Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [83]
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...
Yet he felt trapped. The more completely for the realization that in no essential sense had he escaped from his past life. It was all here, though in another form: the same conflicts, faces, same people, he could imagine, as at school, the same spurious popularity with his guitar, the same kind of unpopularity because he made