A man, lying in his bunk with his face toward me, started up and sent
his legs, incased in blanket trousers and brown woolen stockings,
flying out.
"Here's Mr. Royle, mates!" he called out. "Let's ask him the name of
the port the captain means to touch at for proper food, for we aren't
goin' to wait much longer."
"Don't ask me any questions of that kind, my lads," I replied promptly,
seeing a general movement of heads in the bunks and hammocks. "I'd
give you proper victuals if I had the ordering of them; and I have
spoken to Captain Coxon about you, and I am sure he will see this
matter put to rights."
I had difficulty in making my voice heard, for the striking of the seas
against the ship's bows filled the place with an overwhelming volume of
sound; and the hollow, deafening thunder was increased by the uproar of
the ship's straining timbers.
"Who the devil thinks," said a voice from a hammock, "that we're going
to let ourselves be grinded as we was last night without proper wittles
to support us? I'd rather have signed articles for a coal-barge, with
drowned rats to eat from Gravesend to Whitstable, than shipped in this
here cursed vessel, where the bread's just fit to make savages retch!"
I had not bargained for this, but had merely meant to address them
cheerily, with a few words of approval of the smart way in which they
had worked the ship in the night.
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