II

My instructions were to present myself next morning, without fail, at

the shipping offices of Messrs. Wright, Style and Storey, in Cardiff.

Mary's double accordingly hurried me through my breakfast and led the

way to Paddington. I urged myself to realize that I was going upon

holiday; but, it cannot be withheld, the thought of this particular

pleasure had a serious tinge. Paddington itself, to such an islander as

I am, had some of the credit of this. To me, that large terminus is, as a

jumping-off position, less human than, for example, Victoria. From

Paddington, with its Western propaganda, it may well seem that humanity

is travelling out into the round world's imagined corners; but Victoria,

with its lesser range in sight, leaves a quieter speculation. From

Brighton there is no such press of mammoth liners? Even when the

destination was the B.E.F., it was comforting to me to set out from

Victoria, whence the way led through a compact, placid, formerly

uninternational, still un-Atlantic quarter. A Society for the Suppression

of Astronomers has been mooted by the lazy-minded. I am not sure that

geographers should not be included. Distances, no doubt, are as essential

to romance as to Copley Fielding's water-colours; but they can rouse in

some of us troubling thoughts, which, summed up, say "Leave us alone!"

Such thoughts had disturbed me when, with farewells from Bess, I retired

to the sporting columns of my newspaper, and the train moved out.

In compensation for my experience of the previous evening, the journey

went quickly by. A sunny morning, blue and still, lit up the country.

So fine was the day, and the country, with its ancient timber, its

mole-hilled pastures, its feeding horses and cheerful rooks, appeared so

mellow, that the wisdom of leaving it behind was not so conspicuous as,

the night before, it had been. Cardiff. I knew nothing about it, except

as "Cardiff." I entrusted myself, therefore, to a taxi-driver, who

claimed to know more, even to the whereabouts of the shipping office

to which I was bound. After meanderings and advice from the police and

the public, he made amends for his inaccuracy by setting me down at

the foot of a gloomy staircase leading to the rooms of Messrs. Wright,

Style and Storey.

And now for a few moments I was in trouble. Thinking that the telegram

which warranted my calling at this Cardiff office of the London Company

would best explain my intrusion, I handed it over the fateful counter.

The clerk took it, assumed a serious air, avoided looking at me, and

referred to a superior. I was puzzled. More so, the superior. A murderer,

concerned in the atrocity at Bournemouth, was at that time untraced,

and I fancy that the official had the mystery in his mind at this point.

At any rate, eyeing the wire with doubt for some time, he suddenly

advanced towards me and put the question, in stern accents: "Who are you?"

Who are you?

I feel sure that my explanation was unbusinesslike, but he presently

divined the truth. Word of my movement had not been sent him from London.

He withdrew to the telephone or time-table; then restoring to me my

sibylline leaf, told me to go to Barry Docks, where I should find the

_Bonadventure_, recognizable by a white S painted on the funnel, lying

at Tip Eleven or Twelve, and to go aboard and report myself to the

captain. I went, fearing lest the captain likewise might know as little

in advance about the trembling suspect before him.

Urchins scrambled for my luggage at the Barry Docks Station, an hour

or so later, and the two victors hurried it along to Tip Eleven. These

coal-tips overhead and the shipping alongside, with knots of workmen

passing masked in coal-dust, engaged my mind as we went, and before I

was fully aware of it we were aboard a vessel which the boys recognized as

the _Bonadventure_. I paid the carriers, who went away at speed, and

asked a wooden-faced seaman, who seemed to be alone, where I could find

the captain. He at once cut short my search by the tone in which he

observed, "The captain! He's having his dinner at the present." I was

rebuked, and stood by. (I had still to witness the multitudes who want to

find the captain of a ship in port.)

I took a look at the ship, but felt lost as I did so. She was large, and

of vague shape. I could not determine where she began and where she left

off. A pall of coal covered everything. Heaps of cinders, which a casual

glance described as of some seniority, lay against the deck railing. I saw

hut-like structures about me where I stood, amidships, as the boys had

said; but I feared to explore. At times some one with a plate or a jug

was seen stooping swiftly through their doorways--evidence indeed of the

captain's dinner-hour. Inaction, nevertheless, grew unpromising; and at

last I asked an officer, as I rightly thought him, who had come out

to keep an eye on several blasphemous and strongly individual beings

with large spades, whether I might see the captain. When he heard my

business, he quickly took me to him. I found myself speaking to a quiet,

smiling, and enviably robust man who, to my relief, was not mystified

by my arrival. He set me at my ease, told me that I should sign on as

a member of the crew to-morrow, and allowed me to stay on the ship

meanwhile. I was glad of this, being weary of quests for the time being.

Not quite at home, as may be gathered, I went out on deck, and watched the

tips in action; admired the mimic thunder--first the abrupt and rending,

shattering crash, then the antistrophe of continued rollings--which each

truckful of coal makes as it is tumbled into the shoot and thereby into

the ship's holds. Truck after truck was drawn up, the pin knocked away

from the end board and the coal hurled, its dusky clouds fuming out,

into the ship: its atmosphere did not seem to strain or irritate the

breathing organs of those worthies with the spades, and the pipes,

whose vague labouring silhouettes enlivened the gloom. Engines plied

constantly beside the docks with long trains of coal. As if expressing

itself, one emitted a peculiar twofold groan. All this, of course,

ancient history, but I was new to it. It seemed like the beginnings of

wisdom.

But the world of iron and smoke could not warm my body as well as it did

my mind, and while I was brooding over the increasing bite in the air of

that January afternoon, the officer whom I was to know soon as the mate, a

young man of clear-cut features and tranquil manner, told me to make use

of the saloon. I sat there reading, when another introduction took place.

The steward, a weighty old man remarkable at first sight for his brown

skull-cap, came in to say he had fitted me up with a cabin. Following him

up a staircase, I took over this dugout-like dwelling with no small

satisfaction. It was to be my home, he said, for three or four months

on this South American run. I unpacked, and washed away the unearned, and

unsuspected, film of coal-dust which was to characterize my home for the

same length of time.

Tea came, and I was mildly puzzled again, when the steward's assistant

asked me to choose between a bloater, cold meat, and so on. I was deciding

on something slenderer, when I realized that tea included supper, and

applied for a kipper. The captain's wife kept conversation alive. The

topic, I remember, was the lamented custom which once permitted captains'

wives to make "the round trip" with their husbands.

The coal still rattled into the holds every moment or two, and the same

process was going on all round us. The water was bright in the moon,

and the reflections of the lamps fastened high over the ships swum like

golden serpents in the ripples. In such a light, to such a watcher,

there seemed no end to the serried framework and the cordage to the

giant sea travellers of steel. The constant clanging and whistling and

crash spoke to the work of the machines, an occasional shout to the

guiding energies of the men.