War wears a double face. One face is a mask which has been thrust upon it, and this face is all laughter; the other is the natural face of war, and it is all tears. The two are not seen as alternatives, but always side by side. At Waterloo Station, there it was - the eternal double face of war. Next a bawling, singing, hatless, perspiring, triumphant face, a face straining, clinched, stricken, speechless ╤ a face of unfathomed woe. As the train moved out of the station the long frieze of faces was drawn past one╒s carriage, the higher faces crushed into the architrave formed by the top of one╒s carriage window. The first few faces were distinct╤sad and glad; but the platform was incredible long, the train quickened, we said good-bye to a composite picture. At Southampton again the double face of war. It filled the wharves as, the oldest captain said, they had never been filled before, and, surging, craned itself up to the vessel╒s decks; and the face in the one character urged us on, in the other it beckoned us back.
At last we were off, and then a cry of farewell crackled below the ship and spread; along the lines it went╤such a shout as the oldest captain had never heard at Southampton before. And then we on the Dunottar Castle glided away till the screen of faces was watered down into the vague solidity of the quay walls.
On the monotony ╤ or what we choose to think the monotony of a modern voyage it were useless to dwell. Really a sea voyage is almost the only means left by which we may easily and suddenly escape from end-of-the-century life; it is a time to be prized and cherished and used in a new and wholly peculiar way; it is a secret door for our convenience and our profit. Yet most of us inexcusably neglect to appreciate it; our intolerance of the days spent at sea becomes continually greater as science makes a modern voyage continually shorter. We reckon time by our meals╤it is so longer after breakfast or before dinner╤and the daily miracles of the changing latitudes are performed in vain.
On Monday, October 23, we overtook the Aberdeen White Star vessel, the Nineveh, south of the Equator.
On Sunday, October 29, the Australasian, again of the Aberdeen White Star Line, came in sight. It is strange how different associations breed different practices. Men and women who would not stop in Regent Street if a hansom fell in pieces before them will spend hours watching a speck on the horizon when they are in mid-ocean; will stream up from the saloons and the cabins to see a poor mean little brig shuffling and drifting through the doldrums. But the meeting with the Australasian was more important than that; it was the most dramatic encounter at sea that any of us could call to mind, or is likely to experience again. When we sighted her she quickly came near to us. She was coming from the Cape, not going to it, and since she was coming from the Cape, why she must have news ╤ news only three days old. Think of the days we had fed only on speculation; think what it is to be without news of the war for two weeks; remember that we had the brains of the army on board, and then realise the curious mixture of voracity, impatience, excitement and emotion with which we altered our course to come quite near the approaching vessel, burst out our signals from the mast, tumbled down the companions to our cabins for glasses and cameras, returned and╤waited. I, for one, will always believe that the Australasian slackened almost to dead slow as she approached us; but there is the captain╒s evidence to the contrary, that she never altered her speed. At all events we came side to side with her at last, and then some one discovered that she had a long black board hung on her ratlines, and on the board there was╤was it?╤ yes, not a doubt of it ╤ writing. Would the letters never stop flickering in the end of one╒s glasses? The ship would be by in a moment, and why on earth hadn╒t she come nearer? But at last the words drew out and separated themselves from the continuous line of chalk. We read. ╥Truce.╙ Yes, ╥Truce╙; what, already! No╤ ╥Three╙; that was it ╤ ╥Three.╙ ╥Three battles,╙ so we read, catching the last words as the Australasian slipped past us ╤ ╥Three battles; the Boers defeated; Symons killed.╙ In a few minutes the Australasian was hull down in the distance, but her quick transit had made an incredible difference to us; we looked on the sea with enlightened eyes.
