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I first wanted to be a cabin-boy, so that I could come out with a white apron on and shake a tablecloth over the side, where all my old comrades could see me; later I thought I would rather be the deckhand who stood on the end of the stage-plank with the coil of rope in his hand, because he was particularly conspicuous.
I first wanted to be a cabin-boy, so that I could come out with a white apron on and shake a tablecloth over the side, where all my old comrades could see me; later I thought I would rather be the deckhand who stood on the end of the stage-plank with the coil of rope in his hand, because he was particularly conspicuous.
When I got old enough, and had money enough, I was determined to go west and seek my fortune; for I always felt that canalling was, somehow, beneath what I wanted to do and become. The packet swept past us, giving me a good deal the same glimpse into a different sort of life that a deckhand on a freighter has when he gazes at a liner ablaze with lights and echoing with music.
Lay there two hours without moving; breathed as little as he could do with, and at long intervals fluttered one eyelid and took a peep how the land lay. After a while there came a time when the door was left wide open and only one deckhand in sight. Hammerton floored him with a chair from behind, and jumped over the rail.
Nor, in his subsequent capacity as deckhand, did he redeem in our eyes the high qualities of seamanship which we had anticipated from him. Our tour took us this time through the Menai Straits, via Carnarvon and the Welsh coast, down the Irish Channel to Milford Haven. In the region of very heavy tides and dangerous rocks near the south Welsh coast, we doubled our watch at night.
One deckhand, an idle fellow to whom Hagan was very civil, told his questioner quite a lot of interesting details about the Navy ships, great and small, which could be seen upon the building slips. The trip up and down the river was a great success for Hagan and for Dawson, but for Cary it was rather a bore. He felt somehow out of the picture.
We brought up under the side of the little steamer, and the wide surprised face of a Swedish deckhand stared down at us. "Let me aboard! I must come aboard!" I cried. Other faces appeared, then a rope-ladder. Somehow I was mounting it a dizzy feat to which only the tumult of my emotions made me indifferent. Bare brawny arms of sailors clutched at me and drew me to the deck.
It was his own houseflag, and with trembling hands he ran it to the fore and cast its wrinkled folds to the breeze of heaven. "Good old dishcloth!" shrieked Mr. Gibney. "She never comes down." "Damned if she does," said Captain Scraggs profanely. While all this was going on a deckhand had reeved a block and tackle through the end of the cargo gaff and passed it to the winch.
"Well, well," growled the other, "see to it that she doesn't forget to pay it when she comes back." And the train went on. Time to wait! The deckhand on the ferry-boat lifts his hat and bids you God speed, as you pass. The train waits for the conductor to hear the station-master's account of that last baby and his assurance that the mother is doing well.
"I'll engage that something will happen to some of them very soon unless you promise to go to your room," Blake said, laughing. Then he called a deckhand. "What have you to do?" "Stand here until the watch is changed." "Then you can keep an eye on these baskets. If any of the beasts inside them makes an alarming noise, send to my room; the second, forward, port side.
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