“Going to see the Major this morning?”
Evans groaned. “I suppose I have to.” He got out of bed and shivered in the cold room. He always slept naked, even in winter. Quickly he dressed himself. Then he looked at himself in the mirror. He looked scrofulous. Evans was not sure what the word meant, but it had been going through his mind for several days and the sound of it was most descriptive. From time to time he would mutter the word to himself. Evans combed his hair and reminded himself again that he would have to get a haircut soon.
“Are you ready?” asked Bervick, who had been watching him impatiently.
“All ready.” Evans put on his cap and they left the cabin and the wheelhouse.
One of the deckhands was out on deck trying to tack another piece of canvas over the hole where one of the forward ventilators had been. As Evans and Bervick went by him, he asked, “Say, Skipper, do you know what happened to the hammer? The one we keep in the lazaret.”
“No, I don’t. It was in there last I heard. You know anything about it, Bervick?”
“I used a hammer to fix the ventilator the other night. I stuck it back in the lazaret.”
“Well, it ain’t there now.”
“You better look again,” said Evans.
“It ain’t there.” The man turned back to his work and Evans and Bervick climbed up on the dock.