Mr Punch Afloat Part 8

In the dead unhappy night that followed, when the sea was on the deck, I often thought of the bicycle cavorting to and fro over the serrated ridge of the cargo.

Ten minutes to twelve; a savoury smell from the cook's galley. Suppose _dejeuner_ will be served as soon as we leave the dock. Heard a good deal of superiority of French cooking aboard ship as compared with British. Some compensation after all for getting up early, swallowing cup of coffee and bread and b.u.t.ter, and rushing off to catch at ten o'clock a ship that sails at noon. Perhaps the cloth is laid now; better go and secure places. Find saloon. Captain and officers at breakfast, their faces illumined with the ecstasy born to a Frenchman when he finds an escargot on his plate.

Evidently they are breakfasting in good time so as to take charge of the ship whilst _nous autres_ succeed to the pleasures of the table. What's our hour, I wonder? Find some one who looks like a steward; ask him; says, "_Cinq heures et demie_." A little late that for breakfast, I diffidently suggest. Explains not breakfast but dinner; first meal at 5.30 P.M. Can't we have _dejeuner_ if I pay for it? I ask, ostentatiously shaking handful of coppers in trousers-pocket. No, he says, severely; that's against the _reglement_.

Steamer starts in seven minutes; noticed at dock-gates women with baskets of dubious food; dash off to buy some; clutch at a plate of sandwiches, alleged to be compacted of _jambon de York_. Get back just as gangway is drawn up. Sit on deck and munch our sandwiches. "I know that Ham," said Sark, moodily. "It came out of the Ark."

Recommitted it to the waves, giving it the bearings for Ararat. Ate the bread and wished half-past five or Blucher would come.

A lovely day in Ma.r.s.eilles; not a breath of wind stirred the blue water that laved the white cliffs on which Chateau d'If stands. Shall have a lovely pa.s.sage. Make ourselves comfortable on deck with cushions and books. Scarcely outside the harbour when a wind sprang up from S.E. dead ahead of us. The sea rose with amazing rapidity; banks of leaden-hued clouds obscured the sun-light; then the rain swished down; saloon deck cleared; pa.s.sengers congregated under shelter in the saloon; as the cranky little steamer rolled and pitched, the place emptied. When at 5.30 the dinner-bell rang, only six took their places, and all declined soup. With the darkness the storm rose. If the ship could have made up its mind either to roll or to pitch, it could have been endured. It had an agonising habit of leaping up with apparent intent to pitch, and, changing its mind, rolling over, groaning in every plank. Every third minute the nose of the ship being under water, and the stern clear out, the screw leaped full half-length in the air, sending forth blood-curdling sounds. Midway came a fearsome crash of crockery, the sound reverberating above the roar of the wind, and the thud of the water falling by tons on the deck, making the ship quiver like a spurred horse.

"I begin to understand now," said Sark, "how the walls of Jericho fell."

Much trouble with the Generalissimo. When he came aboard at Ma.r.s.eilles he suffused the ship with pleasing sense of the military supremacy of Great Britain. Has seen more than seventy summers, but still walks with sprightly step and head erect. The long droop of his carefully-curled iron-grey moustache is of itself sufficient to excite terror in the bosom of the foe. The Generalissimo has not the word retreat in his vocabulary. He was one of the six who to-night sat at the dinner-table and deftly caught sc.r.a.ps of meat and vegetable as the plates flew past.

But after dinner he collapsed. Thought he had retired to his berth; towards nine o'clock a faint voice from the far end of the cabin led to discovery of him p.r.o.ne on the floor, where he had been flung from one of the benches. We got him up, replaced him tenderly on the bench, making a sort of barricade on the offside with bolsters. A quarter of an hour later the ship gave a terrible lurch to leeward; the screw hoa.r.s.ely shrieked; another batch of crockery crashed down; above the uproar, a faint voice was heard moaning, "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

We looked at the bench where we had laid the Generalissimo, his martial cloak around him. Lo! he was not.

Guided by former experience, we found him under the table. Evidently no use propping him up. So with the cushions we made a bed on the floor, and the old warrior securely slept, soothed by the swish of the water that crossed and recrossed the cabin floor as the ship rolled to leeward or to starboard.

When the Generalissimo came aboard at Ma.r.s.eilles, surveying the fortifications of the harbour as if he intended storming them, his accent suggested that if not of foreign birth, he had lived long in continental courts and camps. Odd to note how, as his physical depression grew, an Irish accent softened his speech, till at length he murmured of misery in the mellifluous brogue of County Cork.

Pretty to see the steward when the flood in the saloon got half a foot deep ladle it out with a dustpan.

_Tunis, Monday_, 1 A.M.--Just limped in here with deck cargo washed overboard, bulwarks stove in, engine broken down, an awesome list to port, galley so clean swept the cook doesn't know it, the cabins flooded, and scarce a whole bit of crockery in the pantry. Twenty-one hours late; not bad on a thirty-six-hours' voyage.

Captain comforts us with a.s.surance that having crossed the Mediterranean man and boy for forty years, he never went through such a storm. Have been at sea a bit myself; only once, coasting in a small steamer off j.a.pan, have I seen--or, since it was in the main pitch dark, felt--anything like it. Generalissimo turned up at dinner last night, his moustache a little draggled, but his port once more martial. His chief lament is, that going down to his berth yesterday morning, having spent Friday night in the security of the saloon floor, he found his boots full of water. This brings out chorus of heartrending experience.

Every cabin flooded; boxes and portmanteaus floating about. Sark and I spent a more or less cosy night in the saloon. To us entered occasionally one of the crew ostentatiously girt with a life-belt. Few incidents so soothing on such a night. Fortunately, we did not hear till entering port how in the terror of the night two conscripts, bound for Bizerta, jumped overboard and were seen no more.

"If this is the way they usually get to Tunis," says Sark, "I hope the French will keep it all to themselves. In this particular case, there is more in the Markiss's 'graceful concession' than meets the eye."

RIVER GAMBLING.--"Punting," says the _Daily News_, "has become a very fashionable form of amus.e.m.e.nt on the Upper Thames." So it is at Monte Carlo. Punting is given up by all who find themselves in hopelessly low water.

LIVE WHILE YOU MAY.--_Timid Pa.s.senger_ (_as the gale freshened_). "Is there any danger?" _Tar_ (_ominously_). "Well, them as likes a good dinner had better hev it to-day!"

SATISFACTORY.--We are glad to be able to report that the gentleman who one day last week, while walking on the bank of the Thames near Henley, fell in with a friend, is doing well. His companion is also progressing favourably.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOO SOLID

_Skipper._ "Did ye got the proveesions Angus?"

_Angus._ "Ay, ay! A half loaf, an' fouer bottles o' whiskey."

_Skipper._ "An' what in the woarld will ye be doin' wi' aal that bread?"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RESIGNATION

_Sympathetic Old Gentleman._ "I'm sorry to see your husband suffer so, ma'am. He seems very----"

_Lady Pa.s.senger_ (_faintly_). "Oh dear! He isn't my husband. 'Sure I don't know who the ge'tleman is!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A FLIGHT OF FANCY

_Visitor._ "Good morning: tide's very high this morning, eh?"

_Ancient Mariner._ "Ar, if the sea was all _beer_, there wouldn' be no bloomin' 'igh tides!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A QUESTION OF HOSPITALITY AT HENLEY

"Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone."--_Shakespeare._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A DELICIOUS SAIL--OFF DOVER

_Old Lady._ "Goodness gracious, Mr. Boatman! What's that?"

_Stolid Boatman._ "That, mum! Nuthun, mum. Only the Artillery a prac-_ti_-sin', and that's one o' the cannon b.a.l.l.s what's just struck the water!!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: POOR HUMANITY!

_Bride._ "I think--George, dear--I should--be better--if we walked about----"

_Husband_ (_one wouldn't have believed it of him_). "You can do as you like, love. I'm very well (!) as I am!!"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Intelligent Foreigner._ "I am afraid zey are not much use, zeze grand works of yours at Dovaire. Vot can zey do against our submarines?--our leetle Gustave Zede? Ah, ze submarine e' is mos terrible, an' ze crews also--ze matelots--zey are 'eroes! Vy, every time zey go on board of him zey say goodbye to zer vives an' families!"]