The Lighthouse

- (WAVES CRASHING) - (WIND GUSTING)

- (THUDS) - Ow.

Should pale death with treble dread make the ocean caves our bed,

God who hear'st the surges roll, deign to save our suppliant soul.

To four weeks.

No, sir. Thank you.

It's bad luck to leave a toast unfinished, lad.

Oh, meanin'... meanin' no disrespect.

Man what don't drink best have his reasons.

Uh... Ain't it... I...

I... I understood it's against regulations, sir...

Did you?

I did, sir. From, uh... From them's manual.

Didn't picture you a readin' man.

Well, I ain't trying for trouble.

Then you'll do as I say.

That's in your book too.

To four weeks.

- (SPUTTERING) - (LAUGHING)

Aye. Aye. The cistern needs a-lookin' to.

One of your duties, lad. Or didn't y'read yourself about it?

You'll clean the brass and the clockwork, and you'll tidy up the quarters after.

And there's well more to be mended outside.

D'you hear me, lad?

Yes, sir.

Aye, sir!

Aye, sir.

When the fog clears, you'll work through the dog watch.

Doggin' it?

I was 'specting I'd get up to see the lantern.

I tend the light.

Well, the rules is alternatin' shifts.

It's the mid-watch that's to dread, lad. My watch, night to morning.

Some new junior man I'm fixed with.

See to your duties. The light is mine.

Son of a bitch!

Shingles.

Tend to 'em after the cistern.

And the lamp, she needs oil.

Aye, sir.

- (RATTLES) - Go!

Move it.

- (THUDDING) - (PANTING)

You don't go in there!

- Oil, sir. - Tired? Use this next time.

Save you a hell of a lot of trouble.

Catch your breath, lad.

I said, catch your breath, lad.

Then bring that drum back down the ladder well where y'found it.

'Less you're fixin' to burn the whole light down.

Then see to the rest of your duties. You're behindhand already.

- Aye, sir. - You're too slow. You a dullard?

No, sir.

Fooled me.

Should pale death with treble dread make the ocean caves our bed,

God who hear'st the surges roll, deign to save the suppliant soul.

Still tastes o'the head?

Ah, find some chirk in ye, lad. Now is the time for gab and chatter.

Y'best be enjoying it.

Come a fortnight, and the brace of us'll be wantin'

to be ever silent as the tomb.

I ain't much for talkin'.

Reckon you're the first?

No, sir. I don't.

Y'ain't.

Y'ain't.

The Chicopee, a fine-un she were.

Clean-built and trig-lookin'.

None more fleet in '64 than she.

We were on the breaks.

A mutiny, it were.

And why, ask ye? Why?

What's the terrible part of a sailor's life, ask ye, lad?

'Tis when the work stops when you're twixt wind and water.

Doldrums. Doldrums. Eviler than the Devil.

Boredom makes men to villains, and the water goes quick, lad, vanished.

The only med'cine is drink.

Keeps them sailors happy, keeps 'em agreeable,

keeps 'em calm, keeps 'em...

Stupid.

Curse me if there ain't an old tar spirit somewheres in ye, lad.

Out with it, lad.

Uh...

What, uh... What made your last keeper leave?

Him? Me second?

Mm-hmm.

Died.

Went mad, he did.

Ravin' about sirens, merfolk, bad omens and the like.

In the end, weren't no more sense left in him than an hen's tooth.

He believed that there was some enchantment in the light.

He notioned that St. Elmo had cast his very fire into it.

Salvation, said he.

Tall tales.

I seen ye sparrin' with a gull.

Best leave 'em be.

Bad luck to kill a seabird.

More tall tales.

Bad luck to kill a seabird!

Pay me no mind, lad.

None.

Fix us up some coffee.

Long night ahead.

Drop o'coffee will do us good.

- (SEAGULLS SQUAWKING) - (GRUNTING)

You've been neglecting your duties, lad!

Don't deny it!

What do you call that?

- Sir? - What?

I... I mopped and swept twice over, sir.

Ye lyin' dog.

- I swept 'em. - 'Tis begrimed and bedabbled.

Unwiped, unwashed, and distained.

You get some kinda peart outta molestin' me?

Come now?

I already says...

How dare ye contradict me, y'dog.

Now look here, I ain't never intended to be no housewife

nor slave in takin' this job.

It ain't right.

These lodgings is more ramshackle than any shanty boy's camp I ever seen.

The Queen of England's own fancy housekeeper

couldn't even done no better than what I done,

'cause I tell you, I scrubbed this here place twice over, sir...

And I say y'did nothin' o'the sort.

And I say y'swab it again, and y'swab it proper-like this time,

and you'll be swabbin' it ten times more after that.

And if I tells ye to pull up and apart

every floorboard and clapboard of this here house

and scour 'em down with your bare, bleedin' knuckles, you'll do it!

And if I tells ye to yank out every single nail

from every molderin' nail-hole and suck off every speck of rust

till all them nails sparkle like a sperm whale's pecker,

and then carpenter the whole light station back together from scrap,