The expected difficulty between the crew aft has so far failed to materialize. I wonder if it will lead to bad feeling between the deck crew and the black gang. That seems unlikely, yet I tried to talk to Mr. Donato, our third engineer, however he made an excuse and walked hurriedly away. Still, I can’t say that he has ever been very friendly. At least, not on this trip.
He came aboard the Lichenfield recently but was gone a good deal while we were in dry dock. There has been a death in the family, or so I have heard. He has not seemed his normal self, somehow. He is a slight man, Italian, and of the type some women would probably call romantic. Very dapper, neat, and good-looking in his way; his cabin is decorated with the pictures of attractive women, most of them blondes. Once, passing the door, I caught a glimpse of them.
Early next week we should sight the coast of Luzon, or one of the islands off the coast. And then—Manila. The end of the life I have lived thus far. I shall begin again, and this time I hope to do better. I doubt if I shall remain in Manila long. If something isn’t immediately forthcoming I’ll use some of my small supply of cash to send cables to shipping companies in Singapore, Batavia, and some of the larger ports.
* * *
—
Right in the middle of the above entry I was called away, and then spent the time before dinner wandering about the ship. Everything is quiet aft. I dropped in back there for a few minutes, and found McGuire had packed his mattress to the top of the after house and was reading Plutarch. It always amuses me to find a seaman reading such books. Not that it is all that rare, but because so many would find it so. So many misfits somehow or other find the life at sea pleasing to them. Often they just can’t buck the tougher competition, and prefer the shipboard life, where duties are well known and the lines of authority clear. The danger means very little. These men are more afraid of economic insecurity, afraid of being broke and jobless. Yet many are men who have ability, education, and talent.
In Manila, the Lichenfield will become a changed ship, for Worden and I shall leave, and perhaps even another man or two, one never knows. I have seen the entire atmosphere of a ship alter with the leave-taking of one man.
How soon it will be over! Helen, Steve, and Betty, Los Angeles, the drives to the mountains—all will be over. When I take my duffel ashore in Manila, that will be the end. What could I have done, back there along my yesterdays, that would have made it all different? Where in that track across the calendar of years did I make the first misstep? In what word, what move, what thing unsaid did the change come?
One is so helpless, for one can never know just when saying or doing something, usually a very simple, almost forgotten thing, may alter an entire future. Where, in the map of one’s life, is the spot that one may say, “Here! This was it.” There must be a turning point, but how is one to know?
It is like the history of a nation, for at some point the tide turns, and a people ceases to grow and begins to slip backward. What would happen, I wonder, if at that moment some man was strong enough to stay events, and by the grip of his hand, and the leadership of his spirit, turn the tide back to the best channel? But perhaps when a nation reaches such a place it no longer builds or breeds the men to perform such a feat.
Too often the truth that men fight for becomes debased in the mouths of later generations, used as an instrument to destroy all that their fathers sought. In my own country, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, that little group of brave souls, radical thinkers in their time, struggled for liberty of thought and speech. Now other men, in the name of progress or Americanism, would bring an end to just those things.
Enough for now. My time below is ended, and I must go up to the bridge and hold in my hands, for another four hours, the fate of this ship.
And so, until tomorrow…
AUGUSTO DONATO
Third Engineer
Augie Donato picked up a magazine and stretched himself full length on the settee. It had been a hard shift. All the shifts were hard when a guy like Con O’Brien followed a fellow. He was too damned particular. Not that he ever said anything, for he never did, or very rarely. He just mentioned it in those neat little notes he left behind. Mentioned having done the work, and just left it that way. But you always knew what he was thinking. The worst of it was, the chief and the first assistant were just as bothered by O’Brien as he was.
A life at sea was no life for a man, anyway. Why the hell couldn’t he find a coastwise run, or something in port? Any man who was such a damned fool as to spend half his time at sea should be shot. Half his time? Forty days at sea for about seven or eight in port. And that’s if he was lucky. Tankers could turn cargo around faster than a freighter, much faster.
And now he was in a spot. If a guy ever had bad luck, he did. How the hell was he to know the dame was Harlan’s wife? A nice sort, too, blond and sweet. He had casually danced with her five or six times at the Cinderella Ballroom and The Majestic. Their meetings were accidental, two people who happened to be in the same place at the same time. Then he had suggested dinner. She seemed to enjoy going places, so he had started taking her around. She said nothing about being married. Then one night she sprung it on him. He’d known her over a year then, off and on.
Just before the ship returned and went into dry dock, his brother had died. Too bad, but it had left him a nice piece of money to spend. That was one thing he could say for Al: He left behind some dough. They never had gotten along, but they didn’t have any other family, so the money naturally came to Augie. Hell, wouldn’t Al be sore? But Al was always a fast driver. When anybody tried to slow him down he’d just laugh. Nothing ever happened to him!
Well, Al had gone over that hill doing at least seventy, and a truck loaded with pipe had been parked right there. What they buried was only part of Al. Hell, if they’d buried all of him they’d have had to bury his car, the rear end of the truck, and about fourteen lengths of pipe.
It was about then he gave Helen a necklace, and they went for a ride. They were on the way back when she told him to go easy calling for a while, that her husband was going to be home every day.
“Your what?” Augie was astonished.
“My husband.”
“You got a husband? My God, why didn’t you say something?”
“How did you suppose I got those kids?”
“I know how you got one of them.”
“The less you say about that the better. Anyway, John’s going to be around for a few weeks, days and nights, so you’d better not call or come around.”
“Where’s he been all this time? A hell of a husband! What’s he do?”
“At sea. He’s the second officer on a tanker. The Lichenfield.”
Augie Donato suddenly felt sick. “Who? On the what?” His eyes widened. “Listen, sister, you sure pick ’em. That’s my ship! I signed on last January.”
“Your ship? You told me you were in the theater business!”
“I wish to God I was!” Augie looked disgusted. “What a break that is! So you’re John Harlan’s wife, are you? It’s sure lucky I didn’t do any popping off about you! Those cold, quiet guys, they’re bad medicine.”
“John’s not cold. He wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Yeah, I know. I got over a fence about two jumps ahead of a charge of buckshot from one of those ‘warmhearted’ guys!”
* * *
—
That was the way it was. It wouldn’t be so bad if a guy could figure what Harlan was thinking, but the fellow looked at you like he could see right through you. Had Helen said anything? It wasn’t likely, but still, sometimes when a woman got sore they talked too darned much. If he only could figure just how much Harlan knew. There he was sitting across the table from the guy twice a day, even talking with him sometimes. Harlan was always pleasant, yet cool too.
Deep, that’s what he was. You couldn’t tell about guys like
that. The worst of it was he might just be waiting. The sea was a poor place to have enemies. Like a mine. Too damned many things can happen.
It was getting so every time he stepped out on deck after dark he looked over his shoulder. Augie shook his head. That’s what you got for fooling around with a married woman. But how was a guy to know? Half of them didn’t wear rings, and there were widows of both the grass and sod variety around every corner. He’d supposed Helen was a widow, but hadn’t asked any questions. It was getting so a guy should hand every girl he met a questionnaire before he dated her.
Maybe he was dumb. Probably he’d be a damned sight better off to take Wesley’s advice and marry some nice girl. He might be wrong about Harlan. He seemed like a good guy, and sometimes he felt he could even like him. But you never knew what the guy was thinking. That poker face. Always something behind a face like that.
He hurled his magazine across the cabin. It was getting so he couldn’t even sleep. And he couldn’t walk out a door without being afraid Harlan would jump him. This ship was haywire anyway. To hell with it. After this trip he’d find something else. Damn tankers. Every time he lit a match he held his breath.
Augie paced back and forth across the deck, accommodating his stride to the slight roll of the ship. Now there was more trouble. The chief had called him in only a few minutes ago.
“Mr. Donato,” he’d said in that precise, schoolteacher’s voice of his, “what’s this I hear about trouble among the men?”
“I don’t know, sir,” he’d answered. How the hell could he know about the men? He had his own problems. “I didn’t know there was trouble.”
“Well, there is. Something between Mahoney, Jacobs, and some of the sailors. That McGuire is in it. You make it your business to find out. The captain has been asking me, and something must be done. We can’t have any trouble on this ship. It endangers us all!”
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Well, get busy, then!” The chief turned around and began filling his pipe just like he was already gone. To hell with it. He couldn’t picture any officer trying to get any information out of that bunch. Why didn’t they get Harlan to find out? He seemed to know everything that was going on.
Mr. Augie Donato put on his cap and stared into the mirror. Hell, he’d always thought he was a hell of a good-looking guy! But he looked just like any other wop, only with a touch of dyspepsia. He closed his door and took the passage aft.
The sea was smooth and the air was soft. The birds would be singing in the park today, and the cars on West Pico would spin past with that certain whine they only had in the spring. He could be home. There were other things he could do, he didn’t have to go to sea.
Third assistant engineer Augie Donato slanted his cap on the side of his head and thrust both hands deep in his coat pockets. To hell with it. Even the food all tasted the same out here. It didn’t make any difference what you ate, he could be blindfolded and know sea-cooked food at the first taste. What would his mother have said about that awful cold-storage chicken. The steward must have carried those birds in the icebox ever since it was installed. Every time he looked in there, it made him think of the morgue. Stewards on these ships were all a bunch of belly-robbing bastards anyway, pocketing whatever they could save.
He tramped along the catwalk and glared out at the water with angry eyes. Who the hell ever started this going to sea business, anyway? He used to like the sound of foreign names. And now the next port was Manila. Too hot, too brown, too much spoiled fruit, and everybody talking politics. Now they were worried about the Japs. My God! Let the Japs have the place. You couldn’t wish them any worse luck. Shannon had been saying something the other day about the islands, how green and beautiful they were. Let him have them!
Mr. Augie Donato reached the after house and took a deep breath. He felt mean enough to give somebody hell. He should have been a barber. Al had been a barber.
Sam Harrell was leaning on the rail staring across the water. “Sam!” he said sharply. “What’s this I hear about some trouble between the men?”
“What men?” Sam looked innocent. “I don’t know anything about any trouble, Mr. Donato.”
“I mean Mahoney, Jacobs, and some of the sailors! The chief sent me back here to find out.”
“Sorry. I don’t know anything.”
“Well, I can believe that!” Mr. Augie Donato snapped. He walked on. A hell of a ship!
He came around the after deck–house and stopped. Mahoney, Pete Brouwer, and Conrad were standing there, but he scarcely noticed them, for within six feet of him, his back turned, was Slug Jacobs. The big fireman was stripped to the waist, and the great muscles bulged in knots and bands across his shoulders. Denny McGuire was facing him. Then everything seemed to happen at once.
Later, called to the carpet and asked why he didn’t stop it, Augie lost his temper. “Stop it? Stop what? One minute McGuire is standing there and the next thing Jacobs is blood from head to foot! Stop it how? I weigh one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, and together those guys weigh about five hundred!”
“You ought to know better, Slug,” McGuire was saying. “Let Mahoney fight his own battles. Socking Shorty from behind was a dirty yellow stunt.”
“Yeah?” Slug said. He was standing there, his big hands hanging loosely at his sides.
“Either you lay off—and I mean no trouble with anybody, okay?—or you take a beating.”
“Boys, t’ink! You must not do this. Ve no fight on ship, do not make t’is mistake!” Pete glared at first one, then the other of them.
“Pete? Shut up! Just shut yer preachin’ piehole,” Mahoney barked.
Slug looked around sneering. “Who gonna give me the lickin’, huh?”
“I will.” McGuire stepped forward.
“You? You sonabitch. You—”
McGuire’s left snapped against Slug’s chin like the crack of a whip, but Slug took it, and swung one fist then the other. McGuire slid inside, and you could hear the thud as he struck the big man’s body, then Denny stepped back and whipped up a driving right uppercut that jerked Slug’s head back. Slug tried to clinch, but McGuire evaded him and snapped another left to the face.
Slug lunged, then pivoted and swung his heavy boot for McGuire’s groin. Denny turned sideways and grinned. Then he shuffled backward, watching carefully. “Just stop,” he said. “Quit while you’re ahead!”
Jacobs, his face a smear of blood, crouched, trying to back McGuire into a corner. Denny shook his head, and deliberately backed into one. Then, as Slug charged, Denny kicked him in the solar plexus with his heel. The big fireman fell back against the rail, and before he could recover his balance, Denny stepped in and threw one, then the other fist to the chin. But Jacobs straightened, and legs spread, started swinging again. Denny stopped abruptly, and toe to toe, science thrown to the winds, they began to slug.
The ship rolled slightly on the light swell. Pete turned away from the sight, ashamed that trouble between his shipmates had come to this, ashamed he hadn’t stopped it earlier, and afraid…afraid, because from all his years at sea he knew, knew in his heart, that fighting aboard ship was the worst luck. It was bad in itself, and it welcomed ill fate like whistling on deck or the sailor who’d shot the albatross.
McGuire swung until it seemed no human could stand such punishment and still keep fighting, but suddenly, Slug Jacobs started forward. Right into the fury of Denny’s fists, he started, trying to clinch, to use his strength, his weight. Then Slug lunged, and Denny caught his wrist.
Turning swiftly, he jerked the big man over his back in a flying mare. Jacobs crashed to the steel deck. He lay there, his huge shoulders and torso a welter of blood, his breath coming in great gasps. Then he gathered himself slowly and stood, numbed to everything but terrified to stop.
“Had enough?” Denny said
. “You better quit.”
Slug hesitated, swaying.
“The spanner, you damn fool!” Mahoney yelled. And almost as if Slug were acting with the thought, he desperately jerked the forgotten spanner from his pocket and threw it.
Denny’s head jerked aside, and the spanner rang against the bulkhead. Then Denny stepped in, feinted swiftly, and crossed a right to the chin that struck with a thud. Slug staggered, and then fell on his face, out cold.
Battered but still menacing, McGuire turned toward Mahoney, and the shorter man took a step backward.
“This has been your doing. All of it.”
For a moment Mahoney seemed to rally, to regain his defiance. Then his heel caught on a steam pipe serving the after winch, and he went down. The impact jolted something from his pocket. A watch. A large silver watch that hit the deck on its edge and fairly disintegrated, the front and back covers popping open and the guts, gears, and jewels scattering across the deck.
Mahoney looked up at the men surrounding him, dazed and foolish.
“Pete…?” Shorty said. “Isn’t that…”
“…my vatch.” Pete peered at the mechanical mess on the deck. “My fat’er’s vatch!” He shook his head in puzzlement…and then with a speed and power that was breathtaking, even after the brawl they had all just witnessed, Pete grabbed Mahoney by the front of his overalls and, lifting, slammed him into the wall of the deckhouse!
“You robt me! It vas YOU!” Pete Brouwer stepped back and fired blow after blow into Mahoney’s midsection as his shipmates looked on in shock. Pete, the man they respected beyond all others, the voice of calm and reason, was out of his mind with rage and grief. All the years of never going home: the years when he couldn’t, the years when he simply hadn’t, the loss, the futility, all became the energy behind those pile-driving fists.
“My fat’er! My brot’ers! I fall overboard, t’e vatch it still vork! Three. Times. Around t’e cape. Still it vork! My home! My home…”
No Traveller Returns (Lost Treasures) Page 19