The Shadow Line | Page 7

view of such services. Besides, he was always ready to
relieve any man who wished to take a spell ashore for a time. No owner
was ever known to object to an arrangement of that sort. For it seemed
to be the established opinion at the port that Captain Giles was as good
as the best, if not a little better. But in Hamilton's view he was an
"outsider." I believe that for Hamilton the generalisation "outsider"
covered the whole lot of us; though I suppose that he made some dis-
tinctions in his mind.
I didn't try to make conversation with Captain Giles, whom I had not
seen more than twice in my life. But, of course, he knew who I was.
After a while, inclining his big shiny head my way, he addressed me
first in his friendly fashion. He presumed from seeing me there, he said,
that I had come ashore for a couple of days' leave.
He was a low-voiced man. I spoke a little louder, saying that: No--I had
left the ship for good.
"A free man for a bit," was his comment.
"I suppose I may call myself that--since eleven o'clock," I said.
Hamilton had stopped eating at the sound of our voices. He laid down
his knife and fork gently, got up, and muttering something about "this
infernal heat cutting one's appetite," went out of the room. Almost
immediately we heard him leave the house down the verandah steps.
On this Captain Giles remarked easily that the fellow had no doubt
gone off to look after my old job. The Chief Steward, who had been
leaning against the wall, brought his face of an unhappy goat nearer to
the table and addressed us dole- fully. His object was to unburden
himself of his eternal grievance against Hamilton. The man kept him in
hot water with the Harbour Office as to the state of his accounts. He

wished to good- ness he would get my job, though in truth what would
it be? Temporary relief at best.
I said: "You needn't worry. He won't get my job. My successor is on
board already."
He was surprised, and I believe his face fell a little at the news. Captain
Giles gave a soft laugh. We got up and went out on the verandah,
leaving the supine stranger to be dealt with by the Chinamen. The last
thing I saw they had put a plate with a slice of pine-apple on it before
him and stood back to watch what would happen. But the experiment
seemed a failure. He sat in- sensible.
It was imparted to me in a low voice by Captain Giles that this was an
officer of some Rajah's yacht which had come into our port to be
dry-docked. Must have been "seeing life" last night, he added,
wrinkling his nose in an intimate, confidential way which pleased me
vastly. For Captain Giles had prestige. He was credited with wonderful
ad- ventures and with some mysterious tragedy in his life. And no man
had a word to say against him. He continued:
"I remember him first coming ashore here some years ago. Seems only
the other day. He was a nice boy. Oh! these nice boys!"
I could not help laughing aloud. He looked startled, then joined in the
laugh. "No! No! I didn't mean that," he cried. "What I meant is that
some of them do go soft mighty quick out here."
Jocularly I suggested the beastly heat as the first cause. But Captain
Giles disclosed himself possessed of a deeper philosophy. Things out
East were made easy for white men. That was all right. The difficulty
was to go on keeping white, and some of these nice boys did not know
how. He gave me a searching look, and in a benevolent, heavy-uncle
manner asked point blank:
"Why did you throw up your berth?"
I became angry all of a sudden; for you can understand how

exasperating such a question was to a man who didn't know. I said to
myself that I ought to shut up that moralist; and to him aloud I said
with challenging politeness:
"Why . . . ? Do you disapprove?"
He was too disconcerted to do more than mutter confusedly: "I! . . . In a
general way. . . ." and then gave me up. But he retired in good order,
under the cover of a heavily humorous remark that he, too, was getting
soft, and that this was his time for taking his little siesta--when he was
on shore. "Very bad habit. Very bad habit."
There was a simplicity in the man which would have disarmed a
touchiness even more youthful than mine. So when next day at tiffin he
bent his head toward me