Bunks with tossed blankets appeared on either side; aft lay the captain’s cabin, door open and an oilskin swinging like a corpse from a nail; above, and through the atmosphere of must and bad tobacco, came the smell of the _Heart_, a perfume of shark oil, ineradicable, faint, but unforgettable, once smelt.
George opened the portholes and Tommie took her seat on a bunk edge, looking round her but saying nothing.
A cheap brass lamp swung from the beam above the table, the table was covered with white marbled oilcloth, stained and stamped with innumerable ring marks from the bottoms of coffee cups; about the whole place was that atmosphere of sordidness and misery that man alone can create.
Tommie sat absorbing it, whilst Hank and George explored lockers and investigated McGinnis’ cabin. Then she rose and took off her coat.
She stripped the oilcloth from the table, said, “Faugh!” rolled it up and flung it on the floor.
“Say!” cried she, “isn’t there any soap in this hooker?”
“Soap!” cried Hank, appearing from McGinnis’ cabin, carrying the log book and a tin box. “I dunno. Jake will know.”
“Go up and send him down. You can take the wheel for a minute whilst I get this place clean—Goodness!”
He went on deck, followed by George, and next minute Jake appeared.
Despite Tommie’s get-up, he had spotted her for a girl when she came on board. Not being a haunter of the pictures he had not recognised her; what she was, or where she had come from, he could not imagine—or what she wanted of him. He was soon to learn.
“Take off your hat,” said Tommie. “Now, then, get me some soap and a scrubbing brush, if there is such a thing on this dirty ship.”
He turned and went on deck and came back in a minute or so with a tin of soft soap and a mop.
“Well, we’ll have to make the mop do. Now go and fetch a bucket of water.”
“There’s enough in the sea. We must make it do. Go on and don’t stand there scratching your head.”
Hank, leaving George at the wheel and coming down half an hour later to see what was going on, returned jubilant.
“She’s working that gink like a house maid, he’s washed the table an’s scrubbing the floor and she’s stripping the blankets off the bunks. She’s going to make him wash them. She’s a peach.”