Pincher Martin, O.D.: A Story of the Inner Life of the Royal Navy. Dorling Henry Taprell
he stood the ragging without complaint, and nursed his grievance in silence. Then one morning he came late to breakfast to find powdered soap mingled with his food, pepper in his coffee, and Flannagan sniggering on an adjacent seat. He did nothing at the time, but that morning sought the advice of Joshua Billings.
That same afternoon Flannagan happened to be watch ashore. He had asked a messmate to sling a hammock for him, and when, at ten o'clock, he returned to the ship he promptly undressed and turned in. He had barely had time to get comfortably to sleep, however, when his foot lanyard gave an ominous crack. He knew what was about to happen, and tried to save himself, but in an instant found himself precipitated abruptly to the deck, feet first. Falling from a height of five odd feet, and landing in rather scanty attire across the sharp edge of a mess-table, is necessarily a painful business; and Martin, who was lying four tiers away, with one cautious eye peering over the edge of his hammock, could hardly restrain his merriment as the victim hopped round on one leg, swearing and rubbing a badly barked shin.
'Wot yer makin' all that bally row abart?' demanded the Irishman's next-door neighbour with a chuckle. 'Fallen out o' yer 'ammick, 'ave yer?'
'Did you cut me foot lanyard?' demanded the angry Flannagan.
'Me? Lord, no!' guffawed the other.
'Well, you knows 'oo did it, any'ow!'
'I knows nothin',' retorted the A.B., getting angry in his turn. 'If yer says I did it you're a bally liar. I'll give yer a clip 'longside the ear'ole if you ain't careful. Don't act so wet. Wot 'ave I to do wi' yer rotten 'ammick?'
'Some one's cut it,' the Irishman replied furiously, examining a clean cut through two strands of the rope. 'If it ain't you wot done it, you must know 'oo it was. 'Oo was it? tell us.' He looked round to see if anybody else was awake, but every one seemed to be snoring peacefully. Sailors are very heavy sleepers sometimes.
It took Flannagan fully a quarter of an hour to repair damages and turn in again. It was bitterly cold, and he cursed vehemently.
But his troubles were not over yet. Towards eleven-thirty, when he had got thoroughly warm and was dozing off, he felt an uncomfortable, prickly sensation down his back and legs. He sat up blinking, and put a hand under the blanket to find a thin film of something warm and sticky. It resembled glue. The best part of a pound of finely ground brown sugar, cunningly insinuated between the bedclothes, is not a pleasant bedfellow. It melts with the heat of the body. The results are nasty in the extreme.
He leapt out, fuming. ''Ere!' he shouted, violently shaking the A.B. next to him. ''Ave you bin puttin' sugar in my 'ammick?'
'Look 'ere!' exclaimed the newly awakened man, 'I'm fair sick o' yer. I told you afore I 'adn't touched yer 'ammick, an' I sed I'd give yer a thick ear if yer went on worryin' me. Now I'm goin' to do it.' He hopped out, gave the astonished Irishman a box on the ear which sent him sprawling, and then stood over him with clenched fists. 'D'you want any more?' he asked grimly.
Flannagan did not.
Martin and the other men in the neighbourhood, meanwhile, had been waked by the disturbance, and were enjoying the fun. 'Go on, Ginger! Give 'im another!' somebody advised the A.B. 'Give 'im a clip under the lug! Slosh 'im one on the ruddy boko! Wakin' of us orl up at this time o' night!'
'Look 'ere, you blokes,' protested the still recumbent victim, 'some one 'as put sugar in my 'ammick!'
A roar of laughter greeted his words. His hearers were not sympathetic. They longed to see a really good fight, and there would have been more bloodshed if Flannagan, terrorised by the A.B.'s fists, had not thought discretion the better part of valour. He retired grumbling, to spend the rest of the chilly night on the hard mess-table, wrapped in a greatcoat.
At five-forty-five the next morning he sidled up to Martin, as the latter sat drinking his cocoa. 'Look 'ere!' he exclaimed aggressively, 'was it you wot done that to my 'ammick last night?'
'Done wot?' asked Pincher, grinning innocently.
'Cut my ruddy foot lanyard an' put sugar on my blanket,' the Irishman shouted, advancing threateningly with his fists clenched. 'I see'd yer larfin' last night, an' yer larfin' now. If it wos you 'oo done it I'll' —
'Stop yer bloomin' noise, Paddy!' chipped in Strumbles, who was always inclined to be irascible in the early morning. 'If yer wants ter fight Pincher you'd best take 'im on in the dog watches arter tea, not at this un'oly hour o' the mornin'.'
'But if it was 'im wot cut' —
'Don't chaw yer fat!' growled the leading seaman, giving the Irishman a push in the chest. 'If it was Pincher wot done it, I reckons you arsked for it. If you comes makin' a row 'ere I'll land you one on the conk, so you'd best clear out!'
Popular opinion was evidently not on his side; and, seeing how affairs stood, Flannagan slouched off, vowing vengeance on some person or persons unknown.
But he never had his revenge; for, though he had a shrewd suspicion that Martin was somehow responsible for his discomfiture, he could never fix the blame on him for certain. The tables were turned at last, and Pincher suffered no further inconvenience at the hands of Peter Flannagan. The end had justified the means. Joshua Billings, A.B., was an adept at dealing with a young and bumptious ordinary seaman who made himself objectionable.
CHAPTER III
WORK AND PLAY
I
'Nice sort o' craft, isn't she?' growled the first lieutenant, eyeing the grimy collier lying alongside. 'Enough to break the heart of a plaster saint!'
Tickle, the junior watch-keeping lieutenant, nodded in agreement. 'She's broken mine already,' he observed dolefully. 'How on earth we're going to take in six hundred tons from her the Lord alone knows.'
Chase, the first lieutenant, refilled his pipe. 'I'd like to get hold of the blighter who charters these colliers,' he mumbled savagely. 'This one doesn't appear to have a winch that'll lift more than half-a-ton; and as for her hatches – lord! they're only the size of – of that.' He could think of no suitable simile, so held his hands out a couple of feet apart.
'You should just see her whips, No. 1,' put in the watch-keeper. 'They were new in the year one; used by Admiral Noah in the Ark, by the look of 'em. I tried to lift one of the cross beams in No. 1 hold just now. Took me about twenty minutes to get the winch to gee to start with. Then, when I'd gingered it up, and had got the beam in mid-air, the whip parted, and the whole caboodle came down with a crash. It would have gone clean through her bottom if there'd been no coal in the hold.'
'M'yes. I heard the yelling,' observed Chase. 'Any one hurt?'
'No. A silly young ass of an ordinary seaman – chap called Martin, who's just joined – jolly nearly got it in the neck, but not quite, luckily for him. It weighed the best part of half-a-ton, and it missed him by about six inches. He'd have been done in all right if his head had been in the way.'
'Silly blighter!' said the first lieutenant unsympathetically. 'What the dooce did he want to get in the way for?'
'Ask me another,' laughed Tickle. 'Some of these O.D.'s keep their eyes in the back of their head. However, this chap seems a bit better than some of 'em, though that's not saying much. He had the fright of his life, though, and won't do it again, I'll bet.'
The first lieutenant snorted.
S.S. Ben Macdhui certainly deserved all the strictures passed upon her by both officers. She was no chicken, merely a nine-and-a-half knot, pot-bellied monstrosity of a tramp built in the early 'eighties, which, by inadvertence on somebody's part, or through a shortage of more suitable craft, had temporarily been chartered as an Admiralty collier. She belonged to a small company who appeared to earn their dividends by buying all the old crocks of ships they could lay their hands upon, and then running them on the cheap, for all her gear and fittings were as elderly and unsafe as herself. Her middle-aged winches wheezed cheerfully, and vomited forth jets of steam, scalding water, and gouts of oil when they could be persuaded to revolve. Her derricks groaned and sagged perilously when they lifted half their proper load; while the less said about her coaling-whips – supposed to be brand-new two-and-a-half-inch