“Thank you, Captain Cary.”
Sard returned to the deck to finish the washing down. He had the running rigging thrown from the pins and recoiled: he had the men to the brasswork; saw the colours up and the house flag and Blue Peter hoisted. Captain Cary was on deck by a quarter to eight with an eye like a hawk for a spot or a started rope yarn. Sard at that moment was at the windlass with the carpenter. Coming out, he cast a glance aft and a glance aloft, with the thought that for all that magnificent thing, the ship, he was the man responsible, and that she would stand even Captain Cary’s eye. “She is in good order,” he thought, “she can stand anything that the sea can send. There’s nothing wrong with her.”
She was indeed beautiful, even from forward, looking aft. The power of her sheer made a sailor catch his breath. She was not very lofty, but her yards were very square: her spread was huge. She was in lovely order; yards squared, harbour-stowed, all the chafing gear bran-new, and the decks already sea-shape. He sent a boy aloft to dip a rope clear, and then went aft, with an eye for everything and the knowledge that the ship was fit.
As he went aft, he stopped just abaft the fo’c’sle (the forward deckhouse) to have another look at her. He never realised how much he liked his work until just before it was tested. He looked up at her great steel masts with the enormous yards (the fore and main yards together, end for end, as long as three cricket pitches) with the thought that this was art, this iron shell, with her gear, and that he was the master of this art. “It’s a good framework,” he thought, “a good foundation. Building a steeple is only going a little further in the same direction, and building a steeple is the finest thing a man can do. But a steeple is based on rock and this thing flies along water. This thing works for her living.”
He stopped abreast of the main-rigging to have a word with “Pompey” Hopkins, the second mate, a fair-haired, snub-nosed man of twenty-three, whose sea career he had watched from its beginning. He was called “Pompey” because he came from Portsmouth.
“Any chance of a Liverpool leave, Mr. Harker, since we are not to sail?”
“None, Mister,” Sard said; “you know the old man by this time, don’t you?”
“What shall we be doing, then?”
“After breakfast he will have a look-see and decide to trim her by the head.”
“I used to think sugar was a food,” Pompey said, “but now I know that it’s a poison.”