From Billabong to London

by Mary Grant Bruce

MIST AND MOONLIGHT.

“AS you know, Miss Norah,” the captain said gravely, “I discourage early rising. It’s a bad thing—leads to chronic attacks of superfluous energy, and embroils passengers with the deck-hands.”

“Especially the last!” said Norah, laughing.

“Well—possibly. Deck hands are busy people and passengers are not; therefore passengers should remain peaceably in bed until they won’t be in the way. Which remarks are not intended to apply to you, Miss Norah.”

“How would they?” Jim laughed. “There’s nothing of the Spartan early riser about Norah.”

“I’m delighted to hear it,” the captain said. “All the same, I’m about to advise you to turn out early to-morrow. We’ll be in Cape Town about six in the morning, and you mustn’t miss the sunrise over the mountain. It’s one of the finest things in the world.”

“Oh, I’m glad you told me, captain,” Norah said. “I’ll tell my steward to call me.”

“Yes—don’t forget. The harbour is an interesting one altogether; but the mountains are grand, and coming in, the view changes each moment. We shall probably be going out in the dusk, so you must be sure of seeing the entrance.”

They had had a quick and uneventful run round the Cape of Good Hope from Durban, missing altogether the dreaded “Agulhas roll” which is the bugbear of the sea-sick. Every one had revelled in the luxury of lit decks and open port-holes, in the security lent by the knowledge that a British cruiser was just ahead of the Perseus. To-morrow night the old restrictions would be in full force again—but first there would be Cape Town, and twelve hours ashore. Norah had always had vague longings to see Cape Town; no port on the homeward route interested her half so much as the city nestling at the foot of Table Mountain. She went to bed early, leaving everything in readiness for the morning start—determined to waste nothing of that precious twelve hours.

It was still dark when she awoke, with a start, from a confused dream, in which she had been chased by an apparently infuriated motor, shrieking defiance at her. As she tried to collect her scattered faculties the sound she had heard in her dream came again—a long, hoarse shriek.

“What on earth——?” she queried, sitting up. She switched on her light—it was two o’clock. Voices were heard along the corridor, to be drowned by another evil howl.

“Something’s wrong,” Norah decided. “It can’t be boat-drill for us, ’cause that’s two short, sharp whistles. Everything’s funny and dim—I believe something has gone wrong with the electric light supply.” She jumped, as the long scream came again.

Then she heard her father’s voice, quiet and steadying.

“Awake, Norah? Not scared, are you?”

“N-no, I don’t think so, Daddy,” Norah answered, not quite certain if she were speaking the truth. “Is it the Germans?”

“It’s fog, I think,” Mr. Linton said, coming in. “My cabin is full of it—and so is yours.”

Voices were breaking out everywhere, drowned at regular intervals by the long howl.

“What’s the matter?”

“Is it the Germans?”

“We’re wrecked, I suppose.” This was an elderly lady’s voice, in lugubrious certainty.

“It’s boat-drill—hurry up!”

“We’re signalling for help!”

“Henry—where are my slippers?” And Henry’s voice—“I haven’t got ’em on, my dear!”

Jim was in Norah’s cabin, suddenly.

“Thought you might be scared, kiddie,” he said. “But it’s only fog, I think. Great Scott! doesn’t that siren make a row!”

Then came the voice of the third officer, very bored and patient; and a dozen voices assailing him.

“No—fog only, I assure you. No danger at all. No—there isn’t a German within a hundred miles. Merely fog-horn, madam. Yes, it’s quite thick. Certainly you can come on deck, if you really like fog; you won’t see anything. No, we don’t expect to run on any rocks. I should advise you to get back to bed. The fog-horn blows every half-minute.”

“But it’s waked the baby!” came on a high note of grievance.

“Sorry,” said the third officer’s bored voice, still polite. “I should recommend the baby to get used to it.” They heard his quick footsteps retreating up the corridor.

“Well, there’s nothing to stay up for—and isn’t it cold!” Jim ejaculated. “I hope to goodness this will have gone before morning; it will be a nuisance if it spoilt the entrance to the harbour, so far as view is concerned.”

“Don’t speak of such a horrid thing!” said Norah, sleepily, snuggling down among the pillows. “Go back to bed, Daddy dear—you’ll get so cold. Thank you both for coming.” For a while she stayed awake, while the clamour in the ship died down gradually, and only the slow hooting of the siren was heard. It was not exactly a soothing lullaby, but nevertheless Norah fell asleep.

Her steward’s face peered at her some hours later. He had switched on the light, but the cabin was eerie and dim.

“I didn’t like not to call you, miss, as you said,” he remarked. “But as far as gettin’ up to see the view’s concerned, there ain’t none. There’s nothin’ but fog anywhere.”

Norah uttered a disgusted exclamation.

“Oh, I did want to see the entrance!”

“Well, there ain’t no entrance neither, miss. Captain, he won’t risk tryin’ to get in—why, you can’t see your ’and in front of you. We’ve just got to lie about until the fog lifts—an’ goodness knows when that’ll be. If I was you, miss, I’d just go to sleep again till the usual time to get up—an’ if the fog clears before, I’ll come an’ tell you at once.”

“Well, if there’s nothing to see, I suppose I had better do that,” said Norah, yawning.

“There’s much worse than nothin’, miss,” the steward said, his voice as gloomy as the cabin. He went away, after turning out the light.

“It’s absolutely disgusting!” Wally declared when breakfast was over. It had been a queer meal, eaten in a kind of dim half-light; and now they were on deck, wrapped in heavy coats, yet shivering a little. All about them was a dense white wall of mist. It was impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction; people who passed them loomed dimly first, then came out of the wall more clearly, until quite visible, and in a moment were swallowed up again as their footsteps died away. The fog swung in wreaths between them as they talked, whenever a breath of light wind came; but for the most part there was no wind at all, and a heavy stillness seemed to weigh upon everything. At half-minute intervals the hoarse scream of the fog-horn roared out above their heads, in a hideous, discordant howl; and from all around them came similar shrieks, some far off, some so near that at any moment it seemed that the fog might part and show a ship drifting down upon them.

The Perseus herself was drifting. Part of the uncanny stillness was due to the absence of the familiar throb of the screw. Inch by inch she slid through the oily water, of which no trace could be seen even by peering over the side. There was nothing but mist. The wet decks were slippery with it; there was no dry corner anywhere. Through it the gigantic blue shape of the funnel loomed dimly, but its top was quite lost; they could not even see the bridge, where a double watch was being kept. The captain had not left it since the first fog-cloud had rolled up out of the sea.

“It isn’t safe to speak to an officer,” Jim declared. “Poor beggars, they’re all on duty; it must be cheery to have responsibility in this sort of weather. I found MacTavish right up in the bow, straining his eyes into the fog, and put a timid question to him—I wouldn’t have wondered if he had snapped my head off, but he was pretty civil. He says there’s not the slightest prospect yet of its lifting, unless a wind gets up—and there’s no sign of a wind!”

“Well, that is pretty cheery,” uttered Wally. “However, it’s all experience.”

“Confirmed optimists like you ought to be sat on three times a day!” Jim said. “A little of this sort of experience goes a long way—and doesn’t make up for missing the sunrise on Table Mountain.”

“Never mind—it will give you something to talk of for ever so long,” Wally answered. “You can’t possibly talk about sunrises to a girl you’re dancing with, but you can make awfully good yarns out of a fog like this. Cheer up, Jimmy; you’ll be ever so much more interesting in the future!”

“I’m not proposing to do much dancing, or talking either,” said Jim, laughing. “So the prospect doesn’t console me. At the moment, it would console me more to batter someone—preferably you. Norah, you’re cold!”

“I know I am,” said Norah, shivering. “This old fog gets into one’s very bones. Doesn’t it make you homesick now to think of old Billabong, and the sunlight out on the Far Plain!”

“And a bogged bullock, with a note like that fog-horn!” retorted Wally. “It’s too cold to stand still, I think—let’s walk.”

They walked, arm in arm, with Norah between them, finding it necessary to talk loudly to avoid collisions in the fog, as their rubber-soled shoes made no sound on the deck. In the fore part of the ship a few bedraggled sea-birds had floundered into the rigging, and now sat there, crouched and miserable, afraid to set off again into the white horror all round them. A magpie, brought from Australia, which ordinarily lived in the bow and made cheerful remarks to the whole ship, was crouched in a corner of its cage, dismally squawking, while its deadly enemy, a sulphur-crested cockatoo with which it was on most disrespectful terms, had no spirit left to insult it, but drooped on its perch. The ship seemed dead; none of the usual cheery bustle was going on, since all possible tasks were discontinued to leave the crew free to watch. Weary watching it was, straining overside in dread of seeing a dark hull loom out of the fog, knowing that it would then, in all probability, be too late to avert disaster.

A monotonous voice led them to the side of the ship. A sailor was standing on a tiny platform over the rail, secured by a leather band round his body. He leaned well out, heaving the lead with a practised hand, his voice chanting the depth tonelessly—“By the deep—by the mark!” Seen in the mist that clung in beads to his blue guernsey and tarry trousers he seemed unnaturally large—and the dreary call was more depressing than the ceaseless hoot of the fog-horn.

They gave up the deck at last, and went below, where the passengers were gathered in the lounges and smoking-rooms, trying to make the best of the weary day. The fog was everywhere; it crept through every open doorway and port-hole, and filled cabins and alleyways, so that jocund humourists went along hooting, for fear of being run down. Every electric light was on, as though it were midnight; they gleamed through the hanging mist, globes of dingy yellow. Babies howled dismally—sleepy and heavy, but kept awake by the incessant fog-horn; their mothers, pale and anxious, tried vainly to soothe them. Norah secured her own especial baby, bore him off to her cabin, and tucked him under her grey ’possum rug; and then, to her own immense surprise, fell asleep beside him, and slumbered peacefully until the luncheon gong came into competition with the siren, and the baby woke and demanded nourishment.

There was no sign of the fog lifting. They lunched in silence; conversation was impossible, and the stewards, flitting about in the misty gloom, spoke in sepulchral whispers. No officers were visible; the empty chairs at each table bore mute witness to the urgency of their watch. The doctor made a valiant effort to maintain cheerfulness, and succeeded in dispelling a fraction of the depression in his particular corner. But even the doctor was incapable of spreading himself over an entire saloon, and his efforts to be, as he pathetically said, a sunbeam, were local and not general. Nobody seemed happy, and the meal was finished in half the usual time.

Afterwards, the doctor bore down upon the Billabong party, his face full of determination.

“This won’t do,” he said. “I shall have all the ladies on board developing nerves. You youngsters must come and help me—get Grantham and West and that long New South Wales fellow, and we’ll start some sort of a game in the lounge. The fog is thicker than ever, and the only thing we can do is to make people forget it.”

“Right-oh, doctor!” Wally answered. “It would be easier to forget it, if we weren’t eating it all the time—but we’ll do our best.” So they organised an uproarious game that gathered in every one, even to the mothers and the babies; and by working the piano to its utmost, succeeded in supplanting for a time the incessant shriek of fog-horns. Tea found a ship’s company considerably cheered, and with more appetite.

“It’s wearing, but it pays,” said the doctor, cheerfully. “You’ve all helped me nobly, and next time I have to organise a band of sunbeams, may you all be shining lights in it! There’s a vein of pure idiocy in Wally that I appreciate most highly.”

“I’m overcome,” said Wally, bowing.

“Don’t mention it,” said the doctor, affably. “True merit ought always to be acknowledged. No, I think you’re all dismissed from duty now; the mothers will be thinking of bathing the babies, and most of the others are exhausted—and small wonder. I’m thinking of going to sleep myself; the noise kept me awake last night.”

“Let’s go up on deck,” Norah said. “I’m tired of being shut up, below—and it’s almost as foggy here as anywhere. The ship is full of fog.”

On deck the white curtain seemed more impenetrable than ever. Everything was dripping wet, with an unclean clamminess far worse than honest rain. All round them came the wailing of fog-horns from invisible ships; sometimes the sound came from far off, approached gradually, and then went by them in the mist—unseen. Most of the ships were drifting, no faster than the Perseus; but evidently some captains had kept the engines going, in the hope of steaming slowly out of the fog.

“Beastly dangerous,” John West said. “It would be the easiest thing in the world to pile up a ship on this coast—apart from the chance of collision. It is far too near the shore to take chances. We are not five miles out.”

A siren sounded directly ahead: a long, half-heard note at first, and then a quickly-increasing sound; and suddenly the fog-horn of the Perseus broke out in a wild, continual clamour, incessant and urgent. Passengers rushed up on deck. The other ship was drawing nearer and nearer; so far as sound could testify, she was directly in a line with the Perseus. They heard quick voices on the bridge. From the bow came long shouts of warning.

Norah gripped the rail, feeling her father’s arm come round her in the gloom. Jim came up on the other side, watching keenly, his face lined and anxious. Ordinary danger was one thing; this creeping horror, coming relentlessly out of the unseen, was another matter.

Then the white wall of mist wavered and parted slowly, a dark shape loomed high, and almost upon them they saw a great ship. She was so near that they could see the strained faces on her decks. Her fog-horn was answering the Perseus in a very frenzy of alarm—and suddenly the Perseus was silent, as if realising the uselessness of warning now. On she came, slowly, slowly; it seemed that by no possibility could she avoid crashing into the huge, helpless liner. They were almost touching; people on both ships held their breath, waiting dumbly for the end.

Then the great black bow edged off as if by magic, and the ship slid past them, only a few yards away. Slowly as she had come, her passing was slower yet; it seemed hours that she was beside them, almost touching, with the risk of her stern swinging to crash into the Perseus. But no crash came. The fog took her and swallowed her up as mysteriously as she had come.

“Phew-w!” whistled Grantham. “I don’t want anything nearer than that!”

Norah was shaking a little. A lady passenger further up the deck was indulging in mild hysterics, to the indignation of the doctor and her husband’s deep shame. The fog-horn broke out again in the long monotonous wail, at half-minute intervals, that had gone on all day.

They sat on deck, wrapped in rugs, watching. No one wanted to go down—bad enough in the open, it was better to be there, and to see as much as could be seen. Now and then a little breeze came, and the wall of mist parted ever so little, blowing away in trails like white chiffon; and once, in one of these moments, they caught a glimpse of a sailing ship, drifting by, with bare, gaunt masts. The fog closed round her again, blotting her out utterly.

Then, towards evening, there came a quick succession of sharp hoots, unlike anything they had heard; and a motor-launch came into view and darted alongside, under the bridge. A man in blue uniform shouted swift questions.

“I’ll bring you a tug!” he cried, at last.

They disappeared again, and the delay that followed seemed intolerably long. Then the launch hooted its way back, followed by a bluff shape that resolved itself into a steam-tug. She hung about just ahead. The Perseus came slowly to life; the screw throbbed slowly. They began to crawl through the water after the tug. Once she disappeared, running on a little too quickly—and the great liner began to hoot anxiously, like a frightened child crying for its nurse, until the tug came back. So they crawled together through the clinging mist-curtain until dun lights showed ahead, and voices from the shore came to their ears.

“That’s the wharf at Cape Town,” said the doctor. “You have to take it on trust. Why, the fog is thicker here than out at sea!”

They crept in slowly. Passing a ship already docked, they had a weird impression of her, apparently hanging in the air—a grotesque ghost of a ship, the surrounding mist like the vague halo that sometimes shows round the moon. She was only a dim wraith, her powerful electric lights glimmering like smoky lamps, although they were within biscuit-throw of her. Even when alongside the wharf they could not see the people waiting ashore; voices came up to them clearly, but it was impossible to see to whom they belonged. So, like an exceedingly helpless invalid, the Perseus came into port.

“Eight o’clock,” said Mr. Linton, consulting his watch. “H’m; we’ve sat in that old fog for eighteen solid hours.”

“Isn’t it a relief not to hear the fog-horns?” Norah said. “Daddy, are we going ashore?”

“I don’t know,” hesitated her father. “It hardly seems worth while to-night.”

Jim, who had been away, returned quickly.

“I’ve seen the second officer,” he said. “It’s awfully unsatisfactory. Orders are to leave here at daylight, or as near it as can be managed, and they’re going to work cargo all night. Poor beggars! they’ve all been on duty for eighteen hours at least—and the captain has never been off the bridge during the time.”

“Poor fellows!” Norah said. “I think, too, it’s poor us! Then we won’t see Cape Town at all?”

“MacTavish advises us to go ashore,” Jim answered. “He says that the fog may not be so bad in the city itself—it’s some distance away—and that if we take the mountain tram ride we’ll probably get right above it. In any case, the ship will be unbearably noisy, as they have to handle cargo.”

“Then we may as well go,” declared Mr. Linton; and Norah fled delightedly to get ready.

They stumbled through the fog across confused yards and round dim buildings, and presently found a train waiting in a casual fashion by a platform which appeared to be part of the street. They climbed in, and the train woke up hastily and decided to go, as if encouraged by their arrival. Its progress, however, was less hasty than its departure. The fog impeded it, and it crept towards the city with a shrieking of the engine, a grinding of brakes, and a rattling of the carriages, which made the Perseus seem luxuriously peaceful by comparison.

“We’ll drive back,” said Mr. Linton tersely.

The fog was much lighter in the town itself. Passers-by in the street were heard grumbling at it—but to the mist-sodden seafarers who had wallowed in its heart for eighteen hours, it seemed only an echo of a fog. The streets were bright, well-lit, and crowded. Natives were not so frequent as in Durban, and there was a general air of prosperity. Wally exhibited signs of alarm at the spectacle of more than one top-hat.

“I suppose we’ll have to get used to them in England,” he said, dismally. “I feel in my bones, Jim, that I’ll see you in one yet!”

“Me!” said Jim. “I’ll have to turn undertaker first!”

A friendly policeman directed them to their tram, and soon they were rattling along quiet suburban streets, where the fog was thicker than in the city—or where there were fewer electric lights to dispel its gloom. The suburbs, however, did not last long; they emerged from brick and mortar regions into open bush country, and began to climb into what seemed the heart of the mountains.

They climbed from mist into light. As the tram wormed its way higher and higher, they left the fog below them—looking back, they could see it lying in a dense bank, blotting out the city. But the travellers came out above it, and into the pure radiance of a perfect moon, that sailed in a clear sky of deep blue, dotted with innumerable stars. The moon was full, and her light, in the clear mountain air, was almost dazzling. It showed them the sinuous tramway track, curving away into the heart of the bush, which stretched on either side, dark and fragrant; it lit up deep glens and clefts, and high peaks that towered overhead—the “Twelve Apostles,” Signal Hill, the Lion’s Head—all black and rugged against the perfect blue of the sky.

Sometimes a wind blew up strongly as they climbed, bringing with it masses of fog from below, which surged lovingly round the tall peaks, rested upon them, and often drew a soft veil over them, hiding them altogether; and then it surged again, and was tossed up in masses like breaking waves, until it fled altogether, dropping back into the valleys, and leaving the peaks clear. The bush on either side grew more and more dense, and mingled with the rugged crags into a scene of extraordinary wildness. It was impossible to imagine that they were near a great city—not in the heart of the Africa that held “King Solomon’s Mines.” Were not these, indeed, the “Mountains of the Moon”?

Nobody spoke much, for, indeed, the wonder of the journey took away speech, even from the boys. But just as they were turning back towards civilisation a thick veil of mist hovered over the edge of Table Mountain, standing clear-cut against the blue and silver sky—and then settled upon it and draped it, hanging in uneven folds of purest white.

“There!” said David Linton. “You’ve seen the famous ‘Table-cloth’ come down on Table Mountain!”

Norah leaned against him, putting her hand in his.

They ran down to the city—found a restaurant where coffee was still obtainable, and then a motor that hurried them smoothly back to the ship. The fog was still heavy at the wharf. The Perseus was noisy with the clamour of cargo-machinery and shouting men, and the decks hummed with hawkers, chaffering over ostrich feathers and native karosses and curios. There was little sleep for anyone on board.

Very early next morning they were off. The fog hung densely over the city. The tug took them out through the dim harbour, and beyond to the open sea—and about twenty miles out they suddenly ran out of the fog-belt into sunlight, and blue sea and sky, all sparkling to greet them.

The captain, heavy-eyed after his long vigil, paused beside Norah’s deck-chair.

“Well, Miss Norah—you evidently weren’t meant to see the beauties of Cape Town!”

“I don’t know,” said Norah, soberly. “I think I had the best view of all. And it was worth the fog!”