There should be no itinerary but the course of things. The plan of a
journey is made to be broken. Only famous travellers who make daring
flights by air to remote coasts to provide aeroplane builders, or
manufacturers of synthetic nourishment, with bold advertisements, ever
dare to say when we may watch for their return. Let us never challenge
the gods, who do not exist, as to-day we all know, yet who may grow
peevish if we not only deny their existence, but behave with arrogance,
as though to show them that superior man has taken their place.
Reason was only given to us that we might comfort ourselves with it. I
remember the smoke-room of a steamer, which was almost deserted, for
it was near midnight. Three fellow passengers sat near me, and they
were estimating the hour of our arrival in the morning. Their discourse
was leisurely and casual, but they were confident; they knew; and with
the elaborate and solid worth of that saloon to accommodate even our
tobacco smoke, what doubt could there be about human judgments? As to
our arrival, we could tell you within about fifteen minutes. I think
my fellow-travellers were men of commerce, for they were familiar with
the habits of our line and of many other lines; they could judge the
hour when we should be home; and they were assured that to relieve
humankind of poverty and war would be to invite God’s punishment for
unfaithfulness. Then they emptied their glasses and left the place to
me and a huge American negro pugilist, who had a fur-lined overcoat and
many diamonds, and who spoke to the steward as a gruff man would to a
dog.
Our steamer gave the assurance of that astronomical certitude which
is inherent in great and impersonal affairs. She held on immensely
and with celerity. Sometimes, when one of the screws came out of the
water, a loose metal ash-tray on the table forgot itself, became alive
and danced, like an escape of the amusement felt by the ship over
some secret knowledge she had; hilarity she at once suppressed. The
ash-tray became still and apparently ashamed of what it had done. The
slow rolling of the steamer was only the maintenance of her poise in
a wonderful speed. If your head leaned against the woodwork you could
hear the profound murmuring of her energy. We were doing well. No doubt
the men who had just gone out were right--at least, about the time of
our arrival.
Outside, the promenade deck was vacant. Most of its lights were out.
The portal to the room which accommodated our tobacco pipes announced
itself to the darkness with a bright red bulb and black lettering.
There was an infinity of night. One could not see far into it, but it
poured over us in an unending flood. The red bulb seemed rather small
after all. There was no sea. There was only an occasional sound and
an illusion of fleeting spectres. Going down the muffled stairway to
my cabin I met my steward. He warned me that we should be in by seven
o’clock. The corridor below was silent, its doors all shut, and another
steward was at the end of the empty lane, contemplative, reposeful,
the unnecessary watchman of a secure city. The accustomed sounds of the
ship, far away and subdued, were the earnest of an inevitable routine
and predestination. Almost home now! I switched off the light; began
planning the morrow into a well-earned holiday.... And then someone was
shaking me with insistence. It was only the steward. The electric light
was bright in my eyes.
“Not six yet, surely?”
“Not quite four, sir. But there’s not enough water for her to get in.
Better get up now. A tug is expected.”
Here we were then. The engines had done their work. They had stopped.
Though it was so early, I could hear people constantly passing along
the corridor, and not with their usual leisure. Fussy folk! Plenty of
time to shave and put things away! No need to hurry when this was the
end of it.
On deck it was still dark. Nothing could be heard but the running of
the tide along the body of our stationary ship. The note of the water
was pitched curiously high. It was something like the sound of a tide
running out quickly over shallows. An officer hurried through a loose
group of passengers, politely disengaging himself from their inquiries,
and vanished into the darkness of the after-deck. There were only a
few lights. They seemed to be irrelevant. Only odd fragments of the
ship could be seen. She was but a lump, and was doing nothing, and
her people wandered about her busily but without aim. I could hear an
officer’s voice loudly directing some business by the poop; there was
that sound, and the thin hissing of a steam-pipe.
A big man in an ulster, whom I recognised as one of the fellows
who, the night before, had decided at what hour we should arrive,
began telling me rapidly how necessary it was for him to catch some
train “absolutely without fail.” I think he said he had an important
engagement. I was not listening to him very intently. The ship was
aground.
But he did not appear to know it. Like the other passengers, he moved
to and fro, all ready to start for home, within a few paces of his
suit-case. These people waited in confident groups for the tender,
guarding their possessions. Some of them were annoyed because the
tender was dilatory.
There was no sign of any tender. Beyond us was only the murmuring of
the running waters, and the darkness. Through the night a distant
sea-lamp stared at us so intently that it winked but once a minute.
Its eye slowly closed then, as if tired, but at once became fixed and
intent again.
I was leaning over the port side, and the port side was leaning, too.
She had a decided list. A seaman came near me and dropped the lead
overside. He gave the result to someone behind me, and I turned. Two
fathoms! The mate grinned and left us.
The darkness, as we waited for the tender which did not come, was
thinned gradually by light from nowhere. I could now see the creature
with one yellow eye. It was a skeleton standing in the sea on many
legs. Some leaden clouds formed on the roof of night. The waters
expanded. Low in the east, where the dawn was a pale streak, as if day
had got a bright wedge into the bulk of chaos, was the minute black
serration of a town. The guardian lamp at sea grew longer legs as the
water fell, and when at last the sun looked at us the skeleton was
standing on wide yellow sands. The ship was heeling over considerably
now, for she was on the edge of the sands; the engineers put over a
ladder and went to look at the propellers.
It was hours past the time of our arrival. There was no tender. There
was no water. The distant town was indifferent. It made no sign.
Perhaps it did not know we were there. The lady passengers, careless of
their appearance, slept in deck chairs, grey and unkempt. The man who
had to be in London before noon “without fail” was also asleep, and
his children were playing about a coil of rope with a kitten.