The same old walls continued in a city that was dead. Funny name that, over a shop. Couldn’t be right. Perhaps he was getting lightheaded. Wu Fu Li. Better not see people about when they had such names. This ashy solitude was interminable, and morning never came to it.
He rambled up to the centre of a bridge which seemed to rise above the shadows, and saw beyond him the inky grotesques of chimneys and house ridges against a low pallor. He leaned over the parapet. So there it began, that day for him. Below the bridge was a stream, soundless and raven, which became outlined in the bottom of night even as he watched. Its banks were of mud. They were livid like the water, but they did not move. The water uncoiled slowly and so it could be seen. A careened barge was below, a lump melting into the sludge. It would take old Charon some time to shift that. But this was his river, all right. The old boy was probably waiting asleep under that gasometer.
A group of men passed him, going the same way. But they were brisk. Their noisy footsteps meant purpose and direction. Something was ahead of them, and they were going to it. That was more like life. Where they could go, so could he. He followed them, more like life. People were about, glum but purposeful. This was an early world, where railway lines were mixed with the streets, factories with the homes, and an unborn ship stood immense in her skeleton womb above the tenements. The day was broad, when, surmounting grey fields and sheds with low roofs of iron, the scarlet funnel of a liner stood up like a noble beacon. Beyond her was a blue funnel with yellow bands. The vista of low buildings was overtopped by a long diminishing array of cranes and jibs, masts, and the vivid colours of smokestacks, one beyond the other. A broad new world this, but with some smells he knew. Where did this road end? Some lascars in blue muslin and red turbans were crouched under a railway station. A clock was suspended over the deserted platform. It proclaimed a quite impossible hour. Time, perhaps, had lost its way. Or there was no time here. He might have got beyond the range of the schedules. He looked up at the clock, and saw a sparrow’s nest in its works. Time was stopped here to let the birds nest. At the other end of the platform was a name-board above the palings, its letters big and positive enough to announce that locality to a great distance. Gallions
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VII
After a little respite of sleep in the hotel at the dockhead, Jimmy went down through a dull corridor to the coffee-room. He was surprised, when he opened its door, by the attack of an interior light which was theatrical in its early brilliance. Four or five men at a table near the window looked as if they were beginning the day. Breakfast then? He got an impression of a room which was set, in a surprisingly good imitation of morning, for an act in a play. The dour figures of the men at coffee and newspapers were very like life. One of them looked up at him over his spectacles in critical fixity, as if he had interrupted a private rehearsal. In his embarrassment Jimmy shut the door at once, without going in. Thought it was time for tea. Perhaps his watch had stopped.
“Who was that?” asked the spectacled man of his neighbour.
“Don’t know. Didn’t see him.”
“Thought it might be the man who got the Altair. He was supposed to join her yesterday.”
Another man lowered his cup. “The Altair is my ship,” he said.
“So that’s that. Pleased to meet you, sir. She’s anchored astern of mine, the Harlow.” His paper went aside. “Nothing in that,” he grumbled, “I always go to it as if it could no more be missed than the chronometer, but somehow I can never get the time by it. Anything in your radical rag, doctor? And don’t keep those rolls.”
The elderly doctor smiled sideways. “Why, yes, Captain Bennett, plenty in it. You are unjust. You must have missed a whole page of bargains in Oxford Street. And I see our owner’s horse is fancied for the Derby. You didn’t see that? It struck me as strange that racing stables should be run on ships that never will pay.”
“Get away. If that horse is like the Harlow, he’ll want some stoking to raise the knots out of him. But I know what you mean. I don’t like your talk. You’re too fond of showing notions by the arse-end.”
Jimmy went out of the hotel. The look of that room had lessened his specific gravity. Quite a hopeful hint in the air, that day, of Rip van Winkle. Perhaps he had not, like Rip, secured a very long advantage on the dear old home; he could not have left it so securely far behind. For his beard was about the same. It was not venerable. How much of the calendar had he dodged? Through a slip in the celestial cogs he might have been wangled into another year. What year was this? It was a buoyant thought, it ascended as a morning grace, and at least he could continue to enjoy it till he reached a newsboy and the truth. There was enough about him to justify brief enjoyment of the idea. Evidently Gallions was outside the world which used to have him. Its railway station clock was timed to a sparrow’s nest. If time is one of man’s devices, like fish-knives and drains, then alter the clock when its current hour is unsympathetic. Choose your own time, if the local duration feels untimely. To the devil
