"
"Sick! The whole watch sick? What do you mean, Mike?"
The Irishman grinned in the dim light, "Yis, sor, they're in their bunks
wishin' to die. They've niver been in a blow before. It's say-sick they
ar-re."
Both men were holding to the stanchion.
"Seasick!" ejaculated Madden. "How about Heck Mulcher and Ben Galton?"
he recalled the names on the list.
"The whole sit of navvies, sor, ar-re down on their backs, not carin' at
all, at all, whether we float, sink, swim, or go to Davy Jones' locker."
"Well, Caradoc's next--come with me."
They took hold of each other and went sliding and slipping along the
iron deck, now skating down hill, now climbing a sharp tilt, shoulders
hunched against the gusty spume, until they reached Smith's little cabin
past the mess hall. Here they paused and rapped on the door. As this
could not have been heard inside for the wind and the waves and the
groaning of the dock, they pushed open the shutter.
Madden no sooner entered than his nostrils caught a pervading odor of
alcohol. The Englishman's long figure lounged fully dressed on a bunk; a
demijohn was jammed behind his kit bag to keep it from rolling.
"Smith!" called Madden, "I'll have to ask you to stand watch to-night;
nearly all the navvies are sick."
Caradoc lifted his head from the bunk and blinked at the two men in the
door.
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