CHAPTER 3
Masters looked at Harrigan, started to laugh, looked again, and thensilently held the door open. Harrigan stepped through it and followedto the forecastle, a dingy retreat in the high bow of the ship. He hadto bend low to pass through the door, and inside he found that he couldnot stand erect. It was his first experience of working aboard a ship,and he expected to find a scrupulous neatness, and hammocks in place ofbeds. Instead he looked on a double row of bunks heaped with swarthyquilts, and the boatswain with a silent gesture indicated that one ofthese belonged to Harrigan. He went to it without a word and sat downcross-legged to survey his new quarters. It was more like the bunkhouseof a western ranch than anything else he had been in, but all reducedto a miniature, cramped and confined.
Now his eyes grew accustomed to the dim, unpleasant light which camefrom a single lantern hanging on the central post, and he began to makeout the faces of the sailors. An oily-skinned Greek squatted on thebunk to his left. To his right was a Chinaman, marvelously emaciated;his lips pulled back in a continual smile, meaningless, like the grinof a corpse.
Opposite was the inevitable Englishman, slender, good-looking, withpale hair and bright, active eyes. Harrigan had traveled over half theworld and never failed to find at least one subject of John Bull in anyconsiderable group of men. This young fellow was talking with a giantNegro, his neighbor. The black man chattered with enthusiasm while theEnglishman listened, nodding, intent.
One thing at least was certain about this crew: the Negro, theChinaman, the Greek, even the Englishman, despite his slender build,they were all hard, strong men.
The cook brought out supper in buckets--stews, chunks of stale bread,tea. As they ate, the sailors grew talkative.
"Slide the slum this way," said the Englishman.
The Negro pushed the bucket across the deck with his foot.
"A hard trip," went on the first speaker.
"All trips on the _Mary Rogers_ is hard," rumbled a voice.
"Aye, but Black McTee is blacker'n ever today."
"He belted the bos'n with a rope end," commented the Negro.
"He ain't human. This is my last trip with him. How about you, John?You got a lump on your jaw yet where he cracked you for breakin' thattruck."
This was to the Chinaman, who answered in a soft guttural as if therewere bubbling oil in his throat: "Me sail two year Black McTee, an'--"
To finish his speech he passed a tentative hand across his swollen jaw.
"And you'll sail with him till you die, John," said the Englishman."When a man has had Black McTee for a boss, he'll want no other. He'sto other captains what whisky is to beer."
The white teeth of the Negro showed. "Maybe Black McTee won't livelong," he suggested.
There was a long silence. It lasted until the supper was finished. Itlasted until the men slid into their bunks. And Harrigan knew thatevery man was repeating slowly to himself: "Maybe Black McTee won'tlive long."
"Not if this gang goes after him," muttered Harrigan, "and yet--"
He remembered the fight in Ivilei and the heaving shoulders whichshowed above the heads of the swarming soldiers. With that picture inhis mind he went to sleep.
They were far out of sight of land in the morning and loafing southbefore the trade wind, with a heavy ground swell kicking them alongfrom behind. Harrigan saw the _Mary Rogers_ plainly for the first time.She was small, not more than fifteen hundred or two thousand tons, andthe dingiest, sootiest of all tramp freighters. He had little time tomake observations.
In the first place all hands washed down the decks, some of the men inrubber boots, the others barefooted, with their trousers rolled upabove the knees. Harrigan was one of this number. The cool water fromthe hose swished pleasantly about his toes. He began to think better oflife at sea as the wind blew from his nostrils the musty odors of theforecastle. Then the bos'n, with the suggestion of a grin in his eyes,ordered him up to scrub the bridge. He climbed the steps with a bucketin one hand and a brush in the other. There stood McTee leaning againstthe wheelhouse and staring straight ahead across the bows. He seemedquite oblivious of his presence until, having finished his job,Harrigan started back down the steps.
"D'you call this clean?" rumbled McTee. "All over again!"
And Harrigan dropped to his knees without protest and commencedscrubbing again. As he worked, he hummed a tune and saw the narrow jawof McTee jut out. Harrigan smiled.
He had scarcely finished stowing his bucket and brush away when thebos'n brought him word that he was wanted in the fireroom. Masters'sface was serious.
"What's the main idea?" asked Harrigan.
The bos'n cast a worried eye fore and aft.
"Black McTee's breakin' you," he said; "you're getting the whip."
"Well?"
"God help you, that's all. Now get below."
There was a certain fervency about this speech which impressed evenHarrigan. He brooded over it on his way to the fireroom. There he wasset to work passing coal. He had to stand in a narrow passage scarcelywide enough for him to turn about in. On either side was a toweringblack heap which slanted down to his feet. Midway between the piles wasthe little door through which he shoveled the coal into the fireroom.
All was stifling hot, with a breath of coal dust and smoke to choke thelungs. Even the Greek firemen sweated and cursed, though they were usedto that environment. An ordinary man might have succumbed simply tothat fiery, foul atmosphere. It was like a glimpse of hell, dark,hopeless.
It was not the heat or the atmosphere which troubled Harrigan, but hishands. His skin was puffed and soft from the scrubbing of the bridge.Now as he grasped the rough wood of the short-handled scoop theepidermis wore quickly and left his palms half raw. For a time hemanaged to shift his grip, bringing new portions of his hands to bearon the wood, but even this skin was worn away in time. When he finishedhis shift, his hands were bleeding in places and raw in the palms.
As he came on deck, he tied them up with bits of soft waste in lieu ofa bandage and made no complaint, yet his fingers were trembling when heate supper that night. He caught the eyes of the rest of the crewstudying him with a cold calculation. They were estimating the strengthof his endurance and he knew at once that they had been through thesame trial one by one until they were broken.
He could see that they hated the captain and he wondered why they wouldship with him time and again. He watched their expressions when BlackMcTee was mentioned, and then he understood. They were waiting for thetime when the captain should weaken. Then they would have theirrevenge.
The second day was a repetition of the first. He began with scrubbingdown the bridge. The suds, strong with lye, ate shrewdly at his rawhands. Still he hummed as he worked and watched McTee's frown growdark. When he was ordered below to the fireroom, he wrapped his handsin the soft waste again. That helped him for a time, but after thefirst two hours the waste matted and grew hard with perspiration andblood. He had to throw it away and take the shovel handle against hisbare skin. He told himself that it was only a matter of time beforecalluses would form, but what chance was there for a formation ofcalluses when the water and suds softened his hands every morning?
On the third day he was a little more used to the torture. His handswere hopelessly raw now, but still he made no complaint and stuck withhis task. That night he secured a rag and retreated to the stretch ofdeck between the wheelhouse and the after-cabin, where he squattedbeside a bucket of water and washed his hands carefully. Both handswere puffed and red; one of the creases in the left palm bled a steadytrickle. He washed them slowly, with infinite relish of the cool water,until he felt that peculiar sensation which warns us that we arewatched by another eye.
He looked up to see a young woman standing above him at the rail of theafter-cabin. She had been watching him by the light from the window ofthe wheelhouse.