John Snaith - The Sailor

The Ripper began to roar like a bull at some unseen presence, and soon the gates moved back and the cab moved on. And then about a minute later, for the first time in his life, the boy saw the mast of a ship. He knew it was a ship. He had seen pictures in shop windows. There was one shop window in particular he frequented every Friday evening, which always displayed the new number of the 'Lustrated London News and the 'Lustrated London News was great on ships. This was a kind of glorified canal boat with masts, but according to the 'Lustrated London News , and there could be no higher authority, it was undoubtedly a ship.

In his excitement at seeing it, he nearly forgot who was sitting opposite. Perhaps he wasn't going to be mutilated in Whitechapel after all. There might be yet a chance; the murderer had not again taken his knife out of his pocket. But suddenly another special edition flashed through his memory: "'Orrible crime on the 'Igh Seas. Revolting Details." And then he knew that he was being decoyed to the high seas, in order that this man could work his will upon him at his leisure in circumstances of unspeakable ferocity.

The cab stopped again. Mr. Thompson opened the door and got out. It was still raining very hard. There was a lamp close by, and the boy could see the water falling in long, stealthy, narrow rods. The murderer told him roughly to come out. He came out at once. Had he had the pluck of a mouse, he would have run for it. But he was quaking and trembling, his knees were letting him down.

The driver of the cab, a grotesque in an oilskin cape with a hat to match it, dragged a large wooden box tied round with cord off the roof of his machine and with the help of its owner lowered it to the ground. By the time this was done there came out of the darkness three or four strange men, who moved with the stealth of those used to the night. They gathered round the box and its owner with humble offers of their assistance.

The boy's first thought was that these scarecrows were confederates of the eminent murderer. But this theory was soon shattered. At any rate, if confederates they were, Mr. Thompson seemed to have little use for them at the moment. Without a word of warning he suddenly ran boot first at one of these wretches and sent him spinning into the mud. The man fell with a howl and rose with a curse, and then made off into the darkness muttering imprecations, in the wake of his companions who had disappeared already.

The boy could only feel that murderers of Mr. Thompson's class act according to their tastes in these little matters; but the cabman was rather impressed. He had made up his mind to stand out for "eight and a kick," but he now took what was given him without a word. As a matter of fact, he was given five shillings, which was considerably under his legal fare, but he did not venture to question Mr. Thompson's arithmetic. He moved off at once, but proceeded to take it out of his wretched horse as soon as he got through the dock gates.

In the meantime, Mr. Thompson was left standing beside his sea chest in the rain, and Henry Harper stood beside it also, convulsively clutching in one hand the bundle Mother had made up for him and in the other the apple she had given him.

Should he run for it? What was the use? All at once Mr. Thompson shouldered his sea chest with an air of quiet ferocity, and growled something that sounded like, "Git forrard, bye."

Expecting to be kicked into the sea if he didn't do as he was told, the boy got forrard at once. Mr. Thompson and his sea chest followed close upon his heels. Henry Harper crossed a couple of crazy planks with water lying far down underneath them, Mr. Thompson and his sea chest always just behind him, and then to his wonder and dismay he suddenly realized that he was on the deck of a ship.

He hadn't time to take his bearings, or to make out at all clearly what the deck of a ship was like, before he was descending a ladder into total darkness which smelled like a sewer. A nigger with rings in his ears came forward with a light, and Mr. Thompson asked if the Old Man was in the cabin, and the nigger said, "Yessah."

Mr. Thompson led Henry Harper to the cabin, which was a kind of room, about twelve feet by ten, miserably lit by a single dirty oil lamp. Here the smell of sewage that pervaded the vessel was rather genteelly mingled with an odor of rum. The Old Man was in the cabin right enough. He was not a very prepossessing old man to look at; to begin with, he hardly looked old at all. He was just a rough, middle-aged seaman, with a sodden, half-savage face, with a peculiar light in it that somehow reminded the boy of Auntie when she had been to the public. It might almost have been taken for humor, had not humor some little reputation as a Christian quality.

"Bye, sir," said Mr. Thompson, briefly.

"Bye," said the Old Man, with equal brevity. He then passed half a bloodshot eye over the shrinking figure in Johnnie's overcoat and father's trousers cut down, and said, "Git forrard, bye," in a tone that no boy of judgment would ever hesitate for a single moment to obey.

Henry Harper got forrard at once, although he didn't know where. He found his way out of the cabin somehow, and made ahead for a light that was suspended in an iron bracket. Under this he stood a moment trying to collect himself, or as much of himself as he had managed to bring aboard the ship, when Mr. Thompson came along and led him through various queer sorts of passages and up a flight of stairs to a place which he called the cook's galley.

The cook, a fearful looking Chinaman, received Henry Harper with a scowl, which, however, was merged at once in an extreme servility towards Mr. Thompson who was clearly a person of high consequence aboard the Margaret Carey . In deference to Mr. Thompson's wishes, the cook, whose name was Sing, showed the boy a sort of small manhole between the copper and the galley stairs where he could put his gear, and also where he could creep in and rest whenever his duties permitted.

"All snuggee," said Sing, with an ingratiating grin for the exclusive benefit of Mr. Thompson. Moreover, still further to impress Mr. Thompson with his humanity, Sing kindly presented the boy with a piece of moldy biscuit and a couple of scraps of broken meat. Mr. Thompson, having formally started Henry Harper on his career, withdrew. Sing resumed his scowl and pointed to an inverted bacon box on which his new assistant could sit and eat his supper.

But Henry Harper found very little in the way of appetite. The biscuit was so hard that it seemed to require a chisel, and the meat so salt and tough that any expenditure of jaw power was unlikely to prove a profitable investment. There still remained the apple that Mother had given him. But not for a moment did he think of eating that. It would have been sacrilege. Mother had her shrine already in his oddly impressionable mind. No matter how long he might live, no matter where his wanderings might take him, he never expected to come across such a being again. He wrapped the apple reverently in Percy's red-spotted handkerchief. He would always keep that apple in order that he might never forget her.

Sing, like Mr. Thompson, was not a great hand at conversation. Nevertheless, he had his share of natural curiosity. His wicked little yellow eyes never left the boy's face. He seemed unable to make up his mind about him, but what sort of a mind it was that he had to make up greatly puzzled and perplexed Henry Harper, who had only once seen a real live Chinaman before, and that was through the open door of the worst public in Blackhampton. Sing looked capable of anything as he sat scowling and smoking his pipe, but it was a subtler and deeper sort of capability than the sheer Jack-the-Ripperishness of Mr. Thompson. It was reasonably certain that Mr. Thompson would be content with a knife, although he might do very fearful things with it in moments of ecstasy; with Sing there might be every sort of horror known to the annals of crime.