FullReads

‘I’m going to get you some beer to have with your luncheon,’ Butterworth said.’You ought to get up on deck.’

‘Don’t go,’ Eva said.’You look so cheerful and nice.’

‘Just for ten minutes.’

When he had gone, Adrian rang for two baths.

‘The thing is to put on our best clothes and walk proudly three times around the deck,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ After a moment she added abstractedly: ‘I like that young man. He was awfully nice to me last night when you’d disappeared.’

The bath steward appeared with the information that bathing was too dangerous today. They were in the midst of the wildest hurricane on the North Atlantic in ten years; there were two broken arms this morning from attempts to take baths. An elderly lady had been thrown down a staircase and was not expected to live. Furthermore, they had received the SOS signal from several boats this morning.

‘Will we go to help them?’

‘They’re all behind us, sir, so we have to leave them to the Mauretania. If we tried to turn in this sea the portholes would be smashed.’

This array of calamities minimized their own troubles. Having eaten a sort of luncheon and drunk the beer provided by Butterworth, they dressed and went on deck.

Despite the fact that it was only possible to progress step by step, holding on to rope or rail, more people were abroad than on the day before. Fear had driven them from their cabins, where the trunks bumped and the waves pounded the portholes,
and they awaited momentarily the call to the boats. Indeed, as Adrian and Eva stood on the transverse deck above the second class, there was a bugle call, followed by a gathering of stewards and stewardesses on the deck below. But the boat was sound: it had outlasted one of its cargo–Steward James Carton was being buried at sea.

It was very British and sad. There were the rows of stiff, disciplined men and women standing in the driving rain, and there was a shape covered by the flag of the Empire that lived by the sea. The chief purser read the service, a hymn was sung, the body slid off into the hurricane. With Eva’s burst of wild weeping for this humble end, some last string snapped within her. Now she really didn’t care. She responded eagerly when Butterworth suggested that he get some champagne to their cabin. Her mood worried Adrian; she wasn’t used to so much drinking and he wondered what he ought to do. At his suggestion that they sleep instead, she merely laughed, and the bromide the doctor had sent stood untouched on the washstand. Pretending to listen to the insipidities of several Mr Stacombs, he watched her; to his surprise and discomfort she seemed on intimate and even sentimental terms with Butterworth and he wondered if this was a form of revenge for his attention to Betsy D’Amido.

The cabin was full of smoke, the voices went on incessantly, the suspension of activity, the waiting for the storm’s end, was getting on his nerves. They had been at sea only four days; it was like a year.

The two Mr Stacombs left finally, but Butterworth remained. Eva was urging him to go for another bottle of champagne.

‘We’ve had enough,’ objected Adrian.’We ought to go to bed.’

‘I won’t go to bed!’ she burst out.’You must be crazy! You play around all you want, and then, when I find somebody I–I like, you want to put me to bed.’

‘You’re hysterical.’

‘On the contrary, I’ve never been so sane.’

‘I think you’d better leave us, Butterworth,’ Adrian said.’Eva doesn’t know what she’s saying.’

‘He won’t go, I won’t let him go.’ She clasped Butterworth’s hand passionately.’He’s the only person that’s been half decent to me.’