It was not the heat or the atmosphere which troubled
Harrigan, but his hands. His skin was puffed
and soft from the scrubbing of the bridge. Now
as he grasped the rough wood of the short-handled scoop
the epidermis wore quickly and left his palms half
raw. For a time he managed to shift his grip,
bringing new portions of his hands to bear on the
wood, but even this skin was worn away in time.
When he finished his 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 of a bandage and made no complaint,
yet his fingers were trembling when he ate supper
that night. He caught the eyes of the rest of
the crew studying him with a cold calculation.
They were estimating the strength of his endurance
and he knew at once that they had been through the
same trial one by one until they were broken.
He could see that they hated the captain and he wondered
why they would ship with him time and again.
He watched their expressions when Black McTee was
mentioned, and then he understood. They were waiting
for the time when the captain should weaken.
Then they would have their revenge.
The second day was a repetition of the first.
He began with scrubbing down the bridge. The
suds, strong with lye, ate shrewdly at his raw hands.
Still he hummed as he worked and watched McTee’s
frown grow dark. When he was ordered below to
the fireroom, he wrapped his hands in the soft waste
again. That helped him for a time, but after the
first two hours the waste matted and grew hard with
perspiration and blood. He had to throw it away
and take the shovel handle against his bare skin.
He told himself that it was only a matter of time before
calluses would form, but what chance was there for
a formation of calluses when the water and suds softened
his hands every morning?
On the third day he was a little more used to the
torture. His hands were hopelessly raw now, but
still he made no complaint and stuck with his task.
That night he secured a rag and retreated to the stretch
of deck between the wheelhouse and the after-cabin,
where he squatted beside a bucket of water and washed
his hands carefully. Both hands were puffed and
red; one of the creases in the left palm bled a steady
trickle. He washed them slowly, with infinite
relish of the cool water, until he felt that peculiar
sensation which warns us that we are watched by another
eye.
He looked up to see a young woman standing above him
at the rail of the after-cabin. She had been
watching him by the light from the window of the wheelhouse.
“Let me bandage your hands,” she said.
“I have some salve in my room.”
Her voice was a balm to the troubled heart of Harrigan.
His knotted forehead relaxed.
“Are you coming up?”
“Aye.”
He ran up the ladder and followed her to a cabin.
She rummaged through a suitcase and finally brought
out a little tin box of salve and a roll of gauze.
As she stooped with her back to him, he saw that her
hair was red—not fiery red like his, but
a deep dull bronze, with points of gold where the
light struck it. When she straightened and turned,
her eyes went wide, looking up to him, for he bulked
huge in the tiny cabin.
