tales of barges and
coasters; but the inspired talent of Mr. Jacobs for poking endless fun
at poor, innocent sailors in a prose which, however extravagant in its
felicitous invention, is always artistically adjusted to observed truth,
was not yet. Perhaps Mr. Jacobs himself was not yet. I fancy that, at
most, if he had made his nurse laugh it was about all he had achieved at
that early date.

Therefore, I repeat, other disabilities apart, I could not have been
prepared for the sight of that husky old porpoise. The object of
his concise address was to call my attention to a rope which he
incontinently flung down for me to catch. I caught it, though it was
not really necessary, the ship having no way on her by that time. Then
everything went on very swiftly. The dinghy came with a slight bump
against the steamer's side, the pilot, grabbing the rope ladder, had
scrambled halfway up before I knew that our task of boarding was done;
the harsh, muffled clanging of the engine-room telegraph struck my ear
through the iron plate; my companion in the dinghy was urging me to
"shove off--push hard"; and when I bore against the smooth flank of
the first English ship I ever touched in my life, I felt it already
throbbing under my open palm.

Her head swung a little to the west, pointing towards the miniature
lighthouse of the Jolliette breakwater, far away there, hardly
distinguishable against the land. The dinghy danced a squashy, splashy
jig in the wash of the wake and turning in my seat I followed the "James
Westoll" with my eyes. Before she had gone in a quarter of a mile she
hoisted her flag as the harbour regulations prescribe for arriving
and departing ships. I saw it suddenly flicker and stream out on the
flagstaff. The Red Ensign! In the pellucid, colourless atmosphere
bathing the drab and grey masses of that southern land, the livid
islets, the sea of pale glassy blue under the pale glassy sky of that
cold sunrise, it was as far as the eye could reach the only spot of
ardent colour--flame-like, intense, and presently as minute as the tiny
red spark the concentrated reflection of a great fire kindles in
the clear heart of a globe of crystal. The Red Ensign--the symbolic,
protecting warm bit of bunting flung wide upon the seas, and destined
for so many years to be the only roof over my head.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Some Reminiscences, by Joseph Conrad

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