Sea Plunder. H. De Vere Stacpoole
said the Captain, glancing around him.
“She is a bit gone to neglect,” said Shiner, “but it’s all on the surface. She’s as sound as a bell where it really matters.”
“Them funnel guys,” said Harman.
“Yes, they want tightening, and the want of boats doesn’t make her look any better; but boats will be supplied according to regulation. You won’t know her when I’ve had half a dozen fellows at her for a couple of days. All that brasswork wants doing, and a lick of paint will liven her up; but she’s not a yacht, anyhow, and a sound deck under one’s feet is a long way better than a good appearance.”
He followed the Captain, who had walked forward to the bow, where the picking-up gear cumbered the deck.
This consisted of a huge drum moved by cogwheels and worked through the picking-up engine by steam from the main boilers. On it would be wound the grapnel rope used for grappling for cable over the wheel let into the bow just at the point where in ordinary ships the heel of the bowsprit is grasped by the knightheads.
The Captain inspected this machine with attention, pressing on the cogs of the driving wheel with his thumb as though they were soft and he wished to discover how much they would dent; then, standing off a bit, he looked at it with his head on one side, as a knowing purchaser might look at a horse.
“Wants a drop of lubricating oil,” said Shiner tentatively.
“Gallons,” replied the Captain. He turned to the picking-up engine and pulled the lever over. This he did several times, releasing it and then pulling it over again as if for the gloomy pleasure of feeling its defects.
“Well,” said Shiner, “what do you think of the gear and engine?”
“Oh, they’ll work,” said the Captain, “but it will be a good job if they don’t work off their bedplates.”
“They’ll hold tight enough,” said Harman, pressing his foot on the brake of the engine. “There’s nothing wrong with them on the inside. Let’s have a look at the main.”
They came aft past the electrical testing room, and passed down the companionway to the engine room.
Here things were brighter, the weather having worked no effect.
“I have had them examined by an expert,” said Shiner. “He gave them an A-1 certificate. And the boilers are sound; they have been scaled and cleaned. Let’s go and look at the saloon.”
They came on deck, and Shiner led the way down the companionway to the saloon.
It was a big place, with a table running down the middle capable of seating twenty or thirty at a crush. Cabin doors opened on either side of it; at the stern end it bayed out into a lounge and a couch upholstered in red velvet; and at the end, by the door leading to the companionway, was fixed a huge sideboard with a mirror backing.
A faint air of old festivity and an odour of must and mildew lent their melancholy to the dim, irreligious light streaming down through the dirty skylight.
The Captain sniffed. Then he peeped into the cabins on either side, noticed the cockroaches that made hussar rushes for shelter, the fact that the doors stuck in their jambs, that the bunks were destitute of bedding, and the scuttles of the portholes sealed tight with verdigris.
“You can have the starboard cabin by the door,” said Shiner. “I’ll take the port. Or you can take the chart room; there’s a bunk there. Harman can have any of the other cabins he likes. We’ll all mess here, and we won’t grumble at being tightly packed.”
“You’ll have decent bedding put in?” said the Captain.
“That will be done, all right,” replied Shiner. “You need have no fear at all that the appointments won’t be up to date. There won’t be frills on the sheets, but there will be comfort.”
“Well, comfort is all I ask,” replied the Captain. “And you propose to put out this day week?”
“This day week. May I take it, now, that everything is settled?”
The Captain scratched his head for a moment, as if dislodging a last objection. Then he said:
“I’ll come.”
III
THE TOP SEAT AT THE TABLE
It was on a Tuesday morning that they started. Blood came on board at six, and found the majority of the crew already assembled under Harman. They had come on board the night before, and, to use his own expression, they were the roughest, toughest crowd he had ever seen collected on one deck.
He was just the man to handle them, and his first act was to boot a fellow off the bridge steps where he had taken his perch, pipe in mouth, and send him flying down the alleyway forward. Then, following him, he began to talk to the hands, sending them flying this way and that, some to clean brasswork and others to clear the raffle off the decks.
Down below, the boilers were beginning to rumble, and now appeared at the engine-room hatch a new figure, with the air of a Scotch terrier poking up its head to have a look round.
It was MacBean, the chief, second, third, and fourth engineer in one.
MacBean had the honest look of a Dandie Dinmont, and something of the facial expression. He was an efficient engineer; he was on board the Penguin because he could not get another job, and that fact was not a certificate of character. There was scarcely a soul on board the Penguin, indeed, with the exception of Shiner, who would not have been somewhere else but for circumstances over which they had no control.
The Captain gave MacBean good morning, had a moment’s talk with him, and then went aft to see how things were going there.
He found that a steward had been installed, and that he was in the act of laying breakfast things at one end of the breakfast table.
The Captain sent him up for his gear which was on deck, ordered him to place it in the cabin which he had selected, and then proceeded to change from the serge suit which he wore into an old uniform dating from his last command in the Black Bird line.
As he was finishing his toilet, he heard Shiner’s voice, and when he came out of his cabin he found Shiner and Harman seated at table and the steward serving breakfast.
Shiner had gotten himself up for the sea. He looked as though he were off for some cheap trip with a brass band in attendance. Very few people can bear yachting rig, especially when it is brand-new; and brass buttons with anchors on them are as trying to a man’s gentility as mauve to a woman’s complexion.
The Captain gave the others good morning. Two things gratified him: the sight of the good breakfast spread upon the table, and the fact that the chair at the head of the table was vacant and evidently reserved for him.
He was about to take his seat when Shiner stopped him.
“Excuse me,” said he, “but that is Mr. Wolff’s place.”
“Mr. Wolff’s place?” said Blood. “And who the deuce is Mr. Wolff?”
“Our senior partner,” said Shiner. “I’m expecting him every minute.”
Then it was that the Captain noticed a cover laid beside Harman and evidently intended for him.
The temper of the man was not intended by nature to take calmly an incident like this.
The steward was listening, too.
“I’ll give you to understand right away and here, now,” said he, “that I’m the skipper of this tub, and that this is my place at the table. It’s as well to begin as we intend to go on. Steward, look alive there with the coffee.”
He took his seat