And after this effort he fell back exhausted on his bed.  He closed his eyes, he panted; this affair, this abominable surprise had shaken him up, too.  As I turned away I perceived Ransome looking at me blankly.  He appreciated what it meant, but managed to produce his pleasant, wistful smile.  Then he stepped back into his pantry, and I rushed up on deck again to see whether there was any wind, any breath under the sky, any stir of the air, any sign of hope.  The deadly stillness met me again.  Nothing was changed except that there was a different man at the wheel.  He looked ill.  His whole figure drooped, and he seemed rather to cling to the spokes than hold them with a controlling grip.  I said to him: 

“You are not fit to be here.”

“I can manage, sir,” he said feebly.

As a matter of fact, there was nothing for him to do.  The ship had no steerage way.  She lay with her head to the westward, the everlasting Koh-ring visible over the stern, with a few small islets, black spots in the great blaze, swimming before my troubled eyes.  And but for those bits of land there was no speck on the sky, no speck on the water, no shape of vapour, no wisp of smoke, no sail, no boat, no stir of humanity, no sign of life, nothing!

The first question was, what to do?  What could one do?  The first thing to do obviously was to tell the men.  I did it that very day.  I wasn’t going to let the knowledge simply get about.  I would face them.  They were assembled on the quarterdeck for the purpose.  Just before I stepped out to speak to them I discovered that life could hold terrible moments.  No confessed criminal had ever been so oppressed by his sense of guilt.  This is why, perhaps, my face was set hard and my voice curt and unemotional while I made my declaration that I could do nothing more for the sick in the way of drugs.  As to such care as could be given them they knew they had had it.

I would have held them justified in tearing me limb from limb.  The silence which followed upon my words was almost harder to bear than the angriest uproar.  I was crushed by the infinite depth of its reproach.  But, as a matter of fact, I was mistaken.  In a voice which I had great difficulty in keeping firm, I went on:  “I suppose, men, you have understood what I said, and you know what it means.”

A voice or two were heard:  “Yes, sir. . . .  We understand.”

They had kept silent simply because they thought that they were not called to say anything; and when I told them that I intended to run into Singapore and that the best chance for the ship and the men was in the efforts all of us, sick and well, must make to get her along out of this, I received the encouragement of a low assenting murmur and of a louder voice exclaiming:  “Surely there is a way out of this blamed hole.”

*****

Here is an extract from the notes I wrote at the time.