Frank Brown, Sea Apprentice

by Frank Thomas Bullen

Meanwhile the work went steadily forward, and the decks began to assume a neatness and cleanliness which appealed to Frank, although he felt how hard a task it had been to make them so. Seven bells struck and the other watch was called to breakfast, while he, with his fellow-apprentice Johnson, busied themselves in tidying up the poop and cleaning the brasswork with oil and bath-brick, Johnson giving himself more than professional airs because it was necessary for him to teach the novice the simplest thing.

There were not wanting signs, however, that Johnson and Frank would presently be very good friends, for Johnson was only a year Frank’s senior and had no one else to talk to, which, as he was a sociable lad at bottom, made him forget that superiority so dear to a boy and speak every now and then as a comrade.

While they were thus busy the captain came on deck, looking even less prepossessing than he had done the day previous. His evil eye fell upon everything like a blight. He grumbled at the helmsman, and at the boys, muttered something unintelligible about the trim of the sails, and generally made himself appear as much like the enemy of mankind as possible. Frank felt quite nervous at being near him, and when eight bells sounded and Williams came to relieve them, the pair lost not an instant in getting off the poop out of their commander’s way.

But it was a sore trial for the new chum to enter that house and leave the pure sharp air outside, although he felt that he would much like a little shelter. Still he was in some small measure hardened, and the filthy hole did not seem so terrible as it had done. Only the sight of the other new apprentice, Harry Carter, made him feel a curious mixture of pity and disgust. I am not going to describe him as I have seen him and his like many times, sufficient to say that he had now been lying for two days in the midst of a heap of his belongings without the slightest attention being paid to him by anybody, except for a drink or two of water which Johnson had given him. He looked almost as if he were dying, and did not seem to care.

The two other youngsters, whatever their feelings may have been, had other business on hand just now, the getting of their breakfast. Frank took the two pots and fetched the curious coffee, waiting a moment when he had received it for some sign that there was something else forthcoming. The cook, however, said sharply, “Dat’s all. Doan fink you gets scouse any more, do yer?”

Frank retreated without a word, and on reaching the house found that Johnson had been aft and procured about two ounces of butter from the steward wherewith to lubricate their biscuits, and with this and the coffee they made what breakfast they could.

Having appeased their hunger somewhat, they made an attempt to help the sick boy for their own sakes. They dragged him out of his bunk and wiped him down roughly, although he implored them to let him alone; then they did their best to straighten up the extraordinary confusion of his bunk, unrolled his bedding and laid him on it. It was all they knew how to do, and anyhow their time was precious. Frank made a clearance of his bunk too, and some sort of a bed for himself with a curious angry feeling that he ought not to have been allowed to be so ignorant of the commonest duties of life, and that anyhow some one ought to show him how here.

What to do with his many belongings he did not know, there were no lockers, no shelves, just a few nails driven into the bulkheads, and his chest, from having been tousled over in a wild hurried search for things, was so full that it wouldn’t shut. At last he said despairingly to Johnson, “I wish I only knew where to put my things, there’s no drawers, no cupboards, and I never put anything away at home anyhow.”

“Oh, shove ’em anywhere,” said Johnson testily, “don’t bother me. I’ve got trouble enough with my own dunnage. Go and get a broom and sweep the wreck up into a corner, I’m going to turn in, I’m as tired as a dog.” And suiting the action to the word he flung himself into his bunk just as he was, without even troubling to take off his boots or change his damp clothes.

Frank found a broom and drew together the accumulated rubbish and dirt on the deck, and then feeling ashamed to leave it there in spite of what Johnson had said, scooped up a double handful of it, went outside and flung it over the nearest rail, which happened to be to windward, with the result that it all blew back on top of him, into his eyes and over the clean deck. A yell of execration went up from two of the men who were passing as the dirt blew over them, but beyond cursing him roundly, and suggesting that he had never yet been round Cape Horn, they did nothing to explain the why of his mistake.