There you are, outward bound and southward ho! Here am I, with the
newsboys outside shouting the latest imbecility to the murk, trying to get
warm and happy by considering a dull electric heater and the faded
memory of another ship (she went downstairs in the war) which, years ago,
on a December morning, passed through the lock gates at Swansea for Para
and all, while I stood by her rail sorry for the people who had not my
luck. Now it is your turn. Make the most of it. It will do something
to take away the taste of Stuff Trench. You will find me, when you come
home, still over the electric stove listening to the newsboys. I shall
call for wine, and you must tell me all about the Fortunate Isles. I am
sure they are still there, and that you will see them.
O, a Cardiff ship sails down the river
(Blow, boys, blow!)
Her masts and yards they shine like silver
(Blow, my bully boys, blow!)
Sing up, Blunden! And don't forget to take soap, towels and matches. Do
you smoke a pipe? You'll wish presently you knew how to do it, if you have
misspent your time and never learned. But I suppose eighteenth-century
literature and the baby have absorbed all your energies. A pipe is only
fit for the idle-minded.
There's another thing. Don't forget that the ship's master is a greater
man than a colonel. You know colonels, don't you? (All right, all right!)
Well, make no mistake about it, master mariners, as a rule, are different.
It is long odds that your new master will know his job. If you are nice to
him, he may even confess to a taste for your poetry; ships' masters are
like pie, I have found, to little lost children like ourselves who know
nothing about ships, but they are perfectly frightful towards those
who know all about ships, and know it all wrong.
A happy Christmas and a lucky New Year.
Yours ever,
H. M. TOMLINSON.
I
On the eleventh of January my uncertainty was ended by the apparition (and
in the village of Staizley it is no less) of a girl with a telegram. Her
walk of three miles or thereabouts, from our nearest telegraph office,
brought her to my gate at three in the afternoon; and with her customary
awed speechlessness she gave me her message. It was from "Kingfisher," the
decoded entity of which was the great shipping owner to whom I owed my
arrangements; and in response I hastily attempted to leave a semblance
of order behind me and to seem unexcited. My luggage, no cumbrous
affair, had already been packed. By six, the trap of an ingenious
neighbour, who lives by all sorts of traps, was heard at the gate, and
Mary and myself got in. Determined protest, not at my departure, but
at the apparent departure of her mother, was now raised by the youngest
among us. My comforting promises were ignored, and the infant's cries
redoubled. Nevertheless, off we went.
The evening had been pouring out, with the vigour of an elemental
Whistler, sleet and hail, and now though the wind was down our drive
lay through fields half whitened with the storm; and the air was livid
with the clouded moon and as cold as the ebbing light. With its multitude
of pollards, its desolate great fields, its chilling breaths, the
countryside might have been Flanders. This aspect seemed incidentally
to demonstrate the wisdom of going elsewhere for a month or two.
We now came into Slowe, discussing all the time our past, present and
future; the chief result of the discussion was the placing of my
unanswered letters at Mary's disposal. The town of Slowe was at peace.
Its station wore the familiar air of having nothing to do with the coarse
noise of traffic. Here Mary spent some moments in melancholy visions of
my funeral at sea. She hoped these were wrong, and I, beginning to be
affected also, hoped so equally.
"Good-bye" to Mary! The curve of the track carried her out of sight,
and, imagining with resolution that the carriage was comfortably warm, I
resigned myself to the journey to Liverpool Street. By way of passing the
time, I fell back upon my habit of considering how the Latin poets might
render the words, upon which few Englishmen have not been reared:
"The use of this rack for heavy and bulky packages...."
But though the sentiment which they convey is salutary, and though
such metrical gifts as "graviora" and "viatores" instantly suggested
themselves, the task once again defeated me.
Some such deadening pastime (Tennyson advises it) was necessary. There
are many stations between Slowe and Liverpool Street, and the train, the
last of the day between those places, stopped at each one. Arrived in
London, and shivering with cold, I sought out my relations; reported with
a certain amount of pride, which evoked no corresponding admiration at
such a late hour, my impending voyage, and was rewarded with a bed.