Читать книгу Brandon of the Engineers - Harold Bindloss - Страница 10

Table of Contents

When he had sold his motorcycle at Liverpool, Dick found it would be prudent to take a third-class passage, but regretted this as soon as the liner left the St. George’s channel. The food, though badly served, was good of its kind, and his berth was comfortable enough for a man who had lived under canvas, but when the hatches were closed on account of bad weather the foul air of the steerage sickened him and the habits of his companions left much to be desired. It was difficult to take refuge in the open air, because the steerage deck was swept by bitter spray and often flooded as the big ship lurched across the Atlantic against a western gale.

A spray-cloud veiled her forward when the bows plunged into a comber’s hollow side, and then as they swung up until her forefoot was clear, foam and green water poured aft in cataracts. Sometimes much of her hull before the bridge sank into the crest of a half-mile sea and lower decks and alleyways looked like rivers. The gale held all the way across, and Dick felt jaded and gloomy when they steamed into New York, a day late. He had some trouble with the immigration officers, who asked awkward questions about his occupation and his reason for giving it up, but he satisfied them at length and was allowed to land.

The first few days he spent in New York helped him to realize the change in his fortunes and the difficulties he must face. Until the night he lost the plans, he had scarcely known a care; life had been made easy, and his future had looked safe. He had seldom denied himself anything; he had started well on a career he liked, and all his thoughts were centered on fitting himself for it. Extravagance was not a failing of his, but he had always had more money than would satisfy his somewhat simple needs. Now, however, there was an alarming difference.

To begin with, it was obvious that he could only stay for a very limited time at the cheap hotel he went to, and his efforts to find employment brought him sharp rebuffs. Business men who needed assistance asked him curt questions about his training and experience, and when he could not answer satisfactorily promptly got rid of him. Then he tried manual labor and found employment almost as hard to get. The few dollars he earned at casual jobs did not pay his board at the hotel where he lived in squalid discomfort, but matters got worse when he was forced to leave it and take refuge in a big tenement house, overcrowded with unsavory foreigners from eastern Europe. New York was then sweltering under a heat wave, and he came home, tired by heavy toil or sickened by disappointment, to pass nights of torment in a stifling, foul-smelling room.

He bore it for some weeks and then, when his small stock of money was melting fast, set off to try his fortune in the manufacturing towns of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Here he found work was to be had, but the best paid kind was barred to untrained men by Trade-union rules, and the rest was done by Poles and Ruthenians, who led a squalid semi-communistic life in surroundings that revolted him. Still, he could not be fastidious and took such work as he could get, until one rainy evening when he walked home dejectedly after several days of enforced idleness. A labor agent’s window caught his eye and he stopped amidst the crowd that jostled him on the wet sidewalk to read the notices displayed.

One ticket stated that white men, and particularly live mechanics, were wanted for a job down South, but Dick hesitated for a few minutes, fingering a dollar in his pocket. Carefully spent, it would buy him his supper and leave something towards his meals next day, and he had been walking about since morning without food. If he went without his supper, the agent, in exchange for the dollar, would give him the address of the man who wanted help, but Dick knew from experience that it did not follow that he would be engaged. Still, one must risk something and the situation was getting desperate. He entered the office and a clerk handed him a card.

“It’s right across the town, but you’d better get there quick,” he said. “The job’s a snap and I’ve sent a lot of men along.”

Dick boarded a street-car that took him part of the way, but he had to walk the rest, and was tired and wet when he reached an office in a side street. A smart clerk took the card and gave him a critical glance.

“It looks as if we were going to be full up, but I’ll put down your name and you can come back in the morning,” he remarked. “What do you call yourself?”

“A civil engineer,” said Dick. “But where is the job and what’s the pay?”

“I guess Central America is near enough; mighty fine country, where rum’s good and cheap. Pay’ll pan out about two-fifty, or perhaps three dollars if you’re extra smart.”

“You can get as much here,” Dick objected, thinking it unwise to seem eager.

“Then why don’t you get it?” the clerk inquired. “Anyhow, you won’t be charged for board and all you’ll have to do is to drive breeds and niggers. It’s a soft thing, sure, but you can light out now and come back if you feel it’s good enough for you to take your chance.”

Dick went away, and had reached the landing when a man who wore loose, gray clothes and a big, soft hat, met him.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I’ve been applying for the job in the South.”

The other gave him a searching glance and Dick thought he noted his anxious look and wet and shabby clothes.

“What can you do?” he resumed.

“To begin with, I can measure cubic quantities, plan out excavating work, and use the level. If this kind of thing’s not wanted, I can handle a spade.”

“Where have you done your digging?”

“In this city. Laying sewers for a contractor, who, the boys said, had to squeeze us to make good the graft he put up to get the job.”

The other nodded. “That’s so; I know the man. You can use a spade all right if you satisfied him. But the sewer’s not finished yet; why did you quit?”

“The foreman fired three or four of us to make room for friends that a saloon-keeper who commands some votes sent along.”

“Well,” said the other, smiling, “you seem to understand how our city bosses fix these things. But my job will mean pretty tough work. Are you sure you want it?”

“I can’t find another,” Dick answered frankly.

“Very well, I’ll put you on. Look round to-morrow and get your orders. I’ve a notion that you’re up against it; here’s a dollar on account.”

Dick took the money. He rather liked the man, whose abruptness was disarmed by his twinkling smile. For the first time, with one exception, during his search for employment, he had been treated as a human being instead of an instrument for doing a certain amount of work.

It was raining hard when he reached the street, and supper would be over before he arrived at his cheap hotel, where one must eat at fixed times or wait for the next meal. There was, however, a small restaurant with an Italian name outside a few blocks further on, and going in he was served with well-cooked food and afterwards sat in a corner smoking and thinking hard. He now felt more cheerful; but the future was dark and he realized the difficulties in his path.

American industry was highly organized. The man who hoped for advancement must specialize and make himself master of some particular branch. Dick had specialized in England, and thought he knew his subject, but could not use his knowledge. The Americans to whom he tried to sell it would have none of him, and Dick owned that he could not blame them; since it was natural to suppose that the man who was unfaithful to his country would not be loyal to his employer. When he looked for other openings, he found capital and labor arrayed in hostile camps. There was mechanical work he was able to do, but this was not allowed, because the organized workers, who had fought stubbornly for a certain standard of comfort, refused to let untrained outsiders share the benefits they had won.

Business was left; but it needed money, and if he tried to enter it as a clerk, he must first obtain smart clothes and find somebody to certify his ability and character, which was impossible. It looked as if he must be content with manual labor. The wages it commanded were not low and he was physically strong, but he shrank from the lives the lower ranks of toilers led when their work was done. The crowded bunk-house and squalid tenement revolted him. Still, he was young and optimistic; his luck might change when he went South and chance give him an opportunity of breaking through the barriers that shut him in. He sat in the corner, pondering, until it got late and the tired Italian politely turned him out.

Next morning he joined a group of waiting men at the railroad station. They had a dejected look as they sat upon their bundles outside the agent’s office, except for three or four who were cheerfully drunk. Their clothes were shabby and of different kinds, for some wore cheap store-suits and some work-stained overalls. It was obvious that adversity had brought them together, and Dick did not think they would make amiable companions. About half appeared to be Americans, but he could not determine the nationality of the rest, who grumbled in uncouth English with different accents.

By and by the clerk whom Dick had met came out of the office with a bundle of tickets, which he distributed, and soon afterwards the train rolled into the depot. Dick was not pleased to find that a car had been reserved for the party, since he would sooner have traveled with the ordinary passengers. Indeed, when a dispute began as the train moved slowly through the wet street, he left the car. In passing through the next, he met the conductor, who asked for his ticket, and after tearing off a section of the long paper, gave him a card, which he gruffly ordered him to stick in his hat. Then he put his hand on Dick’s shoulder, and pushed him back through the vestibule.

“That’s your car behind and you’ll stop right there,” he said. “Next time you come out we’ll put you off the train.”

Dick resigned himself, but stopped on the front platform and looked back as the train jolted across a rattling bridge. A wide, yellow river ran beneath it, and the tall factories and rows of dingy houses were fading in the rain and smoke on the other side. Dick watched them until they grew indistinct, and then his heart felt lighter. He had endured much in the grimy town; but all that was over. After confronting, with instinctive shrinking, industry’s grimmest aspect, he was traveling toward the light and glamour of the South.

Entering the smoking compartment, he found the disturbance had subsided, and presently fell into talk with a man on the opposite seat who asked for some tobacco. He told Dick he was a locomotive fireman, but had got into trouble, the nature of which he did not disclose. Dick never learned much more about his past than this, but their acquaintance ripened and Kemp proved a useful friend.

It was getting dark when they reached an Atlantic port and were lined up on the terminal platform by a man who read out a list of their names. He expressed his opinion of them with sarcastic vigor when it was discovered that three of the party had left the train on the way; and then packed the rest into waiting automobiles, which conveyed them to the wharf as fast as the machines would go.

“Guess you won’t quit this journey. The man who jumps off will sure get hurt,” he remarked as they started.

In spite of his precautions, another of the gang was missing when they alighted, and Kemp, the fireman, grinned at Dick.

“That fellow’s not so smart as he allows,” he said. “He’d have gone in the last car, where he could see in front, if he’d known his job.”

They were hustled up a steamer’s gangway and taken to the after end of the deck, where their conductor turned his back on them for a few minutes while he spoke to a mate.

“Now’s your time,” said Kemp, “if you feel you want to quit.”

Dick looked about. The spar-deck, on which the boats were stowed, covered the spot where he stood, and the passage beneath the stanchions was dark. There was nobody at the top of the gangway under the big cargo-lamp, and its illumination did not carry far across the wharf. If he could reach the latter, he would soon be lost in the gloom, and he was sensible of a curious impulse that urged him to flight. It almost amounted to panic, and he imagined that the other men’s desertion must have daunted him. For a few moments he struggled with the feeling and then conquered it.

“No,” he said firmly; “I’ll see the thing through.”

Kemp nodded. “Well, I guess it’s too late now.”

Two seamen, sent by the mate, went to the top of the gangway, and the fellow who had brought the party from the station stood on guard near. Dick afterward realized that much depended on the choice he swiftly made and wondered whether it was quite by chance he did so.

“You were pretty near going,” his companion resumed.

“Yes,” said Dick, thoughtfully; “I believe I was. As a matter of fact, I don’t know why I stopped.”

The other smiled. “I’ve felt like that about risky jobs I took. Sometimes I lit out, and sometimes I didn’t, but found out afterward I was right either way. If you feel you have to go, the best thing you can do is to get a move on.”

Dick agreed with this. He did not understand it, but knew that while he had still had time to escape down the gangway and felt strongly tempted to do so, it was impressed upon him that he must remain.

A few minutes later their conductor left them with a sarcastic farewell, the ropes were cast off, and the steamer swung out from the wharf. When, with engines throbbing steadily, she headed down the bay, Dick went to his berth, and on getting up next morning found the American coast had sunk to a low, gray streak to starboard. A fresh southwest breeze was blowing under a cloudy sky and the vessel, rolling viciously, lurched across the white-topped combers of the warm Gulf Stream.

After breakfast, some of his companions gathered into listless, grumbling groups, and some brought out packs of greasy cards, but Dick sat by himself, wondering with more buoyant feelings what lay before him. He had known trouble and somehow weathered it, and now he was bound to a country where the sun was shining. It was pleasant to feel the soft air on his face and the swing of the spray-veiled bows. After all, good fortune might await him down South.