STARTING FOR AUSTRALIA
By WARREN POSTBRIDGE
I HAVE never been to Australia, which no doubt is a misfortune both for Australia and for me. But I did go part of the way there last week—the first part ; from Tilbury to Southampton, to be precise. I went there in a brand-new ship. In one respect indeed I had the advantage of her. She had never been to Southampton before ; I had. On the other hand, I am bound to acknowledge That her arrival hi the port made more of a stir than mine ever did. Her flan* -was the Orcades,' and once more the benefits of a classical education are demonstrated. To the world she is the Orcades,' probably as a dissyllable, failing that rhyming with Hades. Those of us with a Classical Tripos (class immaterial) written into our past say Orcades as if we had lived there all our lives. Lived where, benighted scientists and mathematicians may ask. In the Orcades, of course, whose cathedral at KirkWall has just been celebrating its octoCentenary (see The Spectator of a fortnight ago) and whose pursuits and achievements—a plough, a cromlech, fishing-nets and a lot of other things—are-attractively depicted in a -striking wall-painting by John Hutton in the tourist class café on the Orcades ' herself. . . . , .
This, naturally, has set me thinking about continuing the voyage to Australia. The Orient Line very kindly conveyed me as _their guest this first bit of the way, but, owing no doubt to a Clerical oversight, they said nothing about carrying through. what they had so well begun. If they had, I should have coUCUrred. Qply one stipulation would be necessary— that they should bring me back again. Australia might stipulate that, too. With the full journey in mind I had to consider whether the ship would meet my needs. On the whole she would. Her tonnage is 23,000 odd (or so I under- stand ; I dislike taking facts on authority, but I have to in this case). That satisfies me. Some like them larger, but not all the ports on 'the route to Australia cater for such tastes, and it is desirable on the whole that the ship shall fit the port. And as I can cover a mile by walking round the promenade deck eight times before breakfast (it is much the same.after dinner, though it seems like two and a half then) I can take adequate exercise when I need it, or alternatively enhance the satisfactions of repose by watching other people taking it. Or I can swim. The swimming-pool, which is open to the heavens, has all the ordinary attractions, and one special. - Adjacent to it is a notice with the legend "It is dangerous to dive." I should like to see that notice universal, regardless of veracity. So far as I am concerned it is always veracious ; it is dangerous to dive. But -England expects every man to do what other people are doing ; hence half our troubles. And hence not mine alone, where diving is con- cerned. Mine, indeed, I can bury in my breast, even though I cannot obliterate the betraying scarlet, but people drying on the side are quite unnecessarily bitter as they call for fresh towels. On the Orcades' you can immerse yourself in divers manners but not in divers' manner% .
Now this has to be considered abotit a voyage to Australia. (But let me finish about exercise; I shall ration myself by days ; Monday, shuffle-board; Tuesday, the rowing- machine ; Wednesday,. driving and putting ; Thursday, deck-tennis ; Friday, quoits ; Saturday (to end the week with a real burst) ping-pang; Sunday, Divine Service;- think , about tomorrow's shuffle-board.) To resume, a -voyage to Australia starts in summer and ends in winter or vice versa. So the Orient Line- has to make all arrangements to keep you warm when the world is cold and cold when the world is warrn,• and very laudably and methodically it has set to work. In your state-room, for example, you find suggestively an electric radiator, in addition to the ship's ordinary heating apparatus, and a thermos jug for iced water. And if anyone will teach you how, and you have the knack of learning, yOu can fiddle about most astonishingly with air. You turn this and twist that and get it hot or cold just like water, and just as much or as little of it as you want. There are inside cabins with no port-holes kept quite ideal with con- ditioned air (humidity is regulated as well as temperature) and one or two with artificial daylight that must be pro- raounced if anything an improvement on the original. At any rate one practical visitor suggested in all earnestness, if a little critically, that there ought to be some curtains to temper the sunshine.
I should be quite content, if the directors really left me to pay my own bill, to go to Australia tourist. The tourist-. class seems to provide everything an unexacting mortal could require—thoUgh it is pleasant to be exacting on occasion and savour the luxuries of the first-class decks and lounges. The tourist menus I have not sampled, but being rather of the man-needs-but-little-here-below-nor-keeps-that-little- long type when on ship-board that is not an aspect of the voyage to which I attach supreme importance. Indeed since everyone eats a great deal too much on board ship (and most people everywhere else) the less that is offered them the better ; but every shipping line I have known deliber- ately encourages excess. If I am not to go tourist I shall establish myself in one of the air-conditioned flats on D deck, with its double bedroom, entrance-hall, living room, bath- room, box-room and pantry. It will cost someone ,C530 to send me there with spouse or other companion (masculine) that way, but only £470 to get me back. Transport, like other commodities, comes cheapet in bulk.
There is one other point about this ship. She is an admirable vessel to get wrecked from. The procedure for- that is a little novel. In my experience you usually start to get saved by going to the boat-deck. On the 'Orcades' you start by not going there. When the ship hits an iceberg, or something from an anonymous submarine hits the ship, passengers assemble on B deck with life-belts round their necks like ruffs and the captain talks to them from the bridge through a row of loud-speakers running the whole way fore and aft. It means a rather forced intimacy with the captain, but he is a nice captain, and the effect is soothing, which is generally held to be an advantage during shipwreck. Then a line of boats comes dropping down from the deck ' above, like Paul in the basket, and you step into them— that is, into one of them—get dropped a little lower to ' sea-level and do cross-words till the S.O.S.'s which the wireless man has been sending out as the water creeps up him bear fruit.
Starting for Australia gives one a lot to think of. As I explained, I did not go all the way. The rest of the way would take about six weeks, and six weeks is a good while to be shut up with your fellow-passengers. The designer of the'Orcades,'- with a sound judgement of human nature, evidently realised that you might sometimes want to get away from them (or, conceivably, vice versa). So he con- centrated on nooks and crannies. Quite apart from the chance of isolation in corners of the cafe or Ibrners of the library, or corners of the lounge, or corners of the tavern (though I have doubts about the availability of isolation there), there are seductive little writing-desks fitted in, not in pairs but all solitary, wherever four feet of space along a wall is doing nothing. If you want to write a novel like Conrad's you just sit down at one of them and write it.. The Orcades ' is making her first voyage to Australia without me, which will rob her arrival at Sydney of some éclat. But the ship will have done a good job by the time she gets there. She will have shown to a full complement of passengers, and to several thousand sightseers at her ports of call, what British shipbuilders can turn out when they try. Any yard in any country can safely be chal- lenged to improve on her within the limits of her size and tonnage. When purchasing a liner, in your own interest buy British.
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