‘I’m with Chimmo,’ said Captain Barrett. ‘Doctor, I’ll wager you what you will that the worst of your people are those who are most intelligent and best educated.’
‘I must state this as a fact,’ said Captain Sutherland, with a side look at the doctor, as though distrusting his topic: ‘Mr. Bates, my chief officer, recognised one of the convicts. His name—’ The doctor made a motion with his hand. ‘Well, enough if I say,’ exclaimed the captain, stammering, ‘that this same man is a person of excellent antecedents, was for years at sea, and held several posts of trust, and finally wound up a flourishing career by investing his savings in a smart little barque for no other purpose than to scuttle her that he might pocket about triple the amount of his venture in insurance money.’
I heard this, and my heart turned hot. I longed to walk up to Captain Sutherland, look him in the eyes, and call him a beast and a liar. No one observed me, which was lucky. I was conscious that my face worked with agitation and that my cheeks were red with the blood which the captain’s lie had driven into my head. At this point the steward bade me carry a basket of dirty dishes to the galley, and I stepped out with my burden upon the quarter-deck.
The evening was black and the wind wet, and it swept athwart the bulwark-rail with a shriek and a bite of frost. Over the lee-rail the seas ran from the ship in pale, cloudy heaps. Occasionally the brine lashed the forecastle like a showering of small shot, and again and again you’d feel the blow of a sea on the bow striking the ship before she could rise, and the white water of it was flashed back into the dark wind, though the hissing body came like a thunder-squall, an instant later, soaking the decks till the scuppers sobbed again.
I staggered along with the basket of crockery, and passing the sentry, slipped and slid forward through the convicts’ inclosure till I came to the ship’s galley. A number of seamen were gathered under the lee of this place. The red fire of the stove illuminated the fat figure of the cook as he stood pointing a piece of paper to the flame of the lamp to light his pipe. Another fellow was busy at a kind of dresser. Against the closed weather-door leaned the boatswain with folded arms and an inverted pipe betwixt his lips. It was a hot, snug, mellow interior to look in upon after the cheerless scene of the decks and the leaning and waving heights of dim canvas above.
‘So they’ve found work for you, hey?’ said the boatswain, giving me a large nod. ‘Yet you’d better ha’ stopped at home.’
‘Who’s this?’ said the cook.
‘The youngster as I found rolled up in a spare t’gallan’s’l,’ answered the boatswain. ‘They’re a-going to keep him in the land o’ knives and forks.’
‘And you’d rather be a waiter than a steward, Joey?’ said the cook with a greasy chuckle. ‘I don’t blame you. It’s all night in with us idlers, and a warm blanket’s better than a lee earing, ain’t it, Mr. Balls? But what’s brought the covey to ship in this here convick barge?’