listen, funny-mug!’ he remarked. ‘I know that itches are supposed to mean things. If your right eye itches it’s good luck and if your left eye itches it’s bad luck, and if they both itch it’s damn bad luck—but knuckles are a new one on me! Shall I tell you what all this itching really means?’
‘Somethin’s goin’ ter ’appen,’ blinked Ben.
‘No, you dolt!’ roared the Second Engineer. ‘It means you want a good scratch! So give your knuckles a good scratch and stop talking about ’em! Get me? Because if you don’t, sonny, I’ll give you a taste of my knuckles!’
Then he passed on.
‘Meet yer when the boat goes dahn!’ muttered Ben after him.
His retort increased his depression. It was the first time he had definitely focussed his fears. Of course, that was what his misbehaving knuckles meant—the boat was going down!
‘Well, wot’s it matter?’ he reflected, catching hold of a rail as the ship heaved again. ‘Am I afraid o’ dyin’? Yus!’
The handsome admission completed his depression.
But Ben was never wholly absorbed in his own discomforts. An under-dog himself, he had a fellow feeling for other under-dogs, and the stokehold and engine-room were full of them. If they weren’t particularly nice to him and kicked him about a bit, well, who was nice to him—barring, perhaps, the Second Engineer one time in three—and who didn’t kick him about? He’d been born a football, and it was human to kick anything that bounced. And even the top-dogs did not arouse Ben’s personal enmity. The world had to contain all sorts of people to make it go round, and he was a man of peace, though he found little. It would be a pity, for instance, if that pretty girl in the blue frock—the one the Third Officer had brought down yesterday to have a look at the engine-room—came to any harm. Nice hair, she had. And slim-like. She had smiled at Ben and had said, ‘Don’t you find it terribly hot here?’ And when he had replied, ‘’Ot as ches’nuts,’ she had laughed. Nice laugh, she had. And nice teeth. Yes, it would be a pity.
‘And the Third Orficer ’iself might be wuss,’ decided Ben, now he came to think of it. ‘Corse, the way ’e looked at the gal’d mike a cod sick, but yer carn’t ’elp yer fice when yer feels that way. Mindjer, some of ’em could do with a duckin’. That Lord Wot’s-’is-nime wot’s orl mide in one piece. ’E’d brike if yer bent ’im. And that there greasy bloke I seen torkin’ to ’im. I’ll bet ’e’s a mess fust thing in the mornin’! If ’e was ter go ter the bottom, the bottom ’d git a fright and come up ter the top. But—well, Gawd mide ’im, so there yer are—’
A voice in his ear made him jump. He jumped into the chest of the Chief Engineer. The Chief Engineer’s chest was the size of Ben altogether.
‘What’s the matter with you?’ inquired the Chief Engineer, picking the population off his chest.
‘Oo?’ blinked Ben.
‘Do you feel as green as you look?’ demanded the Chief Engineer.
‘Yus,’ answered Ben.
‘If you can’t stand a bit of weather, why did you come on this trip?’
‘Well, the doctor ses I orter ’ave a bit o’ sunshine.’
‘Don’t be cheeky, my man!’
‘Oo’s wot?’
‘I’ve had my eye on you for some time, and I’m asking you why you came on this trip?’
‘Gawd knows!’
‘Do you call that an answer?’
‘Oh. Well, it was like this, see? Second Engineer engiged me. “Bill’s ill,” ’e ses. “Ben’s ’ere,” I ses. “’Oo’s Ben?” ’e ses. “I am,” I ses. “I shouldn’t ’ave thort you was anything,” ’e ses. “Life’s full o’ surprises,” I ses, “once I fahnd a currant in a bun. Give us a charnce,” I ses, “I’ve walked orl the way from the nearest pub.” Mide ’im larf. That’s the on’y way I can do it. Mike ’em larf. Like Pelligacharchi. You know, the bloke in the hopera. I seed it once. Lumme, them singers fair split yer ears.’
‘Do you know what you’re talking about?’
‘No.’
The Chief Engineer stared at Ben very hard. Like many before him, he couldn’t quite make Ben out.
‘Have you ever seen a louse?’ he asked.
Ben stared back and got ready for it.
‘Not afore I see you,’ he muttered.
The Chief Engineer’s fist on Ben’s chest made a deeper impression than the whole of Ben on the Chief Engineer’s chest. Ben sat down and counted some stars.
‘I sed somethin’ was goin’ ter ’appen,’ he muttered, ‘but it don’t matter, ’cos this ain’t it. You’ll be goin’ dahn, too, in a minit!’
‘Oh! Will I?’
‘Yus. The ’ole boat’s goin’ dahn. I knows ’cos me knuckles is hitchin’.’
‘Of course, this fellow’s mad,’ said the Chief Engineer.
He took a deep breath. He was sorry he had lost his control for a moment, but he couldn’t say so with four stripes on his sleeve. It was the nervy atmosphere. Everybody was nervy. He stretched out his hand and hoiked Ben up again, and something real or imagined in his attitude gave the little stoker a sudden and embarrassing disposition to cry.
‘That’s orl right, sir,’ he mumbled, ‘on’y it’s true, see? I ain’t kiddin’ yer, and some-un orter tell the Captain afore it’s too late.’
‘Tell the Captain?’ frowned the Chief Engineer.
‘Yus.’
‘Tell him what?’
‘That me knuckles is hitchin’.’
The Chief Engineer shook him.
‘If they go on itching, report to the Second Engineer, and ask him if you should report to the Doctor. Meanwhile, get some stuffing into you and remember you’re a bit of the British Empire!’
‘Yus, a lot the British Hempire’s done fer me!’ thought Ben, as the Chief Engineer departed.
Report to the Second Engineer? He had already done that. Report to the Doctor? No, thanks! If you weren’t ill what was the use? And if you were ill you died of fright knowing …! But what about reporting to the Captain?
As Ben stared at his knuckles, which were not even soothed by the portions of ocean that periodically splashed on to them, the audacious idea grew. Report to the Captain—direct! Give him the red light! And then, when the ship had been saved through the warning of a little stoker whom everybody trod on, perhaps people would stop treading on him, and they might even erect a statue of him over the Houses of Parliament.
‘Little
