“Here are the three hands. Take them forward.”
Masters looked at Harrigan, started to laugh, looked
again, and then silently held the door open.
Harrigan stepped through it and followed to the forecastle,
a dingy retreat in the high bow of the ship. He
had to bend low to pass through the door, and inside
he found that he could not stand erect. It was
his first experience of working aboard a ship, and
he expected to find a scrupulous neatness, and hammocks
in place of beds. Instead he looked on a double
row of bunks heaped with swarthy quilts, and the boatswain
with a silent gesture indicated that one of these
belonged to Harrigan. He went to it without a
word and sat down cross-legged to survey his new quarters.
It was more like the bunkhouse of a western ranch
than anything else he had been in, but all reduced
to a miniature, cramped and confined.
Now his eyes grew accustomed to the dim, unpleasant
light which came from a single lantern hanging on
the central post, and he began to make out the faces
of the sailors. An oily-skinned Greek squatted
on the bunk to his left. To his right was a Chinaman,
marvelously emaciated; his lips pulled back in a continual
smile, meaningless, like the grin of a corpse.
Opposite was the inevitable Englishman, slender, good-looking,
with pale hair and bright, active eyes. Harrigan
had traveled over half the world and never failed
to find at least one subject of John Bull in any considerable
group of men. This young fellow was talking with
a giant Negro, his neighbor. The black man chattered
with enthusiasm while the Englishman listened, nodding,
intent.
One thing at least was certain about this crew:
the Negro, the Chinaman, 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’ that truck.”
This was to the Chinaman, who answered in a soft guttural
as if there were 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’s to other captains what whisky
is to beer.”
