The Blue Lagoon / Голубая лагуна. Генри де Вэр Стэкпул

place with your face like a soot-bag, would you?”

      “Stick yours in!” commanded the other.

      Mr Button did so, and made a noise in the water; then he lifted a wet and streaming face, and flung the contents of the tin overboard.

      “Now you’ve lost your chance,” said Paddy, “all the water’s gone.”

      “There’s more in the sea.”

      “There’s no more to wash with, not till to-morrowthe fishes don’t allow it.”

      “I want to wash,” grumbled Dick. “I want to stick my face in the tin, same’s you did; ’sides, Em hasn’t washed.”

      “I don’t mind,” murmured Emmeline.

      “Well, thin,” said Mr Button, as if making a sudden resolve, “I’ll ax the sharks.” He leaned over the boat’s side, his face close to the surface of the water. “Halloo there!” he shouted, and then bent his head sideways to listen; the children also looked over the side, deeply interested.

      “Halloo there! Are y’aslape—Oh, there y’are! Here’s a spalpeen with a dhirty face, an’s wishful to wash it; may I take a tin of—Oh, thank your ’arner[67], thank your ’arner—good day to you, and my respects.”

      “What did the shark say, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline.

      “He said: ‘Take a bar’l[68] full, an’ welcome, Mister Button.’ Thin he put his head under his fin and went aslape agin; at least, I heard him snore.”

      Emmeline nearly always “Mr Buttoned” her friend; sometimes she called him “Mr Paddy.” As for Dick, it was always “Paddy,” pure and simple. Children have etiquettes of their own.

      For landsmen and landswomen, the most terrible experience when cast away at sea in an open boat is the total absence of privacy. But, whoever has gone through the experience will believe me that in great moments of life like this things that would shock us ashore are as nothing out there, face to face with eternity.

      If so with grown-up people, how much more so with this old shell-back and his two charges?

      And indeed Mr Button was a person who called a spade a spade[69], and looked after his two charges just as a nursemaid might look after her charges.

      There was a large bag of biscuits in the boat, and some tinned stuf—f mostly sardines.

      Paddy had a jack-knife, however, and in a marvellously short time a box of sardines was opened, and placed in the stern beside some biscuits.

      These, with some water and Emmeline’s Tangerine orange, which she produced and added to the common store, formed the feast, and they fell to it.

      When they had finished, the remains were put carefully away, and they began to step the tiny mast[70].

      The sailor, when the mast was in its place, stood for a moment resting his hand on it, and gazing around him over the vast and voiceless blue.

      The Pacific has three blues: the blue of morning, the blue of midday, and the blue of evening. But the blue of morning is the happiest: the happiest thing in colour—sparkling, vague, newborn—the blue of heaven and youth.

      “What are you looking for, Paddy?” asked Dick.

      “Sea-gulls,” replied the cunning man; then to himself: “Not a sight or a sound of them! Which way will I steer—north, south, aist, or west? It’s all wan, for if I steer to the aist, they may be in the west; and if I steer to the west, they may be in the aist; and I can’t steer to the west, for I’d be steering right in the wind’s eye[71]. I’ll make a soldier’s wind of it, and trust to chance[72].”

      He set the sail[73], then shifted the rudder[74], lit a pipe, leaned back and gave the sail to the gentle breeze.

      It was part of his profession, part of his nature, that, steering, maybe, straight towards death by starvation and thirst, he stayed calm as if he were taking the children for a summer’s sail. His imagination dealt little with the future, and the children were the same.

      Never was there a happier starting, more joy in a little boat. During breakfast the seaman had given his charges to understand that if Dick did not meet his father and Emmeline her uncle in a “while or two,” it was because he had gone on board a ship, and he’d be along presently. The terror of their position was as deeply hidden from them as eternity is hidden from you or me.

      Emmeline’s rag-doll[75] was a shocking thing from a hygienic or artistic standpoint. Its face was just inked on, it had no features, no arms; yet not for all the dolls in the world would she have exchanged this dirty and nearly formless thing. It was a fetish. She sat nursing it on one side of Paddy, while Dick, on the other side, hung his nose over the water, on the look-out for fish.

      “Why do you smoke, Mr Button?” asked Emmeline, who had been watching her friend for some time in silence.

      “To aise me thrubbles[76],” replied Paddy.

      He was leaning back with one eye shut and the other fixed on the sail. He was in his element[77]: nothing to do but steer and smoke, warmed by the sun and cooled by the breeze. Paddy smoked.

      “Whoop!” cried Dick. “Look, Paddy!”

      An albicore[78] had taken a flying leap from the flashing sea, turned a complete somersault and vanished.

      “It’s an albicore; he’s bein’ chased.”

      “What’s chasing him, Paddy?”

      “What’s chasin’ him?—why, what else but the gibly-gobly-ums[79]!”

      Before Dick could ask about the personal appearance and habits of the latter, a shoal of silver heads passed the boat and sank into the water with a hissing sound.

      “What are you sayin’—fish can’t fly! Where’s the eyes in your head?”

      “Are the gibblyums chasing them too?” asked Emmeline fearfully.

      “Don’t be axin’ me any more questions now, or I’ll be tellin’ you lies in a minit.”

      Emmeline, it will be remembered, had brought a small parcel with her wrapped up in a little shawl; it was under the boat seat, and every now and then[80] she would stoop down to see if it were safe.

      Chapter VII

      “S-H-E-N-A-N-D-O-A-H”

      Every hour or so Mr Button would shake his lethargy off, and rise and look round for “sea-gulls”. When Dick would fret now and then, the old sailor would always think up some means of amusing him. He made him fishing-tackle out of a bent pin and some small string that happened to be in the boat; and Dick, with the enthusiasm of childhood, fished.

      Then he told them things, which he had learned quite a few[81] in his long, shell-back life[82].

      They dined somewhere about eleven o’clock, and at noon Paddy unstepped the mast and made a sort of little tent in the bow of the boat to protect the children from the rays of the sun.

      Then he took his place in the bottom of the boat, in the stern, put Dick’s straw hat over his face to preserve it from the sun, and fell asleep.

      He had slept

67

your honour – ваша честь

68

barrel

69

называл вещи своими именами

70

ставить крошечную мачту

71

против ветра

72

Я пойду с попутным ветром, и будь что будет.

73

Он поставил парус

74

повернул руль

75

тряпичная кукла

76

To ease my troubles

77

он был в своей стихии

78

Альбакор – длиннопёрый тунец.

79

тары-бары

80

то и дело

81

довольно много

82

беззаботная жизнь