The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, Arthur Conan Doyle [best short novels of all time .TXT] 📗

As we approached Aden, we met the China on her way out. Her misadventure some years ago at the Island of Perim, has become one of the legends of the sea. In those days, the discipline aboard P. & O. ships was less firm than at present, and on the occasion of the birthday of one of the leading passengers, the officers of the ship had been invited to the festivity. The result was that, in the middle of dinner, the ship crashed, no great distance from the lighthouse, and, it is said, though this is probably an exaggeration, that the revellers were able to get ashore over the bows without wetting their dress shoes. No harm was done, save that one unlucky rock projected, like a huge spike, through the ship's bottom, and it cost the company a good half-million before they were able to get her afloat and in service once more. However, there she was, doing her fifteen knots, and looking so saucy and new that no one would credit such an unsavoury incident in her past.

Early in February I gave a lantern lecture upon psychic phenomena to passengers of both classes. The Red Sea has become quite a favourite stamping ground of mine, but it was much more tolerable now than on that terrible night in August when I discharged arguments and perspiration to a sweltering audience. On this occasion it was a wonderful gathering, a microcosm of the world, with an English peer, an Indian Maharajah, many native gentlemen, whites of every type from four great countries, and a fringe of stewards, stewardesses, and nondescripts of all sorts, including the ship's barber, who is one of the most active men on the ship in an intellectual sense. All went well, and if they were not convinced they were deeply interested, which is the first stage. Somewhere there are great forces which are going to carry on this work, and I never address an audience without the feeling that among them there may be some latent Paul or Luther whom my words may call into activity.

I heard an anecdote yesterday which is worth recording. We have a boatswain who is a fine, burly specimen of a British seaman. In one of his short holidays while in mufti, in Norfolk, he had an argument with a Norfolk farmer, a stranger to him, who wound up the discussion by saying: "My lad, what you need is a little travel to broaden your mind."

The boatswain does his 70,000 miles a year. It reminded me of the doctor who advised his patient to take a brisk walk every morning before breakfast, and then found out that he was talking to the village postman.

A gentleman connected with the cinema trade told me a curious story within his own experience. Last year a psychic cinema story was shown in Australia, and to advertise it a man was hired who would consent to be chained to a tombstone all night. This was done in Melbourne and Sydney without the person concerned suffering in any way. It was very different in Launceston. The man was found to be nearly mad from terror in the morning, though he was a stout fellow of the dock labourer type. His story was that in the middle of the night he had heard to his horror the sound of dripping water approaching him. On looking up he saw an evil-looking shape with water streaming from him, who stood before him and abused him a long time, frightening him almost to death. The man was so shaken that the cinema company had to send him for a voyage. Of course, it was an unfair test for any one's nerves, and imagination may have played its part, but it is noticeable that a neighbouring grave contained a man who had been drowned in the Esk many years before. In any case, it makes a true and interesting story, whatever the explanation.

I have said that there was an English peer on board. This was Lord Chetwynd, a man who did much towards winning the war. Now that the storm is over the public knows nothing, and apparently cares little, about the men who brought the ship of State through in safety. Some day we shall get a more exact sense of proportion, but it is all out of focus at present. Lord Chetwynd, in the year 1915, discovered by his own personal experiments how to make an explosive far more effective than the one we were using, which was very unreliable. This he effected by a particular combination and treatment of T.N.T. and ammonia nitrate. Having convinced the authorities by actual demonstration, he was given a free hand, which he used to such effect that within a year he was furnishing the main shell supply of the army. His own installation was at Chilwell, near Nottingham, and it turned out 19,000,000 shells, while six other establishments were erected elsewhere on the same system. Within his own works Lord Chetwynd was so complete an autocrat that it was generally believed that he shot three spies with his own hand. Thinking the rumour a useful one, he encouraged it by creating three dummy graves, which may, perhaps, be visited to this day by pious pro-Germans. It should be added that Lord Chetwynd's explosive was not only stronger, but cheaper, than that in previous use, so that his labours saved the country some millions of pounds.

It was at Chilwell that the huge bombs were filled which were destined for Berlin. There were 100 of them to be carried in twenty-five Handley Page machines. Each bomb was capable of excavating 350 tons at the spot where it fell, and in a trial trip one which was dropped in the central courtyard of a large square building left not a stone standing around it. Berlin was saved by a miracle, which she hardly deserved after the irresponsible glee with which she had hailed the devilish work of her own Zeppelins. The original hundred bombs sent to be charged had the tails removed before being sent, and when they were returned it was found to be such a job finding the right tail for the right bomb, the permutations being endless, that it was quicker and easier to charge another hundred bombs with tails attached. This and other fortuitous matters consumed several weeks. Finally, the bombs were ready and were actually on the machines in England, whence the start was to be made, when the Armistice was declared. Possibly a knowledge of this increased the extreme haste of the German delegates. Personally, I am glad it was so, for we have enough cause for hatred in the world without adding the death of 10,000 German civilians. There is some weight, however, in the contention of those who complain that Germans have devastated Belgium and France, but have never been allowed to experience in their own persons what the horrors of war really are. Still, if Christianity and religion are to be more than mere words, we must be content that Berlin was not laid in ruins at a time when the issue of the war was already decided.

Here we are at Suez once again. It would take Loti or Robert Hichens to describe the wonderful shades peculiar to the outskirts of Egypt. Deep blue sea turns to dark green, which in turn becomes the very purest, clearest emerald as it shallows into a snow-white frill of foam. Thence extends the golden desert with deep honey-coloured shadows, stretching away until it slopes upwards into melon-tinted hills, dry and bare and wrinkled. At one point a few white dwellings with a group of acacias mark the spot which they call Moses Well. They say that a Jew can pick up a living in any country, but when one surveys these terrible wastes one can only imagine that the climate has greatly changed since a whole nomad people were able to cross them.

In the Mediterranean we had a snap of real cold which laid many of us out, myself included. I recall the Lancastrian who complained that he had swallowed a dog fight. The level of our lives had been disturbed for an instant by a feud between the children and one of the passengers who had, probably quite justly, given one of them a box on the ear. In return, they had fixed an abusive document in his cabin which they had ended by the words, "With our warmest despisings," all signing their names to it. The passenger was sportsman enough to show this document around, or we should not have known of its existence. Strange little souls with their vivid hopes and fears, a parody of our own. I gave baby a daily task and had ordered her to do a map of Australia. I found her weeping in the evening. "I did the map," she cried, between her sobs, "but they all said it was a pig!" She was shaken to the soul at the slight upon her handiwork.

It was indeed wonderful to find ourselves at Marseilles once more, and, after the usual unpleasant douane formalities, which are greatly ameliorated in France as compared to our own free trade country, to be at temporary rest at the Hôtel du Louvre.

A great funeral, that of Frederic Chevillon and his brother, was occupying the attention of the town. Both were public officials and both were killed in the war, their bodies being now exhumed for local honour. A great crowd filed past with many banners, due decorum being observed save that some of the mourners were smoking cigarettes, which "was not handsome," as Mr. Pepys would observe. There was no sign of any religious symbol anywhere. It was a Sunday and yet the people in the procession seemed very badly dressed and generally down-at-heel and slovenly. I think we should have done the thing better in England. The simplicity of the flag-wrapped coffins was however dignified and pleasing. The inscriptions, too, were full of simple patriotism.

I never take a stroll through a French town without appreciating the gulf which lies between us and them. They have the old Roman civilisation, with its ripe mellow traits, which have never touched the Anglo-Saxon, who, on the other hand, has his raw Northern virtues which make life angular but effective. I watched a scene to-day inconceivable under our rule. Four very smart officers, captains or majors, were seated outside a café. The place was crowded, but there was room for four more at this table on the sidewalk, so presently that number of negro privates came along and occupied the vacant seats. The officers smiled most good humouredly, and remarks were exchanged between the two parties, which ended in the high falsetto laugh of a negro. These black troops seemed perfectly self-respecting, and I never saw a drunken man, soldier or civilian, during two days.

I have received English letters which announce that I am to repeat my Australian lectures at the Queen's Hall, from April 11th onwards. I seem to be returning with shotted guns and going straight into action. They say that the most dangerous course is to switch suddenly off when you have been working hard. I am little likely to suffer from that.