MIST AND MOONLIGHT.
“AS you know, Miss Norah,” the captain said gravely, “I discourage early
rising. It’s a bad thing—leads to chronic attacks of superfluous
energy, and embroils passengers with the deck-hands.”
“Especially the last!” said Norah, laughing.
“Well—possibly. Deck hands are busy people and passengers are not;
therefore passengers should remain peaceably in bed until they won’t be
in the way. Which remarks are not intended to apply to you, Miss Norah.”
“How would they?” Jim laughed. “There’s nothing of the Spartan early
riser about Norah.”
“I’m delighted to hear it,” the captain said. “All the same, I’m about
to advise you to turn out early to-morrow. We’ll be in Cape Town about
six in the morning, and you mustn’t miss the sunrise over the mountain.
It’s one of the finest things in the world.”
“Oh, I’m glad you told me, captain,” Norah said. “I’ll tell my steward
to call me.”
“Yes—don’t forget. The harbour is an interesting one altogether; but
the mountains are grand, and coming in, the view changes each moment. We
shall probably be going out in the dusk, so you must be sure of seeing
the entrance.”
They had had a quick and uneventful run round the Cape of Good Hope from
Durban, missing altogether the dreaded “Agulhas roll” which is the
bugbear of the sea-sick. Every one had revelled in the luxury of lit
decks and open port-holes, in the security lent by the knowledge that a
British cruiser was just ahead of the _Perseus_. To-morrow night the old
restrictions would be in full force again—but first there would be Cape
Town, and twelve hours ashore. Norah had always had vague longings to
see Cape Town; no port on the homeward route interested her half so much
as the city nestling at the foot of Table Mountain. She went to bed
early, leaving everything in readiness for the morning start—determined
to waste nothing of that precious twelve hours.
It was still dark when she awoke, with a start, from a confused dream,
in which she had been chased by an apparently infuriated motor,
shrieking defiance at her. As she tried to collect her scattered
faculties the sound she had heard in her dream came again—a long,
hoarse shriek.
“What on earth——?” she queried, sitting up. She switched on her
light—it was two o’clock. Voices were heard along the corridor, to be
drowned by another evil howl.
“Something’s wrong,” Norah decided. “It can’t be boat-drill for us,
’cause that’s two short, sharp whistles. Everything’s funny and dim—I
believe something has gone wrong with the electric light supply.” She
jumped, as the long scream came again.
Then she heard her father’s voice, quiet and steadying.
“Awake, Norah? Not scared, are you?”
“N-no, I don’t think so, Daddy,” Norah answered, not quite certain if
she were speaking the truth. “Is it the Germans?”
“It’s fog, I think,” Mr. Linton said, coming in. “My cabin is full of
it—and so is yours.”
Voices were breaking out everywhere, drowned at regular intervals by the
long howl.
“What’s the matter?”
“Is it the Germans?”
“We’re wrecked, I suppose.” This was an elderly lady’s voice, in
lugubrious certainty.
“It’s boat-drill—hurry up!”
“We’re signalling for help!”
“Henry—where are my slippers?” And Henry’s voice—“I haven’t got ’em
on, my dear!”
Jim was in Norah’s cabin, suddenly.
“Thought you might be scared, kiddie,” he said. “But it’s only fog, I
think. Great Scott! doesn’t that siren make a row!”
Then came the voice of the third officer, very bored and patient; and a
dozen voices assailing him.
“No—fog only, I assure you. No danger at all. No—there isn’t a German
within a hundred miles. Merely fog-horn, madam. Yes, it’s quite thick.
Certainly you can come on deck, if you really like fog; you won’t see
anything. No, we don’t expect to run on any rocks. I should advise you
to get back to bed. The fog-horn blows every half-minute.”
“But it’s waked the baby!” came on a high note of grievance.
“Sorry,” said the third officer’s bored voice, still polite. “I should
recommend the baby to get used to it.” They heard his quick footsteps
retreating up the corridor.
“Well, there’s nothing to stay up for—and isn’t it cold!” Jim
ejaculated. “I hope to goodness this will have gone before morning; it
will be a nuisance if it spoilt the entrance to the harbour, so far as
view is concerned.”
“Don’t speak of such a horrid thing!” said Norah, sleepily, snuggling
down among the pillows. “Go back to bed, Daddy dear—you’ll get so cold.
Thank you both for coming.” For a while she stayed awake, while the
clamour in the ship died down gradually, and only the slow hooting of
the siren was heard. It was not exactly a soothing lullaby, but
nevertheless Norah fell asleep.
Her steward’s face peered at her some hours later. He had switched on
the light, but the cabin was eerie and dim.
“I didn’t like not to call you, miss, as you said,” he remarked. “But as
far as gettin’ up to see the view’s concerned, there ain’t none. There’s
nothin’ but fog anywhere.”
Norah uttered a disgusted exclamation.
“Oh, I did want to see the entrance!”
“Well, there ain’t no entrance neither, miss. Captain, he won’t risk
tryin’ to get in—why, you can’t see your ’and in front of you. We’ve
just got to lie about until the fog lifts—an’ goodness knows when
that’ll be. If I was you, miss, I’d just go to sleep again till the
usual time to get up—an’ if the fog clears before, I’ll come an’ tell
you at once.”
“Well, if there’s nothing to see, I suppose I had better do that,” said
Norah, yawning.
“There’s much worse than nothin’, miss,” the steward said, his voice as
gloomy as the cabin. He went away, after turning out the light.
“It’s absolutely disgusting!” Wally declared when breakfast was over. It
had been a queer meal, eaten in a kind of dim half-light; and now they
were on deck, wrapped in heavy coats, yet shivering a little. All about
them was a dense white wall of mist. It was impossible to see more than
a few yards in any direction; people who passed them loomed dimly first,
then came out of the wall more clearly, until quite visible, and in a
moment were swallowed up again as their footsteps died away. The fog
swung in wreaths between them as they talked, whenever a breath of light
wind came; but for the most part there was no wind at all, and a heavy
stillness seemed to weigh upon everything. At half-minute intervals the
hoarse scream of the fog-horn roared out above their heads, in a
hideous, discordant howl; and from all around them came similar shrieks,
some far off, some so near that at any moment it seemed that the fog
might part and show a ship drifting down upon them.
The _Perseus_ herself was drifting. Part of the uncanny stillness was
due to the absence of the familiar throb of the screw. Inch by inch she
slid through the oily water, of which no trace could be seen even by
peering over the side. There was nothing but mist. The wet decks were
slippery with it; there was no dry corner anywhere. Through it the
gigantic blue shape of the funnel loomed dimly, but its top was quite
lost; they could not even see the bridge, where a double watch was being
kept. The captain had not left it since the first fog-cloud had rolled
up out of the sea.
“It isn’t safe to speak to an officer,” Jim declared. “Poor beggars,
they’re all on duty; it must be cheery to have responsibility in this
sort of weather. I found MacTavish right up in the bow, straining his
eyes into the fog, and put a timid question to him—I wouldn’t have
wondered if he had snapped my head off, but he was pretty civil. He says
there’s not the slightest prospect yet of its lifting, unless a wind
gets up—and there’s no sign of a wind!”
“Well, that is pretty cheery,” uttered Wally. “However, it’s all
experience.”
“Confirmed optimists like you ought to be sat on three times a day!” Jim
said. “A little of this sort of experience goes a long way—and doesn’t
make up for missing the sunrise on Table Mountain.”
“Never mind—it will give you something to talk of for ever so long,”
Wally answered. “You can’t possibly talk about sunrises to a girl you’re
dancing with, but you can make awfully good yarns out of a fog like
this. Cheer up, Jimmy; you’ll be ever so much more interesting in the
future!”
“I’m not proposing to do much dancing, or talking either,” said Jim,
laughing. “So the prospect doesn’t console me. At the moment, it would
console me more to batter someone—preferably you. Norah, you’re cold!”
“I know I am,” said Norah, shivering. “This old fog gets into one’s very
bones. Doesn’t it make you homesick now to think of old Billabong, and
the sunlight out on the Far Plain!”
“And a bogged bullock, with a note like that fog-horn!” retorted Wally.
“It’s too cold to stand still, I think—let’s walk.”
They walked, arm in arm, with Norah between them, finding it necessary
to talk loudly to avoid collisions in the fog, as their rubber-soled
shoes made no sound on the deck. In the fore part of the ship a few
bedraggled sea-birds had floundered into the rigging, and now sat there,
crouched and miserable, afraid to set off again into the white horror
all round them. A magpie, brought from Australia, which ordinarily lived
in the bow and made cheerful remarks to the whole ship, was crouched in
a corner of its cage, dismally squawking, while its deadly enemy, a
sulphur-crested cockatoo with which it was on most disrespectful terms,
had no spirit left to insult it, but drooped on its perch. The ship
seemed dead; none of the usual cheery bustle was going on, since all
possible tasks were discontinued to leave the crew free to watch. Weary
watching it was, straining overside in dread of seeing a dark hull loom
out of the fog, knowing that it would then, in all probability, be too
late to avert disaster.
A monotonous voice led them to the side of the ship. A sailor was
standing on a tiny platform over the rail, secured by a leather band
round his body. He leaned well out, heaving the lead with a practised
hand, his voice chanting the depth tonelessly—“By the deep—by the
mark!” Seen in the mist that clung in beads to his blue guernsey and
tarry trousers he seemed unnaturally large—and the dreary call was more
depressing than the ceaseless hoot of the fog-horn.
They gave up the deck at last, and went below, where the passengers were
gathered in the lounges and smoking-rooms, trying to make the best of
the weary day. The fog was everywhere; it crept through every open
doorway and port-hole, and filled cabins and alleyways, so that jocund
humourists went along hooting, for fear of being run down. Every
electric light was on, as though it were midnight; they gleamed through
the hanging mist, globes of dingy yellow. Babies howled dismally—sleepy
and heavy, but kept awake by the incessant fog-horn; their mothers, pale
and anxious, tried vainly to soothe them. Norah secured her own especial
baby, bore him off to her cabin, and tucked him under her grey ’possum
rug; and then, to her own immense surprise, fell asleep beside him, and
slumbered peacefully until the luncheon gong came into competition with
the siren, and the baby woke and demanded nourishment.
There was no sign of the fog lifting. They lunched in silence;
conversation was impossible, and the stewards, flitting about in the
misty gloom, spoke in sepulchral whispers. No officers were visible; the
empty chairs at each table bore mute witness to the urgency of their
watch. The doctor made a valiant effort to maintain cheerfulness, and
succeeded in dispelling a fraction of the depression in his particular
corner. But even the doctor was incapable of spreading himself over an
entire saloon, and his efforts to be, as he pathetically said, a
sunbeam, were local and not general. Nobody seemed happy, and the meal
was finished in half the usual time.
Afterwards, the doctor bore down upon the Billabong party, his face full
of determination.
“This won’t do,” he said. “I shall have all the ladies on board
developing nerves. You youngsters must come and help me—get Grantham
and West and that long New South Wales fellow, and we’ll start some sort
of a game in the lounge. The fog is thicker than ever, and the only
thing we can do is to make people forget it.”
“Right-oh, doctor!” Wally answered. “It would be easier to forget it, if
we weren’t eating it all the time—but we’ll do our best.” So they
organised an uproarious game that gathered in every one, even to the
mothers and the babies; and by working the piano to its utmost,
succeeded in supplanting for a time the incessant shriek of fog-horns.
Tea found a ship’s company considerably cheered, and with more appetite.
“It’s wearing, but it pays,” said the doctor, cheerfully. “You’ve all
helped me nobly, and next time I have to organise a band of sunbeams,
may you all be shining lights in it! There’s a vein of pure idiocy in
Wally that I appreciate most highly.”
“I’m overcome,” said Wally, bowing.
“Don’t mention it,” said the doctor, affably. “True merit ought always
to be acknowledged. No, I think you’re all dismissed from duty now; the
mothers will be thinking of bathing the babies, and most of the others
are exhausted—and small wonder. I’m thinking of going to sleep myself;
the noise kept me awake last night.”
“Let’s go up on deck,” Norah said. “I’m tired of being shut up,
below—and it’s almost as foggy here as anywhere. The ship is full of
fog.”
On deck the white curtain seemed more impenetrable than ever. Everything
was dripping wet, with an unclean clamminess far worse than honest rain.
All round them came the wailing of fog-horns from invisible ships;
sometimes the sound came from far off, approached gradually, and then
went by them in the mist—unseen. Most of the ships were drifting, no
faster than the _Perseus_; but evidently some captains had kept the
engines going, in the hope of steaming slowly out of the fog.
“Beastly dangerous,” John West said. “It would be the easiest thing in
the world to pile up a ship on this coast—apart from the chance of
collision. It is far too near the shore to take chances. We are not five
miles out.”
A siren sounded directly ahead: a long, half-heard note at first, and
then a quickly-increasing sound; and suddenly the fog-horn of the
_Perseus_ broke out in a wild, continual clamour, incessant and urgent.
Passengers rushed up on deck. The other ship was drawing nearer and
nearer; so far as sound could testify, she was directly in a line with
the _Perseus_. They heard quick voices on the bridge. From the bow came
long shouts of warning.
Norah gripped the rail, feeling her father’s arm come round her in the
gloom. Jim came up on the other side, watching keenly, his face lined
and anxious. Ordinary danger was one thing; this creeping horror, coming
relentlessly out of the unseen, was another matter.
Then the white wall of mist wavered and parted slowly, a dark shape
loomed high, and almost upon them they saw a great ship. She was so near
that they could see the strained faces on her decks. Her fog-horn was
answering the _Perseus_ in a very frenzy of alarm—and suddenly the
_Perseus_ was silent, as if realising the uselessness of warning now. On
she came, slowly, slowly; it seemed that by no possibility could she
avoid crashing into the huge, helpless liner. They were almost touching;
people on both ships held their breath, waiting dumbly for the end.
Then the great black bow edged off as if by magic, and the ship slid
past them, only a few yards away. Slowly as she had come, her passing
was slower yet; it seemed hours that she was beside them, almost
touching, with the risk of her stern swinging to crash into the
_Perseus_. But no crash came. The fog took her and swallowed her up as
mysteriously as she had come.
“Phew-w!” whistled Grantham. “I don’t want anything nearer than that!”
Norah was shaking a little. A lady passenger further up the deck was
indulging in mild hysterics, to the indignation of the doctor and her
husband’s deep shame. The fog-horn broke out again in the long
monotonous wail, at half-minute intervals, that had gone on all day.
They sat on deck, wrapped in rugs, watching. No one wanted to go
down—bad enough in the open, it was better to be there, and to see as
much as could be seen. Now and then a little breeze came, and the wall
of mist parted ever so little, blowing away in trails like white
chiffon; and once, in one of these moments, they caught a glimpse of a
sailing ship, drifting by, with bare, gaunt masts. The fog closed round
her again, blotting her out utterly.
Then, towards evening, there came a quick succession of sharp hoots,
unlike anything they had heard; and a motor-launch came into view and
darted alongside, under the bridge. A man in blue uniform shouted swift
questions.
“I’ll bring you a tug!” he cried, at last.
They disappeared again, and the delay that followed seemed intolerably
long. Then the launch hooted its way back, followed by a bluff shape
that resolved itself into a steam-tug. She hung about just ahead. The
_Perseus_ came slowly to life; the screw throbbed slowly. They began to
crawl through the water after the tug. Once she disappeared, running on
a little too quickly—and the great liner began to hoot anxiously, like
a frightened child crying for its nurse, until the tug came back. So
they crawled together through the clinging mist-curtain until dun lights
showed ahead, and voices from the shore came to their ears.
“That’s the wharf at Cape Town,” said the doctor. “You have to take it
on trust. Why, the fog is thicker here than out at sea!”
They crept in slowly. Passing a ship already docked, they had a weird
impression of her, apparently hanging in the air—a grotesque ghost of a
ship, the surrounding mist like the vague halo that sometimes shows
round the moon. She was only a dim wraith, her powerful electric lights
glimmering like smoky lamps, although they were within biscuit-throw of
her. Even when alongside the wharf they could not see the people waiting
ashore; voices came up to them clearly, but it was impossible to see to
whom they belonged. So, like an exceedingly helpless invalid, the
_Perseus_ came into port.
“Eight o’clock,” said Mr. Linton, consulting his watch. “H’m; we’ve sat
in that old fog for eighteen solid hours.”
“Isn’t it a relief not to hear the fog-horns?” Norah said. “Daddy, are
we going ashore?”
“I don’t know,” hesitated her father. “It hardly seems worth while
to-night.”
Jim, who had been away, returned quickly.
“I’ve seen the second officer,” he said. “It’s awfully unsatisfactory.
Orders are to leave here at daylight, or as near it as can be managed,
and they’re going to work cargo all night. Poor beggars! they’ve all
been on duty for eighteen hours at least—and the captain has never been
off the bridge during the time.”
“Poor fellows!” Norah said. “I think, too, it’s poor us! Then we won’t
see Cape Town at all?”
“MacTavish advises us to go ashore,” Jim answered. “He says that the fog
may not be so bad in the city itself—it’s some distance away—and that
if we take the mountain tram ride we’ll probably get right above it. In
any case, the ship will be unbearably noisy, as they have to handle
cargo.”
“Then we may as well go,” declared Mr. Linton; and Norah fled
delightedly to get ready.
They stumbled through the fog across confused yards and round dim
buildings, and presently found a train waiting in a casual fashion by a
platform which appeared to be part of the street. They climbed in, and
the train woke up hastily and decided to go, as if encouraged by their
arrival. Its progress, however, was less hasty than its departure. The
fog impeded it, and it crept towards the city with a shrieking of the
engine, a grinding of brakes, and a rattling of the carriages, which
made the _Perseus_ seem luxuriously peaceful by comparison.
“We’ll drive back,” said Mr. Linton tersely.
The fog was much lighter in the town itself. Passers-by in the street
were heard grumbling at it—but to the mist-sodden seafarers who had
wallowed in its heart for eighteen hours, it seemed only an echo of a
fog. The streets were bright, well-lit, and crowded. Natives were not so
frequent as in Durban, and there was a general air of prosperity. Wally
exhibited signs of alarm at the spectacle of more than one top-hat.
“I suppose we’ll have to get used to them in England,” he said,
dismally. “I feel in my bones, Jim, that I’ll see you in one yet!”
“Me!” said Jim. “I’ll have to turn undertaker first!”
A friendly policeman directed them to their tram, and soon they were
rattling along quiet suburban streets, where the fog was thicker than in
the city—or where there were fewer electric lights to dispel its gloom.
The suburbs, however, did not last long; they emerged from brick and
mortar regions into open bush country, and began to climb into what
seemed the heart of the mountains.
They climbed from mist into light. As the tram wormed its way higher and
higher, they left the fog below them—looking back, they could see it
lying in a dense bank, blotting out the city. But the travellers came
out above it, and into the pure radiance of a perfect moon, that sailed
in a clear sky of deep blue, dotted with innumerable stars. The moon was
full, and her light, in the clear mountain air, was almost dazzling. It
showed them the sinuous tramway track, curving away into the heart of
the bush, which stretched on either side, dark and fragrant; it lit up
deep glens and clefts, and high peaks that towered overhead—the “Twelve
Apostles,” Signal Hill, the Lion’s Head—all black and rugged against
the perfect blue of the sky.
Sometimes a wind blew up strongly as they climbed, bringing with it
masses of fog from below, which surged lovingly round the tall peaks,
rested upon them, and often drew a soft veil over them, hiding them
altogether; and then it surged again, and was tossed up in masses like
breaking waves, until it fled altogether, dropping back into the
valleys, and leaving the peaks clear. The bush on either side grew more
and more dense, and mingled with the rugged crags into a scene of
extraordinary wildness. It was impossible to imagine that they were near
a great city—not in the heart of the Africa that held “King Solomon’s
Mines.” Were not these, indeed, the “Mountains of the Moon”?
Nobody spoke much, for, indeed, the wonder of the journey took away
speech, even from the boys. But just as they were turning back towards
civilisation a thick veil of mist hovered over the edge of Table
Mountain, standing clear-cut against the blue and silver sky—and then
settled upon it and draped it, hanging in uneven folds of purest white.
“There!” said David Linton. “You’ve seen the famous ‘Table-cloth’ come
down on Table Mountain!”
Norah leaned against him, putting her hand in his.
They ran down to the city—found a restaurant where coffee was still
obtainable, and then a motor that hurried them smoothly back to the
ship. The fog was still heavy at the wharf. The _Perseus_ was noisy with
the clamour of cargo-machinery and shouting men, and the decks hummed
with hawkers, chaffering over ostrich feathers and native karosses and
curios. There was little sleep for anyone on board.
Very early next morning they were off. The fog hung densely over the
city. The tug took them out through the dim harbour, and beyond to the
open sea—and about twenty miles out they suddenly ran out of the
fog-belt into sunlight, and blue sea and sky, all sparkling to greet
them.
The captain, heavy-eyed after his long vigil, paused beside Norah’s
deck-chair.
“Well, Miss Norah—you evidently weren’t meant to see the beauties of
Cape Town!”
“I don’t know,” said Norah, soberly. “I think I had the best view of
all. And it was worth the fog!”