“D’ye call that a bridge?” Mike pointed forward of the tipsy funnel, which was painted light blue.
“Hit’s a better bridge than the mud flats of Novgorod!” Micky said. “Get below and report. I’m skipper ’ere!”
Mike’s report, delivered between champs upon a chew of Chinese tobacco borrowed from a coolie, was tense and bitter.
“Ye hae no conception of the state of things below,” he told Micky McMasters. “There’s only one double-door boiler. It was made in Canton—China. The engines are cross-compound of the vintage of Isaac Watt and Robert Fulton. The coal is Japanese—twa bunkers of it. The stokehold leaks and the shaft-alley is full of bilge muck. Ah saw the stuffin’-boxes jettin’ water myself. The last engineer of this packet wrote wot he thought of it on the ditty-box door. He said enough. His name was MacFarland.”
“What’s that got to do with hus?”
Mike walked from starboard to port of the tramp. He stared down at the line of coolies who were staggering aboard under the last of the boxes. He watched the yellow hands of the gang in the forehold reach for the cargo. He came back to Micky McMasters.
“Wot’s it got to do with us?” he repeated. “It’s got a lot. Ah doot if we make Japan—let alone Victoria.”
“We’ll try,” said Micky sadly. “The Russian says we can clear at nightfall. ’E and ’is crew are coming aboard then. I tested the steering-gear. It works. Who got steam up?”
“Three coolies who are sittin’ in the engine-room waiting to go ashore. Ah borrowed some cut-plug from them—enough to last the voyage—if it lasts. They can’t talk anything but pidgin English. Their clothes are not worth taking—or I’d of taken them.”