A Port Said miscellany

WILLIAM McFEE
The Atlantic Monthly Press
BOSTON
Copyright, 1918, by
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
(This paper was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly for March, 1918)
A PORT SAID MISCELLANY
BY WILLIAM McFEE
There has come upon us, suddenly, one of those inexplicable lulls which make the experienced seafarer in the Mediterranean recall bygone voyages out East. It is as if the ship had run abruptly into some sultry and airless chamber of the ocean, a chamber whose cobalt roof has shut down tight, and through which not a breath is moving. The smoke from the funnel, of a sulphurous bronze color, even while our trail yet lies somnolent in a long smear on the horizon, now goes straight to the zenith. The iron bulwarks are as hot as hand can bear, as the westering sun glows full upon the beam. Under the awnings the troops lie gasping on their rubber sheets, enduring silently and uncomprehendingly, like dumb animals.
Far ahead, the escort crosses and recrosses our course. Still farther ahead, a keen eye can detect a slight fraying of the taut blue line of the horizon. Signals break from the escort and are answered from our bridge. I turn to a sergeant who is shambling to and fro by the machine-room door, and inform him that Port Said is in sight, and that he will be in harbor in an hour or so.
And then, just as suddenly as we entered, the door of that heated chamber of the sea opens and we pass out into a warm humid wind. The wind and the news wake everybody. The soldiers, who have encamped on our after-deck during the voyage, suddenly display a feverish activity. Rations are packed, rifles are cleaned, and I am in the full tide of popular favor because I permit oil-reservoirs to be replenished in the machine-room and furnish those priceless fragments of old emery cloth which give such a delectable and silvery gloss to the bolts. Later, I am so popular that I could almost stand for Parliament, for I tell the sergeant that each man can fill his waterbottle with iced water. Which they proceed to do at once, so that said water gets red-hot before the moment of disembarkation!