What
happened
the other night?
Kipling - Poems
Only when the talk turned on Longfellow
were the jarring cross-currents dumb, and I knew that Charlie was
speaking the truth as he remembered it.
"What do you think of this? " I said one evening, as soon as I understood
the medium in which his memory worked best, and, before he could
expostulate read him the whole of "The Saga of King Olaf! "
He listened open-mouthed, flushed his hands drumming on the back of the
sofa where he lay, till I came to the Songs of Emar Tamberskelver and
the verse:
"Emar then, the arrow taking From the loosened string, Answered: 'That
was Norway breaking 'Neath thy hand, O King. '"
He gasped with pure delight of sound.
"That's better than Byron, a little," I ventured.
"Better? Why it's true! How could he have known? "
I went back and repeated:
"'What was that? ' said Olaf, standing
On the quarter-deck,
'Something heard I like the stranding
Of a shattered wreck. '"
"How could he have known how the ships crash and the oars rip out and go
z-zzp all along the line? Why only the other night--But go back please
and read 'The Skerry of Shrieks' again. "
"No, I'm tired. Let's talk.
What happened the other night? "
"I had an awful nightmare about that galley of ours. I dreamed I was
drowned in a fight. You see we ran alongside another ship in harbor. The
water was dead still except where our oars whipped it up. You know where
I always sit in the galley? " He spoke haltingly at first, under a fine
English fear of being laughed at.
"No. That's news to me," I answered, meekly, my heart beginning to beat.
"On the fourth oar from the bow on the right side on the upper deck.
There were four of us at the oar, all chained. I remember watching the
water and trying to get my handcuffs off before the row began. Then we
closed up on the other ship, and all their fighting men jumped over our
bulwarks, and my bench broke and I was pinned down with the three other
fellows on top of me, and the big oar jammed across our backs. "
"Well? " Charlie's eyes were alive and alight. He was looking at the wall
behind my chair.
were the jarring cross-currents dumb, and I knew that Charlie was
speaking the truth as he remembered it.
"What do you think of this? " I said one evening, as soon as I understood
the medium in which his memory worked best, and, before he could
expostulate read him the whole of "The Saga of King Olaf! "
He listened open-mouthed, flushed his hands drumming on the back of the
sofa where he lay, till I came to the Songs of Emar Tamberskelver and
the verse:
"Emar then, the arrow taking From the loosened string, Answered: 'That
was Norway breaking 'Neath thy hand, O King. '"
He gasped with pure delight of sound.
"That's better than Byron, a little," I ventured.
"Better? Why it's true! How could he have known? "
I went back and repeated:
"'What was that? ' said Olaf, standing
On the quarter-deck,
'Something heard I like the stranding
Of a shattered wreck. '"
"How could he have known how the ships crash and the oars rip out and go
z-zzp all along the line? Why only the other night--But go back please
and read 'The Skerry of Shrieks' again. "
"No, I'm tired. Let's talk.
What happened the other night? "
"I had an awful nightmare about that galley of ours. I dreamed I was
drowned in a fight. You see we ran alongside another ship in harbor. The
water was dead still except where our oars whipped it up. You know where
I always sit in the galley? " He spoke haltingly at first, under a fine
English fear of being laughed at.
"No. That's news to me," I answered, meekly, my heart beginning to beat.
"On the fourth oar from the bow on the right side on the upper deck.
There were four of us at the oar, all chained. I remember watching the
water and trying to get my handcuffs off before the row began. Then we
closed up on the other ship, and all their fighting men jumped over our
bulwarks, and my bench broke and I was pinned down with the three other
fellows on top of me, and the big oar jammed across our backs. "
"Well? " Charlie's eyes were alive and alight. He was looking at the wall
behind my chair.
