Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [62]
Sullivan paused to take breath, gazing at Billy over the bows of the punt. His long bony face, dark eyebrows and bemused green eyes were more evident for the shearing away of his hair. ‘ ’Tis a blow struck against the liberty of the subject,’ he said, ‘an’ it bears on ivery man aboard of this ship.’
‘It doesna’ bear on every man aboard o’ the ship,’ Billy retorted. ‘Every man aboard o’ the ship is not full o’ bleddy fleas. I an’t for one. How about you, shipmate?’
This was to Wilson, who pondered for some moments darkly, then gave it as his opinion that there was many a worse thing than fleas.
‘Well, ’course there is,’ Billy said impatiently, ‘there is crab-lice, there is rats, there is bleddy lock-jaw, but that is not the point I am seekin’ to make. That coat was rotted, it was fallin’ off him, it’s no use him denyin’ it.’
‘That coat could have been mended,’ Sullivan said. ‘That coat only needed a lovin’ woman’s hand. An’ another thing, that coat had six brass buttons on it, good as new. Where are thim brass buttons now? I am goin’ to ask Haines one of these days about thim buttons. I am waitin’ for the right moment. An’ they have took it out of me pay, they have took another three shillin’ off me for this linsey-woolsey stuff I niver asked for.’
‘Well,’ Billy said, ‘they have took less fra you than fra me.’
‘They are takin’ two months wages off the both of us to pay back what they spent to get us,’ Sullivan said.
‘Aye, but I am signed for an able seaman an’ you are signed for an ordinary seaman an’ the difference between us is four shillin’ a month. So the bastids are takin’ eight shillin’ more from me.’
‘That’s another thing that is woundin’ to the spirit,’ Sullivan said. ‘Why should you be worth four shillin’ a month more than me? We are both men, aren’t we? An’ I am gifted for the music.’
‘Curse me,’ Billy said, striking at the gunwale of the boat with the flat of his hand. ‘I have seen some cuddies in my time, Sullivan, but I never saw anyone the like o’ you for gettin’ hold o’ things the wrong bleddy way. You should be glad to be losin’ eight shillin’ less than me.’
‘We are both losin’ the same,’ Sullivan said. ‘They are takin’ the same off the both of us.’
‘Now just a bleddy minute.’ Billy’s tone was irate but his face was beginning to wear a baffled look. ‘God-amighty,’ he said, ‘if they are takin’ eight shillin’ more from me than they are from you, how the pox can they be takin’ the same from both of us?’
‘That eight shillin’,’ Sullivan said patiently, ‘that is just a idea in your head, Billy. That is the different value them miscreants have set on us. But we are both goin’ to work two months for nothin’ an’ risk our lives among them heathen blacks …’
Sullivan appeared at this point to lose the track of what he was saying. He was gazing forward to where two or three men, Libby among them, were sitting up against the windlass, working on some cable; in anticipation of long anchorage off the Windward Coast, Thurso had ordered the cables to be rounded so as to protect them from chafing in the hawse.
‘Come on then,’ Billy said irritably, ‘finish what you are sayin’, man, give over dreamin’.’
‘I have finished,’ Sullivan said. ‘At the end of two months we have got nothin’, so they have took the same from the both of us. How do you think he knew?’
‘Who?’
‘That miscreated mortal down there, Libby. I just remembered somethin’ he said to me about gettin’ a new suit. He knew they were goin’ to take me clothes off me.’
‘I an’t surprised,’ Billy said after a moment. ‘He is Haines’s catch-fart.’
‘They knew each other from before,’ Wilson said. ‘They have been together on a Guineaman before.’