Seeing the Boat Off

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 21, 16 April 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

Seeing the Boat Off

We went to see the boat off this week. Of course, it's silly to call a ship a boat, but we do. And its silly to call a steamer a ship, but we do, likewise.

Well, the boat, or ship, or steamer, was the Niagara, and we knew a lucky fellow who was off to Vancouver. So we went to see her off, and him off on her.

Hundreds of Other people were there, too, to wave off friends who were going off. The people who were on the ship that was going off threw paper ribbons to the people who were on the wharf to see them off. The wharf was a mass of colour. The idea is that when a ribbon breaks between the people who are off in the ship and the people who are merely on on the wharf, a heart-string goes snap. You couldn’t push your way through the crowd without treading on numerous feet. The language of some of the owners was enough to qualify them for a fireman’s job, and enable them to go, passage free, with their frlends. Everybody was “goodbyeing” each other, and telling each other to look after themselves, and be sure to wear flannel next the skin in the cold weather. Several people were crying, but as a common tramp cargo vessel was unloading onions just astern of the lady liner, that was not to be wondered at. Our friend wasn’t crying. He had been wished “Good luck!” at so many tearooms that afternoon that he was full of good spirits. He was standing at the rail, holding seven streamers and three balloons. Three balloons, mind you! We wondered whether he was going to open a pawnshop for poker players on the trip over. We tried to ask him, but there were so many other people yelling at once that he couldn’t hear. You couldn’t converse, anyway, because religious statics were cutting in all the time, and even the lusty-voiced sallormen on the Niasr: to signal with their arms when they wanted to ask each other “How’s she headin’ ” “Ain’t that one in the pink hat a peach?’/ or “Get that silk stockin’ alonger the skipper?” The sending-out station of the religious statics was bunched in about twenty valves just back of the main gangway, abeam of the hurricane deck companionwavs, for’ard of the stern and abaft the binnacle. The receiving station was a two-valve affair,

standing amidships above the what you-may-call-’ems by the starboard bulwarks, and consisted of a missionary, and his wife, off to the c- mibal islands, to save the heathen in the darkness, or be eaten in the daylight. Every known hymn, and several unknown, were sent over. The missionary receiver was palpably pleased, and as soon as there was a lull f- the storm he transformed himself into a transmitter to let the other passengers know what they had among them, and turned on a loud speaker prayersermon that lasted for 15 minutes, and made all the sinners on the wharf feel that they were so—and worse. Then he finished with a “Hallelujah!” and the twenty-valve set started off again, but was jammed by We and Us sending a full-throated chorus of “He’s a ■ Jolly Good Fellow” to our friend —who nearly fell overboard, balloons and all, with emotion. All of a sudden the whole wharf was moving, with all the see-offers on it. No—it was the boat —the ship—the steamer. She was moving! She was off! The streamers and heart-strings were all breaking. Tears fell in showers. “God Be With You Till We Meet Again,” “Auld Lang Syne,” and "Will Ye No Come Back Again?” blended in delicious dis-harmony. The Niagara gave three loud blasts with her siren. Three people fell down with the shock. All the others rushed to the end of the wharf to take front-rank in the wavers-off—and some of them nearly fell into the water, or were nearly pushed in. The ship sails away—(she doesn’t really: she steams away)—and the faces on her deck grow dim. Handkerchiefs are waved until they are too wet to wave any more, and merely droop. Then the senders-off melt off the wharf, and the wharf-cleaners start swearing at them (under their breaths) fpr having made such a mess of the decking with their streamers, their tears, and their fruit skins. It’s great seeing the boat off!