He was in a coma for five days. No doctor was called when they reached port, nor was he put ashore. They just laid him in a bunk and closed the door. Sam suspected that they were afraid he, the union, or a seamen’s fraternal organization might call for an investigation. If he died they could just bury him at sea, and no one would be the wiser.
But he didn’t die. When he awoke they were back at sea, bound for the Far East. He had broken an arm and the pupil of one eye was forevermore larger than the other. He stayed with that ship for another year. He was young and inclined to forgive and forget;…in fact, forgiving and forgetting became a way of life. “What chance would a workin’ stiff have?” It had become a motto.
One trip drifted into another almost without interruption. Returning always meant going to the places where he had courted Mary. Visiting his aunt meant also seeing a son who was a stranger to him, and with whom he always felt ill at ease. Somehow the days became weeks, the weeks became years, and the years became twenty. And here he was: Sam Harrell, oiler on the eight-to-twelve watch.
Here he was, bound out for the Far East on a tanker as he might have been ten years before, or fifteen, or more. How was it that life had gotten away from him so? This life at sea wasn’t the life for a mature man. Unless one was like John Harlan, the second mate. A quiet chap, Harlan, who enjoyed the life, the chance to study, and the opportunity to live comfortably and securely.
Sam Harrell’s eyes sought the port again. Odd, that he, of all people, should follow the sea. He hated water, had always been deathly afraid of it. Like many merchant seamen, he couldn’t swim a stroke. Not that it mattered out here, for even if one fell into the water, there was no place to go. Sometimes he awakened in the night thinking the sea was bursting in, that it was cascading through the side, a roaring Niagara, flooding the floor plates and mounting higher and higher about him.
But somehow he had made the sea his life, somehow he’d kept going. He had kept a job through the worst years of the financial crisis, but in the process his dreams had slipped away. It was hard to recall now, just what they had been. He had been around the world so many times, yet there was so little that he actually knew. He had been in Saigon, but had never even heard of Angkor Wat until McGuire had mentioned it. What had he seen in all his travels? A lot of ocean, ships, sailors, waterfront dives, docks, too many bottles, and women. The kind of women who wanted a man with money to spend, but the kind of man who would be gone in a week.
Sam felt lonely, depressed. It had been a long time since he’d felt that way. It had become a habit to drift along with the gang going ashore and have a good time. Down the avenue of his thoughts ran a shifting panorama of scenes. The American Bar on Lime Street in Liverpool, the Old Trafford Inn, and the Fox Inn at Manchester. Or was it Salford? The Maypole Bar in Singapore, the Dutch Club in Balikpapan. Malay Street in Singapore. Ah Shing’s Café House on Avenue Edward VII in Shanghai. The Honkgew district, District Six in Cape Town, and the Kasbah in Algiers. They were places that he would like to tell his son about, but if he did, he’d have little to say except that he’d been stupid drunk in all of them.
Of all the crew, he had been aboard the Lichenfield the longest, longer even than the Old Man. It was a fact that embarrassed him, so he rarely mentioned it. He felt he was growing old right along with his ship. His hands were scarred and callused just like his ship was scarred and callused. They’d go to the breakers together if he wasn’t careful, he thought.
He could remember when she’d hit the dock in Osaka, a subject of consternation to both the Nip authorities and their insurance company. They had also tangled with a dockside crane in Liverpool, the sort of accident that could spell the end of a tanker, and a fair bit of her crew if luck wasn’t with you. As it happened the only damage was to the cabling around the stern mast, a bend in one of the vent pipes, and the new pump that had crashed to the deck courtesy of the crane operator’s carelessness. Well, he could heal and the ship could be fixed. But just like his eye after that fall, and just like the vent pipe, which below the level of the deck was no longer straight, some things were never the same again.
He sat up, swinging his feet over the edge of the bunk. Across from him Fritz Schumann snored like a drowsy old tomcat. Old Fritz, who worked so quietly, and so surely, yet said so little.
Sam dropped to the deck and sat on a bench while he pulled on his shoes, the uncomfortable Romeos he always wore aboard ship. Then he slipped on his singlet and staggered into the mess room for coffee.
Worden was already there. “How is it?” he asked.
“Lousy!” Sam said, shrugging. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve been all over the world an’ haven’t seen nothing! I gotta get off this tub.”
Tex stirred sugar into his black coffee, and shrugged. “I don’t guess a guy gets much out of this life but his three squares a day an’ what he can drink in port.”
“Ever tried going home?”
“Yeah, once. I went back to settle the estate. Mom was dead, an’ ever’body I knew was gone or had grown older. I crawled on a bronc an’ come damned near getting pitched on my head! You’d of thought I’d never had been in a saddle. I rode over to see Charlie Fry; I used to go to school with him. Hell, he was married, had three kids, an’ a little two-by-twice ranch with a few cows. We sat there tryin’ to talk to each other, but there wasn’t a damn thing to say.”
“Stay long?”
“Hell, no! I caught a train back to Galveston, an’ didn’t feel right until I got a whiff of salt air. Even that wasn’t enough. I walked down along the waterfront an’ a guy comes staggering out of a joint with breath you could cut with a knife. He bumped into me, an’ I shoved him away. He yelled, ‘Let go o’ me, you miserable, deck-swabbin’ scum!’ An’ boy, I could’ve kissed that guy! I felt so good to hear my own language again that I didn’t even kick him once I floored him.”
“I’ve got a boy older than Jones,” Sam said. “He sent me a snapshot the other day with some swell-looking girl. Betty Deaton, her name was. I haven’t seen the kid in years. ‘Home.’ Hell, I hardly know what the word means.”
Davy Jones walked into the mess room and sat down on the bench. “Hello, Tex. Hi, Sam. She’s certainly getting rough out there.”
“You’re tellin’ me?” Tex exclaimed, and grabbed the mustard jar as it started sliding toward him. “I been spendin’ half my time keepin’ the grub on the table. I wish that fiddle was a bit higher.”
“What fiddle?” Davy asked.
Tex grinned. “This thing, here. The fiddle is this frame around the table to keep the dish from slidin’ off when the ship rolls. An inch high is okay, but it could be higher without hurtin’ any.”
“How you likin’ it at sea, Davy?” Sam asked.
“Fine.”
“You been puttin’ on some muscle,” Tex said. “You’re a lot darker, too.”
“Yes, I guess that’s right. Maybe it’s the salt air.”
“Denny’s been showing you the ropes, has he?”
“Yes. So’s Pete. They’ve sure done a lot for me.”
“How about Slug?” Tex asked keenly. “He been causin’ you any trouble?”
“I can take it. I’m not gonna be fighting anyone again. Um, I mean, not ever, if I can help it! He’s an animal and a bully, though.”
“Who you callin’ an animal?”
They looked up suddenly at the voice. Slug Jacobs was standing in the door of the mess room, stripped to the waist. He had just come from below to call the watch, and his body was streaming with perspiration and seawater. His flat, ugly face was almost dead white, his eyes small, and his lips thick.
Davy stood up, his face white. “You are,” he said slowly. “You’re bigger than me and you can push me around. But I won’t fight you and I’ll never be afraid of you, so get lost!”
“Get lost, huh?” Slug started fo
rward, around the mess table. “I show you who’s gonna get lost!”
Tex got between Slug and the boy, his eyes narrow. “You-all better stop right where you are,” he said. “I don’t want no truck with you, Slug.”
“You shut up,” Slug said, licking his lips, and staring at Tex. “I got nothing to do with you. I want him.”
“No. Go call Schumann an’ end your watch,” Tex said quietly. “You get tough with me an’ I’ll cut off some of that beef, understand?” He picked up the knife they had used in cutting bread. “I’ll cut you down an’ stomp you. Now scram!”
“Say! Vhat happens here? You boys vait one minute!” Pete Brouwer stood in the doorway, as commanding a presence as the captain.
“I have been at sea for twenty year.” He glared at them, his blue eyes cold as arctic ice. “T’is is vhat I know—vhen sailor, he fight…t’is is bad luck! Bad luck for t’e sailor men! Bad luck for t’e ship! If ve have problem, ve solve it on t’e dock, yes?”
Slug hesitated, breathing audibly. Then he backed slowly to the door. “You wait. You think you smart. I’ll get you. I’ll get Jones, too.”
“Sure. Sure,” Tex said. “Anytime you want to try.”
Slug stepped past Pete, through the door into the passage, and Davy sat down suddenly. “Thanks Tex, Pete,” he said.
Pete looked at Worden and shook his head, “He is trouble, t’is I know. But you should know better. One ship, she sink right under you. I vant to go home. Davy is a young man. Ve need no bad luck, okay?”
Pete turned and stalked off, leaving the occupants of the mess room staring at the floor.
“That Slug. I guess I am scared of him.” Davy mumbled, “He doesn’t look human.”
“He ain’t,” Sam said. “He’s only about half there. I heard the first tell the chief, Jacobs was no better than a moron. I think that was rank flattery myself. But as far as that goes, Davy, you stood right up to him.”
“But I was scared,” Davy admitted.
“Who wouldn’t be?” Tex shrugged. “That guy weighs two-twenty if he weighs an ounce. I don’t care what Pete says, you’d better be ready to defend yourself.”
Davy Jones said nothing, but he didn’t look all that healthy either.
Shorty Conrad walked in. “Hi, fellas! I see you’re on your pin, Tex. Where’s McGuire?”
“Who’s that using my name in vain?” McGuire said, coming up behind him. He glanced around, and stopped, looking at Davy. “What’s the matter, Jones? You look kind of pale around the gills!”
“It was Slug Jacobs,” Tex said. “He came in an’ got tough with the kid. I come damn near cuttin’ the fool’s heart out. I’d of tried it, too, if Pete hadn’t stepped in.”
“Maybe something will have to be done about that guy,” Denny said. “I don’t like that big lug, and I especially don’t like the company he keeps.”
“I wish you’d make it soon,” Tex said, shaking his head. “Let’s go for’rd. Where were you workin’, half-pint?”
“Mr. Half-Pint to you, sailor!” Shorty said, reaching for a piece of bread and some cheese. “If you’ll wiggle your tail up to the port bridge wing you’ll find a scraper and a pot of red lead. After that, use your own judgment. In an hour it’ll probably be too rough to bother.”
Sam Harrell got up. For a minute he looked down at the table, and then he walked out to the deck, watching the sea rolling with whitecaps and feeling the hot, damp wind buffeting his body. “I think,” he muttered softly, “I think when this is over I’ll go home an’ see the kid. Yes,” he said after a minute, “that’s just what I’ll do!”
When he had first gone to sea, that fall from the bridge wing had nearly killed him. Fighting aboard ship might or might not be bad luck, but the odds did build up. They hadn’t gotten the best of him yet, but it might be the time to consider throwing in his hand.
THE PRIVATE LOG OF JOHN HARLAN, SECOND MATE
March 28th: Six bells. I have closed the book I’ve been reading for the past hour and am now beginning my daily entry in this private log. Fortunately, I write with a fountain pen, for it would be impossible to keep an ink bottle from sliding off the table. However awkward writing is at times, I don’t mind greatly, for I have long been familiar with the sea. At times the ship rises on a huge wave, the propeller is thrown clear of the water, and its violent threshing makes the ship tremble from stem to stern. I can feel sympathy for Augie Donato, the third engineer now on watch, for each time the ship rises he must ease the speed to cut the vibration. The unresisted whirling of the propeller is desperately hard on everything below.
All day we have been running into heavy seas, and the lookout has been using the flying bridge, for the decks are a crazy welter of angry water and even the catwalks over them are deluged. A man couldn’t live ten minutes on the fo’c’stlehead. It will be something up there on the bridge tonight, watching those waves crash down on the foredeck, seeing them race aft, and hearing the scuppers gulp and gasp as the bow rises.
There will be no stars tonight, only the lowering black cloud and the glistening, metallic sea. I will stand on the bridge in sou’wester and oilskins, canting to the heavy roll, watching the hurrying whitecaps, and keeping an eye open for other vessels. I often wonder on such nights as this how the Vikings ever managed in their tiny ships. It took courage to navigate in those days, when all was unknown, and so many of the ships were small, and many of them undecked.
The Phoenicians, too. The greatest seafaring race history has ever known—I wonder how much of the world they saw. Hanno rounded the Cape of Good Hope long before Dias and da Gama, and he completely circumnavigated Africa. That was a marvelous thing, and lends some credence to the stories of a Phoenician galley sunken in the mud of the Amazon. From the coast of Gambia and the Cape Verde Islands, it is not far across the Atlantic to Brazil.
The day will soon be gone, and my watch begins the new one. Eight bells, twelve o’clock. It is an end and a beginning. I have enjoyed my quiet watches in the night, and there are not many more awaiting me—Manila is but a few days off. I shall miss this ship, for it has been my home a long time now. And I shall miss the crew, but there have been many crews, and where have they gone? Like the snows of yesteryear of which Villon wrote, they have vanished. Perhaps I shall meet some of them again, walking the streets in Mombasa, Cape Town, Singapore, Nagasaki, Zamboango, or Makassar. Perhaps I shall meet one of them at Steamer Point, in Aden, or perhaps in Zunguldak or Zanzibar. Or someday possibly two of them may meet on the Skid Road in Seattle, or along Frisco’s Embarcadero, and they may speak of me.
The ship moves on, and the seas break over her, and the water slides under the hull. We are our own world, a little cluster of lights in a world of utter blackness and angry sea. Green to starboard, red to port, and the tiny eyes of the white lights on the topm’sts. Under the ventilator in his accustomed seat, old Fritz will be sitting, dreaming behind his glasses of the days that are gone. Above at the wheel, Tex stands, quiet, inscrutable. In the dark at his left the chronometer steadily ticks, and outside Mr. George Wesley will be staring into the darkness and storm, annoyed that the privacy of his bridge should be invaded by the Man on Lookout. But Denny will be cool and respectful, having all the advantage possessed by a man with a sense of humor.
He should be coming along soon to give me a call. I never sleep at this hour, but the call is customary, and truth to tell I often need it as I begin reading and time fairly flies away from me.
There! A quick, sharp rap on the door. That will be Denny…
He’s gone now. Tex Worden is going ashore in Manila. Denny told me that confidentially, knowing that I’m going too. I shall keep in touch with him. If I get a berth, I could probably ship him in some capacity. There are few better seamen, and I think Tex would make a top-notch ship’s officer. He’s an efficient sort. The account of his experiences after the Rarotonga sunk
was typical of the man. He is a direct, matter-of-fact sort, and not the type to even consider himself until the job was done.
I answered the door, and Denny was standing there. “One bell, Mr. Harlan!” he said cheerfully. “And God have pity on the poor sailors on such a night as this!”
“Come in, Denny,” I said, “and close the door. I’ll get enough of that dampness in the next four hours. We might as well have our nightcap, hadn’t we?”
“Sure thing,” he said. He tasted the drink and then looked up. “Anything I can do for you in the States, Mr. Harlan? I get around a good bit, you know.”
“No, I don’t think so. I’ve got a couple of youngsters there, fine kids they are, but they have a better home now than I could give them.”
“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Harlan,” he said, “you might get down into the Molukkens. If you do, I’ve got a girl down that way you can look up. At least, I say she’s my girl, but anyway, we liked each other quite a bit. She’s a fine person, interested in everything. She has a plantation and a good bit of money. I’ll give you her name. If you look her up, give her my best.”
I smiled at him. “Is this the romance, Denny? Or is it that girl back in the States? The one Wesley saw you with?”
He grinned. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen this woman in several years, but she stays with me. Maybe I’ve read too many books. We write, occasionally. Honestly, I doubt she’s waiting for me…but I think the one back in L.A. is.”
“What’s her name, the girl in Hollywood?”
“Carmody. Faustine Carmody.”
“Name sounds familiar. Could I have seen her somewhere in a show?”
“Yes, maybe you have.” He put his glass down. “Well, I’ve got a few minutes left on the bridge. See what you can do about getting rid of this storm. After all, a second mate should have some influence with the powers that be.”
No Traveller Returns (Lost Treasures) Page 15