He was a Lascar, a Kharva from Bulsar,
familiar with every port between Rockhampton and London, who had
risen to the rank of sarang on the British India boats, but wearying
of routine musters and clean clothes, had thrown up the service and
gone inland, where men of his calibre were sure of employment. For
his knowledge of tackle and the handling of heavy weights, Peroo was
worth almost any price he might have chosen to put upon his services;
but custom decreed the wage of the overhead men, and Peroo was not
within many silver pieces of his proper value. Neither running
water nor extreme heights made him afraid; and, as an ex-serang, he
knew how to hold authority. No piece of iron was so big or so badly
placed that Peroo could not devise a tackle to lift it - a
loose-ended, sagging arrangement, rigged with a scandalous amount
of talking, but perfectly equal to the work in hand. It was Peroo
who had saved the girder of Number Seven pier from destruction when
the new wire rope jammed in the eye of the crane, and the huge plate
tilted in its slings, threatening to slide out sideways. Then the
native workmen lost their heads with great shoutings, and Hitchcock's
right arm was broken by a falling T-plate, and he buttoned it up in
his coat and swooned, and came to and directed for four hours till
Peroo, from the top of the crane, reported "All's well," and the
plate swung home.
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