The Bonadventure Part 5

The bland face of the sage lighted up with pleasure as he carefully gave us this impression of his.

After the storm, the air was thunder-heavy all that day. Great dragon-flies, and b.u.t.terflies in sultry brown and red, and that must have been borne out to sea on the strong breeze, were fluttering over the decks and the water. At night, there was abundant lightning in the distance: most of all on the eastern horizon, with its world of waters, the flashes were of a dusky redness, and of vague mountainous outline. They came fast and furious, until the moon at last seemed to overawe such wild carouse, and in good earnest to govern the night; while in a deep blue darkness, among the folds of white cloud, stars shone with new clearness. Under this celestial content, the _Bonadventure_ moved over a gleaming sea.

Mead, on his watch, was troubled. He sought in his mind a life better paid and more exciting. Every few moments, he would add some detail aloud to a scheme for piracy in these waters, which he thought might be made a profitable occupation. He pictured a coaster, duly registered, running with ordinary cargo to and fro, but on the lines of a "Q" boat, a sort of marine wolf in sheep's clothing, armed with torpedo tubes. In all respects, himself being already chosen as captain, its crew should form a co-operative society. The pirate should carry a wireless installation of the noisiest sort. In brief, the whole scheme appealed to him so warmly that he was ready, apart from details to be arranged, especially a financier, to put it into practice. Me he would accept as purser, not so much because I showed any promise as a book-keeper, as that I had been in an infantry battalion in the Line.

The ship was slowing down, and the chief was worried. One morning he offered me employment, "cleaning the tubes. You come round to my place." I went round at about nine, when the ship's engines were stopped, and found that he had as ever been amusing himself in his quiet way. He himself, with the firemen, was now ready to act as the ship's chimney-sweeps.

After a full morning's work, masked in sweat and soot, they came up on deck again from the job. I did not regret my earlier "disappointment."

Relieved of the clogging soot, the _Bonadventure_ ran with fresh speed, against a tough head wind. For the first time for some days, one heard the harsh drumming of the excess of steam escaping through its valve.

The wind drove the water, hereabouts of a jade green colour, into long waves and their fine manes of spray, upon which the sun made many a small and fleeting rainbow. With this head wind piping, and the cargo, it seemed, having shifted lately, the ship had an uncomfortable list to port and swayed as she went. "Here, you," cried Meac.o.c.k to me, "your extra weight on the port side's doing this." "Yes, it's perfectly plain he is the Jonah of the voyage."

A dozen big black birds appeared as travelling companions, white-breasted and easy-going. At a closer view, I found that they were not properly black but of that dingy russet grey towards which old mushrooms grow.

They seemed never to clap their wings, but sailed as our gulls do on the wind, wheeling and looping with a leisurely grace, and patrolling the sea as closely as an owl beats a meadow without wetting a wing-tip.

Nor was this the only token of our nearing our first destination.

Sh.o.r.e-going suits and boots were out in the sun already. The steward's usual att.i.tude became that of a priest, as he carried the captain's suits gingerly here and there.

But there was still time for trouble. A relapse in the sainted manner of the old fellow occurred one day at breakfast. The most tremendous roarings, himself and the offending donkeyman in turn or in chorus, suddenly broke out, and ended in the steward's ascent with a complaint to Hosea. Then, one evening, after my quiet enjoyment of the pure blue sky after a shower, with its Southern Cross and the false cross and other stars strange to me glittering marvellously keen, I went in to my cabin to write, when I instantly perceived something in the air. A most pungent aroma, indeed, had been instilled through the house; and going to inquire I found Cyrano of Cardiff kneeling on the saloon floor, applying a special kind of red paint. Properly, he said, it was used for the keels of ships. I thought too that that was its proper application.

At dinner, too, events took a serious turn. When I had in previous days heard spaghetti hailed as Wind-pipes, for instance, I had realized the phrase as a humorous hyperbole. But now the tinned meat problem presented itself to me in a more sinister light--I was not so sure!

There before me was a G.o.dless lump of briny red fat and stringy appendages floating more or less in a thick brown liquid which demanded the spectacles of optimism. A reinforcement of stony beans did not mend the matter. The meat, as it fell out, wore a portion of skin, remarkable for p.r.i.c.kly excrescences, and hinting that I was about to batten on the relics of a young porcupine, or at least peculiar pork. Presently I asked Meac.o.c.k what sort of flesh this was. He answered: "O Lord, _I_ don't know--it's--well, I don't think you can get beyond tinned _meat_."

Another incident affected the administration. An apprentice, whose stature brought him, beyond the chance of escape, the nickname Little Tich, and who was generally being bantered by someone or other, was cleaning the bra.s.swork of the compa.s.s in the wheel-house. Meac.o.c.k went in to take a bearing. The bearing he got nonplussed him, and he got Mead to try. Mead also found the needle giving strange evidence. Suddenly it dawned upon them that its delusion was due to a tremendous dagger worn by the very small and keenly occupied Tich.

The _Bonadventure_ maintained her mended pace, and also her awkward list, which conspired with a strong swell; thus it was that the "fiddle"

so necessary to the safety of cups and plates in the Bay of Biscay reappeared at this late stage. The nights were beautiful, with their white moon and moonlight far over the water, their stars, few, and of the moon's glowing whiteness, the light veilings of cloud blown in silence about the sky, and little else heard except the subdued measure of the ship's engines, the lapping repulse of waves from the bows, and the sharp call of birds ahead and astern. Well might Mead be glad of his roving temperament, as on his watch we talked and smoked above the expanse of rimpled water, and looked towards the sword-like lightnings in the south.

XIII

We came into grey waters, and also into a grey sort of day, overcast and moody. In the evening the wind was strong from the land, and laden with that earthy scent which had so surprised me when I first encountered it; a languid, rich and beguiling perfume, that is tomb-like and unnerving in its suggestion, rising over us. It made out for me the spirit of Tom Hood's last song, if it was his last song; the one beginning "Farewell, life, my senses swim"; its first verse ending "I smell the Mould above the Rose," and its second, "I smell the Rose above the Mould."

Hosea engaged me in discussion of Tennyson and Edwin Arnold. He had been carrying out a lively campaign in his room, where an unwelcome insect had appeared lately; one would have doubted whether any insect, however irrepressible, could have existed in the atmosphere of cigar smoke which he daily thickened in that room of his. But there it was, the bug had been seen, and the whole room was overhauled.

This did not in any way deflect him from his evening pursuit of the abstract. His resolution in following a problem through its own difficult aspects, combined with his control of the _Bonadventure_, often made me wonder whether he was typical of his fellow-captains. Though, as he said, the roaring-bull style of master mariner was almost extinct, I could not help thinking him singular.

I woke at about four, following an inquiry into some remote subject, from a dream of roaring thunderbolts, out of whose red and whizzing track I was crouching on the lee side of barns and cowsheds. I looked out; there was a loud wind much like that which brought the storm of the other Sunday. I went back to bed a little disappointed. This squall left the makings of a very good breeze blowing and moreover lowered the temperature. The mate complained of his khaki shorts; the second mate had had to bring out another blanket, although it was a sunny morning. The colour of the sea was changing as we went at a striking rate; but prevailing, in those shallower roads turbid with silt or sand was a greenness as of horse-chestnut leaves at their prime. Here and there were dark acres of discoloured water drifting by, contrasting magnificently with the green and its bright white-crested waves. The afternoon brought into sight the dim shapes of coastline with those now less familiar things trees and houses. This advance was welcomed by Mead and the apprentices who lived in his alleyway with spirited but not spiritual songs.

The next day, Hosea was very early at the door of the wireless operator's cabin, endeavouring to get a reply from the ship's agents in Monte Video, to questions sent some days before. I do not think he succeeded.

There was, however, much buzzing, and I got up to enjoy the time of day.

It was still keen outside--"a nipping and an eager air"--the sky being blue and the sun unclouded none the less; over the drab green sea, a seagull or two in their lordly fashions flapping against the wind; to starboard, in a gentle haze, a view of rugged sh.o.r.e. This point was one of mountainous eminences, rolling like larger Downs, with white cliffs or sandy beaches under their light red ma.s.ses. Other steamers were in our neighbourhood, on the same course out or home, some bright with new paint, others scarred and rusty. Probably they were having tripe in batter for breakfast like ourselves, the prose part of me suggested; and I felt with grat.i.tude that I must have become a new and better man, who could now face and even look forward to a food which had hitherto only interested me as a favourite with C. Lamb.

The continued cold caused me to return to socks; but I delayed the reinstatement of the collar, which I had found no such necessity to human happiness.

It seemed no time at all before we had pa.s.sed Flores Island, and Monte Video came into view. Bright sandy sh.o.r.es gave place to a parched sort of greenery, as it looked, with large buildings here and there; the town beyond lay terraced on rising ground, its square monotonous buildings hot in the sun, whose fervour the roofs returned in dazzling mirror-glare.

The spires and minarets of its more pretentious architecture, something scantily, relieved the greyness of the formal rows, barracks, warehouses and whatever else. Farther on a rough squat cone of barren-looking ground surmounted with another heavy square-cut building caught but scarcely charmed the eye. As the heat was dreary, so at a casual glance through the smouldering air this town of flat roofs and tiers.

Hosea, very smart, with his telescope under his arm, and the second mate beside him, stood on the bridge. Hosea was giving orders, the second mate pa.s.sing them on to the engineer below on the ringing telegraph, and by megaphone to Meac.o.c.k, who with the carpenter stood to the anchor forward.

Flags were run up announcing the _Bonadventure_. No answer, in the form of a launch, was vouchsafed so early, although other ships moored round about us were being visited by agents or doctors. The word was given to let go the anchor. "Forty-five on the windla.s.s!" The c.u.mbrous chain unwound and ran down with a cloud of rust. The _Bonadventure_ lay still, even the cocoa-like mud which her propeller had been diffusing in a few moments thinning away.

A gangway was let down over the side. Firemen and engineers came up from the underworld and all--not only the pa.s.senger--looked towards a motor launch which now appeared making swiftly towards us. She was tied up a moment later with ropes at the foot of the gangway, and an Englishman emerging from her small beautifully polished saloon, asked in supercilious fashion for the captain. "Come aboard." "No, I can't," Hosea stalked forth with successful dignity, as if unaware that anyone should be calling; then, going back for the ship's papers, boarded the launch, and we heard that we were going on to Buenos Aires. The papers were quickly seen and restored; letters--general gloom!--were absent, probably with some other agents; and the launch and the young man in his beautiful suit, raiment for a diplomat, departed.

We stayed here at anchor through the afternoon; telescopes sprang up on all sides, even if to unacquainted, non-cubist eyes the view was rather interesting than pleasing. Every half-hour or so, some tramp would leave the harbour. Curiosity in their case was small. Every half-hour, launches puffed along to take back their pilots. The purlieus of Monte Video with their apparent but distant gaiety, even, were soon disregarded.

Bicker and Meac.o.c.k exchanged humorous history by the engine bunkers, in holiday mood. The steward, who had lost little time in putting out a fishline, leaned over the rail in meditation, not knowing that his misanthropic look was being almost to a line caught by Bicker behind him.

Bicker also ill.u.s.trated in dumb show the action of heaving the poor old man overboard. And, meanwhile, it was hot: no doubt of that! Presently the doleful patience of the steward was rewarded with a foolish-looking fish perhaps three pounds in weight, which was soon cut into sectors and salted.

When towards seven in the evening the anchor was got up and the ship began to move up the River Plate to Buenos Aires, the scene was one to be remembered. Astern lay Monte Video with its lines of lights, and from its hill one great light glowed out momently; ahead lay the buoys of the channel, flashing first red and then white in rea.s.suring alternation along our course; and the moon overhead, pale with a stratum of thin cloud, or lost at times behind echelons of stormier vapours, gave light enough to hint at the look of the sh.o.r.es. At first the captain, the mate and the anchor appeared the three forces acting on the ship, the anchor especially, which was loath to come aboard. At last it came, and the _Bonadventure_ went steadily up the river to the pipe of a rising wind.

Hosea, well satisfied, sat down in his room with his "purser" to theorize in our wonted way. The beauty of the commonplace, it was; then we were considering the simplicity of seafaring men. They must be simple, he said, to have done what they had done, including Columbus. Seafaring in sailing ships, he described in the powerful phrase "fighting against your G.o.d"; a phrase which I suppose the early mariners in their piety might have applied to steamers.

Those trim skiffs unknown of yore--

I condense Coleridge--

That fear no spite of wind or tide!

Phillips joined us. "We're discussing nautical history, chief." Being a.s.sured that this really was so, Phillips said he was uncertain about the true story of the _Golden Hind's_ boatswain, but he felt certain about our not reaching Buenos Aires in the morning. If he were not a moral man, he would "bet you, sir, two pence on the point."

The pilot, a tan-brown moustached little man, came in--not for his black straw hat, but for his oilskins and goloshes. "That's right," said Phillips with malevolent sympathy, "that's right, pilot, always keep your feet thoroughly dry." The pilot had at least the excuse that it was drizzling outside.

It blew hard and harder all night; and the next morning, Sunday, one thought of the collapse of an English October. About half-past seven we dropped anchor in the "roads" outside our promised port; on all sides bleakly lapping and pa.s.sing the pea-soup waters of the River Plate. Father Prout's whimsical haunting old lines pervaded my mind as I stared and warmed myself with pacing up and down:

With deep affection and recollection I often think of the Shandon bells, Whose sounds so wild would, in days of childhood, Fling round my cradle their magic spells.

On this I ponder, where'er I wander, And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee, With thy bells of Shandon, That sound so grand on The pleasant waters of the River Lee.

Not far from his old loves, how did some of us once for a brief stay, with those whirlpools in Flanders still roaring more hungrily in our destiny, hear other bells ring in enchanting coolness over the gliding boat, borne on the bosom of wooded Blackwater!

But these bleak and turbid waters turned the ringing song to parody, nor did the _Bonadventure's_ bell, a war product, sound particularly grand upon them as those past bells on their importal streams. The outlook and the chilliness made breakfast unusually welcome. The pilot came in, but having no English to speak of (or with) he could not tell us his real views on the weather and such important matters. The chief loudly--for more clarity--pressed him with such questions as "When does your next STRIKE begin?" but he smiled and ate on.

About dinner-time a fine white launch came out to us; and a number of authorities, including some doctors, came aboard. The ship's company a.s.sembled aft like an awkward squad, and the doctors came along the line feeling pulses; a task which they did genially and without strain.

That done, and no one being set aside for a further examination, all dispersed. The authorities (a generous allowance of them) proceeded to Hosea's quarters, no doubt to wind up the morning's work in comfort. I listened meanwhile to Mead, who leaning over above their launch, amused himself with making noisy and scandalous observations upon its crew, their careers and their faces. Why this fury? I really believe it was his way of expressing fraternity.

So there was nothing to do but wait for our new pilot on Monday morning: to play cards with a pack whose age had given each card characteristic markings besides those upon its face; to "yarn." At tea, Bicker was in his most a.s.siduous narrative mood. "We were in the West Indies in a boat bringing the b.u.mboat woman aboard--well, she started to climb up the rope ladder and this fellow thought he'd lay his hand on her ankle. So he made a move to do so. Just then" (his broad grin grew almost incredibly broad), "the boat gave a roll, and as he had one foot on the gunwale, and one on the rope ladder he fell into the water. Well, he went down past rows and rows of plates, and we looked out for him to come up.--First a hat, his black hat, came up. And then, a newspaper came up"--[_Chief_ (_ignored_) "To say he wasn't coming up?"]--and then, _he_ came up. Stern first. We dragged him on deck, and there he was all spluttering, and then he said as solemn as a judge:

'That's the fruits of Blacklegging.'"

This closed the proceedings.

Under the sunset the river's dingy current began to take on a strange glory, and changed into a tawny golden wilderness moving down to sea. Then presently it was full moon and pale splendours. A great quiet prevailed; but led by the moon, like the tide and the poets, Mead and myself paced the decks for hours recalling the local colour of war apart from fighting.

XIV