The S.S. Glory

by Frederick Niven

CHAPTER XII

Fog reeked and rolled round the ship, and there was a swell on the sea. Under the fog it moved, with knolls and valleys, high and low, regular and apparently everlasting as those rolls and dips of green grazing land from Rocky Mountain House down to the Little Missouri—that country "beyant," whence came the cattle. Ever and again one could see across and along, under the fog, as a man on hands and knees might, lifting a carpet's edge, look along the floor. But even that was a doubtful kind of vision, with shifting and obliterating coils of vapour, so that even if the fog lifted for a yard or two it seemed as if the sea steamed below the lifted fog. The sea's surface seemed covered by a film, and the swell moved under it, a film that the Glory broke as she loomed along, sliding her nose up and down, many feet to the rise, many feet to the drop, advancing all the while. It was before the day of wireless. No messages were coming and going; only her siren complained into the wilderness of fog and water. Forward, the first officer and a couple of seamen took soundings. The ship stopped in a great stillness. Sheep sneezed and coughed; the cattle lowed. Deep down there was a sound of shovelling of coal; then a bell cling-clanged, and once again there broke out a sound as of a "hush," and the whirl and whirl of the shaft with its old refrain.

Feeding and watering being over for the afternoon, the cattlemen clustered in their hot den, that little bit of an iron safe of a place, going up in the air, swinging left and right, full of such sounds as a cane chair makes. Michael, squat and broad, patch on his eye, was telling some experience of his life to somebody; another man drew near to listen and remained; still more clustered round. Twosomes, talking in corners, desisted to listen also.

"Michael!" one of them called. "Wasn't there something about you and stowing away?"

"Oh, that's an old story," answered Michael.

"What's that about?" asked several of the younger men, who wanted to gather as much data as possible on this subject. "Tell us about it, Michael," they besought him.

"Well," said Michael, "it was when I came over on the A-Chiles."

"Was Johnson boss then?"

"Oh, before Johnson's time. I've been over with Johnson, too," said Michael.

"Shut up!" several admonished. "Let him tell the story."

"I was on the rocks," said Michael. "You see I got down to the docks too late to get the A-Chiles back."

There was a movement of interest, a drawing closer. This was a predicament they understood. There are always cattle to bring eastward from Canadian and U.S. ports to Liverpool or London, and the cattleman may return with his boss on the same ship; but if he loses it there are not cattle-boats plying west across the Atlantic to give him a job again. There is stoking to be done, of course, east and west, but there is some kind of stokers' union; and the cattleman does not know whether he would be welcomed among the stokers. There are always ways of getting across, but the cattleman, or at any rate the young cattleman, needs to be posted up on them.

"Where did you stow away?" asked one of the wizened partners of that youth who morning by morning demanded his shaving water from Rafferty. Michael had already begun his story, and this question, and others discharged from the rear of those clustered near him, slightly offended him.

"As I was saying," said he, "I goes on board, and some of the fellows had left one of the boats afore fixing the tarpaulin down. I gets inside there, and I hears somebody say: 'I see you! I'll get the police to you!'"

The Inquisitive One unconsciously ducked his head into his shoulders, and the edges of his eyes narrowed. The word "police" always affected him like that. Jack took on the expression of someone who does what is called "looking the other way." He became blank.

"But I thought I knew the voice," continued Michael. "I says: 'Is that you, Jim Larson?'"

"It was a friend, was it?" a tense listener exploded.

Michael looked with his one eye at the interrupter.

"So he fastens up the tarpaulin," said he, "and there I stays till we drops Ireland, and I tell ye I was wantin' something to eat. So I puts my hand over the gunwale, and loosens them ropes, and——"

One of the men at this came a little closer, cunning and critical.

"—I comes on deck, and oh there was a——"

Michael's vocabulary broke down at this, and with a lot of by-thises and by-thats, he gave it to be understood that a bo'sun and a third officer told him that they would clap him in irons, that the skipper ordered him to be swung over the side in a cradle and start in chipping, and that he said he wouldn't go. At this point Michael looked up at the insidious critic.

"Oh, well, indeed," he hurriedly went on, "I did a bit of painting for them, and my friend on board gives me a chance to slip the coppers at Montreal."

"Yes," said somebody, "but wasn't there something about you having a fight with the bo'sun when he took you forward?"

"There was indeed, there was some kind of scrimmage." Michael looked up with his one eye at the man whose expression in listening was different from that of all the other listeners. "You been over with me before, haven't ye?" he asked him.

"Tell us about the scrap you had with the bo'sun going forward!" shouted another.

"No, indeed," Michael declared. "I'll drop that bit out. I've told the story so often that I don't know myself now which is the right way of it and which is the wrong way."

There was a laugh at this, and Michael smiled.

"Oh, indeed, there was a fight all right," he assured them. "But I've told about it different ways. I sometimes wonder myself now if I came off best."

There were sympathetic murmurs.

"Indade, of course, of course," Mike spoke, lying stretched upon his top bunk, near the door, head on hand, lenient and understanding. "You got over anyhow, and you didn't get put in the clink, and there's much to be thankful for."

"Oh, we're only cattlemen," said a voice.

"Lend us your mouth organ!" cried a youth.

The Inquisitive One looked for a moment as if he would protect his breast pocket; but fighting was getting stale, and so he handed over the instrument, the man who took it wiping it on a dirty sleeve before he plunged into the strains of "Rule Britannia!" As he played there was a movement among those near the door. Candlass was there, but he lingered outside until the air was finished and then—"Feed and water, boys," he said, looking in, and as his men defiled into the passage Rafferty arrived.

"Come on wid youse, lower deck!" he bawled. His men filed out fairly orderly. It was only at the morning call that they were still inclined to be cross-grained.

Affairs were settling down into the routine of the trip. There was, indeed, a spirit of friendliness growing among the "Push." Free of liquor, and of the after effects of liquor, the largeness of heart of many was evident, though perhaps there was something morbid, as well as of kindly interest, in their sympathy that they lavished on little Michael. He had his head turned over it, spent most of his spare time sitting on the edge of his bunk, holding up his head to let them look at his eye under the shade. Cockney and he, if they had not yet made friends exactly, had allowed the matter of their fight on the poop to be as an ancient matter now forgotten. The bad eye might have been the result of an accident for all that was said about Cockney by those who looked at it; indeed Cockney was the only one who seemed to recall the origin of it. He sat apart, looking a little ashamed during these examinations of the injured member; but his shame soon began to give way to jealousy, for had he not a bandage on his head—had he not an interesting ear that might be pried at? Yet, take it by and large, as seamen say, a feeling of amicability came to the ship—that is to say by comparison with the spirit that had inhabited it so far. Had any quietist been spirited aboard upon an Arabian carpet he might well have been excused for stepping hastily on to it again, and most hastily murmuring the incantations that would speed his departure; but for those who had seen the "Push" with the drink in it, or the drink waning in it, the S.S. Glory was now almost on the way to being sacred!

The night-watchman, who slept away most of the day in Rafferty's cabin, was the most objectionable sight on deck. He always appeared at meal times, scooped up more than his share, then strolled about for a little while for a constitutional, but was never spoken to. As the days wore on, however, he spoke to others in a manner horribly blending intimidation and fawning, his great moustache waving. He would plant himself in front of some member of the "Push" and explain that he had come down in the world, that he had a son in the Household Cavalry, six foot three, with a fist that would fell an ox. "If my son was on board," he would say, and glare, and if the glare was returned: "Oh, not that I mean anything," he would add. The cattlemen gossiped infinitely less than do people aboard a passenger ship, but it was inevitable that the watchman should be observed, and to some extent discussed.

"What was he saying to you?" asked Jack of a young man before whom the night-watchman had been peering and glaring and fawning.

"Oh, I don't know—about a son in the army, six foot three, knock the stuffing out of anybody. Says he's been divorced."

Mike, hanging over the rail, turned around.

"He's a lazy good-for-nothing, that night-watchman," he said. "It's a wonder to me youse fellows on the lower deck don't fix him. These last nights now we haven't had a dacent sleep for him waking Rafferty." He laughed. "I hear Rafferty says to him: 'Don't you waken me,' he says, 'if there are only one or two loose. Waken me if there's more than half-a-dozen.'" Mike paused, and then added: "But there always is half-a-dozen."

Some of the lower deck men within hearing grinned.

"Oh, I know what it is," said Mike. "Some of youse slips out at night and loosens them, so as to get back on Rafferty for treating you the way he does. It's cutting off your nose to spite your face, bringing Rafferty in at twilve, at wan, at two, and at three, roaring like hill for you to tumble up, and wakenin' us all. What was he after saying now, shoving his face at you, me lad, and waving his tusks at you in the wind? Was it about his tall son that has the strong arm?"

"He says he was divorced," said the young man.

"Divorced, is it?" answered Mike. "He must have been married then, so there wouldn't be any truth in what I would be calling his lad to him if he comes along to me talking about him and his strong arm, and hinting what he would be after doing, and him thousands of miles away." His voice growled on. "Did he tell ye what he was divorced for?"

"No."

Mike's voice almost suggested that he knew himself.

"Indade, he was divorced for laziness," he said.

Jack swaggered away smiling, and the night-watchman, arriving then on the poop, came up to him, seeing he was alone.

"Are these men talking about me?" he said.

He was evidently a poor judge of character. Jack strolled slowly past and over his shoulder—"Ask them," he said.

The night watchman glared and bellowed, in the roaring voice of a bar-room bully: "I'm only asking you a simple question."

Jack stopped in his stride, looked again over his shoulder, and smiled queerly. The night-watchman thought it was a pacific smile, and stepped closer.

"I won't have it!" he roared, and thrust his tusked face forward presumably to let Jack see the determination in it.

Jack merely canted himself backwards, hands in pockets, and—"Take your face off me," he said quietly, "or I'll spit in your eye."

The night-watchman was shocked.

"That's a nice thing for a lad to say to an elderly man," he commented.

"Oh, shut up!" said Jack quietly.

"If my son was here——"

"If your son was here," said Jack mockingly. "I know all about him—he's six foot three, isn't he?—I'd pound the stuffing out of him. One of the family is enough to be going on with. If you come chumming round the decks after me any more, I'll come along and stick you in the ribs to-night, when you're down there supposed to be watching. I will. I don't want you to come talking to me. You'll waken up with a knife in you. Now, that'll do!" and he strolled on, leaving the night-watchman with a face of terror, but drawing himself erect, and twisting his moustache.

Jack walked the length of the deck and turned, but stepping a foot to one side so that he walked back, in his slow march, direct upon the night-watchman. As he walked he took his right hand from his pocket, clenched, and walked swinging it. "Get out of the way!" he said. "Shift!" The watchman moved on one side. Jack walked on, wheeled, marked where the night-watchman stood now, and, both hands in pockets again, he trod the deck back like a panther, straight toward him.

"You're doing this on purpose!" boomed the night-watchman, squaring himself again.

Jack raised his handsome and evil face.

"You come around talking to me," he said, "you say any more to me and I'll fix you all right." The night-watchman stepped aside, and when Jack turned at the end of that walk the watchman was scuttling down the companion way like a rabbit into a burrow.

Nobody congratulated Jack in words. He was a dark horse. He was one of themselves, but except with Johnnie he was not a clubable young man. Men like Cockney, men like Mike, never spoke to him, nor he to them. Sometimes, in the morning, after the watering was over, if he met Scholar's eye, he would give his head a little jerk to left and say: "Hallo!" He was of those who, when others talked, could move away and not come back again, and yet be called to account by no one for such contempt. He was of those who, if spoken to, could lean up against the rail, cross-legged, turn and look gently up and down the frame of the questioner, then move away, dumb. Perhaps it was Jack, and his partner Johnnie with his feverish devilry, who were at the bottom of an opinion that began to be current on the lower deck. The lower deck men, it appeared, thought that the main deck men were somewhat lacking in spirit. They managed to pass on their devilish restlessness to one or two on the deck in question, and these, thus affected, had the air of looking for trouble. A handy theme offered, and they fell to grumbling over the fact that they were three men short.

"Men short, did you say?" inquired Mike.

"Things short. Do you call them three things men?"

The complaining voices subsided, but there were glances cast at Mike by one or two that were intended to be read as: "Who do you think you are?"

"I've had enough short-handed," broke out one of the less easily extinguished.

But here the routine interfered. A hail came from forward, and the men on the poop, and the men in the cabin below, had to file away to the afternoon feeding. When the main deck bunch spread out with hay and buckets, Candlass appeared, coming down the narrow alley to see that the men did not overdo the belabouring of those steers near the end where the hay was, great beasts whose main thought was to make a meal off the armfuls of hay that went past them while the steers at the far end looked down the alley and lowed vehemently; to see, also, that the mood of laziness in the men did not triumph over the mood of determination and prevent the steers at the far end from having a fair feed; to see also that all hands had tumbled out. So far he had had no skulkers in his crowd, but he was an experienced cattle boss. He moved along slowly, edging sideways past each hay-laden man. All were busy; he had merely to look on. Then he spoke.

"Isn't there a man short?" he asked.

Nobody answered.

"Tom," he addressed one, "do you know where that fellow with the mouth organ is?"

"Isn't he here, boss?" and the man that Candlass had spoken to looked along the decks as if he expected to see the Inquisitive One somewhere at work. Candlass went slowly up the alleyway. Scholar did not observe his approach until the boss's hand was on his shoulder, and he pushed his armful of hay aside to let Candlass go past, a steer on the side toward which he moved immediately tearing at the bundle.

"There's a man short, isn't there, Scholar?" asked Candlass.

"Don't know," answered Scholar, and was aware that Candlass peered sharply at him before hailing Mike.

"What's the matter with that man, Mike, the man that has the mouth organ?"

There was distress on Mike's forehead as he answered: "I don't know."

"You should know," said Candlass. "You're the straw boss."

"Yes, yes, I'm the straw boss maybe, but I'd rather work meself than——" and he said no more. Only Scholar, near Candlass, caught the response of: "Oh yes, quite so."

Then the boss went aft; and all the men along the alley, for some reason, turned and looked at his back. Even after he had disappeared they continued to pass the hay without a word, then they looked along the alley again, and coming forward was the Inquisitive One. The mouths of several of the men opened, an upright furrow showed between their brows. What they saw seemed inconceivable, for the Inquisitive One appeared to have shrunk, was deathly white, did not look the same man. Behind him Candlass walked, shoulders a little bent, as one under a burden, lips puckered, and eyes on the deck; and the Inquisitive One fell to work, making a whimpering sound ever and again. He was changed, as a cat that has been dipped in a tub of water, but he never told any of the men what Candlass had done to him. Some asked, who had his gift, or failing, of inquisitiveness; others left it to him to tell if he cared to; but none heard. Probably it was a bear-hug that the Inquisitive One had received, alone in the cattlemen's cabin where he sulked over Mike's contempt for those who objected to working with three men short—for Candlass had arms like steel.