The Toilers of the Sea (36 page)

IV

TURBA, TURMA
¹⁹¹

The compass recognizes thirty-two winds; that is, thirty-two directions; but these directions can be indefinitely subdivided. Wind, classified according to direction, is incalculable; classified by types, it is infinite. This is a numbering at which Homer himself would flinch.

The polar current encounters the tropical current; cold and hot are combined; the shock between the two creates a balance; the wave of the winds is formed, swollen, scattered, tattered in all directions into wild streams of water. The dispersal of the winds tosses to the four quarters of the horizon the prodigious dishevelment of the air.

All the points of the compass are there: the wind of the Gulf Stream that discharges so much fog on Newfoundland; the wind of Peru, a region of silent sky where no man has ever heard thunder; the wind of Nova Scotia, the haunt of the great auk,
Alca impennis,
with its striped beak; the whirlwinds of Fer in the China Seas; the wind of Mozambique that handles canoes and junks so roughly; the electric wind of Japan of which warning is given by strokes on a gong; the African wind whose home is between Table Mountain and the Devil's Peak and which ranges freely from there; the equatorial wind that passes above the trade winds and describes a parabola whose highest point is always to the west; the Plutonian wind that emerges from craters in a fierce burst of flame; the strange wind peculiar to Mount Awu, which perpetually gives rise to an olive-tinted cloud in the north; the monsoon of Java, as a protection from which the casemates known as hurricane houses are built; the many-branched wind known to the English as the bush wind; the curving squalls of the Strait of Malacca that were observed by Horsburgh; the mighty southwest wind known in Chile as the pampero and in Buenos Aires as the rebojo, which carries the condor out to sea and saves it from the trench in which the savage is waiting for it, lying on his back on a freshly flayed bull's hide, bending his great bow with his feet; the chemical wind that, according to Lémery,
¹⁹¹
forms thunder stones in the clouds; the harmattan of the Kaffirs; the snow-blower of the polar regions that harnesses itself to the ice floes and draws after it the eternal ice; the wind in the Bay of Bengal that reaches far north to Nizhny Novgorod and wreaks havoc on the triangle of timber huts in which the Asian Fair is held; the wind of the Cordilleras, stirrer-up of great waves and great forests; the wind of the archipelagos of Australia, where honey gatherers tear down the wild hives hidden under the armpits of the branches of the giant eucalyptus; the sirocco, the mistral, the hurricane; winds that bring drought; winds that bring floods, diluvian winds; torrid winds; those that deposit dust from the plains of Brazil in the streets of Genoa; those that follow a diurnal rotation and those that run counter to it and cause Herrera to remark: Malo viento toma contra el sol ;
¹⁹³
those that run in couples, conspiring to do mischief, one undoing what the other does; the old winds that assailed Columbus on the coast of Veraguas; those that for forty days, from October 21 to November 28, 1520, threatened to prevent Magellan from reaching the Pacific; and those that dismasted the Armada and blew against Philip II. Others still there are, but how shall they all be told? The winds carrying toads and grasshoppers that transport swarms of these creatures over the ocean; those that bring about a sudden change in the wind, whose function is to finish off shipwrecked seamen; those that, with a single gust, displace the cargo of a ship and compel it to continue on its way with a list; the winds that construct circumcumuli, and those that construct circumstrati; the heavy, blind winds swollen with rain; winds bearing hail; winds carrying fever; those that spark off the solfataras and fumaroles of Calabria; those that bring a sparkle to the coats of African panthers prowling in the scrub on the Cap de Fer;
¹⁹⁴
those that shake out of their clouds, like the tongue of a trigonocephalus, the fearful forked lightning; those that bring black snow. Such is the army of the winds.

Their distant gallop was heard on the Douvres reef as Gilliatt was constructing his breakwater.

As we have said, Wind is all winds. The whole of this horde was now coming.

On one side was this legion.

On the other, Gilliatt.

V

GILLIATT HAS A CHOICE

The mysterious forces had chosen their moment well.

Chance, if it exists, is shrewd.

So long as the paunch was moored in the creek at the Homme rock, so long as the engines were still in the wreck, Gilliatt was impregnable. The paunch was secure and the engines were safe; the Douvres, which had the engines in their keeping, were condemning them to slow destruction but were protecting them against surprise. Whatever happened, Gilliatt still had a resource. Even if the engines were destroyed this did not destroy him. He still had the paunch to escape in.

But by waiting until the paunch was taken out of the mooring where it could not be reached, by allowing it to enter the channel at the Douvres rocks, by doing nothing until it, too, was caught by the reef, by allowing Gilliatt to salvage, lower, and tranship the engines, by avoiding any interference with the tremendous effort that had loaded everything into the paunch, by permitting Gilliatt to succeed in his endeavor, a trap had been set. All this revealed in its sinister lineaments the somber trick practiced by the abyss.

Now the engines, the paunch, and Gilliatt were all together in the rock channel. They were all one. It required only a single effort, directed to the same point, to break up the paunch on the reef, send the engines to the bottom, and drown Gilliatt. Everything could be finished off in a single action, at the same time, and without any dispersal of effort; everything could be destroyed in a single blow.

Gilliatt was now in a most critical situation. The sphinx that was imagined by dreamers to be lurking in the shadows seemed to be presenting him with a dilemma: should he stay where he was or should he leave? To leave was the act of a madman; to stay was a dread alternative.

VI

THE COMBAT

Gilliatt climbed to the summit of the Great Douvre. From there he could see the whole of the sea.

The view to the west was surprising. A wall was building up; a great wall of cloud, barring the whole expanse from one side to the other, was rising slowly from the horizon to the zenith. Rectilinear, vertical, without a crack or crevice in its whole height, without a break in its coping, it seemed to have been constructed with the aid of a set square and a plumb line. It was a cloud with the appearance of granite. The steep face of the cloud, which was absolutely perpendicular at the south end, sloped a little toward the north like a bent sheet of iron, with the gradual slant of an inclined plane. The bank of fog grew wider and increased in height, its entablature always remaining parallel to the line of the horizon, which was almost indistinguishable in the gathering darkness. This wall of air rose all in one piece, in silence. Not an undulation, not a wrinkle, not a projection moving or altering its shape: an immobility in movement that gave it an aspect of gloom. The sun, shining palely through a strange sickly transparency, threw a dim light on this apocalyptic vision. The clouds were already invading almost half the space, shelving like a terrifying slope into the abyss. It was like the emergence of a mountain of shadow between earth and sky. It was the ascent of night in the full light of day.

The air was like the hot breath of an oven. The mysterious accumulation of cloud gave off the misty vapors of a steam bath. The sky, which from blue had become white, had now changed from white to gray and taken on the look of a gigantic slate. The sea, below, was dull and leaden, like another great slate. There was not a breath of wind, not a wave on the sea, not a sound. As far as the eye could reach stretched an empty waste. Not a sail in any direction. The birds had gone into hiding. There was a smell of treason in the infinite. The enlargement of this great area of shadow was proceeding imperceptibly.

The moving mountain of vapors that was heading for the Douvres was one of those clouds that could be called battle clouds; sinister clouds, too. Through these obscure masses a mysterious squinting eye seemed to be watching. This slow advance was terrifying. Gilliatt stared at the cloud, muttering under his breath: “I'm thirsty: you're going to give me something to drink.”

He remained motionless for some moments, his eye fixed on the cloud. He looked as if he was sizing up the storm.

His cap was in the pocket of his pea jacket; he took it out and put it on. From the recess in the rock where he had slept for so many nights he took out his store of clothes and put on his leggings and oilskin coat, like a knight buckling on his armor at the moment of action. It will be remembered that he had lost his shoes, but his feet had been hardened on the rocks.

Having thus prepared for war, he looked down at his breakwater, grasped the knotted rope, descended from the Great Douvre to the rock below, and made straight for his storeroom. A few moments later he was at work. The huge silent cloud could now hear the blows of his hammer. What was he doing? With his remaining stocks of nails, ropes, and timber he was constructing at the east end of the channel a second openwork barrier some ten or twelve feet to the rear of the first one.

There was still a profound silence. The tufts of grass growing in crevices in the rock were not moving.

Suddenly the sun disappeared. Gilliatt raised his head.

The rising cloud had just reached the sun. It was as if daylight had been extinguished, to be replaced by confused and pallid reflections.

The wall of cloud had changed its aspect. It had lost its unity. It had formed horizontal wrinkles as it reached the zenith, from which it overhung the rest of the sky. It had broken down into different levels, and the formation of the storm was displayed like the cross section of a trench. Layers of rain and beds of hail could be distinguished. There was no lightning, but a horrible diffused light—for the idea of horror can be attached to the idea of light. The vague breathing of the storm could be heard. In this silence there was an obscure palpitation. Gilliatt, no less silent, watched as all these blocks of fog formed above his head and the deformity of the clouds took shape. On the horizon lay, steadily expanding, a band of ash-gray mist, and at the zenith a band the color of lead; over the mists below hung livid rags from the clouds above. The whole background—the wall of cloud—was wan, milky, sallow, gloomy, indescribable. A thin, whitish patch of cloud, coming from who knows where, cut obliquely across the high dark wall from north to south. One end of this cloud hung down into the sea. At the point where it touched the confusion of waves, a dense red vapor was discernible in the darkness. Under the long pale swathe of cloud, low down, smaller dark-colored clouds were flying in different directions as if uncertain which way to go. The massive cloud that formed the background was growing in all directions at the same time, increasingly eclipsing the sun, on which it maintained its lugubrious hold. To the east, behind Gilliatt, there remained only one patch of clear sky, and this was closing in rapidly. Though there seemed to be no wind, strange flecks of grayish down, scattered and fragmented, were sailing across the sky, as if some gigantic bird had just been plucked behind the wall of darkness. A ceiling of compact blackness had formed and on the distant horizon was touching the sea and mingling with the night. There was a feeling as if something was moving forward— something vast and ponderous and sinister. The darkness was growing denser. Suddenly there was an immense peal of thunder.

Gilliatt himself felt the shock. There is something dreamlike in thunder. This brutal reality in the region of visions is terrifying. It is like the upsetting of some piece of furniture in the abode of giants.

The crash was not accompanied by any electric flash: it was like black thunder. Then silence returned. There was a kind of interval, as when hostile forces are taking up their ground. Then there appeared, slowly, one after the other, great shapeless flashes. They were quite noiseless, unaccompanied by any roll of thunder. At each flash the whole scene was illuminated. The wall of cloud had now become a cavern, with arches and vaulted halls. Outlines of figures could be descried—monstrous heads, necks stretching forward, elephants with their howdahs, glimpsed and then vanishing. A column of fog, straight, round, and black, surmounted by a puff of white vapor, simulated the funnel of some colossal steamer engulfed by the sea, still with steam up and smoking. Sheets of cloud, waving, were like the folds of huge flags. In the center, under a vermilion mass, a nucleus of dense fog hung inert and motionless, impenetrable to electric sparks—a kind of hideous fetus in the womb of the tempest.

Suddenly Gilliatt felt a breath of wind ruffling his hair. Three or four large spiders of rain splashed down on the rock around him. Then there was a second peal of thunder. The wind rose.

The expectancy of darkness was at its peak. The first peal of thunder had shaken the sea; the second split the wall of cloud from top to bottom, a rent opened up, the shower hanging in the air turned in that direction, the crevice turned into an open mouth filled with rain, and the vomiting of the tempest began.

It was a fearful moment.

Rain, hurricane, fulgurations, fulminations, waves reaching up to the clouds, foam, detonations, frantic torsions, roars, hoarse cries, whistling—all at the same time. Monsters unleashed.

The wind was blowing like thunder. The rain was not falling: it was tumbling down.

For an unfortunate man, caught up like Gilliatt, with a heavily laden boat, between two rocks in the midst of the sea, it was a moment of desperate crisis. The danger from the tide, which Gilliatt had overcome, was as nothing compared with the danger from the tempest.

Gilliatt, surrounded on every side by precipices, now revealed, at the last moment and in face of supreme peril, a well-conceived strategy. He had taken up his stance in the very territory of the enemy; he had made the reef his partner; the Douvres, hitherto his adversary, were now his second in this immense duel. He had made them his base. Instead of a sepulchre, they had become his fortress. He had entrenched himself in this formidable dwelling in the sea. He was under siege, but strongly defended. He was, as it were, with his back to the wall of the reef, face-to-face with the hurricane. He had barricaded the channel through the reef, that street amid the waves. It was all he could do. It seems that the ocean, which is a despot, can, like other despots, be brought to reason by barricades. The paunch could be regarded as secure on three sides. Tightly wedged between the two inner walls of the reef, firmly held by three anchors, it was sheltered on the north by the Little Douvre and on the south by the Great Douvre— two wild rock faces more accustomed to causing shipwrecks than to preventing them. On the west it was protected by the framework of beams moored and nailed to the rocks, a tried and tested barrier that had withstood the rough assault of the rising tide—a fortress gate with the two pillars of the reef, the Douvres, as its jambs. There was nothing to be feared on that side. The point of danger was to the east.

At the east end there was only the breakwater. A breakwater is a device for breaking up the force of the waves. It ought to have at least two openwork frames. Gilliatt had had time only to make one, and he was now building the second in the teeth of the tempest.

Fortunately the wind, which is sometimes ill-judged in its assaults, was coming from the northwest. This—the wind once known as the
galerne—
had little effect on the Douvres. It blew across the reef, and thus did not drive the sea against either end of the defile that cut through it, so that instead of entering a street it came up against a wall. The storm's attack was ill directed.

But the wind's attacks tend to curve around, and it was necessary to be prepared for a change in its direction. If it should veer to the east before the second panel of the breakwater was constructed, there would be grave danger. The tempest would then be able to invade the channel between the rocks, and all would be lost.

The storm was still increasing in violence. A tempest heaps blow on blow: that is its strength, but it is also its weakness. Its very fury makes it vulnerable to human intelligence, and man is able to defend himself. But what force, what monstrous power, is directed against him! No respite, no interruption, no truce, no time to draw breath. There is some cowardice in this prodigality with inexhaustible resources. It is surely the lungs of the infinite that are breathing.

All this tumultuous immensity was hurling itself against the Douvres reef. Voices without number could be heard. Whose cries were these? The panic fear of the ancients had come again. At times it sounded like talking, as if someone were issuing commands. Then came clamors, the sound of clarions, strange trepidations, and that great majestic roar that seamen term the call of the ocean. The indefinite, fleeting spirals of the wind whistled as they churned up the sea; the waves, shaped into disc form by this whirling movement, were hurled against the rocks like gigantic quoits thrown by invisible athletes. Great masses of foam whipped wildly against the rocks. Torrents above; spittle below. Then the roaring redoubled. No sound from either human or animal throats could give any idea of the din mingled with these dislocations of the sea. The clouds were thundering, the hailstones were firing salvoes, the waves were surging to the attack. At some points there seemed to be no movement; elsewhere the wind was traveling at twenty fathoms a second. As far as the eye could reach the sea was white; the horizon was lined with ten leagues of lather. Gates of fire were opening up. Some clouds looked as if they were being burned by others; lying on heaped-up reddish clouds that seemed like red-hot embers, they had the appearance of smoke. Floating formations of cloud ran into one another and amalgamated, each altering the shape of the other. Incommensurable quantities of water were streaming down. The rattle of musketry was heard in the firmament. In the center of the ceiling of darkness there was a kind of vast upturned basket from which fell at random whirlwinds, hail, clouds, purple tinges, phosphoric lights, night, light, thunder—so formidable are these tiltings of the abyss!

Gilliatt appeared to pay no attention to all this. His head was bent over his work. The second openwork frame was beginning to rise. He responded to each peal of thunder with a blow of his hammer; this regular beat could be heard above the surrounding chaos. He was bareheaded, for a gust of wind had whipped off his cap.

He had a burning thirst. He probably had a touch of fever. Pools of rainwater had formed around him in holes in the rock, and from time to time he took up a mouthful of water in his palm and drank it. Then, without even looking to see how the storm was getting on, he returned to his task.

A moment might decide on success or failure. He knew what was awaiting him if he did not finish his breakwater in time. What was the use of wasting even a minute in watching the face of the death that was approaching?

The turmoil around him was like a boiling cauldron. There was noise and tumult on every side. Every now and then there was a roll of thunder, sounding as if it was descending a staircase. The electric shocks returned incessantly to the same points on the rock, where there were probably veins of diorite. There were hailstones as big as a man's fist. Gilliatt had repeatedly to shake out the folds in his pea jacket. Even his pockets were filled with hail.

The storm had now veered around to the west and was beating against the barrier between the two Douvres; but Gilliatt had confidence in his barricade, and with reason. Constructed from the large section of the forward part of the Durande, it yielded to the shock of the waves. Elasticity is a form of resistance; and the calculations of Stevenson
¹⁹⁵
have shown that as a defense against waves, which themselves are elastic, a timber structure of appropriate size, fitted together and secured in the right way, is a more effective obstacle than a masonry breakwater. The barrier at the Douvres met these requirements; and it was so ingeniously anchored that a wave striking it acted like a hammer driving in a nail, pushing it against the rock and consolidating it; it could be demolished only by overturning the Douvres. All that the storm could do to the paunch, therefore, was to cast a few flecks of foam onto it over the obstacle. On that side of the reef, thanks to the breakwater, the tempest was reduced to spitting in impotent rage. Gilliatt turned his back on it, happy to feel this ineffectual fury behind him.