“Morning, doctor. How’s the rest? How’s Lycett?”
“That’s how you feel, is it? All is well with the child.”
“And Sinclair, our chief officer? You’ve seen him, too?”
“Ah, the redheaded pirate. Couldn’t help seeing him. He’s picking up. He just told me to go to hell.”
“Gillespie?”
“Don’t know him. Oh, you mean the dear old Glasgow Highlander who keeps on asking for a long whisky and soda? Unless his anxiety exhausts him first, he’ll smell whisky again, some day.”
“Don’t be hard on him. He’s all right.”
“So the engineers say. But he hates me. You all do, you know. I’ve never seen such a crew. Some of the women here are nervous. It’s as much as I can do to keep them out of your cabins.”
“They’re not coming, are they?”
“Not unless you don’t do what I tell you.”
The youthful but white-haired surgeon, tall, deliberate, and gracious, who in his white uniform could have been a functionary, immaculate and revered, in a sphere where all was pure and noble, one morning took Colet, shrunk within a borrowed suit, which made him feel like an awkward mortal who had blundered into the abode of the blest, to the smoke-room. There was Sinclair, with some strangers about him. Sinclair came to meet him. He was much amused by something in Colet’s appearance. He held him off at arm’s length, and laughed.
“You look holy, purser. You look as if you were just coming out of the wilderness after turning down the devil. Come and have a pick-me-up.”
The strangers made room for him, adjusting wicker chairs about one of the tables with an air of quickly providing for a welcome guest who was really invisible to them. Colet noticed that they observed him cautiously only when they supposed they were unobserved. They continued their conversation as though he had not come. They did not want to embarrass him by showing they were aware of his unusual presence. The shyness of Englishmen was so delicate and polite, he thought, and so encouraging, that a nervous kitten might be deluded into thinking that it had the room to itself, until it was trodden on. They evidently knew nothing about the rescue of any castaways. They had never heard of it. Luckily for him, no boats had been picked up in mid-ocean, so there was no need, if challenged, to confess to an episode which probably had never happened. They talked of rubber, of one or two important men who ought to be shot, of one or two unimportant women who had provided the ship, that voyage, with a little welcome unexpectedness, and of a fellow-passenger whose luck at cards was evidence of the existence of the devil. But presently, when the conversation became various with subjects discreet between pairs of these strangers, the man next to Colet tapped out his pipe and leaned over to him, as though with a chance private thought.
“Feeling all right now?”
“Fine.”
That was as far as it went. The stranger began to refill a beautiful briar with some rich tobacco which moved Colet with a sudden yearning. But the stranger was unaware of it. He lovingly loaded that ripe bowl, and Colet watched the rite with the happy knowledge that he had come back to the sun, that sights and smells were good, and that there were pleasant things to be done.
“What happens to you, may I ask, after an occasion of this sort? What do you do?”
“I’ve no idea. Sent home, I suppose.”
“But an official has to worry about it, presumably. They ought not to land you at Rangoon and just leave it at that.”
“Rangoon?”
“Where we’re going. You knew that?”
“No. I forgot to ask.”
The stranger was amused. “I guess you’re right. Any old place would do for me, after an outing like yours.”
“Do you know Rangoon?”
“Pretty well. All round from that purgatory to Bangkok.”
“The names sound very attractive.”
“They do? How one forgets!” His amusement was faint but provocative. “Yes, I suppose they sound attractive. Must have sounded so to me once. Must have.”
“And now they don’t. That’s the worst of disillusionment. The real thing goes.”
“Eh? I’m not disillusioned. I’m busy. I heard you all right, didn’t I? Didn’t you say the real thing goes when we know the reality? Now, what on earth do you mean by that?”
“Well … of course it means nothing. Only a little doubt about the nature of the reality, perhaps.”
“You’ll feel stronger presently. We understand reality well enough, when we bark our shins on it. Now, I say that’s the fun of it, seeing what things are in good time, and treating them as they deserve; don’t you?”
“I expect you are right.”
“Sure of it. Like testing a piece of rock. That’s my job. Most people would call it road metalling. Good enough for them. But if you know what to do with it, it might mean—it might mean kissing your hand to those places with names you think so attractive, and getting that deer park at home.”
Colet laughed. “Have you come across that magic lump of road metalling yet?”
“Not so far. Only something a bit like it. Enough to keep
