‘If it wasn't for us sticking together.....Not bad! They ain't never bad when they ain't got a Page 6chawnce, blast their black 'arts.....’ He foamed, whirling his arms, then suddenly grinned and, taking a tablet of black tobacco out of his pocket, bit a piece off with a funny show of ferocity. Another new hand -- a man with shifty eyes and a yellow hatchet face, who had been listening open-mouthed in the shadow of the midship locker -- observed in a squeaky voice: -- ‘Well, it's a 'omeward trip, anyhow. Bad or good, I can do it hall on my 'ed -- s'long as I get 'ome. And I can look after my rights! I will show 'em!’ All the heads turned towards him. Only the ordinary seaman and the cat took no notice. He stood with arms akimbo, a little fellow with white eyelashes, He looked as if he had known all the degradations and all the furies. He looked as if he had been cuffed, kicked, rolled in the mud; he looked as if he had been scratched, spat upon, pelted with unmentionable filth....and he smiled with a sense of security at the faces around. His ears were bending down under the weight of his battered hard hat. The torn tails of his black coat flapped in fringes about the calves of his legs. He unbuttoned the only two buttons that remained and every one saw he had no shirt under it. It was his deserved misfortune that those rags which nobody could possibly be supposed to own looked on him as if they had been stolen. His neck was long and thin; his eyelids were red; rare hairs hung about his jaws; his shoulders were peaked and drooped like the broken wings of a bird; all his left side was caked with mud which showed that he had lately slept in a wet ditch. He had saved his inefficient carcass from violent destruction by running away from an American ship where, in a moment of forgetful folly, he had dared to engage himself; and he had knocked about for a fortnight ashore in the native quarter, cadging for drinks, starving, sleeping on rubbish-heaps, wandering in sunshine: a startling visitor from a world of nightmares. He stood repulsive and smiling in the sudden silence. This clean white forecastle was his refuge; the place where he could be lazy;where he could wallow, and lie and eat -- and curse the food he ate; where he could display his talents for shirking work, for cheating, for cadging;where he could find surely some one to wheedle and some one to bully --and where he would be paid for doing all this. They all knew him. Is there a spot on earth where such a man is unknown, an ominous survival testifying to the eternal fitness of Page 7lies and impudence? A taciturn long-armed shellback, with hooked fingers, who had been lying on his back smoking, turned in his bed to examine him dispassionately, then, over his head, sent a long jet of clear saliva towards the door. They all knew him! He was the man that cannot steer, that cannot splice, that dodges the work on dark nights; that, aloft, holds on frantically with both arms and legs, and swears at the wind, the sleet, the darkness;the man who curses the sea while others work. The man who is the last out and the first in when all hands are called. The man who can't do most things and won't do the rest. The pet of philanthropists and self-seeking landlubbers.
The sympathetic and deserving creature that knows all about his rights, but knows nothing of courage, of endurance, and of the unexpressed faith, of the unspoken loyalty that knits together a ship's company. The independent offspring of the ignoble freedom of the slums full of disdain and hate for the austere servitude of the sea.
Some one cried at him: ‘What's your name?’-- ‘Donkin,’ he said, looking round with cheerful effrontery.
-- ‘What are you?’ asked another voice. -- ‘Why, a sailor like you, old man,’ he replied, in a tone that meant to be hearty but was impudent. -- ‘Blamme if you don't look a blamed sight worse than a broken-down fireman,’ was the comment in a convinced mutter. Charley lifted his head and piped in a cheeky voice:
‘He is a man and a sailor’ -- then wiping his nose with the back of his hand bent down industriously over his bit of rope.
A few laughed. others stared doubtfully. The ragged newcomer was indignant.
-- ‘That's a fine way to welcome a chap into a fo'c'sle,’he snarled. ‘Are you men or a lot of 'artless cannybals?’-- ‘Don't take your shirt off for a word, shipmate,’called out Belfast, jumping up in front, fiery, menacing, and friendly at the same time. -- ‘Is that 'ere bloke blind?’ asked the indomitable scarecrow, looking right and left with affected surprise.
‘Can't 'ee see I 'aven't got no shirt?’He held both his arms out crosswise and shook the rags that hung over his bones with dramatic effect.
‘'Cos why?’ he continued very loud.
‘The bloody Yankees been tryin' to jump my guts hout 'cos I stood up for my rights like a good'un. I ham a Henglishman, I ham. They set upon me an' I 'ad to run. That's why. A'n't yer never seed a man 'ard up? Yah!
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What kind of blamed ship is this? I'm dead broke. I 'aven't got nothink.
No bag, no bed, no blanket, no shirt -- not a bloomin' rag but what I stand in. But I 'ad the 'art to stand hup agin' them Yankees. 'As any of you 'art enough to spare a pair of old pants for a chum?’He knew how to conquer the naive instincts of that crowd.
