Читать книгу The Sailor - Snaith John Collis - Страница 4

There was only one thing to be done now, and this he did without delay. He took his head from the metals and stood up as well as he could. His body was all numb and lifeless, but there was a queer excitement in him somewhere that for the moment made him feel almost happy. After all, he wasn't dead. And in that strange moment that was like a dream he was almost glad he wasn't. Yes, almost glad. It was hard to believe that he should wish to find himself alive, and yet as he stretched his limbs and began to move he couldn't honestly say that after all he wasn't just a little bit pleased.

He was not able to move very fast; he was so dreadfully cold for one thing, and then his left foot was hurt. But now, as he walked along the six-foot way, he felt somehow stronger than he had ever felt in his life before. Of a sudden he crossed the metals and plunged recklessly sideways into the fog. He stumbled over some signal wires and fell on his knees, got up and stumbled over some more. What did it matter? What did anything matter? After all, it was quite easy to die. He must find the right line and make a job of it.

He stopped a moment, and turned this thought over in his mind. And then he heard the voice again.

"Henry Harper, you'll never be able to do that again as long as you live."

The words were gentle and composed, but they struck him like a curse. He knew that they were true. Not as long as he lived would he be able to do again as he had just done. It was as if the judge in his wig whom he had seen that afternoon riding to the Assizes in his gilt carriage had passed a life sentence upon him. His knees began to crumble under him again; he could have shrieked with terror. Crying miserably he limped along into the sidings. He came to a lamp. All around were silent, grim shapes upon which its feeble light was cast. They were loaded wagons, sheeted with tarpaulins. With the amazing recklessness that had just been born in him he determined to find a way into one of them in the hope of being able to lie down and sleep. It was not very difficult to climb up and get under one of the sheets, which happened to have been loosely tied. Also he had the luck to find a bed that would have been more or less comfortable had the night not been so bitterly cold. The wagon was loaded with sacks full of a substance soft and yielding; as a matter of fact, it was flour.

Henry Harper lay down with a feeling of relief and burrowed among the sacks as far as he could get. A mass of aches in body and soul, anything was better than the darkness and damp fog and icy substances cutting into his bare feet. Presently, with the sacks piled all round him, he felt less miserable, and he fell asleep.

How long he slept he didn't know. But it must have been some little time, and the sleep must have been fairly sound, for he was only awakened by a great jolt of the wagon. And before he was fully awake it had begun to move.

Hadn't he better jump out? No, let it move. Let it do anything it liked. Let it go anywhere it pleased. What did it matter? Again he fell asleep.

The next time he awoke he was shivering with cold and feeling very hungry. But the wagon was moving now and no mistake. It was still pitch dark, although the fog seemed to have lifted a bit, but the detonators which had been placed on the line were going off now and again with tremendous reports, signals flew past, and while he lay wondering what he ought to do now, he passed through an array of lights which looked like a station.

He soon came to the conclusion that it was useless to do anything. He couldn't get out of the wagon now even if he wanted to, that was unless he wanted to kill himself. Yes … that was exactly what…

"Lie quiet. Go to sleep," a stern voice commanded him.

He tried to sleep again but soon found he couldn't. He was cold and ill, but after an attack of vomiting he felt better. Meanwhile the wagon rattled on and on through the night, and it seemed to go faster the farther it went.

Where was it going? What did it matter where it went so long as he went with it? But – the sudden thought was like a blow – that was just what did matter! They would find him lying there, and they would give him to the police, and the police would do something to him. He knew all about that, because they had done something to him once already for taking an apple off a stall in the market place. He had only taken one, but they had given him six strokes, and in spite of the cold and the pain in his left leg he still remembered just what they were like.

Perhaps he ought to jump for it. No, that was impossible with his leg like that; the wagon was going too fast. He had better lie quiet and slip out as soon as the wagon stopped at a station. He burrowed far down into the sacks once more, for the sake of the warmth, and after a while he went to sleep again.

And then he had a dream that filled him with terror. The police had found him. The police had found him in the wagon.

He awoke with a start. Rough hands were shaking him. Yes, it was perfectly true!

"Kim up … you!"

It was the voice of the police.

He turned over with a whimper and lifted up his head, only to drop it instantly. He had been blinded by the glare of a lantern held six inches from his eyes.

"Well, damn me," a great, roaring voice surged into his ears. "Here, Ike!"

"What's up now?" said a second voice, roaring like the first.

"Come and look at this."

The boy dug his head into the sacks.

"What's up?" said voice the second.

"What about it? Must ha' got in at Blackhampton."

"Well, damn me."

The boy burrowed deeper and deeper into the sacks.

"Here, come out of it." The owner of the first voice took him by the ear and dragged him out of the wagon.

"What's yer name?"

No answer.

His captor shook him roughly.

"Enry Arper," whimpered the boy.

"Enry what?"

"Enry Arper."

"Enry Arper, is it? Well, you are going to have something to 'arp for, you are, my lad."

"Ever had the birch rod, Mister Enry Arper?" inquired the first voice with a kind of grim pleasantness.

The boy didn't answer.

"No? Not had that pleasure? The police are going to cut the skin off o' you and sarve you right. They'll larn you to trespass on to the railway. Fetch the foreman, Ike."

While the boy, securely held by the ear, stood shivering, Ike went leisurely in search of the foreman shunter. It was six o'clock, and that individual, who had been on duty since that hour the previous evening, was on the point of going home. Ike found him in the messroom, where he had gone to exchange his lantern for the small wicker basket in which he brought his meals. His name was Job Lorimer, and being large and fat and florid he sauntered up to the scene of action with an air of frank acceptance of life as it is, that seems to go as a rule with his type of physique and countenance.

"Why, blow me, Iggins, what's all this year?"

"Allow me to introjuice Mr. Enry Arper o' Blackhampton. – Mr. Job Lorimer, foreman shunter, Kentish Town."

"'Owdy do, young man. Pleased to meet you." Mr. Lorimer winked solemnly at both his subordinates. "What can we do for you?"

"Twelve strokes with the birch rod," said subordinate the first.

"Eight for the first offence," said subordinate the second.

Suddenly the boy fell down senseless at the foreman shunter's feet.