There was a feeling (based on observation) aboard the _Bonadventure_ that
the discharge of the ship was not being carried out with all possible
speed, owing to the prevailing mysterious influences of the offices in the
town. Delays were many. This augury of a long sojourn in our present
berth depressed many of us: I had already observed, or judged, that
whatever the earlier mariners may have thought of seafaring, the modern
sailor's idea in sailing is to get back home as early as possible. We
soon heard that four days of public holiday, the Carnival, would be
added to our term. It was evident that one must make the best of it, and
be thankful on those days when some actual progress was made.
Mosquitoes, as I have said, were a great subject here. We had
opportunities to study them. With _Macbeth_ in hand as a convenient
weapon., I nightly reduced the horde, but these
Stubborn spearsmen still made good
The dark impenetrable wood.
The heat grew sickly sometimes at night, and the cabins were black with
flies and mosquitoes alike. To sleep there was to be slowly suffocated,
let alone the folly of sleeping among man-eaters. An outdoor faith was
forced upon me, and yet the deck was no real enclosure from the enemy:
the faith would end at four or so in the morning, a time of day to which
I was becoming as accustomed as of old, and when the riverside gave off a
smell which I remembered noticing in the trench regions east of Bethune.
Then, still hopeful, I would face my cabin and soon after swathing
myself in the brief sheets of the bunk would be asleep. That interim
unrecognized, here I was awake again in a world where chisels chip paint
and steam-driven machines tip tons of coal. The great buckets were now
being strung over to railway vans, which were shunted duly by a small
engine. Winches clattered and wrenched, the clanking engine bustled
almost ludicrously up and down the wharf, and all seemed in a great
hurry, but the hurry was only on the surface. The yellow river, the
coal-dust, the glaring sun, the dockside streets and warehouses and of
course the eternal mosquito began to play upon me. My body was in pain
from the innumerable bites and want of rest, and generally I was in as
low spirits as I could be.
The ship was daily haunted by newsboys, fruit-sellers, and others. The
news was difficult to discover from the queer columns of short cabled
messages, and yet we never sent the newsboy away unless, perhaps, our
only means was in English coppers. Sixpences he (not unwisely) was willing
to take. The fruit-sellers gave better value for sixpence, even though
their open panniers seemed always liable to the predatory paws of the
water police. The shoemaker with his motor tyre put pieces of it upon
my shoes, grunting out a satisfaction with the job which I hardly shared.
A thin gentleman with furs, puzzle boxes, and other cheap-jack gear was
not much called upon though called at.
Two Englishmen came also, sellers of furs; one, of my own Division in
France. They were very warm in their praise of Buenos Aires, and besides
bringing good furs with them they brought good spirits.
Football flourished. In red-hot sunlight, we met the team of another ship.
Grim determination was in the game and its afterthoughts; and by a happy
accident my foot scored the first goal of our victory. It was counted
unto me for righteousness. The form of address "Passenger" acquired a
respectful significance. There was immediately arranged a return match. But
Antres et vous fontaines!
The hart desireth the waterbrooks; and so did we. Again, on such a
summer afternoon, we went at it, upon the field we had hired for the
ordeal. This time we lost, but still the blood of the team was up; the
_Bonadventure's_ fair name was in jeopardy. Again there was immediately
arranged a return match for the following evening. We lost, and it was
hotter still. This nevertheless cooled the ardour of the footballers,
and did not finally ruin the reputation of S.S. _Bonadventure_.
The evening form of this game continued upon the original ground, but my
connection, like Mead's, soon declined. The main cause was that the ball,
or Ball--its importance aboard requires the capital letter--flew off one
evening as usual into the dock, but there by some conspiracy of wind
and current sailed along at a merry rate until it was carried under the
framework of piers upon which the coal wharf was built--a noisome place,
a labyrinth of woodwork. If it stayed here, it was generally out of
sight and beyond reach; if it was swirled out, it would go on out, into
the middle stream, and doubtless into the Atlantic. We groped along the
filthy piles of the tunnel, and the darkness was imminent; when the
ball suddenly appeared, decidedly going out into the middle stream. At
this crisis, Mead with a war-cry plumped into the evil-looking water and
brought off a notable rescue.
Cricket would have seemed the more seasonable sport. Twice Mead and
myself joined the Mission XI for grand matches in the suburbs, and said
to ourselves, "In the midst of football we are in cricket"; but twice
we met with disappointment, the rain choosing the wrong days altogether.
I had naturally observed silence over my journalistic life of the remote
past, but one evening at the British Bar I was asked, was it not true
that I was a relation of Kipling? and at the Mission "your book" was
several times alluded to. It was, I think, taken for granted that being
a penman I should be _writing up_ my adventures, as though I were on
a voyage to Betelgueux or Sirius. I was asked to recite some of my poems,
also, by a lady, but I was churl enough to ask her pardon on that score.
She evidently felt this the basest ingratitude. "Why? Why not give us a
recitation? I'm sure you can." I tried to explain that my attempts were
frequently, almost invariably, of a meditative cast of mind, not suitable
for the platform. At this she sniffed and I felt that my explanation was
disgraceful in the highest degree.
Entertainment was not lacking there at the Mission. It was a hearty
place. One evening Tich, the pride of the _Bonadventure_, who in his
uniform cut a most splendid figure, went into the ring and laid about
him magnificently. Or there might be a concert, local talent obliging. A
passenger ship's varieties drew a large attendance both from the ships
and the shore; there was much funny man, much jazz band, much conjuring,
much sentimental singing--in fact plenty of everything which is expected
at popular concerts, and every one departed with reflected pride. Mead
and myself, however, quarrelled over the amount which I subscribed to
the whip-round. It was that or nothing--I had but one coin; and its
removal robbed us of our wonted refreshment. We walked somewhat moodily
down the road to the docks, unsoothed by their thick coarse greenery,
which the night filled with the incessant buzzing of crickets and a
loud piping whistle perhaps from a sort of cricket also, while here
and there a fire-fly went along with his glow-worm light.
We tried the cinematograph's recreations, once or twice. How strong is
habit! We could not settle down to these performances of single films;
nor to the box-like halls. A cowboy film of eight acts comes back to my
recollection from those evenings. It was full of miracles. The operator
believed, like the hero, in lightning speed. The hero on horseback was
far too speedy for the villain who dragged off the heroine into his car
and did his best to break records. These heroes will one day assume the
proportions, in the dark world, of the pleiosaurus in natural history.
But we had our reward. In a more expensive theatre, we found _The Kid_.
We had come out to see a much trumpeted film of a bullfight--Mead for
one set of reasons, I for another; but it was of yesterday, and we had
no difficulty in consoling ourselves. One Chaplin, we acknowledged, was
better than many toreadors.
And then, we had a glimpse of the Carnival. In our wonted quarter of
the town, that where the seafaring man mostly rested, it took the form
of some processions of hobbledehoys and urchins, beating as their kind
do on drums and things like drums. The next evening we took the same
dreary cobblestone walk as usual, but did not limit ourselves to that.
We took a tram, indeed, to more fashionable haunts and at last came into
the great Avenida and all its garish illuminations; its paper ribbons
were as multi-coloured as the lights, and, flung from the upper storeys of
the hotels, in some places they were thick enough to form a fantastic
and absurd cascade. Here the Carnival was in mid sprout. We got what we
came for--a diversion.
The pavements, broader here than in the generality of the streets we
knew, were chock-a-block with folks, the cafes overflowing, the towering
hotels gleaming with bright dresses on every balcony, and all this was
the accompaniment of the gorgeous procession that moved slowly along the
highway. Its vehicles of every kind, but their kind hidden from passing
observation by their curtains and festoons of flowers, trooped along
in the unreal glare. Here, ladies of most aristocratic air came by,
with the blackest of masks above the whitest of countenances; there was
a girl in the dress of a bull-fighter, driving her own light carriage;
next, a set of laughing "gipsies" apparently advertising a brand of
cigarettes; then, a collection of men with Cyrano disguises and attempting
Cyrano humour to the gods--
All these and more came flocking.
But the privilege of gazing unrebuked upon the profusion of beauty, upon
raven hair and great deep-burning eyes, upon the pale cheeks of wintry
moons, the privilege of hearing the disjointed music of the fu-fu bands
and the verbal crackers of harlequins of the moment, was not without its
points of misery. The pavements represented a scrum on the largest
scale, in the forefront of one battering ram whereof Mead and myself were
securely wedged in for an hour or two. In this state of things, the usual
individual turned round to ask Mead "who he was pushing?"--the sense
of his remarks being obvious though couched in another tongue. Unable to
move the arms, and scarcely free to flicker the eyelashes, we were
borne compressedly and gradually on, until at last we were beyond the
main pleasure-ground; by this time even Mead had had enough of pleasures
which we had noticed others than Englishmen taking seriously. We took our
ease in our inn, and reflected.
The newspapers reported that the Carnival was declining year by year.
Perhaps the reporter, like ourselves, had corns and was caught in the
scrimmage.