III—FIRST VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF MAN
It seemed solid enough. I leaned for an instant over the rail on the quarter away from the landing-stage, and there, at the foot of the high precipice formed by the side of the vessel, was the wavy water. A self-important, self-confident man standing near me lighted a black cigar of unseemly proportions, and threw the match into the water. The match was lost at once in the waves, which far below beat up futilely against the absolutely unmoved precipice. I had never been on such a large steamer before. I said to myself: “This is all right.”
However, that was not the moment to go into ecstasies over the solidity of the steamer. I had to secure a place for myself. Hundreds of people on the illimitable deck were securing places for themselves. And many of them were being aided by porters or mariners. The number of people seemed to exceed the number of seats; it certainly exceeded the number of nice sheltered corners. I picked up my portmanteau with one hand and my bag and my sticks and my rug with the other. Then I dropped the portmanteau. A portmanteau has the peculiar property of possessing different weights. You pick it up in your bedroom, and it seems a feather. You say to yourself: “I can carry that easily—save tips to porters.” But in a public place its weight changes for the worse with every yard you walk. At twenty yards it weighs half a ton. At forty yards no steam-crane could support it. You drop it. Besides, the carrying of it robs your movements of all grace and style. Well, I had carried that bag myself from the cab to the steamer, across the landing-stage, and up the gangway. Economy! I had spent a shilling on a useless magazine, and I grudged three pence to a porter with a wife and family! I was wearing a necktie whose price represented the upkeep of the porter and his wife and family for a full twenty-four hours, and yet I wouldn’t employ the porter to the tune of threepence. Economy! These thoughts flashed through my head with the rapidity of lightning.
You see, I could not skip about for a deck-chair with that portmanteau in my hand. But if I left it lying on the deck, which was like a street... well, thieves, professional thieves, thieves who specialise in departing steamers! They nip off with your things while you are looking for a chair; the steamer bell sounds; and there you are! Nevertheless, I accepted the horrid risk and left all my belongings in the middle of the street.
Not a free chair, not a red deck-chair, not a corner! There were seats by the rail at one extremity of the boat, and at the other extremity of the boat, but no chair to be had. Thousands of persons reclining in chairs, and thousands of others occupied by bags, fugs, and bonnet-boxes, but no empty chair.
“Want a deck-chair, governor?” a bearded mariner accosted me.
Impossible to conceal from him that I did. But, being perhaps the ship’s carpenter, was he going to manufacture a chair for me on the spot? I knew not how he did it, but in about thirty seconds he produced a chair out of the entrails of the ship, and fixed it for me in a beautiful situation, just forward of the funnel, and close to a charming young woman, and a little deck-house in front for protection! It was exactly what I wanted; the most stationary part of the entire vessel.
Sixpence! Economy! Still, I couldn’t give him less. Moreover, I only had two pence in coppers.
“What will the voyage be like?” I asked him with false jollity, as he touched his cap.
“Grand, sir!” he replied enthusiastically.
Yes, and if I had given him a shilling the voyage would have been the most magnificent and utterly perfect voyage that ship ever made.
No sooner was I comfortably installed in that almost horizontal deck-chair than I was aware of a desire to roam about, watch the casting-off and the behaviour of the poor stay-at-home crowd on the landing-stage; a very keen desire. But I would not risk the portmanteau again. Nothing should part us till the gangways were withdrawn. Absurd, of course! Human nature is absurd.... I caught the charming young woman’s eye about a dozen times. The ship got fuller and fuller. With mean and paltry joy I perceived other passengers seeking for chairs and not finding them, and I gazed at them with haughty superiority. Then a fiendish, an incredible, an appalling screech over my head made me jump in a silly way quite unworthy of a man who is reclining next to a charming young woman, and apt to prejudice him in her eyes. It was merely the steamer announcing that we were off. I. sprang up, trying to make the spring seem part of the original jump. I looked. And lo! The whole landing-stage with all the people and horses and cabs was moving backwards, floating clean away; while the enormous ship stood quite still! A most singular effect!
In a minute we were in the middle of the river, and my portmanteau was safe. I left it in possession of the chair.
The next strange phenomenon of my mental condition was an extraordinary curiosity in regard to the ship. I had to explore it. I had to learn all about it. I began counting the people on the deck, but soon after I had come to the man with the unseemly black cigar I lost count. Then I went downstairs. There seemed to be staircases all over the place. You could scarcely move without falling down a staircase. And I came to another deck also full of people and bags, and fitted with other staircases that led still lower. And on the sloping ceiling of one of these lower staircases I saw the Board of Trade certificate of the ship. A most interesting document. It gave the tonnage as 2,000, and the legal number of passengers as about the same; and it said there were over two thousand life-belts on board, and room on the eight boats for I don’t remember how many shipwrecked voyagers. It even gave the captain’s Christian name. You might think that this would slake my curiosity. But, no! It urged me on. Lower down—somewhere near the caverns at the bottom of the sea, I came across marble halls, upholstered in velvet, where at snowy tables people were unconcernedly eating steaks and drinking tea. I said to myself “At such and such an hour I will come down here and have tea. It will break the monotony of the voyage.” Looking through the little round windows of the restaurant I saw strips of flying green.
Then I thought: “The engines!” And somehow the word “reciprocating” came into my mind. I really must go and see the engines reciprocate. I had never seen anything reciprocate, except possibly my Aunt Hilda at the New Year, when she answered my letter of good wishes. I discovered that many other persons had been drawn down towards the engine-room by the attraction of the spectacle of reciprocity. And as a spectacle it was assuredly majestic, overwhelming, and odorous. I must learn the exact number of times those engines reciprocated in a minute, and I took out my watch for the purpose. Other gazers at once did the same. It seemed to be a matter of the highest importance that we should know the precise speed of those engines. Then I espied a large brass plate which appeared to have been affixed to the engine room in order to inform the engineers that the ship was built by Messrs. Macconochie and Sons, of Dumbarton. Why Dumbarton? Why not Halifax? And why must this precious information always be staring the engineers in the face? I wondered whether “Sons” were married, and, if so, what the relations were between Sons’ wives and old Mrs. Macconochie. Then, far down, impossibly far down, furlongs beneath those gesticulating steely arms, I saw a coalpit on fire and demons therein with shovels. And all of a sudden it occurred to me that I might as well climb up again to my own special deck.
I did so. The wind blew my hat off, my hat ran half-way up the street before I could catch it. I caught it and clung to the rail. We were just passing a lightship; the land was vague behind; in front there was nothing but wisps of smoke here and there. Then I saw a fishing-smack, tossing like anything; its bows went down into the sea and then jerked themselves fairly out of the sea, and this process went on and on and on. And although I was not aboard the smack, it disconcerted me. However, I said to myself, “How glad I am to be on a nice firm steamer, instead of on that smack!” I looked at my watch again. We seemed to have been away from England about seven days, but it was barely three-quarters of an hour. The offensive man with the cigar went swaggering by. And then a steward came up out of the depths of the sea with a tray full of glasses of beer, and a group of men lolling in deck chairs started to drink this beer. I cared not for the sight. I said to myself, “I will go and sit down.” And as I stepped forward the deck seemed to sink away ever so slightly. A trifle! Perhaps a delusion on my part! Surely nothing so solid as that high road of a deck could sink away! Having removed my portmanteau from my chair, I sat down. The charming girl was very pale, with eyes closed. Possibly asleep I Many people had the air of being asleep. Every chair was now occupied. Still, dozens of boastful persons were walking to and fro, pretending to have the easy sea-legs of Lord Charles Beresford. The man with the atrocious cigar (that is, another atrocious cigar) swung by. Hateful individual! “You wait a bit!” I said to him (in my mind). “You’ll see!”
I, too, shut my eyes, keeping very still. A grand voyage! Certainly, a grand voyage! Then I woke up. I had been asleep. It was tea-time. But I would not have descended to that marble restaurant for ten thousand pounds. For the first time I was indifferent to tea in the afternoon. However, after another quarter of an hour, I had an access of courage. I rose. I walked to the rail. The horizon was behaving improperly. I saw that I had made a mistake. But I dared not move. To move would have been death. I clung to the rail. There was my chair five yards off, but as inaccessible as if it had been five miles off. Years passed. Pale I must have been, but I retained my dignity. More years rolled by. Then, by accident, I saw what resembled a little cloud on the horizon.
It was the island! The mere sight of the island gave me hope and strength, and cheek.
In half an hour—you will never guess it—I was lighting a cigarette, partly for the benefit of the charming young woman, and partly to show that offensive man with the cigars that he was not the Shah of Persia. He had not suffered. Confound him!