Jim stretched his legs out across the greasy deck, eased his back against the mast, and felt the utter weariness soaking into every bone and muscle. The clock of Rochester cathedral struck eight o'clock on that fine calm summer evening. The work on the wharves lining the River Medway was over for the day; as it was a Friday evening the dockers, sailormen, lightermen and tugmen had drawn their money and left long ago for the small, rowdy pubs of the mean streets bordering the river. Dukey and Bert had left long before the usual knocking-off time, and Jim had guessed why. From their huge winks and schoolboyish excitement it was evident that today was the great day when the jewels from the Sardis were to be sold for cash; their spending of the gold so far had certainly been so prodigal and foolish that Jim wasn't surprised that it was beginning to dwindle. For eight months now they had been steadily flinging it away, buying any foolish luxury that they, their wives, or relations could think of. Huge quantities had passed through the till of The Steam Packet, where for nights on end the bar had been packed to the doors with new-found cronies, pleased to drink themselves to the floor at the salvagers' expense. "Drink up, me old mates, drink up! Plenny more where this comes from" — such had been Dukey's motto ever since January. Their apparent purpose in coming to Rochester was to unload sprats for the London market, but there were, in the back streets of the Medway towns, many pawnbrokers' shops where no questions were asked about where things came from. And of course it was better to make this sort of sale well away from home.
So as early as four o'clock that afternoon Jim had looked up from the stifling hold to see them going for'ard to where the shoulder of the bow lay against the wharf. They were already half-tipsy, and clutching each other for support; once on the wharf Dukey turned and held up a large buff envelope: "Cheerio, mates! Keep all on shovelling them sprats and see you don't hang about. We gotter go and see my old uncle!" Then, with a roar of laughter, they disappeared round the corner of a timber stack, and Jim went back to his grinding labour.
His day had started before dawn, when they had left Whitstable and tacked against a light westerly along the shore of Sheppey towards the Nore. There they had kept their rendezvous with a group of spratting smacks, and Jim and Shiner had spent two hours pitching bucket after bucket of the almost liquid silver fish into the Maud's hold. Then the anchor had to be hove up laboriously on the crude handspike winch. In the late afternoon, after hours of short tacking against the fluky breeze, they had made fast to Rochester wharf, and had at once begun to unload the catch, which had to be packed in barrels and put aboard a London train that evening to be sold at Billingsgate the next day. The price was better on Saturday than on any other day.
Hour after hour, while the shadows of the masts and sheds grew longer, Jim worked away in the close fishy reek of the hold. His job was to shovel the sprats into a big bucket, which Shiner hauled up and emptied into an open barrel. Two dockers were busy nailing on the lids and trundling the barrels away to a trolley. Jim was now fit and hard, and the drudgery he had done in the last half year had put inches of flesh and muscle on to his arms and shoulders; but hard and skilfully as he worked, the silvery slithering heap seemed to be never-ending, and his great flat wooden shovel no more than a teaspoon.
Yet at last the cargo was gone, and he and Shiner had been able to walk, stiff' with fatigue, to a corner shop, where they bought huge pasties, full of hot potato, onion and steak. These they ate ravenously in a corner of a crowded, smoky pub, at the same time swilling down cool mild-and-bitter beer.
And now the day was over, and from head to toe Jim's body was full of contentment and weariness. He savoured every puff of his black clay pipe, and relaxed in a way that only the tired manual worker knows. Idly he watched the ebb coming down under the bridges, and the smart red trains of the South-Eastcrn and Chatham Railway rattling through the black girders of the railway bridge. From where he sat he could look upstream right under the railway and road bridges, and he was mildly surprised to see, far upstream, a sailing barge running down with the ebb. All the other barges were now tied up for the night. This one must have a keen Skipper, one who put money before leisure.
While she was still well above the bridges, he saw a man in a rowing-boat pull out to her and clamber aboard. Jim had learnt enough of the life of the Estuary to know that he must be a huffier. This fine 130-ton barge would have to lower her great mast and sails to clear the bridges, and hoist them up again on the downstream side. She carried only a Skipper and a Mate; the former would be at the wheel, and the latter, on his own, would take a long time to get the mast and sails up. An accident might easily happen in that time, while the barge was drifting helplessly. So a strange race of pitiable, half-derelict men gained a living of a sort as hufflers. They rowed out to barges approaching the bridges, secured their boats astern of the barge and, for the price of a few pints of beer, helped with the urgent lowering and hoisting of the heavy gear.
This skilful shooting of the bridges under sail was something Jim had not yet seen, so he watched with close attention. The barge held on to her full sail until it seemed to him that she must smash her gear against the road bridge; then, at the last moment, the mast, with its sails still set, fell steadily backwards to rest along the deck. Under the bridge, the barge became a black silhouette, end-on to him, but as the bow slid smoothly out into the yellow sunset light he could see the two figures of the Mate and the huffier in the bow rising and falling alternately as they worked hastily at the handles of the winch, winding in the stay-fall. The sun gleamed a rich red-gold on the smart pine spars as they rose imperceptibly to the vertical; as the deeply-laden barge passed abreast of Jim the sails were filling again to the gentle following breeze, and the ripple was beginning to murmur at her stem. The huffler, a short, stooping man in shabby blue serge, was walking aft to where the Skipper stood. Suddenly, Jim was not watching idly; he was riveted to the spot, his eyes staring at that shambling figure. He knew him. He didn't have to think about it, or argue about it. That walk was a part of his memory. He knew him — but who the devil was it? His mind was in a whirclass="underline" it was ridiculous that he could not find the name which was so nearly on his lips.
Then the huffler cast off and the Skipper waved and bawled a farewell which came clear across the water: 'Cheerio, Scottie! See yer next week!" And Jim had got it. Dougie! It was Dougie - no doubt about it. Poor Dougie, who'd fallen from master to Third Mate, had now fallen to the very foot of the ladder. No man who could get a job as a deck-hand would be a huffler, for the living was lonely, hard and precarious. Just a minute, thought Jim, what am I doing pitying him? At least he had a respectable career before his ruin: here am I, right at the start, not much above a huffler. What about me, when I'm his age...?
It was strange — some things you had to think about and argue with yourself, others seemed decided for you without your knowing why. Just as he knew that the huffler was Dougie, as he knew equally certainly that he had to see him, and talk to him.
MacDougall had slanted his boat in towards Jim's side of the river, and was easily within hailing distance; but Jim did not call, for if Dougie did not want to see him — and probably he didn't — he could easily pull over to the other side and disappear long before Jim could get round across the bridge. So Jim rose, knocked out his pipe, and set off along the wharf at an easy walk, keeping his eye on the boat. He crossed the busy main street at the end of the bridge and came out on to a wide road leading along the riverside. He was waiting at the foot of a flight of stone steps as Bougie's boat slid alongside; as he glanced over his shoulder, Dougie saw him, but took no notice of him, for by now Jim looked exactly like any other hand from a smack, barge or collier brig. Jim spoke as he shipped his oars: "Good evening, Mr MacDougall. It's a small world, isn't it?"