The Living Belt

by Owen Oliver

THE LIVING BELT
A REMINISCENCE

By OWEN OLIVER

OUR ship had come to a harbour far east of Suez—we'll call it Fever Port—at the beginning of evening, when a half moon was trying to peep through the velvet dusk. There were a hundred lights upon a neighbouring steamer, and half a dozen ashore. Just by the gangway a couple of bumboats, F.P. 19 and F.P. 24, bobbed up and down at the end of the painters that held them to the side rope. Their black "boys" shouted whenever they bumped.

Another bumboat—number indistinguishable—shot out of the darkness. Her lateen sail came down at a run, and she banged into F.P. 19 at six miles an hour. That's how they bring up at Fever Port. F.P. 19 bumped into F.P. 24, and F.P. 24 bumped into the ship. Three pairs of black boys held on to something with boat-hooks, and pushed off something else with poles. They all shouted something like "Who-hoo-ya-ya!" The quartermaster shouted something in nautical Anglo-Saxon at them. It's no use trying to get it printed. Somehow the last boat got alongside the steps. Six men in duck suits ascended them, and brought an atmosphere of hilarity aboard.

"E.T.C.," the chief officer observed. (Who said he couldn't smile?) He meant the Eastern Telegraph Company, that belts the world with wire.

I was pacing the deck gloomily, with a touch of malaria, or perhaps it was only liver. I ought to have been seasick, and I hadn't been; and I had a right to be homesick, and I was. A jolly, round little man in duck came up to me.

"Aren't you Mr. Oliver from Hampstead?" he suggested, and I owned to the name. He had known me by sight since he was a lad, he claimed. I used to live in Acacia Road, and then I moved to Myrtle Grove, and then I took Mr. Drake's old house. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows.

We sat down together like old friends met. He was sympathetic about malaria. He advised quinine in five-grain tabloids, and, failing that, whisky and soda and a run ashore. I'd have the whisky and soda, I said, but I was too limp to run. We went into the smoking-room and began the cure. The duck-clad men said there was no need to run. They would carry me, but I'd have to go ashore to their mess.

"We don't see many people out here," a square-built young fellow in spectacles told me. "It's a godsend to meet the friend of a friend."

"Seriously, sir," said a handsome man who looked like a cavalry officer, "we'd like you to come. We're coming back to the ship after dinner to see one of our chaps off. He's done his six months—lucky beggar!—and moves on to Santona. She won't go out to-night. I know they say she sails at ten, but the pilot won't take her, you'll find. Anyhow, we'll have you back oh the gangway at nine-fifteen. The honour of the E.T.C.!".

I knew that was a strong oath, so I went.

The moon was laughing round the velvet curtains now, but the ship's side hid her, and I went down the gangway into a sightless pit. A black angel held up a lantern, and I found a footing on a thwart and a seat on a white cushion, but I was hauled off that.

"You'll have to sit on the gunwale," said Jackson—he was the man who discovered me. "The wind is pretty fresh. We'll catch it when we're out of the lee of the ship. Now she goes!"

Woof! We heeled over so suddenly that we were almost thrown down into the boat. The black boys yelled and let the sheet run nearly out.

"My feet are in a foot of water," protested a man who was trying to grow a beard. They called him Moses.

"That won't cover them!" said Baker. "You don't mind drowning, sir, do you?"

"Oh, no!" I assured him. "I rather like it—in good company!"

"The company's all right," Jackson commented, "except the sharks."

"These things don't often turn over," the handsome man told me. "I've been here for four months, and only upset once. The chaps are a bit lively to-night. You see, we have to keep our spirits up. It's the best antidote to fever."

"Much of that?" I asked, and he nodded.

"Last week there were only two out of seven at dinner. This gale you came up with has blown it away, and we're—— Hang you! You'll be into the shore!"

He prodded the ebony helmsman.

"Plenty good, sah!" the boy assured him, and held on for a few seconds longer before he put about, and we scrambled to the other side. It was calm under the shore, and we seemed to float in a sulky pool of ink. Then a gust blew the ink into moonlit indigo, and made us scramble up on the gunwale again.

"Plenty much blow!" the steersman remarked, extending his grin. Then he dropped the tiller, and he and his mate let the sail down on top of us. The yard caught my thumb. Bang! F.P. 80 brought us up. It's lucky that the F.P.'s are built heavily.

Two men in duck caught hold of me—one at each side—and conducted me across a couple of boats. They mistrusted my unpractised footing, and the honour of the E.T.C. was pledged to return me safely to the ship.

"Mind the green steps," they counselled, and rushed me up them. When we were on the pier, they left me to Jackson, in case he had something to say to his "friend." I hope he'll pass the word for the future, though I had never spoken to him before.

He had something to say, larded between his remarks as a guide. He began where they always begin—with the people at home.

"You know my old man's house," he said, "next but one to Mansell's place, going up the hill, just before you come to the church. I dare say you know him by sight? Yes. That's the old chap. Getting a bit stoutish now. This is the Customs House, hut they don't bother us much. It's 'E.T.C'; and they chalk your baggage and pass you on. I don't suppose you'd know the mother. She doesn't go out a deal. Writes every mail regular. That's the Governor's house. There ought to be a sentry, but you never know where to find him. I never saw such a lot! They're all degradados. Convicts? Well, something of that sort. Some wear numbers and some don't, but I can't see much difference between them. I was thinking that perhaps you might just look in on the old people and tell them that you've seen me out here, and I was remarkably well and in grand spirits. It'll seem more first-hand than a letter. Thanks very much. It means a lot to the old people. That's the church. You'll see it better round bers. You'll lay it on thick—that I was looking well, and no fever. Well, nothing to speak of. That's a fact. You see, I'm practically teetotal. Just to-night we're sending Reeves off, and so—— Here's the square. Oh, yes, there's a band. Plays twice a week, and whenever a ship's in. It isn't bad for niggers. You might mention the band to the old folk. They'll think the place is a sort of Folkestone. Ha, ha! The show looks all right in the moonlight, but it wants a lot of moonlight to make it go down. You can see it all in three half-hours, and I've been here three weeks. This is the park. It's principally two hard tennis-courts. There are four seats and those trees and a couple of flower-beds.

"I came here rather unexpectedly. Old Johnson went off suddenly, and they cabled to me to come by the next boat. I was at Muskgrove then. There was a ship leaving that afternoon, and I came. I've settled up his affairs nicely. His effects are going home by your steamer. I know that thing the band's playing, but I can never remember the name. 'Overture to Zampa.' So it is. I beard it on Lowestoft pier. Some of our chaps say that 'home' always makes them think of London and the grill at the Criterion. Nothing fit to eat out here. Now, my idea is the old pier at Lowestoft, and a nice cool snap of England in the air, and—and people I used to know. The old folk don't know it was a death vacancy here, of course. Anything you want to get in the place? Picture postcards? Plenty—shilling a packet, coloured. I'll see if I can knock them up at that shop."

The shop, however, refused to be knocked up. A youth appeared at an upper window and assured us that it was "much too closed for this night." He invited us politely to "Go hang!" Jackson apologised for him. He explained that he meant it for the English of "Good evening."

We went a little way along the shore to see the new quarters that my friend was gutting up for the E.T.C.—building was is line. He pointed out their beauties enthusiastically, and he grew eloquent upon the subject of difficulties overcome. White masons and artificers were too dear. So he trained native labour. There was stone on a neighbouring island, but no one to quarry it. So he imported men for that. The dhow which conveyed the stone had sunk. So now he was building two boats. Meanwhile he had extemporised a cutter-rig in a bumboat, and was training his crew in that, finding the lateen sail clumsy and liable to overturn in a gust.

"It's like fighting devils," he remarked, "to do work out here. The biggest devil—after the fever—is the Customs. Why, a tank that cost ninety pounds at home costs three hundred pounds for duty in this benighted hole, unless you can make them see it's a case for a special rate." Even in the moonlight I saw a wink. And he rubbed his hands cheerfully.

"Fighting devils!" he repeated, with a chuckle. I gathered that the devil of work fought a six months' battle with the devil of fever over every man who came there, and that work generally won. Win or lose, I judged that the fight made men.

We went back through the park to the mess. A gauze door—thin wire gauze—guarded the grey stone courtyard, and all the windows were covered with this gauze. Once in a way a mosquito got in, Jackson said, and the hunting was rare fun. It was his belief that the mosquito who made all his courses upon white man did no harm. "But they bite these dirty black devils first, and then they bite us; and then the fever comes. … To think of a little 'mosk,' weighing a grain or so, settling a great thirteen-stone chap like old Johnson! … You won't mention Johnson at home, of course."

The handsome man took charge of me inside the mess. He had finished his dinner, and I had dined aboard, and Jackson went in to feed, while we sat in the courtyard, which had a table and chairs and books. There was a platform at one end. That, they told me, was for the orchestra. Evans played a fiddle, and Baker a tin whistle, and "Moses" had made a xylophone—being the constructive genius of the party—and Jackson played a footbath as a drum. They had amateur theatricals occasionally, and for Christmas they meant to have coloured paper festoons and a Christmas tree.

"Anything to keep the fellows cheerful, sir," the handsome man told mc confidentially. "A lot of good spirits, and a minimum of the other sort of spirits! That's the plan!" I gathered that he was in charge. I estimate that he is worth a life a quarter to the E.T.C.

At twenty to nine he summoned the others to start. Jackson wasn't quite ready—he had a little bit of business to do, he said—and they could take me, and he'd come after. I suggested that I could wait a few minutes, but the handsome man signified dissent. They had guaranteed to put me on the ship's gangway by nine-fifteen, he pointed out, and the E.T.C. never failed in its undertakings.

"Get your overcoats, boys," he commanded, "and we'll be off."

"Overcoats?" I remarked in surprise, "Why, the air fries you!"

"It is a little custom of ours," he explained. "When we visit a British ship in the evening, we regard an overcoat as de régle." He winked. So did the other duck-clad men.

It makes me wink now when I think of the custom.

They piloted me over steps and through dark places, and had the lantern held aloft for me to get into the boat. The tide was offshore, and we drifted with an occasional stroke of the oar.

"Talk of something English, sir," a voice out of the dark asked; and I ran over the doings of two months back, before I left home.

"I'll be there next April," said one; and "I'm due in June," said another; and everyone knew to a day when he should be due to start for Britain. Somebody started humming "The Girl I Left Behind Me."

"Oh, shut up!" said the square man in spectacles. "They wouldn't leave their little wooden huts for us. … I believe when I land in England I'll fall down on my knees and propose to the first white girl I meet I … That's the best thing in England—to talk to a nice little white lady. It seems to—to make you a civilised gentleman again!"

"My crust of bread and liberty!" Moses commented.

"Crust of bread! You old hypocrite!" cried someone. "You know you schemed to come here for the extra allowances to save up and marry her!"

They explained to me, three at the time, how they had detected the mendacity of the misogyny of Moses—the alliteration had evidently been thought out carefully. He had never been so infatuated with a woman, he had declared, that he could not see her faults—if she had any. They expected the lady who hadn't any to return with him—not to Fever Port!—after his next visit home.

"If he cuts off his beard," said a very pale man, "and not unless!"

We bumped into the ship again, and I reached the smoking-room as two bells struck, and that, of course, is at nine. The E.T.C. was before time, as usual!

In the smoking-room I scored a point off the E.T.C.. and that is not easy. I found that "Old" Reeves—he was about four-and-twenty—in honour of his departure, proposed to pay for all the drinks of all the party—in which they reckoned me—and that they turned a deaf ear to my invitations to have a little liquid refreshment. Reeves "knew his duty," he said. Well, I know mine. I waited till the steward was bringing the "chit" for the first glasses round, intercepted him, and signed it for my account. I was forgiven as a first offender, but a guard was set over me for the rest of the evening. The guard, however, winked at my ordering a drink for Jackson when he arrived with his little hit of business accomplished. The business was to obtain a dozen picture postcards for me, by hook or by crook.

I am bound to confess that "glasses round" formed an important item in the programme. Excuses were unavailing at first, but when Jackson and I—he was, as he hod told me, teetotally disposed—were seen to have a row of three in front of each, barely tasted, we were allowed to drop out. I mustn't think that these "rounds" were a habit, he assured me. It was merely because they were "sending off Old Reeves." They hod to make the most of these occasions.

"A lark—a drink—anything," the handsome man said in my ear, "to keep the boys in good spirits. If they got brooding on things—— There was old Johnson—one of the best. One week he was head nurse to all the chaps who were down with fever, reading to them, dosing them, telling them that it never came to anything, and they'd be all right in a couple of days. The next week we buried the old beggar. Hulloa, here's the purser! Kippers!"

"Kippers!" the rest roared, and the purser beamed.

"Right?" be asked, and looked towards a funny little brown-faced functionary in Customs uniform, who was taking a noble share in the "rounds."

"Right!" they assured him; and he beamed again and nodded cheerfully.

"Right!" he echoed, and entered into whispered counsel with "Moses," who ran the commissariat.

"You see," Jackson whispered, "a box or two of kippers and a few things like that are a luxury here. We arrange to get them out and to get them ashore! Do you know the Customs duty is three farthings a cigarette?" He tapped some tins in front of him. "Just fill my pockets," he remarked.

"Could you get in another tin or so?" I suggested. "In the overcoat?"

He considered.

"I'm taking some cigars and a few little things in the pockets," he explained, "and I suppose I'll have to make a Falstaff of myself, with a box of kippers in front! I might get those tins inside my overcoat and button it up, if you can spare them."

"They won't search you?" I inquired.

"That's the Custom officer," he said, nodding toward the little gentleman in uniform. I noticed a suspicious bulge in the uniform. I brought up a few loose cigars as well as the tins, and I offered one of the cigars to the little man. He was smoking already, he remarked, waving a cigarette, but—— He bowed, and the cigar went into a pocket.

"A very decent little Dago," Jackson observed.

Six bells struck at last, and the duck-clad men prepared for departure. The thermometer stood high, but they pronounced it a night for overcoats. They disappeared for a few moments one by one. They went away slim. They came back corpulent. They gathered round Reeves at the gangway, and commenced to shake hands about six times apiece.

"I, too, must soon go," the little official said, "for there is no one at Customs to receive these good gentlemen. Yes, thank you, Mr. Purser. One more glass I will have. I catch them in my boat." It may have been that the electric light flickered, but it looked as though the little man winked.

There was more and more handshaking. Moses waltzed with "Old Reeves." Jackson drew me aside for a moment to suggest that I should mention to the old people that doctors considered that fever was dying out on the Coast. Finally they went down the gangway. Reeves followed them to the water's edge and shook hands again twice round. Then they pushed off right into the head of the wind, and couldn't get their sail going for a time.

Moses tried td push off further with a long pole, hut the pole slipped; and he went into the water from his head to his waist. They rescued him by the legs, laughing uproariously.

The boat swung round to the wind and began to heel over and slide away.

"Auld Lang Syne!" someone shouted; and then they sang. Reeves joined in—he had reached the deck and stood beside the Purser and me. The little Customs officer hurried out from the smoking-room.

"I will not be there to receive them, I think," he remarked, shaking his head. "I have no sail, and to row my boys are slow. Gentlemen, I say good-night!" He shook hands with us and descended the steps slowly. The boat with the duck-clad men was nearing the shore; "Auld Lang Syne" still floated to us over the moonlit water. Reeves had stopped singing.

"They're good fellows," he said, as if he spoke to himself. There was a huskiness in his voice.

The purser nodded and pronounced his verdict. He goes round and round the world, and who should know men better than he?

"They turn out men," he said, "in the E.T.C."