Home—On an Orient Liner—The Orchestra—A Sailing Ship—Paganini—Port
Said—Honolulu
AGAIN I am home and meet familiar faces, and enjoy the sweet security of
home life and respectability; but soon the flight of time brings its
inevitable changes both to my feelings and to those around me. I am no
longer the prodigal son and a romantic novelty to the many who welcomed
me at my arrival in the monotonous suburb; but nevertheless we are all
moody companions in the sad drama of respectability. I had made up my
mind to go travelling no more, but my good resolutions have faded away,
and my whole soul is centred on inventing the best excuse for my not
being able to accept the good position in London that will make me, at
last, the respected son of a respected father.
Well, I feel a bit ashamed of my incorrigible personality, and yet how
much my soul is burdened with the thought that I must aspire to higher
things, and go off to the city each day like Mr W.’s son does, to sit on
a stool. I can never be the pride and joy of the family, and as I sit
alone and dream I am miserable with dim forebodings. On the back of the
chair is my very high white collar and the smart tweed suit, and by my
washstand my beloved fiddle. Just over it, on a peg by my bed, is my
big-rimmed Australian hat. Alas! that hat speaks of tropical sunshine
and coco-palms. I can hear the arguing voices of bushmen in the grog
shanty by “Bummer’s Creek,” and the trade wind in the shore banyans as
the beachcomber laughs and nudges his pal in the ribs.
I cannot sleep, for the parrots are flying and muttering across the sky
of my dreams; I hear the crack of the stock-whips on the slopes as the
scampering, flying sheep go racing across my bedroom floor. I close my
eyes, and the natives start singing in the Fijian village, and the drums
are beating the sunset out ere I am wide awake, through the civilised
jingle of the milkman’s cans in the cold, windy street below.
The last dark wintry morning arrives. It has all been settled. I have
signed on for a voyage as violinist and assistant purser on the Orient
liner the _Britannia_. I am to catch the 4 A.M. train to London Bridge.
How dark and cold it is as I get up and dress, then go up the next
flight to kiss my three sisters a last good-bye. They lift their sleepy
heads and put their arms around my neck. “Good-bye, Tiggy,” they say
once again, as I gently close their bedroom door and go downstairs. My
father helps me on with my overcoat, and says very kind words. I try to
answer, but my voice sounds husky and I keep placing the wrong arm in my
overcoat sleeves. Now comes the greatest task of all, a task that will
tax all my courage. I strive to hide my weakness and make a joke about
the bad penny turning up again soon, and then neither of us speak, and
once again I kiss her lips, the lips of the most beautiful woman this
world ever gave me. I hurry down the streets. I am glad it’s dark, for
my eyes feel weak, and the windy light of the lamp-posts seem to swim
about the street spaces. I am haunted by her face all down the Channel
that night, for she caught my soul adrift among the stars ere I was
born, and my heart still sings a sad song for the woman who was my
mother.
* * * * *
There is a deal of sameness on a large liner’s trip to the colonies. But
for the complication of characters among the passengers and crew, and
the ports that we put into on the voyage out, the passage would be
extremely monotonous.
Forward, near the fo’c’sle, was the glory hole, between decks, wherein
slept the crowd of stewards and cooks. They were a jolly lot of men, and
when the steerage and fore-cabin passengers had finished their evening
meal they would sit on their sea-chests yarning or playing cards far
into the night. Sometimes they would sing songs, accompanied by the
twang and tinkling of the assistant cook’s banjo; and older men, who
were tired out, thrust their fierce faces out of their bunks and swore
at being kept awake, as once more the wild chorus of _I owe Ten
Shillings to O’Grady_ re-echoed through the “glory hole.” Sleepless
passengers up on deck clapped their hands with pleasure to hear the
monotony broken, as the big pistons in the engine-rooms throbbed out
their incessant pom-pe-te-pom, and the screws thrashed the racing liner
across the world. In the morning at four-thirty the men would be dead to
the world in their bunks as the second steward started shouting: “Now
then, you sleepers! Now then, you sleepers, rise and shine!” or “Come
out of it, you young b——!” and so on, as sleepy heads lifted up in the
rows of bunks and then dropped helplessly again. Some were romantic boys
who had read autobiographies, and some middle-aged men who had sickened
of the workman’s train and drifted to sea.
In the evenings I played the violin in the saloon and deck concerts aft,
beyond the dividing rope which was the boundary line that told the
fore-cabin passengers that they must not approach the élite in the first
saloon.
Our orchestra consisted of three violins, ’cello, bass, and the usual
brass and wind. I had an easy time, and often till midnight would stand
on deck watching the stars and the world of waters below, and listening
to the voices of passengers on deck outward bound for Australia, to find
fame and fortune—or ill fame.
I became very friendly with a member of our ship’s band, the solo cornet
player. He was a quiet, elderly man, turning grey, and had once been a
player in the orchestra of the Lyceum Theatre. A fine all-round musician
he was too. He would sit on deck after dark, put a mute on his
instrument, and extemporise melody and make it sound like a sweet-voiced
girl singing softly to herself. He had the real temperament, and had
received a first-class musical education.
Nothing reveals character, the intellectual calibre of the instrumental
player, so much as the type of composition that makes up his private
repertoire. For in that he only plays the compositions which appeal to
him. Some are devoid of personality and only perform the stock pieces
that are fashionable. Others revel in melody that tells of the light
side of life, its gaiety, or the pathos of dramatic existence on the
stage, the tragedian’s mock grief before the footlights ere the curtain
falls. Others find their musical heaven vaguely expressed by playing
those pieces that seem to murmur, as a sea-shell murmurs of the ocean,
that indefinable note of poetry, the voice of the unknown, the intense
inner life of our existence. My friend was one of the latter kind. He
gave me many useful hints which I profited by, (as I often did in my
travels), and so received a free musical education, the only music
lessons I ever really had.
But for the throb of the engines and thrashing screw, the vessel’s
motion, and the stewards’ sea-legs aslant to the deck’s list as they
walk the saloons and cabin alley-ways, you could half think you were in
some subterannean hotel. Travel on a liner, and the wild poetry of the
sailing ships swerving to the swell of travelling seas, the climbing
sailors aloft singing their chanteys among the storm-beaten sails, the
flying clouds overhead that race the moon, all seem to be something that
you dreamed of, or lived through ages ago.
Sea-boots and oilskins seem mythical things that faintly recall your
yellow-backed old buccaneer novels, or the days when Drake sailed down
the seas.
Officers on the P. & O. liners speak with university polish. “Ay, ay”,
“Hold hard!”, “Look out, you son of a sea-cook!”, “Holy Moses!”, “Up she
comes”, “All together!”, “Let go!”, “Haul the mainsail up!”. This is all
changed now to “Make haste, Mr Pye-Smith” and “Yes, sir, I beg your
pardon. What a draught!”. Or a bell tinkles down in the engine-room, and
the mammoth liner, like a mighty iron beast, slows obediently to
half-speed, stops, or slashes her tail and goes full speed astern,
without one song or oath.
The stormy night and head-wind, the huddled group of sailors in oilskins
singing their wild chantey, _O, O, for Rio Grande_, on deck in the windy
dark as they bend together and pull while the vast monotone of the ocean
becomes the orchestral accompaniment to voices from strong, open,
bearded mouths, and your world of stars suddenly veers as the dark
canvas sails and yards swerve round; the chief mate shouting, “What the
blazing hell—— Ay, there!” as on the wind comes faintly back, “Ay, ay,
sir, all clear!”: this smacks more of the sea. Why, on a sailing ship,
the very sea-cook at the galley door, amidships, clutching his pans,
gazing across the wild, lonely waters, where the leaping, white-bearded
waves seem like old misers’ hands plucking at the sunset’s gold, is
sheer downright poetry compared with the electric-lighted saloon crowded
with munching, over-fed men and women with moving mouths and pince-nez
on their respectable noses.
The sailing ship has its rough, uncomfortable side, for well I remember
my last trip from ’Frisco round the Horn, when I stood on deck at night,
with deadly cramp gripping my legs, my eyebrows frozen together, my nose
pinched and blue with cold, the decks awash and our sea-chests afloat in
the fo’c’sle and deck-house. I recollect the cook holding on to his pots
and pans and swearing as only an old-time boatswain, and that cook,
could swear as we begged for a pannikin of hot coffee: stuff that tasted
like heaven-sent life-blood to our frozen lips as we two boys drank it.
The weather-beaten boatswain in his oilskins and sea-boots went by us in
the dark, as great seas came over, singing a song to himself as though
he was soliloquising in some quiet bar off the Mile End Road instead of
experiencing the wildest weather I have ever seen, or ever want to see.
How I admired those old seafarers! “Fetch that, matey,” they’d say, and
off I’d rush, eager to please and obey the orders of Horatio Nelson and
Sir Francis Drake, for such men they seemed to me.
In the fo’c’sle at night they’d say: “Get that fiddle out and play to
us.” A thrill of boyish pride would go through me to notice their
attention and respect as I played my best. Presently they would join in
as I played the chanteys they had taught me, _Sailing down to Rio_ or
_Blow the Man Down_. Without removing their pipes or chewing quids,
their cracked, hoarse-throated voices would join in.
Deep bass voices two or three had, and as they sat round me on their old
sea-chests, and I scraped away to the tuneless, yelling, bearded mouths
beneath the dim light of the fo’c’sle oil lamp, I drank in the last
breath of the winds of sea romance. I see them now as I dream. There
they sit on their sea-chests, oilskins and sea-boots on, with curios
from other lands fastened over their bunks around them, as they open
their big bearded mouths and sing. How ghost-like their eyes look by the
light of the dim lamp, as the hazy tobacco smoke curls thickly to the
low roof! Then their hollow voices fade and the visionary “Old Hands”
vanish as the last breath of wind blows them like cobweb-fine things
through the fo’c’sle door, along the moonlit deck, away seaward for ever
as I dream.
How I recall these lonely nights and the sailors moving across the deck
in the dark, or climbing aloft like shadows back to the sky. I used to
stand alone and gaze over the ship’s side and suddenly feel the
intensity of living, as my thoughts half clung hopefully to the stars,
like lost, migrating swallows that cling to the rigging of ships far out
at sea; and the mighty, moving water all around me seemed to break with
its monotone against eternity. I remember lying in my bunk, and by the
oil lamp’s light watching the ship’s cockroaches go filing across the
photographs of my parents and relatives which I had tacked on my bunk
side to remind me of home, though I required no such reminder. Those
silent faces intensified the difference between reality and my boyhood’s
dream; as a cold breath out of the grave of my beloved, who slept in the
seas outside, blew through the door across my face as I dreamed of
her—my beautiful dead romance!
Truly, sailing ships have their rough side as well as a wildly romantic
one. Rolling down south, with gales behind bringing the seas up like
majestic travelling hills as under the poop they go, and she rolls and
swerves as the masts sweep across the sky, is the motion of sea poetry.
If you are aloft you look down and could swear that she must turn
turtle. Telling you this calls back my feelings when I first went aloft
as a boy of fourteen years.
The ship was rolling heavily, and as I looked down on deck something
seemed to have happened (I turned pale, I’m sure): she was turning right
over. I clung on with might and main as the masts and yards went over;
death seemed to stare me in the face: like a wild beast I hooked on with
fingers, toes and teeth, prepared for the final plunge into the heaving
ocean below, when lo! to the mysterious equal pull of gravity she slowly
swerved and rose, the rigging jerked and rattled, the jib-boom lifted
and the figure-head at the bows lifted her face from the weather-side
and went right over to peep at the lee-side. Overjoyed, I looked over my
shoulder astern and saw the chief mate yawning on the poop and the man
at the wheel quite unconcerned, when I had instinctively thought they
were clinging to anything movable, prepared to dive into the ocean when
the ship turned clean over. That bronzed, broad-shouldered mate grinned
when I stood on the poop. He asked me how I had felt. He was a good
sort. He’s dead now and under the sea, missing these many years; and the
red-bearded Scotch skipper, who was like a father to me, is worse off,
for the last I heard of him was that he was still alive and
missing—mentally. “But this won’t buy the baby a frock,” as they say at
sea when you go off dreaming and leave your work to yarn. So I must
return to the P. & O. liner as she races across the Mediterranean, bound
for Suez.
We had called in at Naples, where we had taken on board a batch of
passengers. I remember one of them especially; he was a distinguished
old Italian and his profile recalled to my mind the pictures I had seen
of Dante. He wore a loose cloak and a cavalier hat, and carried a
violin-case. His eyes were eagle-like, yet bilious-looking, for he was
suffering from some kind of yellow jaundice and slow circulation. On the
hottest nights his teeth chattered with the cold. When we were crossing
the Red Sea and the passengers brought their beds on deck to sleep,
hoping to get a whiff of air, he went into his cabin in the usual way,
with his teeth chattering with the cold, crawled into his bunk and got
into his bed-clothes—a large canvas sack heavily lined with wadding;
bodily into this he would go and tie the tapes at the head of the sack
tightly round his neck, so that no air could possibly get into the sack
and give him a chill. The very sight of it all made me perspire and gasp
in that stifling hot weather. I felt sorry for him, and I cannot imagine
now that he could have lived very long after getting to Australia, where
he was going for his health’s sake. He was a splendid violin-player, but
did not perform. I used to talk to him on deck, and discovered that he
was a Genoese. I was greatly interested to hear that his father, who was
also a musician, had known intimately the celebrated violin _maestro_,
Paganini, and had had violin lessons from him. From broken English, and
Italian gesticulations, I learnt that the great violinist had peculiar
ways. He had stayed for a few days at my friend’s childhood home and
while there had upset the quiet routine of the family, for he was
extremely superstitious and restless, and walked about the house all
night. He declared that a ghostly woman stood with her face at his
window whenever he played a certain melody that had come to him in his
dreams. Beyond his family’s enthusiastic reminiscences over Paganini’s
violin-playing, that is the only incident that vividly impressed me. My
friend was a remarkable character and, though he was ill, extremely
vivacious and always talking excitably. Sometimes he would sit on deck
after dark, and plucking the strings of his violin, pizzicato, guitar
style, would sing softly to himself in Italian with a clear, sweet,
musical voice that was very effective.
I went with him ashore at Port Said. It was fearfully hot, but as my
friend walked down the gangway with me he was well swathed in scarves,
and wrapped up in shirts under his large fur-lined cloak. He seemed to
have plenty of money and was anything but mean with it. It was a treat
to get away from the hubbub of the natives coaling the steamer. I only
have a dim, dream-like recollection of that particular visit ashore at
Port Said. I remember the town with the white buildings and palm-trees
dimly outlined under the stars, and the begging, dark-faced descendants
of the Egyptian Pharaohs who rushed forth out of alley-ways and sought
our patronage. Signor Niccolo was terribly thirsty, and the English
restaurant was so crowded with passengers from the boats that we both
went off and sought elsewhere for refreshments. We went up a dark
alleyway, directed there by a swarthy man who evidently misunderstood
our requirements. In the darkness it seemed like some subterranean
passage to an Egyptian ghost-land as we walked along and heard the
uncouth voices of the inhabitants issuing from the little barred windows
that were let in in the high walls on each side. Shuffling by us went
the sandalled feet of black men with white turbans on that looked like
towels swathed about their heads. Presently we arrived at a tunnel-like
entrance that led into a suspicious, dimly lit little restaurant. As we
sat at one of the small tables and sniffed peculiar odours, that smelt
like scented tea and aromatic herbs, four dusky beauties came through a
little secret door and laughingly revealed their teeth, then asked in
broken English what we would like to drink. Signor Niccolo called for
wine and I had coffee. Off rushed the dark female attendants to execute
our orders. “Funny plaze and funny girlees, eh?” said Signor Niccolo to
me. “Seems so,” I answered, for the waitresses were only dressed in
little singlets, with a loose piece hanging to their knees and a scarf
swathed about their bosoms for modesty’s sake, which was the only
modesty that we saw there, as they lifted their scanty robes to dust the
furniture. We drank our refreshment and hurriedly escaped from the
place.
I do not think there are any missionaries at Port Said; possibly the
English and American officials look upon it as hopeless. Port Said was a
veritable hell of iniquity in those days, and still is. Passengers often
went ashore and lost the boat, or disappeared altogether. After we left
a Yankee saloon passenger sat on the settee and told us of his
experiences there. He had gone into an isolated restaurant at the north
end of the town and called for a drink. In his button-hole he wore a
large red camellia blossom which, though he did not know it, was a kind
of Masonic sign. So directly he had ordered his whisky and sat down in
the large arm-chair, the attendant, who was an old black Arab mute with
a heavy grey beard, suddenly touched a spring in the wall, and lo! up
went a partition on each side and he was shut in a little room, staring
with surprise at the old mute, who, to his astonishment, now spoke in a
musical voice. The old man’s beard and eyebrows dropped off and with the
old cloak fell rustling to the floor, and there, with shining dark eyes
and pouting lips, a dusky harem beauty stood before him! Even the sedate
P. & O. chief officer smiled behind his napkin as the Yankee told us
that yarn, and we tried to keep straight faces over all the details
which I have left out!
Three or four weeks later I arrived in Melbourne, where I stayed a week
in Collins Street and at length succeeded in getting a berth on a boat
that was bound for the Islands. Eventually I arrived at Honolulu, where
I had some luck with my violin-playing which enabled me to take a cheap
passage to Apia, where I had lived before.
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