The Sea is My Brother (15 page)

“Same . . . goodnight.”

They shook hands again.

Bill went up to the poop deck grinning to himself. At least, he had one friend to whom he could talk to, a polite, cultured youth fresh from Yale, even though he might prove a fop. He certainly was a handsome boy.

Bill tripped over a form on the deck. It was a seaman who had decided to sleep in the open.

“Sorry,” muttered Bill sheepishly. He was answered with a sleepy protesting groan.

Bill walked forward. Voices from the mess hall below. Bill went down and found groups of seamen conducting numerous dice games; one of these men, with a roll of bills in one hand and dice in the other, sprouted a full beard. Some others were drinking coffee.

Bill strolled into galley, where others stood about chatting, but he could find no familiar faces. From one of the cauldrons came an aroma of rich, meaty stew; Bill peered down into the pot and realized he hadn't eaten all day. No one seemed to be paying any attention to him, so he chose a clean bowl from the dish rack on the sink and ladled out a brimming portion of beef stew. He gulped it
quickly in the mess hall, watching, as he ate, the progress of the dice games. Considerable sums of money were changing hands, but no one seemed to think much of it.

Bill put his empty bowl in the sink and moved on down the galleyway. The big cook, Glory, was coming toward him, smoking his corn cob pipe.

“Hello Glory!” ventured Bill casually.

“Hello there son!” moaned Glory melodiously. “You layin' down a hipe?”

“Not tonight,” grinned Bill.

Glory's face broke into a broad, brilliant smile.

“Not tonight he sez!” Glory howled thunderously. “He's not layin' down a hipe!” The big cook placed a hand on Bill's shoulder as he passed.

“No hipe tonight!” Glory was booming as he went off. Bill heard his deep basso chuckle come back to him down the galleyway.

“A remarkable personality,” mumbled Bill with delighted astonishment. “And what a remarkable name—Glory! The glory that is Glory, indeed.”

In the P.O. mess, where he had found Nick Meade earlier in the day, three strangers sat playing a stoical game of poker. None of them had seen Wesley.

“Well, could you tell me where Nick Meade's focastle is?” pressed Bill.

“Meade?” echoed one of them, raising his eyes from the silent game of cards. “The oiler with the Crown Prince moustache?”

“That's him,” grinned Bill nervously.

“He has a stateroom on the next deck, number sixteen.” Bill thanked him and left.

He went forward toward Wesley's focastle; he might have just returned and gone to sleep unnoticed. But no one had seen him. One of the deck hands, a youth who might have been sixteen years old, told Bill he had shipped with Wesley before.

“Don't mind him,” the boy grinned. “He's probably out on a long toot . . . he drinks like a tank.”

“I know,” laughed Bill.

“That's his berth,” added the boy, indicating an empty bunk in the corner. “He's got a new toothbrush under his pillow. If he doesn't come back, I take it.”

They laughed together quite cheerfully.

“Well, in that case, I hope he does come back,” Bill said. “He bought that toothbrush just yesterday on Scollay Square.”

“Good!” grinned the boy. “It oughta be a good one.”

Bill ascended to the next deck. It was dark, quiet. From the harbor a barge shrilled a thin blast, shattering the Sunday night stillness with a brief, sharp warning. The sound
echoed away. Bill could feel the
Westminster
's engines idle way below, a passive heart gathering energy for a long ordeal, thrumming deeply a patient tempo of power, tremendous power in repose.

He found stateroom sixteen by the light of a match and rapped quietly.

“Come on in!” a muffled voice invited.

Nick Meade was stretched in his bunk reading; he was alone in the small stateroom.

“Oh, hello,” he greeted with some surprise.

“Reading?”

“Yes; Emil Ludwig's
Staline
. . . in French.”

Bill sat on a folding chair by the sink. It was a neat little room, considerably more homey than the steel-plated fo-castles down below, with soft-mattresses bunks, cabinet mirrors over the sink, and curtains on the blacked-out portholes.

“Pretty nice in here,” said Bill.

Nick had resumed his reading. He nodded.

“You haven't seen Wesley yet?” Bill asked.

Nick looked up: “No. Don't know where in hell he is.”

“I hope he didn't forget all about the
Westminster
,” grinned Bill.

“Wouldn't put it past him,” mumbled Nick, going back to his reading.

Bill took a cigarette from the pack on Nick's bunk and lit up in silence. It was stuffy in the room. He helped himself to a drink of water and sat down again.

“Know when we sail?” asked Bill.

“Few days,” mumbled Nick, still reading.

“Greenland?”

Nick shrugged. Bill rose nervously and fidgeted about the room with his cigarette; then he wheeled and glared angrily at Nick, but the latter calmly went on with his reading. Bill walked out of the stateroom without a word and found himself back on the dark deck. He leaned on the rail and peered down gloomily; the water was slapping gently against the ship's waterline, an odor of decomposing, mossy timber rising from the darkness.

That blasted fool Meade! . . . And yet, who was the bigger fool of the two? Everhart, of course . . . he should go back in there and give him a piece of his mind. It would create a row, and God knows rows and arguments were unpleasant enough, but nothing could cure this humiliation but a man-to-man showdown! The fool was being deliberately annoying . . .

Bill, before he could reflect, found himself walking back into Nick's stateroom.

Nick looked up in bland surprise: “what'd you do, spit over the side?”

Bill found himself trembling neurotically, his knees completely insecure; he flopped back into the chair in silence.

Nick went back to his reading as though nothing was happening, as though Bill's presence was as casual and informal a fact as the nose on his face. Bill, in the meantime, sat shaking nervously in the chair; he raised a trembling hand to adjust his glasses.

“I met a boy from Yale on board,” he told Nick in desperation.

“Quite a strikingly handsome chap.”

“Is that so?” Nick mumbled.

“Yes.”

There was a deep silence; the engines were pulsing below.

“Look here Meade!” Bill heard himself shouting. Nick looked up with a start, laying down the book.

“What?”

“You're holding my theories against me . . . I don't care personally . . . but it makes you look foolish!” Bill stammered.

Nick's blue eyes widened with stupefied resentment.

“You're too important a person to act like a child . . .”

“Okay!” interrupted Nick. “I heard you!”

“Well, do you admit it?” Bill cried from his chair. “Do you? If you don't you're a Royal fool!”

Nick's impassive eyes were fixed on Bill's, frozen to a cold blue.

“Ever since last night, you've been playing the angry and noble martyr.” Bill rushed on in a nervous fever, hands trembling violently. “By George, I'll have you know I'm just as much anti-Fascist as you are, even though I haven't had the opportunity to shoot any in Spain!”

Nick's face had flushed, but his eyes retained their fixed frigid intensity, half angry, half fearful . . . indeed, Bill's quavering voice sounded slightly maniacal.

“Well?” Bill shouted chokingly.

“I wonder,” Nick purred with contemptuous suspicion.

Bill jumped to his feet and stalked to the door.

“Oh!” he cried, “You're a privileged anti-Fascist, you are! You're the only one in the world!”

Nick stared rigidly at the other.

“You wonder!” mimicked Bill in a rage. “By George, you're not worthy of the movement . . . you're a confounded fool!” Bill tore open the door and plunged into the darkness, slamming the door with a smash.

He stumbled down the deck, choking with anger and humiliation; a mad satisfaction filled him despite all, the blood beating at his temples and intoxicating his whole tumultuous being in a hot rush of gratified rankle.

A voice was calling his name. Bill halted and turned around . . . it was Nick.

“Don't be a dope,” he was yelling from his stateroom entrance. “Come back here.”

Bill stood clenching his fists spasmodically.

“Come on, Everhart!” Nick was laughing. “You're a hot-headed reactionary, you are!”

“I am not a reactionary,” Bill fairly screamed.

Nick was laughing convulsively. Bill turned and stumbled away, muttering under his breath.

“Where are you going?” Nick cried, still laughing. “You know I was only kidding!”

Bill was almost at the poop deck.

“See you tomorrow!” Nick was calling, hooting with laughter. Bill went down the hatchway and back to his focastle, stumbling over a stool as he entered.

Palmer was smoking a cigarette in his bunk.

“Don't kill yourself!” he laughed smoothly.

Bill growled something and vaulted up to his bunk; in five minutes he was asleep again, a deep, exhausted, sated sleep . . .

All night he dreamed chaotic tragic-comedies: Danny Palmer wore a dress and invited him to his bunk; Nick Meade was swinging from the ship's mast, hung by an enraged crew of pro-Fascists; and worse nightmare of all,
Wesley's funeral was being conducted on the poop deck, his body draped in a mottled bedspread was slid over the side and Everhart watched the body sink with horrified fascination; it seemed, also, that the
Westminster
was steaming past a tiny island upon which sat George Day in peaceful contentment, and that when Everhart waved and shouted at his friend, the ship lurched away from the island at a terrific speed. A voice woke Bill. He was in a cold sweat.

“Hey, feller, are you Everhart?”

Bill sat up quickly: “Yes!”

“Monday morning. You're deck mess boy. Dress up 'n come on down to the galley; I'll give you your duties.”

Bill reached for his glasses: “Surely.”

The man went away, but not before Bill caught a glance of him. He wore a Steward's blue uniform. Bill jumped down from his upper berth and washed up, glancing as he did through the porthole. It was very early morning; a cool mist raveled itself over the still, blue mirror of water. Bulls screamed and swooped in the morning sea air, nervously searching for their breakfasts, diving to the surface of the water and pecking quick heads to emerge in a fluttering ascent with dangling silver morsels. Bill, with his head out of the porthole, breathed deeply three times the thrilling, scented air. A red sun was just lifting over the harbor.

Bill dressed up in his old clothes and made for the galley in fine spirits. It was a beautiful morning . . . and a din of activity seemed to hum and clatter all over the
Westminster
. On the deck, seamen were sleepily engaged rolling up cables of rope, under the supervision of a gigantic First Mate with glasses. At the dock moorings, near the gangplank, shouting stevedores were rolling in more barrels of black oil, swinging in Army jeeps, carrying crates and boxes of all kinds. Bill looked around for familiar faces but found none. He went below.

The galley was in a turmoil over breakfast; all kinds of cooks and helpers Bill had never seen before on the ship were there, dressed in white aprons, wearing fantastic cook's caps; they slammed pots, shouted to one another, fried eggs and bacon at the range, roared with laughter in the confusion of steam, cooking smoke, clattering dishes, clanking pans, boom engines throbbing under; and dashed here and there in frantic haste found only in kitchens. Bill began to wonder where they'd all come from.

In the midst of all this noise, Glory's great voice moaned softly above all the rest as he walked calmly about his kitchen, with more dignity and acumen than the others, inspecting the sizzling bacon, opening pots and staring speculatively within, slamming shut oven doors. His
booming basso was chanting, over and over again: “Everybody want to go to Heaven, but no one want to die!” He repeated this chant constantly, as though it were his litany for the new day.

Bill glanced around and saw the steward who had roused him; he was standing and watching the mad spectacle of the kitchen with saturnine approval. Behind him, a ray of young sunlight fell from the porthole. Bill went up to him: “Here I am,” he grinned.

“Deck mess boy? You have nine A.B.'s to serve; get their orders from the galley here.” The Steward motioned Bill to follow and lead him down the gangway to a small room starboard side. A table, covered with a checker cloth, stood in the center; in a corner was a battered old ice box.

“You serve them in here, three meals a day. Get the dishes from the galley. All your sugar, butter, vinegar, catsup and so forth is in this icebox. Keep it cold; the ice is in the refrigerator room near the galley. Get your aprons from the linen keeper forward to port.”

The Steward lit up a cigarette quickly.

“I understand,” said Bill. “I think I'll like this job.”

The steward smiled to himself and left. Bill stood for a moment, undecided.

“Well, Professor Everhart, set the blasted table for breakfast!” he mumbled gleefully, and proceeded to do so
with delighted alacrity. The Steward could afford to smile to himself, he knew very little about the little “deck mess boy,” by George!