The heat grew sickly sometimes at night, and the cabins were black with flies and mosquitoes alike. To sleep there was to be slowly suffocated, let alone the folly of sleeping among man-eaters. An outdoor faith was forced upon me, and yet the deck was no real enclosure from the enemy: the faith would end at four or so in the morning, a time of day to which I was becoming as accustomed as of old, and when the riverside gave off a smell which I remembered noticing in the trench regions east of Béthune. Then, still hopeful, I would face my cabin and soon after swathing myself in the brief sheets of the bunk would be asleep. That interim unrecognized, here I was awake again in a world where chisels chip paint and steam-driven machines tip tons of coal. The great buckets were now being strung over to railway vans, which were shunted duly by a small engine. Winches clattered and wrenched, the clanking engine bustled almost ludicrously up and down the wharf, and all seemed in a great hurry, but the hurry was only on the surface. The yellow river, the coal-dust, the glaring sun, the dockside streets and warehouses and of course the eternal mosquito began to play upon me. My body was in pain from the innumerable bites and want of rest, and generally I was in as low spirits as I could be.
The ship was daily haunted by newsboys, fruit-sellers, and others. The news was difficult to discover from the queer columns of short cabled messages, and yet we never sent the newsboy away unless, perhaps, our only means was in English coppers. Sixpences he (not unwisely) was willing to take. The fruit-sellers gave better value for sixpence, even though their open panniers seemed always liable to the predatory paws of the water police. The shoemaker with his motor tyre put pieces of it upon my shoes, grunting out a satisfaction with the job which I hardly shared. A thin gentleman with furs, puzzle boxes, and other cheap-jack gear was not much called upon though called at.
Two Englishmen came also, sellers of furs; one, of my own Division in France. They were very warm in their praise of Buenos Aires, and besides bringing good furs with them they brought good spirits.
Football flourished. In red-hot sunlight, we met the team of another ship. Grim determination was in the game and its afterthoughts; and by a happy accident my foot scored the first goal of our victory. It was counted unto me for righteousness. The form of address "Passenger" acquired a respectful significance. There was immediately arranged a return match. But