One London train came in. The carriage doors opened and a myriad ants
swarmed to the various boats. At the Havre boat I took the fore, he the
aft gangway. Thousands passed over, men and women, vague human forms
encumbered with queer projecting excrescences of impedimenta. They all
seemed alike--just a herd of Britons, impelled by irrational instinct,
like the fate-driven lemmings of Norway, to cross the sea. And all
around, weird in the conflicting lights, hurried gnome-like figures
mountainously laden, and in the confusion of sounds could be heard the
slither and thud of trunks being conveyed to the hold. At last the tail
of the packed wedge disappeared on board and the gangway was clear. I
went to the aft gangway to Jaffery and the porter. Neither of us had
seen Fendihook or Liosha.
A second train produced results equally barren.
There was nothing to do but carry out the prearranged plan. We went
aboard followed by the porter with the luggage.
My method of travel has always been to arrange everything beforehand
with meticulous foresight. In the most crowded trains and boats I have
thus secured luxurious accommodation. To hear therefore that there were
no berths free and that we should have to pass the night either on the
windy deck or in the red-plush discomfort of the open saloon caused me
not unreasonable dismay. I had to choose and I chose the saloon.
Jaffery, of course, chose the raw winds of heaven. All night I did not
get a wink of sleep. There was a gross fellow in the next section of
red-plush whose snoring drowned the throb of the engines. Stewards long
after they had cleared away the remains of supper from the long central
table chinked money at the desk and discussed the racing stables of the
world with a loudly dressed, red-faced man who, judging from the popping
of corks, absorbed whiskies and sodas at the rate of three a minute. I
understood then how thoughts of murder arose in the human brain. I
devised exquisite means of removing him from a nauseated world. Then
there was a lamp which swung backwards and forwards and searched my
eyeballs relentlessly, no matter how I covered them.
What was I doing in this awful galley? Why had I left my wife and child
and tranquil home? The wind freshened as soon as we got out to sea.
There were horrible noises and rattling of tins and swift scurrying of
stewards. The ship rolled, which I particularly hate a ship to do. And I
was fully dressed and it seemed as if all the tender parts of my body
were tied up with twine. What was I doing in this galley?
When I awoke it was broad daylight, and Jaffery was grinning over me and
all was deathly still.
"Good God!" I cried, sitting up. "Why has the ship stopped? Is there a
fog?"
"Fog?" he boomed. "What are you talking of? We're alongside of Havre."
"What time is it?" I asked.
"Half-past six."
"A Christian gentleman's hour of rising is nine o'clock," said I, lying
down again.
He shook me rudely. "Get up," said he.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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