THE END OF THE VOYAGE.
PERHAPS the last week of the voyage was the longest of all.
From Las Palmas the _Perseus_ ran into bad weather, and the Australians
were sharply reminded that instead of their own hot December they were
coming to English winter. Ice-cold gales blew day and night; the decks
were constantly swept by drifting showers of sleety rain. It was often
impossible to keep cabin port-holes open, even in the day-time, since
the waves were high; and at night they were definitely closed. Wally,
who had opened his on a night that was deceptively calm, was found by
Jim “awash,” a wave having entered and deluged everything. Wally was
equally apologetic and wrathful; he paddled in the chilly flood,
rescuing damp boxes from under the berths.
“I’m awfully sorry, old man,” he said penitently. “The cabin was so
horrid stuffy—and the waves seemed quiet. I think”—hopefully—“that my
things have got the worst of the mess, anyhow.”
“I wish you’d come out of that and get dry socks on,” said Jim,
laughing. “You look like an old pelican, wading round there! Here’s
Scott—he’ll fix it up.” They fled, leaving the flood to the
much-enduring steward, who had probably grappled with such emergencies
before.
The evenings were the worst time. By nightfall the closed-up ship was
unbearably airless; rather than remain below, it was better to face the
dripping decks, to find a comparatively sheltered corner in the inky
gloom, and there to sit, wrapped in mackintoshes and rugs, until
bedtime—when the keen salt wind would have effectually made every one
sleepy. They woke up heavy-headed, and fled back to the deck as soon as
dressing could be hurried through. No one could possibly call the deck
comfortable, but at least it was airy—though, perhaps, too airy.
News came now each morning by wireless; unsatisfactory news, for the
most part, since it told but little and spoke only of the long winter
deadlock just commencing. Still, it was something, and the passengers
clustered round the notice-board after breakfast, reading the scrawled
items hungrily. Daily the feeling of tension increased, as the ship
ploughed her way to the end of her long journey. It was harder than ever
to be cooped up in idleness when so much was happening just ahead; so
much waiting to be done.
They saw no warships, yet they knew that the watch was all round them,
vigilant and sleepless. Daily the wireless operator heard the echo of
their signals, telling nothing except that the grey watchdogs of the
seas were somewhere near, hidden in the veil of mist through which they
went. It was hard to realise, so lonely did the _Perseus_ seem, that her
position was known—that, somewhere, preparations and plans were being
made, of which she was the centre, although even her captain knew
nothing. Three days off the English coast the invisible Powers-That-Be
spoke to her.
“Orders!” said Jim, dashing into his father’s cabin, where Mr. Linton
and Norah were endeavouring to pack his belongings. “No London or
Liverpool for us, thank goodness! We’re all to be landed at Falmouth. It
means a day less at sea.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard for a good while,” said Mr. Linton.
“Six weeks at sea during war-time is enough for any man. Wireless
orders, I suppose?”
“Yes—the captain won’t disclose whether they’re from Government or from
the agents—but the officers believe it’s Government, and that the ship
is going straight to Brest or Cherbourg with her foodstuffs, as soon as
she gets rid of us. We get in at daylight on Monday.” He rushed off to
find Wally.
They could, indeed, have got in on Sunday night, but for the war
regulations—that no ships should enter an English port between sunset
and sunrise; so, from evening on Sunday, the _Perseus_ dawdled along,
knowing that she must kill time, and preferring to do it in the safety
of open ocean rather than off a rock-bound coast. Then, as if the sea
wanted a final diversion with them, a fog came up, and the officers
spent an anxious night, “dodging about” in the mist and looking for the
unfamiliar entrance to Falmouth Harbour—all the time in dread of
hearing breakers on a near shore. Two days before, they found later, a
ship had gone on the rocks during the night. The Cornish coast stretches
harsh hands to trap the unwary.
Fortune, however, befriended the _Perseus_. Towards morning the fog
lifted, and the harbour entrance showed clearly. Norah, lying awake in
her berth, saw through her port-hole a rugged headland—and almost
immediately a blinding flash filled her cabin with so bright a light
that for a moment it seemed on fire. It passed away as quickly as it had
come; and Norah, springing to the port-hole, saw a dim coast and
powerful searchlight that went to and fro across the entrance. Not even
a fishing-dinghy could have slipped in unperceived by its white ray.
Then a black funnel came so close to her face that she jumped back in
astonishment. Looking down, she could see, below, the deck of a little
gunboat, where were men in blue uniforms. A curt voice was hailing in
tones of crisp authority.
“What ship are you, and where from?”
“The _Perseus_—from Australia.”
“Last port?”
“Las Palmas.”
“What are you doing in here?”
“Wireless orders.” Norah smiled a little at the evident note of
grievance in Captain Garth’s voice—as who should say, “I never asked to
come!”
The gunboat moved on, until it was directly under the bridge. Norah
could hear curt instructions as to anchoring. Then the fierce little
grey boat darted away across the harbour.
She dressed hastily. Everything had been left ready overnight, and her
little cabin wore a strangely cheerless aspect, denuded of all its
homelike touches and with labelled and corded luggage lying about. Jim
and Wally found her ready when they looked in on their way to the deck.
“Put on your biggest coat,” Jim said. “It’s colder than anything you
ever dreamed of. To think they’re probably having bush-fires on
Billabong!”
“I wish we had one here!” said Wally, shivering.
There were yellow lights still showing in the houses round the harbour,
but daylight had come, and soon they began to twinkle out. It was a bare
coast, with a grey castle on one headland—behind it, on a long rise, a
dense cluster of huts that spoke of military encampment. The harbour
itself was full of ships; among them, the _Perseus_, largest of them
all, was going dead slow. The crew could be heard exchanging greetings
with deck-hands engaged in morning tasks on vessels lying at
anchor—question and answer ran back and forth; war news, curiosity
about the long voyage, and often, “Goin’ to enlist, now you’re home?”
Every one was excited and happy; the crew were beaming over their work;
the stewards—most of whom had declared their intention of
enlisting—wild with joy at the thought of home after their long months
of absence.
The Australians drew together a little; there was something in the bleak
grey December morning, in the cheery bustle and excitement, that made
them suddenly alone and homesick—homesick for great trees and bare
plains, for scorching sunlight and the green and gold splendour of the
Bush.
“Doesn’t it seem a long way away?” Norah said, very low; and Jim and
Wally, knowing quite well what she meant, nodded silently. To them, too,
home was a great way off.
They hurried through an early breakfast, and came again on deck to find
the anchor down for the last time, and the _Perseus_ lying at rest. An
official launch was alongside; and presently all the passengers were
mustered in the saloon, to answer to their names and declare their
nationality and business. It was a war precaution, but a perfunctory
one; as Wally remarked, the late Mr. Smith would have had no difficulty
whatever in passing with full marks.
Then came good-byes, beginning with the captain, somewhat haggard after
his final vigil, and ending with little Tommy Field, who insisted on
attaching himself to Norah, and was with difficulty removed by his
parents. A tender was alongside; great piles of luggage were being shot
down to it. There were many delays before the passengers, blue and
shivering, were ushered down the gangway to the tossing deck below.
Norah looked back as the tender steamed off slowly. Far above them
towered the mighty bulk of the _Perseus_, as it had towered at Melbourne
so many weeks before. Then it had seemed strange and unfriendly; now it
had changed; it was all the home she knew, in this cold, grey land. She
had a moment’s wild desire to go back to it.
“Well, I am an idiot,” Wally said, beside her. “For weeks I’ve been
aching to get off that old ship—and now that I’m off, I feel suddenly
like a lost foal, and I want to go back and hide my head in my cabin! Do
you feel like that?”
“’M,” said Norah, nodding very hard. “England feels very queer and
terrifying, all of a sudden, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t you bother your little head,” said Jim. “We’ll worry through all
right.”
Ashore there came a long Customs delay, since enthusiastic officials
insisted on having a lengthy hunt through luggage for revolvers, which
were liable to confiscation. They waited in a huge shed, which smelt of
many things, none of them pleasant. Finally they were released, and made
their way through a bewildering maze of rough buildings and railway
lines, until they found themselves at the station at Falmouth, where a
special train awaited them.
It was all strange to the Lintons. The very accent of the Cornish folk
around them was unintelligible; the houses, packed closely together, as
unfamiliar as the bleak landscape and the leafless trees—trees that
Norah considered dead until she suddenly realised that she was no longer
in Australia, where a leafless tree is a dead tree, and where there is
no long winter sleep for Nature. These trees were bare, but dense with
growth of interlaced boughs and twigs; not beaten to gaunt skeletons,
like the Australian dead forest giants. Norah found that in their beauty
of form and tracery there was something more exquisite than in their
spring leafage.
“Don’t the houses look queer!” Jim said. “We’ve been travelling for ever
so long, and I haven’t seen a single verandah!”
Gradually, as the day wore on, the rain drifted up in a grey cloud,
blotting out all the cold landscape. It blew aside now and then, and
showed empty fields, divided by bare hedges; an emptiness that puzzled
the Australians, until they realised that they were in a country where
all cattle must be housed in winter. The fields, too, were astonishing:
quaint, irregularly shaped little patches, tiny beside their memories of
the wide paddocks of their own big land. The whole country looked like a
chessboard to their unaccustomed eyes; the great houses, among their
leafless trees, inexpressibly gaunt and bleak.
Then, so soon after luncheon that they exclaimed in astonishment,
darkness came down and electric lights flashed on throughout the train.
The conductor came in to pull all blinds down carefully.
“War regulations, sir,” he said in answer to Mr. Linton. “No trains
allowed to travel showin’ lights now, for fear of an attack by
aircraft—and goin’ over bridges they turns the lights off altogether.
Makes travellin’ dull, sir.”
“It sounds as though it should make it exciting,” said Mr. Linton.
“Might, if the aeroplanes came, sir,” said the conductor, laconically.
“They do say them Zeppelins is goin’ to shake things up in England. But
they ain’t come yet, an’ England ain’t shook up. Might be as well if she
wur.” He went on his mission of darkness.
The slow day drew to a close. The train made few stoppages, and
travelled swiftly; but it was late before the long journey across
England was over, and they began to slacken down. Peering out, Norah and
the boys saw a dimly-lit mass of houses, so solid a mass, so
far-reaching, that they were almost terrifying. They were gaunt houses,
tall and grey, crowned with grimy chimney-pots; for miles they ran
through them, finding never a break in their close-packed squares. Then
came more lights and a grinding of brakes as they drew up; outside the
train, raucous voices of porters.
“Paddington! Paddington!”
“London at last!” said Mr. Linton.
Presently they were packed into a taxi, whizzing along through dim
streets. The taxi-lights were darkened; there were few electric lights,
and all the upper parts of their glass globes had been blackened, so
that hostile aircraft, flying overhead, should find no guiding beams.
Lamps in shop windows were carefully shaded.
It was a weird city, in its semi-darkness of war. The streets were full
of clamour—rattling of traffic, sharp ringing of tram-bells and the
hooting of motors, and, above every other sound the piercing cries of
newsboys—“Speshul! War Speshul!” Motor-buses, great red structures that
towered like cars of Juggernaut, rattled by them, their drivers darting
in and out among the traffic with amazing skill. Taxi-cabs went by in a
solid stream. The pavements were a dense mass of jostling, hurrying
people. And in whatever direction they looked were soldiers—men in
khaki, with quiet, purposeful faces.
“Heaps and heaps of them aren’t a day older than I am!” Wally declared,
gleefully, bringing his head in. “Look at that little officer over
there! Why, I might be his uncle! If they are taking kids like that,
Jim, they can’t refuse you and me!”
“They won’t refuse you,” David Linton said, gravely, looking at the
brown faces—Jim’s, quiet, but full of determination; Wally’s vivid with
excitement. There was no doubt that they were excellent war
material—quite too good to refuse.
Norah’s hand closed on his in the darkness. The same thought had come to
them both. The long voyage, with its comparative peace, was behind them:
ahead was only war, and all that it might mean to the boys. The whole
world suddenly centred round the boys. London was nothing; England,
nothing, except for what it stood for; the heart of Empire. And the
Empire had called the boys.