"You didn't, hey? Well, I'll spill something!" The mate jumped down the ladder from the poop and made after Chips, who was in the waist. Chips saw him coming, and as he had a heavy brass side light in each hand, he was helpless. Realizing this, he started to run and reached the door of the lamp locker as the mate came up to him. Chips turned, dropping the lights, and as he faced the furious first officer, that gentleman let drive a terrific crack with his right, fetching Chips just below the ear, and lifting him clean over the sill into the lamp locker. The mate went in after Chips and for a few minutes the place was in an uproar. The mate stepped out, his hands covered with blood.
We were taking down the gear from the pins, after the washdown, and a number of us stood horrified in the waist, a feeling of deep repulsion coming over us. A big splotch of blood on the shirt front of the mate must have come from Chips' nose.
The mate looked at us. He opened his mouth as if to bawl some order, or hurl some epithet at the men of his watch who had witnessed the brutal assault. Suddenly he turned round, and looked into the door of the lamp locker, a small room in the after end of the forward house.
"Get a bucket of water and clean up this mess. It's a lucky thing you didn't bust them lights when you dropped them." He was addressing Chips, who came out of the door a moment later, hobbling to his room. The mate went aft, washing off his hands in a bucket of water that stood on the main hatch.
No one said anything, even in a whisper, but when we went below at eight bells and were assembled around the kids, one of the boys spoke up.
"Chips is cleaning up the lamp locker."
"I hope he reports Mr. Zerk to the Shipping Commissioner," I said. "If he does enter a complaint he has plenty of witnesses. It will mean jail for that bully, and he deserves it."
"Sure, he deserves to be hung," said Brenden. "But Chips will keep his mouth shut."
"Why?" I asked.