His colleagues sensed by the set of his features that he possessed only the moral strength to do his work, which confirmed him as a type with whom they could do no more than pass the time of the day. Nothing further in the way of friendship was possible. He was not at peace with himself, and was to be avoided. His silent and ungiving expression marked him as ‘one of the old sort’, and they left it at that. He knew what they thought, because the dumb insolence of his own miseries at least had the advantage of making him sensitive to the assumptions of other people concerning himself.
To take up some pastime as a guard against his isolation would be dangerous, for if he later tired of whatever hobby his temperament suggested, the peril of a greater emptiness than had assailed him before would be such that he might find himself beyond all reason for continuing his life. So he became known as the sort of person about whom it was said that his hobby was his work, and work his hobby.
The intensity of the struggle had varied over the years, but it was always present, till he saw that by being a firm part of his existence, such a fight might have saved the only quality his spirit possessed. Safety came to depend on the fight. The effort of contesting his despair pulled him through innumerable voyages. In the valley of the shadow he stayed sane. He remained part of life, fixed into himself, and committed to a battle which became responsible for his survival.
His spirit had chosen the way, because though the price was devastation, there was a reward of a sort, for beyond the turmoil, which there was no evading, was a love of and an enjoyment of life, of belonging to the land and sunsets, and certainly to those storms which, on a smallish ship, and for days at a time, often threatened to make the next minute his last. He was able to observe such manifestations coolly, and do his work, sometimes going from the bridge to the wireless cabin to hear the singing of the morse, and see a weather message written down telling of the storm’s increasing force.
The wireless operator on one ship was Paul Smith, a tall and youthful Ulsterman of forty, with long jaw, short sandy hair, and grey eyes that needled rather than looked. Deck officers rarely mixed with the Sparks on a ship, but Tom, friendly towards few, was undiscriminating when he chose to speak.
Paul tapped at the morse key, and shifted around in his armchair as if afflicted with some incurable disease of the posterior nerves, but which was only a habit of certain wireless officers who took pride in the speed and rhythm of their sending. Tom’s message from the captain was destined for the owners regarding cargo handling at the next port.
Like all wireless operators, Paul knew how to make himself comfortable. There was a cat asleep on the receiver, a large well-fed unfriendly ginger beast. A tea-making machine lay within arm’s radius, and two pots of flowers by the porthole, as well as framed photographs of Paul’s family, and scenic views of Ulster set in Union Jack frames and pinned by the transmitter.
‘It’s where I’m going when my time’s up,’ he called out. ‘There’s a message coming, so wait for it, if you like.’
‘I will.’ He looked along a shelf of books when Paul, with earphones clamped, began to write; glanced through a thin volume whose theme was that the British people were one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. He had never heard of such a notion, though Paul had, because the pages were scratched with annotations. The argument was, Tom gathered, that the British were Sons (and presumably Daughters) of Abraham, who would one day resume their rightful place in Palestine – the book having been printed before the modern Israel was formed. An army of British-Israelite regiments would conquer the country from the Heathen (Gentile) Turk and run the country as part of the Empire before handing it over to the Jews as the heritage which had been promised by God to Abraham and his progeny for ever. The Jews of the earth would return, it being assumed that they would all wish to, under the protection of the British Government, and eventually the Kingdom of God would come about on earth because the Jews would finally become Christians.
Tom thought that the Jews might have a thing or two to say about this last point, but he read a few more pages to discover that the British, being Israelites (tell that to my Aunt Clara, he thought), would keep the world policed from the strategical centre of Palestine under a friendly government of Christian Israelites. For the British were the same people as the Hebrews, while other nations were referred to as ‘Gentiles’. The author quoted from the Holy Scriptures, and Tom thought his prophecies remarkable considering the present reality of Israel. He slid the book back on the shelf, and sat down.
Paul had got rid of the wireless message. ‘Convinced?’
‘I’m not much of a Bible scholar.’
He shook his head. ‘But he’s got something?’
It cost nothing to agree. ‘I suppose he has.’
Electrical chatter squeaked in through the atmospherics, and Paul gave the key a few punches as if to keep them quiet. ‘He knew that politics and religion have always been bound together, and always will be. The West is cartwheeling towards destruction because it has ceased to believe it. The Russians know it, and their communism is going full blast to convert the world. The first thing the Russians want are the Holy Places of Jerusalem so that they can control the world. It’s been their aim for centuries, and they’ll never let go. They want to wipe out our religion, but can’t because the other tribes of Israel are already back there to guard Jerusalem. Our great British-Israelite statesman David Balfour made arrangements for this in 1917. He knew that Western civilization and our Israelite religion depended on the existence of Israel, and God was in his right mind when the Promised Land was again made available to His scattered people – to whom you and I belong, by the way. The Jews in Israel have not yet taken to accepting the divinity of Jesus, but no scheme is perfect, and there is still time.’
Anything was possible, Tom thought, from the mouths of babes and radio operators. For ten more minutes Paul proved that at least he was good at scripture, and Tom wondered whether in idle moments he didn’t set his transmitter on to an empty wavelength and bash out exhortations in the hope of stunning some lonely radio man into instant conversion.
‘You’re not listening,’ Paul rapped out.
He was, and said so.
Paul’s fingertips keyed an outlandish rhythm into the transmitter. ‘What were my last words?’
To think and hear at the same time was no feat for a deck officer. ‘You said, “For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest.”’
When Paul leaned, Tom drew both hands back in case he tried to grasp them. ‘We British belong to the same Hebrew race by birthright, and you also are one of the annointed of the Lord!’ He flipped a switch, which caused water in the kettle to heat. ‘Israel is our ally against the Gentiles and Heathens of the world because we too have lived by the Book and worshipped the One Faceless God Who Shall Be Nameless. We have our own nation back again, with eternal Jerusalem as the capital city. He brought us to the dust, but has lifted us to our appointed places!’
Tom was as diffident with his questions as he would want a person to be who thought to ask something of him. A man’s views were bound up with his complete mental nuts and bolts, and you had to be careful. ‘Have you always known this?’
Without leaving his chair Paul drew milk and cream-biscuits from a small refrigerator by the side of the goniometer.
‘Sugar?’
Tom nodded, and passed tea cups from a row of plastic hooks.
‘My parents believed, may they rest in peace, that the British were a Lost Tribe with all the characteristics of the Wandering Jews. I might not have talked to you if God hadn’t led you to the one book which dealt with this universal question. When I glanced at your face I knew you were one of us.’