The first day at sea is seldom very pleasant to anybody, especially on board a sailing ship, and the one the lads had looked forward with bright hopes to, dragged by dismally. For an hour or two painted buoy and rolling red lightship came crawling back towards them out of the rain, and then when the last of the Lancashire sandhills had faded over their starboard hand, there was only smoky cloud before them and a grey sea, across which little white ripples splashed.
Still, the tug was powerful and hauled them steadily along with a rhythmical splash and tinkle at the bows that rose and fell a little, and a muddy wake streaked with froth astern. Once or twice they caught a blink of the hills of Wales, but the vapours that unrolled a trifle closed in again, and the lads were glad they had not much opportunity for looking about them. There were huge ropes to be coiled up and stowed away, bales and cases to be put below, the jibboom to be rigged out, decks washed and everything cleaned down, and while the drizzle blew about them they stumbled amidst the litter and got in everybody's way. Now and then a seaman laughed at them or another growled. One or two they offered to assist shoved them aside, and it commenced to dawn upon Chriss Niven for the first time that he was of very little use in the busy world. The knowledge was not pleasant, but it was probably good for him.
Then the daylight died out, and while now and then coloured lights crept up ahead and grew dim again behind, one after another long streamers of brilliance whirled up across the sea. They, too, grew brighter, flashed, and blinked, and flickered, and faded away, and Appleby grew more chilly when he could find nothing more to do, until at last he sighed with contentment when somebody told him to go into the deckhouse if he wanted any tea.
When he entered it he saw a lamp that smoked a good deal swinging from a blackened iron beam, and two lads a little older than himself sitting on their sea-chests with enamelled plates on their knees, and a great can of steaming tea before them. They were just out of port, and having brought their own things they feasted for once royally on fresh bread and butter, sardines and marmalade. One of them who had a pleasant face filled up Niven's pannikin, and pointed to the bread.
"Wire in. You'll not have the chance very long," he said. "It's your job to go to the galley and bring the senna in, but we have let you off this time. I'd take those things you're wearing off, if I was you. We don't dress like gunboat commanders on board the Aldebaran."
"You brought this grub yourselves. They don't feed you very well," said Appleby, and the others laughed.
"No," said one. "None of the Aldebarans would get a prize at a cattle show, and you'd be glad to steal the dog's dinner in a week or two, only we haven't got one. You see a dog can't live on nothing as we're almost expected to do, and the old man's too mean to waste food on anything that can't handle sail."
"What's he like apart from his stinginess?" asked Niven.
"Well," said one of the others, "I have sailed with worse—a little—but the old man don't count for very much, anyway, because it's the mate who runs the ship, and the one we've got now's a terror."
"He's a pig-faced Geordie with a tiger's heart. I'd sooner live with a shark," said a lad who sat in a corner. "Hadn't been out two hours when he pitched one of the fellows forward down the hold. Of course it was tolerably full, and he didn't fall very far."