The captain was in a raging temper, for he was short-handed to begin with. He would have started a press-gang, but there was no superfluity of men in that township: nothing but boys and grandfathers. As I was helping to run the trip I was pretty annoyed also, and I sluiced down the drunkards with icy Danube water, using all the worst language I knew in Dutch and German. It was a raw morning, and as we raged through the river-side streets I remember I heard the dry crackle of wild geese going overhead, and wished I could get a shot at them. I told one fellow—he was the most troublesome—that he was a disgrace to a great Empire, and was only fit to fight with the filthy English.
“God in Heaven!” said the captain, “we can delay no longer. We must make shift the best we can. I can spare one man from the deck hands, and you must give up one from the engine-room.”
That was arranged, and we were tearing back rather short in the wind when I espied a figure sitting on a bench beside the booking-office on the pier. It was a slim figure, in an old suit of khaki: some cast-off duds which had long lost the semblance of a uniform. It had a gentle face, and was smoking peacefully, looking out upon the river and the boats and us noisy fellows with meek philosophical eyes. If I had seen General French sitting there and looking like nothing on earth I couldn’t have been more surprised.
The man stared at me without recognition. He was waiting for his cue.
I spoke rapidly in Sesutu, for I was afraid the captain might know Dutch.
“Where have you come from?” I asked.
“They shut me up in tronk,” said Peter, “and I ran away. I am tired, Cornelis, and want to continue the journey by boat.”
“Remember you have worked for me in Africa,” I said. “You are just home from Damaraland. You are a German who has lived thirty years away from home. You can tend a furnace and have worked in mines.”
Then I spoke to the captain.
“Here is a fellow who used to be in my employ, Captain Schenk. It’s almighty luck we’ve struck him. He’s old, and not very strong in the head, but I’ll go bail he’s a good worker. He says he’ll come with us and I can use him in the engine-room.”