“In the establishment where we sat one could get a variety of foreign drinks which were kept for the visiting naval officers, and he took a sip of the dark medical-looking stuff, which probably was nothing more nasty than cassis à l’eau, and glancing with one eye into the tumbler, shook his head slightly. ‘Impossible de comprendre—vous concevez,’ he said, with a curious mixture of unconcern and thoughtfulness. I could very easily conceive how impossible it had been for them to understand. Nobody in the gunboat knew enough English to get hold of the story as told by the serang. There was a good deal of noise, too, round the two officers. ‘They crowded upon us. There was a circle round that dead man (autour de ce mort),’ he described. ‘One had to attend to the most pressing. These people were beginning to agitate themselves—Parbleu! A mob like that—don’t you see?’ he interjected with philosophic indulgence. As to the bulkhead, he had advised his commander that the safest thing was to leave it alone, it was so villainous to look at. They got two hawsers on board promptly (en toute hâte) and took the Patna in tow—stern foremost at that—which, under the circumstances, was not so foolish, since the rudder was too much out of the water to be of any great use for steering, and this manœuvre eased the strain on the bulkhead, whose state, he expounded with stolid glibness, demanded the greatest care (éxigeait les plus grands ménagements). I could not help thinking that my new acquaintance must have had a voice in most of these arrangements: he looked a reliable officer, no longer very active, and he was seamanlike, too, in a way, though as he sat there, with his thick fingers clasped lightly on his stomach, he reminded you of one of those snuffy, quiet village priests, into whose ears are poured the sins, the sufferings, the remorse of peasant generations, on whose faces the placid and simple expression is like a veil thrown over the mystery of pain and distress. He ought to have had a threadbare black soutane buttoned smoothly up to his ample chin, instead of a frock-coat with shoulder-straps and brass buttons. His broad bosom heaved regularly while he went on telling me that it had been the very devil of a job, as doubtless (sans doute) I could figure to myself in my quality of a seaman (en votre qualité de marin). At the end of the period he inclined his body slightly towards me, and, pursing his shaved lips, allowed the air to escape with a gentle hiss. ‘Luckily,’ he continued, the sea was level like this table, and there was no more wind than there is here.’…The place struck me as indeed intolerably stuffy, and very hot; my face burned as though I had been young enough to be embarassed and blushing. They had directed their course, he pursued, to the nearest English port ‘naturellement.’ where their responsibility ceased ‘Dieu merci.’…He blew out his flat cheeks a little…’Because, mind you (notez bien), all the time of towing we had two quartermasters stationed with axes by the hawsers, to cut us clear of our tow in case she…’ He fluttered downwards his heavy eyelids, making his meaning as plain as possible…’What would you! One does what one can (on fait ce qu’on peut),’ and for a moment he managed to invest his ponderous immobility with an air of resignation. ‘Two quartermasters—thirty hours—always there. Two!’ he repeated, lifting up his right hand a little, and exhibiting two fingers. This was absolutely the first gesture I saw him make. It gave me the opportunity to ‘note’ a starred scar on the back of his hand—effect of a gunshot clearly; and, as if my sight had been made more acute by this discovery, I perceived also the seam of an old wound, beginning a little below the temple and going out of sight under the short grey hair at the side of his head—the graze of a spear or the cut of a sabre. He clasped his hands on his stomach again. ‘I remained on board that—that—my memory is going (s’en va). Ah! Patt-nà. C’est bien ça. Patt-nà. Merci. It is droll how one forgets. I stayed on that ship thirty hours…’