Storm Below. Hugh Garner
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girl had been bought at auction by the Bey of Tunis, and was being led away bathed in tears to a fate worse, even, than she had experienced at home at the hands of her erstwhile boss, Karl Tarbish.
The starboard door opened noisily, automatically plunging the wheelhouse into darkness, and a hand pushed aside the blackout curtain and shut the door, turning on the lights again. A seaman entered, the bosun’s mate, who had been sent down to the galley by McCaffrey to scrounge a cup of coffee and a sandwich.
“Hey, Mac, young Knobby’s hurt pretty bad! They got him layin’ on the mess-deck table!”
McCaffrey laid the book down and jumped to his feet.
“What happened?”
“He fell down the ladder right outside here.”
“When?”
“I guess it was about an hour ago when you sent him forward to wake the hands.”
“Is the tiffy there?”
“Yeah.”
“You notify the officer of the watch?”
“The subby is in there now.”
“Okay. Go and report it to the Old Man —”
“The subby’s gone.”
“All right, get these blackout screens down and let some air in here. You relieve Wilson on the bridge and tell him to go aft.” His indolence had disappeared with the coming of the bosun’s mate and the news of Knobby’s accident. Now he was fully awake, his senses tuned to the emergency. There would be a man short on the next red watch. They would have to get the injured man’s hammock slung somewhere out of the way where he could have a tittle quiet and privacy. The coxswain would have to be notified. If they were going to keep a man in the crow’s nest today it would make them still another man short. Have to get the coxswain to take the extra man from the radar people....
With a parting word to the man on the wheel he pulled on his duffle coat, picked up his lifebelt, and pushed his way out into the now lightened day. When he reached the deck he made his way forward under the break of the fo’castle to the seamen’s mess.
Just forward of the depth-charge rails at the stern was the chiefs and petty officers’ washroom, which opened from the upper deck, and stood at the head of the companionway which led below to the quarters of the chiefs and POs. It contained a toilet bowl, a wash bowl, and a shower around which hung a grimy white curtain. It was utilitarian, and had the appearance of being placed aboard as an afterthought by a naval architect who had been under the impression that any ranks below commissioned should excrete over the side. It was much too small to contain more than one person at a time, unless the second person stood in the shower, and showers were disallowed at sea.
Its occupant, Stoker Petty Officer Jimmy Collet, washed his face and neck with hot water preparatory to shaving. About a month before, he had experienced an accident involving a broken tube of shaving cream and a new tailor-made suit of blue officer’s serge which had come in contact, one with the other, in his bag. Since then he had shaved with face soap.
He was a slight young man of medium height, with the arms and hands of a manual worker. His face, even under the quick ministrations of soap and water, showed the black pits which were the result of his trade, as though the pores had absorbed their quota of oil and grit from long association. He wore a pair of oil-dulled issue boots, above which hung from his spare hips a pair of stiffened, brass-riveted dungaree pants. He was naked from the waist up, and the white, almost feminine, skin of his arms was covered from wrist to shoulder with various inked mementos of the tattooist’s art.
His face felt good after its eleven-day holiday from the razor. He figured out mentally that he had about two more days to go. He wouldn’t shave again until they entered the gates of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Then a real clean up, with a bath, and up to the canteen on Water Street, dressed in his second-best “drinking” suit — there to absorb a dozen or so bottles of ale to wash away the taste of the cook’s smoked fillets.
The PO’s messman, a stoker, came through the hatch from the quarterdeck and leaned his body inside the washroom door.
“One of the seamen is knocked cold,” he said.
Collet turned from the mirror, half his face camouflaged with soap suds. “Who?” he asked disinterestedly.
“One of the new kids we picked up this trip.”
“Oh. Hurt bad?”
“They got him in the mess deck; on a table.”
“How’d he do it?” he asked, slicing carefully down the right side of his jaw with the safety razor.
“Fell down the wheelhouse ladder.”
“Mmm! What’s on for breakfast?”
“Shirred eggs, the cook says,” answered the other, brought back to the realization of his duties by the question.
“What the hell’s shirred eggs?”
“You know, done in the oven, in a bake-tin like.”
“Okay. You woke the watch yet?” asked Collet, as though to end the conversation.
“I’m going to as soon as I get this coffee down below.” The messman turned from the doorway, and gripping the hot handle of the coffee pot through the thickness of a handful of cloth waste, he manoeuvred himself down the heaving steps to the mess where the engine room watchkeepers and the ship’s coxswain were sitting at the table awaiting breakfast.
As he finished shaving and wiped his face on a bath towel Jimmy Collet was thinking of the news he had just received. It was tough on the kid, getting hurt on his first trip. Seemed to be a nice kid too, not a Jack-Me-Hearty like some of the punks they were getting these days. Probably wasn’t hurt very bad.
He cheered himself with the thought that in a couple of days they would be in port, and making ready to proceed to Canada for a refit. The thought of a refit made everything, including the seaman’s hurts, seem very inconsequential. As he rubbed his face vigorously with the rough towel he contemplated the good times waiting for him on twenty-eight days’ leave at home in Hamilton.
He thought, it will be around the end of March when the first half of the ship’s company take leave, and around the end of April before they come back. If I wait for the second shift, it will get me home in May for the warm weather. I’ll go down to the plant and see the boys, and maybe take a bottle of hard stuff with me. After that I’ll go up to the Delight Café and see Daisy — that is, if she’s not in war work at the Canadian Car or Westinghouse. Anyway, I’ll go and make the round of the hotels, and see who is still around…. He began to whistle as he gathered up his things, and made ready to go below for his portion of shirred eggs.
The ship’s sick berth attendant swung gently in peaceful slumber in his hammock, on the port side of the communications mess, which was reserved for the miscellaneous ratings: cooks, stewards, supply assistant, and himself.
He was dreaming that he was berry picking in a heavy wooded copse that lay about a half-mile behind his father’s farm in Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley. Somehow or other he was accompanied by his old school teacher, Mrs. Gregory, and she was shouting to him to move along the raspberry patch, for the berries he was picking were blue ones, when they should have been red....
“Hey, Tiffy!” somebody was shouting as they grabbed him by the shoulder.
“W-w-what!” he yelled, automatically grabbing for the deck-head pipe which he used for a trapeze in getting in and out of his hammock.
“Come on up top, somebody’s hurt!”
“Hey?” Wiping the sleep from his eyes, he looked over the side of the hammock at the face of a seaman who was standing on one of the lockers beneath.
“Come on, one of the new kid’s hurt himself. They’ve got him on a table in the seamen’s mess!”
“Okay,”