In a moment they gave him their compassion, jocularly, contemptuously, or surlily; and at first it took the shape of a blanket thrown at him as he stood there with the white skin of his limbs showing his human kinship through the black fantasy of his rags. Then a pair of old shoes fell at his muddy feet. With a cry: -- ‘From under,’ a rolled-up pair of trousers, heavy with tar stains, struck him on the shoulder. The gust of their benevolence sent a wave of sentimental pity through their doubting hearts. They were touched by their own readiness to alleviate a shipmate's misery. Voices cried: -- ‘We will fit you out, old man.’ Murmurs: ‘Never seed seech a hard case.....Poor beggar..... I've got an old singlet.....Will that be of any use to you?....
Take it, matey.....’ Those friendly murmurs filled the forecastle.
He pawed around with his naked foot, gathering the things in a heap and looked about for more. Unemotional Archie perfunctorily contributed to the pile an old cloth cap with the peak torn off. Old Singleton, lost in the serene regions of fiction, read on unheeding. Charley, pitiless with the wisdom of youth, squeaked: -- ‘If you want brass buttons for your new unyforms I've got two for you.’ The filthy object of universal charity shook his fist at the youngster. -- ‘I'll make you keep this 'ere fo'c'sle clean, young feller,’ he snarled viciously. ‘Never you fear. I will learn you to be civil to an able seaman, you hignorant hass.’ He glared harmfully, but saw Singleton shut his book, and his little beady eyes began to roam from berth to berth. -- ‘Take that bunk by the door there -- it's pretty fair,’ suggested Belfast. So advised, he gathered the gifts at his feet, pressed them in a bundle against his breast, then looked cautiously at the Russian Finn, who stood on one side with an unconscious gaze, contemplating, perhaps, one of those weird visions that haunt the men of his race. ‘Get out of my road, Dutchy,’ said the victim of Yankee brutality.
The Finn did not move -- did not hear. ‘Get out, blast ye,’shouted the other, shoving him aside with his elbow. ‘Get out, you blanked Page 9deaf and dumb fool. Get out.’ The man staggered, recovered himself, and gazed at the speaker in silence. -- ‘Those damned furriners should be kept hunder,’ opined the amiable Donkin to the forecastle. ‘If you don't teach 'em their place they put on you like hanythink.’ He flung all his worldly possessions into the empty bed-place, gauged with another shrewd look the risks of the proceeding, then leaped up to the Finn, who stood pensive and dull.
-- ‘I'll teach you to swell around,’ he yelled. ‘I'll plug your eyes for you, you blooming square-head.’ Most of the men were now in their bunks and the two had the forecastle clear to themselves.
The development of the destitute Donkin aroused interest. He danced all in tatters before the amazed Finn, squaring from a distance at the heavy, unmoved face. One or two men cried encouragingly: ‘Go it, Whitechapel!’settling themselves luxuriously in their beds to survey the fight. Others shouted: ‘Shut yer row!....Go an' put yer 'ed in a bag!.... ’The hubbub was recommencing. Suddenly many heavy blows struck with a handspike on the deck above boomed like discharges of small cannon through the forecastle.
Then the boatswain's voice rose outside the door with an authoritative note in its drawl: -- ‘D'ye hear, below there? Lay aft! Lay aft to muster all hands!’There was a moment of surprised stillness. Then the forecastle floor disappeared under men whose bare feet flopped on the planks as they sprang clear out of their berths. Caps were rooted for amongst tumbled blankets. Some, yawning, buttoned waistbands. Half-smoked pipes were knocked hurriedly against woodwork and stuffed under pillows. Voices growled: --‘What's up?....Is there no rest for us?’ Donkin yelped:
-- ‘If that's the way of this ship, we'll 'ave to change hall that..... You leave me alone.....I will soon.....’ None of the crowd noticed him. They were lurching in twos and threes through the doors, after the manner of merchant Jacks who cannot go out of a door fairly, like mere landsmen. The votary of change followed them. Singleton, struggling into his jacket, came last, tall and fatherly, bearing high his head of a weatherbeaten sage on the body of an old athlete. Only Charley remained alone in the white glare of the empty place, sitting between the two rows of iron links that stretched into the narrow gloom forward. He pulled hard at the strands in a hurried Page 10endeavour to finish his knot. Suddenly he started up, flung the rope at the cat, and skipped after the black tom that went off leaping sedately over chain compressors, with the tail carried stiff and upright, like a small flag pole.