Martin Hyde (7 page)

"Look here," he said. "I've been watching you. You ain't working. You're skulking. You ain't trying to wash that deck. You're making believe, thinking I won't know any different. Don't answer me. I know what you're doing. Now then. You go over every bit of that deck which you've just slopped at. Do it over. I'm going to stand here till it's done."

It was in my mind to be rebellious; but this man did not look like a good man to rebel from. He was a big grim sailor with a length of rope in his hand. He called it his "manrope." "You see my manrope," he said. "His name's Mogador Jack. He likes little skulks like you." Afterwards I learned that a manrope is the rope rail at a ship's gangway, or (sometimes) a length of rope in the gangway-side for boatmen to catch as they came alongside the ship. I did not like the look of Mogador Jack, so I went at my scrubbing with all my strength, keeping my thoughts to myself. My knees felt very sore. My back ached with the continual bending down. I had had no food that morning, either, that was another thing. "Spell, oh," said the man at last. "Straighten your back a bit. Empty your bucket over the side. No. Not through the stern-port. Carry it on deck. Empty it there. Then fill it again. Lively, too. It'll be breakfast time before
you've done. You've got to have this cabin ready by eight bells."

I will not tell you how I finished the deck. I will say only this, that at the end I began to take a sort of pride or pleasure in making the planks white. Afterwards, I always found that there is this pleasure in manual work. There is always pleasure of a sort in doing anything that is not very easy. "There," the mate said. "Now lay the table for breakfast. You'll find the things in them lockers. Lay for three places. Don't break the ship's crockery while you're doing it."

CHAPTER VI

THE
SEA!
THE
SEA!

H
E
left me, then, as he had to watch the men on deck. I felt, when he went on deck, that the morning had been a nightmare; but now I was to be flunkey as well as slave, a new humiliation. I did not think how many times I had humiliated others by letting them do such things for me. I had done so all my life without a thought. Now, forsooth, I was at the point of tears at having to do it for others, even though one of the others was my rightful King. Grubbing about among the lockers, I found a canvas table-cloth, which had once been part of a sail. I spread this cloth with the breakfast gear, imitating the arrangements made at home at Oulton. The mate came down some minutes after I had finished. He caught me sitting down on the top of the lockers, looking out at the ships through the open port.

"Here," he said roughly. "You've got to learn manners, or I'll have to teach you. Remember this, once for all, my son. No one sits in the cabin except a captain or a passenger. You'll take your cap off to the cabin door before I've done with you. Nor you don't sit down till your work's done. That's another thing. Why ain't you at work?"

"Please, sir," I said, "I've laid the table. What else am I to do?"

"Do," he said. "Give the windows a rub. Then clean your hands, ready to wait at table. No. Hold on. Have you called Mr. Scott yet?"

"No, sir. I didn't know I had to."

"My," he answered. "Have you any sense at all? Go call them. No. Get their hot water first at the galley."

I suppose I stared at him; for I did not know that this would be a duty of mine. "Here. Don't look at me like that," he said. "You make me forget myself." He went to the locker, in which he rummaged till he produced a big copper kettle. "Here's the hot water can," he said. "Nip with it to the galley, before the cook puts his fire out. On deck, boy. Don't you know where the galley is?"

I did not know where the galley was in this particular ship. I thought that it would probably be below decks, round a space of brick floor to prevent fire. But as the mate said "on deck" I ran on deck at once. I ran on deck, up the hatch, so vigorously, that I charged into a seaman who was carrying a can of slush, or melted salt fat used in the greasing of ropes. I butted into him, spattering the slush all over him, besides making a filthy mess of grease on the deck, then newly cleansed. The seaman, who was the boatswain or second mate, boxed my ears with a couple of cuffs which made my
head sing. "You young hound," he said, "Cubbadar when your chief passes." I went forward to the galley, crying as if my heart would break, not only at the pain of the blows, which stung me horribly, but at the misery of my life in this new service, that had seemed so grand only seven or eight hours before. At the galley door was the cook, a morose little Londoner with earrings in his ears. "Miaow, Miaow," he said, pretending to mimic my sobs. "Why haven't you come for this 'ot water before? 'Ere 'ave I been keepin' my fire lit while you been enjoyin' a stuffin' loaf, down in that there cabin." I was too miserable to answer him. I just held out my kettle, thinking that he would fill it for me. "Wot are you 'oldin' out the kettle for?" he asked. "Think I'm goin' to do yer dirty work? Fill it at the 'ob yourself." I filled it as he bade me, choking down my tears. When I had filled it, I hurried back to the 'tweendecks, hoping to hide my misery down in the semi-darkness there. I did not pass the second mate on my way back; but I passed some of the seamen, to whom a boy in tears was fair game. One asked me what I meant by coming aft all salt, like a head sea, making the deck wet after he'd squeegeed it down. Another told me to wait till the second mate caught me. "I'd be sorry then," he said, "that ever I spilt the slush;" with other sea-jests, all of them pretty brutal. It is said that if a strange rook comes to a rookery the other rooks peck it to death, or at any
rate drive it away. I know not if this be true of rooks (I know that sparrows will attack owls or canaries, whenever they have a chance), but it is true enough of human beings. We all hate the new-comer, we are all suspicious of him, as of a possible enemy. The seamen did to me what school-boys do to the new boy. I did not know then that there is no mercy for one sensitive enough to take such "jests" to heart. At sea, the rough, ready tom-fool boy is the boy to thrive. Such an one might have spilt all the slush in the ship, without getting so much as a cuff. I was a merry boy enough, but I was sad when I made my first appearance. The sailors saw me crying. If I had only had the wit to dodge the bosun's blows, the matter of the slush would have been turned off with a laugh, since he only struck me in the irritation of the moment. He would have enjoyed chasing me round the deck. If I had only come up merrily that is what would have happened. As it was I came up sad, with the result that I got my ears boxed, which, of course, made me too wretched to put the cook in a good temper; a cause of much woe to me later. The seamen who saw me crying at once put me down as a cry-baby, which I really was not; so that, for the rest of my time in the ship, I was cruelly misjudged. I hope that my readers will remember how little a thing may make a great difference in a person's life. I hope that they will also remember how easy it is to misjudge a person. It will be well for them if,
as I trust, they may never experience how terrible it feels to be misjudged.

After I had called the two gentlemen, I gave the glass bull's-eyes in the swing ports a rub with a cloth. I was at work in this way when the two gentlemen entered. Mr. Jermyn smiled to see me with my coat off, rubbing at the glass. He also wished me good morning, which Mr. Scott failed to do. Mr. Scott took no notice of me one way or the other; but sat down at the locker, asking when breakfast would be ready. "Get breakfast, boy," Mr. Jermyn said. At that I put my glass-rag into the locker. I hurried off to the galley to bring the breakfast, not knowing rightly whether it would be there or in another place. The cook, surly brute, made a lot of offensive remarks to me, to which I made no answer. He was glad to have someone to bully, for he had the common man's love of power, with all his hatred of anything more polished than himself. I took the breakfast aft to the cabin, where, by this time, the ship's captain was seated. I placed the dish before Mr. Jermyn.

"Why haven't you washed your hands, boy?" he asked, looking at my hands.

"Please, sir, I haven't had time."

"Wash them now, then. Don't come to wait at table with hands like that again. I didn't think you were a dirty boy."

I was not a dirty boy; but, having been at work
since before six that morning, I had had no chance of washing myself. I could not answer; but the injustice of Mr. Jermyn's words gave me some of the most bitter misery which I have known For brutal, thoughtless injustice, it is difficult to beat the merchant ship. I stole away to wash myself, very glad of the chance to get away from the cabin. When I was ready, it was time to clear the breakfast things to the galley, to wash them with the cook. Luckily, I had overheard Mr. Jermyn say "how well this cook can devil kidneys." I repeated this to the cook, who was pleased to hear it. It made him rather more kind in his manner to me. He did not know who Mr. Scott really was. He asked me a lot of questions about what I knew of Mr. Scott. I replied that I'd heard that he was a Spanish merchant, a friend of Mr. Jermyn's. As for Mr. Jermyn, he knew an uncle of mine. I had helped him to recover his pocket-book; that was all that I knew of him; that was why he had given me my present post as servant. More I dared not say; for I remembered the Duke's sharp sword on my chest. We talked thus, as we washed the dishes; the cook in a sweeter mood (having had his morning dram of brandy); I, myself, trying hard to win him to a good opinion of me. I asked him if I might clean his copper for him; it was in a sad state of dirt. "You'll have work enough 'ere, boy," he said, tartly, "without you running round for more. You mind your own business." After this little snap at my
head (no thought of thanks occurred to him) he prepared breakfast for us, out of the remains of the cabin breakfast. I was much cheered by the prospect of food, for nearly three hours of hard work had given me an appetite. At a word from the cook, I brought out two little stools from under the bunk. Then I placed the "bread-barge," or wooden bowl of ship's biscuits, ready for our meal, beside our two plates.

Breakfast was just about to begin, when my enemy, the boatswain, appeared at the galley door. "Here, cook," he said, "where's that limb of a boy? Oh, you're there, are you? Feeding your face. Get a three-cornered scraper right now. You'll scrape up that slush you spilled, before you eat so much as a reefer's nut." I had to go on deck again for another hour, while I scraped up the slush, which was, surely, spilled as much by himself as by me, since he was not looking where he was going any more than I was. I got no breakfast. For after the grease was cleaned I was sent to black the gentlemen's boots; then to make up their beds; then to scrub their cabin clean. After all this, being faint with hunger, I took a ship's biscuit from the locker in the cabin to eat as I worked. I did not know it; but this biscuit was what is known as "captain's bread," a whiter (but less pleasant) kind of ship's biscuit, baked for officers. As I was eating it (I was polishing the cabin door-knobs at the time) the captain came down for a dram of brandy. He saw what I was eating.
At once he read me a lecture, calling me a greedy young thief. Let me not eat another cabin biscuit, he said, or he'd do to me what they always did to thieves:—drag them under the ship from one side to another, so that the barnacles would cut them (as he said) into Spanish sennet-work. When I answered him, he lost his temper, in sailor fashion, saying that if I said another word he'd make me sick that ever I learned to speak.

I will not go into the details of the rest of that first day's misery. I was kept hard at work for the whole time of daylight, often at work beyond my strength, always at work quite strange to me. Nobody in the ship, except perhaps the mate, troubled to show me how to do these strange tasks; but all swore at me for not doing them rightly. What I felt most keenly was the injustice of their verdicts upon me. I was being condemned by them as a dirty, snivelling, lying, thieving young hound. They took a savage pleasure in telling me how I should come to dance on air at Cuckold's Haven, or, in other words, to the gallows, if I went on as I had begun. Whereas (but for my dishonest moment in the morning) I had worked like a slave since dawn under every possible disadvantage which hasty men could place in my way. After serving the cabin supper that night I was free to go to my hammock. There was not much to be glad for, except the rest after so much work. I went with a glad
heart, for I was tired out. The wind had drawn to the east, freshening as it came ahead, so that there was no chance of our reaching our destination for some days. I had the prospect of similar daily slavery in the schooner at least till our arrival. My nights would be my only pleasant hours till then. The noise of the waves breaking on board the schooner kept me awake during the night, tired as I was. It is a dreadful noise, when heard for the first time. I did not then know what a mass of water can come aboard a ship without doing much harm. So, when the head of a wave, rushing across the deck, came with a swish down the hatch to wash the 'tweendecks I started up in my hammock, pretty well startled. I soon learned that all was well, for I heard the sailors laughing in their rough, swearing fashion as they piled a tarpaulin over the open hatch-mouth. A moment later, eight bells were struck. Some of the sailors having finished their watch, came down into the 'tweendecks to rest. Two of them stepped very quietly to the chest below my hammock, where they sat down to play at cards, by the light of the nearest battle-lantern. If they had made a noise I should probably have fallen asleep again in a few minutes; for what would one rough noise have been among all the noise on deck? But they kept very quiet, talking in low voices as they called the cards, rapping gently on the chest-lid, opening the lantern gently to get lights for their pipes. Their quietness was like the
stealthy approach of an enemy, it kept a restless man awake, just as the snapping of twigs in a forest will keep an Indian awake, while he will sleep soundly when trees are falling. I kept awake, too, in spite of myself (or half awake), wishing that the men would go, but fearing to speak to them. At last, fearing that I should never get to sleep at all, I looked over the edge of the hammock intending to ask them to go. I saw then that one of them was my enemy the boatswain, while the other was the ship's carpenter, who had eaten supper in the galley with me, at the cook's invitation. As these were, in a sense, officers, I dared not open my mouth to them, so I lay down again, hoping that either they would go soon, or that they would let me get to sleep before the morning. As I lay there, I overheard their talk. I could not help it. I could hear every word spoken by them. I did not want their talk, goodness knows, but as I could not help it, I listened.