I decide suddenly to have a pipe, and go in to get tobacco and matches.
However, the mess-room steward is bringing in tea and toast for two, so
I postpone the pipe. As I sit down on the stool by the desk, the Fourth
Engineer comes in, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He is gay. It
is nearly six. The boilers, sanitary, and fresh-water tanks are all
full. Everything is in order. At seven he will dive into his room and
be no more seen. He sits down beside me and partakes of his seventh cup
of tea and piece of toast since nine o’clock last night. He wants to go
up for an examination. He has been away fifteen months as Fourth. He
will probably be away another fifteen. He is losing his chances. And
they need young men at home.
One of the great advantages of war, the militarists tell us, is that
young men get their chance. War gives us scope, provokes initiative,
stimulates the soul, quickens the brain.
With my pipe alight, I take up my walk on the after deck. The setting
moon is a mere pool of radiance, like an electric lamp swathed in
muslin. A rift in the clouds over Ben Lomond shows a pale blue patch
of sky with the morning star shining in the middle of it. The lights
of the port shine like stars, too, in the rain-washed air. Men move
about the ship, launches begin to cross and recross the harbour. A
steamer near us suddenly wakes into life. Electric clusters and
arc-lights blaze about her decks, derricks swing and winches rattle.
Another ship, a collier, hauls up her anchor and very cautiously, very
stealthily, approaches a cruiser, as though she were about to pounce
upon her without warning. But the cruiser is in full possession of all
her faculties apparently, for hundreds of men appear on deck, whistles
are blown, fenders are lowered, ropes are thrown out, and at length the
two lie in a close embrace, and the cruiser’s Morse light winks rapidly
several times to inform the world that all is as it should be.
As I turn from this fascinating spectacle I behold the French lighter
approaching. The French lighter is a cumbrous old Turkish sailing ship
propelled by a minute French tug lashed to her side. She seems to have
her arm round the tug’s shoulders. Loud hammering announces the steam
making its way along our water-logged deck-pipes. A shrill whistle from
the French tug elicits a similar whistle from someone on our upper
deck. Several soldiers in khaki make their appearance about the ship.
The French tug and lighter come alongside and are made fast. A swarm of
dirty Greeks climb up and begin to remove the hatches.
You cannot honestly say the day has broken. It is much more as though
the blank opacity of the night had worn thin. That blue rent in the
dirty tarpaulin of the sky over Ben Lomond has closed up, and a fine
misty drizzle begins to fall.
I retire to the door of the machine-room, where I encounter my friend
the French sergeant-major. He is a handsome Marseillais, by profession
a dealer in antique furniture and _objets d’art_. For two years he
has been supervising the transportation of beef and mutton from ship
to shore. He is of the opinion that war develops our higher faculties
to the utmost, and that without war civilized man would degenerate
into a gross preoccupation with material needs. However, just now he
is good-humouredly frantic because there is no steam. I inquire what
it is that it is. He waves his arms. I say, “_Pas de vapeur?_” Ah! he
nods and waves his arms again. I wave mine. In a species of utilitarian
French which I find that French men――and women――understand, I inform
him that the _vapeur_ is on its way, but that it is being retarded by
the condensation in the pipes, due to the odious weather. He agrees,
and waves his arms. I nod vigorously and wave mine. We are brothers.
We shake hands. He hands me a copy of _L’Opinion_ or _L’Indépendant_,
diminutive news-sheets dear to the heart of the Armée d’Orient. I
deluge him with thanks and he returns to the hatch to load the Greeks
with opprobrious epithets.
While perusing the little French paper, I am accosted by the
philosophical second cook, the dark-eyed gentleman from Tokyo, and the
very human third cook, a dark-eyed gentleman from Naples, who wish to
enter the cold storage. I give them the keys and they vanish into a
cupboard-like cavity where they blow on their fingers and proceed to
quarrel over legs of beef, corpses of sheep, or other less desirable
provender.
The French paper tells me a great deal that I wish to know. I
rejoice particularly in the very cavalier attitude it takes up with
regard to neutrals. It trounces Constantine very much as the French
sergeant-major trounces the Greek cargo-men. I pass half an hour very
pleasantly with _L’Opinion_ or _L’Indépendant_.
I find it is seven o’clock. The decks are being washed. Firemen and
engine-room men, a variegated crowd of British, Greek, Arab, and negro,
pass along and go below. Carpets are being shaken, scuttle-brasses
polished, floors scrubbed. The city of Salonika becomes dimly visible,
a gray smudge picked out with white columns and red domes. A battleship
is going out to practise, and presently you hear the heavy _bang-bang_
of her big guns reverberating against the bluffs of the Karaburnou.
Stone quarries behind the town take up the tale, and for an hour or so
you will hear the explosions sullenly booming in the still, damp air.
The hours drag on. It is a quarter to eight. My somnolent negro
suddenly becomes wide awake and hurries along the deck to call his
relief. I make a general and particular examination of everything in
my care, and, rubbing my chin, decide to shave. There is a tendency to
grow slack and slovenly in circumstances like these. One says, “Who
cares?” and “What does it matter?” A slow poison of indolence is in the
air. I must shave. As a rule I am negligent, but this morning I make a
hasty decision that this must end. I will, I announce to myself, shave,
breakfast, and go ashore. As a rule I turn in as soon as I have eaten.
I will go ashore.
I tell my mate I am going and seek information concerning a conveyance.
I inquire of the Second Officer which lighter is going away first. He
does not know. He never does know. He is the most complete agnostic I
have ever met. I ask one of the soldiers, whose king and country have
taken him away from his job on a farm and set him to tally meat. He
says he thinks the extra British lighter will finish first. I then
discover the extra British contingent loading twenty tons of canned
goods――sardines, salmon, and cling peaches; why cling peaches, I cannot
say. So I drop down the rope ladder to the lighter’s deck and discover
the two naval stokers getting the engines ready for starting. They are
Bolinder engines.
If the reader does not know what a Bolinder engine is, he is a happy
man. A Bolinder engine is the devil. I once worked on a ship whose
launch had a Bolinder engine, and it nearly killed me.
By the time the bulbs are hot enough to start, the senior artificer
catches sight of me and we fraternize. He is a pale blond middle-aged
man with the expression of mingled humility and efficiency common
to lower-deck ratings in the Navy. This lighter, he tells me, was
under fire at Gallipoli. He shows me a patch on either side of the
engine-room plating: the entry and exit of a twelve-pounder shell. It
must have passed within a few inches of his neck. With this exception
he has led a humdrum parcels-delivery sort of life. Suddenly, as his
assistant opens a valve, the engine starts with a roar and then settles
down to the fluttery beat and cough of an oil engine with the clutch
out.
We discuss the merits and demerits of Bolinder engines. I hazard the
remark that personally I prefer steam. The man’s face lights up for a
moment as he answers: “Ah, me, too!” You know where you are with steam.
Steam is the friend of man. Steam engines are very human. Their very
weaknesses are understandable. Steam engines do not flash back and
blow your face in. They do not short-circuit and rive your heart with
imponderable electric force. They have arms and legs and warm hearts
and veins full of warm vapour. We all say that. Give us steam every
time. You know where you are with steam.
So much for the trip ashore――one meets a stranger with the knowledge of
the craft. As we climb up out of the tiny engine-room, I observe that
we are now inside the stone jetty of the Greek harbour. Several large
transports are discharging men, mules, horses, guns, locomotives, and
so on. We slip gently alongside, and with a cheery word and a shake of
the hand I quit my friend with his cargo of cling peaches and the rest,
and jump ashore. It occurs to me in passing that the letters from the
front never mention cling peaches and fresh mutton. No, the burden of
their song is always “bully beef” and “skilly,” whatever that may be.
They also speak disparagingly of “tinned stuff.”