I
I lie still, with eyes closed, for a few moments before rising,
listening to the drumming of the rain on the deck overhead, and the
gurgle of the scupper-pipes outside in the alleyway. I sort out
drowsily the familiar vibrations: the faint, delicate rhythm of the
dynamo, the hammer of a pump, the leisurely rumble and hiss of the
refrigerator. Suddenly a hideous jar close at hand: the Fourth Engineer
is making tea in the galley, and has dropped the poker. I look sideways
at my watch. It is now five minutes to two. I decide to get up and
dress.
I reflect on the fact that to-day is the anniversary of our departure
from a home port. For a year, with but one or two days of rest, we have
been dressing at five minutes to two. For a year the Armée d’Orient
has been fed with frozen meat from our insulated holds. I recall a
sentence in a recent letter from an officer on the Western front. It
seems to put the matter succinctly. “War,” he says, “is like trade;
only indirectly interesting.” And again, lower down, he remarks, “It
isn’t the horror of war that makes a man tired, or even the danger and
bloodshed; it is the infernal monotony of it.”
So I suppose we have no corner in monotony! I finish dressing (it is
now five minutes past two, but no matter), and go into the mess-room
for a cup of tea. The Fourth Engineer is there, also my colleague whom
I am relieving, and the Third Officer in pajamas. This last person
is suffering from insomnia, which is not surprising, since he drinks
strong tea at 10:30 P. M. He is now drinking strong tea at 2 A. M., on
the principle of poison counteracting poison, I suppose. Anyhow, he
does nothing all day, so it doesn’t matter.
The Fourth Engineer is a hospitable soul and makes me toast. He is
on duty all night in the main engine-room. He is a lanky, immature,
good-tempered youth, with nice eyes. He knows I like toast. In return,
I am looking the other way when the cook gives him a pocketful of eggs
out of the cold-storage rooms. I like him. He laughs easily and bears
no malice. Like most East Anglians, he has a subtle refinement of mind
that will stand him in good stead through life. Among the dour north
countrymen who throng the ship, he is almost feminine.
While I eat my toast, I listen to their conversation. It does not
amount to much. How could it? We have been together a year. We are,
occasionally, rather tired of each other. We are each painfully
conscious of the other’s faults. Most subjects of which we know
anything have been bled white of all interest. There are neither
mysteries to attract nor revelations to anticipate. “The End of the
War” and “When the Ship will go Home” are taboo. Most of us take refuge
in light badinage. Others, like the Third Officer and his colleagues,
play bridge for three hours every night. Some study languages and
musical instruments; but there are not many of these. Some drink
secretly, and are reported later as “sick.” Most of us, however, do
simply nothing. We sit, or stand, or walk or lie, with one dull
thought in our minds, one vague image before our eyes――the thought, the
image, of Release.
It is an unusual state of mind. I had almost written “a curious
psychological phenomenon,” but I am anxious to make the reader
understand, and plain words are best. It is, I say, an unusual state of
mind. From the Commander to the scullion, from the Chief Engineer to
the coal-passer, we have all gradually arrived at a mood which is all
the more passionate because it is inarticulate. With every other outlet
dammed, our whole spiritual life is forced along one narrow channel of
intense desire. We want to go home. It sounds childish, but that is
because the reader does not understand. When he has read through this
essay, I hope he will understand. I mean him to.
I drink my tea and eat my toast, and having given Thomas a saucer of
milk, I go on duty. Thomas is a large black cat, who shares my vigil.
_Allons donc!_
I go aft to the refrigerating-room along a covered alleyway, which none
the less leaks; and Thomas, who follows, makes little runs to avoid
the drips. It is raining as it can rain only in the Balkans. There
is something Scottish about this rain, something dour, persistent,
and irritating; and this old obsolete banana boat, converted into a
cold-storage, leaks in every seam of her boat-deck, which is all warped
by the blazing suns of a Balkan summer. We skip in, Thomas and I, in
where there is light and warmth and comfortable noises, and, in our
various fashions, carry on.
It is no part of these reflections to treat of refrigeration. That,
being part of modern war, is uninteresting. My oiler, a faded Irishman
with a bad leg, does most of the work. I note the log on the desk,
thumb the compressor rods, take a few thermometer readings, feel the
crank bearings of the engine, and feel bored. Thomas, after watching a
couple of cockroaches who persist in risking their lives along the edge
of the evaporator-casing, settles down to snooze on the vise-bench.
For a time I envy him. I want to sleep again myself. I sit down near
the desk, and, sharply alert as to the machine, I permit the rest of
me, my soul and body let us say, to take forty winks. I leave the
explanation to competent psychologists. It can be done. I need no
Psychical Research Society to tell me that my soul and my intellect
are differentiate entities. I know it, because I have kept six-hour
watches, because I have been on night duty, because――because of many
private reasons, of which it is not seemly that I should speak. Suffice
it.
For an hour I sit with folded arms, while the machine pursues its
leisurely never-ending race; while the brine-pump lifts first one
leg and then the other, gingerly, as though in deep snow; while the
electric fans revolve noiselessly in their corners; while the faded
Irishman moves uneasily from side to side as he ministers to the needs
of the machine. Subconsciously I am aware of all that goes on. So much
for the experience and _flair_ born of a dozen years at sea.
And, to tell the truth, this is the most hopeless time of the day.
I once saw a picture, well known, no doubt: A Hopeless Dawn. My
experience is, that all dawns are hopeless, to those who have to
witness them. The legend of the early palæolithic ancestor who spent a
night of terror after seeing the sun sink out of sight, and who leaped
for joy at the dawning, is too thin. He is no ancestor of mine. For
me the period comprised between the hour of two and four is one of
unrelieved vacuity. The minutes, the very seconds, seem to deliberate.
When, after what seems a long quarter of an hour, I look again at the
clock, that white-faced, impassive umpire has registered exactly three
minutes. Well, it is three minutes past three. I get up abruptly,
startling the faded Irishman who is standing near me, smoking a dirty
pipe and thinking of Heaven knows what, and go outside into the open
air. And outside in the open air is Salonika.