A Man's Man

by Ian Hay

  CHAPTER X

  THE END OF AN ODYSSEY

  Hughie reckoned that they might have to steam eastward for quite threeor four days before they sighted land.

  This was an underestimate.

  The history of the Orinoco's last voyage will never be written. Inthe first place, those who took part in it were none of them men whowere addicted to the composition of travellers' tales; and in thesecond, their recollections of the course of events when all wasover, were hopelessly and rather mercifully blurred. Not that theyminded. One derives no pleasure or profit from reconstructing anightmare--especially when it has lasted for sixteen days and nights.

  Some events, of course, were focussed more sharply in their memoriesthan others. There was that eternity of thirty-six hours during whichthe Orinoco, with every vulnerable orifice sealed up or battened down,her asthmatic engines pulsing just vigorously enough to keep her headbefore the wind, rode out a north-easterly gale which blew her manymiles out of her reckoning. ("Not that that matters much," said herphilosophic commander. "We don't know where we are now, it's true; butthen we didn't know where we were before, so what's the odds? We'll keepon steering away about north-east, and as we are aiming at a targeteight hundred miles wide we ought to hit it somewhere.") Then there wasa palpitating night when the faithful engines, having wheezily butunceasingly performed their allotted task for a period long enough tolull all who depended upon them into an optimistic frame of mind, brokedown utterly and absolutely; and the fires had to be banked and theOrinoco allowed to wallow unrestrainedly in the trough of the sea whilethe entire ship's company, with cracking muscles and heart-breakinggasps, released a jammed crosshead from the guides and took down a leakycylinder.

  They were evidently out of the ordinary sea-lanes, for they sighted onlyone steamer in ten days, and her they allowed to go by.

  "None of us understand proper signalling," said Hughie, "so we can'tattract her attention without doing something absurdly theatrical, likerunning up the ensign upside down; and I'm hanged if we'll do that--yet.After all, we only want to know where we _are_. We may be just off thecoast of Ireland for all I can say, and it does seem feeble to bring aliner out of her course to ask her footling questions. It would be likestopping the Flying Scotsman to get a light for one's pipe."

  "Or asking a policeman in Piccadilly Circus the nearest way to theCriterion bar," added Allerton. "I'm with you all the time, captain."

  And so these four mendicants allowed a potential Good Samaritan to passby and sink behind the horizon. It was an action typical of their race:they had no particular objection to death, but they drew the line atbeing smiled at. Still, there were moments during the next ten days whenthey rather regretted their diffidence.

  But events like these were mere excrescences in a plane of deadmonotony. The day's work was made up of endless hours in a Gehenna-likestokehold, where with aching backs and bleeding hands they laboured tofeed the insatiable fires, or crawled along tunnel-like bunkers insearch of the gradually receding coal; spells at the wheel--sometimeslashed to it--in biting wind or blinding fog; the whole sustained on adiet of ship's biscuit, salt pork, and lukewarm coffee, tempered bybrief but merciful intervals of the slumber of utter exhaustion.

  Still, one can get used to anything. They even enjoyed themselves aftera fashion. High endeavour counts for something, whether you have a wifeand family dependent upon you, like Walsh, or can extract _la joie devivre_ out of an eighteen-hour day and a workhouse diet, like Hughie.

  And they got to know each other, thoroughly,--a privilege denied to mostin these days of restless activity and multifarious acquaintance.

  It was a lasting wonder to Hughie how Allerton could ever have fallen tohis present estate; for he displayed an amount of energy, endurance, andinitiative during this manhood-testing voyage that was amazing. Hehimself ascribed his virtue to want of opportunity to practise anythingelse, but this was obviously too modest an explanation. Perhaps bloodalways tells. At any rate, Allerton took unquestioned rank as second incommand over the heads of two men whose technical knowledge and physicalstrength far exceeded his own. But in his hours of ease--few enoughnow--he was as easy-going and flippant and casual as ever.

  Walsh in a sense was the weakest of the quartet. He was a capableengineer and an honest man, but he lacked the devil-may-care nonchalanceof the other three; for he had a wife and eight children waiting for himin distant Limehouse, and a fact like that gives a man a distaste foradventure. He was a disappointed man, too. He had held a chiefengineer's "ticket" for seven years, but he had never held a chiefengineer's billet. He could never afford to knock off work and waituntil the right berth should come his way: he must always take the firstthat offered, for fear that the tale of boots and bread in Limehouseshould diminish. As a crowning stroke of ill-luck, he had been paid offfrom his last job because his ship had collided with a New York lighterand been compelled to go into dry dock for three months; and by shippingin the Orinoco he was barely doing more than work his passage home. Histen-year-old dream of delivering Mrs. Walsh from her wash-tub for alltime, and exalting her from the _res angustae_ of Teak Street, Limehouse,to a social environment reserved exclusively for the wives of chiefengineers, seemed as far from fulfilment as ever. Still, he maintained astiff upper lip and kept his watch like a man, which is more than mostof us would have done under the circumstances.

  But it was Goble who interested Hughie most. In the long night-watches,as they swung the heavy fire-shovels in the stokehold, or heaved theever-accumulating clinkers over the side, or took turn and turn about togulp tepid water out of a sooty bucket, or met over a collation ofcoffee and ship's biscuit--the supper of one and the breakfast of theother--in the galley, Goble would let fall dry pawky reflections on lifein general, with autobiographical illustrations, which enabled Hughie topiece together a fairly comprehensive idea of his companion's previousexistence.

  John Alexander Goble had played many parts in his time, like mostvagrants. He had been born a gamekeeper's son in Renfrewshire, and hadlost his father early, that devoted upholder of proprietary rightshaving been shot through the head in a poaching affray. After thiscatastrophe the widow, who had openly pined for her native Glasgowduring the whole of her husband's lifetime, had returned to thatmunicipal paradise; and the ripening youth of John Alexander Goble hadbeen passed in a delectable locality, known as "The Coocaddens," towhich he could never refer without a gleam of tender reminiscence in hiseyes.

  Why John Alexander had ever deserted this Eden Hughie could neverrightly ascertain. His references to that particular epoch in his careerwere invariably obscure; but since he darkly observed on one occasionthat "weemen can mak' a gowk o' the best man leevin'," Hughie gatheredthat Mr. Goble's present course of life owed its origin to a tender butunsatisfactory episode in the dim and distant days of his hot youth.

  "After that," John would continue elliptically, "I went tae Motherwell.D'ye ken Motherwell? A grand place! Miles and miles of blast-furnaces,and the sky lit up day and nicht, like the Last Judgment. I did a wheenodd jobs there. Whiles I would hurl a trolley wi' coke, whiles I wouldsort coal wi' some lassies, and at last I got a job as a moulder."

  "What's that?" inquired the ever-receptive Hughie.

  "What else but a body that makes moulds?"

  "Yes, but how does he do it?"

  "Weel, there's a sort o' sandy place at the fit o' eachsmelting-furnace--like a bit sea-shore, ye'll understand--and everyfour-and-twenty hours they cast the furnace. They let oot the meltedore, that is, and it rins doon intil moulds that hae been made in thesand. (Ye dae it by just buryin' baulks o' timber in rows and thenpickin' them oot again, and the stuff rins intil the hollows that havebeen left. When it's cauld they ca' it pig-iron.) Well, I stuck tae thatjob for a matter o' sax months. But it was drouthy work, besides bein'haird on the feet,--you go scratch-scratching in the sand wi' your baresoles makin' the moulds,--and presently I gave it up and took tae daen
'odd jobs among the trucks and engines in the yairds. I liked that fine,for machinery is the yin thing that really excites me. First I was acoupler, then I was a fireman, then I got tae drivin' a wee shuntingengine, dunting trucks about the yaird. And at last I was set in chargeo' a winding-engine at a pit-heid. That was a grand job; but it didnalast long. I was drinkin' haird by this time--I'd stairtit after I leftthe Coocaddens--and yin' day I was that fou' I let the cage gang doonwi' a run tae the bottom o' the shaft."

  "Was there anybody in the cage?" inquired Hughie, as Goble paused, as ifto contemplate some mental picture.

  "There was not, thank God! But there _was_ a bit laddie doon ablow inthe pit, that was sittin' on his hutch--his truck, that is--at the fito' the shaft, waitin' on the cage. He wasna expectin' the thing tae falldoon like a daud o' putty, so he was no' sittin' quite clear; and thecage cam' doon and took off baith his feet. Man, I hae never forgottenhis mither's face when they brought him up. I lost ma job, and I haenever touched a drop since. For seven-and-twenty years have I been onthe teetotal--seven-and-twenty years! It'll shorten ma life, I doot," headded gloomily; "but I'll bide by it!"

  "What became of the boy?" inquired Hughie.

  "He's gotten twa wooden feet the noo," replied Goble more cheerfully,"and he's been minding the lamp-room this twenty year. I've heard fraehim noo and again, and we've always been freens; but his auld mither hasnever forgiven me. She's ower seventy the day, but Jeems tells me sheaye lets a curse every time he mentions ma name."

  A further instalment of Mr. Goble's adventures explained how he took tothe sea.

  "After I cleared oot o' Motherwell I went to the Clydeside. I was a fairenough mechanic by this time, but I had tak'n a sort o' skunner atmachinery--no wi'oot some reason--and I tried for to get taken on as adock-hand. I had no luck there, and I was fair starvin' when yin day Imet a freend o' min' on the Dumbarton Road, and he asked me would I liketae wash dishes and peel potaties on a passenger steamer. I would haebeen pleased tae soop the lums o' muckle Hell by that time, gin it wasfor a wage, I was that thrawn wi' hunger; so I jist said, ''Deed ay!'

  "For a hale summer I sat peelin' potaties and washin' dishes on boardthe Electra, her that has done a trip doon the watter, roond about Arranand Bute, and hame by Skelmorlie ilka day o' the summer season fortwenty-twa years. When the winter cam' on I dooted I would be oot o' ajob again; but bein' nowadays permanently on the teetotal, and varradependable, I was shifted tae the auld Stornoway, o' the same line,carryin' goods, cattle, and passengers tae the West Highlands--Coll,Tiree, Barra, Uist, Ullapool, and a wheen places in and oot o' sea-lochsup and doon that coast. She loused frae the Broomielaw every Thursday atthree o'clock in the afternoon, and she was back there, week in weekout, summer and winter, by eleven in the forenoon o' the followingWednesday. The folk along by Largs, where her cap'n lived, used tae settheir watches by her. She was a fine auld boat, the Stornoway: she piledherself up on the rocks below the Scuir of Eig, where she had no calltae be, in a snowstorm seven winters syne. I was a cabin stewardnowadays, ye'll unnerstand; and once we were roond the Mull and thepassengers had thrawn up what they'd had tae their tea off Gourock andtak'n a dander ashore at Oban, appetites was big and I was busy. It wasthe first time I had seen the gentry at their meals, and it improved mymainners considerable. Never since then have I skailed ma tea intil masaucer: I jist gie a bit blow on it noo. Yon's Mr. Allerton roarin' forto be relieved at the wheel."

  On another occasion Goble explained how he came to forsake the fleshpotsof the Stornoway and take to the high seas.

  "I was aye hankerin', hankerin' after the machinery," he explained. "Abody canna serve tables all his life. So after twa years on theStornoway I shippit as a fireman on a passenger steamer outward boundfrae Glasgow tae Bilbao. There I left her, tae be second engineer on awee tramp carrying iron-ore tae the Mediterranean. That was nigh twentyyears ago, and I've never set fit in Scotland since. Weel, weel! Aha!Mphm!" (_Ad lib._ and _da capo_.)

  So he would discourse, in a manner which passed many a weary hour forboth, and added considerably to Hughie's stock of human knowledge.

  The days wore on. The work and long hours were beginning to tell theirtale, but the entire crew kept grimly to it. Their nerves were in goodorder too. Even when, on the morning of the sixteenth day, as theygroped their way through a streaming wet fog, a great ghostly monster ofa liner suddenly loomed out of the wrack, and, as she shouldered her waypast them, actually scraped the starboard counter with her stern, whilethe look-out on her forward deck yelled frantically, and a frightenedman up aloft on the bridge flung his wheel over with great rattling ofsteam steering-gear to avoid a collision, the sole occupant of theOrinoco's deck--it was Goble: he was steering while Hughie and Walshtook their turn in the stokehold and Allerton slept--did not deem theoccasion sufficiently important to merit a report until he was relievedfrom duty two hours later.

  But this encounter provided that pawky philosopher with a valuable clueas to their whereabouts.

  "She was a Ben liner," he intimated to Hughie in describing the event."I saw the twa bit stripes roond her funnel, and her name, Ben Cruachan,on her stern. They're Glasgow boats, and sail every other Thursday taeBuenos Ayres, calling at Moville on Lough Foyle tae tak' up Irishpassengers. It's no' near Cape Clear we are, anyway. We're somewhere offthe north coast o' Ireland, sir. I kenned fine we were near land: thisis a ground swell that's throwin' us aboot noo. Aiblins we'll be gettin'a dunt against the Giant's Causeway if we're no' canny."

  There was something in Goble's conclusions, for after they had steameddead slow all night the rising sun licked up the fog; and there,ten miles to the south of them, lay a long green seacoast; andstraight before them uprose what looked like a rocky island, with ahomely-looking white lighthouse perched half-way up its rugged face.

  "If that land to the right is Ireland," said Hughie, "we can't be veryfar from Scotland. I wonder what that great rock ahead of us can be.Lucky we didn't reach it a couple of hours ago!"

  "Don't you think," suggested Allerton, putting his head out of theengine-room hatchway, "that as we have a _pukka_ Scot on board, we hadbetter rouse him up and see if he can identify his native land?"

  It was Goble's turn for sleep, but Allerton's suggestion was adopted,and he was haled on deck.

  "Do you happen to recognise that island straight ahead, Mr. Goble?"inquired Hughie.

  Goble surveyed the rock and the lighthouse, and though his countenanceremained unmoved, his eye lit up with proprietary pride.

  "Island? Yon's no' an island," he replied. "'Tis Scotland hersel'. Sir,'tis the Mull o' Kintyre! It rins straight awa' back tae Argyllshire.We're at the varra mouth o' the Clyde. We micht hae been drawed thereacross the Atlantic by a bit string! God presairve us, it's a miracle!"

  "The Clyde?" shouted Hughie. It seemed too utterly good to be true. "Areyou sure, Goble? Is that really the Mull?"

  "Sure?" Goble's expression was a mixture of pity and resentment. "Man,I'm tellin' ye I sailed roond it twice a week for the best pairt o' twayears. I was awfu' sick the first time. The second--"

  All this time the Mull of Kintyre was growing nearer.

  "What's the course?" queried Walsh, leaning over the bridge. "Do I turnup New Cut, Mr. Goble, or keep straight along the Blackfr'ars Road?"

  Everybody's spirits were soaring marvellously at the sight of theblessed green land. Walsh's wife was within twenty-four hours of him.

  "Keep yon heap o' stanes on your left hand, ma mannie," replied thegreatly inflated Goble, facetiously indicating the towering headlandbefore them, "and then straight on Ailsa Craig. You're daen' fine. Mr.Marrable, will you rin her up tae the Tail o' the Bank, off Greenock, orgi'e a cry in at Campbeltown Bay? It's jist roond the corner."

  "Hang it! we'll take her all the way, now we have got so far," saidHughie. "We're _home_! I _was_ reckoning on bringing up in PlymouthSound; but that's a detail. Come on, Allerton, let's go below and fireup for the last time. We'll bring her in in style!"


  And so it came about that not many hours later the Orinoco, a rottinghulk, clogged with weed, corroded with rust, caked with salt, feeblychurning up the water with her debilitated propeller, steamed painfullybut grandly past the Cloch Light and into the mouth of the Clyde. Asorry object she may have seemed to the butterfly host of nattypaddle-steamers which was pouring down the river under the forceddraught of triple competition, carrying the Glasgow man, released fromoffice, to Dunoon and Rothesay and other summer repositories for wifeand family. But to those who _knew_, she was no uncleanly tramp, but abattle-scarred veteran,--a ship that had deserved well of the Republicof the high seas,--another little Golden Hind, though laden with nothingnearer to Spanish ingots than bottles of imitation French claret. Everyscar on her sides was an honourable wound; every groan and creak thatrose from her starting timbers a paean; every cough and wheeze thatproceeded from her leaky cylinders a prayer of joyful thanks. TheOrinoco had graduated high in the nameless but glorious band of thosewho have illustrated, not altogether without profit and pride, thehomely truth that

  Life ain't holdin' good cards; It's playin' a poor hand _well_!

  And so she turned the last corner of her long and painful Odyssey, andcame home to lay up her bones by the Clyde, which had given them birth.And by a happy chance the unconscious Hughie, instead of navigating herto the Tail of the Bank as he had intended, changed his mind, put overhis helm, and conned her up to the head of that beautiful Garelochwhich, many many years ago, had given the little ship her maiden name.

  There, swinging at her rusty cable, with the clear green water lavingher weary forefoot, and the hills above Roseneath and Shandon smilingreassuringly down upon her in the glow of the evening sun, we will leaveher. _Molliter ossa cubent!_

  * * * * *

  The law's delays are proverbial, and the task of getting even with Mr.Noddy Kinahan involved Hughie in endless encounters with those in highplaces, several appearances (with suite) in the abodes of the Law, andanother trip to New York--by Cunarder this time.

  However, grim determination will accomplish most things; and when somemonths later Hughie finally sailed from New York for his native land,the labour of love had been completed, and Mr. Noddy Kinahan was dulyregretting, for a term of years, the fact that he had ever been born.

  This consummation was followed by another, depressing but inevitable.The Orinoco Salvage Company, having served its purpose, paid Nature'sdebt and ceased to exist. The circumstances connected with its demise,together with the respective fates of Hughie's little band of Argonauts,will best be gathered from the following epistolary excerpts:--

  No. I (N. B. _Spelling corrected_)

  c/o MISTRESS HOWIESON, 17 CANDLISH STREET, GREENOCK.

  To H. MARRABLE, Esq.:--

  SIR,--I thank you for cheque, and have disposed of same. I also thank you for offer to find a job for me. But I would prefer to bide by you, as I feel I will not get a better job than that. I would like fine to be your servant. You will be needing some one to redd up your quarters and keep your clothes sorted, now you are ashore. (Women is no' to be trusted.) Of course I would not want a big wage: the siller from the Orinoco will do grandly for a long time. I ken fine the way to wait at table and clean silver, having been steward, as I once telled you, on the old Stornoway, where they had a cuddy full of gentry every trip.--Your servant (I am hoping),

  JNO. ALEX. GOBLE.

  No. II

  (_Extracts. No date or address, but obviously written in a public-house_)

  ... So you must take the money back. It is no use to me: all I should get out of it would be a d----d bad headache. Also, it might give me ideas above my station, which is bad for the lower orders at any time. Give it to Walsh; but don't let on, of course, that it comes from me: let him believe that it is part of his natural share of the salvage. I have kept back enough to pay for a new suit (which I am now wearing) and one big bust before I sail next week as deck steward on an Aberdeen liner.

  ... Well, it was a great trip. We have all got something out of it. You have got an adventure and incidentally done a big thing, and I have spent a month of absolute happiness in the society of men who regarded me neither as an object of pity nor as a monster of depravity, but were content to let me go my own way as a man who prefers to live his own life and be asked no questions.... Your offer to set me on my legs again and make me a respectable member of society is friendly and, I suppose, natural; but it threatens a happy episode with a sad ending. I'm not cut out for conventionality, and (_pace_ your kind references to my "sterling merit and latent force of character") I am not of the stuff that successful men are made of. I have only done two big things in my life. One was getting elected to Pop at Eton, the other was helping you to bring the old Orinoco home. I think I'll rest on my laurels now. I suppose I was born a rotter, and if you were to endeavour to raise me to your giddy heights I should only fall down again, and the bump at the bottom might hurt. I am safer where I am: the beauty of lying on the floor is that you can't fall off.

  ... Well, chin, chin! If I may be permitted to gush for a moment, I should like to tell you that you are a good sort.--Yours ever,

  LIONEL ALLERTON.

  No. III

  No. 4 TEAK ST., LIMEHOUSE.

  DEAR SIR,--I beg to acknowledge with thanks your cheque for share of salvage. It was far more than I expected, and the Adm'ty C'ts have certainly done well by us. At the best, I had hoped for suffic'nt to rig out the nippers with boots and duds for the winter and give the missis a week or two off the laundry work. We have all been fair barmy the last few days. Square meals and a big fire, and you can't hear yours'lf talk for the squeaking of the new boots. We are settling down a bit now, and I have put the rest of the money in the bank and told the old woman she is to burn her wash-tubs. Catch her: I d'n't think! With my new clothes I have obt'd a berth as Chief on board s.s. Batavia, of the Imperial Line, and sail on 21st inst. Her engines are (_several lines of hopeless technicalities omitted_). It was a lucky day for me when I struck the Orinoco, and luckier when Angus doctored my grog.

  On returning from voyage will take the lib'ty of calling on you in London at the address you gave.--Yrs. respect'fly,

  JAS. WALSH (Chief Engineer s.s. Batavia).

  Postscript (_In a larger and less educated hand_)

  MR. MARRABLE, DEAR SIR,--The children and me begs to thank you for all your kindness to father. Father he is very greatful himself, but would rather leave it to me to tell you, as he don't like. Mr. Marrable, sir, if you could only see the diff'nce in the children, espec'y little Albert, what was always sickly, since they got good boots and food inside them you would feel well paid for your kindness. I know the money did not come from you, but it was through you we got it. God bless you, sir.--Yours resp'fly,

  MRS. MARTHA WALSH.

  _P. S._--Our ninth, which has just come, we are taking the liberty to call by your name.

  BOOK THREE

  _SUAVITER IN MODO_