I pressed the discussion no farther. After all, Cunningham was not my responsibility now—he was working for the contractor, not for the Naval Base. As for today, he looked perfectly sober and I had no qualms over his cleaning up all the leaky rivets on the Koritza long before evening.
The Lord Grey rounded to alongside the seaward end of the dry dock, with the stern of the Koritza towering high above us. All hands scrambled out on the floor of the dock. Already it was covered with workmen, for the Arab dhows had delivered their cargoes of native laborers.
I walked forward along the dock floor close by the line of keel blocks, stooped low to get in under the bottom of the Koritza near her stern, then went slowly toward her bow on the starboard side, back under her on the port side, and ended with a walk around her hull in the narrow gap between her high sides and the side walls of the dry dock. Dirty water, barnacles, and sea grass dripped on me; underfoot, barnacle shells crunched beneath my water-soaked shoes; and all through my inspection trip my nostrils were assailed by the stench rising from dead and dying barnacles rapidly decaying, now they were exposed to the air and the fierce Massawa heat. Altogether, the inside of that dry dock, beneath and around the Koritza, was a most unpleasant place.
I finished my inspection trip in dismay. Not a third of the work necessary to scrape clean the underwater hull of the Koritza had been completed in the first day. At that rate, far from concluding the scraping and painting of the Koritza in the three days allowed us for it, we should be lucky to finish the job in a week. And the next ship to be docked was already anchored off Massawa, waiting to go on; a third vessel should be starting from Alexandria that day, to follow her. We should shortly have the roadstead off Massawa crowded with idle ships waiting to be docked, while in the desert the Eighth Army would be looking in vain for the ammunition and the supplies those ships should be carrying to Tobruk. What was the matter?
I stepped back against the side wall of the dry dock and watched the Eritreans manning the scrapers. Naked, except for breechcloths and turbans, covered with the mess of decaying barnacles that spattered their black skins as they scraped, they were an unlovely sight. But so was I. They were puny, too, there was no questioning that. But what drove me nearly to distraction was the deliberation of their movements. For all the world like a movie illustrating something in slow motion, their arms moved back and forth with the scrapers so leisurely as to require watching for some time to make sure they were moving at all.
In despair, I sought out the English superintendent again. I must have more speed. Men, Englishmen, his countrymen, our Allies, were dying in the Libyan Desert, facing Rommel’s superior forces, when some of them might live, I told him, if only we could get the empty ship above our heads, her empty sister swinging at anchor outside, other empty ships bound for Massawa for docking, back to Tobruk in a hurry, loaded with desperately needed equipment for the British Army.
“You get me better men, Commander, and I’ll get you more speed. I’ve already spoken to the sheikhs. That’s everything I can do. You can’t expect any better of Eritreans,” was his reply.
“But they’re not even trying!” I protested. “I know they’re weak, but anybody could go faster than that. For God’s sake, get some life into ’em!”
“When you’ve been out in the East as long as I have, you’ll know better, Commander,” he advised me. “All natives are poor laborers; these Eritreans are the worst of the lot. I can’t do any better with them, especially in this heat, but if you think you can, you’re welcome to try. What do you want?”
“Call the sheikhs together again,” I answered. “I’ll talk to them, you interpret.”
He gathered up the sheikhs, about a dozen all told. Unlike their tribesmen, they were fully clad in long white robes. Clustered beneath the overhanging stern of the Koritza for shade from the blistering sun, they listened gravely while my reasons for more speed were expounded to them.
Then all together in Arabic they opened up on my interpreter. Though I understood not a word, I got the gist of what they were saying from their gestures and their expressions. I did not need the confirmation I shortly received from their English superintendent—in the eyes of the sheikhs, their men were doing the best they could, nothing more could be expected.
Silently I turned away and the sheikhs went back to their various tribes. Their superintendent clambered up the ladder to the top of the port side wall of the dock, where beneath an awning it was a little less stifling than below in the stagnant air of the dock.
From beneath the motionless propeller of the Koritza, I watched the Eritreans again. It was nearly 8:00 A.M. now. I had cherished the delusion that we might scrape and paint the Koritza with the larger force I had brought to her in two days instead of the three allowed us, and perhaps undock her that evening, or at worst, in the morning. Now I should be lucky if I got her off the dry dock in seven days instead of three, and then I should have to explain to the Commander-in-Chief that with the poor labor I had, it was the best Massawa could do.
Dejectedly my eyes followed the hardly perceptible motions of the Eritreans scraping under the starboard bilges before me. It just couldn’t be possible—no human being, no matter how skinny he was, could move that slowly because of weakness. Perhaps they needed an example of what might be done. I went up to the near-by group, seized a scraper from the closest Eritrean, who gazed at me in astonishment that a white man and particularly the Ras commanding the Naval Base should so soil his hands, and motioning the sheikh and his other satellites to watch, went vigorously to work scraping a patch about one yard square of the Koritza’s bottom plating. In about a tenth of the time the Eritreans were doing it, I had all the barnacles off down to the metal plate.
With that, I handed the scraper back to its owner, inviting him and his fellows by a wave of my arm to go and do likewise. With an oxlike expression, he took his scraper back and proceeded to scrape. My heart sank. His slow motion pace had not accelerated one iota; neither had that of any others of his tribe who had watched.
I went farther forward. Perhaps I had chosen a poor group for my demonstration, perhaps my technique was wrong. Amidships I got hold of one of the sheikhs and in pantomime showed him what I wanted. He shook his head in disagreement.
Persuasion and example were useless. Perhaps chastisement would help. I went still farther forward. Up near the stem, I selected an Eritrean scraper whose lifelessness was even more marked, if that were possible, than that of his fellows, and indicated to him that he should scrape faster. When he failed to respond, I seized him by both bare shoulders and shook him so hard I shook his breechcloth off. Then I dropped him, completely naked, motioned him to pick up the scraper he had lost, and get busy. He looked at me with sad eyes, picked up his scraper, and resumed his ultra-slow-motion scraping.
I retired, baffled. But still nothing could make me believe that these Eritreans weren’t doing any more because physically they were unable to—it must be because they lacked proper incentive to produce. But what more could I do to incite them? I couldn’t talk to them; any third-hand appeals I might make through an interpreter and their sheikhs would lose whatever persuasiveness my arguments had in filtering through to them. And shaking them and showing them had proved equally futile.
Long ago as an ensign, before World War I, I had listened to Admiral Sims expounding how to get results out of a gun crew—“Don’t waste your breath on appeals to patriotism or duty. The fear of punishment and the hope of reward are the only two forces that move most men.” Admiral Sims’ method was to dangle the hope of reward, in money, mainly; the fear of punishment he held in the background. With that lever, he accomplished wonders in gunnery improvement.
His precept came back to my mind in that hot dry dock, far away from the cold North Atlantic where I had heard Admiral Sims expounding it.
Somehow I had to move these Eritreans to action and that right away. The hope of reward, money reward, was my last chance of moving them. But my hands we
re tied by law—the wages of all Eritrean natives were rigidly fixed at twenty-five lira a day, and my laborers were getting that—I couldn’t change it. The week before I had tried to raise the wage of one Eritrean laborer who showed skill in running a small Italian diesel, from twenty-five to thirty lira a day, an increase for him of five cents a day. I was blocked—nothing could be done till two weeks hence a board of a dozen government bureaucrats in Asmara considered the special case of this Eritrean and argued pro and con over the propriety of my giving him an extra nickel!
My mind raced over various ways of paying these men an incentive wage to produce, law or no law. Could I claim that all these Eritreans were really Sudanese and pay them the thirty-five lira allowed to Sudanese, provided they jumped the output of their scrapers? I doubted I could get away with it. I could never explain the sudden increase of two hundred in the limited Sudanese population of Massawa. Besides that, any suspicious official looking at the skinny arms and legs of my laborers would recognize them instantly for Eritreans, and my incentive pay plan would promptly come to an inglorious end, with no one could tell what repercussions on my labor situation.
There was another possibility of incentive pay, over the legal technicalities of which I felt I was prepared to argue with the most red-tape-minded bureaucrats. At any rate, as an evasion of the wage scales, it wasn’t so obvious and was little likely ever to get me up to Asmara to explain myself. I made up my mind to that scheme in a hurry. It was already 8:30 A.M. and no more time was to be lost. I sang out from the bottom of the dock to the British superintendent sprawled out in a deck chair under the awning near the control house, to get down into the dock with me once more.
“Get all the sheikhs back here under the stern again,” I ordered him. “I want to have another talk with them.”
In a few minutes all the sheikhs were gathered about in their patriarchal robes, looking silently at me. I decided to parade the fear of punishment first; the hope of reward I would save for the end.
“Tell them,” I said to the interpreter, “that the time I allow for scraping and painting a ship on this dry dock is only three days, no more. Explain that to them.”
He did. There was no comment from any of the sheikhs; they were indifferent to American theories of how long a job should take. In the East, time stretched out limitlessly—the past was long, so also was the future.
“Now tell them that if the scraping and painting of this ship are not finished by tomorrow night, three days, they are all discharged, sheikhs and everybody. I’ll finish the job with what Italians I can get, no matter how long it takes, and they can never work for the Americans again. I mean it; this is no idle threat.”
The Englishman looked at me incredulously, but my last words convinced him I was in earnest.
He began to translate again. This time, long before he had concluded, some of the sheikhs began to argue; by the time he had finished, they were all talking—to each other and to him. My threat had struck some sparks, that was evident. When finally all the sheikhs had had their say, he turned to me.
“They say it can’t be done. They say they will regret being discharged in disgrace, especially to be replaced by the Italians, whom they hate. They beg that the American Commandant, to whom they wish long life and many sons, will change his mind. Allah himself, they say, could not do it in three days.”
I nodded that I understood, then continued. Having set forth the punishment, I would now offer the reward.
“Now tell them this. I am going to pay three days’ pay to them for cleaning and painting this ship and every ship that follows her. There will always be plenty of work. If the Koritza is not done by tomorrow night, they get three days’ pay and they are all discharged. If the ship is finished by tomorrow night, they get three days’ pay and they can stay. If the ship is finished by tomorrow morning, they get three days’ pay. If the ship is finished by tonight, in two days, they still get three days’ pay. If they ever finish a ship in less than two days, they still get three days’ pay. The Eritreans are envious of the Sudanese, who get thirty-five lira a day while they get only twenty-five. Let them show that they are better than the Sudanese by finishing this ship and every ship in two days or less, and they will earn more each day than the Sudanese, who will then have cause to envy them. Tell them I promise it shall be so.”
This time an animated open forum broke out under the propeller of the Koritza long before the interpreter was half through. Questions in Arabic interrupted him, the sheikhs argued with each other over the meaning, he had to repeat several times. At last he finished and the sheikhs gathered in a knot for a family discussion. Without doubt, my proposition had made an impression.
The discussion among the sheikhs was quite brief. In a minute or two, they turned to the superintendent; one of them spoke for all. When the speaker had concluded, the Englishman turned to me.
“They pray that the blessing of Allah may fall on your head. They say that they will do what they can with their followers.”
I nodded that I understood. Nothing further was said. The sheikhs dispersed to their various tribes scattered from bow to stern of the Koritza, and called their tribesmen about them for discussion. For perhaps five or ten minutes all work on the bottom of the ship ceased. Nothing was heard except the clatter of an air hammer as Cunningham caulked rivets up forward, and a confused chatter, muffling somewhat the rattle of that pneumatic hammer, as two hundred Eritreans jabbered simultaneously over my proposals.
Then the Eritreans went back to work. Had I waved a magic wand over those Eritreans to transform them, the results could not have been more miraculous. I never heard Cunningham and his air hammer again that day. A fierce jungle chant, drowning out all else, rose from all over the dry dock and never ceased; to its barbaric rhythm, there were those puny, previously lifeless Eristreans dancing wildly beneath the hull of the Koritza, while they slashed savagely away overhead with their scrapers at the barnacles! All I had to do was to imagine those scrapers replaced with spears, and I had before me a scene from the fantastic legends of Darkest Africa—the embattled tribes in a frenzied war dance, preparing to attack their enemies.
By noon the bottom of the Koritza was scraped clean. Paint brushes and pots of paint supplanted the scrapers in the hands of the Eritreans. Still chanting furiously, they danced now in their bare feet on layers of sharp barnacles inches deep covering the floor of the dry dock, while they slapped on the paint. Soon every Eritrean was more yellow and red than black as paint slobbering from his brush while he danced barbarically beneath that ship spattered him and his swaying fellow tribesmen.
But no one cared. On went the paint, the quick-drying anti-corrosive yellow undercoat on the steel plates first, to be followed later by the red anti-fouling paint as a finish. By two in the afternoon, it was clear that the task was going to be finished far ahead of schedule. I sent the Lord Grey ashore with two urgent messages. One was to Lieutenant Fairbairn to have his tugs and himself at the dock by 6:00 P.M. to undock the Koritza. The other was to Austin Byrne, master mechanic. He must get the valve and pump parts the machine shop had worked on all through the night, together with himself and enough mechanics, back aboard the Koritza by four o’clock to permit reinstalling all the sea chest parts at least by five o’clock or he would be responsible for delaying the undocking.
Then I went in search of Cunningham to make sure he would be no cause of delay. No longer could I locate him by the ear-splitting rattle of his pneumatic hammer; in all the din in the dock, a mere riveting gun banging away on steel was lost. I had to use my eyes instead. I found I need have no fears of Cunningham. He had already cut out and redriven afresh the only two rivets so loose as to require it; the other slack rivets he was hardening up and recaulking and he was certain he would get them all before the dock went down and the rising water flooded him out. As an ironworker, Cunningham was both willing and good.
Satisfied, I went aft to watch proceedings. The Eritreans were keeping up their
fierce pace. A dozen were kept busy doing nothing but rush about refilling empty paint pots from the drums of paint near the stern; all the others were putting paint on so fast it was unbelievable; the sheikhs were anxiously peering about under the ship to make sure no holidays were left in the painted surface which might give an excuse to refuse payment on the ground of poor work.
But any thought of refusing payment on any ground was farthest from my mind, in view of the miracle I was watching. I had hoped for and expected a better performance than that of the first day—never should I have believed those emaciated Eritreans capable of what actually they were now doing. If ever I had had any doubts as to the value of incentive pay in getting production, they vanished that day in that steaming, stinking dry dock in Massawa. That valiant seaman, Admiral Sims, long since dead, would have looked on with interest at the verification of his principle, could he only have been present to see how his words of long ago to a young ensign had borne fruit.
At 4:30 in the afternoon, the last brushful of the final coat of paint went on the hull of the Koritza. Their skins covered almost in a camouflage pattern of paint, but their eyes shining with a light of triumph, not the least factor in which I am sure was the feeling that they had proved themselves better than, the rival Sudanese, the Eritrean blacks and their sheikhs trooped off the barnacle-covered dock floor to board the waiting Arab dhows, where they were paid off by their English superintendent.
At 5:00 P.M., with all the staging stowed and lashed down, we began flooding down the dry dock. In a few minutes, the sea was surging in over the dock floor, to swirl over the mass of barnacles and sea grass and wash part of it at least away. Steadily the dock went down and the sea rose about the shining coat of fresh red paint now enshrouding the clean hull of the Koritza. At a quarter of six, the Koritza lifted off the keel blocks and floated free.
At 6:00 P.M., we had the Koritza out of the dry dock, steaming up, and, towed by the Hsin Rocket and her sister tug, in Lieutenant Fair-bairn’s hands on her way out of the naval harbor through the line of wrecks to her anchorage for the night in the outer roadstead. In the morning, when daylight made it safe for her to dodge any mines which might be drifting even in the swept channel, she would start back for Alexandria, less than forty-eight hours after she had first gone on the Massawa dry dock. Only now with a clean bottom, she would go back with her speed doubled, making her normal eleven knots instead of the five to six knots which was her maximum when she came to Massawa.
Under the Red Sea Sun Page 20