The steam tug came up, fouling the day further with its black, smothering belch, coming through the grey overcast towards the outward bounder, ready to cut the last links with home. As she drifted up and lay off the bow, Captain McRafferty gave an ostentatious sniff and brought out a vast linen handkerchief which he held to his nose. There was a hail from her bridge, answered by the mud pilot who then lifted an eyebrow at the ship’s Master.
McRafferty nodded in response then caught the eye of his First Mate. “Single up, if you please, Mr Bullock.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Bullock walked to the poop rail and shouted, “Cast off the back-up headrope and sternrope, cast off breasts.” He turned to McRafferty. “Springs, sir?”
“Let them go, Mr Bullock.”
Bullock shouted again. “Let go springs fore and aft, stand by for’ard to take the line from the tug.” He made his way quickly along the deck to the bow. As the echoes of his strong voice died away, there was a curious quietness, a quietness that Halfhyde recognized as the melancholy lull that always came before a ship proceeded to sea on a long foreign commission. He had known it when going China-side, or when leaving Portsmouth or Devonport yards to join the Mediterranean Squadron, or to take a ship to the far distant South Pacific. Halfhyde watched as the hands under the Second Mate, Mr Patience, bent to the spring leading aft from for’ard and heaved it in. There was a splash as the shore gang let go the sternrope from its bollard and the eye slid from the dockside into the murky basin water. The ship’s crew brought it in, hand over hand, dripping, and coiled it down on the deck. With only one headrope and one sternrope to hold her now, the Aysgarth Falls waited for the order that would let the last lines go. The helmsman, standing stolidly behind the wheel on the poop, awaiting the Master’s orders, chewed on a plug of tobacco, the dark juice running from the corners of his mouth while he kept an eye lifting on the masts now crossed with their yards—kept an eye lifting from sheer force of habit at this stage, for until the great sails were loosed there was little point in looking aloft and watching for the tremor that would indicate he was too close to the wind. A few moments later a heaving-line was sent snaking through the air from the tug, to be caught in the eyes of the ship by a seaman who brought it through a fairlead to the bitts. Behind it came a heavier line, then finally the tow-rope proper, a twelve-inch hemp hawser sparkling with rain and basin water. When this had been made fast, the paddle-wheels of the steam tug turned over, and the ship was drawn to the locks, where the Customs officer and the mud pilot disembarked. Ten minutes later the Aysgarth Falls was away for Sydney, with no one to see her go bar a few circling seagulls crying eerily as they swooped upon the trucks of the masts or skimmed the water for garbage, and a disinterested watchman looking down from the after rails of a steamer in a nearby berth: even the Customs man had turned his back and was making a dash through the rain for the warehouse.
HALFHYDE WAS there to learn: it seemed that his first lesson was to be in how to haze the apprentices. The hands were standing by the tug’s line, and the braces, the latter so that the yards could be hauled round in a trice once the sails had been shaken out, to take the fullest advantage of the first sniff of a breeze and so be able to dispense with the tug—but there was as yet no hint of a breeze, and it was clearly going to be necessary to tow right out, perhaps even as far as the Skerries. The water was dead flat and oily-looking, pocked by the rain. One of the newly-joined apprentices, a somewhat oafish youth named Mainprice, decided this was an idle moment, and took the opportunity to rest his weary back against the fo’c’sle guardrail.
He was spotted by Bullock.
“Damn your eyes, boy,” came the sudden rasp of the First Mate’s voice. “You’re here to work, not to dream of home. Do you understand me, God damn you, boy?”
“Yes, sir.” Pig-like eyes met the First Mate’s. “But there’s nothing to do, is there?”
“Nothing to do you say, is it?” Bullock was scandalized. “Nothing to do, aboard a sailing ship away down the river?”
“Well, sir—”
“Stand up straight, when you speak to me, boy!”
Mainprice stood straight but now there was a sullen look in his face. Bullock said, “Go to the half-deck this instant, Mainprice. Fetch your toothbrush.”
“What?” Mainprice appeared non-plussed.
“You heard me. Just go.” Bullock’s fists clenched.
Mainprice went; he came back with the toothbrush. Still, there was no wind. Bullock said, “Good. Now, the starboard anchor’s dirty. Isn’t it?”
Mainprice went across to where the starboard anchor was catted outboard of the guardrail, secure to the clump cathead. He looked, turned, and said, “I don’t think so, sir. It looks quite clean to me.”
Bullock scowled. “You say it’s clean. I say it’s dirty. Look again.”
Mainprice’s eyes flickered around the fo’c’sle. No one said a word, but all the men were grinning. Mainprice took a deep breath and said, “All right, sir, it’s dirty.”
“I’m glad you agree, boy So clean it. Scrub it. With the toothbrush.”
Mainprice opened his mouth, saw the
