Light Freights. William Wymark Jacobs

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СКАЧАТЬ up stupidly, and gripping hold of the injured Bill by the shirt, staggered to his feet again, and advancing towards the last speaker let fly suddenly in his face.

      “Sort man I am,” he said, autobiographically. “Feel my arm.”

      The indignant Bill took him by both, and throwing himself upon him suddenly fell with him to the floor. The intruder’s head met the boards with a loud crash, and then there was silence.

      “You ain’t killed ‘im, Bill?” said an old seaman, stooping over him anxiously.

      “Course not,” was the reply; “give us some water.”

      He threw some in the soldier’s face, and then poured some down his neck, but with no result. Then he stood upright, and exchanged glances of consternation with his friends.

      “I don’t like the way he’s breathing,” he said, in a trembling voice.

      “You always was pertikler, Bill,” said the cook, who had thankfully got to the bottom of his staircase. “If I was you—”

      He was not allowed to proceed any further; footsteps and a voice were heard above, and as old Thomas hastily extinguished the lamp, the mate’s head was thrust down the scuttle, and the mate’s voice sounded a profane reveillé.

      “Wot are we goin’ to do with it?” inquired Ted, as the mate walked away.

      “I’m, Ted,” said Bill, nervously. “He’s alive all right.”

      “If we put ‘im ashore an’ ‘e’s dead,” said old Thomas, “there’ll be trouble for somebody. Better let ‘im be, and if ‘e’s dead, why we don’t none of us know nothing about it.”

      The men ran up on deck, and Bill, being the last to leave, put a boot under the soldier’s head before he left. Ten minutes later they were under way, and standing about the deck, discussed the situation in thrilling whispers as opportunity offered.

      At breakfast, by which time they were in a dirty tumbling sea, with the Nore lightship, a brown, forlorn-looking object on their beam, the soldier, who had been breathing stertorously, raised his heavy head from the boot, and with glassy eyes and tightly compressed lips gazed wonderingly about him.

      “Wot cheer, mate?” said the delighted Bill. “‘Ow goes it?”

      “Where am I?” inquired Private Harry Bliss, in a weak voice.

      “Brig Merman,” said Bill; “bound for Byster-mouth.”

      “Well, I’m damned,” said Private Bliss; “it’s a blooming miracle. Open the winder, it’s a bit stuffy down here. Who—who brought me here?”

      “You come to see me last night,” said Bob, “an’ fell down, I s’pose; then you punched Bill ‘ere in the eye and me in the jor.”

      Mr. Bliss, still feeling very sick and faint, turned to Bill, and after critically glancing at the eye turned on him for inspection, transferred his regards to the other man’s jaw.

      “I’m a devil when I’m boozed,” he said, in a satisfied voice. “Well, I must get ashore; I shall get cells for this, I expect.”

      He staggered to the ladder, and with unsteady haste gained the deck and made for the side. The heaving waters made him giddy to look at, and he gazed for preference at a thin line of coast stretching away in the distance.

      The startled mate, who was steering, gave him a hail, but he made no reply. A little fishing-boat was jumping about in a way to make a sea-sick man crazy, and he closed his eyes with a groan.

      Then the skipper, aroused by the mate’s hail, came up from below, and walking up to him put a heavy hand on his shoulder.

      “What are you doing aboard this ship?” he demanded, austerely.

      “Go away,” said Private Bliss, faintly; “take your paw off my tunic; you’ll spoil it.”

      He clung miserably to the side, leaving the incensed skipper to demand explanations from the crew. The crew knew nothing about him, and said that he must have stowed himself away in an empty bunk; the skipper pointed out coarsely that there were no empty bunks, whereupon Bill said that he had not occupied his the previous evening, but had fallen asleep sitting on the locker, and had injured his eye against the corner of a bunk in consequence. In proof whereof he produced the eye.

      “Look here, old man,” said Private Bliss, who suddenly felt better. He turned and patted the skipper on the back. “You just turn to the left a bit and put me ashore, will you?”

      “I’ll put you ashore at Bystermouth,” said the skipper, with a grin. “You’re a deserter, that’s what you are, and I’ll take care you’re took care of.”

      “You put me ashore!” roared Private Bliss, with a very fine imitation of the sergeant-major’s parade voice.

      “Get out and walk,” said the skipper contemptuously, over his shoulder, as he walked off.

      “Here,” said Mr. Bliss, unbuckling his belt, “hold my tunic one of you. I’ll learn ‘im.”

      Before the paralysed crew could prevent him he had flung his coat into Bill’s arms and followed the master of the Merman aft. As a light-weight he was rather fancied at the gymnasium, and in the all too brief exhibition which followed he displayed fine form and a knowledge of anatomy which even the skipper’s tailor was powerless to frustrate.

      The frenzy of the skipper as Ted assisted him to his feet and he saw his antagonist struggling in the arms of the crew was terrible to behold. Strong men shivered at his words, but Mr. Bliss, addressing him as “Whiskers,” told him to call his crew off and to come on, and shaping as well as two pairs of brawny arms round his middle would permit, endeavoured in vain to reach him.

      “This,” said the skipper, bitterly, as he turned to the mate, “is what you an’ me have to pay to keep up. I wouldn’t let you go now, my lad, not for a fi’ pun’ note. Deserter, that’s what you are!”

      He turned and went below, and Private Bliss, after an insulting address to the mate, was hauled forward, struggling fiercely, and seated on the deck to recover. The excitement passed, he lost his colour again, and struggling into his tunic, went and brooded over the side.

      By dinner-time his faintness had passed, and he sniffed with relish at the smell from the galley. The cook emerged bearing dinner to the cabin, then he returned and took a fine smoking piece of boiled beef flanked with carrots down to the forecastle. Private Bliss eyed him wistfully and his mouth watered.

      For a time pride struggled with hunger, then pride won a partial victory and he descended carelessly to the forecastle.

      “Can any o’ you chaps lend me a pipe o’ baccy?” he asked, cheerfully.

      Bill rummaged in his pocket and found a little tobacco in a twist of paper.

      “Bad thing to smoke on a empty stomach,” he said, with his mouth full.

      “‘Tain’t my fault it’s empty,” said Private Bliss, pathetically.

      “Tain’t mine,” said Bill.

      “I’ve ‘eard,” said the cook, who was a tenderhearted man, “as СКАЧАТЬ