ONE GLASS DULY

Evening Star, Issue 22619, 10 April 1937, Page 2

ONE GLASS DULY

[Written by Loii.na Rowland, for the ‘ Evening Star.’]

The last of the Arab peddlers re.uetantly folded up his gaudy silks and gave the order to his boy to paddle Dome. Whistles blew, bells rang, and slowly, very slowly, t.s.s. Koala, “ one class only,” and Australia-bound, nosed out of Port Said into the Suez Canal. Her passengers, the majority of whom had embarked at Southampton nine clays previously, were by now more or ;ess seaworthy, and thus capable of attending to those little social problems and precedents which had been allowed to slip a little while people like the bishop, the general’s daughter, the penurious but much-travelled Honourable Miss Grouse, and the man with the “ Old School Tie,” had been busy paying tribute to the deep. Now, having recovered and given one another the “ once over,” the company had split up into little groups. There was the card playing group which made a bridge club of the lounge and let the world flow by. There was the athletic group, which hurled lumps of wood and coils of rope about on the boat deck with abaiidon, much to the annoyance of the serious group, who, apparently permanently attached to canvas chairs on the deck below, read themselves into a state of coma, from which they automatically emerged at meal times. There was the Hebraic group, comprised of “ purged ” German Jews, who went about armed with German dictionaries, and there was a pathetic group composed of swarthy Maltese on their way to work in the gold mines and sugar plantations, who squatted about disconsolately on the hatches, ignored by all. Last, but by no means least, was that exclusive little band mad© up of those who had had speech with the captain. They formed a sort of “ upper ten,” queened by the Honourable Miss Grouse. Laden with miscellaneous purchases, one and all crowded to the ship’s rails for a last glimpse of that strange, colourful, and rather smelly Eastern port, of which many travellers bring away but two intelligible memories—the Eastern Exchange Hotel and the luxurious store of Mr Simon Artz.

“ Wonderful, isn’t it? ” The sparse little grey-haired man who had purchased a fez almost as soon as he had stepped off the pontoon and now wore it coouettishly cocked over one eye, leaned over the side, and gazed down into the gassy water solemnly. " You look ridiculous in that thing.” His elephantine wife pushed in between him and the bishop, gave the retreating statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps a cursory glance, announced somewhat unnecessarily that she was melting, squeezed her way out again, and went in search ot tea. _ “Eighty-eight miles of this, continued the hefezzed one chattily. “ I have done this trip five times,” the Honourable Miss Grouse announced in a voice that sounded as though it had come out of a tunnel. “It has, oeased to interest me, and I can’t find my stewardess anywhere. I have simply rung and rung, and nothing happens. The service on this boat is absolutely appalling.” “ Rottenest old tub I’ve ever been in.” supplemented “ Old School Tie.” “ Now, on the Pink Funnel Line ” he drifted away in the wake of the general’s daughter, who, despite the fact that she ought not to have worn trousers, was not bad looking.

The ship glided sedately on past the bleak, sandy banks which somehow contrived to look ghostly even in the blistering sunlight. Now and then a lonely exile waved a hand from one of the trim signal stations that appeared at regular intervals, or an Arab fisherman stopped his labours and gaye them a stare. The Honourable Miss Grouse arranged herself in chair No. 14 and began her customary recital of woes to a newly-discovered listener. It was just too bad, really, but when she had finally ventured forth from her cabin to feed with the rest of the human herd it was to find that the chief steward had allotted her a seat at a table at which also fed a couple of acrobats, a lady with a roving eye, and an Australian who was having trouble with his first false teeth. However, despite much haranguing of a polite but case-hardened purser, it was impossible to do anything about it until some passengers disembarked at Colombo.

Suddenly it was sunset. Water and sky seemed merged into one —a huge palette streaked with a hundred tones of blue, gold, red, and_ opalescent green. Fading as swiftly as it had blossomed, it was succeeded' by an eerie moonlight which sent long shadows fleeting across the bleached desert and shivers down the onlookers’ spines.

Two more days and they were in the Red Sea. Everyone was listless and inclined to be snappy. “ Old School Tie ” remarked ‘brightly that it was “ time somebody died,” and as though in answer to his prayer the electric fans whirred slowly to a halt and stayed that way for eight hours. The bishop mopped his brow • and went purple, the general’s daughter said it was “disgusting,” and the honourable made yet another of her futile pilgrimages to the purser’s office. Down in the engine room men stripped to the waist wrestled with a temperamental dynamo in almost overwhelming heat. Despite the printed warning about the danger of too much alcohol in the tropics, the consumption of gin slings rose steadily.

Just when the general atmosphere was getting somewhat taut a small hoy took it upon himself to fall down a gangway and break his leg. Utwittingly lie saved all sorts of situations. Everyone was full of sympathy for the poor mother, whom, incidentally, they’d never noticed before. The barber’s shop sold out of lollies and paper hats, with which all and sundry endeavoured to amuse the small sufferer, and by the time Colombo hove in sight everyone was in an amiable and forgiving mood.

Jimmie’s being absolutely spoilt,” wrote the fond parents home to England.

“ Good old ‘ One Class Only,’ ” said the little man in the fez.