CHAPTER V
Many of the men fell asleep, Scholar among them, exhausted by the strain of the day and evening. He dreamt that he was back again in a bunkhouse of Michigan, and came half-awake, thinking that the forest was afire, then realised where he was, in this Bedlam, and was crucified upon regret. If only he had not made that offer to stand treat! He moaned; it was an anguish to him, for he had not lived even his brief years without knowing kindliness when he met it; and these fellows, whatever their vocabularies, their moral code, their falls from it, their capacity to live up to it, had treated him kindly. He would like to begin all over again with them, to go back twelve hours in his life and theirs, and stroll towards them feeling the air again for the method of approach, outside the barrier at the end of The Saint Lawrence Shipping and Transport Company's shed. Tortured, he fell asleep again, and the next he knew was the sound of voices. Perhaps all had their dreams, or nightmares when that sound brought them from sleep proper into a state of half awake and half asleep.
"Well, wot do yer want ter see 'im for, any'ow?"
"He is here, is he? I want to see him."
"I say 'e's a-sleepin'! Any man as wants to see Scholard 'as got ter tell me wot 'e wants ter see 'im for!"
"It's none of your business—I want to see him. Is he there?"
"You tell me wot you want ter see 'im for, and I'll see if it's worth disturbin' 'im for. I'm his bleedin' secretary, I am."
Scholar came wide awake, and rose upon an elbow, to find a semi-circle of backs turned to him, Cockney's back among them; and Cockney's arm was reaching out and brushing those of his shipmates who stood near, or part brushing, part elbow-plucking, part signing to them in an endeavour to form them up between Scholar's bunk and a man in the doorway. Up sat Scholar. He had seen enough of ugly fighting during the last few hours to feel a yearning for a life, nay, an eternity, of peace; but he was in the pack, and he must not let Cockney take the chances of an encounter on his behalf. As the man in the door—and he, too, had a backing of friends—advanced upon Cockney, Scholar sat up. He had the strong resolution to, as they say out West, "make good" here; and it was a resolution that advertised itself on his face as he rose and swung forward.
"All right, Cockney!" he said. "I'm awake."
The forming segment of circle broke. Cockney looked over his shoulder.
"That's hall right. You ain't one of hus. I know 'ow ter deal wiv these fellers. We're shipmites, ain't we?"
"Do you want to speak to me?" said Scholar, looking keenly at the advancing tough.
"Oh! No! They told me a man called Scollard was aboard. I wanted to see a feller called Scollard!" This in a grumbling voice.
"O, yus! This hain't the feller, eh? No! Am hi any use? Would you like to push my face in, eh?"
A voice above shouted: "Come on, mate, come on! She's pushing off!" and the man who wanted to see Scollard hastened away, drawing off his forces in the doorway.
"Thought we were off already!" said Cockney.
"Thank you very much for that," said Scholar. "Only a man must look after himself of course."
"Yus, that's all right. Good luck! You ain't 'ust one of us; you don't know the ropes—not 'ere, any'ow. Good luck, mate."
He and those others who had power over their legs, climbed to the deck, Scholar accompanying them. The former jogglings must have been merely due to the casting loose of one or two hawsers. A ladder still stretched from ship to wharf. "Come on, come on there. Get ashore!" the bo'sun was shouting at its top. "You fellers had no right aboard here anyhow." The visitors hastened over the side and down the ladder, those of them who saw a policeman at the shed end (looking up with that frowning and sidewise consideration that suggests: "Now I don't know but what I should run you fellows in! You look as if there might be a charge about you!") going down with anxious precipitancy. The last reached the wharf. Two men came up, climbed aboard—the pilot and a ship's officer. The ladder was hauled away, the last hawser was cast loose, and with a tug ahead and a tug astern the S.S. Glory moved from the wharf sideways like a great iron wall drifting away from a great stone one. The space of dirty water between, with pieces of straw, bits of wood, and such flotsam of the docks—a sodden apple or two, and a potato—rapidly widened. The lights alongshore looked pale and insignificant as the dawn spread; those in the low-browed windows of the waterfront saloons that could be espied over the leaden-hued roofs had lost their glare. Men below, those who could stand, feeling sure now that she was off, came on deck to double-shuffle and cluster on the poop, to cheer and scream, to wave their hands shorewards, as though they saw a multitude of friends there waving farewell, though really there were none.
Before the cheering was over a little unpleasantness began between Mike and Michael. In all societies, in all walks of life, there are certain statements that are considered insulting; but statements that in one stratum are considered insulting are, in another, looked upon as merely amusing; in yet another they are unheard, unknown, and so there is no opinion on them. What should a passivist, in any walk of life, do when some neighbour of his paddock discharges at him the supreme term of contempt of that special paddock? They who cheered the dock roofs turning grey in the morning, and the early stevedores, and the few late night-birds, had now something close at hand to attract their attention. Michael and Mike, on the poop now, met for the first time since Mike, in the saloon ashore, had preferred the company of his two friends to that of the "Push." And Michael, extremely fuddled, vaguely remembered that he had some grievance against Mike. Mike leant against a rail that ran athwart the ship, dividing the stretch of upper deck from the stubby semi-circle of poop. His hands were behind him, holding the rail as he leant against it. He had had a short sleep since coming aboard, and his drunkenness was stale. The ale within Michael, on the other hand, had not yet come to the height of its action.
"What," he was asking Mike, "are you a-doing wearing a seaman's cap?"
Mike turned his head from surveying the shed roofs, lightly glanced down at Michael, but did not fix him, turned his head the other way.
"A seaman's cap, I say!" Michael repeated.
Mike shook his head, as if a fly had landed on his face.
"Eh?" said Michael.
Mike looked down upon his stubby and sturdy compatriot as a Saint Bernard dog looks down on a snarling Pomeranian between its forepaws.
"I am a seaman," he replied at last.
"You're a liar!" said Michael, which in that stratum of society is no more considered, even by those who are not passivists, as a call for the mailed fist than, in another, is "Pardon me—have you verified that?"
"I'm tellin' ye," said Mike.
"Let me see your discharges then," demanded Michael.
Mike tossed his head with an air of "This man bores me," tossed it to right, and from left breast pocket drew forth a folded bundle of Board of Trade discharges, and held them up.
"Huh!" grunted Michael. "Cattleman."
"Seaman I'm tellin' ye," Mike repeated.
"What are you a-going over as a cattleman for, then?" asked Michael.
"I'm tellin' ye I have some seaman discharges among theyse."
"Well then, you're a cattleman!"
"Yes, yes, quite so. All right."
"You're a cattleman."
"Yes, yes. Have it that way, thin."
"You're a dam' cattleman."
Mike stretched his head up as does one who wears a tall collar when the collar's edge annoys his neck.
"Now, now," he said. "Now, now! You'll be after annoying me."
"A dam' cattleman," reiterated Michael, "with one shirt!"
"Quite so. Have it your own way."
"One shirt—a dirty shirt."
Mike unloosened his right hand from the taffrail that it was again gripping, threw forward his left shoulder, and then, instead of hitting, he wrung his hands, held them high, rubbed the palms together in a kind of anguish, smashed the butt of his right hand into the palm of his left, and "Michael," he said, "you're drunk. Ye'd better go below. Have a sleep, have a sleep."
"I'm not drunk!" cried Michael, and hit, smash upon Mike's breast. And then out of the crowd leapt upon him—Cockney.
"Is it a fight yer want?" asked Cockney.
Neither was so drunk that he could not hit, feint, parry; the others circled.
"Now, now," said Mike. "See! Pull them apart!" But it was too late; they had grappled.
Now people make laws, and they become the vogue; you are judged by them, willy-nilly. If you cannot box, as boxing is taught in the gymnasium, and find yourself set upon by a boxer, you will be ostracised in some walks of life if you deliver him a kick in the shins; or, should he fall, if you knuckle his wind so that he may lie there long enough for you to beat your retreat from one skilled in the "science," you will be ostracised for that; you must box him according to the rules. But in this walk of life, upon the poop of the S.S. Glory, it is a case of top dog anyhow. Mr. Smithers, on the docks, newly arrived to see the ship clear, put teeth together, looking up, and made the hissing sound through his teeth that a stoic makes when operated on without an anaesthetic. For as the two men reeled to the taffrail, and the onlookers there fell asunder to give them a full field, they were displayed to the one or two persons who looked up from the wharf front, displayed as on a high set stage, Michael with Cockney's head under his left arm, an attitude, by the way, permitted in some gymnasia, taboo in others—for there are "sets" there too. Michael was swinging a right in upon the top of Cockney's head, when suddenly he saw the taffrail and thought it would serve as well, shifted his hold, and with both hands drove Cockney's head, as if it were a turnip, against the middle rail. It was this which caused the first hiss and spasm ashore. It would have finished most men. You could have laid a finger in the indentation that the rail made in Cockney's skull; but as he took the blow, refusing to be stunned, like a tough, wild beast, he screamed, and thrust a thumb upward into Michael's eye, even while Mike, Scholar, Pierre and the Inquisitive One were hauling them asunder. Back went Cockney, flopped on the deck, and held head in hands. There! They were apart. And suddenly, over the taffrail and down the curve of the ship to the tow rope that went to the tug astern, Michael made a kind of scramble and scuttle.
There! They were apart.
"Grab that man!" shouted Smithers from the dock. "He'll fall on the screws!"
Michael, upon all fours, had caught the tow rope and now swung himself down, shouting: "I've been shanghaied! I won't sail on the Glory!" He spun slightly left and right, clutching the rope, so that those who craned under the bottom rail to try to grab him, and those who looked up from the wharf, had glimpse, time about, of his ghastly face, and the eyeball protruding like the yolk of an egg. One man was now on his belly under the taffrail, stretching to grasp Michael, but he slithered slightly forward on the curve to the hull.
"Somebody hold my legs!" he shouted. It was Scholar. The Inquisitive One promptly sat down upon his feet. Mike had taken off his boots, and was saying, one leg swung over the rail: "Here, some of youse—hold my hand, will yez."
"Look up!" came a voice. It was the Man with the Hat. He had made a slip-noose on the end of a rope. It hissed down and up. On shore Smithers was shouting to the people in the tug astern: "Keep that rope taut!" for the rope to which Michael hung was falling slack. "He'll be down on the screws!" But the noose was now round Michael's waist, and in their rejoicing the "Push" laid hold of the hither end of the rope that the Man with the Hat tossed amongst them, and with a "Yo-ho!" they put as much muscle into hauling the human being aboard as if he had been a stern anchor.
"Easy, easy—for God's sake!" came a quiet voice to rear, a voice that compelled attention because of the very loudness of the others. It was Candlass; and behind him was the captain's steward, who was a good deal more than a first aid man. They secured Michael as he was dragged over the rail, and walked him forward along the narrow passage left between the sheep-pens that crowded the upper deck.
"Bring that other man here," ordered Candlass over his shoulder.
"I'm all right!" said Cockney, standing up. He put up his hand to feel his head, and laid a finger into the impression of the taffrail. Everybody seemed a little more sober after that. The docks receded. Montreal rose up behind them. Sea gulls that had come into port with other ships cried one to another overhead, and came to their poising station above the stern of the S.S. Glory.