It was a bitter satire on deep sea life. When I was mate of an 8000-ton steamer I got £10 and find my own uniform, instruments, etc., and had a position to live up to. Here, deckhand on a little tub we could have carried on our poop, I was actually banking more than my pay as mate, no position to keep up, and, having no responsibility, sleeping well at night!
We sometimes came up late, and the river on a fine night is really beautiful. We brought up the last load of the season on 22nd January, 1915, and the same night I took passage in the "Brundah" for Sydney, with about £60 in my pocket. She was due at Broadwater at 10 p.m., and I went up to old Tom's place to bid him good-bye.
At nine o'clock we heard a siren. "Hello, she's before her time. Hurry up, Charlie." She had just cast off when I reached the wharf, so I chartered a trap and drove hell for leather through a pelting rain storm to Wardell. I tumbled into the ferry skiff, tipped the boatman to put me alongside the "Brundah," scrambled frantically aboard, to find—she was going to tie-up till daylight. In due course we left the river, arrived in Sydney after a rather stormy passage, and thus ended the second stage of my journey.
CHAPTER XX.
Married.
I got the wedding ring in Sydney. I was always rather a bashful person, and I went from shop to shop without entering, because there were girls behind the counter. At last I came to one. Ah! a man here. This'll do me. And in I dived.
"Yes, sir; and what can I get for you?"
"Er—er—I want some wedding rings, please" (as if I were a Mormon).
"Certainly. Miss Blithers, attend to this gentleman, please."