Which is boyhood's commonest ambition, to run away to sea or to be
something on a railway line? And how few, when they are grown up, find
that they have realised either of these desires! The present Minister
of Transport has freely confessed to his intimates that more than once,
when he was floating paper-boats in his bath or climbing a tree in the
garden to look out for icebergs from the crow's-nest, he felt in his
child's heart that water was the ultimate quest, the adventure, the
gleam. And yet for many a long year railways entranced and enslaved him.
Often he would sit for hours, forgetful of the griddle cakes rapidly
being burnt to a cinder, and gaze at the puffs of steam coming from the
spout of the kettle or the quick vibrations of its lid, planning in his
mind some greater and better engine that should be known perhaps as The
Snorting Eric, and be enshrined in glass on Darlington platform.
Once, when he had bought a small model stationary engine and the
methylated spirit lamp had by some accident set fire to the carpet, he
was found after the conflagration had subsided standing serenely amongst
the wreckage. When challenged as to its cause, "I cannot tell a lie," he
replied calmly; "I did it with my little gadget." A few months later
he and the present Ambassador of Great Britain at Washington had
constructed a double line of miniature tracks, which connected all the
rooms on the ground floor of the house and considerably interfered
with the parlourmaid's duties. It was known to the family as the Great
Auckland Railway. Another favourite hobby of the young engineer was to
lie on his back and watch the spider spin her web, comparing the results
with a railway map of Great Britain. It was seldom that he went to bed
without having learnt at least a page of _Bradshaw_ by heart.
Going from strength to strength this apparently dreamy lad had climbed
the giddy rungs of fame until, at the outbreak of war, he stood with the
ball at his feet and the title of Deputy General Manager of the N.E.R.
It was he who had invented the system whereby the handle of the heating
apparatus in railway carriages could be turned either to OFF or ON
without any consequent infiltration of steam, thereby saving passengers
from the peril of death by suffocation. It was he who, thumping the
table with an iron fist, had insisted vehemently that caged parrots
travelling in the rack should, if capable of speech, be compelled to pay
the full fare. It was he who effected one of the greatest economies that
the line had ever known by using rock-cakes which had served their term
of years in the refreshment-room as a substitute for the keys which hold
the metals of the permanent way in their chairs.
In the summer of 1914 he was about to adopt a patent device for
connecting the official notices in compartments with gramophones
concealed under the seats in such a way that when humourists had by dint
of much labour made the customary emendations, such as "IT IS DANGEROUS
TO LEAP OUT OF THE WINDOWS," "TO STOP THE RAIN PULL DOWN THE CHAIN" and
"TO EAT FIVE PERSONS ONLY," a loud and merry peal of laughter should
suddenly hail the completed masterpiece.
Armageddon supervened, and the rest of Sir ERIC GEDDES' career is
history. When a new and sure hand was needed at the Admiralty, Mr. LLOYD
GEORGE was not long in making the only suitable choice. Sir ERIC GEDDES'
bluff hearty manner, positively smacking, despite his inland training,
of all that a viking ought to smack of, had long marked him out as the
ideal ruler of the King's Navy, and his name was soon known and feared
wherever the seagull dips its wing. Underneath the breezy exterior
lay an iron will, like a precipitate in a tonic for neurasthenia, and
scarcely had he boarded the famous building in Whitehall and mounted his
quarter-deck (Naval terms are always used at the Admiralty, the windows
being called "port-holes" and the staircases the "companion") than
victory began to crown the arms of the Senior Service.
But peace no less than war finds an outlet for the energies of the old
sea-dog, and the veriest hint of a railway strike finds him ready
with flotillas of motor lorries in commission and himself in his flag
char-à-banc, aptly named the Queen of Eryx, at their head. Lever,
marlin-spike or steering wheel, it is all one to the brain which can
co-ordinate squadrons as easily as rolling-stock, to the man who is now
sometimes known as the Stormy Petrol of the Cabinet. Yet even so the
sailor is strongest in him still. It is not generally known that Sir
ERIC has already cocked his weather eye at our inland waterways as an
auxiliary line of defence in case of need. Experience has taught him
that it is even now quicker to travel, let us say, from Boston (Lincs.)
to Wolverhampton, by river and canal than by rail, and the future may
yet see Thames, Trent and Severn churned to foam by motor barges of
incredible rapidity, distributing the nation's food supplies.
This is one of the things that the Ministry of Transport has, so to say,
up its sleeve, and is alone a sufficient answer to those who suggest
that this Ministry has outlived its hour. There is a grim Norse spirit
amongst its officials, inspired perhaps by their chieftain's name, and
already the plans for a first-class Pullman galley are under way. As
LONGFELLOW sings:--
"Never saw the wild North Sea
Such a gallant company
Sail its billows blue;
Never, while they cruised and quarrelled,
Old King Gorm or Blue Tooth Harold,
Owned a ship so well apparelled,
Boasted such a crew."