A DIRTY NIGHT.
The night is starless, with a darkness so enveloping that it seems to possess palpability. As we reel westward in a smother of water the miracle of how any human being equipped with but five senses can find and keep his course in the chartless void that envelops us smites me afresh.
A longing for an atmosphere unimpregnated with petrol eventually sends me stumbling up the companion-way to the deck. Gripping the rail, I make my way forward, and, peering through the mirk, distinguish a huddled figure in a sou'wester. Aloof, detached, he steers the shrewdest, swiftest path ever carved through a wall of blackness on behalf of dependent fellow-creatures.
"A wild night," I shout.
He turns slightly and answers in a hoarse bellow, "The better for us, mister. Keeps the track clear. Ought to get in ahead o' time."
The yellow glare from our lights glances in broken splashes of colour over the waters, as the squat craft heaves and rolls with rhythmic regularity. From somewhere below comes the monotonous throb of the protesting engines. A red light gleams suddenly on our starboard, and I catch my breath. Æons pass, it seems, before a panther-like clutch at the wheel carries us aside in time to let the offender plunge drunkenly past. We were near enough to throw a biscuit on her deck. A swift exchange of badinage follows.
"Lost yer job o' puntin' coal-barges?"
"Yuss—they're usin' donkey-power instead. I give in your name 'fore I left, but they 'adn't a spare stable." After which, the immediate danger past, we plough our way down a blurred track on either side of which lurks Peril in a hundred grim and invisible shapes.
The temperature, already low, has begun to drop steadily, and a fine drizzle yields to a penetrating chilliness which finds its way to one's very marrow. I am glad of my heavy wraps, and inclined, indeed, to envy the huddled figure, whose coverings are still heavier. Inwardly I wonder what this clashing of the Nations has meant to him: whether he has wife and children; whether he keeps their portraits in some deep-buried pocket beneath that accumulation of clothing which engulfs him to the ear-tips.
I am still speculating when a second figure, moving with the easy gait of one whose feet have trodden many decks, climbs the companion-way and comes forward in leisurely fashion. The fellow is no stranger; already, as I came on board, I had a glimpse of that grizzled, masterful jaw and keen eyes. He peers past me towards his mate.
"Elf!"
"Yuss?"
"Seed anyfink o' young 'Arry lately?'
"Not me!"
"Well, I 'ear 'e done a bit in the lead-slingin' line at a place called Wipers, an' they've been an' stuck some sort o' French medal on 'is chest."
"Blighter owes me fourpence, anyway," roars Elf; and I infer that neither of them has a high opinion of 'Arry's character from the civilian point of view.
Follows an interval filled with small confused sounds—the staccato note of a bell, the soft thud of a passenger's body as he is jerked unexpectedly against the rail, the picturesque ripple of his expostulations with Providence.
A lamp, burning with unusual and illegal garishness, gives me light enough to examine my watch. It indicates the proximity of midnight. I realize that I am incredibly stiff and cold, and am tormented by visions of unattainable comforts.
At last I am conscious of a line of dimmed lights, of a distant roar of escaping steam, of a violent quivering motion that indicates the slackening of speed. We come to a sudden halt. The voice of Elf rises triumphant.
"Bill!"
"Yuss?"
"Two minutes arter!"
"Knowed we'd do it!"
And as I stumble blindly forth it is borne upon me that the last Ealing motor-bus has ended her journey with five minutes to spare.
"Egypt is placidly awaiting the event, with the absolute conviction that the Turks and Germans will get the boating of their lives in the Sinai Desert."—Civil and Military Gazette.
They certainly won't get it on the Suez Canal.
Nervous Young Officer (to 'bus conductor). "First Single to Oxford Circus."
[The authorities have recommended that officers should travel first-class.]