The ship did arrive that morning, though. She glided up the river, one huge, magnificent envelope of steel. Moving at a nearly imperceptible pace, the huge bulk cautioned into the dock. I could make out on the bow the distant figures of men scrambling madly, desperate to finish their final chore and get the hell off the ship they had been stuck on for the past four months. As I stood amid the vast wasteland of the Texaco refinery, the extent of the undertaking to which I was now committed was lost on me.
Up the long pier we walked. And with every step the ship grew in size. As we stood gathered next to her, waiting for the gangway to be lowered, the ship became disproportionately large, stretching the laws of physics to impossible limits. Then, looking around, I noticed a silent, angry fellow staring back at the shore. I thought he was just one of the boys, but something about him was different. Then he turned and began to question me in quiet, suspicious tones.
“What’s your job? Where’d you get it? What time’d it go up on the board?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, or what the story was. I did know that somehow I was in trouble; the ordinary’s job Abe got me in the New York City hall was meant for someone else.
I tried to bluff, acting nonchalant, as if I’d gotten the job by conventional means (even though at the time I hadn’t a clue how a regular seaman got a job). He knew better. He was Billy Mahoney.
Standing on the port wing, watching the night grow slowly lighter, I recalled the scene as in a fitful dream, when unpleasant memories rise to the surface. Inside the bridge Billy continued to pace back and forth. The orange glow of his cigarette arched smoothly from his side to his mouth in rhythm with his step.
When I had made my way to my cabin on that first day at Eagle Point, the Chief told me to report to the Old Man. I climbed the stairwell to his office and presented him with my job ticket. He was a cagey old lifer who smoked rancid cigars out of a stubby brown holder he’d customized and barked out orders in a severe New York accent.
Before I’d even been in his office five minutes he asked me if I was related to Senator Moynihan. Caught off guard, I confessed I was. Then I realized that Abe back at the union hall knew what he was talking about: In the space of three seconds my status among the officers was drastically and permanently changed. The question was if, or rather when, the word would spread to the crew. That was an albatross I began to seriously dread. Billy knew something was very wrong with my story. He didn’t know what, but he was sure as hell going to find out.
CHAPTER 3
THE WATCH CALL CAME IN AT 3:20. Again one of the 12–4 watch broke my sleep. Routinely he informed me of the essentials: (a) It was 3:20 a.m.; (b) we were still going downriver, so the lookout would be on the bow instead of on the bridge; and (c) the weather was mild but I might need a light jacket. I flicked on the light by my bunk and rolled over. The watchman closed my door and moved on through the corridors to wake the rest of the 4–8.
Ten minutes later, Jake, Billy, and I had made it down to A deck and took coffee in the lounge. There Billy assumed position on one of the two sofas. Sitting at the coffee table by the door, I drank my mug of coffee and smoked one of my last Djarums. Billy squinted and jerked his head toward me. “What the fuck is that you’re smoking?”
I explained that it was a Djarum, an Indonesian cigarette flavored with cloves, and as such discharged a distinctive, and lasting, scent. He sucked on his Marlboro and gave me the hairy eyeball. After a couple of minutes of silence he leaned back in his chair and let out a long stream of smoke before turning to me again.
“Well, I don’t know about you, Monahan, but I’ll give you a try.” He almost smirked as he said it, his eyes again asquint, his mouth pulled back in a sardonic grimace. His tone was belligerent, but that is simply the way of the sea. He was beginning to know me for what I was: a skinny college kid who had snaked his way into a job. He was also letting me know straight out that he was itching for a fight. He looked away angrily and lit another cigarette. He wanted to know how I’d managed to get on a Philly ship from the New York hall. His buddy Ned had missed out on the Ordinary Seaman’s job that I had and was now forced to work as maintenance-utility in the Steward’s Department. Another of Billy’s buddies who had been sitting in the Philly hall for two months waiting on a job had also missed out—all because a kid from New York managed to get one of the two available ordinary jobs before the ship even hit the boards in Philly. So he just kept looking away angrily and sucking on his cigarette.
There were only a few minutes left before we had to go on watch, so I grabbed a third cup of coffee. Jake left for the bridge, to go work the wheel. Billy lit up a final smoke before leaving to stand lookout on the bow. Because I didn’t know how to work the wheel I had to stand by to relieve Billy and stand an extra-long lookout. Billy turned to me again and in his angry way said, “First thing you gotta learn, Monahan, is that a whore is a seaman’s best friend; they take care of each other.” Clint Eastwood could not have matched his final angry squint and grim half-smile as he got up and walked out to go on watch.
The lounge was a fair-sized room with a couple of couches, a few tables, and a library of forgotten books. Everything was metal and plastic. The tables all had half-inch lips around them so our mugs wouldn’t slide off when the ship rolled at sea. And everything was bolted to the floor. I had about forty minutes to kill before I had to relieve Billy. The engines below occasionally roared louder and sent shudders through the eight-story superstructure of the house. Other than that, the only noise was the electric burning of the synchronized clocks that were mounted in every room on A deck. I read The Log, the Seafarers International Union (SIU) monthly paper, until Billy returned.
“The Chief wants you on the bow. The radio’s out there by the rail. Just call in when you see a ship or a light.” That was all he had to say. He sat down and immediately reached for another smoke. I walked onto the deck feeling more than a little confused. My primal fears started to prey on me and I was suddenly seized with dread halfway down the deck. Was it to the bow he wanted me to go? Maybe it was the bridge? Which end was the bow? Panicking, I ran back to the house and up the stairs to the lounge. Billy looked up in amazement. “What the hell are you doing here? You’d better get out on the bow before the Chief calls up on the radio!” I let out a string of nonsense in a feeble attempt to cover up my ignorance and idiocy. Billy threw another Squint of Death at me. “You know where the bow is, don’t you?” I ran back down the stairs and out onto the bow.
It was lights-out on deck while the ship navigated the river channel. I fruitlessly groped for the radio in the dark, thinking it was mounted on the railing. Finally I realized he meant the walkie-talkie that was sitting on one of the forward gypsy heads. The wind rushed up and blasted the forepeak; the massive bulk of the ship churned up huge banks of water and cut through them with its iron edge. Farther downriver a glimmer of crimson—the lighted buoys—marked the dark river like lines on a highway. Several ships passed by, moving inland. Several more, the SS Rose City among them, headed into the rising sun and out to sea.
Weekends are money in the bank to a seaman. Unlike the selfless sailors of yesterday, the brothers of the SIU do not take in a gross percentage of the net profit; the modern sailor works a forty-hour week. In two four-hour shifts the seaman’s watch comprises the average eight-hour workday, and for five days he gets nothing but a flat salary, unless he works overtime. But on the weekend even his watches pull in double time. Thus it was with minimal complaints that the crew of the Rose City turned to at eight in the morning on the first full day at sea.
I had been knocked off lookout at about 6:30 a.m. and walked back along the massive array of pipes that dominated the deck from the bow to the house. When I reached the lounge, Jake, who had been relieved at the wheel by Billy, told me to wake up both the 8–12 and the 12–4 watches at 7:20. It seemed the Chief had called all hands to secure the deck. Jake had made the Steward’s Department coffee at six and given them a r
ouse shortly thereafter, so by the time I grabbed a cup of coffee they had drifted down to A deck.
The steward himself was a slow-paced old-timer, and the only black man on the ship. Insisting he be awakened an hour earlier than the rest of the Steward’s Department, he would disappear into the mess and fiddle with the various breakfast preparations. The next to make his way down was, generally, Pete. He had been the first person I’d met on the pier as we waited for the ship to come in. He appeared a congenial enough fellow, despite his redneck haircut and caustic manner. As it turned out, he too was a college kid who had used connections to get on the ship. There was a great difference between his lot and my own, however. First, he had shipped out before, for the last two or three summers. More important, he was maintenance-utility, or, in other words, the cabin boy, the least desirable job on the ship. After dishing out the meals and swabbing the officers’ mess, he had to go up to the C and D decks to make the officers’ bunks and clean their toilets. He never had much to say when he came down; he just sat on the sofa with his coffee, a preppy non sequitur.
Then Miguel, the cook, would come up onstage. We would hear him from three rooms away, his maniacal laughter echoing off the bulkheads. The only holdover from the previous crew, this frenetic little Mexican had already established himself as the ship’s trickster. He had risen from the poverty of Mexico City as a boxer, working alternately for the pre-Castro regime in Cuba and their stateside colleagues. Playing the eternal jester, he would go on at great length about his checkered boxing career. He even carried a .33 slug in his left side, a memento of an incident with an angry husband that left him officially declared dead before he finally pulled out of it.
Finally Ned would show up. Ned was not one to speak lightly, unless he was happily drunk. He arrived in the lounge that morning silent as usual. He had a singular appearance—his jack-tar physique lent him a knowing swagger, one he must have picked up from his days in the navy. He had a sharp crew cut and a single eyebrow that ran in a rigid, bushy line across the middle of his forehead. The way Ned sat down was an art in itself. First he would select his chair upon entering the lounge and then coolly saunter over to it. Once in position before his designated seat, in one fluid motion he would slip his hands into his pockets and, rolling his dark, sullen eyes back in his head, slink down into the seat while pulling out his pack of Kools. Before one realized, he had already lit the cigarette, now in the corner of his mouth, and tossed the pack on the table with a master prestidigitator’s touch.
Time passed slowly on watch. Even when we were on standby and could sit in the lounge we were still on edge. The Chief could call up from the bridge at any moment and have us run the flag off the stern or perform some equally tedious duty. And there was always the fear of blowing it by oversleeping or forgetting to make a fresh pot of coffee for the next watch.
Eventually the time came to make my rounds. I went up to B deck and woke the Bosun first. He had a slightly larger cabin than the rest of the crew, and a private bathroom. Flicking on the overhead, I reported that the Chief had called all hands. He jerked himself up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. To see him dressed only in his briefs, it was clear how the years had worn down his five-foot-seven, two-hundred-plus-pound frame. An ex-boxer from South Philadelphia, he had brawled, balled, and caroused in every seaport imaginable. On his pudgy yet powerful arms were aquamarine tattoos of Popeye, Betty Boop, and various dancing girls that he had picked up in Pearl Harbor, back in ’45. He rubbed his face and, putting on his half-inch-thick glasses, thanked me.
The two of the 8–12 watch lived in the two cabins across from the Bosun. I woke Tony first, banging on his door and stepping into his room to call all hands. He had been on the previous voyage, so his room was elaborately set up. Everything was secured by at least two or three ropes: his stereo, refrigerator, and plants. In his closet he kept a traveling wine cellar with a log in which he saved the labels and recorded all the wines he had picked up so far on the voyage. Even though he tried to look like your average seaman, at six-five and 220 pounds, he was distinctly different from the rest of the crew. He never joined the group in the lounge when we had a coffee break; instead he would slip up into his room and smoke his custom tobacco out of one of his many fine pipes. When Tony heard the call he lifted his head painfully from the pillow and nodded acknowledgment.
Next door was Peanuts, another old-timer, with more than twenty years sea time; in other words, since World War II he had spent twenty years actually at sea, the requirement for union pension. He had nothing to say when I woke him—he just uttered an unpleasant growl.
After that I woke the 12–4 watch: Bud, Jimmy, and Joe, the only other ordinary. The rest of the crew were qualified ABs (able-bodied seamen) who not only were more responsible for the operation of the ship but also earned a good deal more money. Joe was what they called a professional ordinary. An old-timer, he either never quite got around to upgrading himself or, as some of the crew thought, never bothered to, not wanting the extra responsibilities of an AB. He and I shared a bathroom and a very thin wall, so I often heard him shooting the breeze with one or another of the crew.
Bud and Jimmy, like Billy and Ned, were both in their mid-twenties. Philly boys like everyone else, they had both taken to the sea for lack of a better alternative. Bud was a severe character, his perfect body highlighted with a grim Aryan face and curly hair. Jimmy, on the other hand, was a potbellied, congenial fellow who refused to work extra overtime and made a point of sleeping as much as possible.
With everyone now called, I went back down to the lounge and waited for breakfast. Each morning the steward would post the day’s menu, typed on his toy typewriter, announcing such culinary delights as Oxtail Soup and Fresh Frozen Milk. For the time being, no one had any real complaints about the food. Miguel did the best he could with what he had and, all in all, the Rose City was a pretty good feeder.
Every now and then one of the QMEDs (qualified members of the Engine Department) would show up in the lounge during watch. Because the ship’s engines were so completely automated, it took only two people at a time—a QMED and an engineer—to run them. Thus there were only three members of the crew who worked down below—one for each watch. The only other member of the “black gang” was the pumpman, a small, wiry Indonesian who spoke broken English. The QMEDs were the old-timer Frank, perhaps the fattest human being alive, and two young fellows, Charlie and Matt.
It was a very tight crew. Just about everyone was from Philly, and they all knew one another, or had someone in common. In the mess, the old-timers would congregate around one table, and the boys, led by Billy, around another. The third table was neutral, generally occupied by the non-Philadelphians or latecomers. Already by the first morning at sea there was a developing polarization of the crew, each alliance hostile to the next but none overtly so. Like animals who take a direct stare to mean a challenge, the seamen knew that any blatant act of enmity, especially this early in a long voyage, would upset the delicate emotional balance that kept the crew in line. It was still too early to say how the chips would fall, for the word had come down that we were not going to the Mediterranean for forty-five days, as scheduled. Instead we were headed southeast, toward Angola and then around the Cape of Good Hope to Japan. This meant we were going to be on the ship for at least three months. The union contract made it clear that once you signed overseas articles you had to stay on the ship until the final port of return in the United States, or for six months. This also meant I had gotten myself into a lot more than I had bargained for. The cook gave the call that signaled the beginning of breakfast. We all silently filed up to the counter and ordered our eggs. Out of the corner of his eye, Ned glared at me. The more he thought about it, the more he hated me for getting an ordinary’s job when he was stuck working in the mess. And everyone else in the crew knew exactly how he felt.
The SS Rose City was 894 feet long, 105 feet wide, and 64 feet deep. She looked unnaturally big even from
a distance. She first appeared as a great metal wall that towered above the trees lining the river by the dock at Camden, New Jersey, where we boarded her. Unladen she could reach a maximum speed of 17.6 knots, plowing through the seas, her deck a good forty feet above the water. Fully laden she reached a maximum of 16.5 knots, her deck only eight or ten feet above the surface.
The house, located on the stern, was a solid square structure with flying wings jutting out on either side of the bridge. Before the house, running down the entire length of the ship to the bow, were dozens of steel pipes, the cargo lines, some a few inches wide, others five or six feet. In the center of the ship they converged on either the port or starboard manifolds, each being a great iron jam of valves that hooked into the refinery pipelines and regulated the flow of oil into or out of the twenty-four giant tanks that lay below the iron deck.
The forward deck of the Rose City, from midship toward the bow
The forepeak was an all-purpose room on the bow where forward lines, paint, and miscellaneous tools were stowed. Just off it was the machine shop. Above the foredeck, the two anchor blocks sat squarely before the hawse pipes, down which ran the massive chains that held the three-ton anchors. The view of the ship from the bow was the most inspiring: The labyrinth of pipes that trailed back down to the house was lost in the sheer length of the ship, a lesson in perspective.
The house, from midship toward the stern
The stern had a storeroom similar to that on the bow. It was there that the crew assembled to begin securing the deck for the two-week journey to Africa. The Chief strutted out and gave the Bosun a series of directives in his Kentucky drawl before going off to oversee the operations in the pump room. In order for the ship to sail we had to pump in thousands of gallons of seawater for ballast. The ship was little more than a floating oilcan. To be caught in a storm with the tanks empty would undoubtedly end in the ship’s capsizing. But such technicalities were the officers’ concern—we were busy stowing the lines.
The Voyage of the Rose City Page 2