Free Hollow Sea by James Hanley

the bass and treble of men's voices. A continuous hum. Sailors and firemen came out and passed along to their work, with unseeing eyes, indifferent to these crowds. The bosun, smoking his clay pipe, leaned against the bulkhead outside his room. There was something lazy about his attitude, he had just finished his breakfast. Mr. Tyret's bald head sported itself in a unique way, surrounded as it was by a forest of hair of many colours. Heads of black hair, grey, brown, red. The long brushes stood upended in the scuppers, still dripping water. The hoses lay coiled, looking like so many fat and contented snakes. The sea was choppy now. Men were continuously picking up their belongings and going over to the lee side of the ship. All space was ransacked, it seemed there could be no more room. But men continued to appear. The officers were now promenading round the saloon-deck. Below them men could not move. When A.10 blew her whistle a sea of faces turned towards the bridge. Mr. Ericson saw them, a sort of confused and shapeless mass, a blue of white against khaki. The second officer wasn't thinking about anything in particular. He was still caught up in this bewilderment. It was the first time he had ever been aboard a ship like A.10. Now he stared straight at the sea of faces. It brought to his mind his adventure in the 'tween-decks. He had been glad to come up into the fresh air again. Gradually parts emerged from the whole. The mass seemed to be disintegrating. Now he picked out a face, studied the expression upon it, and shifted his gaze to another one. He noticed that quite a number were mere youths. There were old men, too. No doubt veterans. Then the individual faces sank again, becoming part of the white mass, as though they could not exist cut away from the whole, as though it were continually threatening their separate existences, their individualities. Such were Ericson's thoughts as he looked at the crowds below. After a while they turned their backs on him, broke up, groups scattered here and there. Eight bells rang out from the bridge. When Mr. Ericson went down to the mess-room for lunch he remarked to Bradshaw upon the large number of youngsters amongst the troops. Bradshaw wasn't in any way interested. Later Mr. Ericson fell into conversation with one of the officers.
    'What a lot of youngsters there are,' he said.
    The officer smiled. He was a young man about Ericson's age.
    'Young but sound.'
    He did not forget the remark. He imagined the officer had been feeling proud. Mr. Dunford advised him to steer clear of the officers. He said he thought the officer had momentarily forgotten himself. Probably he was thinking of prime beef. Mr. Ericson writhed under such callousness.
    'You don't want to take too much notice of what Mr. Dunford says,' advised Bradshaw.
    The two officers were sitting in the mess-room. They were waiting for Mr. Walters's tit-bit. This consisted of fresh rock-cakes and cream.
    'Where can he have got the cream from?' asked Ericson.
    What a question to ask, thought Bradshaw.
    'Heaven knows. Mr. Walters is in many ways an amazing man. I suppose it's just one of his miracles. I once had a rabbit-pie from Walters, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but there was no rabbit in it.'
    They fell to when the tit-bit came to the table.
    'Deveney's in bad luck,' Ericson remarked suddenly.
    Bradshaw looked up. 'Yes,' he said. 'But it's nothing much. You'll see worse things than malarial seizures before you've finished.'
    They finished their meal and lighted cigarettes. Then they went outside, standing by one of the boats. From where they stood they had a clear view of the stern-decks. Ericson flung his cigarette away.
    'What's your opinion about it?' he asked Bradshaw.
    'My opinion? Well, I think we'll go full-speed ahead, allowing for accidents, of course, or a sudden change of order, which wouldn't be unusual. Full-speed to that gory spot called O.' He smiled. 'But you know where I mean, don't you?'
    Ericson