“Knew him? I should say I did! A tough man, too. One of the toughest.”
Worden just looked at him. “How tough a man is often depends on where he is and what he’s doing.” He was looking past the plainclothesman, searching for a familiar face. In all this gathering of merchant seamen hunting work, he saw no one.
Times were hard. There were over seven hundred seamen on the beach, and San Pedro had become a hungry town. Jobs were scarce, and a man had to wait his turn. And he didn’t have eating money. Everything he had had gone down with the Raratonga. He had money coming to him, but how long it would be before he saw any of it was a question.
Near the door he glimpsed a slight, bucktoothed seaman in a blue pea jacket whose face looked familiar. He edged through the crowd to him. “Hi, Jack, how’s about staking a guy to some chow?”
“Hey? Don’t I know you? Tex, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Tex Worden. You were on the West Ivis when I was.”
“Come on, there’s a greasy spoon right down the street.” When they were outside, he said, “I don’t want to get far from the shipping office. My number’s due to come up soon.”
“How long’s it been?”
“Three months. Well, almost that. Times are rough, Tex.” He looked at Worden. “What happened to you?”
“I was on the Raratonga.”
The sailor shook his head in awe. “Jee-sus! You were the only one who came back!”
“Some passengers made it. Not many but some.”
“How’s it feel to be a hero? And with Hazel Ryan yet. And Price! The actress and the millionaire! You brought them back alive.”
“Me an’ Frank Buck. If this is how it feels to be a hero, you can have it. I’m broke. There’s a hearing today, and maybe I can hit up the commissioner for a few bucks.”
The other seaman thrust out a hand. “I’m Conrad, Shorty Conrad. Paid off a ship from the east coast of South America, and I lied to you: It didn’t take me three months, because I’ve got a pal back there. I’ll say a word for you, and maybe you can get a quick ship-out.”
They ordered coffee and hamburger steaks. “This is a tough town, man. No way to get out of this dump unless you can take a pierhead jump or get lucky. If you know a ship’s officer who’ll ask for you, you got a better chance.”
“I don’t know nobody out here. I been shipping off the east coast.”
A burly Greek came along behind the counter. He stared hard at them. “You boys got money? I hate to ask, but we get stiffed a lot.”
“I got it.” Shorty showed him a handful of silver dollars. “Anyway, this is Tex Worden. He was on the Raratonga.”
“You got to be kiddin’.”
The Greek eyed him with respect. “That where you got blistered?” He motioned toward Worden’s hands. “What happened to them?”
“Knittin’,” Tex said. “Them needles get awful heavy after a while.”
He was tired, very, very tired. The reaction was beginning to set in now. He was so tired he felt he’d fall off the stool if he wasn’t careful, and he didn’t even have the price of a bed. If he hit the sack now, he’d probably pass out for a week. His shoulders ached, and his hands were sore. They hurt when he used them, and they hurt just as much when he didn’t.
“It was a nasty blow, Shorty. You never saw wind like that.”
“She went down quick, eh? I heard it was like fifteen minutes.”
“Maybe. It was real quick. Starb’rd half door give way, and the water poured in; then a bulkhead give way, and the rush of water put the fires out. No power, no pumps—it was a madhouse.”
They were silent, sipping their coffee and eating the greasy steaks. Finally Shorty asked, “How long were you out there?”
“Fifteen days, just a few miles off the equator. It rained once—just in time.”
Faces of men he knew drifted by the door. He knew some of them but could not recall their names. They were faces he’d seen from Hong Kong to Hoboken, from Limehouse to Malay Street in Singapore or Grant Road in Bombay, Gomar Street in Suez, or the old American Bar on Lime Street in Liverpool. He’d started life as a cowboy, but now he’d been at sea for fifteen years.
It was a rough crowd out there on Beacon Street; if he did not know them all, he knew their kind. There were pimps and prostitutes, thieves and drunks. There were seamen, fishermen, longshoremen, and bums, but they were all people, and they were all alive, and they were all walking on solid ground.
“Maybe I’ll save my money,” he said aloud, “buy myself a chicken ranch. I’d like to own a chicken ranch near Modesto.”
“Where’s Modesto?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere north of here. I just like the sound of it.”
Tex Worden looked down at his hands. Under the bandages they were swollen with angry red cracks where the blisters had been and some almost raw flesh that had just begun to heal. In the mirror he saw a face like a horror mask, for tough as his hide was, the sun had baked it to an angry red that he could not touch to shave. He looked frightening and felt worse. If only he could get some sleep!
He did not want to think of those bitter, brutal days when he rowed the boat, hour after hour, day after day, rowing with a sullen resignation, all sense of time forgotten, even all sense of motion. There had been no wind for days, just a dead calm, the only movement being the ripples in the wake of the lifeboat.
He got up suddenly. “I almost forgot. I got to stop by the commissioner’s office. They want to ask me some questions. Sort of a preliminary inquiry, I guess.”
Shorty stole a quick look at him. “Tex—you be careful. Be real careful. These aren’t seamen. They don’t know what it’s like out there. They can’t even imagine.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Be careful, I tell you. I read something about it in the papers. If you ain’t careful they’ll crucify you.”
* * *
—
THERE WERE SEVERAL men in business suits in the office when they entered. They all looked at Tex, but the commissioner was the only one who spoke. “Thank you, son. That was a good job you did out there.”
“It was my job,” Tex said. “I done what I was paid for.”
The commissioner dropped into a swivel chair behind his desk. “Now, Worden, I expect you’re tired. We will not keep you any longer than we must, but naturally we must arrive at some conclusions as to what took place out there and what caused the disaster. If there is anything you can tell us, we’d be glad to hear it.”
Shorty stole a glance at the big man with the red face. A company man, here to protect its interests. He knew the type.
“There’s not much to tell, sir. I had come off watch about a half hour before it all happened, and when I went below, everything seemed neat and shipshape. When the ship struck, I was sitting on my bunk in the fo’c’s’le taking off my shoes.
“The jolt threw me off the bench, an’ Stu fell off his bunk on top of me. He jumped up an’ said, ‘What the hell happened?’ and I said I didn’t know, but it felt like we hit something. He said, ‘It’s clear enough outside, and we’re way out to sea. Must be a derelict!’ I was pulling on my shoes, and so was he, an’ we ran up on deck.
“There was a lot of running around, and we started forward, looking for the mate. Before we’d made no more than a half-dozen steps, the signal came for boat stations, and I went up on the boat deck. Last I saw of Stu he was trying to break open a jammed door, and I could hear people behind it.
“We must have hit pretty hard because she was starting to settle fast, going down by the head with a heavy list to starb’rd. I was mighty scared because I remembered that starb’rd half door, and—”
“What about the half door, Worden? What was wrong with it?”
“Nothing at all, Commissioner,” the company man interrupted
. “The company inspector—”
“Just a minute, Mr. Winstead.” The commissioner spoke sharply. “Who is conducting this inquiry?”
“Well, I—”
“Proceed with your story, Worden.”
“The half door was badly sprung, sir. Somebody said the ship had been bumped a while back, and I guess they paid no mind to repairs. Anyway, it wasn’t no bother unless they was loaded too heavy, and—”
“What do you mean, Worden? Was the ship overloaded?”
Winstead scowled at Worden, his lips drawing to a thin, angry line.
“Well, sir, I guess I ain’t got no call to speak, but—”
“You just tell what happened at the time of the wreck, Worden. That will be sufficient!” Winstead said, interrupting.
“Mr. Winstead! I will thank you not to interrupt this man’s story again. I am conducting this inquiry, and regardless of the worth of what Worden may have to say, he is the sole remaining member of the crew. As a seafaring man of many years’ experience, he understands ships, and he was there when it happened. I intend to hear all—let me repeat, all—he has to say. We certainly are not going to arrive at any conclusions by concealing anything. If your vessel was in proper condition, you have nothing to worry about, but I must say your attitude gives rise to suspicion.” He paused, glancing up at the reporters, who were writing hurriedly. “Now, Worden, if you please. Continue your story.”
“Well, sir, I was standing by number three hatch waiting for the last loads to swing aboard so’s I could batten down the hatch, an’ I heard Mr. Jorgenson—he was the mate—say to Mr. Winstead here that he didn’t like it at all. He said loading so heavy with that bad door was asking for trouble, and he went on to mention that bad bulkhead amidships.
“I don’t know much about it, sir, except what he said and the talk in the fo’c’s’le about the bulkhead between hatches three and four. One of the men who’d been chipping rust down there said you didn’t dare chip very hard or you’d drive your hammer right through, it was that thin. When I was ashore clearing the gangway, I saw she was loaded down below the Plimsoll marks.”
“Weren’t you worried, Worden? I should think that knowing the conditions you would have been.”
“No, sir. Generally speaking, men working aboard ship don’t worry too much. I’ve been going to sea quite a while now, and it’s always the other ships that sink, never the one a fellow’s on. At least that’s the way it is until something happens. We don’t think about it much, and if she sinks, then she sinks, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I see.”
“Yes, sir. There was trouble with that half door before we were three days out. Me an’ a couple of others were called to help Chips caulk that half door. You know—it’s a door in the ship’s side through which cargo is loaded. Not all ships have ’em. That door had been rammed some time or another, and it didn’t fit right. In good weather or when she carried a normal load it was all right.
“But three days out we had a spot of bad weather; some of that cargo shifted a mite, and she began to make water, so we had to recaulk that door.
“To get back to that night, sir. When I got to my boat station, I saw one of the officers down on the deck with his head all stove in. I don’t know whether he got hit with something or whether it was done by the bunch of passengers who were fighting over the boat. Ever’body was yellin’ an’ clawin’, so I waded in an’ socked a few of them and got them straightened out.
“I told them they’d damn well better do what they were told because I was the only one who knew how to get that lifeboat into the water. After that they quieted down some. A couple of them ran off aft, hunting another boat, but I got busy with the lifeboat cover.
“All of a sudden it was still, so quiet it scared you. The wind still blowing and big waves all around but ghostly still. You could hear a body speak just like I’m speakin’ now. It was like everything quieted down to let us die in peace. I could tell by the feel of her that we hadn’t long. She was settlin’ down, and she had an ugly, heavy feel to her.
“Mister, that was a tryin’ time. All those people who’d been yellin’ an’ fightin’ stood there lookin’ at me, and one little fellow in a gray suit—he had a tie on, an’ everything. He was Jewish, I think. He asked me what he could do, and I told him to get to the other end of the boat, to loose the falls and lower away when I did.
“I got the boat cover off, and we got the boat into the water, and the ship was down so far and canted over—a bad list to her—that it was no problem gettin’ those few folks into the lifeboat.
“I took a quick look around. The boat ’longside was already in the water, and there were two ABs with it, Fulton an’ Jaworski, it was. They had maybe thirty people in that boat, and I saw one of the stewards there, too. There was nobody else in sight, but I could hear some yelling forward.
“Just then she gave a sort of shudder, and I jumped into the boat and told the Jew to cast off. He had trouble because she was rising and falling on the water, but a woman helped him. I didn’t know who she was then, but later I found out it was that actress, Hazel Ryan.
“We shoved off, and I got oars into the water, and we started looking for others. When we got out a ways, I could see Sparks—one of them, anyway, in the radio shack.
“Then the ship gave a kind of lunge and went down by the head. She just dipped down and then slid right away, going into the water on her beam ends with all the port-side boats just danglin’ there, useless, as they couldn’t be got into the water. At the last minute, as she went under, I saw a man with an ax running from boat to boat cutting the falls. He was hoping they’d come up floating, and two or three of them did.
“All of a sudden I see a man in the water. He was a pleasant-looking man with gray hair, and he was swimming. He looked so calm I almost laughed. ‘Cold, isn’t it?’ he says, and then he just turns and swims away, cool as you please. You’d have thought the beach wasn’t fifty feet away.
“It’s things like that fairly take your wind, sir, and there I was, trying to pull the lifeboat away from the ship and hopin’ for the best.
“I turned my head once and looked back. Mostly I was trying to guide the boat through wreckage that was already afloat. When I looked back—this was just before she went under—I glimpsed somebody standin’ on the bridge, one arm through the pilothouse window to hang on, and he was lighting his pipe with his free hand.
“It just didn’t seem like it could be happening. There I was just minutes before, a-comin’ off watch, all set for a little shut-eye, and now here I was in a lifeboat, and the ship was goin’ down.
“There must have been nearly a hundred people in the water, and not a whisper out of any of them. Like they was all in shock or somethin’ of the kind. Once a guy did yell to somebody else. Then something exploded underwater—maybe the boilers busted; I wouldn’t know. Anyway, when it was over, a lot of those folks who’d been in the water were gone. I fetched the bow of my boat around and rowed toward something white floating in the water. It was a woman, and I got her into the boat.”
“Was that Hazel Ryan?” a reporter asked.
“No, it was Lila, a stewardess. Then I held the boat steady whilst another man climbed in. He pointed out three people clingin’ to a barrel. I started for them.
“The sea was rough, and folks would disappear behind a wave, and sometimes when you looked, they weren’t there anymore. Those people were havin’ a time of it, tryin’ to hang to that barrel, so I got to them first, and folks helped them aboard. The Ryan woman was one of them.
“I’ll give her this. First moment she could speak, she asked if there was anything she could do, and I said just to set quiet and try to get warm, if I needed help I’d ask for it.
“It was funny how black everything was, yet you could see pretty well for all of that. You’d see a white face aga
inst the black water, and by the time you got there, it was gone.
“One time I just saw an arm. Woman’s, I think it was. She was right alongside the boat, and I let go an oar an’ grabbed for her, but her arm slipped right through my fingers, and she was gone.
“Some of those we’d picked up were in panic and some in shock. That little Jewish fellow with the necktie and all, he didn’t know a thing about the sea, but he was cool enough. We moved people around, got the boat trimmed, and I got her bow turned to meet the sea and started to try to ride her out.”
“What about the radio?”
“We didn’t think about that for long. At least I didn’t. There hadn’t been much time, and the chances were slim that any message got off. It all happened too fast.
“Sparks was in there, and he was sending. I am sure of that, but he hadn’t any orders, and most shipmasters don’t want any Mayday or SOS goin’ out unless they say. If he sent it, he sent it on his own, because the old man never made the bridge.”
“The man you saw lighting his pipe?”
“Jorgenson, I think. He was watch officer, but they were changing watch, so I don’t know. He wasn’t heavy enough for the old man.
“Anyway, I’d no time to think of them. The sea was making up, and I was havin’ the devil’s own time with that boat. She’d have handled a lot easier if we’d had a few more people aboard.
“Lila, she was hurting. Seemed like she was all stove up inside, and the shock was wearing off. She was feeling pain, turning and twisting like, and the Ryan woman was trying to help. She and that little Jew, they worked over her, covering her with coats, trying to tuck them under so she’d ride easier. The rest just sat and stared.”
“No other boats got off?”
“I don’t know—except that boat with Fulton and Jaworski. They were good men, and they’d do what could be done. The ship had taken a bad list, so I don’t think many of the boats on the topside could be launched at all.”
“How was the weather?”
“Gettin’ worse, sir. There was nobody to spell me on the oars because nobody knew anything about handling a boat in a heavy sea. I shipped the oars and got hold of the tiller, which made it a mite easier.
Yondering: Stories Page 6