Chapter 1 - Page 2

accommodation-ladder--a dark figure, with a long bag poised on the
shoulder. In the forecastle the newcomers, upright and swaying amongst
corded boxes and bundles of bedding, made friends with the old hands,
who sat one above another in the two tiers of bunks, gazing at their
future shipmates with glances critical but friendly. The two forecastle
lamps were turned up high, and shed an intense hard glare; shore-going
round hats were pushed far on the backs of heads, or rolled about on the
deck amongst the chain-cables; white collars, undone, stuck out on each
side of red faces; big arms in white sleeves gesticulated; the growling
voices hummed steady amongst bursts of laughter and hoarse calls. "Here,
sonny, take that bunk!... Don't you do it!... What's your last ship?...
I know her.... Three years ago, in Puget Sound.... This here berth
leaks, I tell you!... Come on; give us a chance to swing that chest!...
Did you bring a bottle, any of you shore toffs?... Give us a bit of
'baccy.... I know her; her skipper drank himself to death.... He was a
dandy boy!... Liked his lotion inside, he did!... No!... Hold your row,
you chaps!... I tell you, you came on board a hooker, where they get
their money's worth out of poor Jack, by--!..."

A little fellow, called Craik and nicknamed Belfast, abused the ship
violently, romancing on principle, just to give the new hands something
to think over. Archie, sitting aslant on his sea-chest, kept his knees
out of the way, and pushed the needle steadily through a white patch
in a pair of blue trousers. Men in black jackets and stand-up collars,
mixed with men bare-footed, bare-armed, with coloured shirts open
on hairy chests, pushed against one another in the middle of the
forecastle. The group swayed, reeled, turning upon itself with the
motion of a scrimmage, in a haze of tobacco smoke. All were speaking
together, swearing at every second word. A Russian Finn, wearing a
yellow shirt with pink stripes, stared upwards, dreamy-eyed, from under
a mop of tumbled hair. Two young giants with smooth, baby faces--two
Scandinavians--helped each other to spread their bedding, silent, and
smiling placidly at the tempest of good-humoured and meaningless curses.
Old Singleton, the oldest able seaman in the ship, set apart on the deck
right under the lamps, stripped to the waist, tattooed like a cannibal
chief all over his powerful chest and enormous biceps. Between the blue
and red patterns his white skin gleamed like satin; his bare back was
propped against the heel of the bowsprit, and he held a book at
arm's length before his big, sunburnt face. With his spectacles and a
venerable white beard, he resembled a learned and savage patriarch, the
incarnation of barbarian wisdom