It was as if those confounded
shipwrights had actually made a hole in her. This time we did not even
go outside. The crew simply refused to man the windlass.
"They towed us back to the inner harbour, and we became a fixture, a
feature, an institution of the place. People pointed us out to visitors
as 'That 'ere bark that's going to Bankok--has been here six months--put
back three times.' On holidays the small boys pulling about in boats
would hail, '_Judea_, ahoy!' and if a head showed above the rail
shouted, 'Where you bound to?--Bankok?' and jeered. We were only three
on board. The poor old skipper mooned in the cabin. Mahon undertook
the cooking, and unexpectedly developed all a Frenchman's genius for
preparing nice little messes. I looked languidly after the rigging. We
became citizens of Falmouth. Every shopkeeper knew us. At the barber's
or tobacconist's they asked familiarly, 'Do you think you will ever get
to Bankok?' Meantime the owner, the underwriters, and the charterers
squabbled amongst themselves in London, and our pay went on.. . . Pass
the bottle.
"It was horrid. Morally it was worse than pumping for life. It seemed as
though we had been forgotten by the world, belonged to nobody, would get
nowhere; it seemed that, as if bewitched, we would have to live for ever
and ever in that inner harbour, a derision and a by-word to generations
of long-shore loafers and dishonest boatmen. I obtained three months'
pay and a five days' leave, and made a rush for London.
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