Story, Volume I

by Dai Smith

  ‘Hello cocky. You took my bloody bunk,’ he said.

  Reilly did not reply. Thoughts in him were calm. He said in his heart: ‘Your last trip. Keep calm. Remain silent. Stand things for sake of wife and children. When you go home you can get the old age pension.’

  ‘Well, Holy Jesus!’ said Farrell, coming in. ‘The dozy swine’s back again.’

  Reilly remained silent. Calmly he unpacked his bag. Was something hard in it. Like a little box. ‘Good God!’ he murmured. ‘Fancy that. Poor Eileen. Bought me a box of soap. God bless the darling child.’ He fondled the box as if it were made of solid gold. Were many noises now for fo’c’sle was full. Again voices in his ears. He wished they were full of cotton wool.

  ‘Old Reilly’s back.’

  ‘Oh Christ! Is he?’

  ‘Can’t you see him?’

  ‘Hello there. You old sucker.’

  Was a message flashing through Reilly’s brain. ‘Keep calm.’ Nine o’clock now. Second engineer came down the crew’s alloway. He crushed past a small trimmer. Said to him: ‘Tell Farrell to pick his watch.’ Trimmer went into fo’c’sle. Spoke to Farrell. Farrell shouted: ‘Outside men.’ All the men went out on deck. Some were already wearing their dungarees. Some wore their best clothes. Many were drunk. Farrell looked at the men. His right forefinger was pointing. As if he were pointing a gun at them all. They watched him.

  ‘Ryan. Duffy. Connelly. Hughes. Hurst. Thompson. Reilly. Simpson.’

  Eight men stepped forward.

  ‘Eight-to-twelve watch,’ he said. ‘Stand by till twelve o’clock. Have your dinner. Then turn in.’ He walked off amidships.

  On the deck also were boatswain and his mate. They picked their port and starboard watches. Lookout men. Day men. Lamp trimmer. Storekeeper. Came a little man, bald, with a sandy moustache. He called eight firemen and they were for Black Pan watch. Then a man named Scully; he picked the ‘gentleman’s’ watch.

  Hatches were being put on. The chief engineer was coming along the deck. He was shouting and his face was as red as a turkey cock. ‘God damn you. Can’t you hear five blasts on the whistle? Get these men up on the boat deck.’

  Was a terrible fuss now, for no watches should have been picked before boat muster. Boat drill first because that was most important. Was very important because men must be good sailors in case of ship striking iceberg, and helpless passengers to be saved. Was not right to pick watches before this had been done as it gave men a chance to pick mates and make other arrangements. Confusion. All the men diving into bags for jerseys and sailors caps that made some look like monkeys. Was necessary company said even if they looked like monkeys to have ordered ones.

  ‘Like the bloody navy,’ said Duffy, whose hat would not fit him and he had just paid five and sixpence for it at the slop chest. ‘Robbers,’ he growled. ‘Dirty robbers.’

  The crew ran along all decks and on flush deck some tripped over hatch combings and falls from the drum-ends. Cargo men cursed them. Crew swore too. Reilly was one. Fell right over hatch cover.

  ‘You dopy old bastard. Where were you last night?’ growled a ganger. He did not hear the remainder of the sentence. He did not run up companion ladder to the saloon deck, rather he hopped up like a bird. ‘I feel like a poor bloody sparrow,’ he said in his mind.

  All excitement.

  ‘Lower away.’

  ‘Slack your falls.’

  ‘Hey! What the hell are you doin’?’

  ‘Easy there.’

  ‘Heave away.’

  ‘God blast you! How can you lower away with your rollocks like that?’

  ‘Get clear of chocks.’

  The boats were ascending and descending. Then a whistle blew. The men dispersed. Reilly went along the deck with Duffy.

  ‘How are you, old timer?’ asked Duffy.

  Reilly said: ‘Not so bad.’ They pressed up the alloway. Reilly undressed and turned in. All the men looked at him.

  ‘Oh hell. He’s started again.’

  ‘Who? Oh, him. How are you, my pigeon?’

  ‘Leave the old sucker alone.’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘Tickle his ribs.’

  ‘To hell with him!’

  Duffy’s face went red for was fifty himself and remembered sailing with Reilly years ago when he was young and strong and a good worker. Would not let him be put on, he said.

  ‘You’re as bad as him.’

  ‘Who said that?’

  ‘I said it.’ Farrell was speaking. Was a glint in his eye.

  ‘Come out on deck,’ said Duffy.

  Reilly was shivering in his bunk. Was cold. For ship’s blankets were thin and iron laths of bed pierced through straw palliasse. Was in singlet but no drawers. ‘Good Christ!’ he said to himself. ‘All this over me. All this fuss. All will hate me now.’ Some men playing cards at the table were growling.

  ‘Throw the old bastard over the side. Bunk and all.’

  ‘There’s always something wrong when he’s here.’

  ‘Awful,’ said Reilly in his heart, ‘and I wanted to keep calm. Say nothing.’

  ‘Come on. Come on the bloody deck!’

  ‘Put a sock in it.’

  ‘Pipe down.’

  Silence then for a moment.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly four o’clock.’

  The cook, who was half drunk, came up the alloway from galley and said did any of those b—’s want dinner. Was not going to wait there all day for them. Was going to kip.

  Seven bells. Four-to-eight watch were dressing. All had clean sweat rags round their necks. Some smoked cigarettes, others black shag. They passed out of the fo’c’sle in silence. Down alloway and along well deck number 2. Was a great stink now. Very warm. They could hear the thunder of the pistons pounding. Walked slowly. Some dragged their legs after them.

  ‘Bloody steam up all day. Just to keep you workin’. Lousy bastards.’ From the alloway could see the entrance to the engine room. The steel ladders glistened. All disappeared through the steel door between two high walls of steel, that were black. One wall was scaly with salt. In the fo’c’sle Reilly fell asleep. He dreamed. Was with the children in a park. Were playing with a rubber ball. All were jolly. Laughing. He bought them ice cream sandwiches. He stroked their heads. They disappeared. He called after them. Could not find them. ‘Hey! Hey!’ he called aloud. ‘Hey! Where are you all?’

  ‘Where the hell are you? Shut your confounded trap. People here have to do their four hours below as well as you.’

  Blood rushed to his head. He had been dreaming all right. Raised his head a little. Very quiet in the fo’c’sle now. Eight- to-twelve watch fast asleep. Suddenly he felt cold. Felt in the bed. Was nothing. Felt on top of blanket and his hand was wet. Greasy. Someone had thrown slops on top of him whilst he was sleeping. Was angry.

  ‘Show a leg there! Show a leg there! Seven bells! Seven bells!’

  Reilly sat up quickly.

  ‘How soon the time passes,’ he said.

  Somebody laughed. ‘Were you dreaming about her?’

  Some were now climbing out of their bunks. Were sullen and silent. They had been drinking heavily and their heads were large and painful. All were ready now.

  Five to eight.

  ‘Righto.’

  Eight-to-twelve watch left the fo’c’sle and towards amidships. Reilly stopped to tie his boot with a piece of string.

  ‘Come on, dozy,’ shouted Farrell, and to himself: ‘I’ll sweat that sucker this trip.’

  Descended ladder now one at a time. Reilly was shaking. Each time he was on a ladder his whole body shook. Remembered that trip falling twenty-five feet on his head. They reached the engine room. Passed through into stokehole. Was all heat and smell of water on ashes for men they were relieving had been emptying their bladders. Was much sweat on these men.

  ‘Number 3, you,’ said Farrell, and Reilly went on number 3.

  A man said to him: ‘What
time did she pull out?’

  ‘Half past four.’

  ‘Oh! Must be in the channel now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Farrell! Are you there?’

  Farrell turned round. Reilly was standing there with singlet off and bare to waist. Ribs shone in red glare of furnace.

  ‘What the hell do you want now?’ asked Farrell.

  Reilly was afraid. Was a sickness at the pit of his stomach. His blood was stirring. It was anxious for rest.

  ‘Number 3. Who is he?’ asked Reilly.

  ‘What’s that got to do with you?’

  ‘A lot,’ said Reilly. ‘Isn’t he the man I relieve this trip?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He wasn’t here when I came down.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘He should be here. The lousy sod. Look at that.’

  ‘Look at what?’ said Farrell, and he smiled.

  ‘You bastard,’ said Reilly, but only in his heart.

  ‘The mess he left,’ said Reilly. ‘The mess he left. What a worker. A pile of bloody ashes here and half the furnace raked out.’

  ‘D’you know who you’re relievin’?’ asked Farrell.

  He bent low towards Reilly, who shivered now.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My wife’s brother,’ said Farrell. ‘You get on your job, old cock. By Jesus! I’ll watch you.’

  Was a man stoking up hard at number 4 furnace. Also a little trimmer running to him from between boilers. Had come from bunkers with heavy steel barrow full of coal. Ship lurched and trimmer was pitched forward on to his face.

  ‘You awkward bloody worm,’ said Duffy.

  ‘Come on. Christ! Look at him. Standing there,’ said Farrell. ‘D’you want me to use your slice for you? Hell. Sit down. I’ll hold your hand for you.’

  ‘O Jesus!’ said the old man to himself. ‘Be calm.’

  Farrell walked away. Reilly looked towards number 4 furnace. Was a cloud of steam. Duffy had done it on ashes. He could not see him. He looked at his own furnace. Suddenly bent down. Looked right into it. A trimmer had shouted: ‘Righto.’ Had tipped his barrow for Reilly. Heat was terrible. Reilly took his shovel. Dug into coal and heaved a shovelful into the furnace. Flames roared. Flame licked out at him, scorching his face and thin chest. Reilly said: ‘The mean bastard! Knew it would happen. Told trimmer to heave me a load of slack. God strike him dead!’

  He shovelled again. Must get her going. Must watch gauge. Gauge going down. Must watch bloody boiler. Might burst. He heaved in again. Flames licked out at him like many little tongues. Suddenly he flung down his shovel. Folded his arms and stared into the roaring furnace. ‘How tired I am. How sick and tired of it all. After forty years. O Jesus! How can I go to them? To see her face when I say: “I’m sacked. Too old.” How can I? Poor children. Nothing for them. Nothing for them.’ Was silent. Tears were running down his cheeks and drying on his chest. Saw in flames all his past life. Every thought. Every word. Every deed. All endeavours, trials, braveries of the flesh and spirit. Was now – nothing. All ended. Nothing more now. Nothing more now. What is it all for?’ he said in his heart. Who cares? Nobody. Who feels? Nobody. Saw all his life illuminated in those flames. Not much for us. Sweat, sweat. Pay off. Sign on. Sweat, sweat. Pay off. Finish. Ah, well! Were voices in those flames now. Were speaking to him. He understood their language which was in sounds of hot air. And suddenly he said, half aloud: ‘All to her. All to the sea.’ He gripped his shovel. Then suddenly dropped it. He picked up the steel slice. And suddenly dropped that too. All to her. All his life, hopes, energies. Everything. The flames licked out at him.

  ‘ALL,’ he shouted, and leaped.

  ‘Hey! Jesus Christ! HELP! HELP! Reilly’s jumped in the furnace.’

  AN AFTERNOON AT EWA SHAD’S

  Glyn Jones

  Em was my friend. He lived with my Ewa Shad and my Bopa Lloyd in a lonely row of whitewashed cottages on the side of the hill. It was a lovely sunny afternoon when I went up there carrying a brown paper parcel, and my mother had put my blue print trousers on me. These were real trousers with a button fly and a patch pocket for my handkerchief on my behind.

  Em lived in the end cottage in the row. There was a pavement in front with gutters crossing it half-filled with soapy water from the colliers’ bathtubs. In front of the pavement again stretched a flat patch of rusty ground, a sort of little platform in the side of the hill where the sagging drying lines stood and a chickens’ cwtch built of orange boxes. At the back of the row, beyond the colliers’ gardens, the steep tips of pit rubbish sloped smoothly up into the sky, and it was on these tips the men who were out of work used to scratch for coal. Em’s father, my Ewa Shad, had made a fence round his garden out of old pit-rope and sheets of rusty corrugated zinc, but the bottom part was formed of the two end frames of a black iron bedstead, with the bright knobs and the brasswork still shining in the sun upon them.

  I went into the back garden, and there I found Em playing with his fish. He had a big zinc bath half-filled with water sunk to the level of the ground to keep it in. He took his finger out of his nose to wave to me. It was a good garden for playing in because only about a quarter of it was set, and the earth of the rest had been trodden hard as the flags of a kitchen. There was a sycamore tree growing in the middle, and a whitewashed lavatory stood like a sentry box in the far corner. Em’s father was lying on his back between the lettuce beds, his boots off and his cap over his face. He was dirty and in his working clothes, and every now and then he would take hold of his shirt and start scratching his chest with his fist.

  ‘It’s our Mam’s birthday today,’ said Em, as I went up to him. His jersey was navy blue with a new light blue sleeve to one arm and half a sleeve, from the elbow down, to the other. He was sunburnt, his nose dotted with black freckles like the spots on a bird’s egg, and his ginger hair was cut very short and in a notchy way, looking as though something had been nibbling at it. I could see he had a red bloodshot blot in his eye that afternoon, and I thought I would like to have one of those, too. We played with the fish, which was about as big as my middle finger and which had a bright scarlet line all around the gulping edge of its mouth.

  Presently Bopa Lloyd came out of the kitchen to throw some potato peelings over the fence. When she saw me she looked glad, and when I gave her the parcel for her birthday she patted my face like a pony. She was a fat woman wearing a black flannel bodice with grey pinstripes and a wet sack apron that hurt you when she wiped your nose with it. On her forehead she had lines across like you use for music, and her grey hair was coming down out of her combs like the feathers of an untidy hen. Her nostrils were black and big enough for her to put her thumbs up them, and there were three or four little round lumps of shiny purplish skin growing on her face, each very smooth and tight-looking and with a high polish on it. And one of these lumps, the glossy plum-coloured one on her chin, had a long brown hair curling out of the top of it. ‘Shad,’ she shouted, ‘come from by there now and wash yourself for dinner.’

  Just then a big drop of rain fell into the middle of the pan. The sycamore opened and let out a bird. Loads of dark clouds with torn, wispy edges like black, heavy hay were blown across the sky, soon leaving no blue. It became dark and cold, and big pieces of white water began falling heavily out of the sky and dropping cold as lead right through my thin blouse, wetting my skin. Bopa Lloyd hurried towards the kitchen door with her parcel like a hen off her nest, shouting to us: ‘Go and shelter in the dubs while I get your dinner or you’ll get wet soaking.’ Em and I ran into the WC and Ewa Shad got up too and trotted down the garden, the peak of his cap on his neck and his working boots under his armpits. ‘I been with the angels,’ he muttered as he passed us, and we sat and watched him till the kitchen door had gulped him through.

  Soon it was raining like tap water and we heard the bumming of the thunderclap, but it was a long way off. From where we were we could see a big rain-stream pouring along a gutter the coal pi
ckers had worn down the side of the steep tip outside the garden, and halfway down, where it met a big lump of orange shale, it spouted up into the air, curving high out like a fountain. We sat on the wooden seat of the lavatory watching the inky tips through the open door. Then when Em peeped out he said the pipe from the troughing next door was pouring rain into the garden. I could see it was broken off halfway down, and it swung loose against the wall like the empty coat-sleeve of a man with one arm, making a big rusty tobacco stain on the white-lime of the wall. Em ran out into the rain, picked up the piece of piping that had fallen into the garden, and sloped it from the wall to the edge of his zinc bath sunk into the earth. Then he ran back again, and we waited for the pan to fill with water.

  We could see the earth spitting hard with rain, and hear it hissing like poured sugar or a cockle bed. Grey rain-fur grew round the pit ropes of the fence and the iron bedstead and over the sheets of rusty zinc. The surface of the water in the bath swarmed with tall rain, each heavy drop as it fell bouncing up again like the bobbing rod of a sewing machine. Then two of Bopa Lloyd’s hens, a white one and a ginger one, struggled through the hedge into the garden, their feathers stuck to them with rain. ‘Shoo,’ said Em, and the white one fell into the bath. Em laughed, but the chicken made so much noise Bopa Lloyd came out to the door of the kitchen drying her hands on her sack apron. When she saw what had happened she pushed Ewa Shad back, and swinging a towel over her head she ran round the side of the house and got a big shovel out of the coalhouse. It was a collier’s shovel, an old one of Ewa Shad’s, shaped like a heart-shaped shield. With this she shovelled the chicken up out of the pan while the water ran out of the toolbar hole in the corner. She kicked the piping down from the wall and shouted, ‘Come on in now, boys, and have a meal of food.’