FURY By EDMUND GOULDING A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by arrangement with Dodd, Mead & Company Printed in U. S. A. COPYRIGHT IWf, BT DODD. MEAD AND COMPANY, In M TWI w. . *.. r AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO MY MOTHER AND BABY SISTER 2084195 FURY CHAPTER I HIDING in black nights . . . alone . . . emerging with the sun . . . year in and out . . . The Lady Spray rode on, con- suming billowy distance with a pride bred of her courage, sex and custom. Looney Luke well said of her: "Stormy night, or sunny day, They're all the same to The Lady Spray." Luke loved this ship; he loved the sea; and all men and God. He could not even hate his captain, Dog Leyton. He'd said so once, and the crew had laughed. And then Dog Leyton had heard, and he laughed, too. And is it any matter of wonder that the sea roars with seething laughter as she rolls up on the sands of land to see you and me? She laughs; and with a swift movement of her body sweeps that fat woman's fat husband down, under and away. Then, as we stand horrified, she laughs back at us: "Come in, little man, God's greatest creation!" 3 4 FUKY Perhaps we do not understand her roaring voice ; and so we strut pleasurably back to land and life; to chat, to breed, to cry and laugh, waking and sleeping, working and playing, living and dying, in mansions and mines, developing the human race to the glory of God. Is it any wonder that the sea laughs as she rolls up on the humans' land? Some of us, perhaps, have heard the sea calling within us and have thrilled, looking up into truth; and a furious love of life has possessed us . . . and we have laughed with the sea. But then ... we have forgotten again, and leaned away from truth. So, through time, Man's laugh is dying . . . and only the sea can be heard, far down along, curl- ing upon the winding shore . . . seemingly eter- nal. Thus Dog Leyton's laugh had died. And Dog Leyton was a captain of the sea. The Lady Spray was his ship had been for thirty years; and she was still as trim a windjamming girlie as you'd want to find. She got a bit saucy sometimes, but ain't that the way with all women? Dog had been caught up in one of those cyclones of passion, broken vows and lies, which blow only on land; and he'd taken his brooding out to sea, and she, womanlike, had jibed, and laughed, and taunted, until . . . But then he'd never inspired that tender solace which only the sea can give. On the contrary, he'd never understood the sea. He'd never known the FURY 5 glorious line of her form, her endless laughter, her passion, her tempestuous moods of play, or her moon-kissed sleep. Bah ! To him she was the soup always the soup! Damn the wash! Damn the wind ! Damn the clouds ! Damn the endless miles of green distance! . . . Damn God! And the damn God, with grim humor, had amus- edly dabbed on his timeless palette, and detailed Dog Leyton's hating face, while the sea swept her swishing skirts by and smiled serenely up into that face, the face that hated her, the face with streaks and hollows of mental pain, traced ruthlessly under the seafarer's tan. The mouth, that seemed never to have smiled, was a thin line. The brows might never have been raised they seemed to be growing down. He seemed to have been in need, by his outward ap- pearance, of a physical and mental outlet for some- thing smoldering within him. Four obsessions were his : a ship, his son, a fight and his rum. An ideal master, hard, cruel and quarrelsome, but understood by his crew; and is not understanding the basis of system? And does not system mean a good ship? And The Lady Spray was certainly that. The sea's a man's life anyway, whatever you say. It takes a man to understand her moods and love her and ride her! She is startling in her moods; her smile, when she wakes in the morning there's nothing like it in the universe; and her rage God help you, if she is against you ! She's attuned to 6 FURY God, and if you love her and your life is with her and you're as true and as straight as she is, she'll introduce you to him direct as a friend, as a master, and you will need no church. And through the sea you learn to know yourself and all men. In the boundless mirror of her shin- ing face you get a clearer vision of yourself, and of the things that happen out of the longings and storms and passions, and loves and hates and sins of men. And she makes the drama of it all play before your eyes and you're never lonely. No, you're never lonely, if you play square with the sea, and she likes you well enough to introduce you to her Captain God. . . . The sea had always loved Boy loved him from that memorable night. The wind had teased her all day and kept her awake all the night before. She was letting her pent-up temper go, and the rain and the wind were answering her back. The Lady Spray was put to it to keep her nose out of trouble. The woman aboard was Mrs. Leyton, Dog's wife and as good a seawoman as you would want to find anywhere poor girl Dog Leyton was himself born on the sea and he wanted his child to start the same way. So that's how she happened to ship. The crew took kindly to her and well, that night there wasn't a man aboard who didn't mumble something or do some- thing unusual, such as men do when they're sight- ing death even when it's well to port. And Mrs. FURY 7 Ley ton, she just sat and trembled, white-lipped and still-eyed. A gale has always been a good excuse for Dog to take a couple more than usual. Damp affected his rheumatism; and it had often been said that The Lady Spray would have kissed Davy Jones long before but for Dog's uncanny sea wit and the ferocious fighting hate of opposition with which a couple of extra rums always endowed him. When he saw his wife that night, as he came in dripping, saw her sitting there still and white, he called her "yellow," and accused her of transfer- ring her cowardice to the child that was to come. But she knew her man. She stood up and smiled. She knew her man, drunk or sober. She walked out on top, the rain beating down on her breast. "Who's a bloody coward?" she screamed. "You want a kid like yourself. All right; we'll make a bullet-head out of him like his " Before she could finish The Lady Spray, over- hearing, pitched her down, head first, into the scuppers. It was Morgan, the young first mate, who picked her up and carried her back; it was Morgan, the first mate, who looked Dog Leyton in the eye in a way that the skipper never forgot; it was Morgan who took her burning hand, and whispered gruff comfort in her ear with a voice that carried in it something that made her open her eyes suddenly, almost forgetting her pain. 8 FUEY Then Mr. Hop, the ship's doctor, entered. . . . It was just breaking dawn and, like some naughty coquette who has had a spree the night before, the sea lay back smiling, breathless, wait- ing for a tropical day on' which to doze. The skipper had walked all night, and no more drink had passed his lips. He was sober, morose and ashamed ashamed to face the woman he loved ; ashamed in his soberness to look at her pain- racked face; ashamed to kiss her and ask her to forgive. And Mr. Hop came to him as the first streak of light peeped through the mist. "It's come, Captain a boy." The Captain did not move. He stood there, transfixed and ashamed, as with the first ray of light upon her lips, the sea smiled her welcome to Boy. Dog was ashamed! And at that moment from the cabin, Morgan, the first mate emerged, a queer look upon his face. And when dawn was full up, Dog Leyton stood over his wife, the woman who had loved him until then; and he looked down on her still, sleeping form ; and the face of Boy looked up into his . . . and crinkled and . . . perhaps, smiled . . . for- giving. CHAPTER II BOY Boy Leyton, second mate of The Lady Spray, the captain's only son was a child of the sea, weaned upon her rolling bosom. Her song had sung him to his baby sleep and her soft voice had taught him the only prayers he ever knew. And had he not been fathered by Dog, the roughest, toughest ever? He had lived up to all that father's expectations, in details of seamanship, diligence and discipline; but in his eyes could be perceived a vague tender- ness, a whimsical inquiry. It was this manifestation of his character which constantly broke the even course of his sea-faring existence by sharp and cruel conflict, for Dog Leyton attributed this strain to the wife, the mother, the woman who after the boy's birth had made life outside his ship a closed book to him, the woman he now hated who was gone. It was Boy's revelation of his softer quality, his unspoken hunger for love and sympathy, his innate ability to deal with brutality, with compassion and kindliness, which had created the smoldering con- flict between father and son a, conflict that fore- boded tragedy. Nor was Boy, although physically hard and brave, understood by the flotsam crew chosen by 9 10 FUKY Dog Leyton to man The Lady Spray. In truth he did not quite understand himself. Violence, vice and blood spelled to him indescribable agony. He was a recluse and a dreamer and yet at times for long periods he would gaze, as if wistfully, out to sea, sublimely oblivious to the life about him. Yet his immediate sense of humor, the virility with which he attacked his work, his buoyant and laughing attitude towards the crew, proved him Dog Leyton's son, with a pride in who he was, a pride manifested in his stride as second mate. But now and then, when in the very act of imitat- ing his father splendidly, he suddenly would spoil it all by a tender act or word. Intense and natural, he was a man among men, his very normality automatically high-lighted against the abnormal hardness of the captain, mate and rew. The hardening process to which Boy had been subjected, as persistently prescribed by his father, had failed. His physical perfection was balanced by a certain influence of soul, but he was without subtlety. He took life and indi- vidual circumstances exactly as he found them and dealt with them upon natural instincts and im- pulses. Therefore Boy was natural, strong, tender and brave; and if one ventured to criticize his moral make-up, one might point to his hypersensitive attitude towards his own tender and truer side, which he had learned to term within himself his "yellow streak." THE sea lay back, languid, under a hot sun. Her even, contented breathing swayed The Lady Spray with a gentle grace. It was like one woman lending another her mirror and The Lady Spray smiled quietly to herself. She felt dressed for the afternoon, her decks white and trim and her crew for the moment too hot to shout and sing. Boy, stretched upon the deck, face down, resting upon his elbows, was talking quietly to Noah, a green and red parrot in a very nice cage. "G'wan, yuh damn fool," he said politely, urg- ingly. "D'ye want yer dinner? Do yer?" A muffled scream from Noah. Muscles under a brown skin rippled as Boy swung into a sitting position. "Say 'Minnie, I love you!' Come on, now!