Read Online The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions by William Hope Hodgson - Free Book Online
Authors: William Hope Hodgson
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below. I told him he was a bully when he did it again to-day, and look what he’s done!”
And Tommy rolled up his trousers to show a great abraided bruise where the third mate had kicked him with his heavy boots. “I hit him twice in the stummick, but he held my hands, and kicked me till I was sick. Look at my shins!” And he showed his shins, cut and bruised in a dozen places by the third mate’s boots.
James and the other ’prentice in the port watch bent and looked at the boy’s legs, nodding their heads with a sort of savage sympathy.
“If Tommy tries that idea of his for the homeward passage, I guess I’ll help him for all I’m worth,” said James.
“I will say that for the old man,” remarked Tommy; “he sung out to the third to go steady when he was kicking me. But all the same, he turned on me himself, and told me I deserved what I’d got. I was in such a wax I told him straight out that if I’d been even half his size I’d have wiped the deck with both him and the third mate. He kicked me bang off the poop then, down the poop ladder on to the main deck, when I said that; but when I got to the bottom I told him that, after I’d wiped the deck with them, I’d make him kiss my feet to teach him to know a man when he saw one.”
“You know, Tommy,” said James, “you’re a plucky kid; but you’ll be murdered outright one of these days if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t have said what you said to the old man for the value of the ship.”
“Anyway,” ended Tommy, “the first mate likes me. I know that.”
A few days later Tommy got across the bo’sun’s hawse concerning the cleaning of the pigsty, which the bo’sun had set Tommy to do every morning watch for a fortnight past, and which, properly, should have been done by the hands when they washed the decks. When the bo’sun came forrard from washing down the poop, he found, to his pained amazement, that Tommy had not touched the pigsty except with the seat portion of one of his garments, for the boy was sitting calmly on the top of the sty smoking a cigarette, his bucket and broom reclining beneath him on the deck. The bo’sun expressed fluently his distress at this condition of affairs, and suggested, with the aid of the broom-handle, that Tommy Dodd should get to work at his accustomed dirty task.
“Clean it yourself!” said Tommy the instant the bo’sun had loosed him. “Clean it yourself, you old bully, if your back ain’t too fat to bend!”
He avoided further acquaintance with the broom-handle, and, catching up his bucket of water, hove the contents in the bo’sun’s face, then made a sprint for the poop, dodged the broom which the bo’sun threw, and returned the bucket as interest, cracking the bo’sun on the shin, and afterwards continuing at top speed to the poop.
The bo’sun arrived almost in the same instant, and Tommy Dodd would certainly have fared very badly but for the interference of the mate, who told him that he would deal with Tommy. Later, he gave orders privately to the bo’sun that he must ease up on the boy, or he, the mate, would have something to say in the matter.
Yet, in spite of the efforts of the first mate to keep Tommy out of serious trouble, the boy had several narrow escapes from real bodily injury, for the third mate and the bo’sun were by nature bullies, and the captain, though, as I have said, not a bad man, was very hasty-tempered and hard by nature, so that when all is said and done poor Tommy had a very rough and brutal time of it on the way out.
And hence, as I have hinted, Tommy’s plot to avenge himself and the others, for it must not be supposed that he had any monopoly when rough treatment was being handed out. And of the plot and its workings you will have chance to judge, as you read on.
As Tommy himself put it: “I make a spiffing girl when I’ve the right togs on. I’ve acted often at home. You’ll see if I don’t fool ’em all!”
From now until the “Lady
And Tommy rolled up his trousers to show a great abraided bruise where the third mate had kicked him with his heavy boots. “I hit him twice in the stummick, but he held my hands, and kicked me till I was sick. Look at my shins!” And he showed his shins, cut and bruised in a dozen places by the third mate’s boots.
James and the other ’prentice in the port watch bent and looked at the boy’s legs, nodding their heads with a sort of savage sympathy.
“If Tommy tries that idea of his for the homeward passage, I guess I’ll help him for all I’m worth,” said James.
“I will say that for the old man,” remarked Tommy; “he sung out to the third to go steady when he was kicking me. But all the same, he turned on me himself, and told me I deserved what I’d got. I was in such a wax I told him straight out that if I’d been even half his size I’d have wiped the deck with both him and the third mate. He kicked me bang off the poop then, down the poop ladder on to the main deck, when I said that; but when I got to the bottom I told him that, after I’d wiped the deck with them, I’d make him kiss my feet to teach him to know a man when he saw one.”
“You know, Tommy,” said James, “you’re a plucky kid; but you’ll be murdered outright one of these days if you don’t mind. I wouldn’t have said what you said to the old man for the value of the ship.”
“Anyway,” ended Tommy, “the first mate likes me. I know that.”
A few days later Tommy got across the bo’sun’s hawse concerning the cleaning of the pigsty, which the bo’sun had set Tommy to do every morning watch for a fortnight past, and which, properly, should have been done by the hands when they washed the decks. When the bo’sun came forrard from washing down the poop, he found, to his pained amazement, that Tommy had not touched the pigsty except with the seat portion of one of his garments, for the boy was sitting calmly on the top of the sty smoking a cigarette, his bucket and broom reclining beneath him on the deck. The bo’sun expressed fluently his distress at this condition of affairs, and suggested, with the aid of the broom-handle, that Tommy Dodd should get to work at his accustomed dirty task.
“Clean it yourself!” said Tommy the instant the bo’sun had loosed him. “Clean it yourself, you old bully, if your back ain’t too fat to bend!”
He avoided further acquaintance with the broom-handle, and, catching up his bucket of water, hove the contents in the bo’sun’s face, then made a sprint for the poop, dodged the broom which the bo’sun threw, and returned the bucket as interest, cracking the bo’sun on the shin, and afterwards continuing at top speed to the poop.
The bo’sun arrived almost in the same instant, and Tommy Dodd would certainly have fared very badly but for the interference of the mate, who told him that he would deal with Tommy. Later, he gave orders privately to the bo’sun that he must ease up on the boy, or he, the mate, would have something to say in the matter.
Yet, in spite of the efforts of the first mate to keep Tommy out of serious trouble, the boy had several narrow escapes from real bodily injury, for the third mate and the bo’sun were by nature bullies, and the captain, though, as I have said, not a bad man, was very hasty-tempered and hard by nature, so that when all is said and done poor Tommy had a very rough and brutal time of it on the way out.
And hence, as I have hinted, Tommy’s plot to avenge himself and the others, for it must not be supposed that he had any monopoly when rough treatment was being handed out. And of the plot and its workings you will have chance to judge, as you read on.
As Tommy himself put it: “I make a spiffing girl when I’ve the right togs on. I’ve acted often at home. You’ll see if I don’t fool ’em all!”
From now until the “Lady
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