XVII
NOONAN said no more; and when theHudsonhad tied up, he went ashore with a non-committal, “Well, s’long Dan” that expressed nothing but reserve. Keighley saw him go, and returned, relieved, to the work of having theHudsonmade ready for her next run.
“They’re keepin’ us busy,” he said to Moore.
“They” were. In the space of three days, the boat had done duty at three fires; and the fire on theSachsen, of the previous week, had been enough in itself to make the summer one that would be easily remembered. But now, as if to give the men a taste of bothsorts of life in the department, the days that followed settled down into the dullest routine of barrack room inactivity. The jigger rang and rang again, but it never rang any of the lucky numbers that would give theHudsonexercise. “Nuthin’ but blanks,” “Shine” complained. “This’s worse ’n playin’ ‘policy.’ Gee, I wish we’d draw a number with a fire on it.”
The engineer had work to do, fitting a sort of drain to carry off the water that condensed in the low-pressure cylinder. Keighley was kept interested by the rumors of bad blood between the Fire Commissioner and “the Boss”—or the Boss’s creature, the Little Mayor. But the men had nothing but the shining of brasses and the washing of hose to occupy their few working moments, and nothing but the exhaustedinterest of newspapers and dominoes to pass their long idle hours. They did not lend any but a languid ear to the reports of the department intrigues, now that Keighley had fought the “Jiggers” to a standstill. They had decided to let that matter rest until their superiors took it up again.
And then, one warm morning, when “Shine” and Sturton were sitting on the deck of theHudson, in the shade of the wheelhouse—eating apples which they had picked out of the scum of chips and driftwood under the boat’s quarter—something happened that proved, in its final issue, to have a vital influence in ending the whole “Jigger” trouble, so far as theHudsonand its crew were concerned, although the actual incident itself involved only “Shine.”
He had been complaining of the life they had been leading. “I’m sick o’ this. Sick o’ the whole rotten bus’ness. Sick o’ doin’ time in this dang pen, like a convic’.”
The boat was as hot as an ironclad, with her metal fittings and cement deck; but if “Shine” and Sturton went into the pierhouse with their fruit, they would have to divide it with the other members of the crew; and they had elected to endure the heat rather than lose the apples.
“Turk” knuckled the end of his crooked nose, turned over his apple with deliberation, and crunched off a fresh bite. “Whasmatterith it?” he asked thickly.
“It’s rotten!” “Shine” growled. “Rotten!That’s what’s the matter with it. It’s too much scrubbin’ brasses—an’stan’in’ watches—an’ playin’ footy dominoes—an’ havin’ nuthin’ to do.”
“It’s better ’n truckin’,” Sturton said—remembering the laborious days he had spent hooking packing-cases and hoisting bales. “It’s the easiest moneyIever made.”
“Over yuh go now!”
See page 80
“Money! What’s the use o’ money when yuh can’t blow ’t in?” It was the day after pay-day, and “Shine” had his pocket full. “I’d sooner be deckin’ on three a week.” In the course of his varied career as boot-black, wharf-rat, Bowery boy and member of the “Con. Scully Association,” he had once held a “spring line” on a Coney Island excursion boat. He remembered the cool breeze that had blown in a porthole of the forward cabin when the deckhands sat playing pedro there, of an afternoon.He remembered midnights on the Bowery, when the boat had been tied up to her pier, and he had been free ashore with his month’s wages in his pocket. “Yuh weren’t chained up to a doghouse like this, all day an’ night,” he said.
Sturton grunted, unconvinced.
“Shine” chewed and swallowed sullenly, until his little puckered eyes set in the open stare of a cow revolving its cud. He smiled. He followed that expression with a scowl and bit into his apple; and, the memory of strong drink being a thirst in his mouth, the mild cider-juice of the bruised fruit came as an insipid aggravation to a longing palate. He flung the apple overboard. “If it wasn’t fer th’ ol’ woman,” he said, “I’d chuck the damn job.”
Sturton’s jaw stopped. Wheneverhe had a nightmare, he dreamed that he was discharged from the department. “What’d yuhdo?”
“Do?” “Shine” cried. “I’d do anythin’. I’d go an’ make a pitch on Coney fer the summer.”
“Make a what?”
“Take a front—set up a show—fake ’em, fake ’em! All the suckers ain’t been stung yet.... An’ if I didn’t have the money fer that, I’d go boostin’ fer a start. I had fifteen boosters ’n under me onct. Youse guys that think th’ on’y way to collar the cush is to go sweat fer it, like niggers—yuh make me tired!”
“Turk” shook his head darkly. “This ’s good enough fer mine.”
“Sure, it is,” “Shine” sneered. “Yuh don’t know any better. Yuh’ve neverdrewany better. If yuh’d beenwith me an’ Goldy Simpson when we had the front on Tilyou’s Walk, we’d ’a’ showed yuh life—life!” He polished another apple on his shirt sleeve and sank his teeth in it savagely. Sturton did not reply. They ate in silence.
“Shine” was bare-footed. He had taken off his shoes to reach the apples, standing on a stringer that was awash. He drew his knees up to his chin now, to keep his feet within the narrow cover of the shade, and he sat like a monkey in a cage, looking over the bulwarks enviously at the free life on the open river.
When the steamboatLeoof the Coney Island fleet came paddling down stream towards him, he took her appearance at that moment as a particular spite of fate. The captain was at a window of the pilothouse; the first mate was standing over a group of deckmen who werehauling on the rope that raised a fender; a waiter leaned on the shutter of a forward gangway, idle. And “Shine” saw his past float by him, in the sunlight, like a vision.
He watched it biliously. From a port of the forward cabin a thin curl of smoke was drifting out, and he imagined a contented stoker lolling on the warm deck within, sucking the reed stem of a corncob pipe. He remembered a boat that had been set afire by the butt of a cigarette thrown overboard from an upper deck and carried by the wind, through that very port, into the ropes and rags and paint-pots of that cabin, he hoped the smoker in there, now, would start a blaze. He hoped the old tub would burn before his eyes.
“Gee!” he said. “He must be smokin’ a Dutchman’s pipe.”
When the steamer was abreast of them, Sturton suddenly jumped up. “That’s afire, ain’t it?”
It was; and “Shine” came to his feet as if he had been lifted by the yell of derision with which he greeted the fact that itwasa fire. “Hi-yi!Ca-a-ap!Mucka-hi! Ain’t y’ afire forrud?” He waved his arms and pointed. “Yuh’re smokin’ in the peak!”
Sturton put his hands to his cheeks and bellowed, “Smoke up in front!”
Their voices drew the other firemen from the pierhouse; and while these men shouted questions and “Shine” bawled replies, a cry was raised on theLeoand the passengers started a panic across her decks. Almost immediately, her whistle shrilled the repeated signal of distress; Captain Keighley ordered “Cast off, boys;” and “Shine” ran, bare-footed, to his duty.