The second mate had found his way into the wheelhouse some time before.
He had fixed himself in a corner with his knees up, a fist pressed
against each temple; and this attitude suggested rage, sorrow,
resignation, surrender, with a sort of concentrated unforgiveness. He
said mournfully and defiantly, "Well, it's my watch below now: ain't
it?"
The steam gear clattered, stopped, clattered again; and the helmsman's
eyeballs seemed to project out of a hungry face as if the compass card
behind the binnacle glass had been meat. God knows how long he had been
left there to steer, as if forgotten by all his shipmates. The bells had
not been struck; there had been no reliefs; the ship's routine had gone
down wind; but he was trying to keep her head north-north-east. The
rudder might have been gone for all he knew, the fires out, the engines
broken down, the ship ready to roll over like a corpse. He was
anxious not to get muddled and lose control of her head, because the
compass-card swung far both ways, wriggling on the pivot, and sometimes
seemed to whirl right round. He suffered from mental stress. He was
horribly afraid, also, of the wheelhouse going. Mountains of water kept
on tumbling against it. When the ship took one of her desperate dives
the corners of his lips twitched.
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