Hollow Sea (16 page)

'Oh! That's for something special. Don't you get worrying about that, Mr. Herring.' It was the first time the bosun had called this man by his proper name.

'His name's Vesuvius,' Williams said. 'V
ESUVIUS
. And he isn't going to loot your bloody old box either,' he added.

'Bradshaw wants it for something,' O'Grady said. 'I wonder what?'

They clattered noisily down the ladder to the well-deck. They could hear snatches of conversation from the fo'c'sle. A flash of light appeared as the fo'c'sle door opened. They heard the bosun's mate shouting at the men: 'Yes. You ought to know they have to be shifted round every watch. Yes.
Every
time the wind changes. Want to suffocate the fellers below?'

'To hear you gassing, one might think we begrudged the men a breath of air.'

'Come on! Get outside and on to the confounded job.'

An old man about sixty shouted in a cracked voice: 'All right, we're not deaf. Think we don't know?'

They came down the alleyway, meeting the incoming watch.

'Know again then,' the bosun shouted to the old man. 'It won't do you any harm.' He turned to his mate. 'Goddam fools below, they think the pressure of a kitchen tap will wash those filthy decks down. I wish you luck.'

The watchers-on stood in a group listening to the conversation that went on.

'Always growling,' the old man said.

'Aye, that's true enough.'

'You cut and make that coffee when we leave number three,' a man said. 'Yes.' A.10 gave a sudden roll. 'Ah! the dirty bitch! They must have changed her course.'

They began work, and whilst they swung the ventilators to windward they heard voices talking on the bridge.

'I told you! That's Bradshaw talking to the O.M. I'll bet they've changed her course.'

'Changed my aunt! Put a move on and get to number four,' growled the bosun's mate. He walked restlessly up and down alongside the hatch where the men were working. '
You
beggars seem to like work. You'll be on the bunkers in a day or two if you don't watch out.'

Nobody answered. They ignored him. Left him to his irritation. Because he couldn't sleep the whole confounded ship had to put up with his fit of bad temper. 'Half you fellers should be below now. In the bloody army. Going where these fellers are going to. Shake you up a bit. Come on, now. Over to number four.'

They made fast on the huge billowing ventilators, and walked further amidships. The old man was sent to make coffee. The bosun's mate did not see him go. As he went he took his nose between two skinny fingers and blew hard. 'That's to the swine,' he said. 'Telling the likes o' me I ought to be in the army. Huh!'

The bosun's mate stood watching them work. One of the men, he couldn't tell which, was saying: 'Seems to me they don't know what to be at half the time in this packet. It just must give them a pain to see an ordinary man with a little time on his hands. You'll see, he'll be off up there in half a tick' – this for the special information of the listening bosun's mate – 'he'll be off up to that bridge to see if there are any other jobs we can do! Christ! He'll finish up by being a commodore. Can't just let men lounge about, you know, maybe they'd just rot. 'Spect next thing is Bradshaw'll say, "And, bosun, that dirt-box of Rajah must come up from below."
 
'

Everybody laughed, except the bosun's mate.

'Hurry up! There's number five to be shifted before we flush down. You, Turner, you search around these decks and if you find any of these fellows taking the fresh air, tell them to get below, or they'll get the best shower-bath they've ever had.'

'There you are! Begrudges the fellers a spot of fresh air. Who'd sleep in that place below? Not me, sir! Nor any decent man. Fit for rats. That's all.'

They went along to number five. There! All the ventilators were shifted round. They stood about wondering. Two bells rang from the bridge. Whatever's he going to do now? They had cleared up everything, shifted all ventilators. Go up the ladder and ask for more work. Just like him!

'Get those hoses laid, and see they are coupled to the hydrants.'

'Has Turner come back yet?'

'No,' the bosun's mate said. 'You, Currie, cut along and see what the devil he's doing. Picking up cigarette ends on the saloon-deck, I suppose.'

He sat down on the ladder, looking from man to man. Suddenly the moon came out and the decks were flooded with light. The bosun's mate got off the ladder at once, saying: 'Come on! Get started on the decks.'

He waited till the diver came and took up the hose. Behind him another sailor took the weight and kept the kinks from forming.

'Start forward and work aft,' the bosun's mate said, and suddenly went off and left them. He went on to the saloon-deck. Here the moonlight showed up the debris of the day. The man went into the saloon and sat down. The place was deserted. It had a stale air about it, tobacco and cigarette smoke; the carpet was littered with papers, the long tables covered with blow ash, cigarette ends, a sickly looking light looked down on all this. He made himself comfortable in a swing armchair. He would like to fall asleep there and then, and though the light was sickly and cast a sort of gloom upon the deserted saloon, he had no objection to it. What he did object to, and what he shut out as he noiselessly closed the saloon door, was the bright moonlight. And he hated moonlight nights. He hated them any time, but at sea he hated them more. It wasn't that he objected to the moon, it was quite free to hang up there and turn what colour it liked. It might have suggested a sort of nakedness to him, this cold, clear white light, but it was a something else. The bosun's mate associated a moonlight night at sea with bad luck. He called it his theory, and the urgent and perilous times had shot up the seeds of more theories than there were hairs on men's heads. The bosun's mate as soon as he saw the light went off and hid himself. So far his theory had stood the test. Ships did have a habit of bumping into trouble on clear moonlight nights, submarines had a habit of bobbing up, and even a floating mine wilfully floated into the track of the oncoming bows. He could hear the sounds of brooms, the water, the loud voices of men, the diver's curse when a kink formed in the hose, the occasional joke, women, Italian soldiers, Greek trousers, garlic, the licensed house, all the various sounds floated in under the door and the bosun's mate heard them and they meant nothing to him for his thoughts were focused upon things that were associated with bright moonlight. And towards half-past one he began to doze in the chair, unmindful of the moon or the now waiting men, and the large can of coffee in the fo'c'sle and the old man standing by. The men had passed right aft. They were washing the poop, and brooms scrubbed round the steel bedding where the gun lay. All looked at this gun, covered with its canvas hood. And it meant nothing to them and was nothing, this long squat machine. It might boast on occasion, but now it was a poor neglected unmentionable thing, and even the rating on watch was indifferent, and it was divorced from purpose – shut away from sight and mind, and
A Safety Match
was a most absorbing novel.

But he heard the watch-on scrubbing down, divined them for ignorant careless persons and immediately put down his book and left the room to go and see them. They in turn saw him, standing silent by his gun. No words were spoken. They were not necessary. Understanding was final. They were men, he was a machine. They didn't like him, he looked arrogantly down upon all merchant seamen. The Navy was the salt of the earth. So be it. They left the poop – left him to his child, and the quiet night, and the angry tormented wake of the ship, for his visioning, and the floating weed and the dull patch of water, soiled by dumped ashes, the trailing log line and the small steel fish that recorded mileage for A.10. They made noises descending the ladder, tramped into the wheel-house – it was almost smoke time. All were asking the same question: Where had the man got to?

Whilst they asked, the bosun's mate stirred in the chair, cursed it for its comfort and its temptation to a tired man, and walked out on to the saloon deck. He called. Then went aft. He found the men smoking in the wheel-house. 'All right,' he said. 'Get for'ard, one at a time.' He added as he saw the rush, 'I said one at a time! And you tell that old man to come back here. It don't take a whole night to make coffee.' He walked on to the galley.

As soon as he had gone the men went for'ard in a body. The troops' cook had just got out of bed. He was scratching himself vigorously and declaiming against the sea-bug and smaller insects as he threw on white coat and apron. He had a three days' growth of beard. His hands smelt of a sort of grey mould. He looked as though he wanted a bath.

'Hullo! How long you bin up?' asked the bosun's mate, putting his head into the galley. He stepped in and sat down on the wooden seat opposite the range.

The cook turned round. '
 
'Morning, Bosun,' he said, and proceeded to ignore him thenceforth. He began stirring something in a monster pan. It had been simmering overnight. Five bells rang. Half-past two.

'Up early?' the bosun's mate said.

The cook nodded the back of his head. Aye! Early was the word. These fellers started feeding at half-past five.

'If you've a cup of tea handy there, cook, I wouldn't be indifferent.'

'Of course,' said the cook. He took a blue mug from a hook on the back of the galley door and filled it with a thickish brown liquid from the huge steaming tank standing outside the door. 'Here y'are.'

'Thanks.'

The cook went on with his work, stirring in a sort of devil-may-care fashion the mixture in the pan. The bosun spat, then hurled the contents of the cup into the sea.

'Hell!' he said. 'D'you call that tea?'

'
 
'Course it is,' replied the cook, without turning his head. 'All right, isn't it? Good enough for these fellers, good enough for anybody. I drink it myself.'

'I'm damn certain you do,' said the bosun's mate. 'Sorry,' he said. 'It was my mistake. I ought to have known it was Walters and Hump Limited. How bloody silly of me! What you reckon you make on a round trip with this sort of muck?' and watched the drip from the cup as he held it upside down in the air.

'Make?' exclaimed the cook. 'Make! Don't be so bloody insulting, even if you are a petty officer.' He turned round, ladle in hand, dripping gravy.

'Then give us a drink of tea then. I'd go for'ard but the coffee's the same as the tea. And I'm too goddam lazy to make my own.'

'Everybody has the same stuff. Take it or bloody well leave it.'

'All right! I'll have a talk with that boss of yours. Haven't set eyes on him so far. Ah! He's a busy man. What would we do without him? The wat'd collapse, we'd all starve, the Kaiser'd win hands down. But if that's the kind of stuff the fellows below get.
 
.
 
.
 
'

'Aw! Go to hell!' the cook said. He grabbed the cup from the bosun, hung it behind the door, and went on stirring in the pot. As he stirred he sang a song.

'I
t'
s
a nice little war, a decent little war and we're all in the starvation army.

I
t'
s
a beggar of a war and a mucker of a war and
i
t'
s
driving me bloody well balmy.'

He sang
sotto voce
, stirred the mess in the pan with a kind of desperate vigour, still singing. The bosun had gone. The cook went to the door, banged it shut, and put the hook on. 'Those fellers for'ard thought there was nobody like them, a proper cocky lot. Ah well, that on them,' and he cleared his throat into a rag. Then he stirred and stirred.

A.10 was taking spray over her head. She had ploughed into rough water. She rolled slightly. Bells rang, lights flashed. Things began to rattle in the fo'c'sle. They must have changed the course again. What the devil was that soft galoot on the bridge doing at all? Giving them a cake-walk or what? 'I heard Bradshaw talking up there and I heard him say, "Course WSW."
 
' Everybody laughed.

'You've ears like a bloody elephant.'

'You fellers in there!' called the bosun, emerging from his room. 'Pipe down there! My mate never got a wink of sleep last night listening to you fellers jawing away about your damned women and your fat money. There's a bloody war on. I hope you know it. Shut the door when the watch out clears and keep it dam' well shut. You've lights always showing. You'll be the first to growl if she gets a packet. So shut it.'

'Shut it yourself.'

A sea-boot came flying into the alleyway but the bosun had already reached the for'ard deck. A wind was rising. The great ventilators swung violently. From below rose a sea of murmurous sound, sleeping soldiers, broken by an occasional yawn, a cough suddenly uttered in sleep. The ship settled down to silence again. Even the passing officer's footsteps could be heard. The watch below were undressed and snug in their bunks. Conversation began, muffled words spoken through blankets. The light was switched out. After a while all conversation ceased.

A.10 steamed on through the darkness. The snores of the bosun's mate were loud enough to drown any further conversation in the fo'c'sle. His room door was hooked back to let in the fresh air. The light was out. The dead-light down. It was a cramped stuffy room. It smelt of old rope, stale smoke, canvas. The single object shining on top of the chest opposite the bunks was the metal top of a large jar of piccalilli of which both men were very fond. The settee was littered with coats, trousers, notebooks, a lanyard, a diddy-bag, a hold-all. Both bosun and his mate were an industrious pair. One was making a mat, the other was doing embroidered canvas.

Amidships Mr. Walters slept and below him Mr. Hump, the
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
lying on his chest. Mr. Walters's brow was as clear as that of a child. He seemed to be chuckling in his sleep, not audibly but in certain ripples and muscular movements of his face, his mouth twitched. Mr. Hump lay like one dead.