Part 1 (1/2)

The Beach of Dreams.

by H. De Vere Stacpoole.

CHAPTER I

THE ALBATROSS

The fo'c'sle, lit by a teapot lamp, shewed the port watch in their bunks, snoring, all but Harb.u.t.t and Raft seated on a chest, Harb.u.t.t patching a pair of trousers, Raft smoking.

Raft was a big red-headed man with eyes that seemed always roving over great distances as though in search of something. He was thirty-two years of age and he had used the sea since twelve--twenty years. His past was a long succession of fo'c'sles, bar-rooms, blazing suns, storms and sea happenings so run together that all sequence was lost. Beyond them lay a dismal blotch, his childhood. He had entered the world and literally and figuratively had been laid at the door of a workhouse; of his childhood he remembered little, of his parentage he knew nothing. In drink he was quiet, but most dangerous under certain provocations.

It was as though deep in his being lay a blazing hatred born of injustice through ages and only coming to light when upborne by balloon-juice. On these occasions a saloon bar with its glitter and phantom show of mirth and prosperity sometimes called on him to dispense and destroy it, the pa.s.sion to fight the crowd seized him, a pa.s.sion that has its origin, perhaps, in sources other than alcohol.

He was talking now to Harb.u.t.t, scarcely lowering his voice on account of the fellows in the bunks. Snoring and drugged with ozone a kick would only have made them curse and turn on the other side, and as he talked his voice made part of that procession of noises inseparable from the fo'c'sle of a s.h.i.+p under sail against a head sea. He had been holding forth on the food and general conditions of this s.h.i.+p compared with the food and conditions of his last, when Harb.u.t.t cut in.

”There's not a pin to choose between owners, and s.h.i.+ps is owners as far as a sailorman's concerned.--Blast them.”

”I was in a hooker once,” said Raft, ”and the Old Man came across a lot of cheap sugar, served it out to save the m'la.s.ses. It was lead, most of it, and the chaps that swallowed it their teeth came out.”

”What happened to them then?”

”They croaked. I joined at Bombay, after the business, or I'd have croaked too.”

”What s.h.i.+p was that?” asked Harb.u.t.t.

”I've forgot her name, it was a good bit back--but it's the truth.”

”Of course it's the truth,” replied the other, ”who's doubtin' you, any dog's trick played on a sailorman's the truth, you can lay to that.

I've had four years of sea and I oughta know.”

”What's this you were?” asked Raft.

”Oh, I was a lot o' things,” replied Harb.u.t.t. ”Wished I'd never left them to join this b--y business, but it's the same ash.o.r.e, owners all the time stuffin' themselves and gettin' rich, workers starvin'.”

Raft belonged to the old time labour world dating from Pelagon, he grumbled, but had no grudge against owners in general, it was only in drink that Pelagon rose in him. Harb.u.t.t was an atom of the new voice that is heard everywhere now, even in fo'c'sles. He had failed in everything on land and a'board s.h.i.+p he was a slacker. You cannot be a voice and an A.B. at the same time.

”What was your last job ash.o.r.e?” went on Raft with the persistence of a child, always wanting to know.

”Cleanin' out pig sties,” said Harb.u.t.t viciously. ”Drove to it. I tell you when a chap's down he's down, the chaps that has money tramples on the chaps that hasn't. I've been through it and I know. It's the rich man does it.”

”Well,” said Raft, ”I don't even remember seeing one.”

”Haven't you ever been in no cities?”

”I've been in cities right enough, but most by the water-side.”

”Well, you've seen chaps in plug hats and chaps drivin' in carriages, that's the sort that keeps us down, that's the sort we've got to make an end of.”