After dinner was rest time. In a good mood, West walked toward the crew lounge.
He wasn't an official helmsman yet, so he didn't have to stand the night watch and could rest just like the other sailors.
The sailors on the deck team, unlike the turbine team or the navigation crew, didn't need to be on duty twenty-four hours a day.
This was both a blessing and a curse. The upside was that their breaks were very regular. The downside was that this was their only perk; the deck sailors earned the lowest salaries on the entire ship.
As soon as he pushed open the lounge door, the reek of smelly feet and sharp tobacco smoke hit him. Fortunately, West was already used to it. With seven or eight men gathered together, you couldn't expect it to be clean.
The crew lounge was probably the biggest cabin on the Narwhal, but once you squeezed in four bunk beds, a table, and all the crew's various belongings, it was still incredibly cramped.
