his
exquisite sensibility.
To the white men in the waterside business and to the captains of ships he was just Jim-nothing more. He had, of course, another name, but he was
anxious that it should not be pronounced. His
incognito, which had as many holes as a
sieve, was not meant to
hide a
personality but a
fact. When the
fact broke
through the
incognito he would leave
suddenly the seaport where he happened to be at the time and go to another-generally farther east. He kept to seaports because he was a seaman in
exile from the sea, and had Ability in the
abstract, which is good for no other work but that of a water-clerk. He retreated in good order towards the rising sun, and the
fact followed him casually but
inevitably. Thus in the course of years he was known successively in Bombay, in Calcutta, in Rangoon, in Penang, in Batavia-and in each of these halting-places was just Jim the water-clerk. Afterwards, when his
keen perception of the Intolerable drove him away for good from seaports and white men, even into the virgin
forest, the Malays of the
jungle village, where he had elected to
conceal his
deplorable faculty, added a word to the monosyllable of his
incognito. They called him Tuan Jim: as one
might say-Lord Jim.
Originally he came from a parsonage. Many commanders of fine merchant-ships come from these abodes of
piety and peace. Jim's father possessed such
certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made for the
righteousness of people in cottages without
disturbing the
ease of
mind of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions. The little church on a hill had the mossy greyness of a rock seen
through a
ragged screen of leaves. It had stood there for centuries, but the trees around
probably remembered the laying of the first stone. Below, the red front of the
rectory gleamed with a warm
tint in the midst of grass-plots, flower-beds, and fir-trees, with an
orchard at the back, a paved stable-
yard to the left, and the sloping glass of greenhouses tacked along a wall of bricks. The living had belonged to the family for generations; but Jim was one of five sons, and when after a course of light
holiday literature his
vocation for the sea had declared itself, he was sent at once to a 'training-ship for officers of the
mercantile marine.'
He
learned there a little
trigonometry and how to
cross top-gallant yards. He was generally liked. He had the third place in
navigation and pulled
stroke in the first cutter. Having a
steady head with an
excellent physique, he was very smart
aloft. His
station was in the fore-top, and often from there he looked down, with the
contempt of a man
destined to
shine in the midst of dangers, at the
peaceful multitude of roofs cut in two by the brown
tide of the
stream, while scattered on the
outskirts of the surrounding
plain the
factory chimneys rose
perpendicular against a
grimy sky, each
slender like a pencil, and belching out smoke like a
volcano. He could see the big ships departing, the
broad-beamed ferries constantly on the move, the little boats floating far below his feet, with the
hazy splendour of the sea in the
distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the world of
adventure.
On the lower deck in the
babel of two hundred voices he would
forget himself, and beforehand live in his
mind the sea-life of light
literature. He saw himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in a
hurricane, swimming
through a surf with a line; or as a
lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked, walking on uncovered reefs in
search of shellfish to
stave off
starvation. He confronted savages on
tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men-always an
example of
devotion to
duty, and as unflinching as a
hero in a book.
'Something's up. Come along.'
He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up the ladders. Above could be heard a great scurrying about and shouting, and when he got
through the hatchway he stood still-as if
confounded.
It was the
dusk of a winter's day. The
gale had freshened since noon, stopping the
traffic on the river, and now blew with the
strength of a
hurricane in
fitful bursts that boomed like salvoes of great guns firing over the ocean. The rain slanted in sheets that flicked and subsided, and between whiles Jim had threatening glimpses of the tumbling
tide, the small craft jumbled and tossing along the
shore, the
motionless buildings in the driving mist, the
broad ferry-boats pitching ponderously at
anchor, the
vast landing-stages heaving up and down and smothered in sprays. The next
gust seemed to blow all this away. The air was full of flying water. There was a
fierce purpose in the
gale, a
furious earnestness in the
screech of the wind, in the
brutal tumult of
earth and sky, that seemed directed at him, and made him hold his breath in
awe. He stood still. It seemed to him he was whirled around.
He was jostled. 'Man the cutter!' Boys rushed past him. A coaster running in for
shelter had crashed
through a
schooner at
anchor, and one of the ship's instructors had seen the
accident. A
mob of boys clambered on the rails, clustered round the davits. 'Collision. Just ahead of us. Mr. Symons saw it.' A push made him
stagger against the mizzen-mast, and he caught hold of a rope. The old training-ship chained to her moorings quivered all over, bowing gently head to wind, and with her
scanty rigging humming in a deep
bass the breathless song of her youth at sea. 'Lower away!' He saw the boat, manned,
drop swiftly below the
rail, and rushed after her. He heard a splash. 'Let go; clear the falls!' He leaned over. The river alongside seethed in
frothy streaks. The cutter could be seen in the falling darkness under the spell of
tide and wind, that for a
moment held her
bound, and tossing
abreast of the ship. A yelling voice in her reached him faintly: 'Keep
stroke, you young whelps, if you want to save anybody! Keep
stroke!' And
suddenly she lifted high her bow, and, leaping with raised oars over a
wave, broke the spell cast upon her by the wind and
tide.
Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. 'Too late, youngster.' The captain of the ship laid a restraining hand on that boy, who seemed on the point of leaping
overboard, and Jim looked up with the pain of
conscious defeat in his eyes. The captain smiled sympathetically. 'Better luck next time. This will teach you to be smart.'
A
shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing back half full of water, and with two
exhausted men washing about on her bottom boards. The
tumult and the
menace of wind and sea now appeared very
contemptible to Jim, increasing the
regret of his
awe at their
inefficient menace. Now he knew what to think of it. It seemed to him he cared nothing for the
gale. He could
affront greater perils. He would do so-better than anybody. Not a
particle of fear was left. Nevertheless he brooded apart that evening while the bowman of the cutter-a boy with a face like a girl's and big grey eyes-was the
hero of the lower deck. Eager questioners crowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head bobbing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in his breeches and I nearly went
overboard, as I
thought I would, only old Symons let go the
tiller and grabbed my legs-the boat nearly swamped. Old Symons is a fine old
chap. I don't
mind a bit him being
grumpy with us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only his way of telling me to stick to the boat-hook. Old Symons is awfully excitable-isn't he? No-not the little
fair chap-the other, the big one with a beard. When we pulled him in he groaned, "Oh, my leg! oh, my leg!" and turned up his eyes. Fancy such a big
chap fainting like a girl. Would any of you fellows
faint for a
jab with a boat-hook?-I wouldn't. It went into his leg so far.' He showed the boat-hook, which he had carried below for the
purpose, and produced a
sensation. 'No, silly! It was not his flesh that held him-his breeches did. Lots of blood, of course.'