“Now you mention it, I don’t feel too spry myself. Damn bad ventilation on these Channel boats.”
“That’s what it is. Ventilation. You said it.”
“You know I’m funny. I never feel seasick, mind, but I often find going on boats doesn’t agree with me.”
“I’m like that, too.”
“Ventilation … a disgrace.”
“Lord, I shall be glad when we get to Dover. Home, sweet home, eh?”
Adam held on very tightly to the brassbound edge of the table and felt a little better. He was not going to be sick, and that was that; not with that gargoyle of a man opposite anyway. They must be in sight of land soon.
It was at this time, when things were at their lowest, that Mrs. Ape reappeared in the smoking-room. She stood for a second or two in the entrance balanced between swinging door and swinging doorpost; then as the ship momentarily righted herself, she strode to the bar, her feet well apart, her hands in the pockets of her tweed coat.
“Double rum,” she said and smiled magnetically at the miserable little collection of men seated about the room. “Why, boys,” she said, “but you’re looking terrible put out over something. What’s it all about? Is it your souls that’s wrong or is it that the ship won’t keep still? Rough? ’Course it’s rough. But let me ask you this. If you’re put out this way over just an hour’s seasickness” (“Not seasick, ventilation,” said Mr. Henderson mechanically), “what are you going to be like when you make the mighty big journey that’s waiting for us all? Are you right with God?” said Mrs. Ape. “Are you prepared for death?”
“Oh, am I not?” said Arthur. “I ’aven’t thought of nothing else for the last half hour.”
“Now, boys, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to sing a song together, you and me.” (“Oh, God,” said Adam.) “You may not know it, but you are. You’ll feel better for it body and soul. It’s a song of Hope. You don’t hear much about Hope these days, do you? Plenty about Faith, plenty about Charity. They’ve forgotten all about Hope. There’s only one great evil in the world today. Despair. I know all about England, and I tell you straight, boys, I’ve got the goods for you. Hope’s what you want and Hope’s what I got. Here, steward, hand round these leaflets. There’s the song on the back. Now all together … sing. Five bob for you, steward, if you can shout me down. Splendid, all together, boys.”
In a rich, very audible voice Mrs. Ape led the singing. Her arms rose, fell and fluttered with the rhythm of the song. The bar steward was hers already—inaccurate sometimes in his reading of the words, but with a sustained power in the low notes that defied competition. The journalist joined in next and Arthur set up a little hum. Soon they were all at it, singing like blazes, and it is undoubtedly true that they felt the better for it.
Father Rothschild heard it and turned his face to the wall.
Kitty Blackwater heard it.
“Fanny.”
“Well.”
“Fanny, dear, do you hear singing?”
“Yes, dear, thank you.”
“Fanny, dear, I hope they aren’t holding a service. I mean, dear, it sounds so like a hymn. Do you think, possibly, we are in danger? Fanny, are we going to be wrecked?”
“I should be neither surprised nor sorry.”
“Darling, how can you? … We should have heard it, shouldn’t we, if we had actually hit anything? … Fanny, dear, if you like I will have a look for your sal volatile.”
“I hardly think that would be any help, dear, since you saw it on my dressing-table.”
“I may have been mistaken.”
“You said you saw it.”
The captain heard it. “All the time I been at sea,” he said, “I never could stand for missionaries.”
“Word of six letters beginning with ZB,” said the chief officer, “meaning ‘used in astronomic calculation.’ ”
“Z can’t be right,” said the captain after a few minutes’ thought.
The Bright Young People heard it. “So like one’s first parties,” said Miss Runcible, “being sick with other people singing.”
Mrs. Hoop heard it. “Well,” she thought, “I’m through with theosophy after this journey. Reckon I’ll give the Catholics the once over.”
Aft, in the second-class saloon, where the screw was doing its worst, the angels heard it. It was some time since they had given up singing.
“Her again,” said Divine Discontent.
Mr. Outrage alone lay happily undisturbed, his mind absorbed in lovely dream sequences of a world of little cooing voices, so caressing, so humble; and dark eyes, night-coloured, the shape of almonds over painted paper screens; little golden bodies, so flexible, so firm, so surprising in the positions they assumed.
They were still singing in the smoking-room when, in very little more than her usual time, the ship came into the harbour at Dover. Then Mrs. Ape, as was her invariable rule, took round the hat and collected nearly two pounds, not counting her own five shillings which she got back from the bar steward. “Salvation doesn’t do them the same good if they think it’s free,” was her favourite axiom.
II
“Have you anything to declare?”
“Wings.”
“Have you wore them?”
“Sure.”
“That’s all right, then.”
“Divine Discontent gets all the smiles all the time,” complained Fortitude to Prudence. “Golly, but it’s good to be on dry land.”
Unsteadily, but with renewed hope, the passengers had disembarked.
Father Rothschild fluttered a diplomatic laissez-passer and disappeared in the large car that had been sent to meet him. The others were jostling one another with their luggage, trying to attract the Customs officers and longing for a cup of tea.
“I got half a dozen of the best stowed away,” confided the journalist. “They’re generally pretty easy after a bad crossing.” And sure enough he was soon
