Harrigan | Page 7

about this speech which impressed even
Harrigan. He brooded over it on his way to the fireroom. There he was
set to work passing coal. He had to stand in a narrow passage scarcely
wide enough for him to turn about in. On either side was a towering
black heap which slanted down to his feet. Midway between the piles
was the little door through which he shoveled the coal into the
fireroom.
All was stifling hot, with a breath of coal dust and smoke to choke the
lungs. Even the Greek firemen sweated and cursed, though they were
used to that environment. An ordinary man might have succumbed
simply to that fiery, foul atmosphere. It was like a glimpse of hell, dark,
hopeless.
It was not the heat or the atmosphere which troubled Harrigan, but his
hands. His skin was puffed and soft from the scrubbing of the bridge.
Now as he grasped the rough wood of the short-handled scoop the
epidermis wore quickly and left his palms half raw. For a time he
managed to shift his grip, bringing new portions of his hands to bear on
the wood, but even this skin was worn away in time. When he finished

his shift, his hands were bleeding in places and raw in the palms.
As he came on deck, he tied them up with bits of soft waste in lieu of a
bandage and made no complaint, yet his fingers were trembling when
he ate supper that night. He caught the eyes of the rest of the crew
studying him with a cold calculation. They were estimating the strength
of his endurance and he knew at once that they had been through the
same trial one by one until they were broken.
He could see that they hated the captain and he wondered why they
would ship with him time and again. He watched their expressions
when Black McTee was mentioned, and then he understood. They were
waiting for the time when the captain should weaken. Then they would
have their revenge.
The second day was a repetition of the first. He began with scrubbing
down the bridge. The suds, strong with lye, ate shrewdly at his raw
hands. Still he hummed as he worked and watched McTee's frown
grow dark. When he was ordered below to the fireroom, he wrapped his
hands in the soft waste again. That helped him for a time, but after the
first two hours the waste matted and grew hard with perspiration and
blood. He had to throw it away and take the shovel handle against his
bare skin. He told himself that it was only a matter of time before
calluses would form, but what chance was there for a formation of
calluses when the water and suds softened his hands every morning?
On the third day he was a little more used to the torture. His hands were
hopelessly raw now, but still he made no complaint and stuck with his
task. That night he secured a rag and retreated to the stretch of deck
between the wheelhouse and the after-cabin, where he squatted beside a
bucket of water and washed his hands carefully. Both hands were
puffed and red; one of the creases in the left palm bled a steady trickle.
He washed them slowly, with infinite relish of the cool water, until he
felt that peculiar sensation which warns us that we are watched by
another eye.
He looked up to see a young woman standing above him at the rail of
the after-cabin. She had been watching him by the light from the

window of the wheelhouse.
CHAPTER 4
"Let me bandage your hands," she said. "I have some salve in my
room."
Her voice was a balm to the troubled heart of Harrigan. His knotted
forehead relaxed.
"Are you coming up?"
"Aye."
He ran up the ladder and followed her to a cabin. She rummaged
through a suitcase and finally brought out a little tin box of salve and a
roll of gauze. As she stooped with her back to him, he saw that her hair
was red--not fiery red like his, but a deep dull bronze, with points of
gold where the light struck it. When she straightened and turned, her
eyes went wide, looking up to him, for he bulked huge in the tiny
cabin.
"What a big fellow you are!"
He did not answer for a moment; he was too busy watching her eyes,
which were sea-green, and strangely pleasant and restful.
"Do you know me?" she asked with a slight frown.
"'Scuse me," muttered Harrigan. "I thought at first I did."
He abased his glance while she took one of his hands and turned it
palm up.
"Ugh!" she muttered. "How did this happen?"