The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal (16 page)

Stem to stern, the
Plummer
had a stubby bow, then a well deck for No. 1 and No. 2 hatches, the bridge and officers' quarters (I never went inside them), smokestack next, under which were the boiler room and the engine room, then the crew's quarters, where I lived, and the galley. Two more cargo hatches were aft, then the stern works. Her engine was the up-and-down steam-cylinder type and pounded worse than the waves on Chicky beach.

In passing, I will say I met some new, modern types on the
Plummer.
They had "coal passers," who brought the coal to the front of the boiler fires for "stokers." These men filled their shovels from the coal passers' pile and threw the lumps evenly over the bed of fire, three fires in each boiler. It was hot and dirty down there, and, aside from looking once, I stayed away.

Having full intentions of returning to the joy of sail at the completion of this voyage back to America, I would not let myself be impressed with the
Plummer.
Yet I did enjoy the fact that she could make freshwater and we'd cross to London in nine or ten days.

Except for having to chip rust much of the time and paint the rest, my chores were not too different from those on the
Harriet B. Ritter.
They were anything the bosun made up his mind to do on any day: mop, scrub, holystone, etc.

There was one large difference in this vessel, and his name was James P. McGoffin, aged fifteen. He was another deck boy, out of Quincy, Massachusetts. Though he was not foreign, he certainly talked differently from anyone I'd ever heard. New England talk, I now know, and just as queer as the way some Bankers spoke, or more so. When Tee and I came aboard, he smiled with a row of Massachusetts teeth and said, "Howja do, call me Jimmy or Mac." To me, he was McGoffin, then and now. He had the midnight-to-four bridge-wing lookout watch, and I had the eight-to-twelve.

For some reason I've never been able to understand, Tee and the dog were true celebrities on that ship, while I was considered just another deck boy. Everyone had read the story in the
Pilot
and I was certainly well mentioned, but they seemed only to talk to Tee about it.

Throughout that first day, I saw the pretty blond up on the bridge talking to the captain, who otherwise seemed to spend all his time throwing a leather ball with the third mate over No. 2 Hatch. I saw the castaway on the boat deck talking to various officers. After we got squared away for sea and dropped the pilot, I chipped rust on the well-deck ladders aft but had a good view of the midships house. Several times, she also talked to McGoffin.

In late afternoon, she came back and we chattered for a little while, talking pleasantly about all the excitement in Norfolk. She asked me how I liked "Mac" and I said I could take him or leave him alone. She said she thought he was very nice and so good-looking. I didn't know him well enough to agree on the former and my eyes disagreed on the latter: He had a weak chin.

After supper on any ship is a time of relaxation to digest the meal and look at the sea and sunset, to think how nice it is to be out on the ocean rather than stuck on land, to thank the Lord for the fair weather. I had planned to spend some time with Tee that evening, but McGoffin got up from his plate first, scoured it off, and left the messroom. I had no idea what was on his mind.

By the time I got out to sit on the small hatch aft of the bridge, he had Tee by the rail, talking his head off, raking his fingers up and down Boos back. Any dog will enjoy that. I walked on forward and sat down on the bitts at the bow, and watched the sun sink. It was a nice spring night. I stayed there until it was time for me to go up on the bridge wing and relieve the lookout. I paced the wing, thinking mostly about McGoffin, talking very little to the third mate, because he didn't have much to say to me.

Tee came up about nine-thirty (she seemed to have the run of the ship, including the officers' quarters), to say good night. Before saying that, she asked, "Ben, are you avoiding us?"

I said, "Nope, been busy today." Then I turned back to my job. I didn't want the
Plummer
running down some trawler.

Tee asked, "Are you angry because I've been talking to Mac?"

I laughed into the wind. "McGoffin? Why should I be?"

"He's been telling me so many things about Massachusetts."

"There's not much to tell about that state," I said.

Tee was silent a minute, then said, "I think you're jealous, Ben."

I laughed again. "How could I be jealous? There's nothing between you and me from all I could see and hear around this ship today. You talk to McGoffin as much as you want."

Tee answered, "All right, I will. He asked me if I'd be free when we got to London."

"You'll be all the way free," I said.

"Yes, and remember that," Tee answered, then trailed down the ladder with that dog, not even saying good night.

I yelled after her, "I'll make sure you're safe until midnight." A minute past then, there would be no guarantee: McGoffin had the lookout until 4
A.M.

She went on down to the main deck.

When McGoffin came up on the bridge, about ten to twelve, I noticed he was sleepy and blinking. It is usual practice for the twelve-to-four watch to catch a few hours' nap before coming up on the bridge. I said to him curdy, "A lot of traffic out here tonight," and went on to bed.

The second day was no better. I still had much rust to chip aft, and McGoffin had somehow got himself assigned to work midships. Almost every time I looked up, he was somewhere near her. Once, I saw him rubbing the back of her wrist. I had no idea what his intentions were but having brought her through storm and crisis for six months I was not about to let a fast talker from Quincy put her into jeopardy now.

Filene had once told me that you size any situation up but never let it go too long. You stay on top the wave and don't let it get on top you; you keep your bow into the waves and don't get sideways and broach. If you can't make up your mind and fiddle-faddle around, you sink.

That midnight, when McGoffin came up to relieve me, he was sleepy and blinking, having just come out of the lights in the crew's messroom. My eyes were lynx-sharp. I stayed away over near the outboard railing on the wing as he came that way. I waited until he was about two feet off, then kicked his feet out from under him and bent him over the rail so he was looking straight down to where boiling white sea was washing the
Plummer's
iron plates.

I whispered into his ear, "I have nursed that girl along for six months from the brink of death, and you don't mess with her anymore. I aim to deliver her in London intact. Understand." That's all I said.

Just as I was letting him recover from his doubled-up position, weak chin pointed to at least eight hundred fathoms, the second mate walked out and asked, "What's going on here?"

Glancing at McGoffin, I could see his face was pale and drawn. I said, "Sir, Mac just lost his hat overboard and we were looking down for it."

The second shrugged. "I never saw Mac wear a hat." Then he walked on back into the bridge house.

I said, "Good night, McGoffin," and went below.

Next morning, I got to Tee as soon as I could and told her what I'd done and further told her to stop messing around with McGoffin.

Strange enough, she clapped her hands and said, "How lovely!"

Lovely was not involved.

Things got better after that, and aside from that deck boy from Quincy, it was a fine voyage.

So, in six more days, the
Plummer,
thudding steadily from her steam engine, belching steady smoke that spoiled the horizon astern for miles, pushing a white raft of water with her stubby bow, came abeam of the Stilly Islands and then Land's End, and proceeded on into the English Channel. France lay ahead of us, but I wouldn't even think of that country. It wasn't visible, anyway, the weather being on the murky side.

We chugged on past such places as Portland Bill, St. Alban's Head, Brighton, and Folkestone, Tee calling them off though we could barely see the shore. I went about my work as she excitedly reported our progress. I had made progress myself and was now chipping rust on the forward well deck.

Finally, we rounded North Foreland and places called Ramsgate and Margate, picking up a sea pilot from a cutter, and then entered the mouth of the Thames River. That did give me a thrill. I had heard and read about that river for years, and now we were on it. There was as much traffic on that river, of a different kind, as there was on East Main Street in Norfolk. Ships and boats and barges of all types going in and out, both steam and sail.

I must confess, I wasn't doing much work. For every blow of that chipping hammer, I took five or ten looks. After we went through the waters of the Sea Reach, already beginning to approach the port of London on a flood tide, Tee said, "Over there are the low marshes of the Kentish coast, where Dickens's convict met Pip in
Great Expectations.
" I had read that story. And there they were. Lordy.

Soon the banks of the Thames were filled with factories, and behind them I could see high church steeples. The size of this smoky city was beyond belief, because we hadn't even gotten close as yet.

A while later, the
Plummer
blew one long blast on her whistle and then four short ones. Tee said, "We're at Gravesend Reach, and we'll exchange the sea pilot for a river pilot." Sure enough, in a few minutes, a launch came alongside and the river pilot boarded. He was an old man but made the ladder ably.

"He's from the Trinity House Ruler of Pilots, oldest in the world. Founded by Henry VII in 1514," Tee said. That girl had a warehouse of information, and called it off as we churned steadily up the Thames, bending around at Northfleet Reach and Gallions Reach. "We're eleven miles below London Bridge," she said. For a boy from the Outer Banks, it was almost too much.

I can't remember everything she said, but over there was Royal Albert Dock and King George V Dock and more railroad tracks than Mr. Riddle-berger could have dreamt of. Threading through traffic of ships from every port in the world, we twisted and turned up the Thames, looping around at Bugsbys Reach into Blackwall and then into Greenwich Reach and Limehouse, all stretches of the great river.

Tee kept up her chatter, and it was of intense interest to learn that London had had many problems with thieves at one time. Organized river pirates that cut vessels loose from their moorings and ran them aground; night plunderers who went aboard ships during darkness with special overalls to fill their pockets; mud larks who stood in the mud at low tide while henchmen aboard threw goods over the side.

After the Limehouse stretch, we picked up a tug, and soon the
Plummer
was tied up at the London docks, which Tee said were the harbor side of the Bank of England and Leadenhall Street. On up the river was London Bridge; then, bending on around, was Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. That May 10 was a memorable day in my life.

Some three hours later, after we had been cleared by customs and immigration, it was time for Tee and the dog to depart. Though it was busy aboard ship, the bosun allowed me thirty minutes off to say my farewells. In all the excitement of arrival, there had been little time to think that I had indeed safely delivered W. L. Appleton. Intact. I was proud of that.

Soon we stood on the dock, just talking a minute prior to her getting carriage transportation on to Belgravia and that four-story house filled with servants. She said she could get home very easily, and not to worry further. I said good-bye to her, and to Boo, having fulfilled everything.

But she lingered on to say, "Wouldn't you like to see where I live?" There was a certain glint in her blue eyes. Purpose in the way she stood. Boo sat beside her feet, peering around at merrie old England.

Fearing further involvement that might lead almost anywhere, I said, "Tee, you've told me all about that house, and I'm going to be very busy in this port. The bosun said that the only time I'll have free will be Saturday afternoon and Sunday. And I haven't made my plans for those days."

The glint seemed to grow. She said slowly, "Ben, would you not like to see the Tower of London, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, the fish market at Billingsgate? Covent Garden? Ride on an omnibus and take a tunnel under the Thames? Go to a music hall..."

I gazed at her for a long time. Would it never end?

A
S
I
COMPLETE
this account of a hectic period in my boyhood, when the Mother Sea was laughing at me dawn to dark, the year is 1914, and I'm in the weathered shingle-roof house that John O'Neal built at Heron Head, North Carolina.

I'm sitting at the oak table, off the wreck of the
Hermes,
in the same chair I occupied when Mama and I occasionally had a festive supper with Teetoncey back in the winter of '98 and '99. The chest off the
Minna Goodwin
is within eyesight, and Reuben's Mattamuskeet buck head is still on the north wall here in the front room. Not much has changed in this old house, and that has been on purpose. Our plot of hammock land also looks about the same, and that bent oak, on which a hooty owl perched the night I was born, still clings to its roots at the head of our pathway.

Despite everything that's happened in the outside world, and I've seen a lot of it now, not much has changed on our Outer Banks. Everyone goes about his or her way in a caring fashion. Of course, ships still crash on our shores in gales of wind, but more are steamers than sailing vessels. That, we can't control.

There have been changes of a human type, though. Reuben came home from the seas three years ago and is now a dirt farmer in Beaufort County, over near Mineola. Happily married, at last, he has a fine country-girl wife and baby daughter. He's quite content to grow crops and raise chickens and milk a Guernsey cow, staying out of earshot of the surf. I see him now and then.

Keeper Filene Midgett died a few years back on an ebb tide and is now peacefully buried in Chicky ground, not too far from Mama and the two crosses of Tee's parents, with A for Appleton on them. Filene can watch his beloved and equally feared Atlantic Ocean from his site, and surely does. Jabez Tillett now commands Heron Head Lifesaving Station, and in his own quiet way, between eight-foot spits of chewing plug, runs it well. Mark Jennette is the keeper down at Chicky station, though he swears he's going back to sea on a turbine ship.