It has made me worse -- you little Irish lunatic, you!’ Belfast, with scarlet face and trembling lips, made a dash at him. Every man in the forecastle rose with a shout. There was a moment of wild tumult. Some one shrieked piercingly: -- ‘Easy, Belfast! Easy!....’We expected Belfast to strangle Wait without more ado. Dust flew. We heard it through the nigger's cough, metallic and explosive like a gong. Next moment we saw Belfast hanging over him. He was saying plaintively: -- ‘Don't!
Don't, Jimmy! don't be like that. an angel couldn't put up with ye -- sick as ye are.’ He looked round at us from Jimmy 's bedside, his comical mouth twitching, and through tearful eyes; then he tried to put straight the disarranged blankets. The unceasing whisper of the sea filled the forecastle. Was James Wait frightened, or touched, or repentant? He lay on his back with a hand to his side, and as motionless as if his expected visitor had come at last. Belfast fumbled about his feet, repeating with emotion: -- ‘Yes. We know. Ye are bad, but....Just say what ye want done, and....We all know ye are bad -- very bad.... ’No!
Decidedly James Wait was not touched or repentant. Truth to say, he seemed rather startled. He sat up with incredible suddenness and ease. ‘Ah, you think I am bad, do you?’ he said gloomily, in his clearest baritone voice (to hear him speak sometimes you would never think t here was anything wrong with that man). ‘Do you?.... Well, act according!
Some of you haven't sense enough to put a blanket shipshape over a sick man. There! Leave it alone'! I can die anyhow!’ Belfast turned away limply with a gesture of discouragement. In the silence of the forecastle, full of interested men, Donkin pronounced distinctly: -- ‘Well, I'm blowed!’ and sniggered. Wait looked at him. He looked at him in a Page 29quite friendly manner. Nobody could tell what would please our incomprehensible invalid: but for us the scorn of that snigger was hard to bear.
Donkin's position in the forecastle was distinguished but unsafe. He stood on the bad eminence of a general dislike. He was left alone; and in his isolation he could do nothing but think of the gales of the Cape of Good Hope and envy us the possession of warm clothing and waterproofs. Our sea-boots, our oilskin coats, our well-filled sea-chests, were to him so many causes for bitter meditation: he had none of those things, and he felt instinctively that no man, when the need arose, would offer to share them with him. He was impudently cringing to us and systematically insolent to the officers. He anticipated the best results, for himself, from such a line of conduct -- and was mistaken. Such natures forget that under extreme provocation men will be just -- whether they want to be so or not. Donkin's insolence to long-suffering Mr. Baker became at last intolerable to us, and we rejoiced when the mate, one dark nigh, tamed him for good.
I was done neatly, with great decency and decorum, and with little noise.
We had been called -- just before midnight -- to trim the yards, and Donkin -- as usual made -- as usual, made insulting remarks. We stood sleepily in a row with the forebrace in our hands waiting for the next order, and heard in the darkness a scuffly trampling of feet, an exclamation of surprise, sounds of cuffs and slaps, suppressed, hissing whispers: -- ‘Ah!
Will you!’....‘Don't!.... Don't!’....‘Then behave.’...‘Oh! Oh!....’ Afterwards there were soft thuds mixed with the rattle of iron things as if a man's body had been tumbling helplessly amongst the main-pump rods. Before we could realise the situation, Mr. Baker's voice was heard very near and a little impatient: -- ‘Haul away, men! Lay back on that rope!’And we did lay back on the rope with great alacrity. As if nothing had happened, the chief mate went on trimming the yards with his usual and exasperating fastidiousness. We didn't at the time see anything of Donkin, and did not care. Had the chief officer thrown him overboard, no man would have said as much as ‘Hallo! he's gone!’ But, in truth, no great harm was done -- even if Donkin did lose one of his front teeth.
We perceived this in the morning, and preserved a ceremonious silence:
the etiquette of the forecastle Page 30
commanded us to be blind and dumb in such a case, and we cherished the decencies of our life more than ordinary landsmen respect theirs. Charley, with unpardonable want of savoir vivre , yelled out: -- ‘'Ave you been to your dentyst?.... Hurt ye, didn't it?’ He got a box on the ear from one of his best friends. The boy was surprised, and remained plunged in grief for at least three hours. We were sorry for him, but youth requires even more discipline than age. Donkin grinned venomously. From that day he became pitiless; told Jimmy that he was a ‘black fraud’ ; hinted to us that we were an imbecile lot, daily taken in by a vulgar nigger. And Jimmy seemed to like the fellow!
