He was about as much afraid of anything in this world or the next as a hungry shark is of beef; in fact, he seemed to take to trouble with about the same sort of appetite. In six months I never had a chance to tell him anything except the routine.
The chief engineer was McDougal, and the second was Mac something—all of our engine-room force went under the same name of Mac, just plain "Mac," and if they were not Scotchmen, I never saw one in my life. Scotchmen are born engine men, take to a machine like a dago does to a knife. The rest of the fireroom bunch were the old-style Liverpool Irishmen, and I'll tell you something, they were hard ones all right. They were the toughest lot of coal tossers I ever sailed with, and even the donkey man, O'Hare, was a peach of a Donegal Irishman with Galways of reddish hue that stuck out from under his shirt collar, pointing upward as if they were growing some husky on his throat.
That was the principal part of our crew. There were some twenty others, including the cooks, galley boys, seamen, and quartermasters.
We cleared for Antonio, and were soon running out over the Western Ocean in the lazy, tiresome routine of ship's duty. We were licensed to carry passengers and had a few waiters aboard, a steward, and a lady of about thirty signed on as stewardess.
As there were no passengers this voyage out—no one ever went out with us if he could help it, but came back when there were no other ships—the cabin crowd had an easy time, regular yachting trip; and if Miss Lucy Docking had a stupid time, it was because she wouldn't talk to the rest.
"Stuck-up and sassy," they said aft, but I never could tell, never getting a chance to talk with her without a dozen or more listening. At the same time I didn't like to blame the girl just because she didn't like the set of lovers the ship furnished free of charge. "Let her pick her own," said I, "it's like enough she'll make a mistake, anyways, without your help." I never had a big opinion of women, anyhow, for the only one I ever proposed marriage to fell down and nearly died laughing at me, and that after I had been dreaming of her and thinking her the greatest angel in the world.
Miss Lucy was all right with me, because I let her alone, except in the mid-watch, when I was cold and thirsty. Then she used to get me a cup of cocoa or chocolate or coffee, and I tell you the man who stands the mid-watch on the old freighters is earning all he gets, whether it comes by way of the stewardess or by way of the front office.
We crossed the Western Ocean in the usual manner. I had my order book to sign, and I saw that the second greaser didn't get gay with it. Days and days of the old routine passed, and we were in the edge of the trade when the first thing happened to show what a wild lot of yaps we had in that ship.
The bos'n stuffed his oiled rags in behind the ceiling of the after house, and it was about three days afterward we struck the hot weather. The rags promptly caught fire—they always do when snugged in from the air—and we hove the old hooker to in the teeth of the trade with the after deck a roaring furnace. If you think we didn't have a time of it putting that deck house out, throwing it overboard in pieces, you should look up Lloyd's. Well, the way I talked to that bos'n would have given heart disease to most men, but the beggar didn't see it at all.
"Rags is rags," he says, "and what for don't I put them behaind something?"