The Cruise of The Breadwinner Read Online Free PDF Page A

blow and it took the boy across the deck and down the narrow hatchway and into the cabin below before he was aware of it.
    He stood there for some moments in an excited stupor before realizing that he still had in his hands a half-peeled potato. It had on it the oily imprint of his fingers where he had clenched it. As he stood holding it he heard Gregson bawling on deck. He tried to hear what Gregson was saying, but the words were confused and he got the impression only of mighty, exciting events overhead.
    This impression exploded his stupor. He was filled with violent energy. His head rocked with the astonishing possibilities of the leather case slung across the body of the German, and he ached to be part of the world of men.
    He put fresh tea into the teapot with his hands and then poured water on it and found two extra cups in the locker by the stove. Nothing like this had ever happened before: no pilot, no rescue, no Jerry, no binoculars. He heard Gregson shouting again: this time much louder, something about a gun. The boy, standing with head upraised, listening, was swept by a torrent of new possibilities. Back in the pub, at home, there were boys with the luck of the gods. They owned sections of air cannon-guns, belts of unfired cartridges. He suddenly saw before him the wonder of incredible chances. He did not know what happened to the guns and binoculars of dead pilots or even captured pilots, but now, at last, he was going to know.
    He poured tea into the two cups and was in the act of stirring sugar into them when he heard, from overhead, two new sounds. Somebody was running across the deck, and from a south-easterly direction, faint but to him clear enough, came the sound of a plane. He did not connect these sounds. He had momentarily lost interest in the sound of aircraft. Something much more exciting was happening on deck. Gregson was shouting again, and again there wasthe sound of feet running across the deck. They were so heavy that he thought perhaps they were Gregson’s feet. But it was all very confused and exciting, and he had no time to disentangle the sound of voices from the sound of feet and the rising sound of the now not so distant plane. Nor did it matter very much. He had in that moment reached the fine and rapid conclusion that war was wonderful.
    He picked up a cup of tea in each hand. He turned to walk out of the galley when he was arrested suddenly by the near violence of the plane. It was coming towards
The Breadwinner
very fast and very low. The roar of it obliterated the last of the voices on deck. It turned the sound of feet into an echo. He ran out of the galley with the tea in his hands and had reached the bottom step of the gangway when he heard the strangest sound of all. It was the sound of the Lewis gun being fired.
    It fired for perhaps half a second and then stopped. He did not know how he knew the difference between this sound and the sound of cannon firing directly afterwards and for about two seconds from overhead, but he sprawled down the steps on his face. The scalding tea poured down his arms, up the sleeve of his jacket and down his chest, but it did not seem hot and there was no pain. He did not look upward, but he felt the square of light at the head of the gangway darkened out for the space of a second as the plane went overhead. He was sure for one moment that the plane would hit the deck but the moment passed, and then the plane itself passed, and there was no more firing, either from the deck or overhead. And at last, when the plane had gone, there was no more sound.
    He waited for what seemed a long time before crawling up the gangway. He pulled himself up by his hands becausehis legs did not seem part of him. The small auxiliary of
The Breadwinner
had stopped and now it was dead silent everywhere.

Chapter 3
    The boy brought to the scene on deck a kind of ghastly unbelief. For a moment or two he could not stand up. He lay with his head resting on the top step of