Part 11 (1/2)

Jefferson laid his hands upon the combing of the hatch and swung himself over. It was a drop of several yards, and he came down upon the slippery round of a big puncheon, and reeling across the barrels, fell backwards against an angle-iron. He was, however, up again in a moment, and stood blinking about him with eyes dazzled by the change from the almost intolerable brightness above. Blurred figures were standing more than ankle deep in water on the slanted rows of puncheons, and Jefferson, who could not see them very well, blinked again when an Englishman, stripped to the waist, moved towards him. The latter was dripping with yellow oil and perspiration.

”It's this one,” he said, and kicked a puncheon viciously. ”The derrick-crabs have pulled the tops of the staves off her. They're soaked an' soft with oil. The water underneath's jamming them up, an' you'll see how the tier's keyed down by the orlop-beams.”

Jefferson wrenched the iron bar he held away from him and turned to the rest.

”There's a patch of the head clear. Two or three of you get a handspike on to it,” he said. ”No, shove it lower down. Mas abajo. Now, heave all together. Vamos. Toda fuerza!”

They were barefooted Canary Spaniards, of an astonis.h.i.+ng ignorance, but excellent sailormen, and they understood him. Lean, muscular bodies strained and bent, the dew of effort dripped from them; and, as he heaved with lips set, the hollows grew deeper in Jefferson's grim face.

No one spoke; there was only a deep, stertorous gasping, until the puncheon moved a little, and Jefferson, stooping, drove his bar a trifle lower. Then, while he strained every muscle and sinew in strenuous effort, the great, slimy barrel rose again, tilted, and rolled out on its fellows. For a moment it left a s.p.a.ce of oily black water where it had been, and then the puncheons closed in with a crash again. Jefferson flung the bar down and straightened himself.

”Now,” he said wearily, ”you can get ahead.”

He crawled up the ladder with a curious languidness, and while one of the Englishmen apostrophised the puncheons the Spaniards went back to their task. The Castilian is not supposed to be remarkable for diligence, but there is, at least among the lower ranks of men in whom the Iberian blood flows, a capacity for patient toil and uncomplaining endurance which, while not always very apparent, nevertheless shows itself unmistakably under pressure of circ.u.mstances. These were simple men, who had never been encouraged to think for themselves, and were, therefore, like other Spaniards of their degree, perhaps, incapable of undertaking anything on their own initiative, but they could do a great deal under the right leader, and they had him in Jefferson.

One of the Englishmen, however, was not quite satisfied. He had been in the tropics before, and did not like the curious flush in Jefferson's face or the way the swollen veins showed on his forehead, so he climbed the ladder after him and leaned upon the winch-drum looking at him meditatively. The man was very ragged as well as very dirty, and altogether disreputable, so far as appearance went, while it is probable that in several respects his character left a good deal to be desired.

”Here's your hat. It's wet, but that's no harm,” he said. ”You forgot it. Hadn't you better put it on quick?”

Jefferson, who recognised the wisdom of this, did so.

”That's all right! Well, what--are--you stopping for?” he said.

The other man still regarded him contemplatively. ”I know my place--but things isn't quite the same aboard this 'ooker as they would be on a big, two-funnel liner. You couldn't expect it. That's why I come up just now to speak to you. You're not feelin' well to-day?”

”It's not worth worrying about. I guess n.o.body but a n.i.g.g.e.r ever does feel well in this country.”

The other man shook his head. ”You go slow. I've seen it comin' on,” he said. ”You oughtn't to 'a' had your hat off a minute. You see, if you drop out, how's Bill an' me to get the bonus you promised us?”

Jefferson laughed, though he found, somewhat to his concern, that he could not see the man very well.

”I'm going to hold up until I knock the bottom of this contract out,” he said, good-humouredly. ”I can't do it if I stop and talk to you. Get a move on. Light out of this!”

The man went back. He had done what he felt was his duty, though he had not expected that it would be of very much use, and Jefferson started the winch. It hammered and rattled, and the barrels came up, slimy and dripping, with patches of whitewash still clinging to them. The glare of it dazzled Jefferson until he could scarcely see them as they swung beneath the derrick-boom, but he managed to drop them into the surfboat alongside and pile the rest on deck, when she slid down the creek with a row of negroes paddling on either side. The steamer had struck the forest at the time of highest water, and it was necessary to take everything out of her if she was to be floated during the coming rainy season.

He toiled on for another hour, with a racking pain in his head, and the Canarios toiled in the stifling hold below, until there was a jar and a rattle, and a big puncheon that should have gone into the surfboat came down with a crash amidst them, and, bursting, splashed them with yellow oil. Then the man who had remonstrated with Jefferson went up the ladder in haste. The winch had stopped, and Jefferson lay across it, amidst a coil of slack wire, with a suffused face. The man, who stooped over him, shouted, and the rest who came up helped to carry him to his room beneath the bridge. The floor was slanted so that one could scarcely stand on it, and as the berth took the same list, they laid him where the side of it met the bulkhead. He lay there, speechless, with half-closed eyes, and water and palm oil soaking from him.

”Now,” said the man who had given Jefferson good advice, ”you'll get these Spaniards out of this, Bill. Then you'll go on breaking the puncheons out. Wall-eye, here, can run the winch for you, but you can come back in half an hour when I've found out what's wrong with the skipper.”

Bill seemed to recognise that his comrade had risen to the occasion.

”Well,” he said, ”I s'pose there's no use in me sayin' anything. All I want to know is, how you're going to do it?”

”See that?” and the other man pointed to a chest beneath the settee.

”It's full of medicines, an' there's a book about them. Good ole Board of Trade!”

”How d'you know those medicines arn't all gorn?” asked Bill.

”They arn't. I've been in. There's a bottle of sweet paregoricky stuff I came round for a swigg of when Mr. Jefferson wasn't there now and then.

It warms you up kind of comfortin'.”

Bill went away with the Spaniards, and, in place of improving the occasion by looking for liquor, as he might, perhaps, have been expected to do, went on with his task. The English sailorman does not always express himself delicately, but he is, now, at least, very far from being the dissolute, unintelligent ruffian he is sometimes supposed to be. There is no doubt of this, for s.h.i.+powners know their business, and while there is no lack of Teutons and cheerful, sober Scandinavians, a certain proportion of English seamen still go to sea in English s.h.i.+ps.