The breakfast steaks were leathery past anticipations. The flies in
the cabin were thousands strong. But the _Bonadventure_ was homeward
bound, and a general spirit of liveliness prevailed. Conversation was
running much upon the value of the mark, for it was to Hamburg that we
were believed to be going. Base hopes were expressed that the rate of
exchange might be a thousand to the pound. No one imagined that this
would some day be surpassed by eleven thousand. The Argentine had been
expensive; the cheapness of Germany was thrown up all the clearer.
As, however, I had no anxiety to buy a safety razor, mouth-organs,
clocks, and pocket manicure sets, to which and other articles like them
I imagined the German cheapness would be limited, I was not elated on
that score.
At any rate, here we were steaming north at a steady speed, with a light
breeze ahead, and the coast of the Argentine slipping past, dimly seen.
And everything was bent for England. For weeks the chief had expressed a
longing for pancakes at almost every meal; and now, auspicious, they
came. On the other hand, the cheese was done. Dark suspicions about a
certain cake were also whispered; knowing ones, whose information was
that Hosea had sent one aboard from Bahia Blanca for the benefit of
the saloon, saw villainy in the delay of its forthcoming. When it did
appear its pomp of white icing and green and red crescents, and diamonds
of fruit ornaments, certainly warranted an anxiety, as for crown jewels.
Meacock, the ever-busy and never-flustered, about this time showed me
his private notebook, in which he had from time to time copied verses
and aphorisms, chiefly from _Nash's Magazine_, which he considered worthy.
In this anthology of his I might have seen the signs of a literary
revival aboard which shortly afterwards befell. I daresay he would have
expanded a remark of his, "Novels were untrue to life, but life was not
by itself interesting enough" (during the war he had commanded a trawler
in the Mediterranean), had not the slow flash of a lighthouse appeared
on the port side. He climbed to Monkey Island to take a bearing. The
blurred lights of Mar del Plata past, our course was altered to agree
with the set-back of the coast. Mead came up for his watch, eight bells
went, and Meacock departed. His "Ay, ay" to the retiring steersman's
report, the apprentice's reading of the log, and the forward lookout's
shout "The lights are bright, sir," always had a handsome resonance and
lingering dignity.
Mead was by this time full of Hamburg, and he kept breaking into songs
in very low Low German, and memories of one Helen, not without sighs.
That romance was not the first, nor the last, which I heard from him. He
would show me Hamburg! and by way of a Pisgah look, he drew gay pictures
of that town, omitting however its architectural glories. Like critics
of nature poetry, he saw the world in terms of men and women: and Hamburg
as the location of dancing saloons and a singular exhibition of waxworks.
The evening had at first looked stormy, and sharp fits of lightning lit
the low clouds, but all passed by. The clear and cool heaven was left,
diamonded with steady constellations, and crowned with the round moon
"and a star or two beside"; below like a field of silver lay the sea,
and the quiet ship flung by veils of lily foam, and the shadows stealthily
counter-changed the glistening decks. In these calm airs and waters, she
made such good speed that the next afternoon we came in view of Monte
Video. The pilot took over the bridge, and we were soon at anchor in
the harbour, which seemed thronged with ships. Our business here was
to load bunker coal, and as our coal was at the moment aboard a collier
which was to be seen some distance out of the breakwaters, nothing was
done this first evening. The news that his coal was yet to arrive at
Monte Video was cheerfully imparted to Phillips with the comment, "Well,
anyway, chief, you'll get your coal nice and fresh"; but he seemed by no
means consoled. Nor did the assurance of the shipping clerk--a somewhat
lilified young man in immaculate blue serge--that "Our Cardiff house have
let us down badly," act as a charm upon his depression. He told me to
stand by for the office of tallying at seven the next morning, and I
thanked him. The request implied, perhaps, the paternal anxiety for my
avoiding mischievous indolence which he had shown before.
But meanwhile what was there to do? We lay at a distance from the
shore, and had therefore no distraction. I watched the lighthouse on
the hill, the buoys, the ship's signals, the trams on the quay, the other
illuminant causes all round us; I listened to a brass band which, for
whatever reason, was playing close to the harbour until late in the
evening; and then, driven to extremes, I sat down to write a "novel"
which became my refuge from ennui during what remained of my holiday,
but which I fear will never be finished. I spoke to Mead about it. He
thought little of my hero. I agreed to have the hero killed in a bayonet
fight near Alberta pill-box, but he thought I might go still nearer to
propriety and have the hero kill his man, and go through his pockets.
There did seem something in this suggestion, and a few years ago such an
ending as it conjured up would have been popular, I think:
"The battle was over. Whistling 'Tipperary,' and placing the
wallet and watch of his prostrate antagonist in the pocket of
his body shield, Arthur strode onward to join his comrades at
their evening meal in Houthulst Wood. Here let us leave him,
calmly facing the morrow as only an Englishman can.
"THE END."
The next day brought the worst weather that we had met since we left the
Channel. At first it was merely cool and mild; but that was misleading.
Down came the rain, thick, cold, and steady; and there seemed a sufficient
supply to last until we left. I noticed it, myself, with more especial
observation, at my post of tallyman.
In the drizzle the lighters came alongside bringing the coal in bags.
The stevedore's gang and their own overseers arrived aboard. One of
these overseers was an Englishman, who by his manner and speech had
evidently been brought up in a widely different setting; but it was none
of our business, though Bicker and others considered it a disgrace for an
Englishman to be so employed. All I heard was that he came from the
West of England, and that he was wild (which appeared sufficiently in his
countenance); and I admired his intellect, and tried to make him feel
that. The other overseer was a fat old Italian, who tallied with me for
the lighter on the port side.
As these men and the poor fellows who were emptying the sacks into the
hatches or trimming the coal down below had been at work all the night,
it was not surprising that our affairs moved slowly. The winch, steaming
and thudding and jerking in a mutinous mood, brought up four bags at
a time, on my side. The sling that held them was lowered to the deck, the
hands rushed to swing them on to the improvised platforms beside the
hatches, with a concerted roaring as if over the capture of a tiger. While
these bags were being emptied, the sling would be descending into the
lighter again; and so it continued, with a fog of coal particles
wrapping the neighbourhood. The gang was a mixed multitude. Nationality
might have been anything. The prevailing colour was a sable (unsilvered),
under which mask might be distinguished Italian, Portuguese, Japanese,
West Indian, and other types. Among the most energetic of those who
were emptying the bags, the most vocal of the roarers, there was a
tall, thin, humorous fellow who reminded me irresistibly of a brilliant
poet and miscellanist of the modern school. I thought of that dazzling
smile, that aesthetic face transferred to the surroundings of Chelsea,
and what a success, if looks meant anything, he ought to be! So strongly
did I feel that in his hours of leisure and coallessness he was a
critic of verse and _moeurs_ that I almost asked him his name.
My co-tallyman was pleasantly disposed. He asked me if I would give
him one of several casks standing near the galley. I referred him to
Phillips, who referred him to Meacock, who referred him elsewhere. We
disagreed now and then over the tally, but I was able to hold my own.
The _lex talionis_ was in force. Sometimes I was induced to accept his
surplus over my figure as accurate, but then I would take him back at
another opportunity, and ignore his doleful "Make it _threeee_." My
imagination lagged behind his, which seemed to see occasional slings
put aboard by aerial hands, and aerial coal at that, and these went
down in his book. But altogether we "made it." Mutual mistrust served
the public good.
The chief lent me a boiler suit, for which I was insufficient, and added
an old macintosh presently. I soon grew black; even the tallyman, though
he seemed to have some natural gift in his stubbled skin which repelled
the grime, grew black. Presently I was disguised in the order of things
as a film thug, with waterlogged cap sagging over eyes heavily inlaid in
blackness. Tired as the labourers must have been, they went on working
as if they liked it, grinning, singing, enjoying comments upon each other,
and refreshing themselves with cheroots, cigarettes, peaches, or sups
from cans containing a brown decoction like strong tea. They ceased at
four.
It was by way of variation in the evening that Bicker and Mead fell upon
me, with the idea of shampooing the begrimed tallyman. Zambuk (Hosea's
trusted salve), lime cream, and talcum powder were employed. There was
a struggle, however, which disturbed Meacock opposite. He came to the
rescue, but leaping upon the two barbers, who were holding me down, he
forgot that I was underneath. "Rough house," the word went round.
When the stevedore's men arrived the following day, they were almost to
a man rigged out in the cleanest of suits, or costumes rather. This
was, to the best of my information, not the habit with the British
trimmer. Their hats were pleasing to the eye. In his jet-black felt,
my poetry-critic looked the picture of a member of the _Athenaeum_ staff
(lamented _Athenaeum_!). Others wore the type of hat but not the manner. A
number of matey caps, check and khaki and indigo, then white wideawakes as
though for haymaking, and a few pillbox-like creations in crimson and
daffodil, made part of the splendour. Some of the coalheavers wore
large sashes amidships, sashes of lurid colour also, violet and plum,
extra shade. In the shirts, more colour appeared. Here, like Aurora,
stepped Antonio in salmon pink; there, was a construction of red and
green rings on a white background. The bright-blue cotton suits added
to the general effect. Curious that these workers should come so clean,
only to be coated with coal-dust in half an hour! It spoke well for their
outlook.
The work was much as before. Wheelbarrows had to be got to put the sacks
beside other hatches which the winch did not command. The chief had some
argument with the Italian foreman about the last two hundred bags, which
he wished to be shot into the starboard hatch only, to bring the ship up
straight. The foreman asked him to withdraw this. "Damn you!" roared
Phillips, and put an end to the matter, "when I say NO I mean NO. Don't
you understand plain English?"
So that was that, and my job finished. The bosun and his worthies
quickly gathered to remove the disgraceful signs of bunkering; they swept
and garnished, the stylish shipping clerk came aboard with his final
papers to see Hosea and Phillips. Already the pilot was on the bridge;
soon we were slowly backing away from our mooring. The blue peter was
hauled down, the gangway got in. The _Bonadventure_ was manoeuvred past
the breakwaters and down the marked channel, at whose last buoy, or soon
afterwards, the tug to fetch the pilot came alongside. As he withdrew
in her she sounded the three blasts or rather hoots meaning a "Bon
voyage," and our own burly voice sounded three times in acknowledgment.
The many turrets and spires, chimneys and gaunt roofs of Monte Video,
distinctly ranged along a rainy sky with shelves of rock-like cloud,
lessened duly; the evening came on. Still the coast appeared here and
there, its yellow sands, its dark-blue cliffs and hills, and as if
shouldering the dull and heavy sky the sun burned out with a golden power
before he departed.
Mead bade good-bye for a short time--in all probability--and myself for
a long time, to South America, still symbolized by its lighthouses and
the night-glow of a seaside town or two. Once again I felt a regret that
I had not seen the elder Buenos Aires, whose extinction was no doubt a
wise thing, but which surely must have triumphed as a thing of beauty
over the present cubic blocks of utility. Mead was not sentimental about
going to sea once more. He was too deeply engaged with devising a piece
of invective against an enemy for an alleged injury, and immersed in the
troubles of rhyme. I thought he was acquitting himself very well.