“Don’t worry about carrying your money, Pete. The Old Man must have gone up to L.A. You just forget you got it an’ we’ll foot the bill.”
“It is all right, Shorty. I shall spend nothing. I must go home now. Just to t’ink, I have never seen my sister. She was born after I go avay.”
They walked along in silence, watching the lurching back of Deek Hayes ahead of them, the straighter, easier carriage of Doc, and Duck Stevens, hustling to keep up. The harbor lights cast flickering streaks along the surface of the water. Farther uptown a police siren wailed in the night, a warning cry that faded away into the distance.
“Ya know, I got a sister, too.” Shorty Conrad clapped Pete on the back. “She’s around somewheres. We were just kids when my father went off to South America on some wild-goose chase. Then Mom died, and when Dad didn’t come back, we were adopted. Sis was taken by some people in show business, people who knew my dad. I’m gonna find her someday. You mark my words.”
“Come on, you guys, get a move on. Somebody give us a song.”
As I was a-walking down Liverpool Street,
With a way, hey, blow the man down!
A pretty young maiden I happened to meet,
Oh, give us some time to blow the man down!
…The lights were bright along Beacon Street, and many doors were wide. There was music and laughter, the movement of many people, and the glitter of glass along the bars. When one is long upon the sea, one craves joy and laughter. Even the faded joy and laughter of the waterfronts. Even the love that is bought and the liquor that is diluted. The relationship of workingmen to money is ever the same, and now that the exhaustion of labor was gone good fellowship surged to the fore.
Slowly the cautious squint in the eyes of big Pete Brouwer relaxed, like the ebbing of the dark tides under the wharf.
There was a love of old shipmates within him, for he was a believer in the gospel of the sea, the old gospel that a shipmate is a brother no matter who or what else he may be. There was the memory of many men he had served with to make it ring true, but there was also a dark, squat man, an oiler, out of work and at loose ends, who joined them and stayed with them through the night, his eyes careful and alert even while he sang and told stories and slapped them on their backs.
Already the group had begun to break up. Doc was gone—from the station the Pacific Electric had drawn him swiftly away, to Los Angeles and an office where he would begin to practice his profession. The song of the sea would fade from his ears, as would the memory of the trade winds brushing over his skin. The hands that were accustomed to the feel of the wheel would grow more delicate and tender, and the voice that snarled at his comrades in good-natured harshness would become diplomatic and gentle.
Somewhere back in the line of bars and brothels Jack and Bert had fallen by the wayside. The bo’sun and Chips met an old shipmate, a pal from the Catherine G. Sudden. But Pete, Shorty, Deek, and Duck Stevens, three sheets to the wind and all decks awash, kept going. Tony’s Wine Joint was not crowded, but there were a few men there…at least one of them known to the short man with dark stubbled cheeks and squinting eyes, the man who had followed them, perhaps even steered the happy group to the poorly lit building with an alley alongside.
“Ya, vun hundred unt fifty-six days I am at sea, unt we sight no land; the vater in the tanks, she turn green, unt the biscuits filled vit vorms, unt nothing to do but vatch the days go by. Vun hundred unt fifty-six days!”
Deek was leaning against the bar, his big shoulders spreading tightly under the coat. He grinned at the bartender and pointed at Pete.
“Look, you landlubbers! Take a look at a real deepwater sailin’ ship man! They don’t make ’em anymore, an’ he’s the genuine article. Five times around Cape Stiff, an’ sailed ever’ ocean they got!”
Deek glared around the room. It was a good-natured challenge, but he was drunkenly ready to fight or scuffle at the drop of a hat, and ready to do his own dropping. He stared at the liquor in his glass, having no idea that the last three drinks had been the worst sort of rotgut. Deek emptied his glass and, stirred by windjammer talk, broke into a hoarse song:
To larboard an’ starboard on deck you will sprawl,
With a way, hey, blow the man down!
For Kicking Jack Williams commands the Black Ball,
Oh, give us some time to blow the man down!
“Shut up, wouldja?”
Deek turned. The big Slav at his elbow stepped back, his feet spread wide, his fists ready.
“I don’t want no damned landlubber singing chanteys an’ makin’ so damn much noise.”
“Well, put ’em up, jus’ put ’em up, nobody calls me a—!”
The man’s fist smashed into Deek’s mouth, spattering blood. Scarcely staggered, Hayes swung a powerful right, and a split second later the two men were standing toe to toe, fighting desperately, clumsily. Shorty shoved his way to the edge of the fight, cheering for Deek. The crowd pushed and surged around him.
Pete stood up, bleary and puzzled.
“Hey, Dutchie.” A hand caught Pete’s arm. “Don’t get in that. The police’ll be comin’, an’ you don’t want to end up in the gaol. You come wit’ me. Sure an’ its two old sailor men shall stick together!”
Pete looked down at the shorter man.
“Is bad for shipmates to fight. It makes bad luck for the ship.”
The dark-jawed man tugged at Pete’s elbow, tried to turn him away from the brawl. “They’re not shipmates. That’s Russian Fred—he hasn’t been to sea in years. It’s not bad luck, jus’ a fight…jus’ a fight.”
“Deek, he—if my shipmates fight, I fight too.”
“He’ll not be needin’ you, Dutchie! Look, could the likes of that whup a shipmate of yours? Nah! Come along wit’ me. Somebody might rob you, an’ you want to save that dough to go home on. I’m your pal, Dutchie, and I’ll be a-takin’ you back to the ship. Come along!”
“Ya, I have long voyage to make. My mama, she say, ‘Peter, you come home now. You is all ve have.’ ”
“Sure, Dutchie, right y’ are, you’ll be rollin’ home afore y’ know it. Come on!”
Deek had the Russian back against the bar and was pounding him with both hands. Shorty was beside him, yelling. Then someone hit Shorty, and the tight knot of men split instantly into a series of separate brawls. It was a tangle of struggling, cursing men. But Pete was already gone, walking through the back door with the shorter man. And it was very dark in the alley.
* * *
—
The moan of a distant siren sliced into the brains of the fighting men. The fly-specked windows went up and spilled bodies into the darkness. There was the brief scrape and sputter of running feet, heavy breathing, and a curse as someone stumbled. The front door banged open and the remaining patrons used the back, stumbling down the alley without noticing what it held.
Deek ran heavily for a block, then he stopped. He grabbed Shorty’s arm.
“Hell, let’s walk. I’d sooner do a stretch in the can than run another step! Chees, that mug could sock!”
Shorty’s jaw ached, he touched it gingerly. “What the hell happened to Pete?”
“Damned if I know. But hell, he can get along.”
“No, listen, he was half-swacked an’ had a roll on him that would choke your uncle! I’m goin’ back!”
“An’ get throwed in the jug?”
“They’ll never know I was in that tangle. Maybe I can help.”
“Ha! You better take a look at yourself. Listen, either the cops got him or they don’t. Come on, let’s get out of here!”
Three blocks behind them a Black Maria skidded to a halt and belched a stream of blue-coated officers, who quickly surrounded the shack. Three of them rushed inside, led by a plainclothesman. The room was a shambles of broken chairs, bottles
, shattered window glass, and spilled liquor. Tony was almost in tears.
“What’s goin’ on here?” the detective snapped. “This is the fifth time in two weeks. Once more an’ we close you down! Now what happened?”
“You t’ink I breaka da glass? I breaka da chair? You t’ink I poosha the window out? Two beeg man, they fight, pretty soon another fella, he hit a little one in the nose, then they all fight!”
A head thrust in through the back door and called to the detective. “Hey, Mac! There’s a guy out here in the alley! Looks like somebody slugged him!”
In the circle of the flashlight’s glow, Pete’s face was strangely white. Mac felt his heart.
“He ain’t croaked, thank God! Call an ambulance.”
Mac stood up, pointing at the pockets, turned inside out. “He wasn’t in any scrap. They rolled him. Started the fight for cover, looks like. What do you want to bet it was someone in that Happy Valley crowd?” The detective thought for a moment. “Jerry, take three men, get down there, and roust those guys, if you can find them!”
* * *
—
The morning sun warmed the dock and crowned each ripple on the channel with a little halo of gold. The venerable chug-chug of the fat-bottomed ferry set the pace for the morning as it warmed up after the night’s chill.
Shorty walked out on the dock. His head felt like a bulging gas drum, and his tongue seemed to have sprouted feathers. Deek swaggered, wearing his split lip and the long gash on his cheekbone like badges of honor.
Duck Stevens, who had left just before the battle, noticed Shorty’s eye.
“Hey, Short-stuff, who gave you the black eye?”
“Nobody gave it to me! I fought for it!”
“And the mighty Deek. How’s the other guy look?”
“Like you’re goin’ to look in about a minute if you don’t shut up,” Deek mumbled.
“What d’ you want?” Duck said. “I walk out of Tony’s last night leaving you birds blooming like a couple of roses, and this morning Pete’s in the hospital, and you guys look like you’d been tryin’ to shave with a file!”
Shorty stopped still.
“Pete? In the hospital?”
“Yeah? Didn’t you know? Somebody robbed him last night down behind Tony’s. I already been over there but they won’t let anyone in till the cops talk to him.”
“A hell of a pal I turn out t’ be!” Shorty said. “Hell, I’d rob a bank to help that guy! Who the devil d’ you think could have done it?”
Deek shrugged. “Damned if I know. I didn’t see nothing after the fight started.”
“Damn it! Pete’s missed his chance again, an’ it’s my fault. I was for him comin’ along when I could have talked him out of it.”
“Hell, it ain’t your fault. An’ us moanin’ about it ain’t goin’ to help much. Say”—Deek turned to Shorty—“Do you an’ Pete know Borly Shannon?”
“The second mate on the City of Birmingham? Why?”
“Well, he’s not on the Birmingham anymore. He’s chief mate on the Lichenfield now. He was tellin’ me that after a trip to the Far East they’d be running to Amsterdam an’ Rotterdam!”
“The devil! But where is he now?”
“That’s just it—they’re just out of dry dock on Smith’s Island and hiring a crew. That means one trip out East, an’ then Amsterdam! Why don’t you guys see him?”
“Boy, you’re a lifesaver! The Lichenfield!”
“Not for me,” Duck said, shaking his head. “I’m not sailin’ on any tankers! I’ll die soon enough anyway, without getting blown up on one of those wagons!”
“What of it?” Shorty shrugged. “If it was that dangerous they’d never turn a profit. A…ship is a ship.”
THE PRIVATE LOG OF JOHN HARLAN, SECOND MATE
March 21st: I don’t know when I have ever seen a sea so still. The ship glides along through an almost breathless hush, and even the crew has become infected by it. The men move about quietly, putting things down carefully instead of dropping them. As though the slightest tinkle of sound would shatter the universe like a thin globe of glass. Safety is always an issue at sea. But in most cases, the ship is the protection from danger, not the cause of it. On tankers one lives in a rather unreal world, always aware, careful, suspended in a purgatory between life and death.
The ship is like the Earth. The Earth rolls along through space, and the ship steams along over the ocean. A collision with another such body, or the wrong combination of chemicals, and both become cosmic dust. A big “boom” that nobody hears. Suns, planets, meteors collide, leaving only dust and fragments. Ships sink, resulting only in a little oil and debris. Lives vanish from the face of the waters.
Oddly enough, one so often becomes interested in the parade, so intent in watching others and speculating upon their ways and lives, that one forgets that he is part of it all. Being what McGuire, one of our seamen, would call the “not-so-innocent bystander” has its drawbacks. It is a grand show in the end, and futile or not, I’d not want to miss it, so safety and life are precious.
Funny people in a funny world. It was twenty years ago that I first met Helen, so frail and blond and beautiful. I first heard my mother speaking of how lovely she was, this girl that had moved in to the neighborhood. Then I saw her, and she was like every princess that I had ever dreamed of rescuing from any number of dragons or giants. I think I was in love from the start, and she said that she was too.
And there is the question. Is one ever in love with a woman? Or is it only one’s imagination of that woman, that girl? One reads into a certain personality, even a face and figure, a lot of illusions, a lot of qualities that are not really there. But I didn’t philosophize then. It was love.
Why should I complain? I had that, and nothing can take it from me, although the memory of these later years has left a bitter taste. I wonder what happened to that girl. I married her and lost her. Oh, she was with me for a while, but time and distance change many things, and neither of us was quite what the other expected.
I doubt if I have changed so much. I was always quiet. Helen was gay and bright, tender and gentle too. She realizes as much as I what we have lost. Neither blames the other now. All that is over and past.
Looking back, I can see many things that might have been different—words that could have been recalled, things that might have remained unsaid—but most of all our mistakes lay in trying to live what at best was no more than a dream. We were two fortunate people—we had an idyllic moment—and then proved ourselves all too human by trying to make a lifetime of it.
There goes the bell. In a minute now Worden will be along to call me, and then another watch on the bridge. It is pleasant up there, gives a man time to think. No sea running, either, and just a light breeze somewhere on our quarter.
Worden is a Texan. Born on a cattle ranch, he tells me. Wonder how he got to sea. A phlegmatic, hard-boiled sort of chap, but a fine seaman, and very conscientious. Drinks like a fish, they tell me, when he’s ashore; never at sea, however. He and McGuire would certainly make a pair in a street brawl. I like the man, although Wesley does not. But I can understand that. Our Mr. Wesley is quite conscious of his newly won mate’s ticket, and feels quite pleased with himself. A nice enough fellow, but still—all things considered, Worden is nine times the seaman. Give me Worden in a pinch. Wesley is like a lot of these nice boys— smart enough, but they can’t stand the gaff.
And there are the bells, eight of them in a row. McGuire always rings them in that snappy, professional manner. I wonder how many more times I’ll hear eight bells strung together like that. Well, after this crossing they will all be heard in Asiatic waters—I am not going back.
TEX WORDEN
Able Seaman
Tex Worden shoved his way through the crowd in the Slave Market and pushed his book through the wicket.
“What’ll you have, buddy? Want to register?”
“Nah, I’m here to play a piano solo. What’d you think?”
“A wisecracker, eh? You guys all get smart when you get to port. I’m used to it, but one of these days I’m coming around from behind here and kicking the hell out of one of you!”
“Well, you don’t see me runnin’ away, do you? You just come out from behind that counter, and I’ll lay you in the scuppers.”
At a signal from the man behind the wicket a big man pushed his way through the crowd and tapped Tex Worden on the shoulder.
“All right, buddy, take it easy. Take care of business or move along.”
Tex turned away from the officer, waiting for his book. The clerk opened it grudgingly, and then looked up, startled.
“You were on the Rarotonga!”
“So what?”
“Why, I heard only one of the crew was saved!”
“Yeah? So who the hell do you think I am? And that ‘saved’ business is the bunk. I saved myself. Now, come on, get my book fixed. I want to get out of here!”
The plainclothesman spoke more affably.
“No kiddin’, are you Tex Worden?”
“Yeah.”
“Hell, that must’ve been some wreck. The papers say if it wasn’t for you none of the passengers would have got back. Dorgan was on that ship, too!”
“What do you mean, Dorgan?”
“Hank Dorgan, the detective from L.A. He was one of the toughest coppers in this part of the country!”
No Traveller Returns (Lost Treasures) Page 4