Complete Works

parlour with his crony, the mate of the barque Cicero , lying on the other side of the Circular Quay.  Late at night I would hear from afar their stumbling footsteps and their voices raised in endless argument.  The mate of the Cicero was seeing his friend on board.  They would continue their senseless and muddled discourse in tones of profound friendship for half an hour or so at the shore end of our gangway, and then I would hear Mr. B- insisting that he must see the other on board his ship.  And away they would go, their voices, still conversing with excessive amity, being heard moving all round the harbour.  It happened more than once that they would thus perambulate three or four times the distance, each seeing the other on board his ship out of pure and disinterested affection.  Then, through sheer weariness, or perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness, they would manage to part from each other somehow, and by-and-by the planks of our long gangway would bend and creak under the weight of Mr. B- coming on board for good at last.
    On the rail his burly form would stop and stand swaying.
    “Watchman!”
    “Sir.”
    A pause.
    He waited for a moment of steadiness before negotiating the three steps of the inside ladder from rail to deck; and the watchman, taught by experience, would forbear offering help which would be received as an insult at that particular stage of the mate’s return.  But many times I trembled for his neck.  He was a heavy man.
    Then with a rush and a thump it would be done.  He never had to pick himself up; but it took him a minute or so to pull himself together after the descent.
    “Watchman!”
    “Sir.”
    “Captain aboard?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Pause.
    “Dog aboard?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Pause.
    Our dog was a gaunt and unpleasant beast, more like a wolf in poor health than a dog, and I never noticed Mr. B- at any other time show the slightest interest in the doings of the animal.  But that question never failed.
    “Let’s have your arm to steady me along.”
    I was always prepared for that request.  He leaned on me heavily till near enough the cabin-door to catch hold of the handle.  Then he would let go my arm at once.
    “That’ll do.  I can manage now.”
    And he could manage.  He could manage to find his way into his berth, light his lamp, get into his bed — ay, and get out of it when I called him at half-past five, the first man on deck, lifting the cup of morning coffee to his lips with a steady hand, ready for duty as though he had virtuously slept ten solid hours — a better chief officer than many a man who had never tasted grog in his life.  He could manage all that, but could never manage to get on in life.
    Only once he failed to seize the cabin-door handle at the first grab.  He waited a little, tried again, and again failed.  His weight was growing heavier on my arm.  He sighed slowly.
    “D-n that handle!”
    Without letting go his hold of me he turned about, his face lit up bright as day by the full moon.
    “I wish she were out at sea,” he growled savagely.
    “Yes, sir.”
    I felt the need to say something, because he hung on to me as if lost, breathing heavily.
    “Ports are no good — ships rot, men go to the devil!”
    I kept still, and after a while he repeated with a sigh.
    “I wish she were at sea out of this.”
    “So do I, sir,” I ventured.
    Holding my shoulder, he turned upon me.
    “You!  What’s that to you where she is?  You don’t — drink.”
    And even on that night he “managed it” at last.  He got hold of the handle.  But he did not manage to light his lamp (I don’t think he even tried), though in the morning as usual he was the first on deck, bull-necked, curly-headed, watching the hands turn-to with his sardonic expression and unflinching gaze.
    I met him ten years afterwards, casually, unexpectedly, in the street, on coming out of my consignee office.  I was not likely to have forgotten him with his “I can manage now.”  He recognised me at once, remembered my name, and in what ship I had served under his orders.  He looked me over from head to foot.
    “What are you doing here?” he asked.
    “I am commanding a little barque,” I said, “loading here for Mauritius.”  Then, thoughtlessly, I added: “And what are you doing, Mr. B-?”
    “I,” he said, looking at me unflinchingly, with his old sardonic grin — ”I am looking for something to do.”
    I felt I would rather have bitten out my