The Hela started out with a party of ten on board, who were on pleasure bent. We have come up the English Channel from Dinard to Ostend, but before we had been out an hour we struck a gale, to which veterans on seasickness will refer for many a long day as “that fearful time on the Channel.”
On the whole, I don’t know but that I myself might be considered a veteran on seasickness. I have averaged crossing the Channel once a month ever since I’ve been over here. I have got into the habit of crossing the Channel, and I can’t seem to stop. It always appears that I am in the wrong place for whatever is going on, for just as sure as I go to London somebody sends for me to come to Paris, and I rush for the Channel, and I have no sooner unpacked my trunks in Paris, and bargained that service and electric lights shall be included, than somebody discovers that I am imperatively needed in England, and I make for the Channel again. The Channel is like Jordan. It always rolls between.
But even in crossing the Channel there is everything in knowing how. I have discarded the private state-room. It is too expensive, and I am not a bit less uncomfortable than when occupying six feet of the settee in the ladies’ cabin, with my feet in the flowers of another woman’s hat. In fact, I prefer the latter. The other woman is always too ill to protest or to move. I have now, by long and patient practice, proved to my own satisfaction what serves me best in case of seasickness. I will not stay on deck. I will not eat or drink anything to cure it. I will not take anything to prevent it. I will not sit up, and I will not keep my hat on. When I go on board of a Channel steamer my first act is to shake hands with my friends and to go below. There I present the stewardess with a modest testimonial of my regard. I also give her my ticket. Then I select the most desirable portion of the settee, near a port-hole, from which I can get fresh air. I take off my hat and lie down. The steamer may not start for an hour. No matter. There I am, and there I stay. The Channel may be as smooth as glass, but I travel better flat. Like manuscript, I am not to be rolled. Sometimes I am not ill at all, but I freely confess that those times are infrequent and disappointing.
Now, of course, this is always to be expected in crossing the Channel, but my friends said in going up the Channel we would not get those choppy waves, and that I would find that the Hela swam like a duck.
In analyzing that statement since, with a view to classifying it as truth or otherwise, I have studied my recollections of ducks, and I have come to the conclusion that in a rough sea a duck has every right to be seasick, for she wobbles like everything else that floats. For real comfort, give me something that’s anchored. Nevertheless, I was persuaded to join the party.
Everybody came down at Dinard to see us off, and quite a number even went over to St. Malo with us in the electric launch, for the Hela drew too much water to enter the harbor at Dinard at low tide.
We were a merry party for the first hour on board the Hela—until we struck the gale. It has seemed to me since that our evil genius was hovering over us from the first, and simply waited until it would be out of the question to turn back before emptying the vials of her wrath on our devoted heads. It did not rain. The sun kept a malevolent eye upon us all the time. It simply blew just one straight, unrelenting, unswerving gale. And it came so suddenly. We were all sitting on deck as happy as angels, when, without a word of warning, the Hela simply turned over on her side and threw us all out of our chairs. I caught at a mast as I went by and clung like a limpet. There was tar on the mast. It isn’t there any more. It is on the front of my new white serge yachting dress. Jimmie coasted across the deck, and landed on his hands and knees against the gunwale. If he had persisted in standing up he would have gone overboard. The women all shrieked and remained in a tangled heap of chairs, and rugs, and petticoats, waiting for the yacht to right herself, and for the men to come and pick them up. But the yacht showed no intention of righting herself. She continued to careen in the position of a cab going round Piccadilly Circus on one wheel. The sailors were all running around like ants on an ant-hill, and the captain was shouting orders, and even lending a hand with the ropes himself. I don’t know the nautical terms, but they were taking down the middle sail—the mainsail, that’s it. It did not look dangerous, because the sun kept shining, and I never thought of being frightened. I just clung to the mast, watching the other people right themselves, and laughing, when suddenly everything ceased to be funny. The decks of the Hela took on a wavy motion, and I blinked my eyes in order to see better, for everything was getting very indistinct, and there were green spots on the sun. Suddenly I realized that I was a long way from home, and that I was even a long way from my state-room. I only had just about sense enough left to remember that the mast was my very best friend and that I must cling there.
After that, I remember that somebody came up behind me and pried my hands loose from the mast.
The doctor’s voice said, “Can you walk?”
I smiled feebly and said, “I used to know how.” But evidently my efforts were not highly successful, for he picked me up, white serge, tar, green spots on the sun, and all, and carried me below, a limp and humiliated bit of humanity.