XXIV
Mug of hot water in hand, I pick my way aft among the derrick chains, and descend to my room. Have I yet described it? Nine feet six by seven wide by seven high At the for"ard end a bunk overtopped by two ports looking out upon the main deck. At the after end a settee over which is my book-case. A chest of drawers, a shelf, a mirror, a framed photograph, a bottle-rack, and a shaving-strop adorn the starboard bulkhead. A door, placed midway in the opposite side, is hung with many clothes. A curtain screens my slumbers, and a ventilator in the ceiling chills my toes when turned to the wind. Ceiling and walls are painted dead white, with red wainscotting round the settee. Two engravings grace the only vacant spots on my walls--one a wild piece of wood and moorland, the road shining white after a late-autumn rain, with a gypsy van showing sharp against the lowering sky; the other a wintry lane with a waggon labouring in the snow. A patrol-jacket and a uniform cap hang over a pillow-case half full of dirty clothes. Such is my home at sea.
Look round while I shave. Quite possibly some may wonder that I should affect such commonplace pictures. They cost me threepence each, in Swansea. Well, I am not concerned with their merit as pieces of decorative art. When I look at that wet road and rainy sky, I go back in thought to the days when I lived near Barnet, and the world was mine on Sunday. I recall how I was wont to throw off my morning lethargy, get astride my bicycle, a pipe in one pocket and a book in the other, and plunge into the open country beyond Hadley Heath. It had rained, very likely, in the morning, and the roads were clean and fresh, and the trees were sweet after their bath. And as the afternoon closed in I would sit on a gate in some unfrequented lane and watch the red fog darken over London town. I was happy then, as few lads are, I think. Those long silences, those solitary communings; were _mind-building_ all the time. So, when I came away from home and settled in Chelsea, and heard men talk, I felt that I, too, had something to say.
In like manner my snowscape takes me back to the time when I was a mechanic, engine-building near Aylesbury. We lived half a mile from the works, at an old inn, and we began at six o"clock. In winter time, I remember, we would snuggle into the big back kitchen, with its huge cauldron of pig-meat swinging over the open fire, and its barrels containing evil things like stoats and ferrets, to put on our boots; and when we opened the door, two feet of snow would fall in upon the floor. How well I remember that silent trudge up the bleak Birmingham Road to the works! There were always two broad ruts in the white roadway--the mail-coach had pa.s.sed silently, at two o"clock. Cold, cold, cold! A white silence, save for our dark figures shuffling softly through the snow. And then a long eleven-hour day.
XXV
I have occasionally mentioned my friend the Second. A keen, dark-skinned, clean-shaven face, with small blue eyes and regular white teeth. There are no flies on him. His is one of those minds which can grasp every detail of a profession and yet remain very ignorant indeed, a mind which travel has made broader--and shallower.
He is a clever, courteous, skilful, well-bred, narrow-minded Broad-Churchman. He is a total abstainer, a non-smoker, and a frequenter of houses of fair reception. If anomaly can go further, I can declare to you that he is engaged to a clergyman"s daughter. When he is angered, his face grows as thin as a razor, the small blue eyes diminish to glittering points, and the small white teeth close like a vise. It is then that I am sorry for the clergyman"s daughter. We do not understand each other, I fear, because I am so unsentimental. He believes in unpractical things like Money, Success, Empire, Home Life, Football, and Wales for ever. How can a man who puts faith in such visionary matters understand one who builds on the eternal and immovable bedrock of literature and art? He has sober dreams of following in his father"s steps and making a fortune for himself, and he considers me weak in the head when I explain that I have made _my_ wealth and am now enjoying it. Would he _ever_ understand, I wonder?
"_Yes, there are some from whom our Lady flies, Whose dull, dead souls, rise not at her command, And who, in blindness, press back from their eyes "The light that never was on sea or land._""
In fact, I should say he is one of those same mechanicians of whom I spoke, in whose lives literature will have no place, and the desire for a private harem supplant the _grande pa.s.sion_. This may sound absurd when one remembers their love of home; but I speak with knowledge. It is easy enough to make a man out to be a patriot, or a humanitarian, or a home-lover, if you pick and choose from his complicated mentality just what suits that particular label. To know a man as he is, you must be shipmates with him, quarrel with him, mess with him week after week until you are sick of the sight of him. Then, if you are sufficiently sensitive to personality, you will divine his spiritual bedrock beneath all the superimposed recencies, and you will know whether he be "a mere phosphatous prop of flesh" or whether he have in him some genuine metallic rock, from which the fabric of the distant world-state may be fashioned.
XXVI
Once more I am writing "homeward bound." Homeward bound! Outside the Channel fog is coming down to enfold us, the wind is cold, my stock of fruit, laid in at Las Palmas is done, and George the Fourth is growling through the ventilator, "T" Longships, mister!"
Longships--that"s twelve hours" run from the Mumble Head, the great white lenticular lenses of which fling wide-sweeping spokes of light across the tumbling waters of the Channel. The Skipper is cautious, has been twenty-two hours on bridge and in chart-room; refuses to go ahead until he can locate Lundy. We heard, in Grand Canary, that the big White Star _Satanic_ is lying near the Lizard, back broken, total loss, heroic pa.s.sengers all safely landed. Wonderful people, pa.s.sengers. If they keep hysteria at a distance for a few hours, they are bravoed from one end of the Empire to the other. The _Satanic"s_ engineers? The Empire has overlooked them, I suppose, which is their own peculiar glory.
Homeward bound! "Finishing," too, for three of us. Chief, Second, and Fourth are leaving when we get in, and I shall be alone for a few days. That means work, I fear, and no joyful run up to Paddington this time. Well, well, next time _I_ finish, and we shall foregather in the Walk once more. I was thinking, only a day or two back, that Chelsea Embankment must be in its glory now, glory of early spring. That n.o.ble line of granite coping and twinkling lights. How often have we walked down past the Barracks from Knightsbridge, taken pot-luck at the coffee-stall at the corner, and then fared homeward between the river and the trees! Ah, me! To do it once again--that is what I long for.
In the meanwhile, the Longships are away astern, the Skipper has found Lundy, a grey hump on the port bow in the morning light, and we are "full ahead" for the Mumbles. Sailors" bags are drying on the cylinder-tops, Chief, Second, and Fourth are fixing up a "blow-out" up town to-morrow night; mess-room steward is polishing the bra.s.swork till it shines like gold; and I am writing to my very good friend. We are all very cheerful, too; no "sailors" gloom" in our faces as we go on watch. George the Fourth (I cannot imagine what the ship will be like without him) is making himself ridiculous by doing everything for "t" last time." "T" last time!" he mutters as he starts the evaporator and adjusts the vapour-c.o.c.k. He is taking the temperatures for the last time. He is going up to South Shields for his "tickut," by which he means a first-cla.s.s certificate of competency issued by the Board of Trade. That is George the Fourth"s utmost ambition. He is a man then; he is licensed to take any steamer of any tonnage into any sea on the chart. He has, moreover, a certain prestige, has this skylarky youth, when he gets his "chief"s tickut." Ladies who preside over saloon bars will try to lure him into matrimony. He will grow (I hope) a little steadier, and fall really and truly in love.
My colleague the Second, he intends to work ash.o.r.e and sleep at home.
The clergyman"s daughter, I imagine, will come more and more into the scheme of things, and the mother he loves so well will give him her blessing. So each, you see, has a clearly defined plan, while I drift along, planless, ambitionless, smoking many pipes. I have been trying to think out something practicable. Am I to drift always about the world, a mere piece of flotsam on Swansea tide? Or am I to sit down once more in Chelsea, hand and brain running to seed, while the world spins on outside? I must think out a plan. And I must school myself to cancel all plans beginning "If she will--if only." Why cannot I rise to some decent sense of self-respect, to say, as says the man in "The Last Ride Together":
"_Take back the hope you gave,--I claim Only a memory of the same._"
That"s manly--pre-eminently English, in fact. But, meanwhile, I drift planless.
The mighty Norseman, too, in his own sinewy Hyperborean style, is full of joy. His jolly pasty face beams joyously upon me. He will be "a pa.s.senger for one quid" from London to Gothenburg, thence to Stockholm, and Marianna. The engine-room is bulging, in places, with the contraband goods he is bringing home for Marianna. Pieces of silk "for the Signorina," as the handsome old huxter-lady at Canary purrs in our ears; bottles of Florida water, mule canaries, and Herrick"s own divine Canary Sack, to which he so often bade "farewell." All these for the dainty maiden who indulges in German Script. G.o.d speed you, oh, mighty Norseman! May your frescoed bosom never prove unfaithful to your grey-eyed maiden. I, at least, have been the better for having known you--a ship pa.s.sing in the night.
And so we come to the Mumble Head.
XXVII
Paid off, free for the afternoon, with overcoat b.u.t.toned up and collar about my ears, I stroll aimlessly through the town. It has often been my ambition to emulate those correct creatures who, when they come to a place, study maps, read guide-books, and "do" the sights one by one.
But, so far, I am a dead failure. Even my own dear London is known to me by long-continued pedestrianism. When I reach a town I put up by chance, I see things by chance, leave on an impulse, and carry away precious glimpses of nothing in particular that I can piece together at leisure into a sort of mnemonic mosaic. Well, so I stroll through Swansea, trying to forget the only two facts which I know concerning it--that Beau Nash was born here and Savage died here. They are like bits of grit in the oyster of my content. I will turn aside and see life.
I enter one of my favourite taverns. I am surrounded by maidens, barmaidens, and a fat landlady. Amy, Baby, Starlight, Chubby--all are here, clamorous for the baubles I had promised them four months before. My friend would be shocked at their familiarity; I admit, from a certain point of view, it is scandalous. But, then, all things are still forgiven to sailors. And so, business being slack, I am dragged into the bar-parlour and commanded to disgorge. I produce bottles of perfume, little buckhorns, ostrich feathers, flamingo wings, and bits of silk. The big pocket of my overcoat is discharged of its cargo. I am suffocated with salutes of the boisterous, tom-boy kind, and am commanded to name my poison.
As a reward, Chubby promises to go with me to that iridescent music-hall up the street. Chubby"s appearance is deceptive. She is diminutive, with a Kenwigs tail of plaited hair down her straight little back. But she is almost twenty; she is amazingly swift behind the bar, and no man has yet bilked her of a penny. There is a Spartan courage about the small maiden, too, which I cannot but admire. Her parents are dead; her sisters both died the same week a year ago; she must earn her living; but--"No use mopin", is it?" she inquires as she fingers a locket containing photographs which hangs around her neck.
That is her philosophy, couched in language that resembles herself.
I should be only too delighted to take her. But--there is my incorrigible habit of reading a book or lapsing into intellectual oblivion while at the play. How many comedies have I "seen" without hearing a single word! So, when I go to the iridescent music-hall, something in the programme, or the audience, will set me musing, and Chubby will be neglected. I think I shall buy two tickets, and let Chubby take someone else--George the Fourth, say!
And Baby, fingering the silk I have brought her--Baby personifies for me that terrible problem which women and men treat so callously. Baby has already pa.s.sed several milestones on the road to Alsatia and we shall meet her some day, somewhere between Hyde Park Corner and Wardour Street.
But that is far away yet. The glamour of the thing, its risk, its pleasantness, are over her as yet. Officers of the Mercantile Marine are not squeamish in a home port, nor are they scarce. Baby"s rings are worth good money. The sordid bickerings of the trade are in the future, the callous calculations, the indispensable whiskey.
Now, while Baby is bending the violet eyes of hers upon a piece of Moorish silk, let me clear my mind of humbug. I am no sentimentalist in this matter. I am not certain, yet, that "my lady" of to-day is the sole repository of every virtue; neither am I dogmatic about "necessary vice," the "irreducible minimum," and such-like large viewpoints. I have, indeed, nursed a theory that our floating population might be induced to receive a certain percentage of these adjuncts to civilisation, one or two on each ship, say, with results satisfactory to all concerned. Everyone knows that, in towns, the demand is grotesquely disproportionate to the supply. The Board of Trade could deal with the question of certificates of competency.
As I sit in this bar-parlour, it seems to me that an inextinguishable howl of horror is rising from the people of England. And as I desire to be honest, I admit that I am overawed by that same tumult--a sort of singing in my ears--and so leave the problem to Mr. H. G. Wells, or someone else who deals habitually in social seismics.
After all, descriptions of sea-port barmaids can scarcely be interesting to my friend. If she lose no time in providing him with hot rum and water (not ungenerous with the sugar), she can rival either Pompadour or La Pelletier--he cares not which. Which is the callous regard of the whole business to which I have referred.
Once more adrift, I wend my way dockwards, pause at the Seamen"s Mission, hesitate, and am lost. I enter a workhouse-like room, and a colourless man nods good-afternoon. Conveniences for "writing home,"
newspapers, magazines, flamboyant almanacks of the _Christian Herald_ type, Pears" Soap art, and "_Vessels entered inwards_." For the asking I may have back numbers of the _Christian Herald_. Mrs. Henry Wood"s story-books are obtainable by the cubic foot. As the colourless man opens his mouth to address me, I shudder and back out. Give me vice, give me boredom, give me anything in the world but this "practical religion" and smug futility of ign.o.ble minds.
I fear my philosophy has broken away and I am misanthropic. Possibly because I shall not see my friend this home-coming. Moreover, I am due on the ship even now, for the others are going off to their triumphal "finish" up town. Faring back, then, I come to the dock-head at sunset, and it is my hour. Darkness is rushing down upon the shipping as I watch. In the distance hill piled on hill, blue dome upon blue dome, spangled with myriad firefly lights, backed by the smoky red of winter sunset; and here the shipping, ghostly now in the darkness, exquisitely beautiful in the silence. From out at sea comes a faint "_ah-oo-oo-oo_"--one more toiler coming in to rest. And it is night.
XXVIII
My friend the Chief Officer is putting fresh clothes on his bed. Clean sheets and blankets and a snowy counterpane ("All sorts o" people come in to have a chat, Mr. McAlnwick") are arranged with due care. He is brisk to-night, is my good friend, having no log to modify this time, and nothing else on hand for a day or two. Photos dusted, ports opened, tobacco and whiskey duly placed between us, he climbs into his nest and proceeds to converse. A sort of "_Tabagie_" or tobacco parliament, such as was once in force at Potsdam.
"Sure," he snorts, ""twas blackmail the baggage was after, ye can take it from _me_, and--keep the door open when she"s sorting the things."
Being a young man, I wait, seated sedately on the settee, to hear more concerning "the baggage," who is, let me explain, an itinerant _blanchisseuse des equipages_ of equivocal repute. The Mate reaches for his pipe.
"Would ye believe it, Mr. McAlnwick? She comes in here, while I"m lying in me bunk, closes the door, and comes up to me. Says she, "Oh, Mr. Mate, I"m very unhappy!" and puts her arms round me neck, in spite--in spite of all I could do, and falls to screamin"!"
""Slack back," says I, "or ye"ll be the most unhappy woman in this town." An" then Nicholas he puts his head in."
"The Steward!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e.
"The same. Ye see, mister, the baggage, she thought the Old Man was aboard, and--she was goin" to make out a case! Says Nicholas, "Oh, my words! I"ll fetch police!" An" away he cuts."
"How embarra.s.sing!"