The Sailor

by J. C. Snaith

Yes, it was true, the ship was already at sea. He was lost. And hardly was there time for his mind to seize this terrible thought when the Chinaman looked into the manhole. As soon as he saw the boy was sitting up, a broad grin came on his face and he beckoned him out with a finger.

The boy obeyed at once, and tumbled unsteadily into the galley. But as soon as he tried to stand on his legs he fell down. The Chinaman with a deep smile pointed to the bacon box, and the boy sat on it, and then tried as well as he could to prevent his head from going round.

Luckily, for the time being, the Chinaman took no further notice of Henry Harper, but set about the duties of the day. It was nearly six bells of the morning watch, and he had to serve breakfast for the crew. This consisted partly of a curious mixture that was boiling in the copper, which was called wet hash, and was esteemed as a luxury, and partly of an indescribable liquid called coffee, which was brewed out of firewood or anything that came handy, and was not esteemed as anything in particular by the most catholic taste.

Long before the boy's head had done spinning six bells was struck, and the members of the crew came into the galley with their pannikins. There were sixteen all told, excluding the Old Man and the superior officers, of whom Mr. Thompson was the chief. Henry Harper's breath was taken away by the sight of this wolfish looking lot. He had seen distinguished members of the criminal classes massed around the Judge's carriage at the Assizes at Blackhampton, just for old sake's sake as it were, and to show that they still took a friendly interest in the Old Cock; but these were tame and rather amateurish sort of people compared with the crew of the Margaret Carey.

As a body of seamen the crew of the Margaret Carey was undoubtedly "tough." Dagoes, Yanks, Dutchmen and a couple of not very "white" Britishers; they came into the galley, one after another, took up their pannikins of wet hash, and as soon as they saw and smelled it, told Mr. Sing what they thought of him in terms of the sea. Henry Harper was chilled to the marrow. He was still seated on the bacon box, his head was still humming; but he seemed to remember that Auntie, even on Saturday nights, when she came home from the public, was not as these.

At the end of a fortnight the boy was still alive. At first he was so dreadfully ill that his mind was distracted from other things. And as he did not lack food as soon as he could eat it, body and soul kept together in a surprising way.

He was still in great dread of the Chinaman and of the nights of torment in the crawling darkness of the manhole under the galley stairs. But he kept on doing his job as well as he could; he took care to be alert and obliging to whomever crossed his path; he tried his honest best to please the Chinaman by saving him as much trouble as possible, thus at the end of a fortnight not only his life was intact, but also his skin.

The truth was he was not a bad sort of boy at all. For one thing he was as sharp as a needle: the gutter, Dame Nature's own academy, had taught him to be that. He never had to be told a thing twice. Also he was uncommonly shrewd and observant, and he very soon came to the conclusion that the business of his life must be to please the Chinaman.

In this task he began to succeed better than he could have hoped. Sing, for all his look of unplumbed wickedness, did not treat him so badly as soon as he began to make himself of use. For one thing he got a share of the best food that was going, the scraps from the cabin table, and this was a very important matter for one of the hungriest boys aboard one of the hungriest ships athwart the seas.

In the course of the third week, Henry Harper began to buck up a bit. His first experience of the motions of a ship at sea had made him horribly unwell. As night after night he lay tossing and moaning as loudly as he dared in the stifling darkness between the boiler and the galley stairs, without a friend in the world and only an unspeakable fate to look forward to, he felt many times that he was going to die and could only hope the end would be easy.