EASTERN SEAS
It was not long after they sailed from England that the midshipmen
decided that many of their dreams were coming true. The _Colonsay_,
though she was a poor ship to look at, passed the great lowering
battleships of the Home Fleet proudly, almost with a little toss of her
head. They might frown contemptuously at her, but soon they would be
buried in the Northern mists, ploughing up and down eternally, keeping
station on the Flag, the bondservants of the wireless at Whitehall; and
she would be away for a holiday. True, the wireless could reach her
too, but it would not take the trouble. To Colombo and back she would
be her own mistress, bound to drop a curtesy only now and then to other
people’s admirals whom she might meet at ports of call.
And those who sailed in her might look further than Colombo. There
they would take over the _Pathshire_ from her homeward bound crew,
and depart towards the freedom of the East. A small ship with its
implied intimacy and informality; long cruises independent of even
the ladylike China Squadron flagship; few fleet exercises; coaling
with shore-labour; new countries, new faces, new interests--this was
their prospect. It changed them all, and put new life and hope into
them. For two years they were to be outside the vice whose jaws were
Gibraltar Straits and the Shetland Isles. It was the release of their
lives, a visit of slum children to the open fields. From the Home Fleet
they came, and to the Home Fleet they would return, and they were all
determined to make the best of the time that was to intervene.
“It’s extraordinary,” John wrote to his mother, “the contrast between
this ship and the _King Arthur_. Ordith is odd to me--but nothing on
earth to complain of; and the other two-stripers treat the Gunroom
almost as equals off duty. Even on duty they are always polite, except
when they let fly in moments of justifiable excitement, and that does
no harm. And often they yield points of strict etiquette in a way that
makes four hours on the bridge pass like two. I don’t know how long
all this will last. I dare say that as the end of good things draws
near, the good things themselves will deteriorate. But now everyone
is so pleased with life that all goes well. Hartington, the Sub, I
like immensely. You don’t know how much happier I am. There’s always
something to which to look forward. I think the absence of that was the
trouble of the _King Arthur_, and the trouble of all the unfortunates
in home waters.”
The _Colonsay_ put in to Arosa Bay to drop ratings who were taking
passage to other ships, and of these the ship’s company took farewell
with the air of schoolboys who, going out into the playing-fields,
leave comrades to do impositions in class-rooms. At Gibraltar they
did not tarry long. Soon after the Rock had gone down over the
western horizon they were overtaken by a storm, which continued with
extraordinary violence until they were within a few hours of Valetta.
To reach the bridge was a formidable task. In the batteries, where the
fo’c’sle gave shelter against the head wind, progress was comparatively
easy, but, once over the break of the fo’c’sle, the trouble began.
There was a space of several yards between the head of the battery
ladder and the foot of the ladder that led to the bridge. Across this
space had been stretched a rope, by clinging to which it was possible
to avoid being whisked off the deck and blown, but for the friendly
intervention of a davit or a sighting-hood, into the mountainous sea.
John, heavy with sea-boots, and with skirts of oilskins clinging to his
legs, held this rope and tried to advance, but the combined strength of
legs and arms could not move him. While the boatswain’s-mate, secure
under the lee of the bridge ladder, smiled at his attempts, John pulled
and pulled but went forward not an inch. Then, suddenly realizing how
ridiculous he must look, he burst out laughing, and swiftly choked
because he had opened his mouth to the gale. And it was not until the
boatswain’s-mate--himself securely lashed to a stanchion--came to his
assistance, that John could move at all.
“Is this an official hurricane?” he said to Dyce, whom he was relieving.
“No, not yet. We are logging the wind as eleven. A hurricane is
twelve.” He turned over the details of his watch. “Which battery did
you come up?”
“Port.”
“Is that the driest to go down?”
John laughed. “There’s devilish little to choose. I think the port’s
the better.”
Dyce ran his fingers over his face. “I’m sticky all over with it,” he
said. “I feel as if I should crack if I grinned. It stings after a
time. All the same, it’s exciting on watch. You never know when the
foretopmast will go over the side.... Well, d’you know everything you
want to know? Will you take over now? I’m going to the Gunroom to fug.”
“We’ve just had a green sea in there,” said John, “so the fug is
considerable.”
The _Colonsay_ entered Valetta white with salt. Ashore there, after
coaling, John met Reedham and Ollenor, whose joy in having got so far
East was overshadowed by the thought that, when their old shipmates had
sailed for Port Said, they themselves would go westward again. “I’d
give a year’s seniority to be coming out with you,” said Reedham. “Come
and have a drink.”
An ankle twisted while playing grommet hockey on the quarter-deck
prevented John from going ashore at Port Said, Suez, or Aden, and his
knowledge of these places extended no further than the tales told by
other midshipmen of the marvellous things they saw there. Already they
had entered the atmosphere of the East. Colours had grown brighter,
near outlines more distinct. In the Canal they went into half-whites,
and as they entered the Red Sea blue monkey-jackets were discarded
altogether, and for the first time they wore white tunics as well
as white trousers and boots. The heat made the outboard wall of the
Gunroom too hot to lean against. The midshipmen who were working in the
Engine-room came up from the watches, not red with heat, but white and
trembling with exhaustion.
“This ship,” said Hugh, “may have a thousand advantages, but its
engines are not among them. The Tiffeys say they are the hottest they
have ever served with--and the Lord defend them from hotter!”
“What watches do you have to keep?” John asked.
“Now only one four-hour watch each day. It doesn’t sound much. You try
it. The indicator diagrams are the worst business--one set to be taken
every watch. I suppose I’m slow, but I can’t take a set--allowing for
mishaps--in much less than half an hour; and the temperature up there,
on the top of the cylinders, is anything from 135° to 160°. It’s a real
relief to get away into the boiler-rooms for a spell. And the more warm
and sooty lime-juice you drink the faster you sweat, so that’s no good.
But, barring odd jobs, we have to ourselves twenty hours out of the
twenty-four, which is a recompense for most evils.”
There were tales, too, of the stokers on duty on the evaporators, of
how they worked in a temperature of 126°, and how they had fainted at
their posts within three-quarters of an hour.
From Aden across the Indian Ocean the way was calm and blue. The sea
was an enormous, flat, highly-polished sapphire, and its surface was
so still by day and so luminous by night that it seemed hard like
a jewel. Astern, the wake was thin and regular, and visible almost
to the horizon. The ship, and all life in the ship, seemed to John
somehow theatrical. The brilliance of colour, the flash of white
uniforms in the sun, the absence of most of those Service activities
that ordinarily distinguish a warship from a yacht, contributed to
this effect. Superficially this life corresponded closely to that
led by puppet naval officers on the civilian stage. Here were sea
and blue sky, white ducks still new, the gleam of sun on gold-laced
shoulder-straps and gilded buttons. It was all pleasant and unreal.
“This,” said Hartington, “is very like a poster advertising for naval
recruits. It catches the eye but doesn’t convince the mind.”
“It gives one the idea of the stage, or of toys,” John answered. “The
ship goes through the water like a toy boat that you pull by a string
across a bath--nothing to interrupt quite regular bow-waves that go
oiling on and on to the very edge.”
Hartington leaned across his bunk towards his cabin scuttle. “Listen,
now,” he said. “Down there--by the water-line--not a muffled swish of
waves, but, clear and distinct, the touch of particles of water on
steel. Almost you can hear each bubble split and scatter.... You seem,
as you go East, to be able to look at everything very close, every
detail like a minutely accurate miniature--or, as you said, a toy that
you can pick up and hold under your eye. I remember, when I was a
small boy, I loved to pick up a toy horse and cart, or an engine or a
house--just for the fun of feeling like a god. I was Destiny brooding
over the nursery! I could throw a divine boot at my sister’s dolls’
tea-party--but I didn’t, because of the crockery. But often, when one
of her dolls was ill, and the doctor had failed, and the bottles were
empty of physic, I used to remove the roof of the house--my dramatic
mode of entry--and take the patient from her bed, and cure her, and
put her out in the garden. Nine times out of ten my sister approved
the miracle; but now and then, when she had had ideas of her own about
that cure--probably a journey round the world from the night-nursery
to the school-room--she used to weep because I had spoilt everything.
I remember her nurse asked me what I meant by interfering, and I said
solemnly that I had meant well--which was quite true--but that I had
been ‘playing at God.’ I shall never forget the effect of that remark.”
“And here and now,” John said, “one has a feeling of being in the
doll’s house one’s self.”
“And a horrible idea that someone is ‘playing at God’ not very far
off--Someone whose Hand might come suddenly out of nothing and pick
the painted ship up out of the painted ocean and--and drop it into the
nursery fire. I used to send tin soldiers to Hell that way.”
John smiled. “Is that the ‘fatalism of the East?’”
“No: it’s a Cockney picking up an idea of Time and Space and the other
capital letters. ‘_O Time and Change they range and range From sunshine
round to thunder_.’... Have you written more verse?”
“No.”
“What have you written?”
“Nothing. It’s too hot.”
They sipped Irish whisky and lemon beneath the electric fan whizzing
and vibrating in its cage.