FullReads

Then I saw in the papers that the Alvina had been halted in the Narrows by a United States destroyer, the Government having suspected that her errand was not wholly neutral. Rumour had it that she was on her way to the Azores, there to take on armament for the house of Romanoff. She was halted at the Quarantine Station at Staten Island, pending an investigation.

Then enters the elbow of coincidence. Looking over some books in the very same bookshop where Tommy had bought his friend’s novel, I overheard another member of the Alvina’s crew asking about “Casuals of the Sea.” His chum Tommy had told him about his adventure, and he, too, was there to buy one. (Not every day does one meet one’s friends walking in a 500-page novel!) By the never-to-be-sufficiently-admired hand of chance I was standing at Joe Hogan’s very elbow when he began explaining to the book clerk that he was a friend of the Dutch sailor who had been there a few days before.

So a few days later, behold me on the Staten Island ferry, on my way to see Tommy and the Alvina.

I’m afraid I would always desert the office if there’s a plausible excuse to bum about the waterfront. Is there any passion in the breast of mankind more absorbing than the love of ships? A tall Cunarder putting out to sea gives me a keener thrill than anything the Polo Grounds or the Metropolitan Opera can show. Of what avail a meeting of the Authors’ League when one can know the sights, sounds, and smells of West or South Street? I used to lug volumes of Joseph Conrad down to the West-Street piers to give them to captains and first mates of liners, and get them to talk about the ways of the sea. That was how I met Captain Claret of the Minnehaha, that prince of seamen; and Mr. Pape of the Orduna, Mr. Jones of the Lusitania and many another. They knew all about Conrad, too. There were five volumes of Conrad in the officers’ cabins on the Lusitania when she went down, God rest her. I know, because I put them there.

* * * * *

And the Staten Island ferry is a voyage on the Seven Seas for the landlubber, After months of office work, how one’s heart leaps to greet our old mother the sea! How drab, flat, and humdrum seem the ways of earth in comparison to the hardy and austere life of ships! There on every hand go the gallant shapes of vessels–the James L. Morgan, dour little tug, shoving two barges; Themistocles, at anchor, with the blue and white Greek colours painted on her rusty flank; the Comanche outward bound for Galveston (I think); the Ascalon, full-rigged ship, with blue-jerseyed sailormen out on her bowsprit snugging the canvas. And who is so true a lover of the sea as one who can suffer the ultimate indignities–and love her still! I am queasy as soon as I sight Sandy Hook….

At the quarantine station I had a surprise. The Alvina was not there. One old roustabout told me he thought she had gone to sea. I was duly taken aback. Had I made the two-hour trip for nothing? Then another came to my aid. “There she is, up in the bight,” he said. I followed his gesture, and saw her–a long, slim white hull, a cream-coloured funnel with a graceful rake; the Stars and Stripes fresh painted in two places on her shining side. I hailed a motor boat to take me out. The boatman wanted three dollars, and I offered one. He protested that the yacht was interned and he had no right to take visitors out anyway. He’d get into trouble with “39”–“39” being a United States destroyer lying in the Narrows a few hundred yards away. After some bickering we compromised on a dollar and a quarter.