From Job to Job around the World

by Alfred C. B. Fletcher

I said nothing.

"You must make up your mind at once," added the doctor.

"All right, I will go." I thought that the officer didn't mean every word and that Richardson would arrive in a few minutes and have no difficulty in getting aboard.

The motley Italian crew ascended the gangway and, as I was the last one to go aboard, the plank was removed and several sailors began loosening the lines. I went up on the stern to look across the wharf to see if Richardson was in sight. He was not. The ship was pulling away from the pier. Ideas flew through my mind like water through a sieve. I had all Richardson's baggage and what was worse I had all his money. From Bombay to Suez was three thousand miles. It took at least ten days to make the trip. To leave Richardson stranded on the shores of India would be nothing short of murder. I was provoked at him for not appearing but my conscience vibrated with the guilty pangs of deserting my friend and leaving him probably to starve in a strange land. As these alternating emotions were flashing in and out of my mind, the bow of the ship was swinging away from the pier. At last I saw Richardson's head bobbing in the distance. I shouted, whistled and waved. My frantic efforts finally instilled in him the necessity for speed. He came bounding down the wharf like a big calf and attempted to board the ship. He was abruptly stopped by the captain, who ordered him to stay off. The marine doctor had left and there was nothing for me to do but to go on without my companion. The Levanzo was now making her final swing and I threw Richardson's luggage onto the wharf, hurled him his money wallet and bade him farewell.

"I will wait for you in Cairo," I shouted as the boat was getting under way. Richardson stood on the pier with a philosophic smile.

"All right. I will try and make a getaway to-night. So long."

The old Italian "battleship" was soon out in the channel and in a few hours had her nose pointed towards the west and began her lengthy journey to the Canal. I wondered how Richardson would fare but had no doubt that he would get out some way. I therefore dismissed all conjectures from my mind and decided to wait for the news until we met some time in the future.

The Levanzo was a hardened, rusty old tramp. Her crew was entirely composed of Italians who knew little of this world beyond the range of their ship and the water fronts of the ports to which they had sailed. I was consigned to the hold where my iron, hay-mattressed bunk was sandwiched in amongst those of the Italians, who huddled about like a bunch of gypsies. The dark, foul-smelling atmosphere, the wambling fumes of the ship's kitchen, the greasy and treacherous appearance of the crew—none of whom spoke a word of English—promised a trip whose equal I should never experience. However, I had done sufficient travelling of this sort to feel at home in such surroundings and I played the part to a perfection hard to imagine in one who had seen most of the good things of this life. Attired in a blue flannel shirt and khaki trousers, I went barefooted, grew a beard—such as it was—and chewed quantities of the crew's black tobacco.

At four bells the chief steward appeared on deck and called out, "mangiare." From the empty feeling of my stomach, coupled with the revolting odours emanating from the galley, I recognised the equivalent of the word dinner. I followed the crew in the hope of getting a square meal. We formed a line at the kitchen window, where we were given our eating implements for the voyage. They consisted of a tin cup, a tin sauce-pan, a knife, fork and spoon. We then marched in a body to the forecastle where we were given a piece of hard bread each and a pint of red wine. As we trooped back by the kitchen, the steward placed some macaroni in our sauce-pans and gave us some milkless and sugarless coffee. With this assortment of food we retired to the lower deck, sat on a winch or a coil of rope and proceeded to devour it.

The second day out I lost my knife and, when I made an appeal for another I was so severely snubbed by the steward that I made no more requests during the rest of the voyage. I had to resort to my pocket knife to take the place of the lost article.