Chapter 12

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 ignoble 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 équipages_ 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 ejaculate.

"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 embarrassing!"

The blue eyes of my friend the Mate are twinkling, his face is screwed up, and his nose is wrinkled all the way up. He is more like my old Headmaster than ever.

"'Twas so, Mr. McAlnwick--'twas so. Ye see, my besettin' sin is sympathy. I feel sorry for the baggage. She has a har-rd time of it, and the ends don't meet--won't meet, nohow. But, as I said, 'Consider the situation, Mrs. Ambree.' 'Oh, Mr. Mate,' says she, 'will he fetch the police?' 'Possibly,' says I, 'if he finds one on the quay.' And she began cryin' fit to break me heart."

To my surprise, the nose is still wrinkled; he breathes through his nose in a way that means "Ye don't know what's comin'."

"'Oh, I hope he won't be so cruel, Mr. Mate,' says she, cryin' as I said. 'For why?' says I, speakin' stern. 'You are an immoral wumman, Mrs. Ambree.' 'Yes,' says she, 'I know that, Mr. Mate, I know that; but it would be har-rd on me if he was to fetch Jim aboard for me.' 'Jim?' says I. 'Who in thunder's Jim, Mrs. Ambree?' ''Tis my husband,' she sobs. 'He's on night duty in this dock, an' I'm a ruined soul if he finds out.' And she set down there, Mr. McAlnwick, just where you're settin' and burst into floods o' tears."

"Dear me!" I observe. And the nose is one mass of humoursome corrugations.

"Aye, 'tis so," continues the Chief Officer, pouring out "Black and White" for two. "An' at that moment in comes Nicholas, his face serious-like, and says he, 'Mrs. Ambree, ye're wanted.' An' she goes out wi' him, like Mary Queen o' Scots to the block!"

"Mr. Honna, I'm surprised!"

"Not a bit of it, McAlnwick, not a bit of it! At first I thought Nicholas had been a fool and fetched a policeman, but Nicholas is no fool, as ye've no doubt observed. Still, I got out an' put on me pants and went into the cabin. Passin' the Steward's door I heard voices. Enterin' the Steward's room, I saw him an' the baggage splittin' a Guinness and carryin' on! 'Twas scandalous, Mr. McAlnwick. To be done by a wire-haired, leather-skinned old reprobate like Nicholas. 'Twas a clear case, for his wife does all his washin' up at Bridgend."

"I am shocked, Mr. Honna."

"Ye may well be. I was too. Pass the water-bottle, Mr. McAlnwick."

"I hear," I observe, "I hear Alexander the Great is to have the _Petruchio_ next time she comes in."

"That's the rumour, Mr. McAlnwick. _I_ think there's something in it, for me wife tells me that Mrs. Alexander was lookin' at a house in Cathay only last week. 'A house,' says she, 'that will be not less than thirty pounds a year.' That means _Petruchio_, a big ship."

The above personage, you see, is the Chief, the man who wore elevators in his boots.

"But why should he move into a larger house, Mr. Honna?"

"To keep up his position in the world, Mr. McAlnwick. 'Tis a big responsibility, ye see. His youngster will now go to a--a scholastic academy while mine remain on the rates."

"How are they, Mr. Honna?"

"Fine, Mr. McAlnwick, fine! Jacko passed I don't know how many exams., and he's teaching the curate to play the organ. Hallo!"

There is a knock at the door, and I rise to lift the hook which holds it. A stout man with a short moustache and a double chin--Tenniel's Bismarck to the life--touches his cap. It is the night watchman.

"Beg pardon, sir, Mr. Honna, but I don't feel well, sir, and I wanted to know, sir, if you'd mind my goin' to get a drop o' brandy, sir?"

"Away ye go, then."

"Thank you, sir. Shan't be long, sir. Only----"

"Have ye any money?"

"Oh, _yes_, sir. Thank you all the same, sir."

I close the door, Bismarck hastens away for brandy, and the Mate's nose is covered with wrinkles. Whereby I am at liberty to conclude that there is _bunkum_ in the air. I cough.

"See that man?" he says. I nod.

"Skipper of a three-masted bark once."

"Yes?"

"He was!"

"What brought him down to night watchman at thirty shillings a week?"

"Bad health. He was always feelin' unwell, and he was tradin' between Liverpool and Bordeaux."

The Mate nods at me to emphasise his words, while I look at him gravely.

"An' now," adds my friend the Mate, "I must turn out and see he comes back."

"I'll do that--don't bother. So he's one of the derelicts?"

"His brother was another. Died mad, over at Landore. Ever hear of Mad Robin? Well, he was Chief of a boat carryin' cotton to Liverpool. Comin' home from Savannah, dropped her propeller in mid-ocean."

"Shipped his spare one?" Mr. Honna laughs shortly.

"Didn't carry spares in that company, Mr. McAlnwick. No, he made one."

"Made one! How?"

"Out of a block of hornbeam and the plates of one of his bulkheads. Knocked about for a month waitin' for fine weather, tipped the ship, fixed his tin-pot screw on, and started 'slow ahead.' Came in under her own steam, Second Engineer in command, Chief under restraint in his berth. Died over at Landore--D.T."

With which abrupt epitaph the Mate reaches for his pants, while I, knocking out my pipe, go away to turn in.

XXIX

But I cannot sleep. Something lies at the back of my brain--a dull anxiety, hardly definable to myself. It is possible that I may see her again, when I come home once more. I shall know for certain in the morning. And yet it may so happen that it is indeed finished. Nay, nay, my friend, have patience. I can see you as you read this, storming about the room, dropping red cigarette ash on the carpet, visibly perturbed in your mind at my madness.

Yes, yes, I know I forswore it all in a moment of bitter cynicism. But, _mon ami_, I am a man--a very irregularly balanced man, too, I often think--and there rises from my soul an exceeding bitter cry sometimes. You see here my life--barmaid society, ship's tittle-tattle, unending rough toil. To have but one hold, one haven, one star to guide--canst blame me, _mon ami_, if I hold desperately to a tiny hope?

Thinking this out, I walk far out to the pier-head, beneath the harbour light, and look earnestly into the darkness covering the sea. Have pity, at least, old friend, when I write in pain.

"_Worth how well, those dark grey eyes, That hair so dark and dear, how worth, That a man should strive and agonise, And taste a very hell on earth For the hope of such a prize!_"

To which your much-tried patience replies merely, "Humph!" I suppose? But, old friend, is it not true? Have I not heard your own voice give way a little, your own hand falter with the eternal cigarette as some long-hidden memory swept across your mind? So I believe, and so I understand the terse silence when you rise abruptly from the piano in the middle of some sad, low improvisation, and I lose you in the smoke-laden darkness of the room. Life for us moderns has its difficulties at times, life being, as it were, anything but modern. We have so many gods, not all of them false, either; but the Voice of the Dweller in the Innermost brings their temples crashing about our ears, and we are homeless, godless, atheists indeed.

I do not think this problem has been solved for us yet. It is all very well for the orthodox to say sneeringly, "Why not believe, like us? Why stand outside the pearly gates, while Love and Lovers pace beneath the trees that grow by the River of Life? So easy, _mes amis_! Only believe. Do not delay, but come. Why not to-night?" We are further from yon purple-crowned heights than you wot of, good friends. Between us and that golden radiance lie many miles of dusty road, lies even the Valley of the Shadow, through which we have passed. And now, as we are emerging from that same Valley, out upon the broad high tablelands of Understanding, we turn and see the distant loveliness, and we halt and stumble, and (sometimes) lose our way.

"_She should never have looked on me, If she meant I should not love her! There are plenty--men, you call such, I suppose--she may discover All her soul to, if she pleases, And yet leave much as she found them: But I'm not so, and she knew it When she fixed me, glancing round them._"

XXX

Chains rattling, winches groaning, sun shining, longshoremen shouting, breezes blowing.

"_God's in His heaven-- All's right with the world._"

And the dock postman (dear old Postie, who cadges sticks of hard tobacco and cigars from us when he brings good news) is standing on the quay while the ship is being moved into her new berth, and he waves a batch of letters when he sees me looking towards him. So! I have been burrowing in our boilers, testing the scale, inspecting stays and furnace crowns, and the joy of working has come back to me. I was solemn last evening, melancholic and somewhat metaphysical it seems; but let it stand. 'Tis morning, and Postie's on the quay.

I breakfast alone. The others are ashore, but they will appear during the day to finish up and to bestow mementoes on the wretched one they leave behind. And so I sit smoking my pipe by the mess-room fire; Postie descends, beaming expectantly. He hands me two letters, one from my friend, one from----

There was a thick mist before my eyes, the fire seemed an infinitely distant red blur, and Postie, several continents away, was burbling about possible promotions, good voyage, fine weather, tobacco, and the like. Forgive me, old man, but your letter lay unopened for a while. I poured tobacco and cigars into Postie's pockets, and sat down to think things out. Was it foolish of me to sit down to think? To set down the problem thus: Here am I, a man of infinite, almost unknowable latent possibilities, suddenly repossessed of the supreme power and glory of life. How can I, by taking thought, bring out those same possibilities, make them actual and patent to the world, apply them to the highest and noblest uses, and so justify myself before men? In some such manner did I put to my own soul the position, trying ever to keep in view the sanctity, the holiness of life, and the preciousness of its holiest of holies, where dwell, as I have said, the power and the glory.

It is late in the evening of this most momentous day, and I must put down my pen, but there is one thought which perhaps may serve as answer to the scepticism so often expressed when I asserted my belief in this world after all. I mean if a man, when he experiences some transcendent joy, is prompted to express that joy in terms of nobler effort and sterner consecration to the welfare of others--does not this fact lead him to infer that happiness is, at least, more natural than unhappiness? that the universe does indeed exist, in Emerson's phrase, "hospitably for the weal of souls"? That, in fine, when the majority turn their faces this way, first keeping the houses of their souls swept and garnished for the love they are awaiting, then will the mountain of our misery be levelled, our valleys of despair filled up, and the rough places of life made plain?

So, at least, it seems to me just now as I sit and write. How I long for a talk with my friend!

"_You're my friend! What a thing friendship is, world without end!_"

XXXI

I was awakened by something rattling outside my open window-port, wakened to a small tragedy. A circular wire rat-trap, depending from a line held by someone on the poop, and containing two frantic rats, dangled against the opening. Alas! how they ran round and round and round! The cause of all their agony, a piece of decayed fish and a fragment of mouldy cheese, was left untouched as they dangled before me. The voice of my friend the Mate is audible down my ventilator. He is arguing with the Steward, one Nicholas, of whom you have heard. Said Nicholas is protesting in his clickety Graeco-English fashion, that the pelt of a drowned rat (_dronded raht_, Nicholas loquitur) is worth less than that of one skinned alive. To which horrible doctrine my friend the Mate opposes a blustering Irish humaneness issuing in "Dammit, ye shan't!" Rats, meanwhile dangling, they as well as their fate hanging uncertain. At last they are lowered. (The Mate talking, I think, over his shoulder at Nicholas, who stands, probably in contemplative fashion, legs apart, face serious, brain calculating income derivable from rats skinned alive.) The line rising in a minute, I turn on my elbow to witness the end. Alas! _Hélas!! Ach Himmel!!!_ How are the mighty fallen! Two grey shining lumps, each with tapering tail dropped limply through the bottom; fish, cheese, and rodents all on one dead level now, given over to corruption. Up, up--I hear the trap grounded on the poop over my head. I sigh as I climb out and wash. I rather like rats. The Grey One in the tunnel is an old chum of mine. I have never killed one yet, though often even Grey One has been chased up and down, in fun. He, sitting on a stringer and twirling his whiskers, has "views," I think, about Men with Sticks, _his_ conception of the Devil and all his angels.

John Thomas, bursting in with hot water for shaving and information concerning breakfast in the cabin, interrupts my rat-reverie. It is Sunday morning.

"Eight o'clock, sir. Steward say, sir, will you have breakfast with the Chief Officer?"

"No one else aboard?"

"Second Officer's in the galley, sir."

"Where?"

"Galley, sir." A snigger from John Thomas. "Come aboard early, sir."

"Oh! Tell the Steward 'Yes, with pleasure.'"

So! I finish dressing leisurely, donning patrol-jacket and uniform cap, and "turn out." It is a calm Sabbath morning. Not yet have the mists rolled from the heights which frown upon us all around, but the sun glitters on the docked shipping, silent save for the flapping of sea gulls and the clank of some fresh-water pump. With a glance of homage towards the sun, I go below for my inspection. Boilers, fires banked in the donkey-boilers over weekend, bilges, sea-cocks all in order; I am at liberty to enjoy my day of rest. Nicholas, in white drill coat, shining silver buttons, and shore-boots of burnished bronze hue, glides aft with a dish (held high, in the professional manner) covered with a dome of gleaming pewter. Two youths on the quay, fishing hopelessly for insignificant dock carp, watch with open-mouthed awe. My own buttons of yellow metal, linen collar, and badge _de rigueur_, pass a similar scrutiny as I follow him to the saloon.

The saloon, compared with our own quarters, is sumptuously furnished. Panelled in hard woods, white ceiling with shining nickel rods and brackets, carpeted floor and ruby-plush upholstering--into such a palace I step to take breakfast with my friend the Mate. He is already entrenched behind the pewter dome, Nicholas gliding round giving the final touch of art to the preparations. The subject of skinned rats has vanished to make room for the serious business of his life.

"Good-mornin', Mr. McAlnwick. Sit there! We are alone to-day, as ye see. Nicholas!"

Nicholas is a believer in ritual. He is tolling his little brass hand-bell just as though everyone was here. In a minute he reappears.

"Sir?"

"Is Mr. Hammerton aboard?" A snigger from John Thomas, installed _pro tem._ in the pantry as the Steward's aide-de-camp.

"'S in de galley, mister."

"Does he want any breakfast?"

"No, sir. 'S 'sleep in de galley." Another snigger.

"What's the matter with that boy?" thunders my friend the Mate, lifting the dome from ham and eggs.

"He is merely cursed with a sense of humour, Mr. Honna," I observe, and we avoid conversational rock and shoals until we are ensconced in his private berth.

"The fact is, Mr. McAlnwick, Mr. Hammerton's a very foolish young feller. Help yourself to some tobacco. Knowin' as I do that when he went ashore last night he had twenty-six pounds ten in his cash pocket, I wonder he isn't lyin' at the bottom o' the dock instead of in the galley. He will not bank his surplus. And he _will_ get drunk."

"What's at the bottom of it all, Mr. Honna?"

"I'll show ye!" With a hoarse whisper he rises, tip-toes swiftly along the corridor to the Second Officer's room, and returns with a photograph.

Baby! Is she another milestone nearer to Alsatia, then? My pipe remains unlit as I gaze at the cheap provincial photograph of a girl with large eyes and a sensuous mouth.

Mr. Honna pushes his cap back and stares at me.

"What! D'ye know her?"

"It's Baby," I answer, laying the thing down. "Baby!"

"He's engaged to her."

"Since when?"

"Since--Gawd knows--last Monday, I believe."

I reach for the matches, and recount to the Mate my knowledge of Baby. His nose wrinkles up, his eyes diminish to steel-blue points of fire, and he nods his head slowly to my tale.

"Same old yarn. Oh, Mr. McAlnwick, are there not queer things come in with the tide? Now listen, while I tell ye. 'Tis what they all do. They dangle round bars, all at loose ends, they get their master's tickets, and they marry barmaids. Then when the command comes along, the woman keeps the man down in the mud. 'Twas with me, too. I was engaged to a Nova Scotia girl--two Nova Scotia girls--different times. I'd roll round town, givin' 'em to understand I was master, take 'em out drivin' in a buggy Sunday evenin', makin' a fool o' meself fine. When the crash came--oh, Mr. McAlnwick, make use of your advantages now yer're at sea!--when the crash came, we were just ready to sail, an' I stayed by the ship. But next time 'twould be the same. I couldn't be acquainted with a girl for a week without proposin' matrimony! Mr. McAlnwick, ye mustn't laugh. 'Tis the truth. Even now--but why talk? Ye know my sympathetic nature. But this seems to be serious. So she's the barmaid at the Stormy Petrel, is she? Humph!"

"His brains must be addled," I observe, "not to see----"

"Ah! but ye're young, Mr. McAlnwick! _That's_ no hindrance in the worrld to--to such as him. _Oh_, dear no!"

"Then such as he have a very low standard of morality."

"Mr. McAlnwick, now listen. When ye've been sent to sea at twelve year old as apprentice, an' ploughed the oceans of the worrld for five years in the foc'sle, when ye've been bullied an' damned by fifty different skippers on fifty different trades as third and second mate, when ye've split yer head studyin' for yer ticket, when ye've got it and ye're glad to go second mate at seven pounds ten a month, when ye see men o' less merit promoted because they marry skippers' daughters while you are walkin' the bridge--what 'ud ye do?"

"I don't know, mister." I am taken aback by the velocity of the question, by the Mate's earnestness.

"Ye'd turn callous or religious, or go mad! Ye see, Mr. McAlnwick, there's a lot ye miss, though ye won't admit it. Ye come to sea and ye meet the cloth, but ye don't realise their trainin'. Ye laugh at us for our queer ways, such as never walkin' on the poop over the Skipper's head, never askin' for another helpin', never arguin' the point, an' such like. But consider that man's trainin'! Ye cannot? Ye've been brought up ashore, ye've had opportunities for studyin' and conversin' with edyecated people, an' ye're frettin' for some young lady, as I can see--don't deny it, I saw Postie bring the letter--and ye wouldn't touch the likes o' _this_ with a pair o' tongs. But with Mr. Hammerton 'tis different, do ye not see?"

"Yes, I see, a little. But you yourself, now----"

"Me? Oh, 'twas a special providence preserved me, Mr. McAlnwick. I was waitin' for a command at the time, and I was unable to get out o' the bargain. But ye know my wife."