The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We were four. We affectionately watched his back. He stood in the bows. He was looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot. A seaman may trust a pilot, of course. It was difficult to realize that his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him. His work was within the brooding gloom.
Between us there was the bond of the sea. Besides our connection through long periods of separation, we were tolerant of each other’s stories – and even convictions. The Lawyer – the best of old fellows – had many years and many virtues. And he had the only cushion on deck. So he was lying on the only rug. The Accountant brought a box of dominoes, and was toying with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged[4] right aft. He was leaning against the mizzen-mast[5]. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, and an ascetic aspect. With his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, he resembled an idol. The director was satisfied with the anchor and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily.
Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative. We were just staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically. The sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light. The mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric. It hung from the wooded rises inland. It was draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west became more sombre every minute.
At last, the sun sank low in its curved and imperceptible fall. From glowing white it changed to a dull red without rays and without heat. The gloom was brooding over a crowd of men.
Forthwith a change came over the waters. The serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service. We looked at the venerable stream in the august light of memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who, as the phrase goes, “follows the sea” with reverence and affection, than to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames.
The tidal current runs to and fro[6]. It is crowded with memories of men and ships. It knew and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, the great titled and untitled knights of the sea. It bore all the ships whose names were like jewels in the night, from the Golden Hind to the Erebus and Terror. Yes, it knew the ships and the men. They sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith – the adventurers and the settlers; kings’ ships and the ships of captains, admirals, the dark “interlopers” of the Eastern trade, and the “generals” of East India fleets, hunters for gold or pursuers of fame. The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires!
The sun set. The dusk fell on the stream. Lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman light-house[7] shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway. And farther west on the upper the place of the monstrous town was marked ominously on the sky. It was a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.
“And this is also,” said Marlow suddenly, “one of the dark places of the earth.”
He was the only man of us who still “followed the sea.” The worst thing was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead a sedentary life. Their home is always with them – the ship. So is their country – the sea. One ship is very much like another. The sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the immensity of life, glide past. There is nothing mysterious to a seaman but the sea itself. The sea is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny.
2
After his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore unfolds for him the secret of a whole continent. Generally he finds no secrets there. The stories of seamen have a direct simplicity. The whole meaning of it lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical. To him the meaning of an episode was not inside like but outside.
His remark did not seem surprising. It was just like Marlow. It was accepted in silence. No one grunted. Presently he said, very slow,
“I was thinking of very old times, when the Romans first came here, nineteen hundred years ago – the other day… Light came out of this river since – you say Knights? Yes; but it is like a blaze on a plain, like a flash of lightning in the clouds. We live in the flicker. And the old earth keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Imagine the feelings of a commander of a fine trireme in the Mediterranean. He received the order to go north. To run overland across the Gauls in a hurry. They were wonderful men, indeed! If we may believe what we read, of course. Imagine him here – the very end of the world. Sand-banks, marshes, forests, savages, nothing to eat, nothing but Thames water to drink. No wine here. Only a military camp in a wilderness, like a needle in a bundle of hay – cold, fog, tempests, disease, exile, and death. Death in the air, in the water, in the bush. The people were dying like flies here. Oh, yes, they were brave men. Brave enough to face the darkness. Think of a young citizen in a toga. He is a tax-gatherer, or a trader. There’s no initiation into such mysteries. He lived in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too. The fascination of the abomination – you know, imagine the regrets, the wish to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate.”
He paused.
“Listen,” he began again.
He lifted one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand outwards. So had the pose of a Buddha in European clothes and without a lotus-flower.
“Listen, none of us can feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency – the devotion to efficiency. But these chaps were no colonists. Their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors. For that you want only brute force. You can’t boast of it, when you have it. Your strength is just an accident, it arises from the weakness of others. They grab what they can get. It was just robbery with violence, just murder. The conquest of the earth… They just take it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea. An unselfish belief in the idea is something you can bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to… ”
He stopped. Flames glided in the river, small green flames, red flames, white flames. They were pursuing, overtaking, joining, crossing each other – then separating slowly or hastily. The traffic of the great city went on in the night upon the sleepless river. We looked on. We were waiting patiently.
After a long silence, he said,
“I suppose you fellows remember I once became a fresh-water sailor. I don’t want to bother you much with what happened to me personally. But you must understand the effect of it on me. You must know how I got out there, what I saw, how I went up that river to the place where I first met the poor chap. It was the farthest point of navigation. It was the culminating point of my experience. It threw some light on everything about me – and into my thoughts. It was sombre enough, too – and pitiful – not extraordinary – not very clear either. No, not very clear. And yet it threw some light.
As you remember, I returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas. I spent six years or so in the East. I was loafing about. I was hindering you in your work and invading your homes. Then I began to look for a ship. It was the hardest work on earth. But the ships didn’t even look at me. And I got tired of that game.
When I was a little chap I liked maps. I could look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth. When I saw one that looked particularly interesting on a map I liked to put my finger on it and say, ’When I grow up I will go there.’ The North Pole was one of these