Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [73]
Even so, on the very day, Friday the thirteenth of May, that Frankie Trumbauer three thousand miles away made his famous record of For No Reason at All in C , to Hugh now a poignant historical coincidence, and pursued by neo-American frivolities from the English Press, which had begun to take up the story with relish, ranging all the way down from "Schoolboy composer turns seaman," "Brother of prominent citizen here feels ocean call," "Will always return Oswaldtwistle, parting words of prodigy," "Saga of schoolboy crooner recalls old Kashmir mystery," to once, obscurely "Oh, to be a Conrad," and once, inaccurately, "Undergraduate song-writer signs on cargo vessel, takes ukelele"--for he was not yet an undergraduate, as an old able seaman was shortly to remind him--to the last, and most terrifying, though under the circumstances bravely inspired. "No silk cushions for Hugh, says Aunt," Hugh himself, not knowing whether he voyaged east or west, nor even what the lowliest hand had at least heard vaguely rumoured, that Philoctetes was a figure in Greek mythology--son of Poeas, friend of Heracles, and whose cross-bow proved almost as proud and unfortunate a possession as Hugh's guitar--set sail for Cathay and the brothels of Palambang. Hugh writhed on the bed to think of all the humiliation his little publicity stunt had really brought down on his head, a humiliation in itself sufficient to send anyone into even more desperate retreat than to sea... Meantime it is scarcely an overstatement to say (Jesus, Cock, did you see the bloody paper? We've got a bastard duke on board or something of that) that he was on a false footing with his shipmates. Not that their attitude was at all what might have been expected! Many of them at first seemed kind to him, but it turned out their motives were not entirely altruistic. They suspected, rightly, that he had influence at the office. Some had sexual motives, of obscure origin. Many on the other hand seemed unbelievably spiteful and malignant, though in a petty way never before associated with the sea, and never since with the proletariat. They read his diary behind his back. They stole his money. They even stole his dungarees and made him buy them back again, on credit, since they had already virtually deprived themselves of his purchasing power. They hid chipping hammers in his bunk and in his sea-bag. Then, all at once, when he was cleaning out, say, the petty officer's bathroom, some very young seaman might grow mysteriously obsequious and say something like: "Do you realize, mate, you're working for us, when we should be working for you?" Hugh, who did not see then he had put his comrades in a false position too, heard this line of talk with disdain. His persecutions, such as they were, he took in good part. For one thing, they vaguely compensated for what was to him one of the most serious deficiencies in his new life.
This was, in a complicated sense, its "softness." Not that it was not a nightmare. It was, but of a very special kind he was scarcely old enough to appreciate. Nor that his hands were not worked raw then hard as boards. Or that he did not nearly go crazy with heat and boredom working under winches in the tropics or putting red lead on the decks. Nor that it was not all rather worse than fagging at school, or might have seemed so, had he not carefully been sent to a modern school where there was no fagging. It was, he did, they were; he raised no mental objections. What he objected to were little, inconceivable things.
For instance, that the forecastle was not called the fo'c'sle but the "men's quarters," and was not forward where it should be, but aft, under the poop. Now everyone knows a forecastle should be forward, and be called the fo'c'sle. But this forecastle was not called the fo'c'sle because in point of fact it was not a fo'c'sle. The deckhead of the poop roofed what all too patently were "men's quarters," as they were styled, separate cabins just like on the Isle of Man boat, with two bunks in each running along an alleyway broken by the messroom. But Hugh was not grateful for these hard-won "better" conditions. To him a fo'c'sle--and where else should the crew of a ship live?--meant inescapably a single evil-smelling room forward with bunks around a table, under a swinging kerosene lamp, where men fought, whored, drank, and murdered. On board the Philoctetes men neither fought, whored, nor murdered. As for their drinking, Hugh's aunt had said to him at the end, with a truly noble romantic acceptance: "You know, Hugh, I don't expect you to drink only coffee going through the Black Sea." She was right. Hugh did not go near the Black Sea. On board, nevertheless, he drank mostly coffee: sometimes tea; occasionally water; and, in the tropics, limejuice. Just like all the others. This tea, too, was the subject of another matter that bothered him. Every afternoon, on the stroke of six and eight bells respectively, it was at first Hugh's duty, his mate being sick, to run in from the galley, first to the bosun's mess and afterwards to the crew, what the bosun called, with unction, "afternoon tea." With tabnabs. The tabnabs were delicate and delicious little cakes made by the second cook. Hugh ate them with scorn. Imagine the Sea Wolf sitting down to afternoon tea at four o'clock with tabnabs! And this was not the worst. An even more important item was the food itself. The food on board the Philoctetes, a common British cargo steamer, contrary to a tradition so strong Hugh had hardly dared contradict it till this moment even in his dreams, was excellent; compared with that of his public school, where he had lived under catering conditions no merchant seaman would tolerate for five minutes, it was a gourmet's fantasy. There were never fewer than five courses for breakfast in the P.O.'s mess, to which at the outset he. was more strictly committed; but it proved almost as satisfying in the "men's quarters." American dry hash, kippers, poached eggs and bacon, porridge, steaks, rolls, all at one meal, even on one plate; Hugh never remembered having seen so much food in his life. All the more surprising then was it for him to discover it his duty each day to heave vast quantities of this miraculous food over the side. This chow the crew hadn't eaten went into the Indian Ocean, into any ocean, rather, as the saying is, than "let it go back to the office." Hugh was not grateful for these hard-won better conditions either. Nor, mysteriously, seemed anyone else to be. For the wretchedness of the food was the great topic of conversation. "Never mind, chaps, soon we'll be home where a fellow can have some tiddley chow he can eat, instead of all this bloody kind of stuff, bits of paint, I don't know what it is at all." And Hugh, a loyal soul at bottom, grumbled with the rest. He found his spiritual level with the stewards, however...