“Why?” asked Donald. He had glanced around the ship and she seemed to be a splendid vessel. Everything was brand-new and shining. “She seems a fine ship!”
“Fine hell!” growled the other disgustedly. “She’s nothing but a big steel tank and a cheap one at that! A great big lumbering, clumsy, four-posted box, built by the mile and cut off by the yard, that’ll give us merry blazes when we get outside. I can see what’s before us. She’ll be dirty, wet, and a bloody work-house from ‘way-back. That’s what she’ll be. If I had of seen her before yesterday, I’d have skipped—’pon my soul I would!”
Donald was not unacquainted with the idiosyncrasies of sailors, so he put Thompson’s pessimism down to a sailing-day grouch. They talked a while and Donald learned that there would be two other apprentices who would join the ship at Greenock—a port at the mouth of the Clyde. These lads, together with Thompson and Captain Muirhead, had been together on the barque Dunottar, but this ship had been run into and sunk in the Irish Channel a few months back. The “Dun Line” people had bought the Kelvinhaugh on the stocks to take the lost vessel’s place in a charter for carrying railroad iron out to the Pacific Coast for one of the Canadian railways. There had been four apprentices on the Dunottar, but one of them was drowned when the ship went down. “A first voyager, too,” said Thompson, “but the ruddy young fool went back to save some of his gear and got caught!”
“What kind of a man is Captain Muirhead?” enquired Donald.
“From what I’ve seen of him,” replied the other bluntly, “I don’t like him much. He was only on the Dunottar the voyage she went to the bottom, and as she slid for Davy’s Locker four days after leaving port we didn’t get time to get acquainted. He’s a mean josser and a bad-tempered one too. But what can you expect in one of these ships? McKenzie only pays his skippers twelve pounds a month. Good men wouldn’t go to sea in them for that.” Staring curiously at Donald, he asked, “Your name is McKenzie. Are you any relation to the owner of these hookers?”
“Yes,” replied the other. “He’s my uncle.”
Thompson whistled and said aggressively, “Well, you can tell your uncle next time you write to him that he’s a lousy, miserable swine and that his ships are the worst-fed, worst-rigged, rottenest, under-manned hookers afloat! Wouldn’t I jolly well like to have him aboard one rounding Cape Stiff! He’d get a belly-full of it—the blasted two-ends-and-the-bight of a skin-tight Glasgow miser!”
Donald was not surprised at this freely-expressed opinion of his uncle, but he quickly disabused Thompson’s mind of any intention of writing him. “My uncle isn’t in love with me, and probably doesn’t care two pins about me!” he said shortly.
Thompson laughed. “Oh, well,” he said, “we’re in for it now, and we’ve got to stick it out. Now, sonny, I’m going to give you some tips. First of all, I’m top-dog in this half-deck. I’m the senior apprentice and what I say goes—in here. Remember that!” Donald nodded. “Now,” continued the other, “you seem a nice little chap, so I’ll take you in hand. You take this upper bunk here and chuck your bed-sack and blanket into it. These upper bunks are the best when the water is sloshing in here a foot-and-half deep. Don’t you give that bunk up on any pretence. The others will have to take the lowers, whether they like it or not. Serve ’em right for being ‘last-minute-men’ and not joining the ship here.” Donald hove his bedgear into the bunk. Thompson glanced at the stuff and felt the blanket. “Where did you get that junk? Your uncle fitted you out, ye say? God help ye! It has his trademark—a Parish Rig, a donkey’s breakfast and a bull-wool and oakum blanket! I can see he don’t love ye! Now, son, get those brass-bound rags off and get into your working clothes. You’ll have to turn-to in a minute or so. We’re waiting for the tugs and the Old Man.”