Chapter XVI
The Maud lay silent as Jim stepped off the ladder on to the foredeck. He was puzzled — the cabin lamp was alight, throwing a yellow gleam up the hatchway aft, yet surely Dukey and Bert could not be back? Surely if they were back aboard with a new supply of money there would be a racket of singing, laughing and shouting coming from the cabin? His question was soon to be answered, for as his boots sounded on the deck a figure ran up from below and came towards him. It was Dukey, and as he halted a yard away Jim could see that he was drunk without being cheerful; a dull savage fury showed in every line of his face.
Jim felt a violent twist of fear inside him. He made to go down the ladder to the forepeak, but Dukey's paw landed on his right shoulder and spun him round. The reddened stubbly face, reeking of spirits, was thrust within inches of his. Jim's stomach felt hollow with fear.
"Stop where you are, moosh!" said Dukey, breathing heavily with fury. "I been waiting for you. Where you been?"
"Ashore. For a drink."
Dukey brought his right hand across his body, and swung a back-hand blow that landed stingingly on Jim's mouth. "Sir! You call me sir! You snivelling 'arf-baked brass-button monkey, you! Ain't I master aboard here? And who the hell said you could go ashore? Eh?"
Jim was bewildered as well as afraid. He had never seen Dukey like this before. What on earth had happened? Yet something in him rebelled at the utter unreasonableness of it all — "We'd got out all the cargo," he said sullenly. "You weren't here. I didn't see why I shouldn't."
Before he could guard himself, another vicious backhand lash bruised his lips. But this time Dukey was beside himself; clenching his fist, he brought the same arm back to land a tremendous blow on Jim's cheekbone. As the young man hit the deck he felt a brutal blow in his side as the Skipper's heavy sea-boot drove into his ribs. Dukey was standing over him, breathing heavily. "Get up off of there," he said. Jim got painfully to his feet. "Now, mister orficer, what do you call me?"
"Sir."
"That's right. And you see what you get for going ashore without asking me. Now go on aft and get me and the Mate some supper. You clutter off like that again, you won't get up for a month."
Jim walked slowly aft, his head muzzy and ringing, his ribs aching intolerably. Two of his front teeth felt loose. He found Bert Anderson below sitting uneasily at the table and scraping out the bowl of an old briar-pipe. Without a word Jim lit the oil stove and began frying rashers of bacon. After a long silence Bert cleared his throat awkwardly and said: "Look here, Jim, I heard all that. Keep clear of old Dukey for a few days, eh? You see what he's like. And for Gawd's sake don't aggravate him no more. You know what'll 'appen. He ain't all that bad, reely — only he's hasty. He very near done in a chap once, up Faversham way."
Bert spoke quietly, for above their heads the deck resounded to the moody pacing of the Skipper.
"What's up with him, Bert? I've never seen him like that before."
"Ah well, 'tis the jools, see. He's had a shock. So've I, for that matter."
"Why? Couldn't you sell 'em?"
"We had a blinking job to, mate. We went to 'alf-a-dozen posh-looking shops — they wouldn't look at 'em. Well, you see what 'twas — a couple of rough ole boys like us turning up with that lot. I suppose they reckoned we was burglars. We got out quick before they called in the bluebottles. In the end, we finished up in a dirty old place in a back street. There was a little ferrety foxy old chap behind the counter — just a dirty swindler if you ask me!" Bert spoke with a burning, honest indignation, so that one might have thought the jewels were a legacy from his white-haired grandmother. "Nasty cunning old swine — he knew he had us where he wanted us. He kept all on saying: 'Of course, gentlemen, I should reely check these goods with the p'leece first. It's all a bit irregular, you know!' Then he says: 'And of course, times being bad, the trade for this sort of thing's very slack!' Well, I tell you I thought old Dukey was going to swing for 'im once or twice, he looked so wild-like. In the finish, know what he give us! Twenty-five quid the lot.
Twenty-five measly quid! Good many of them rings was worth double that, each!"
"Well, you've got some money now. And anyway, they weren't yours. What have you got to grumble about?"
Bert was outraged by this unheard-of opinion: "What? What do you mean, not ourn? They was salvage, mate! That's a very old custom, that is! Us poor fishing chaps have been salvaging wrecks for hundreds of years. Everybody round here knows that."
"Maybe. But it still isn't legal, as you know very well."
"Legal! Legal!" He spat the words out with the bitterest contempt. "Ark at you! What you know about it? Anyway, suppose it was all took up to London, and them old lawyers started arguing over it; how much d'you reckon would be left of it when they'd had a go?"
The boots above stopped their pacing, and made for the hatchway. Bert jerked his head in warning. "Look up now, mate! You remember what I told you."
Later, when Jim was at last in his bunk, utterly weary, but unable to sleep for the ugly throbbing of his ribs and his cheek-bone, he went through the strange jumbled events of that evening. It seemed a week since he had heard the deep tones of the cathedral clock striking eight.
If ever a young man had cause to feel miserable it was Jim, one would have thought, yet oddly enough, deep in his mind he felt more at peace than at any time since the Sardis left Leith. For one thing, he found himself not drifting, but thinking — and in a resolute way — about the future; for another, this crowded evening had shown him his course. He must begin again. He was not another Shiner, to be kept like a mangy dog by Dukey Smith. That was not life, that was just an existence. Just as certainly, he could not begin again as an apprentice on deep-sea steamers. He could not now go back to the Caledonian Orient Line, and no other would take him without a reference. Then it must be Herbert Chubb, of the Trilby — "Come third-hand along of me, any time you like," he had said, and he looked the sort of man who meant what he said. Sooner or later they would be in harbour together, and then he would join the Trilby. Dukey and Bert would never let him go if they could help it — but go he would, somehow, some time.
As it happened, the time was not long in coming. Three days later, while the Maud lay idly alongside the quay at Whitstable, Jim saw the masts of a barge coming down the entrance channel, and in a moment the Trilby rounded the corner, the sun glinting on her handsome pine spars, her rich red sails and her smart blue paint. With the last of her way she sidled into the wall astern of the smack. For some time Chubb was busy securing his craft and going to the barge company's office to report for orders. At last he came strolling for'ard to stare at the Maud. Dukey and Bert were, as usual, at the Packet, and Shiner was, as usual, snoring in the forepeak.