He hastily retreated within his den, finding his watchmate already asleep. He felt the call of rest very strongly, but his cleanly instincts rebelled against the fact that for two days he had not had his clothes off, or even an apology for a wash. Still he knew not where to get any water except salt, and that was a task he felt beyond his powers, there were no conveniences of any kind for washing, and he—well, like most boys who go unprepared to sea for the first time, he just did the easiest thing, got into his bunk, and in less than a minute was fast asleep.
CHAPTER III
HIS FIRST GALE
A loud voice shouting in his ear, it seemed, “Seven bells; turn out here, you sleepers,” aroused Frank to a consciousness of his surroundings again, to his utmost astonishment, for he felt sure he had only been asleep five minutes.
As he awoke he heard Johnson muttering, “Blowin’ a gale o’ wind now, I should think, by the way she’s kicking about, the old beast. Here, Frank, go an’ get the dinner an’ hurry up, it’ll be all hands directly, I can see.”
Frank scrambled out of his bunk, dragged his cap on, and staggered out on deck, to be met as he did so by a heavy spray which drenched him and nearly knocked him down. He gasped and clutched at the side of the house, but did not go back, although he felt a little bit alarmed. He held on his way to the galley, however, and the cook handed him two tin dishes, one with a piece of fat boiled pork in it that made his gorge rise as he looked at it, and the other with some plain pea-soup.
Now he ought to have known better than to have attempted to carry both dishes, having no hand left to hold on with. But he started and got half-way towards his house, when the ship gave a combined roll and pitch that shot him off his legs, and hurled him along the deck as helpless as a dead thing. He landed in the scuppers at the lee side of the vessel, which were a foaming torrent of water, and when he had scrambled to his feet again his dishes and their contents were several feet away.
Pursuing them was out of the question in his then condition, so he grasped his way to the house and told Johnson of his mishap, who bad-worded him severely, winding up by saying, “I suppose I shall have to go an’ get it. I never saw such a fool in my life.” A common enough expression, but one very rarely justified.
Away went Johnson, presently returning with the food, but grumbling horribly. He made haste to eat some of the pork and pea-soup, but Frank, although savagely hungry, was fain to stay his appetite with a biscuit; that pork was too much for his sight, to say nothing of his stomach.