XVIIHOME
Becauseof the regulations regarding taking printed matter in one’s luggage I was obliged to post to London some thirty packets of books. Possibly by appealing to our Embassy at Petrograd I might have obtained what is called a Foreign Office bag and have been immune from censor revision. A considerable number of British subjects are accommodated in this way. But it seems to me to be an incorrect thing to do.
I had bought some dozens of pictures and ikons. I had precious manuscript which I should not dream of trusting to the post, and if it had been proposed to confiscate that manuscript at Archangel as Istepped aboard I should have remained in Russia to save it. But I got through without trouble.
Our people at Archangel were extremely kind to me, and put me on a returning ammunition ship, and I went all the way to Britain in comfort and without change.
The boat was a turret ship, one of those with hollowed-in sides, constructed to evade the true charges of the Suez Canal, where the toll is according to the breadth of the vessel. It had been ten times a year through the Suez Canal for twenty years, and now for the first time in its history was in northern latitudes. The crew were shivering Lascars, tripping about in one garment and looking more like girls than men. Each and every one had received from the Government two warm suits of underclothing, woolly trousers, coats, and wraps, but these things were locked away in their boxes, andyou could not persuade them to wear one. For the Lascar is a real Jew in temperment and has a passion for selling clothes and chaffering over them.
We steamed out gently through the traffic and along the narrow channels of the many-mouthed river, and after some hours got clear into the White Sea.[7]
When we passed a buoy the captain, who was rather a character, would retire to his sitting-room, take up his concertina, and play “Land of Hope and Glory,” the “Dead March” inSaul, “Ip-I-addy,” and other favourites.
We sailed under sealed orders and did not sight another vessel except British war-ships and patrol boats till we were nearing Lerwick.
In the Arctic there was calm, and we recapturedthe light which was fleeting with the approach to the equinox. The evenings grew appreciably longer. It was cold, and the barometer was going down “for ice.”
The captain and officers felt the cold badly, stamped to keep warm, and came in to meals with red faces and bright eyes. “If there is a Gulf Stream it ought to be warmer than it is,” said the captain. “Do you believe in its existence?”
I could not give an opinion.
“According to the hand-book, there is,” said the skipper. “It flows north-east, but a little note says ‘it has been known to flow south-west.’ Two and two make four, but they have been known to make five. All I can say is that if there is a Gulf Stream we are going against it at this moment and beating our engines. Our maximum is 11-1/4 knots, and we are doing 12.”
It was touching to hear English coming over the water when we were hailed by British patrols.
“What is the name of the ship?”
“Glamis.”
“What is your cargo?”
“Wood—and—flax. Wood—and—flax.”
“Ah well, I can’t attend to you now, you’d bettah drop your ankah.”
At one point, to the great disgust of the skipper, we were stopped by a cruiser and some twenty mail-bags were sent to us. And we lost our steam. “They signalled us six miles away. Why couldn’t they have said they wanted us to slow up for mails, instead of allowing us to come up at full speed, and then giving us ‘Stop immediately’ and making us reverse the engines and go full astern.”
We were a lot of cheerful British grumblers. I was the only passenger on board,and so got to know them all pretty well. Every man was a character in his way, and their remarks filled me constantly with mirth.
Our last three days were stormy in the extreme—regular equinoctial weather. The captain did not sleep, for the waters were, in his opinion, “too submariny.” I put out my lifebelt and wrapped up my manuscripts in a waterproof packet.
“What will happen should we strike a mine or be torpedoed?” I asked of the captain.
“Unless the engines were blown up we should proceed as best we could on the injured ship,” said he. He showed me what were the vital sections of the vessel.
“In any case we should not take to the boats except in the worst extremity,” said he. “For the Lascars have no will to live and they would not row us far. We shouldthrow three dead overboard every morning, they so quickly lose hope.”
At Lerwick we learned the name of the port for which we had to make. ’Twas Aberdeen, and as the captain shouted this to us from the boat in which he was returning from the man-of-war, all the officers rushed to look at their shipping almanacks to see what the tides were. We made out that we could just get in in time. And the vessel that night did the best she ever did.
Still we missed the tide and had to wait all day outside Aberdeen, and that was very tantalising. I had made up my mind to stay the night at a hotel, and then suddenly the Daylight Saving Bill made me an unlooked-for present of an hour, and it was possible to catch the 8.30 night train for London.
An extremely cautious Customs Officerlooked at my things, but said naught, and he insisted on my unpacking the samovar which I was bringing home. When he saw it, he remarked:
“It’ll be something for taking pictures?”
He said this because I had put in the chimney a number of pictures and maps to keep them from crumpling.
The doctor when he came thought we might be detained in quarantine for a week. The captain had a sore throat. He must go to a hospital and have a culture of it taken.
“A lot of bally rot, I call it,” the captain kept repeating, and tears were almost trickling from his eyes.
The doctor, however, let me go, and I sent a small boy to fetch a taxi. The taxi appeared at about 8.25P. M., and I just got to the station in time. There was half a minute.
“Take it easy, you’ve plenty of time,” said a porter to me, characteristically.
All my possessions were labelled, and the doors of the guard’s pan opened in the moving train and accepted the extra bags. I sped along through a throng of women waving good-bye to soldiers, and got into a carriage as by miracle.
There for a moment I paused and considered.
What a contrast to Russian ways, the possibility of getting off by a train with such a hairbreadth of margin.
The contrast was flattering to ourselves.
Soon, however, came another contrast, less flattering. Two drunken men got in. I was feeling particularly tender to everything English, and could not possibly have felt critical or wished to grumble.
But one of the drunken men wanted to fight. He stood up and held on a minute tothe window-strap, looked at me vaguely, and exclaimed:
“I pronounce my ultimatio.”
“What is it?” I asked cheerfully.
“Self-defence,” he replied, and then relapsed into his seat with a bump.
So I was home. And all night long the train rushed on to London.
THE END
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