The rain, in an inconclusive way, has ceased, though the scupper-pipes
still gurgle and cluck with the water running from above. I walk
along the after deck, climb up the heap of sandbags built round the
gun-platform, and take refuge in a sort of canvas sentry-box which the
gunners have improvised out of ammunition cases, a spring mattress, and
some old tarpaulins. Here I am more than ever solitary at this hour.
The gun, looking like a gaunt cab-horse in its gray canvas shroud,
droops its muzzle slightly, as though dispirited because we go so
rarely to sea. Nothing else can I see of the ship, save the flagpole,
a ghostly outpost of humanity, for beyond it the world has dissolved
into a sad chaos of water and sky. There is no wind. The waters of the
Gulf lie placid and obscure. The sky-line has vanished, and one has
the illusion of floating in infinite space, in a sort of aërial Noah’s
Ark without any animals. The patches of white in the cloud-canopy are
reflected with eerie accuracy in the lifeless and invisible mirror
below. One feels a slight vertigo, for all things seem to have been
swallowed up, and even Time, that last refuge of saints and sinners,
seems to have stopped.
The rain comes as a relief, as though the works of the universe
were getting under way again. My knees being exposed, I decide that
I have had enough of nature in solution and climb down from the
gun-platform. The moon, which is shining behind the dense clouds,
brightens the patches of white, and these are reflected on the wet
deck. Picking my way carefully, for all scuttles are screened, I reach
the machine-room. Nothing is changed save the hands of the clock: it
is now half-past three. The faded Irishman has become a shade more
brisk in his movements. From now on he will become more and more active
and intelligent in carrying out his duties, until he reaches a climax
of senseless energy at four by breaking into speech with a “Well,
good-night, sir,” and vanishing into his kennel. His place is taken by
a somnolent negro.
At four the rain is pouring down with all its old violence, and I make
my way along to the mess-room for more tea. I bump into a damp silent
man, a Greek sailor, on night duty. He is supposed to keep a lookout
at the gangway and tend the galley-fires. He does both very well. Some
sailors are poor hands at stoking. The Russian, who occasionally acts
as night-watchman, is no good. They say Russians understand tea. Our
Russian understands nothing.
The Japanese second cook, on being called by the Greek mariner, is
furious with the fire. The Greek and Arab firemen do not understand
that coal-dust is unsuitable for galley fires. There are, at times,
international complications.
The Fourth Engineer and I once more foregather in the mess-room. I make
the tea, and I do it this way. The tea-pot, of white china, is rinsed
and scalded with boiling water. I then put in the correct quantity of
tea, which is an art acquired only in the school of experience. Then I
pour on the correct quantity of fresh-boiling water――another art. The
tea is left to steep on the hob for as long as it takes to cut, toast,
and butter two slices of bread. The tea is now ready. I pour it. Its
colour is superb. Having done all this, I cast a look of triumph on the
Fourth Engineer, who informs me that there is no milk; very much as a
silly young staff officer might tell his general that the army has no
ammunition. I retire to my room and return with a cream-jug full of
condensed milk of an age so vague that only boiling water can reduce
it to a liquid form. Thereupon we sit down, and having exhausted every
conceivable subject of conversation six months ago, we drink and munch
in silence.
The militarists say that war is necessary to develop the soul of a
nation; without war men would sink into stupidity and sloth.
Having eaten and drunk in silence, we light cigarettes and go away, he
down below to pump the boilers up, I to my machine-room to see how the
somnolent negro is going on. He is going on very much as I expected.
He wanders like a sleep-walker among the machinery, attending to his
duties after his own fashion. I make up the log to four o’clock,
examine certain things that may go wrong, but never do, and go out into
the alleyway again.
The hopeless dawn is approaching. A ghastly pallor now faintly outlines
a mountain which I indolently call Ben Lomond. The Gulf of Salonika
is almost entirely surrounded by land, and the city is built on the
slopes of a mountain. Ben Lomond is farther off to the eastward;
other mountains form ramparts to the west and north, while the Vardar
River delta insinuates itself among the more rugged features in a most
curious way. Southward, beyond the headland that marks the entrance,
the horizon is closed by the sublime peak of Olympos. The Gulf,
therefore, is a kind of bowl, against the rim of which the clouds
are condensed and held. Under their caps of cotton-woolly clouds the
mountains are white with snow.
We have come out of the void, and dark blobs are now recognizable as
ships. Lights glitter along the shore. A motor-lighter passes, her
engine exhaust beating the still air like a pulse. The silence is no
longer profound or tragic. The world of men, the world of living men,
is coming back, and I am glad. I have a weakness for the world of
living men. A steamer, weighing her anchor with much purring of steam
from her windlass-exhaust, blows her whistle. It is a trumpet-blast,
completing the rout of the powers of darkness.
There is a crash from our galley. Someone, most probably the Japanese
second cook, has dropped the poker. The Japanese second cook is a
creature of moods, often passionate. He is, so they say, a student of
philosophy at Tokyo University. He has come to sea to earn more money
to complete his courses――of philosophy, I suppose. The chief cook, who
is a Chinaman, has presumably completed his studies in philosophy,
while the third cook, who is an Italian, has never studied philosophy
at all. Anyhow, various noises combine to inform me that all three are
now in the galley engaged in making bread and preparing breakfast for
the crew in a more or less philosophical manner.
Other sounds assert themselves, too. Weird moans from below announce
the Fourth Engineer’s success with his boilers. A small dog in the
firemen’s house aft yelps tediously at an imaginary enemy. He presumes
upon his rating as a mascot. A sleepy Greek boy, with weak eyes and
legs, appears from the forecastle with a tin tea-pot. He is reported to
be a Venizelist. Venizelists, I observe, make poor sailors. The night
watchman, who answers to the name of Papa Gregovis, but whose political
tendencies are obscure, fades away forward. The oiler in the main
engine-room, a one-eyed mulatto, carries his tea-can along.
So an hour passes.
Once again the rain has ceased and I go out on the after deck and
walk to and fro. I discover the crowded roadstead of Salonika. Black
blobs have become transports, misty phantoms have changed into hospital
ships, gray shadows into men-of-war. One hospital ship is preparing
to move――does move, as I watch her. She is girdled with a necklace of
emerald lights. On her rail is a red cross of electric lights. She
is very beautiful, a jewelled wraith moving noiselessly across our
bows. Several Greek schooners, with all sails set, float near us on
the glassy water, waiting for a wind. Time is no object with them. One
appears close to our quarter, like a ghost of some past age, a fabulous
blue galleon with silver sails. She is part of the ridiculous unreality
of the whole business.