Still we lay in silence. The screw of the propeller had not started yet. We dared not come out or we would be put ashore.
We were hungry. We could hear their tin plates clattering and clinking as the cattlemen ate supper, and smell the smell of cornbeef and boiled potatoes. Our mouths ran from hunger.
—"wish I had something to scoff, I'm starvin'," groaned Nippers, "but we'll hafta lay low till the bloody tub pulls out or we'll get caught an' dumped ashore."
Supper done with, the men were sitting about and smoking. They were soon, however, summoned up on deck, by a voice that roared down to them, from above, filling their quarters with a gust of sound.
We were alone now, perhaps,—it was so still.
With an almost imperceptible slowness, Nippers thrust his head out, as cautiously as a turtle ... he emerged further.
He made a quick thrust of the arm for a platter of beef and potatoes, that stood, untouched, on the table ... someone coughed. We had thought we were alone. Nippers jerked back. The tin came down with a clatter, first to the bench, then to the floor. A big friendly potato rolled under to where we were. We seized on it, divided it, ate it.
Contrary to our conjecture, some of the men must have stayed below. Someone jumped out of a bunk.