It was by way of variation in the evening that Bicker and Mead fell upon me, with the idea of shampooing the begrimed tallyman. Zambuk (Hosea’s trusted salve), lime cream, and talcum powder were employed. There was a struggle, however, which disturbed Meacock opposite. He came to the rescue, but leaping upon the two barbers, who were holding me down, he forgot that I was underneath. “Rough house,” the word went round.
When the stevedore’s men arrived the following day, they were almost to a man rigged out in the cleanest of suits, or costumes rather. This was, to the best of my information, not the habit with the British trimmer. Their hats were pleasing to the eye. In his jet-black felt, my poetry-critic looked the picture of a member of the Athenæum staff (lamented Athenæum!). Others wore the type of hat but not the manner. A number of matey caps, check and khaki and indigo, then white wideawakes as though for haymaking, and a few pillbox-like creations in crimson and daffodil, made part of the splendour. Some of the coalheavers wore large sashes amidships, sashes of lurid colour also, violet and plum, extra shade. In the shirts, more colour appeared. Here, like Aurora, stepped Antonio in salmon pink; there, was a construction of red and green rings on a white background. The bright-blue cotton suits added to the general effect. Curious that these workers should come so clean, only to be coated with coal-dust in half an hour! It spoke well for their outlook.
The work was much as before. Wheelbarrows had to be got to put the sacks beside other hatches which the winch did not command. The chief had some argument with the Italian foreman about the last two hundred bags, which he wished to be shot into the starboard hatch only, to bring the ship up straight. The foreman asked him to withdraw this. “Damn you!” roared Phillips, and put an end to the matter, “when I say NO I mean NO. Don’t you understand plain English?”
So that was that, and my job finished. The bosun and his worthies quickly gathered to remove the disgraceful signs of bunkering; they swept and garnished, the stylish shipping clerk came aboard with his final papers to see Hosea and Phillips. Already the pilot was on the bridge; soon we were slowly backing away from our mooring. The blue peter was hauled down, the gangway got in. The Bonadventure was manœuvred past the breakwaters and down the marked channel, at whose last buoy, or soon afterwards, the tug to fetch the pilot came alongside. As he withdrew in her she sounded the three blasts or rather hoots meaning a “Bon voyage,” and our own burly voice sounded three times in acknowledgment. The many turrets and spires, chimneys and gaunt roofs of Monte Video, distinctly ranged along a rainy sky with shelves of rock-like cloud, lessened duly; the evening came on. Still the coast appeared here and there, its yellow sands, its dark-blue cliffs and hills, and as if shouldering the dull and heavy sky the sun burned out with a golden power before he departed.
Mead bade good-bye for a short time–in all probability–and myself for a long time, to South America, still symbolized by its lighthouses and the night-glow of a seaside town or two. Once again I felt a regret that I had not seen the elder Buenos Aires, whose extinction was no doubt a wise thing, but which surely must have triumphed as a thing of beauty over the present cubic blocks of utility. Mead was not sentimental about going to sea once more. He was too deeply engaged with devising a piece of invective against an enemy for an alleged injury, and immersed in the troubles of rhyme. I thought he was acquitting himself very well.
XXII
I have mentioned a scarcely concealed feeling in the saloon against the omniscience of the wireless operator. That was not all the opposition to which this youth of the glazed locks was subject. He was understood, while the ship was at sea, to receive news issued daily, and frequently when a subject was being discussed by the ship’s officers he sat there in possession of the facts but with serene indifference to the general interest. In this, he was carrying out the regulations, I imagine; but his behaviour resembled that of the dog in the manger. To aggravate this sense of injustice, he rashly told some one that the news might be taken at three guineas.
This in the first place affected the saloon only. But it happened that throughout the ship there was a particular desire for information. At home, the football season was at its zenith. Important matches, in the Leagues and the Cup competition, were known to be playing; and one man on the ship when she was out at sea could, and it was believed did, hear the results. But never a word said he. Looking in at the galley during the evening to brew my cocoa, I would find animated discussion of the favourite teams in progress. Kelly, the “Mess-room,” would wipe his fist across his mouth and huskily explain. “It’s like this, mister.” He had known other wireless operators who gladly announced the football results. But this fellow–he was too b— stuck-up, mister–“The Marconi,” the term which he used for the offending operator, savoured queerly of the phrase “The Bedlam” in King Lear.
Such was the background against which Mead’s vision of the unfortunate Sparks stood out, and with the particular unfriendliness which I must briefly describe. Earlier in the trip, Sparks had, in Mead’s opinion, adopted a tone of equality and then even of command towards him, in the course of the ship’s routine. Mead had immediately resorted to warlike acts. Sparks lodged a written complaint with Hosea, who gave both parties the best advice. But it was a false step in Sparks to send in this communication, which would if forwarded have cost Mead, perhaps, his living; and it was made worse by Sparks’s glib defence, “I was doing my duty,” since he had been at a safe distance from the war when Mead’s duty lay on the Gallipoli beaches. And he still affected to think of upholding his letter.