Mr. Gladis took a moment to light his own pipe from a rope match, pointed to the small bay, and then continued. “At the top of the hill over there to your left is Que Chew’s Emporium, right next door to old Billy Doonen’s Cafe.”
Mr. Gladis pressed some money into Chapel’s hand and winked. “You tell old Chew Mr. Gladis is in need of a half pound of his best Turkish shag tobacco and two bottles of my special Chinese medicine. He’ll know what you mean. I also would be obliged if you would give him this letter to post. I have included the cost.”
Mr. Gladis handed Chapel a long manila envelope and, as an afterthought, dropped a few more coins into Chapel’s palm. “Get something for yourself at Billy Doonen’s, son. I swear he’s got the best German suds around. A little something for the black gang wouldn’t go amiss either, if you take my meaning.” With a wink, Mr. Gladis produced a shiny galvanized beer bucket like a rabbit from a hat.
Chapel looked at Mr. Gladis, smiled, and then cast his eyes to Captain Leland on the wing of the bridge. Mr. Gladis guessed the question. “I’ve already sounded that quarter, Mr. Lodge. Half the Turkish shag is for Captain Leland, and the suds are his present to the Filipino boys. He brags of having the best black gang in the company’s fleet. It pleases him to pay them special tribute now and then. And there isn’t one of them coves that wouldn’t take a bullet for their Señor Capitano. Just see to it you get your carcass back on board in time. You’ll hear the ship’s whistle blast the last half and quarter hour and, trust me, Captain Leland won’t wait for you, son. So make it sharp and timely, and spare us all his temper.”
A strange sensation overcame Chapel as he made his way down the gangway to the long pier at San Simeon. He felt a sense of cold foreboding about leaving the ship. He kept looking over his shoulder as he made his way up the road. It was as though he expected his ship to disappear at any moment, leaving him beached and homeless again.
Old Mr. Que Chew bowed at the mention of Mr. Gladis. He was most happy to assemble Chapel’s order, with special compliments to Mr. Gladis, of course. He had seen the Los Angeles come in and was only waiting for his old friend to make an appearance. The old Chinaman said he was sorry not to have the honor to wait on the chief engineer personally, but he understood the constraints of duty. Bowing once more, Mr. Chew asked that his best compliments be forwarded to Mr. Gladis.
Before he left, and using his own funds, Chapel purchased a three-pound bag of homemade, peppermint-stick candy, and the same weight of licorice taffy. He knew the Filipino stokers were more than a little fond of both. Peppermint, according to black gang mythology, helped stokers bear the incessant heat of the fireboxes and boilers. Licorice helped relieve the effects of coal dust in the lungs.
As suggested, Chapel stopped off at Doonen’s Cafe for a beer and to fill the suds bucket, but he kept walking out to the front porch to make sure that the Los Angeles hadn’t secretly slipped her cables and deserted him. He knew these sensations were absurd on the face of it, but Chapel could not fend off the apprehension and anxiety that he might be deserted and left to his own unlucky, landlocked devices.
He made his way back down the road to the pier long before he was expected. Numerous wagons had disgorged their loads of wool bales before heading back up the hill. Chapel stood next to an old, crippled sailor watching the ship’s derricks neatly lift and stow the huge bales in her holds. The old sailor had lost a leg and used a crutch cut down from a small oar. He leaned against a piling with an inescapable gaze of longing and sadness in his eyes.
Chapel knew instantly the specific yearning that gnawed away at the old man’s heart. He would have worn a similar expression if his secret dread had been fulfilled by his worst expectations. To stand ashore while life and home departed on the evening tide without a token of regret seemed the worst of all possible fates to Chapel. It had been known to break a poor sailor’s spirit.
The two seamen watched the ship load cargo in silence. Their bond was obvious and unspoken. Without taking his eyes from the aerial ballet of wool bales, Chapel proffered the bag of peppermint sticks as an open invitation. The old man’s dismal countenance brightened appreciably as he helped himself to a red-and-white-striped glory with the reverence usually afforded a two-dollar, thigh-rolled, Havana cigar. The old man thanked the young sailor, but the sound of the steam derricks and the shouting of orders drowned him out. Chapel didn’t notice. His eyes were for the ship alone. The cargo holds inhaled wool bales by the ton without pause. Captain Leland still maintained the bridge, but supervised the loading through his cargo and deck officers.
Noticing the young sailor’s preoccupation, the old man repeated himself. “Thanks. Don’t mind if I do on a day such as this. Peppermint’s good for just about anything, they say.”
The old seaman sucked on the stick for a moment and then looked Chapel up and down as though appraising a split mast. “You a stoker, mate? It’s a stoker that’s got a real tooth for peppermint. It’s the air down in the belly of the beast, you understand. The stink and heat be more than any but the condemned should have to bear.”
The old man pulled the candy from his mouth and admired the spiral design at arm’s length. “I was captain of the foretop years past. Still miss the sweet air high in the trees. A body could almost see all the way to Java on a sharp day. That’s what we used to tell the new fish when they balked at the climb. Nowadays most swabs would rather cut their own throats than work the yards. Don’t blame ’em much, come to judge. Lost my leg up in the trees. Still dream about it sometimes. Got to be born crazy to do stuff like that. You crazy, mate? Hope so. Crazy is the only way to live, and it’s the only sensible way to die.”
Mr. Gladis was on deck talking to Mr. Ryfkogel when Chapel came back aboard. The chief engineer noted that his mate sported the look of a poor, lost hound newly found by the pack. Chapel almost shivered like a puppy with the joy of being safe aboard and among friends again.
He handed Mr. Gladis the full beer bucket, shag tobacco, and medicine and, as an afterthought, pulled the bags of peppermint and licorice from his coat pockets and handed them over too.
Mr. Gladis smelled the bags and grinned. “The black gang will love you like a brother for this, Mr. Lodge. They’ve a real appetite for this stuff down there. I hope you’re not bucking for my rating, Mister Lodge. I’ve got four daughters to feed, and if I didn’t go to sea, I not only couldn’t feed the little cows, but I’d never get the head to myself again.” This observation seemed to amuse and divert both officers long enough to allow Chapel to retreat to the galley without giving offense.
After a greasy meal of biscuits, ham, and gravy, Chapel retreated to his bunk to sleep before taking the second dogwatch with Mr. Page. Chapel closed his eyes with the sincere hope that some part of his previous dream would return to delight his slumber. Though the images eluded him, Chapel did have one glimpse of the familiar, but it wasn’t one he particularly relished.
He dreamed he rested gently at anchor in a broad bay surrounded by dusky mountains. Then, without the usual telltale indications to mark such events, the weather changed abruptly for the worse. With wind and waves operating in direct opposition, he began to swing and pitch erratically on his taut anchor chains, his bow angrily tossing up and down like a stallion’s head resisting the halter rope.
Chapel awoke in some confusion. He knew where he was, but the residual sensation of the chopping seas, deep swells, and coarse winds remained with him. He could feel the adverse struggle of elements even as he lay awake in his bunk. Then it struck him like a mallet that this was no clinging dream, but the real sea conditions as they stood at present.
Chapel quickly pulled on his seaboots, grabbed his oilskin, and made for the spar deck, but this told him little of value other than the weather had turned dirty with an onshore gale in the wings. It was far too dark to see anything but the familiar glow from the ship’s lights. Chapel squinted against the rain and noticed that Captain Leland no longer held his place. Third Officer
Ryfkogel was standing the bridge watch instead. His dark, chiseled features were recognizable even in the soft illumination afforded by the binnacle lights. The master’s mate could be seen working the helm with more-than-usual vigor.
Sometimes the ship would feel as if it were making good way when, in reality, the winds and the tides saw to it that the vessel traveled nowhere at all. If the ship’s engines went soft at a time like this, with a fast incoming tide, the situation would certainly prove catastrophic. It was every coasting captain’s nightmare to run out of power, leeway, and ideas all at the same time.
Wearying of the deck’s discomfort, Chapel made his way to the galley for a mug of “muscle” and some of cook’s sweet Indian fry bread. Just as Chapel took his first dunk in the thick, sweet coffee, Mr. Gladis came through the companionway, bracing against the rolling and pitching of the ship. Conditions had become noticeably worse in the last few minutes, but the chief engineer took the weather in stride as he grabbed a mug of coffee from the cook’s mate and sat down across from Chapel.
Mr. Gladis looked introspective and fatigued, but he surfaced from his thoughts with a smile. “Glad I found you, Mr. Lodge. I have a disagreeable request that I would prefer not to make an order, if you get my drift. Poor young Samoza broke some ribs in a fall from the catwalk. I’ve been robbing Peter to pay Paul on the watch list all evening. I need you to double up with the black gang for half your watch so I can catch up. The bunkers need balancing. We’re eating fifty-five scuttles an hour, but someone has misplaced the bunker charts, and I suspect too much coal has been shunted out of number two, starboard bunker. I’ll send someone to replace you at nine-thirty. Then you’ll have plenty of time to help me replace the grease-dog ring on number three cylinder.”
Chapel nodded, sipped his coffee, and eyed the galley clock. He had eight minutes to wolf down a meal before immersing himself in a cloud of coal dust. He saw little purpose in discussing the unalterable when it was food he needed to shovel coal. Mr. Gladis didn’t actually wait for a reply; he swallowed his steaming brew at one go and made his way off to other duties.
With the filth of the coal bunkers in mind, Chapel quickly changed into his bilge slops before reporting to the engine room. The boys on the black gang were pleased to see Chapel and slapped him on the shoulder with many thanks for his gift.
Chapel knew from firsthand experience that theirs was a type of labor that required both studied endurance and a strong back. The ship’s safety and speed required that a predetermined workload be sustained in a timely fashion twenty-four hours a day, regardless of adverse circumstances or crew shortages.
Chapel liked the stokers for their sense of cheerful cooperation and gentle humor in the face of hardships no deck officer could ever know. The sturdy Filipinos worked their broad shovels from bunker to coal chute to firebox in a kind of congruous ballet that required meticulous timing and balance. All the while they would chatter away like jungle birds. Whether they spoke Spanish, English, or one of their own dialects, they trolled out comments on any subject that pleased them at the moment. The theme didn’t matter as long as a cheerful round-robin of clever interjections and humorous commentary was kept buoyant.
The black gang’s cultural bonds and familial support seemed to produce an anesthetic that subdued the chronic pain and stress their dark and perilous routine engendered. Whatever the root source, their courage and jovial dispositions made dangerous and unpleasant labors bearable, even for Chapel.
The hardest and most dangerous task allotted the black gang was accomplished deep inside the coal bunkers on either side of the ship. Little or no light was allowed to enter these narrow cells, as an open flame or electrical spark might ignite the coal dust and literally blow the ship out of the water. The measured use of fuel from all six bunkers was required for the ship to maintain its equilibrium.
Depending on the location and stability of heavy cargo, coal might be reshipped from one bunker to another to trim the vessel by the bow or stern, whichever applied to the prevailing requirements. This was arduously accomplished one shovelful at a time, hour after hour, day after day, and night after night. Chapel judged ship’s boiler decks and coal bunkers to be any Christian’s vision of hell. He was therefore fascinated by the ease with which the Filipino stokers, a very orthodox clan, cheerfully managed to disregard their surroundings altogether. They simply immersed themselves in reinforced memories of home and family. The significance of their sacrifice held the stokers in a common bond of mutual support. Every man’s children would have a better life than their fathers, even if it meant they spent years slowly expiring in the belching black guts of a stinking Yankee freighter.
Chapel thought it interesting that most of the black gangs he had ever come across were always akin in some fashion. There were exceptions to the rule to be sure, but he had noticed how many stokers on any given ship were all Portuguese or Cubans, Irish or Chinese or, in this case, Filipino.
He surmised that the burdens of the black gang being what they were, it would represent greater safety and fellowship if the stokers were all of the same tribe. He had known of ships whose owners had taken on the strangest mix of crews. There was the Prince William out of Sydney, for instance. That vessel registered Peruvian owners, but her captain was Dutch–South African, her deck officers Italian, her able seamen all Danes, her engineers German, and her black gang, appropriately enough, Welsh coal miners. Chapel often wondered how many translations an order would require to make it from the bridge to the bunkers on the old Prince Willy.
While Chapel and the black gang shoveled coal, the Los Angeles began experiencing a particularly bad turn. The wind, tide, and waves caused the ship to pitch and shudder with ever-increasing ferocity. It made work in the dim bunkers hazardous at best.
Tino Bracas and Chapel were moving coal toward a bunker chute that fed the open scuttles in the boiler room, but the coarse motion of the ship obliged them to halt their work and brace themselves upon their shovels on every downward pitch of the bows.
Chapel heard the distant clangs of the engine-room telegraph over the pounding of the great steam pistons. It was obvious from the repeated code that the ship was changing course and speed, possibly to address the prevailing seas from another quarter. It was curious how well one could know everything about a vessel’s movements from the blind depths of her bunkers or engine room. Chapel was reflecting in this manner when suddenly the whole ship trembled and shuddered with such violent force that both he and Tino were thrown off their feet.
In that same instant a great granite claw came gouging through the chine of the hull, ripping the iron plates like paper as it traveled toward them from bow to stern. The seas immediately flooded in behind the advancing claw, and in seconds Chapel and Tino were up to their waists in freezing black water. Both men scrambled up and out of the bunker just in time to warn the rest of the black gang to close the firebox doors and get the hell out of there. Chapel herded his charges out of the boiler room like a barking terrier, and as the last man out he closed and secured the boiler-room hatch. Even as he did so Chapel could see broad channels of black water cascading over the top of the bunker they had just occupied.
Chapel immediately looked about for Mr. Gladis, but could not spot him in all the confusion of frightened seamen desperately clambering to the relative safety of the upper decks. Then the slumped figure of Mr. Gladis slowly crawled from between the rotator blocks where he had been thrown when the ship struck. Chapel rushed to help him to his feet. The chief engineer didn’t seem badly hurt, though he was somewhat dazed from a sharp blow to the head. Mr. Gladis had been confirming a signal from the bridge when the ship struck, and he still clutched the handle of the telegraph, which had come away in his strong grasp when he was catapulted off his feet and across the grating.
Chapel was stunned to hear Mr. Gladis scream in pain when grasped about the chest. Chapel knew at once that Mr. Gladis’ injuries probably included several cracked or broken ribs or worse.
Once ensconced in a place of relative safety, Mr. Gladis gasped instructions for Chapel to go on deck at once and seek orders from the first officer, or “whoever looks like he knows what the hell he’s doing.” Chapel hesitated and suggested that now was the best time for both men to make their way up, but Mr. Gladis was insistent that his injuries made it impossible to return to his station in time to effect the orders. He tried to push Chapel toward the ladder, but the pain prevented the gesture, so he pointed and ordered Chapel to go at once.
No one could have been prepared for the scene that presented itself on deck. The storm-launched waves and howling winds combined with the increasing list of the crippled ship had caused pandemonium and panic, but Chapel was truly distressed to see the crew in no better command of their wits than the terror-stricken passengers.
Mr. Ryfkogel was standing on the starboard wing of the bridge screaming coarse obscenities through a megaphone at a commandeered lifeboat that had left the ship without permission. Captain Leland suddenly emerged from the bridge house and took the megaphone from his enraged third officer.
As he struggled to climb to the bridge, Chapel tried to hear what the captain was yelling at Mr. Ryfkogel, but the death screams of emergency whistles and the despairing clang of bells owned the night. He looked over the side toward the object of Mr. Ryfkogel’s thunderous denunciation in time to see Captain Leland’s prize black gang slowly disappear toward the rotating Cyclops of the Point Sur Light in a half-filled lifeboat.
Down to a Soundless Sea Page 6