So the evening of the thirtieth found me on the St Malo boat, hoping it wasn't going to rain—for I had looked down below and preferred the deck. Smoothly we glided down Southampton Water. The boat was packed, and I was unable to dine till ten o'clock. Then I came up on deck again and set about making myself comfortable for the night.
It did rain, but I was well tucked away in the shelter of a deck-house, and was little the worse for it. A fresh south-west wind blew, and I watched the phantom-grey water that hissed and rustled hoarsely past our sides. The throbbing of the engines began to beat softly and incessantly in my head, and half dozing, I found myself wondering what Derry had done about his passport. "Throb-throb," churned the engines ... perhaps he had forged himself a seaman's and fireman's ticket, signed on as a deckhand or stoker, and had given the L.S.W. Railway Company the slip the moment he had got across. Dreamily, muffled up in my wrappings, I tried to picture it. He would be careful. He would be careful about his beard, for example. He would let it grow a day or so before; perhaps he would now continue to wear a beard. Unless.... And he would sleep the day before and stoke through the night. A stoker for a night, dressed in a boiler-suit or stripped to the waist, as he had stripped when he had held Julia Oliphant's sewing-machine aloft. And grime in his golden beard. Or else the author of The Vicarage of Bray bending the warp on to the drum of the steam-winch or putting the luggage in the slings in the hold. Oh, as she had said, he would get across somehow if he wanted to.....
And once across he would have very little trouble. He would mingle with the porters and camionneurs, carrying his gear in his hand. Probably he would pretend it was somebody else's. Then—the small luggage through first—rien à declarer—his perfect French—he would be along the quay and in the vedette before they had begun to get the big stuff out of the hold. As for his passport—oh, he would manage....
An employe picked his way through the dark huddles on the deck, took the reading of the log, and retired again. The masthead lights made loops and circles in the rain. I took a nip from my flask and dropped back into my doze. Alderney Light winked, and up the Race it blew stiffly....
Yes, he would get across if he had made up his mind to. As for his permis de séjour—oh, things like that were for ordinary people. What would he do with a permis de séjour who had no permis de séjour in life itself, but must doubly dodge through it, from this place to that and from one date to the date before?... But I rather fancied he had gone by Dover. Certain notes almost at the end of his diary seemed an indication of that. These notes had no coherence—just odd words like "Lord Warden," "boat," "tide," and a little time-table of figures. Apparently he had worked it out just before that week-end he had spent with me.... "Lord Warden"—that meant Dover—tide—time.... Again the Company's man came to take the reading of the log. Again the throbbing of the engines evoked the image of Derry, stripped, moving in the red glare of the furnaces, sweating, coal-dust in his beard. But perhaps he no longer had a beard. Perhaps Julia had made sure of that. Julia, desperate creature, wild, disturbing creature.... Peggy in her garters ... selling furniture to buy frocks, shoes, stockings, scent.... "Pour Troubler," "Mysterieuse" ... "Mysterieuse, Mysterieuse, Mysterieuse," sighed the water rushing past.... And in the Piccadilly, that long white throat, the fine angle of her jaw, among little double chins, little buttons of chins, short necks, thrust-forward necks, square shoulders instead of that long mantle-like line down over her shoulders like swift water before it breaks, to the fingers that moved softly in time to the "Relicario" ... the "Relicario" ... De Groot ... De Groot, De Groot, De Groot.... Mysterieuse, Mysterieuse.... Again the reading of the log, again the sailor's return through the dozing huddles on the deck; the phantom-grey water rustling hoarsely past, the masthead lights swinging aloft. I hate these short and crowded crossings when it is hardly worth while to take off your clothes and you arrive cramped, crumpled, unshaven, unrefreshed. I wondered how early it would be possible to get a cup of tea. A cup of tea—a cocktail—cocktails for tea—"So that's a cocktail!"—Manhattan, Manhattan, De Groot, De Groot, De Groot....
Another pull at my flask, and then I really did sleep.
The day was grey when I awoke. The huddles on the deck had begun to stir. The east kindled, as I had last seen it kindle over the Devil's Punch Bowl and Gibbet Hill. The sun flashed on the waves, on people bestirring themselves, opening dressing-cases, making such toilets as they could. Then I heard the welcome click of teacups and flung off my rugs. I went below, secured a seat for breakfast, and made myself less unpresentable. Hot breakfast, after all, goes a long way towards obliterating the discomforts of a night on deck. As I rose from the table I glanced through the open port. Pale on the starboard bow was the long line of Cap Fréhel, ahead was St Malo's spire.