“But don’t you reck’let what your thoughts was when the bread got soaked with the salt water?”
Holdsworth shook his head.
“Here,” continued the good-natured boatswain, “might be the bread,” pointing to the locker. “Here,” he went on, pointing to the stern-sheets, “might you be sitting, steering of her; when up comes a sea and washes over you or the chap that has the yokes. Now, may be, you notices this, but can only groan, having to keep her head well before it—putting you for the man as steers. But you can think, for all that; and it must ha’ scared the blood out of you to guess that the little food that remained was all spoilt. Can’t you remember?”
Holdsworth, who had followed every syllable with trembling anxiety, shook his head again.
“Many things have happened; something tells me that,” he answered; “but I can remember nothing.”
“Would you like to step into the foks’le, sir? Perhaps you might see something there as will help you,” said the boatswain, who was moved by Holdsworth’s hopeless reply.
They descended through the fore-scuttle into the dim semicircular abode, with huge beams across the upper deck, from which depended a number of hammocks, and bunks all around, with their edges chipped and hacked by the men, who used them for cutting tobacco upon; and on the deck, sea-chests and bundles, and pannikins and tin dishes scattered everywhere. The gloom was scarcely irradiated by a couple of lamps resembling teapots with wicks in their spouts; and the faces of the men glimmered over the sides of the hammocks or in the darkness of the bunks. Up in a corner was a group of men, consisting of a portion of the watch on deck, assembled around two sea-chests, on which were seated a couple of ordinary seamen, fastened down by nails driven through the seat of their breeches into the lids of the chests. Their sleeves were tucked above the muscles of their arms, and they were deciding, by means of their fists, an argument which had been commenced half an hour before in the main-top. Being nailed very nearly at arm’s length from each other, their efforts to deal each other blows threw them into contortions irresistibly ridiculous; but the lookers-on, having probably no very lively sense of the absurd, stood around with grave faces, thoughtfully chewing tobacco, and now and then offering the combatants a friendly suggestion where best to hit each other. Some men lay in hammocks directly over the heads of the pugilists, but took no further interest in the proceedings going on under their beds, than now and again to pop a burnt and hairy face over the edge of the tight canvas, and in polite and genteel terms recommend the youngsters not to make too much noise if they didn’t want to be nailed fore and aft upon the lids of the chests like bats.
“Now, sir,” said the boatswain, advancing a few steps into the forecastle, but not even deigning to notice, much less offering to interfere, between the combatants, “see if there ain’t nothing here to give you an idea.”
There should have been many things; for the forecastle of a ship was as familiar to Holdsworth as any part of her; and though, when he had first gone to sea, he had slept in a cabin near his father’s, he had spent the greater part of his time forward among the men, taking instructions from them in all kinds of seafaring work, and never more happy than when squatting on a chest, plying a marlin spike, and listening to the yarns of the sailors around him.
The boatswain watched him with looks of interest, which faded into disappointment.