"M;.i\ iv, Kjiy- 
LAND & WATER 
15 
A Voyage of Peace in War Time 
By Rachel Q. Henriques 
THEKJ'2 is a general idea in India that tlie safest 
way home is round the Cape. This may be because 
by the old-time route one does not get into the 
danger-zone proper until the end of very nearly 
two months' sea voyage. Danger two months ahead looms 
a good deal smaller than that which confronts the traveller 
only ten days after he leaves Bombay, when he takes the 
customary journey through the Suez Canal and across the 
Mediterranean. 
I came by the Japanese steamer San Mam. It is said 
that among the 7,000 Gerrrian prisoners the Japanese took 
at Kiau Chau, and whom they have threatened to shoot if 
their passenger-ships are sunk without ^\•arning, are certain 
notabilities dear t-o the German", authorities. They weie 
described to me as " some knuts " by a iellow passenger. 
Whether Germany would really have any consideration for 
the lives of those exiled sons, now prisoners of war, can only be 
conjecture, but it is quite certain that the Japane.se Would 
not hesitate to carry out their threat with calm deliberation 
if incensed by Hunnish " f rightfulness " at sea. 
Our purser bore out this idea when I asked him why we 
carried no guns. " It is our Government's policy," lie said. 
When I suggested there might be one on board hidden some- 
where disguised as a champagne bottle, but only waiting to be 
rigged uj) later on, he smiled his Japanese smile, "which 
means at once su little and so much, and offered me d cigarette. 
He was a man of over six feet, bigger than one ever expects 
a Japanese to be, and he had the most wonderful bow in the 
world, equally imposing whether he were in naval uniform, 
or with the kimono every officer Hies to the minute tjiat lie 
comes off duty. 
At all events, the San Mam. when we b(.>arded her at 
Colombo, was a much less flustered boat than the Britisli 
steamer which had brought us from Bombay to Ceylon. The 
latter had by no means got over the practical joke a British 
submarine had played on her in emerging almost alongside one 
line day somewhere in the Mediterranean. She was still 
shivering and chattering, so to speak. Her sides were 
festooned with coiled ropes and rope ladders, and big rafts 
much like floatable platforms with railings, hung ready to be 
dropped into the sea at a moment's notice. It seemed that 
on her outward voyage, at least during the first part of it, all 
passengers had been compelled to keep their lifebelts within 
grabbing distance day and night, and about e\ery other day 
they had been treated to a lecture upon what to do" in such arid 
such an emergency, and if the boat were struck in such and 
such a region. 
Life-Belt Drill 
They told us nothing on the San Mam. and made us do 
nothing beyond mustering, in life-belts at our allotted boats 
every Sunday morning after church-time. It was as if the 
graceful black and white steam palace had been wound up at 
Yokohama and bidden to stroll across the oceans of the world 
as an emblem of the modern skill and ancient daring of the 
East. As we ncared England she hoisted her flag, the rising 
sun of Japan, and thus i)roclaiming her name and race to all 
she strolled on, unarmed and unconcerned, never stopping, 
never hurrying, for her speed at no time exceeded 14 knots. 
She skirted the Bay of Biscay, crassed the English Channel 
by night, and landed her load of £1,000,000 worth of cargo 
and some 200 human souls, safe and sound in England only 
one day beyond her scheduled time. 
We were among the last batch of wcjinen allowed to travel 
Ironi India by sea, the new regulations limiting passengers 
being passed two days after (jur departure. Some of us came 
on board in ijerturbation, but as days lengthened to weeks, 
and even to months, pure air and limitless peace of water ami 
sky did their work L^iieasv nerves were soothed, \cxed 
(|uestioiis j)ushed aside, we almost forgot the war. It seemed 
as though this sea-life must last for ever. Nothing in exist- 
ence a])peared more important than our concert, and we 
stop]ied complaining of the heat to arrange sports, in which 
far the most popular "turn" was "bolster-bar" over the 
swimming bath, an excellent excuse for an extra dip 
beside the regulation morning and evening ones. A .sense 
of security, false though it may have been, conquered every 
other feeling. We sat on deck in one harbour and watched 
every other craft but our own being armed to run the gauntlet 
of the "last lap" with scarcely a qualm. Our Japanese 
goddess must surely bear a charmed life. And so with a 
confident spirit we dropperl yvv.-iv from our lust port of call one 
soft evening, and tlie l-rencli cruiser, wntching the mouth of 
the hiirbour. dipped her flii.q- i^i snlnt,. -,< \vi_- pa^^.'.l Oiv 
evening in the swimming-bath I felt suddenly an (;xhilarating 
nip in the hitherto tepicl lifeless w^ater. I jjulled myself up 
to look out across the waves we were rushing through. The 
sun had changed from fiery red to pale yellow, he was slipping 
down into the sea with a haze across his face. We had left 
the cruel sunsets of the south behind and were beginning to 
get the long twilights of the north. Our boat was now 
travelling through chilly seas ; the flying-fish and dolphins 
that had played ipund us had long since left us to our journey. 
All this came home to me suddenly with a thrill. Only 
another week and then — . But a week was too far to Ioo'k 
ahead : one lived from day to day these times. By the 
morrow the bath had been emptied and Norfolk jackets and 
sports coats appeared after 5 o'clock. The little Japanese 
sailors laughed about their work as much as ever, but they 
and the officers already wore navy serge. Our captain, whose 
face wind and sea had dyed their own colours so that nobody 
could have guessed his nationality from the tint of his skin, still 
had the eternal cigarette between his lips. He photographed 
our children sometimes as they played along the well-deck. 
He still joked with the passengers when he passed among 
them, but he no longer took part in deck quoits. A careful 
observer from the boat-deck could have seen him hour after 
hour, a squat figure against the spotless white railings of his 
bridge, his glasses glued to his eyes, looking out to sea. 
First Sign of Land 
There came a day when the few gulls which had seemed to 
follow us all the way, were joined by flocks of friends, and 
people said to each other ; " We can't be far otf land." But 
the tiny flag which marked our course had been taken off the 
big map, and none could tell with any certainty where wc 
were, though some of the men talked very wise about it. 
They felt rather anxious about us women, so they said, not a 
bit for themselves, of course. We watched the crew lowering 
the boats to promenade deck level, and lashing them in the 
most convenient positions for us to get into, and they stocked 
each with a cask of water and a barrel of biscuits as gaily as 
though preparing for a picnic. A bold lady passenger had 
the temerity to ask the captain where we were, as if it had 
been the most innocent question in the world. We quite 
expected him to call forth a typhoon or at least one of those 
fearsome dragons the Japanese paint on their fans and 
screens to swallow her up, but he only said : " Getting 
towards London," and ran up the steps to his bridge, puflftng 
away at his cigarette. 
That night the sea rose, and the next morning those of us 
who " did not like the motion," stopped in our comfortable 
state-rooms or took to long chairs again, covering ourselves 
now with thick rugs resurrected from trunks, and creased 
with long disuse. Chairs had all been turned about to face 
the sea, for an odd sensation seemed to prevail that if one 
stopped watching it even for a second " something might 
happen." Conversation was punctuated with the wistful 
sigh of " I wonder where we are now," and the inevitable 
reply, " I expect this is the Bay." Tempers grew shorter 
as the hours grew longer. People came to have a fixed look 
in their eyes. In some cliques the word " submarine " was 
barred altogether, others discussed the danger boldly and 
comforted themselves by saying that the German sea-murderers 
were powerless in any sort of rough weather. But I think 
we all realised that the weather was hardly bad enough to 
prevent them from operating, while the choi)piness of the sea 
would have made the lowering of the boats an extremely 
precarious undertaking. In any case, the life of a smail 
boat in such a sea could hardly have lasted as long as the 
increasing cold wouid have spared those of the men and 
women within her, to say nothing of the children ! Though 
we said nothing to one another, not a soul among us but 
wondered how it would be in a cockle-shell, with that de- 
vouring mass of gray water leajiing all around. And stilt 
our engines throbbed with a regular reassuring throb and still 
breakfast-time, lunch-time, tea-time, dinner-time came and 
went, and a greedy passenger raised a laugh by saying even 
if we were torpedoed to-day, she hoped it wouldn't be before 
luncheon. l*"or the food was excellent. 
The wind fell towards evening, and the next day dawned 
upon a calm sea, calm at least to a steady old rock like the 
San Maru, though possibly v<;ry different in its treatment of 
a smaller, lighter \'<ssel. .\s we came upon deck, the whisper 
went round, " We shall sight land to-day." Most of ns merely 
grunted, we hatl almost come to disbelieve in the existence 
of any more land. Xnd then one of the passengers, a transport 
, ;n.f;,;p ,v luw,. I,,. .1 1, ..I i>,.,.,, mined about three weeks before. 
