A thick cable or rope used in mooring or towing a ship.
Coolly, I asked when the captain might find time to hear news of an Indian stowaway who had just emerged from the coils of hawser taking up “my so-called cabin.”
Mort thought that history was thrashing around like a steel hawser with the tension off, twanging backwards and forwards across reality in great destructive sweeps.
Definition from Wikipedia; images from worldofstock.com and lowtechmagazine.com
metonymic / autodidactic 