III

I decide suddenly to have a pipe, and go in to get tobacco and matches. However, the mess-room steward is bringing in tea and toast for two, so I postpone the pipe. As I sit down on the stool by the desk, the Fourth Engineer comes in, wiping his hands on a piece of waste. He is gay. It is nearly six. The boilers, sanitary, and fresh-water tanks are all full. Everything is in order. At seven he will dive into his room and be no more seen. He sits down beside me and partakes of his seventh cup of tea and piece of toast since nine o’clock last night. He wants to go up for an examination. He has been away fifteen months as Fourth. He will probably be away another fifteen. He is losing his chances. And they need young men at home.

One of the great advantages of war, the militarists tell us, is that young men get their chance. War gives us scope, provokes initiative, stimulates the soul, quickens the brain.

With my pipe alight, I take up my walk on the after deck. The setting moon is a mere pool of radiance, like an electric lamp swathed in muslin. A rift in the clouds over Ben Lomond shows a pale blue patch of sky with the morning star shining in the middle of it. The lights of the port shine like stars, too, in the rain-washed air. Men move about the ship, launches begin to cross and recross the harbour. A steamer near us suddenly wakes into life. Electric clusters and arc-lights blaze about her decks, derricks swing and winches rattle. Another ship, a collier, hauls up her anchor and very cautiously, very stealthily, approaches a cruiser, as though she were about to pounce upon her without warning. But the cruiser is in full possession of all her faculties apparently, for hundreds of men appear on deck, whistles are blown, fenders are lowered, ropes are thrown out, and at length the two lie in a close embrace, and the cruiser’s Morse light winks rapidly several times to inform the world that all is as it should be.

As I turn from this fascinating spectacle I behold the French lighter approaching. The French lighter is a cumbrous old Turkish sailing ship propelled by a minute French tug lashed to her side. She seems to have her arm round the tug’s shoulders. Loud hammering announces the steam making its way along our water-logged deck-pipes. A shrill whistle from the French tug elicits a similar whistle from someone on our upper deck. Several soldiers in khaki make their appearance about the ship. The French tug and lighter come alongside and are made fast. A swarm of dirty Greeks climb up and begin to remove the hatches.

You cannot honestly say the day has broken. It is much more as though the blank opacity of the night had worn thin. That blue rent in the dirty tarpaulin of the sky over Ben Lomond has closed up, and a fine misty drizzle begins to fall.

I retire to the door of the machine-room, where I encounter my friend the French sergeant-major. He is a handsome Marseillais, by profession a dealer in antique furniture and objets d’art. For two years he has been supervising the transportation of beef and mutton from ship to shore. He is of the opinion that war develops our higher faculties to the utmost, and that without war civilized man would degenerate into a gross preoccupation with material needs. However, just now he is good-humouredly frantic because there is no steam. I inquire what it is that it is. He waves his arms. I say, “Pas de vapeur?” Ah! he nods and waves his arms again. I wave mine. In a species of utilitarian French which I find that French men—and women—understand, I inform him that the vapeur is on its way, but that it is being retarded by the condensation in the pipes, due to the odious weather. He agrees, and waves his arms. I nod vigorously and wave mine. We are brothers. We shake hands. He hands me a copy of L’Opinion or L’Indépendant, diminutive news-sheets dear to the heart of the Armée d’Orient. I deluge him with thanks and he returns to the hatch to load the Greeks with opprobrious epithets.

While perusing the little French paper, I am accosted by the philosophical second cook, the dark-eyed gentleman from Tokyo, and the very human third cook, a dark-eyed gentleman from Naples, who wish to enter the cold storage. I give them the keys and they vanish into a cupboard-like cavity where they blow on their fingers and proceed to quarrel over legs of beef, corpses of sheep, or other less desirable provender.

The French paper tells me a great deal that I wish to know. I rejoice particularly in the very cavalier attitude it takes up with regard to neutrals. It trounces Constantine very much as the French sergeant-major trounces the Greek cargo-men. I pass half an hour very pleasantly with L’Opinion or L’Indépendant.

I find it is seven o’clock. The decks are being washed. Firemen and engine-room men, a variegated crowd of British, Greek, Arab, and negro, pass along and go below. Carpets are being shaken, scuttle-brasses polished, floors scrubbed. The city of Salonika becomes dimly visible, a gray smudge picked out with white columns and red domes. A battleship is going out to practise, and presently you hear the heavy bang-bang of her big guns reverberating against the bluffs of the Karaburnou. Stone quarries behind the town take up the tale, and for an hour or so you will hear the explosions sullenly booming in the still, damp air.

The hours drag on. It is a quarter to eight. My somnolent negro suddenly becomes wide awake and hurries along the deck to call his relief. I make a general and particular examination of everything in my care, and, rubbing my chin, decide to shave. There is a tendency to grow slack and slovenly in circumstances like these. One says, “Who cares?” and “What does it matter?” A slow poison of indolence is in the air. I must shave. As a rule I am negligent, but this morning I make a hasty decision that this must end. I will, I announce to myself, shave, breakfast, and go ashore. As a rule I turn in as soon as I have eaten. I will go ashore.

I tell my mate I am going and seek information concerning a conveyance. I inquire of the Second Officer which lighter is going away first. He does not know. He never does know. He is the most complete agnostic I have ever met. I ask one of the soldiers, whose king and country have taken him away from his job on a farm and set him to tally meat. He says he thinks the extra British lighter will finish first. I then discover the extra British contingent loading twenty tons of canned goods—sardines, salmon, and cling peaches; why cling peaches, I cannot say. So I drop down the rope ladder to the lighter’s deck and discover the two naval stokers getting the engines ready for starting. They are Bolinder engines.

If the reader does not know what a Bolinder engine is, he is a happy man. A Bolinder engine is the devil. I once worked on a ship whose launch had a Bolinder engine, and it nearly killed me.

By the time the bulbs are hot enough to start, the senior artificer catches sight of me and we fraternize. He is a pale blond middle-aged man with the expression of mingled humility and efficiency common to lower-deck ratings in the Navy. This lighter, he tells me, was under fire at Gallipoli. He shows me a patch on either side of the engine-room plating: the entry and exit of a twelve-pounder shell. It must have passed within a few inches of his neck. With this exception he has led a humdrum parcels-delivery sort of life. Suddenly, as his assistant opens a valve, the engine starts with a roar and then settles down to the fluttery beat and cough of an oil engine with the clutch out.

We discuss the merits and demerits of Bolinder engines. I hazard the remark that personally I prefer steam. The man’s face lights up for a moment as he answers: “Ah, me, too!” You know where you are with steam. Steam is the friend of man. Steam engines are very human. Their very weaknesses are understandable. Steam engines do not flash back and blow your face in. They do not short-circuit and rive your heart with imponderable electric force. They have arms and legs and warm hearts and veins full of warm vapour. We all say that. Give us steam every time. You know where you are with steam.

So much for the trip ashore—one meets a stranger with the knowledge of the craft. As we climb up out of the tiny engine-room, I observe that we are now inside the stone jetty of the Greek harbour. Several large transports are discharging men, mules, horses, guns, locomotives, and so on. We slip gently alongside, and with a cheery word and a shake of the hand I quit my friend with his cargo of cling peaches and the rest, and jump ashore. It occurs to me in passing that the letters from the front never mention cling peaches and fresh mutton. No, the burden of their song is always “bully beef” and “skilly,” whatever that may be. They also speak disparagingly of “tinned stuff.”

I cannot get those cling peaches and sardines out of my head.