That whole day after we'd emerged from the storm and afterswell was a strange one—of looking back and ahead, of revelation. Somehow it seemed that the Mother Sea was in one of those resting moods on a quiet, pretty day, just letting us float along, saying to us, "Now I'll give you all some time to sort yourselves out..."
Midmorning, the bosun gave me billy hell for dropping some grease on the deck when I emptied the garbage at the stern, and I came back to the galley yelling about what a loudmouthed trash fish he was.
Eddie heard it all patiently and then he said, "Everybody hates him until..."
"Until what?" I asked.
"Until there is trouble." His dark eyes held me.
I scoffed at the tubby Portuguese and he shrugged. "Get Barney to tell you what happened two nights ago when you were asleep."
So I looked Barney up, and he said he'd slipped in the rigging ninety feet up and was hanging by one hand, and it was that monster Hans Gebbert who came out and got him, saved his life.
As I said, a good storm is good for a person, sometimes even for a ship.
Tee helped me peel potatoes in the early afternoon, and about three we crawled out on the jibboom, under the flapping heads'ils, over the bowsprit and the angel figurehead. There is no nicer place on any ship than over the bow, on that boom far out over the water. Under way, you can look down and see the prow, a white bone in its teeth, slicing the sea. Porpoise make runs on it.
Becalmed out there is nice, too. For some reason, when the sea is flat as paint, everyone lowers his voice. The ship becomes very quiet. There is only a slight slap of rigging, a barely heard creak as the timbers and hackmatack knee braces wear lazily.
I rigged a fishing line and hook, covering it with white cloth, jigging it up and down, and soon had an amberjack on it. Aside from galley work, I full well realized now that I wasn't of too much use on that ship. But I did know how to fish.
After a while, I got to talking to Tee about us. I'd done some hard thinking in that bunk during the gale, before and after my prayers to save our souls, and I said, "We've got to tell the cap'n, you know. I mean, about you and me and our connection."
"I know," she said. "It was such a stupid thing for me to do."
Be that as it may, I said, "I bit off more than I could chew, too. I thought I was just coming to the Barbadoes to find Reuben. Now Eddie tells me I've got to go on to Rio. I signed on like everybody else."
"Then you must go," Tee said.
"What'll happen to you?"
"I'll get back to Norfolk." She laughed, a little nervously. "Then I'll go on to where I was supposed to go. Home."
My thoughts were troubled. I surely wanted to find Reuben, but I also felt I had a responsibility toward Tee, whether I wanted it or not. "I don't know what to do," I said.
Tee replied sensibly, "Well, why don't we start by telling the captain. Everything."
I didn't look forward to that, after seeing him chase that sailor up the mast. "He's not going to believe me. He'll be certain I asked you to come on here."
"It was all my fault. He'll believe me," she said.
I wasn't so sure. "Let's don't do it until a day out of Bridgetown." An hour would be better, I thought.
"Then we must."
I agreed, for better or worse.
About four o'clock, while I was jigging the fishing line, something hit like one of Mr. Stone's hotshot freights. The line began running out so fast that it burnt my palm until I got it down on the boom and stopped it off against the wood.
I yelled for help, and Nils, who was working up near the bow, climbed out, and about four-fifteen we horsed that thing in, carrying the line on back about midships. In not too long a time we looked down in the smooth, emerald water and saw an eight-foot shark. He'd swallowed the hook and had little chance to escape.
A cry of "Shark, shark," went up all over the Conyers. It was an omen. The captain's sprinkling of sugar on the water in the morning hadn't broken the calm, nor had his chantey. We now had a second chance.
With four of the crew helping, we got the shark up over the side and Nils dispatched him with a handspike, Boo losing his mind at the sight of the flopping fish. He barked himself hoarse, as he was inclined to do on the Hatteras beach when we hauled gill nets at sunset.
Cap'n Reddy came out of his quarters grinning. "We'll get a breeze now," he said confidently.
A tarpaulin was laid out on deck, and the Bravaman took his steaks off that big, white body, extracted the liver to fry it down for oil; then the rest of the man-eater went over the side.
Sure enough, about five-thirty the wind began to whisper; the flapping sails took hold, and the Conyers, after drifting most of the day, began to move again. So my stock was higher that night than it had been. The captain said five words to me, more than his usual one or two. There was shark steak, which tastes a little like swordfish, on the table.
For the fine days that followed, the wind stayed mostly to eastward, and Cap'n Reddy kept the square-rigger "full 'n by," taking advantage of every breath of air. The horse latitudes, which we had entered, smiled upon us, and we had very few hours of calm. In the "horses," the 30-degree latitudes, the winds are often light and variable.
Tee talked a lot about what we would do when we got to the island. She wanted to show me the castle of the land pirate Sam Lord and the cannon on the beach at Speightstown; the breadfruit trees, courtesy of Captain Bligh and HMS Bounty; Cotton Tower, where the West Indies Regiment had a signal station; the Animal Flower Cave, Cole's Cave, Dawlish Cave; and the Redlegs, last of the Scottish slaves. I couldn't wait to make arrival.
I think everyone in the dining saloon and about deck noticed that Tee and I were friendly now.
16
ON A SPARKLING, blue-skied morning two days out of the Barbadoes island, our sixteenth day at sea, all secrecy went splashing down, as was sure to happen, I suppose.
The island, just east of the Windwards, about opposite St. Vincent, below such islands as Martinique and Dominica and St. Lucia, above the Grenadines and Trinidad, places I fully intended to visit someday, was being reached on a gentle curve from the east, the Conyers making about four or five knots, sometimes six or more.
Preparing to enter port shipshape and spanking clean, the crew was holystoning the deck, adding spit and polish here and there. Busy, too; I remember that I was in the galley helping the Bravaman, and everything was going fine when Barney stuck his head in. "Brig comin' up on the starboard bow."
Just chatting, I had talked again to Barney about the Elnora Langhans, telling him all about Reuben and how much I hoped he'd be working cargo in Bridgetown when we arrived. So Barney was alerted to keep his owl eyes open for any brig that passed close aboard.
In high excitement and anticipation, I ran down the hot deck to the helm. The captain's long glass was in a locker space near the binnacle, the compass box, and I yanked it out without even asking permission.
The helmsman yelled, "Hey, bring that back." Nobody but the captain and the mates were supposed to touch that long glass.
I paid him no mind, raced to the bow, and focused on the brig, which was under all plain sail. I raked along the vessel with the glass and finally had the circle on the bow nameplate, which was just forward of the snugged-home anchor.
To be sure, it was the Elnora Langhans, two-masted and square-sailed, with schooner sails aft; heads'ils all spread and bellied; white bone in her teeth, as pretty a brig as I'd ever viewed. The Mother Sea had worked in her mysterious way, fating that Reuben's course would pass close to mine.
Naturally, I went flying back toward the stern, yelling, "Stop the ship! Stop the ship!"
Such confusion as you've never seen hit the Christine Conyers. From aloft and up and down the deck, sailors began shouting, "Man overboard," which wasn't the case at all. The bosun grabbed a line and dashed toward the stern to heave it out to the unlucky sailor. Two or three seamen climbed up to ready the yawl for launching.
Tee came o
ut of the afterhouse, and I yelled at her, jumping up and down. "Reuben's out there. That's the Langhans"
Cap'n Reddy quickly appeared, too. "What 'n hell is goin' on?" he bellowed.
I barely made sense. "Stop the ship, Cap'n. My brother's on that brig."
"What are you doing with my long glass?" was his second bellow.
I didn't bother to answer that, just whooped again, "Reuben's on there," as he ripped the long glass from me.
Fuming, the captain cupped his hands around his mouth to shout, "Belay man overboard! Belay man overboard." Cancel the alarm, that meant; and I heard some choice curses fore to aft.
Despite his rage, the cap'n still said to the helmsman, "Bring her up a bit. Easy, now."
It is an old tradition of the sea, thank goodness, especially under sail, to greet another vessel; ask her destination and compare positions from the last sextant sight. If a friend of crew or captain is aboard the passing vessel, other welcome words are exchanged.
Cap'n Reddy would not deny the ancient tradition, but I made the mistake of asking "Are you going to stop the ship?"
He almost blew me down. "No, you idiot. We'll pass her close in."
I had to be grateful for that.
So I ran back to the bow to take advantage of every second as we glided past the Elnora Langhans. We were now closing rapidly as the captain pulled the Conyers eastward, and it looked as though there wouldn't be more than three or four hundred feet between us. The Langhans altered course, too, to come within hailing distance. All of her crew was up on deck, as was ours. What a thrilling event!
Finally, I saw Reuben, and my heart pounded. For a few seconds, I thought I might cry. There he was, by the forward rail, lean and trim, with Mama's big nose, looking not much different from how I'd seen him the spring before. A true Heron Head man.
When our bows were just about opposite, the Langhans bent north, the Conyers headed south, I yelled, "Reuben O'Neal! It's me, your brother Ben."
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Reuben shouted back, "Ben, what are you doing in that ship?"
"I'm going to the Barbadoes."
"You lost your mind?" he yelled.
By now, the ships were passing swiftly and there'd be precious little time to talk to him. I began moving down the deck toward the stern. He was moving toward his stern, too, keeping pace.
"Nope," I shouted proudly. "I'm a seaman now. How are you?"
"Fine. How's Mama?"
I just couldn't do it. I couldn't tell him she was dead and gone in those few seconds. Wherever I got presence of mind, I don't know, but I yelled, "Mama'll be glad to know I saw you." And she would have been.
"You should be back home, Ben," he hollered.
"Where are you bound?" I asked.
"Port Fernandino. Ben, you get your tail back home where you belong and off these ships." That was big brother Reuben, all right, looking out for my welfare.
Then the first of two ordained disasters struck. Boo Dog, who must have been having his usual morning sleep somewhere on that warm deck, had awakened. Not only from the excitement of the ship passing but likely because he recognized Reuben O'Neal, he began yelping and running along, too, by my legs.
Reuben shouted over. "Is that Boo Dog?"
Not thinking, not a dollop of thought about identifying myself with that dooming hound, I yelled back happily, "Sure is."
Reuben, completely mystified by now, shouted, "Ben, you better write an' tell me what this is all about."
By this time, we were almost cleared and I was going at full gallop, headed for the after rail to say my last words. No more than a yard from it, Boo got under my feet and I went over the stern sideways, like a grape popped from a hull.
It was indeed quite a jolt to find myself spread-eagled in the air and then plunging down into the warm Atlantic Ocean.
I bobbed up again, and the last I saw of the Elnora Langhans, Reuben was on the stern, laughing his head off and waving good-bye. From where he stood, I guess it was very funny. From where I was, fun was not it. The Conyers was drawing away, Boo barking at me from the taffrail as if fd jumped in for pleasure.
For several reasons, I am sorry to say that Cap'n Reddy did have to stop his ship, after all. Treading water, I heard that foghorn voice thunder out, "Fool overboard. All main yards aback"
He was a very fine seaman.
17
ABOUT AN HOUR later, dried off now, I stood worriedly outside the captain's stateroom with Tee and the worst Jonah who ever put to sea. We'd been squirming around three or four minutes, but there was no use in putting it off. I knocked very lightly, hoping the Conyers master was taking a morning nap. No such luck There was an answering, and we went in.
At his desk, turning in his chair, he looked at the three of us for a long time, gray eyes appearing to come out of lightly smoking brick kilns. He was in a dangerous state that we Outer Bankers call a "cold bile." At last, he spoke and directly to me. "Falling overboard is either an act of God or of stupidity, and I can't charge you for the former. You cost me an hour of running time."
Without hesitation, I said, "I'll pay for it, Cap'n."
His brief laugh was like a rusty nail, square at that, being pulled out of oak heart.
Boo suddenly twisted around and began to bite at fleas in the section where his tail joined his body. His teeth clacked and he made a wet, slobbering noise, calling attention to himself at the worst possible time.
The captain studied him a moment and then said, "During all that nonsense on deck, I heard your brother make reference to that dog. Now, how would he know him? I understood the dog belongs to this young lady. I made the mistake of not inquiring his history."
Some history, Boo had. Nonetheless, trapped all the way, I began, "Well, Cap'n—"
Josiah Reddy interrupted me sharply to let us know his current frame of mind. "Someone on this ship has been lying and I don't take kindly to that."
Mindable of exactly what he meant, I looked over at Tee and she nodded. It was past time to tell the painful truth in that spit-and-polish cabin before a royal king of the ocean. So I began the night when the Malta Empress hit Heron shore, washing Teetoncey up half frozen, and she took it from where Consul Calderham met her at the EC&N train arrival in Norfolk almost a month ago. We left nothing, or very little, out.
Meanwhile, the chief culprit sprawled down comfortably and slept through most of it, awakening now and then to dig under his chin with a hind paw. Fleas gathered there and back on his flanks, mostly.
The master of the Conyers did not sleep. His nutmeg face went from interest and sympathy when I talked about the Empress wreck and Tee's speechless condition to disbelief when I discussed attempting to salvage the hundred thousand dollars in silver off Heron bar; back to true sympathy when I told him about Mama. Tee's story of how she maneuvered in getting aboard did not make him happy. He had been fooled by her and didn't exactly appreciate it, orphan or not. To finish, I made a short defense in our behalf by saying we came from good folks: Tee's mama and mine were fine, upstanding women; Tee's papa had been a plantation owner in the Barbadoes and a barrister in England; mine was a heroic surfman. It was just that we had all been the victims of circumstance and a bumbling dog.
At the end of this long hour, Cap'n Reddy seemed limp. He said wearily, "Just go. I have to think about this. I've been sailing forty-six years and thought I'd heard everything."
Outside the door, Tee sighed deeply. "I feel better now, Ben."
I did, too. For a while.
I quickly learned that when a sailor makes a fool of himself ashore, falls off a barstool, or gets knocked into the sawdust, everyone laughs and talks about it for days, but when a sailor makes a fool of himself at sea, such as stumbling overboard, silence follows as if everyone is embarrassed, including the vessel. I was barely spoken to at dinner, and the same existed at supper. Tee didn't fare much better. Even the bosun was cool to her. By and large, we were ignored and out-casted. The story had gotten
around. We had conspired to hoodwink Cap'n Reddy, and I had caused the crew extra work in stopping the ship. I also think there were some suspicions about me bringing Tee aboard for ulterior reasons.
Immediately after supper, Tee went to her cabin and I cleaned the pantry, then went forward to complete my chores in the galley, where the Bravaman didn't have much to say, either.
I kept to myself that entire evening and finally sat up on top of the fo'c'sle house until late, looking at the stars and wishing I'd never heard of the prettiest four-master bark from Cape Race to the Horn.
The captain was taking his nightly stroll, pacing as usual with his hands behind his back, and after a while he walked up to me. I jumped down, legs trembling a little. Not again, I hoped.
"You said your papa was a surfboat captain."
"Yessir. Lifesaver. He went out to vessels in distress, no matter the waves. That's what killed him. Big surf."
"Where did he serve?"
"Hatteras Banks, sir."
"How did he die?"
"His boat capsized. A ship had broken up in a gale of wind."
I could barely see Cap'n Reddy's face, so I didn't know what expression was on it, and I wasn't prepared for what he had to say next.
"If I can get a man to replace you, you can pay off in Bridgetown. I think you should try to get that little girl safely back to Norfolk."
I said, "Yessir, but I'm ready to go on to Rio, and pay my debt."
He was silent.
I said, "I'm sorry about today, Cap'n. I won't make that mistake again."
"Not likely," he answered.
I said, "I want to work off that hour of running time that I cost."
He replied, "I've canceled that debt. More things than one have been lost at sea. When you get back to the Banks, which I hope will be soon, tell the surfmen the master of the Conyers sends his respects and regards." Then he walked away.
I stood there a long time, wondering exactly what he meant when he said, "More things than one have been lost at sea." I've come to believe he was talking about all the John O'Neals. They'd canceled many a debt in fifteen-foot surf.
The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal Page 8