The Lighthearted Quest Read Online Free PDF Page A

You can’t leave cabins unlocked in port,” said Julia. “And then I want to telephone, as there’s this delay. Is the ship connected up by telephone?”
    â€œNo—not a liner, you know,” said the mate. “But you Could ring up from the agents’ office on the quay.”
    â€œWhere is that?”
    â€œI’ll show you,”—and the keys having been produced by the boy, he led her down the gang-ladder again and along the shed to a small door with a roughly-painted label outside which read “Forres Line. No Admittance”.
    â€œThanks,” said Julia briefly; the bearded man, still grinning slightly, raised his hand to his cap and walked off.
    The office was a grubby little hole in which a red-haired individual sat at a desk, telephoning; another, wearing a felt hat and a stained raincoat, stood by the window, which was smothered in cobwebs, holding up long yellowish sheets of paper to catch the last light of the winter’s afternoon, and occasionally calling out figures to the one at the telephone, who repeated them down it; a third was tinkering with a very small electric fire, on which he succeeded in balancing a kettle just as Julia walked in. They all looked up, and the man at the telephone, saying, “Hold on,” asked if she wanted anything?
    â€œTo telephone, when the line is free; to the head office,” Julia replied.
    The man with the kettle, who was very old, removed a pile of ledgers and a couple of beer-bottles from a chair, of which he dusted the seat with his sleeve before offering it to her; she sat down and waited. Presently the list came to an end, and the man at the desk asked her who she wanted at head office.
    â€œThe passenger manager.”
    The passenger manager was ‘not available’.
    â€œFind out when he will be, please, and tell him to ring back. Miss Probyn to speak to him.—Can I wait here?” she asked.
    â€œOh, surely. Have one of mine,” said the man at the window, as she pulled out her cigarette case. He looked at her subdued elegance curiously. “You’re not for the
Vidago?”
    â€œYes.”
    Julia enjoyed her wait in the Forres Line’s quayside office, in spite of her irritation over the delay in sailing. The old man brewed very strong tea on the electric fire, laid on its side, and they gave her a cup, thick with the glutinous over-sweetened condensed milk beloved of the merchant navy—she found time to wonder how the manufacturers contrived to introduce its peculiar and revolting flavour into this product, with which she was to become painfully familiar in the next few days. In spite of her toughness and temper Julia could be quite a good mixer when she chose, and it always interested her to know how operations were carried on in jobs and trades unfamiliar to her; she soon beguiled the three men in that grubby little room sufficiently to learn not only the reason for the
Vidago’s
delayed sailing, but a good deal about dockside labour as well.
    â€œThe rain, you see,” said the red-haired man at the desk. “It came on heavy about eleven, and you can’t load in rain.”
    â€œOh, why not?”
    â€œSoaks the holds; rots or rusts the cargo, and anyhow this docks’ shift’s short-handed today.”
    â€œOh, why is that?” asked Julia, sipping the old man’s brew, which reminded her of a mixture of senna and stewed prunes.
    â€œThe fight in Belfast,” said the man at the desk.
    â€œReally? How come?” enquired Julia.
    What she learned fascinated her. One of the dockers named Murphy had for brother a prize-fighter, who was appearing that night in a big fight in Belfast; so Murphy and his closest pals had chartered a private plane to fly to Northern Ireland to see the show, and large numbers of their comrades had gone off by special train to Liverpool, to cross by boat for the same purpose. This, more than the rain, had held