Command. William McFee
from the riff-raff which nowadays go to sea and ape their betters—the parsons and surgeons, the wireless operators and engineers. They were common clay, mere ephemeral puppets, without hope of command, minions to take orders, necessary evils in an age of mechanism and high-speed commerce. It was an article of Mr. Spokesly's creed that "the cloth" should stand by each other. He was revolving this assumption in his mind as he rubbed the towel gently to and fro, and it occurred to him in his slow way that if he were to adopt the modern ideas of the London School of Mnemonics, if he were to devote every fibre of his being to forging ahead, gaining promotion, proving himself a superior article with a brain which was the efficient instrument of an indomitable will, then the obsolete idea of professional solidarity would have to go overboard. And just at that moment, with the consciousness of that petty mistake casting a shadow on his soul and the sharp rebuke of the Old Man rankling below, Mr. Spokesly was quite prepared to jettison anything that stood in the way of what he vaguely formulated as "his gettin' on." Mr. Spokesly's conceptions of advancement were of course largely but not entirely circumscribed by his profession. His allusions in conversation with Mr. Chippenham to "soft things" were understood to refer to shore jobs connected with shipping and transport. At one time the fairy-tale fortune of a shipmate who had married a shipowner's daughter had turned his thoughts that way. But not for long. Mr. Spokesly had a feeling that to marry into a job had its drawbacks. He felt "there was a string to it." And come what might, in his own hazy, amorphous fashion he desired to be captain of his soul. Had he the power at that moment of calling up Destiny, he would have made quite modest demands of her. Of course, a command, a fine large modern steamer, twin-screw, trading for choice in the Pacific, where as he knew very well a commander had pickings that placed him in a few years beyond the reach of penury at any rate. … Ada could come out. She would do justice to such a position out East. And when the war was over they could come home and have a little place up the river at Bourne End … nothing very great, of course, but just right for Captain and Mrs. Spokesly. The dream was so very fair, so possible yet so utterly improbable, that his mouth drew down tremulously at the corners as he stared at the bulkhead. His eyes grew tired and smarted. Ah! Money! How often he had mouthed in jest that sorry proverb about the lack of money being the root of all evil! And how true it was, after all. Suddenly he stood up and became aware of someone in the alleyway outside his window. With a sense of relief, for his reflections had become almost inconveniently sombre and ingrowing, he saw it was someone he already knew in a friendly way, though he still addressed him as "Stooard."
There is much in a name, much more in a mode of address. When Archy Bates, the chief steward of the Tanganyika, turned round and hoisted himself so that he could look into Mr. Spokesly's port, their friendship was just at the point when the abrupt unveiling of some common aspiration would change "Stooard" into "Bates" or "Mister." For a steward on a ship is unplaced. The office is nothing, the personality everything. He may be the confidential agent of the commander or he may be the boon companion of the cook. To him most men are mere assimilative organisms, stomachs to be filled or doctored. Archy Bates was, like another Bates of greater renown, a naturalist. He studied the habits of the animals around him. He fed them or filled them with liquor, according to their desires, and watched the result. It might almost be said that he acted the part of Tempter to mankind, bribing them into friendship or possibly only a useful silence. It is a sad but solid fact that he nearly always succeeded.
But he liked Mr. Spokesly. One of the disconcerting things about the wicked is their extreme humanity. Archy Bates liked Mr. Spokesly's society. Without in the least understanding how or why, he enjoyed talking to him, appreciated his point of view, and would have been glad to repay confidence with confidence. He was always deferential to officers, never forgetting their potentialities as to future command. He respected their reserve until they knew him intimately. He was always willing to wait. His discretion was boundless. He knew his own value. Friends of his had no reason to regret it. That third engineer, a coarse fellow, one of the few irreconcilables, had called him a flunkey. Well, the third engineer paid dearly for that in trouble over petty details, soap, towels, and so forth. But with "gentlemen" Archy Bates felt himself breathing a larger air. You could do something with a gentleman. And Mr. Spokesly, in the chief steward's estimation, was just that kind of man. So, in the lull of activity before lunch, he came along to see if Mr. Spokesly felt like a little social diversion.
"Busy?" he enquired, thrusting his curiously ill-balanced features into the port and smiling. Mr. Bates's smile was unfortunate. Without being in any way insincere, it gave one the illusion that it was fitted on over his real face. A long, sharp nose projecting straight out from a receding brow nestled in a pomatumed and waxed moustache, and his eyes, of an opaque hazel, became the glinting centres of scores of tiny radiating lines. His chin, blue with shaving, and his gray hair carefully parted in the middle, made up a physiognomy that might have belonged either to a bartender or a ward politician. And there was a good deal of both in Archy Bates.
To the enquiry Mr. Spokesly shook his head. The steward gave a sharp look each way, and then made a complicated gesture that was a silent and discreet invitation.
"Oh, well." Mr. Spokesly shrugged his shoulders and pulled down the corners of his mouth. The face at the window tittered so violently that the owner of it nearly lost his balance and put up a hand to support himself.
"Come on, old chap. I've got half an hour to spare."
"Oh, all right, Bates. Sha'n't be a minute."
The face, like a satiric mask, suddenly vanished.
Mr. Spokesly put on his socks and slippers and, lighting a cigarette, prepared to go along. He liked the steward, and he felt lonely. It so happened that, quite apart from his intrinsic greatness, Mr. Spokesly was very much alone on the Tanganyika. Mr. Chippenham was too young; the chief officer, a gnarled round-shouldered ancient, was too old; the commander too distant. There remained only the chief engineer, a robust gentleman who conversed hospitably on all subjects in a loud voice but invited no confidences. And it was confidences Mr. Spokesly really wanted to give. He wanted to impress his ideals and superior views of life upon a sympathetic and receptive mind. Most men are unconscious artists. Only instead of working in stone or brass or pigment, instead of composing symphonies or poems, they hold forth to their kindred spirits and paint, in what crude words they can find, the god-like beings they conceive themselves to be. Indeed, when we call a man a "hot-air merchant"; when we say "he does not hate himself," what is it save a grudging tribute to his excessive artistry? He is striving to evolve in your skeptical mind an image which can appear only by the light of your intelligent faith and liberal sympathy. He claims of you only what all artists claim of the critic—understanding. He seeks to thrill you with pleasure at the noble spectacle of himself blocked out against a sombre background of imperfect humanity. But to get the very best out of him you must become one in soul with him, and do the same yourself.
CHAPTER II
"You will be pleased to hear, sweetheart, that I have already got promotion, I am now chief officer, next to the captain. I dare say, in a short time your only will be coming home to take a command. I am persevering with the Course you gave me, and I find it a great assistance. Of course I have a great deal more to do now, especially as the last man was scarcely up to his work. … While as for the captain, I may as well tell you … "
And so on. Mr. Spokesly wrote this letter from Alexandria, where the Tanganyika was discharging rails and machinery. He wrote it to Ada, who was staying with her family, including her married sister, in Cornwall, because of the air raids. She read it by the low roar of the autumnal seas round the Cornish coast and she was thrilled. Having written it, Mr. Spokesly dressed himself in discreet mufti and went ashore with his bosom friend, Archy Bates. His commander, walking to and fro on the bridge with his after-dinner cigar, saw them disappear between the tracks and the piles of freight. He frowned. He was no snob, but he had most explicit views about a ship's officer's relations with the rest of mankind. It was, in his opinion, infra dig to associate with a steward. He had mentioned it pointedly yet good-humouredly one day, and at his amazement Mr. Spokesly had replied that he would please himself in a private