Hangcha Forklift PDF Manual 2023

Collection
To download the complete and correct content, please visit:

https://manualpost.com/download/hangcha-forklift-pdf-manual-2023-collection

DescriptionHangcha Forklift Part Manual Update 2023Size: 793 MBFormat:

PDFLanguage: English, ChineseManufacturer: HangchaType of Machine:
Hangcha ForkliftType of Manual: Part ManualUpdated 2023 Models
List:Guangdong Intelligent Battery Charger SLC 48200 User ManualHangcha
Electric Pallet Truck A Series Parts Catalog 11.2019 EN ZHHangcha Electric
Stacker A Series Parts Catalog 07.2019 EN ZHHangcha Electric Stacker A Series
Parts Catalog 08.2019 EN ZHHangcha Forklift A series 4.0t X5t Parts Catalog EN
ZHHangcha Forklift A Series Parts Catalog 11.2021 EN ZHHangcha Forklift A2
Series 4t 5.0t Parts Catalog 04.2023 EN ZHHangcha Forklift X Series 1.0 1.8t
Parts Catalog 08.2020 EN ZHHangcha Forklift X Series 2.0 2.5t Parts Catalog
11.2020 EN ZHHangcha Forklift X Series 3 3.8t Parts Catalog 05.2021 EN
ZHHangcha Forklift X Series Operation and Maintenance Manual
07.2023Hangcha Forklift XC Series Operation and Maintenance Manual
12.2022Hangcha Forklift XC Series Parts Catalog 02.2023 EN ZHHangcha Forklift
XC Series Parts Catalog 04.2023 EN ZHHangcha Forklift XC Series Service
Manual 05.2022Hangcha Mini Electric Stacker A Series Parts Catalog 08.2020 EN
ZHHangcha Order Picker Truck A series Parts Catalog 02.2023 EN ZHHangcha
Order Picker Truck CJD25 AC1 L Operation and Maintenance Manual
03.2016Hangcha Work Platform XEN Series Operation Manual 05.2023Hangcha
Work Platform XEN Series Parts Catalog 08.2022Detail Contents:Guangdong
Intelligent Battery Charger SLC 48200 User ManualHangcha Electric Pallet Truck
A Series Parts Catalog 11.2019 EN ZHHangcha Electric Stacker A Series Parts
Catalog 07.2019 EN ZHHangcha Electric Stacker A Series Parts Catalog 08.2019
EN ZHHangcha Forklift A series 4.0t X5t Parts Catalog EN ZHHangcha Forklift A
Series Parts Catalog 11.2021 EN ZHHangcha Forklift A2 Series 4t 5.0t Parts
Catalog 04.2023 EN ZHHangcha Forklift X Series 1.0 1.8t Parts Catalog 08.2020
EN ZHHangcha Forklift X Series 2.0 2.5t Parts Catalog 11.2020 EN ZHHangcha
Forklift X Series 3 3.8t Parts Catalog 05.2021 EN ZHHangcha Forklift X Series
Operation and Maintenance Manual 07.2023Hangcha Forklift XC Series Operation
and Maintenance Manual 12.2022Hangcha Forklift XC Series Parts Catalog
02.2023 EN ZHHangcha Forklift XC Series Parts Catalog 04.2023 EN ZHHangcha
Forklift XC Series Service Manual 05.2022Hangcha Mini Electric Stacker A Series
Parts Catalog 08.2020 EN ZHHangcha Order Picker Truck A series Parts Catalog
02.2023 EN ZHHangcha Order Picker Truck CJD25 AC1 L Operation and
Maintenance Manual 03.2016Hangcha Work Platform XEN Series Operation
Manual 05.2023Hangcha Work Platform XEN Series Parts Catalog
08.2022Hangcha J Series 3 Wheel Electric Forklift Parts ListHangcha J Series 4
Wheel Electric (1 3.5T) Forklift Parts ListHangcha J Series 4 Wheel Electric (4 5T)
Forklift Parts ListHangcha R Series Diesel (1 1.8T) Forklift Parts ListHangcha R
Series Diesel (16T) Forklift Parts ListHangcha R Series Diesel (2 2.5T) Forklift
Parts ListHangcha R Series Diesel (3 3.5T) Forklift Parts ListHangcha R Series
Diesel (4 X5T) Forklift Parts ListHangcha R Series Diesel (5 10T) Forklift Parts
ListHangcha 1 5T A Series mini range II pallet truck parts manual 2018 6Hangcha
4 X5T YQX YQXD Shaoxing hydraulic transmission 2012 10 25Hangcha A series
1 3 5T 4 wheel electric forklift parts manualHangcha J series 1 5 2 0T electric
reach truck stand on parts manualHangcha J series CPDS 13 20T parts
listHangcha new X series 1 0 1 8T parts catalog 2019 8Hangcha new X series 1 5
3 5T LPG parts catalog 2018 2 5Hangcha new X series 14 18T parts catalog 2019
04Hangcha new X series 2 0 2 5T parts catalog 2019 08Hangcha new X series 3 0
3 8T parts catalog 2019 08Hangcha new X series 4 0 X5T parts catalog 2019
8Hangcha new X series 5 0 10 0T parts catalog 2019 08Hangcha R(NC) series 1 0
1 8T R mast parts manual 2013 03 28Hangcha R(NC) series 2 0 3 5T R mast parts
manual 2013 03 28Hangcha R 160T Parts listHangcha R 20 25T Parts listHangcha
R 30 35T Parts listHangcha R 40 50T Parts listHangcha R 50 100T Parts
listHangcha R L series 4 5T mast 2012 03 20Hangcha R series 10 18T Parts
listHangcha R series 10 35T LPG Parts listHangcha R series 16T parts
manualHangcha RC series2.0 3.2T mast parts manual 2013 03 28Hangcha XF(MI)
1 0 1 8T mast parts manual 2013 03 28Hangcha XF(MI) 2 0 3 5T mast parts
manaul 2013 03 28Hangcha XF series 1 0 3 5T LPG parts catalog 2015 11
25Hangcha XF series 2 0 2 5T parts catalog 2017 03Hangcha XF series 2 0 2 5tT
parts catalog 2016 05Hangcha XF series 3 0 3 5T parts catalog 2017 03Hangcha
XF series 3 0 3 5T parts catalog OPS 2016 05Hangcha XF series 4 0 X5 5T parts
catalog 2016 11Manual CPD
Download all on: manualpost.com.
 [Unrelated content]
Another random document on
Internet:
 "Mo-na, Mona, my own love!
Art—thou not mine
Through the long years to—be-e-e!"

The sound of that small and strangely clear voice, after the odorous
gibbering speech, almost appalled Mr. Dainopoulos. He spoke rapidly
to the driver, instructing him to wait and he would be paid in due
time, and started off into the darkness.
Mr. Bates finished his song to his own satisfaction and having smiled
into the darkness for a while, began to wonder where he was.
"'Strornery thing, but he was almost shertain ol' fren' of his had been
there. Mush 'ave been a mishtake." He got out so suddenly the
driver was scared. Mr. Bates took a bill out of his pocket, held it up
uncertainly for a moment, and when the driver had clutched it,
marched in an intricate manner into the gardens. His smile became
more cat-like than ever as the sound of syncopated music reached
his ear and he passed a woman strolling under the trees. He
hummed his song again. The evening, for him, was only just
beginning.
Mr. Dainopoulos hurried forward and soon left the region of hard arc-
lights behind. His house was not far from here. He wished to get
home. He regretted sometimes that his business took him so much
away from the house, for he retained sufficient simplicity to imagine
that the laws of nature do not apply to love, that you can increase
the volume without diminishing the intensity. But he consoled
himself with the thought that in a few years he would be able to
devote himself entirely to his wife. His dream was not very clear in
its outlines as yet, because the war now raging was far-reaching in
its effects. It would be unwise to make plans which the political
changes might render impossible of accomplishment. For the present
he was satisfied to place his reserves at a safe distance in diversified
but thoroughly sound securities, so that unless the civilized world
turned completely upside down and all men repudiated their
obligations, he would be able to control his resources. There was not
much doubt about that in his mind. He knew that business would go
on, was going on, even while men moved in massed millions to
destroy each other. While the line swayed and crumpled and broke,
or surged forward under the incredibly sustained roar of ten
thousand cannon, English and French and German business men
were perfecting their plans for doing business with each other as
soon as it was over. The ethical side of the question scarcely arose in
his mind, since he had grown accustomed to wars and the money to
be made out of them. To him the struggle in France and on the
Slavic frontier was far off and shadowy, as was the grim game at
sea. He was not to be blamed for measuring events by the scale in
use by those of his race; and if there was somewhat more ferocity
and sustained butchery in this war than in others, it was only
another significant symptom of Anglo-Saxon temperament, because
business, he knew quite well, was going on.
He knocked at the door in the wall which had so impressed Mr.
Spokesly earlier in the evening, and was admitted after a parley by a
middle-aged servant-woman.
"Madama gone to bed?" he asked, picking up a large cat that was
rubbing herself against his leg, and putting her out into the garden.
"No, she's not gone to bed. She said she would wait for you to come
home."
"All right. You can go to bed then," he retorted.
The woman shot the bolts and picked up the cheap pink glass lamp
without answering. Mr. Dainopoulos made his way upstairs. There
was no light in the room looking out over the sea. In their chamber
beyond, a night-light, very small and rose-coloured, was burning on
a small table below a picture of the Virgin, as though it were a
shrine. It took the place of one, for his wife made the most of his
rather dilapidated devoutness, and often left a candle burning there.
There was an ulterior motive in her action which she had never
formulated exactly even to herself. This was the appeal which a
strange and sensuous religion made to her romantic instinct. She
would always be Church of England herself; but the impression
made by candles and an ikon upon her girl-friends in Haverstock Hill
in North London was always before her. She could hear them
breathe the word "ikon," and then draw in their breath in an ecstasy
of awe. And the thought of it gave her pleasure.
But she was not in the chamber and he returned to the other room
in search of her.
She was lying as before, her eyes closed and her hands clasped
lightly over the tartan rug. A screen had been opened and stationed
between her and the window. This was the hour to which his
thoughts went forward occasionally during the day of chaffering on
the front, or in his blue-distempered office with its shabby chestnut
fittings in the Cité Saul. To the western cynic there was a rich
humour in the sheer fortuitousness of their meeting in the midst of a
drowning multitude. To him it was not humorous at all. To him it was
significant of a profound fatality. To him it confirmed his inherited
faith in omens and the finger of God. She was a common enough
type of woman in most things, yet she embodied for him a singular
ideal of human achievement. He knew of nothing in the world
comparable with her, and the knowledge that she was his was at
times almost unbelievable. Whether she loved him was a question he
never faced. He believed it, and doubted, and believed again. He
knew by instinct that it was not a matter of importance as was the
fact of possession. He extracted a rare and subtle pleasure from the
fragrant ambiguity of her smile. After all, though it may be doubted
if he had ever entertained the thought, he was fortunate in his
circumstances. He had no need to be jealous or watchful. She lay
there quietly, thinking of course of him, while he was on his affairs in
the port.
He paused now and saw that she was asleep, and he set the little
night-light on the table and sat down near her, watching her with an
expression of grave enthusiasm on his damaged features. He was
not familiar with the stock witticisms concerning the hollowness of
marriage and the inevitable disgust which follows possession.
Indeed, for all his rascality and guile in business he was a rather
unsophisticated fellow. He possessed that infinite patience which is
sometimes more effective in retaining love than even courage or
folly. Another factor in his favour was his lack of facility for
friendship. This worked both ways, for friendship is the secret
antagonist of both business and love. He sat there, shading his eyes
with his curved palm, watching his wife, thinking of past, present,
and future in that confused and gentle abstraction which we call
happiness, when she suddenly opened her eyes and looked at him
for one brief instant with a blank and vacant gaze. Then she smiled
and he bent over her.
"Back, Boris?" she murmured chidingly.
"My business, darling. I had to see a man."
"Always business. I thought you'd never come."
"First I had to take that gentleman to the French Pier, for a boat.
And then I went to the Olympos Hotel. I think very good business."
"Don't talk about business now."
"But, my sweetheart, it is all for you. By-and-by you will see."
"See what, silly?" she asked, rumpling his hair.
"See what? You ask a funny question. I cannot tell you, not yet. But
in my mind, I see it."
And he did, too. He saw, in his mind, a superb and curving shore of
yellow sand encircling a sea of flawless azure. He saw a long line of
white villas, white with biscuit-coloured balconies and green
jalousies, rising amid gardens of laurel and palm; he saw white
yachts rocking at anchor, and illuminated houseboats in the shadow
of a great breakwater. He saw the spangled lights of a fairy city, a
city filled with fabrics and jewels which he would buy for her. He saw
all this, and in his mind the world had fought itself to a standstill and
the cautious investor had come into his own. He saw the war-weary
battalions returning to their toil, slaving to pay off the cost of their
adventure. This was the way of the world as he knew it. It was no
use blaming him: he merely took advantage of human need and
folly, as we all do. He had been through wars before and knew the
inevitable reactions, and the almost incredible cheapness of money
that followed. He was by instinct one of those who, like camp-
followers on a grand scale, prosper amid the animosities of simpler
folk; persons who found fortunes upon great wars, as did the Jews
in London after 1815 and the bourgeois bankers of Paris after the
Revolution. And it surprised him how little his wife knew, how little
she questioned the world in which she lived. Of course it was
charming, and he was fascinated just because she had that amazing
racial blindness to facts and lived in a fanciful world of her own. The
English were all like that, it seemed to him.
He put his arms about her.
"In my mind I see it. You wait. Everything you can think of, all very
fine."
"Here in Saloniki?"
"No!"
"In England?"
Mr. Dainopoulos laughed a little and shook his head. He was quite
sure England wouldn't be any place for him after this war. In his own
private opinion, there wouldn't be any England within ten years from
now, which shows how logical and wide-awake Latins can make
errors of judgment. In any case, there were too many Jews there.
"Because I don't want to go to America," she remarked, still
rumpling his hair.
"America! What makes you think of America? You must be losing
your mind, Alice." He almost shivered. He was just as well able to
make money in America as anywhere else, but what use would it be
to him in such a place? It is extremely difficult for the Anglo-Saxon
to realize it, but men like Mr. Dainopoulos find occidental institutions
a spiritual desolation. He recalled the time when he boarded in
Newark, New Jersey, and worked in a felt-hat factory. The house
was of wood without even a floor of stone, and he could not sleep
because of the vermin. And the food! He experienced afresh the
nausea of those meals among the roomers, the bulging haunches of
the negroid waitress colliding with his shoulders as she worked
round and served the rows and rows of oval dishes dripping with
soggy, impossible provender. And the roomers: English, German, and
American, with their horrible whiskey and their ever-lasting gibberish
of "wop" and "dago," their hints and blustering invitations to join
mysterious fraternities which no one seemed to understand or
explain. Mr. Dainopoulos must not be censured for withdrawing from
all this. He made no claims upon western civilization, and its lack of
logic and continuity led him to prefer something less virtuous,
perhaps, but also less of a strain upon normal human nature.
"You say you don't want to go to America. And I'll say it, too. I've
been there, and that was enough for me. I should die there, with
the food they give you. It's a fine country, with fine trees in the
streets," he added, thinking of an imperial horse-chestnut tree which
had thrust a branch bearing pale candles of bloom against his
window out there, "and the big men are good men to do business.
But not for me. Dirty wood houses and soot coming down all the
time on the bed. Like ashes from the engines."
"Like London," said Alice, smiling.
But Mr. Dainopoulos had been living on a somewhat higher scale in
London and he had not noticed the dirt so much. Moreover, he could
always get the food he wanted in London.
"Well, where?" insisted Alice, humouring him.
"There's plenty places," he said soberly, rather faint as he compared
their present surroundings with that dream-villa by the blue sea.
"Too soon yet to be sure we get there. I got a lot of business to
finish up first. And we're all right here for a while. You're not
lonesome, darling?"
"Oh, no! You saw Evanthia here to-night?"
"Yes, I saw her, but she didn't tell me anything."
"He's gone away, with the consuls."
Mr. Dainopoulos gave a low whistle.
"I never thought about that. What'll she do now? That's bad for her,
though."
"She wants to follow him but I don't think she can. I believe she
heard he'll go to Constantinople. She said she'd do anything to get
there."
"Well, if she wants to go to Constantinople, she might be able to,"
he said, pondering. "I heard to-day a ship might be going down to
the Islands. There's always a chance. I'll see. But if she's got any
sense she'll go back to her mother. That feller Lietherthal is good
company but he'll go back to Munich by-and-by."
"She doesn't love him, I am almost sure."
"Evanthia, she don't love anybody except herself. I told you that."
"She loves me," said Alice.
"Well, p'raps she does, but you know what I mean."
"That gentleman this evening, Mr. Spokesly, he was interested in
her."
"He's got a young lady in London," said Mr. Dainopoulos.
"Has he?" she murmured absently. "Do you think he'll come to-
morrow night?"
"Yes, I think so. I bet you're goin' to have Evanthia in, too."
"Well, perhaps he'll fall in love with her," she whispered delightedly.
"What, and him with a young lady in London!"
"I don't think he's very fond of his young lady in London."
"Well, how do you know that? Women...."
"Never mind. It's easy to tell if a man is in love," she answered,
watching him. He held her tightly for a moment.
"Not so easy to tell about a woman," he said into her hair. "Is it, my
little wife, my little wife?"
"Why, don't you know yet?" she bantered, giving him that secret,
fragrant, ambiguous smile.
"My little wife!" he repeated in a tense whisper. And as he said it, he
felt in his heart he would never know.
 CHAPTER VII
It was evening and the Tanganyika, a tall unwieldy bulk, for she had
only a few hundred tons in her, lay at anchor waiting for her
commander, who was ashore getting the ship's papers. She was
about to sail for Alexandria, carrying back, through an area infested
with enemy submersibles, some of the cargo already discharged and
reloaded in the southern port. This apparently roundabout method
of achieving results had in it neither malice nor inefficiency. Those
who have had anything to do with military matters will understand
the state of affairs, and the seemingly insane evolutions of units
proceeding blindly upon orders from omnipotent commanders. The
latter had ever before them the shifting conditions of a dozen
theatres of war, and to them it was nothing that a crate of spark-
plugs, for example, sorely needed in Persia, should be carried to and
fro over the waters of the Ægean, or that locomotives captured from
an Austrian transport and suitable for the Macedonian railroads
should be rusting in the open air in Egypt. These men, scoured clean
and pink as though with sand and boiling water every morning, in
their shining harness and great gold-peaked hats, moved swiftly in
high-powered motor cars from one consultation to another, the rows
of medal ribbons glowing on their breasts like iridescent plumage.
They lived in a world apart. For them it was inevitable that a whole
fleet of ships should be no more than a microscopic point in some
great curve named Supply. Behind them was a formidable element
called Politics, a power which appeared to them to come out of
Bedlam and which would suddenly change its course and make the
labour of months of no avail. Their eyes were steadily fixed upon
certain military dispositions, and they sent forth, from their lofty
stations, standing orders which enclosed each subordinate
commander in an isolated compartment, beyond which he could not
possibly wander, but within which he could exercise a practically
god-like power. This system, admirable because it relieved each
executive from any concern with the final upshot of the struggle,
ultimately reached the Tanganyika. Her captain, receiving his
instructions from the Naval Transport office, found himself in sole
charge of life and property upon her, while for subsequent sailing
orders he was referred to the commanding officer of a sloop now
moving slowly towards the boom. Captain Meredith in no wise
objected to this. What struck him with ironical emphasis was the
ineffectiveness of military traditions when applied to a ship with a
civilian crew. He might issue orders, but who was to foreshadow the
effect on the minds of the Orientals who steered and stoked and
oiled below? What might he expect in a sudden disaster from those
yellow enigmas padding to and fro or sitting on their hams drinking
rice-water and staring at the shores of Macedonia with unfathomable
eyes? He had been asked if in his opinion the crew were loyal, and
he had wondered how any one could find that out. Loyalty, when
you came to place it under analysis, presented a somewhat baffling
problem. It was like trying to find out whether men were religious.
The assumption, of course, was that all men had in them, deep
down, something of ultimate probity. But of what use was that in
such a sudden emergency as confronted one at sea these days?
Captain Meredith refrained from dwelling too long upon probabilities
as he returned to the Tanganyika. He hoped he would get through
all right again. He had heard hints of a cargo for Basra, in the
Persian Gulf; and until they could get him a white crowd he would
rather not take any more risks in the Ægean. The longer the war
went on the less important seemed abstractions like loyalty or
patriotism, and the more shiningly important the need for
unimaginative and quick-witted efficiency. There lay the trouble. The
naval or military commander had behind him the prestige and power
of service discipline and he was supported in his ruthless judgments
by the rank and file. The naval officer spoke his orders in a quiet,
refined voice, and massive muscular bluejackets, drilled for years,
sprang smartly to carry them out. Here, Captain Meredith reflected,
it was not quite like that. Seamen in merchant ships were largely
individualists. Had they, for example, been forced by law to go to
sea immediately after being sunk, they would almost inevitably have
rebelled and sulked ashore. Being free agents, they were filled with
fury, and mobbed shipowners to send them out again. This was the
good side. The bad side was the difficulty in getting them to obey
orders. Moreover, as was made plain during his recent interview with
the officers in the Transport Department, his own class, the
commanders, had something to learn about doing as they were bid.
They had shown him a Weekly Order, just in from Malta,
demonstrating the urgent necessity of all captains carrying out their
instructions. The huge Afganistan, triple screws and with four
thousand souls on board, had been sunk and many lost, while her
escort was awaiting her two hundred miles to the south. It was
pointed out to Captain Meredith that the Afganistan was lost simply
because her commander had disobeyed explicit orders given at Port
Said. Well! It was not pleasant, but had to be borne. This was, he
supposed, being faithful unto death. He climbed on board, waved
good-bye to the lieutenant in the launch, and ordered the anchor up.
Mr. Spokesly was waiting at the gangway for that very purpose and
went forward at once. Captain Meredith, on reaching his room, rang
the bell. The second steward appeared at the door, a long lubberly
lout with yellow hair plastered athwart a dolichocephalous cranium
and afflicted with extraordinarily unlovely features.
"Where is the chief steward?" the captain demanded.
"In 'is room, sir. I was to sye, sir, as 'e ain't feelin' very well this
afternoon, sir, if you'll excuse 'im."
"Drunk, I suppose," said the commander quietly.
"Ow, it's not for me to sye, sir," the creature whinnied, moving
enormous feet encased in service shoes pilfered from cargo. "Was it
tea you was wantin', sir?"
"Bring it," said Captain Meredith, regarding him with extreme
disfavour, and the man disappeared.
Not much chance there, thought the captain, as he noted the
awkward knuckly hands, with nails bitten to the quick, which
arranged the tray before him and made a number of the
indescribable motions peculiar to stewards. Hands! How marvellously
they indicated character! He was reminded afresh of his own
brother-in-law, a surgeon, of whose death in action he had learned
during the week. Wonderful hands he had had, long with broad
shallow points, indicative of a very fine skill with the knife. Now he
was dead; and this creature here would no doubt survive and
prosper when it was all over. The captain had been thinking a good
deal during the past few days. An old friend of his, a school-master
in happier times, had suddenly descended upon him, a bronzed
person in khaki with a major's crowns on his shoulder-straps. Had a
few days' leave from the Struma front. He was not elated at his rise
in rank, it transpired, for it had simply been a process of rapid
elimination. All the senior officers had been killed; and here he was,
an old gray badger of an elderly lieutenant promoted to major. There
was a lull on the Struma, he said, his tired, refined voice concealing
the irony. Very delightful to have a few days' peace on a ship with a
friend. Now he was back on the Struma; and perhaps next time
Captain Meredith got news there would be another gap in that little
staff. He stepped out on the bridge. The anchor was coming up.
Mr. Spokesly was thinking, too, in spite of the immediate distraction
of heaving-up. It had been a week of extraordinary experiences for
him. As he leaned over the rail and looked down into the waters of
the Gulf, and noted the immense jelly-fish, like fabled amethysts,
moving gently forward to the faint rhythmic pulsing of their delicate
fringes, he began to doubt afresh his identity with the rather banal
person who had left England a couple of short months before. He
found himself here now, outwardly the same, yet within there was a
readjustment of forces and values that at times almost scared him.
For he had reached a position from which it was impossible to gauge
the future. Nothing would ever be the same again. He was frankly
astonished at his own spiritual resources. He had not known that he
was capable of emotions so far removed from a smug commonplace.
Love, as he had conceived it, for example, had been an affair of
many oppressive restrictions, an affair of ultimate respectability and
middle-aged affection. Oh, dear, no! It appeared to be a different
thing entirely. He discovered that once one was thoroughly saturated
with it, one stepped out of all those ideas as out of a suit of worn
and uncomfortable clothing. Indeed, one had no need of ideas at all.
One proceeded through a series of transmigrations. One arrived at
conclusions by a species of intuition. Life ceased to be an irritating
infliction and became a grand panorama.
And yet in the present situation what did it all amount to? With its
well-known but inexplicable rapidity, rumour had already gone round
the ship hinting at a trip to the Persian Gulf. If that were so, Mr.
Spokesly, by all the laws of probability, would never be in Saloniki
again. Yet he was quite confident that he would be in Saloniki again.
He had no clear notion of what he proposed to do when he reached
Alexandria, but he was determined to manage it somehow. He had a
feeling that he was matched against fate and that he would win. He
did not yet comprehend the full significance of what he called fate.
He was unaware that it is just when the gods appear to be striving
against us that they need the most careful watching lest they lure us
to destroy ourselves. He was preoccupied with the immediate past;
which he did not suspect is the opiate the gods use when they are
preparing our destinies. And while he was sure enough in his private
mind that he would get back to Saloniki somehow, the slow
movement of the Tanganyika as she came up on her anchor gave
the episode an appearance of irrevocable completeness. He was
departing. Somewhere among those trees beyond the White Tower,
trees that shared with everything else in Saloniki an appearance of
shabby and meretricious glamour, like a tarnished and neglected
throne, was Evanthia Solaris. And the ship was moving. The anchor
was coming up and the ship was going slow ahead. Mr. Spokesly
looked down at the water that was gushing through the hawse-pipe
and washing away the caked mud from the links and shackles. As far
as he could see he was going back to Alexandria, back by devious
ways to London, and Evanthia Solaris, with her amber eyes, her
high-piled glossy black hair and swift, menacing movements, would
be no more than an alluring memory. And as the anchor appeared
and the windlass stopped heaving while the men hosed the mud
from the flukes, Mr. Spokesly began to realize, with his new-found
perception, that what he took to be confidence was only desire. He
was imagining himself back there in Saloniki; a man without ties or
obligations. He saw an imaginary Spokesly seizing Evanthia and
riding off into the night with her, riding into the interior, regardless of
French sentries with their stolid faces and extremely long bayonets.
As he recapitulated the actual conditions he saw he had only been
dreaming of going back there. He had drawn all the money he could
and he owed Archy Bates a ten-pound note. Stowed away under his
clothes in his cabin he had nearly an oke, which is about three
pounds, of a dark brown substance which Mr. Dainopoulos had
mentioned was worth eighty pounds in Egypt if it were adroitly
transferred to the gentleman who had expressed his willingness to
do business with the friends of Mr. Bates. Here lay the beginnings of
that desire, it seemed. That eighty pounds might put Mr. Spokesly in
a position to go where he liked. It might; but the chances were that
Mr. Spokesly would fail to get away from himself after all. It is not so
easy to be an outlaw as it appears, when one has been one of the
respectable middle classes for so long. The seaman is as carefully
indexed as a convict, and has very little more chance in ordinary
times of getting away. Mr. Spokesly knew that and had no such
notion in his head. What he did meditate was some indirect
retirement from the scene, when a pocketful of loose cash would
enable him to effect a desirable man[oe]uvre in a dignified manner,
and he would have no need to forfeit his own opinion of himself. The
temperament of the crook may sometimes be innate, but in most
cases it is the result of a long apprenticeship. Mr. Spokesly wanted
money, he wanted a command, he even wanted romance; but he did
not want to be wicked. He could no more get away from Haverstock
Hill, North West London, than could Mrs. Dainopoulos with all her
romantical equipment. Therein lay the essential difference between
himself and Mr. Dainopoulos, who also desired respectability, but
who had in reserve a native facility for swift and secret chicanery. Mr.
Dainopoulos slipped in and out of the law as easily as a lizard
through the slats of a railing. Mr. Spokesly could not do that, he
discovered to his own surprise and perhaps regret. Unknown to
himself, the austere integrity of distant ancestors and the hard
traditions of an ancient calling combined to limit his sphere of action.
The reason why many of us remain merely useful and poverty-
stricken nonentities is that we can serve no other purpose in the
world. We lack the flare for spectacular exploits; and even the war,
which was to cleanse and revitalize the world, has left us very much
as we were, the victims of integrity.
When he had seen the anchor made fast and the compressors
screwed tight, Mr. Spokesly went aft to get his tea. He was to go on
watch at eight. This was the Captain's idea, he reflected. They were
supposed to pick up a new third mate in Alexandria. In the
meanwhile the Captain was taking a watch. It was very
unsatisfactory, but what was one to do? The Old Man had been very
quiet about the shore-going in Saloniki. Hardly left the ship himself.
Had that friend of his, a major, living in the spare cabin. Whiskies
and sodas going upstairs too, the second steward had mentioned.
Too big to notice what his own officers were doing, no doubt. If he
knew what his chief officer was doing! By Jove! Mr. Spokesly was
suddenly inflated, as he sat eating his tea, with extraordinary pride.
He had recalled the moment when he had walked into the concert-
hall of the White Tower Gardens with Evanthia Solaris. The proudest
moment of his life. Every officer in the room had stared. Every
woman had glared at the slim svelte form with the white velvet
toque set off by a single spray of osprey. As well they might, since
they had never seen her before. They had seen the toque, however,
in Stein's Oriental Store, and had wondered who had bought it. And
as they had moved through the dense throng of little tables
surrounded by officers and cocottes, amid a clamour of glasses and
laughter and scraping chairs, with music on the distant stage, Mr.
Spokesly experienced a new pleasure. They sat down and ordered
beer. Upstairs a number of Russian officers, in their beautiful soft
green uniforms, were holding a girl over the edge of a box and
enjoying her screams. Someone threw a cream cake at the girl who
was singing on the stage and it burst on her bosom, and everyone
shrieked with laughter. The girl went into a paroxysm of rage and
snarled incomprehensibly at them before flinging out of sight, and
they all bawled with merriment. It was rich. Suddenly the Russian
officers pushed the girl over the edge of the box and she dangled by
her wrists. The audience howled as she kicked and screamed. The
uproar became intolerable. Officers of all nations rose to their feet
and bawled with excitement. One of them put a chair on a table and
reached up until he could remove the dangling girl's shoe. It was
filled with champagne and passed round. The girl was drawn up and
disappeared into the box. The manager appeared on the stage to
implore silence and order. Someone directed a soda-siphon at him
and he retired, drenched. Finally a large placard was displayed which
informed the audience that "À cause du tapage le spectacle est fini,"
and the curtain descended. They went out into the gardens,
Evanthia holding his arm and taking short prinking little steps. Why
had she wanted to go to such a place? He was obliged to admit she
hardly seemed aware of the existence of the people around her. She
sat there sipping her beer, smiling divinely when she caught his eye,
yet with an air of invincible abstraction, as though under some
enchantment. Mr. Spokesly was puzzled, as he would always be
puzzled about women. Even his robust estimate of his own
qualification as a male was not sufficient to explain the sudden
mysterious change in Evanthia Solaris. Was she afraid, she who gave
one the impression of being afraid of nothing? But Mr. Spokesly was
not qualified to comprehend a woman's moods. His destiny, his
function, precluded it. He never completely grasped the fact that
women, being realists, see love as it really is, and are shocked back
into a world of ideal emotions where they can experiment without
imperilling their sense of daintiness and vestal dedication to a god.
And Evanthia Solaris was experimenting now. Her liaison with the
gay and debonair creature who had journeyed out of Saloniki that
night with the departing consuls had been an inspiration to her to
speculate upon the ultimate possibilities of emotional development.
Just now she was quiet, as a spinning top is quiet, her thoughts, her
conjectures, merely revolving at high speed. With the quickness of
instinct she had admitted this friend of Mrs. Dainopoulos to a
charming and delicate comradeship committing her to nothing. That
he should love, of course, went without saying. She was debating,
however, and revolving in her shrewd and capable brain, how to use
him. And it gave her that air of diffident shyness blended with saucy
courage which made him feel, now he was soberly eating his tea on
board the Tanganyika, outward bound, that she was a sorceress who
had thrown an enchantment about him. And he wanted, impossible
as he knew it to be, to go back there and resign himself again to the
enchantment, closing his eyes, and leaving the dénouement to
chance. No doubt the novelty of such a course appealed to him, for
he came of a race whose history is one long war against
enchantments and the poisonous fumes of chance. He went on
stolidly eating his tea, substantial British provender, pickled pig's
feet, beet-and-onion salad, stewed prunes, damson jam, and tea as
harsh as an east wind. He loitered over the second cup, while the
second steward passed behind him with a napkin, eager for him to
finish, for that gentleman intended to gorge, while Archy Bates was
indisposed, on pig's feet and pickled walnuts. Mr. Spokesly loitered
because he knew, when he was once again in his own cabin, that he
would be facing a problem which makes all men, except artists and
scoundrels, uneasy. The problem was Ada. He did not want to think
about Ada, a girl who was in an unassailable position as far as he
was concerned. He wanted her to stay where she was, in
beleaguered England, until he was ready to go back, until he had
regained command of himself. He rose up suddenly and went along
to his cabin. His idea was that Ada should wait for him, wait while he
went through this extraordinary experience. His mind even went
forward and planned the episode. He would get the money in
Alexandria, get out of the ship somehow, return to Saloniki ... and
when the war was over he would of course return to England and
find Ada waiting for him. It was an admirable scheme and more
frequently carried out than Mr. Spokesly was aware. Yet he was
secretly ashamed. He had also a vague, illogical notion that, after
all, he was not contemplating any real infidelity to Ada since he fully
intended to return to her. He was very confused in his mind. He was
not accustomed to such crises. He took up the little green pamphlets
of the London School of Mnemonics. An aphorism caught his eye. Be
sure your chin will find you out. The idea was expanded in an essay
on forcefulness of character. The theory propounded was that we
have all of us a minute germ of character force which by exercise
and correct training can be developed into a formidable engine for
the acquisition of power, position, and wealth. Another aphorism
ran: Train the muscles of your mind. Just as the use of dumb-bells
brought out rippling rolls of muscle under a satin skin, so the use of
the Mnemonic method of Intensive Excogitation rounded out the
sinews of the mind and gave a glistening polish to the conversation.
Above all, it augmented one's cerebral vitality. One became a
forceful personality and exerted a magnetic influence over women....
Mr. Spokesly's feet hurt him slightly. He went along to the pantry and
ordered a bucket of hot water, and proceeded to go the rounds of
the ship to see that all ports and doors were screened. His feet hurt
him. And it seemed to him that his mind hurt him in very much the
same way. He was in a mood which people like the London School of
Mnemonics dread and deprecate more than anything else, a mood
which renders suddenly valueless millions of dollars' worth of
advertising, which empties theatres and leaves the purveyors of
commodities with warehouses crammed with moribund stock. He
was suspicious. He had suddenly perceived in a dim way the
complete and humorous fallacy of trying to become somebody else
through the mails. It did not present itself to him in this form. He
was not clever enough to get anything so clear as that. The London
School of Mnemonics prospered exclusively upon people who lacked
the power of coherent thought. But he had become suspicious. He
had lost faith, not in himself, but in the resources of ultra-modern
advertising. He was beginning to wonder what Mr. Dainopoulos
would say to the theory of Intensive Excogitation. Mr. Spokesly did
not realize it, of course, but the mere fact that he was losing faith in
the London School of Mnemonics was evidence of his progress in
life. So much Evanthia Solaris had already done for him. She had
induced in him a certain contempt and cantankerous suspicion of
life. He saw himself with appalling clearness as the mate of a
transport, quarrelling with dirty, insolent engineers who could not be
induced to blind the scuttles of their cabins properly. And as he came
back from the forecastle he heard Captain Meredith's quiet voice.
The captain wanted the fall of the big steel boom made more
secure. This boom was kept up against the mast, since it was too
long to lay down. Mr. Spokesly blew his whistle. The bosun and a
couple of seamen came out and began bending the heavy fall about
the bollards near the standing rigging. Then they hauled on the guys
which brought the boom hard up against the mast, and it appeared
from the silence of the commander that he was satisfied. That,
thought Mr. Spokesly, was what you had to put up with. He himself
had sent a man up to the crosstrees hours ago to make fast the
head of the boom. The man had not mentioned the fact that the
dead-eye was loose up there, for the reason that he was a young
chap and did not notice it. While the guys held the boom up he had
slipped the pin into place and climbed down. And this was what one
had to put up with. Impossible to give satisfaction. Day after day.
Nag, nag, nag. Mr. Spokesly went back to his cabin and found Archy
Bates sitting on the settee.
Archy was in that mood which follows heavy drinking by the
initiated. Archy was always ready for each mood as it came and
made the most of it. With a confidence that resembled to an
extraordinary degree the faith of an inspired fanatic, he gave himself
over to the service of the god for the time being. Coming back from
ashore he had fallen out of the boat into the water and then fallen
off the gangway into the boat again; yet his faith in his star never
faltered. When the boat drifted from the grating he had assumed a
stern expression, and raising his arms proceeded to walk across the
water. When Archy was in that benign mood incidental to his return
from a souse, there was nothing in the world to prevent him walking
on water or ascending into the air, should he deem it a dignified
thing to do. There was something rather awful, to one who believed
in the laws of nature, in the inebriated accuracy of Archy's
movements along intricate alleyways, through doors and up ladders.
Through it all he held in reserve the fixed cat-grin which implied a
bemused omniscience, a dreadful knowledge of secret human
standards.
But that mood was gone and he sat here on Mr. Spokesly's settee,
smoking a cigarette, completely normal and master of himself. It
was a grotesque feature of his convalescence, this austere
assumption of efficiency. He was very much upset at the way the
second steward had made a mess of things that afternoon. Just as
soon as he took his eye off him, things went wrong. It was most
discouraging. And he would like to recommend him for promotion,
too. By the way, had Mr. Spokesly heard the company was going to
buy some ships? This was an example of the way Archy "heard" of
things. No one could tell how he got hold of the most secret
information while stewed. Mr. Spokesly was not alert. He made no
comment, not realizing how nearly that stray remark might touch
him.
It was a fac', Archy hiccoughed. Going to buy a lot of ships. So he'd
heard. He paused, trying to recapture the thought. Yes, now no
sooner does the Old Man order supper than the silly josser loses his
head. Ring, ring, ring, the Old Man did. Now that he had recaptured
it the thought seemed less important than he had imagined. Mr.
Spokesly, his friend, with whom he was going to do some nice little
business, didn't seem in very good spirits. Archy bent his mind to the
matter. It was just as well they weren't going back to Saloniki, he
remarked reflectively.
"How do you know? And why just as well?" asked Mr. Spokesly,
wishing Archy would go away. He wanted to be alone.
"Didn't you know?" said Archy, wondering. "The Old Man said so.
The second steward overheard something about it when he took a
tray up when the N. T. O. was here this morning. We're going to
Calcutta. Oh, yes. And a good job, too."