AGAIN I am home and meet familiar faces, and enjoy the sweet security of home life and respectability; but soon the flight of time brings its inevitable changes both to my feelings and to those around me. I am no longer the prodigal son and a romantic novelty to the many who welcomed me at my arrival in the monotonous suburb; but nevertheless we are all moody companions in the sad drama of respectability. I had made up my mind to go travelling no more, but my good resolutions have faded away, and my whole soul is centred on inventing the best excuse for my not being able to accept the good position in London that will make me, at last, the respected son of a respected father.
Well, I feel a bit ashamed of my incorrigible personality, and yet how much my soul is burdened with the thought that I must aspire to higher things, and go off to the city each day like Mr W.’s son does, to sit on a stool. I can never be the pride and joy of the family, and as I sit alone and dream I am miserable with dim forebodings. On the back of the chair is my very high white collar and the smart tweed suit, and by my washstand my beloved fiddle. Just over it, on a peg by my bed, is my big-rimmed Australian hat. Alas! that hat speaks of tropical sunshine and coco-palms. I can hear the arguing voices of bushmen in the grog shanty by “Bummer’s Creek,” and the trade wind in the shore banyans as the beachcomber laughs and nudges his pal in the ribs.
I cannot sleep, for the parrots are flying and muttering across the sky of my dreams; I hear the crack of the stock-whips on the slopes as the scampering, flying sheep go racing across my bedroom floor. I close my eyes, and the natives start singing in the Fijian village, and the drums are beating the sunset out ere I am wide awake, through the civilised jingle of the milkman’s cans in the cold, windy street below.
The last dark wintry morning arrives. It has all been settled. I have signed on for a voyage as violinist and assistant purser on the Orient liner the Britannia. I am to catch the 4 A.M. train to London Bridge. How dark and cold it is as I get up and dress, then go up the next flight to kiss my three sisters a last good-bye. They lift their sleepy heads and put their arms around my neck. “Good-bye, Tiggy,” they say once again, as I gently close their bedroom door and go downstairs. My father helps me on with my overcoat, and says very kind words. I try to answer, but my voice sounds husky and I keep placing the wrong arm in my overcoat sleeves. Now comes the greatest task of all, a task that will tax all my courage. I strive to hide my weakness and make a joke about the bad penny turning up again soon, and then neither of us speak, and once again I kiss her lips, the lips of the most beautiful woman this world ever gave me. I hurry down the streets. I am glad it’s dark, for my eyes feel weak, and the windy light of the lamp-posts seem to swim about the street spaces. I am haunted by her face all down the Channel that night, for she caught my soul adrift among the stars ere I was born, and my heart still sings a sad song for the woman who was my mother.
There is a deal of sameness on a large liner’s trip to the colonies. But for the complication of characters among the passengers and crew, and the ports that we put into on the voyage out, the passage would be extremely monotonous.
Forward, near the fo’c’sle, was the glory hole, between decks, wherein slept the crowd of stewards and cooks. They were a jolly lot of men, and when the steerage and fore-cabin passengers had finished their evening meal they would sit on their sea-chests yarning or playing cards far into the night. Sometimes they would sing songs, accompanied by the twang and tinkling of the assistant cook’s banjo; and older men, who were tired out, thrust their fierce faces out of their bunks and swore at being kept awake, as once more the wild chorus of I owe Ten Shillings to O’Grady re-echoed through the “glory hole.” Sleepless passengers up on deck clapped their hands with pleasure to hear the monotony broken, as the big pistons in the engine-rooms throbbed out their incessant pom-pe-te-pom, and the screws thrashed the racing liner across the world. In the morning at four-thirty the men would be dead to the world in their bunks as the second steward started shouting: “Now then, you sleepers! Now then, you sleepers, rise and shine!” or “Come out of it, you young b——!” and so on, as sleepy heads lifted up in the rows of bunks and then dropped helplessly again. Some were romantic boys who had read autobiographies, and some middle-aged men who had sickened of the workman’s train and drifted to sea.
In the evenings I played the violin in the saloon and deck concerts aft, beyond the dividing rope which was the boundary line that told the fore-cabin passengers that they must not approach the élite in the first saloon.
Our orchestra consisted of three violins, ’cello, bass, and the usual brass and wind. I had an easy time, and often till midnight would stand on deck watching the stars and the world of waters below, and listening to the voices of passengers on deck outward bound for Australia, to find fame and fortune—or ill fame.
I became very friendly with a member of our ship’s band, the solo cornet player. He was a quiet, elderly man, turning grey, and had once been a player in the orchestra of the Lyceum Theatre. A fine all-round musician he was too. He would sit on deck after dark, put a mute on his instrument, and extemporise melody and make it sound like a sweet-voiced girl singing softly to herself. He had the real temperament, and had received a first-class musical education.