Trustee From the Toolroom (31 page)

'That's right,' said his captain. 'You bought all the chow except the cornmeal, which was mostly maggots anyway, which didn't cost me nothing. That squares it off.'

Keith said patiently, 'The chow didn't cost a hundred dollars. Most of it came from the
Cathay Princess
at English wholesale prices. There's a good bit owing to you.'

'Aw, forget it,' said his captain. 'You sailed the ship half the time. I didn't pay you no wages.'

Keith stared at him helplessly; he knew better than to cross this man. 'That's not right,' he said. 'We agreed I'd pay a hundred dollars for the passage. The food came to about forty dollars. There's about sixty dollars due to you.'

' I got plenty to be going on with,' said Jack. ' I got forty, fifty dollars to get back out of that bank tomorrow.'

'I'd like to pay you what we said,' said Keith. 'Honestly I would.'

' Okay,' said his captain amiably. ' You pay me sixty dollars when the bank let go of it. Then I pay you seaman's wage, sixty dollars a month and keep. You give it me if you can get it from that bank, 'n I give it back to you. Then we'll be all square.'

His mind was made up and there was no use arguing with him; Keith had had this before. 'I tell you one thing,' he said presently. Til leave the little generator set here, in the
Mary Belle.'

Jack stared at him. 'Leave that here, with me?'

'That's right. This ship hasn't got a motor. She ought to have one.'

' Gee, Mr Keats, I couldn't take that!'

' I won't want it, Jack. I'd like you to have it.' He did not have much difficulty in persuading his captain to accept it. The big man held it reverently in his great hand. ' Smallest in the world,' he breathed. ' Say, I wonder what they're going to think of this in Huahine!'

Keith glanced at the bottle, which was practically empty. ' I'll get another bottle of petrol tomorrow sometime, and some lubricating oil, and a little oil-can. Then you'll be all fixed up.'

They slept presently, and in the morning Keith spent a couple of hours cleaning up the ship, which certainly needed it. Then he went up to the bank with Jack Donelly and, somewhat to his surprise, they were both repaid their dollars in full; he was not to know that Captain Petersen had been active in the city before him. In the bank he went through the ceremony of paving Jack Donelly sixty dollars for his passage and Jack counted it out carefully and paid it back to him as wages. They then went back to the
Mary Belle
and Keith picked up his suitcase.

Til be back on board this afternoon,' he said. 'I'll bring that bottle of petrol and the oil-can.'

He set off, carrying his suitcase, towards the
Flying Cloud,
now moored at the Grand Quai taking on water by a hose. A white-clad sailor from the yacht came hurrying to meet him, and took the suitcase from him.

He walked down the gangway on to the deck of the
Flying Cloud,
an incongruous figure perspiring in his rather inexpensive blue suit purchased in Baling and suitable for the, English climate. Captain Petersen came out of the wheelhouse and welcomed him aboard. ' I'll show you your cabin,' he said. ' It's the one that Mr Ferris uses normally, with a private bath. I think you'll find it comfortable.'

In the luxury of the cabin Keith said diffidently, 'I think I'll have to get something lighter to wear - tropical clothes of some kind. This suit's too hot altogether, and I can't go round this ship in a pair of bathing trunks, like I did with Jack Donelly.'

'Lots of them do that,' remarked Captain Petersen. ' You'd be surprised. Middle-aged women, too, in not much more.' He glanced at the blue suit. 'That suit will be fine for Tacoma in the winter, and we'll probably be there before so long. Clothes are a problem on this kind of trip.' He opened the door of a big wardrobe. ' Say, Mr Ferris, he leaves quite a bit of stuff on board, and you're much the same build. I'd pull out some of these suits, see if they will fit you, before buying anything. It's not worth it, just for a few days.'

Keith glanced at the array of gleaming Dacron and silk tropical suits, the white neckties, the white shoes. 'Are you sure that will be all right?' he asked.

The captain nodded. 'Sure. I'll get everything washed and cleaned before he comes again. He'd want you to have the use of the things, and there's no sense in buying anything.'

He left Keith in the cabin. He had a very welcome shower, his first for a month, and dressed in the soft linen and the light hot-weather grey suit of a wealthy American. He went out a little self-consciously and up into the deck lounge, where he ran into the thirty-year-old red-headed woman that he knew as Mrs Efstathios. She got up to welcome him.

'Say,' she said, 'you must be Mr Keith Stewart. I've heard such a lot about you. My name's Dawn Ferris, and my Pop owns this ship. He never uses it, but he just likes to have it around. Aren't those his clothes you're wearing ?'

Keith was embarrassed. 'I hope it's all right,' he said. 'Captain Petersen told me it would be.'

She laughed. 'Sure. Everyone that comes on board uses Pop's clothes. He's never here to use them himself. Say, I remember when you came aboard in Honolulu, only I didn't know who you were then. When did you arrive here ?'

'We got in the day before you. The day before yesterday.'

'You must have made a quick trip - we didn't waste any time. Mr Hirzhorn, he got really worried about you going in that little boat, without any motor or anything. Say, that big ape who caroeori board with you -1 forget his name — is he here, too?'

'Jack Donelly? Oh yes, he's here. The
Mary Belle's
moored farther up the quay, that way. You can't' mistake her j she's the only boat that's got tanned sails.'

'Is that so? I got some shopping to do presently; I'll take a look and see. Captain Petersen was saying we'd be leaving in the morning for the Tuamotus.'

Keith nodded. 'I've got to go there to see about my sister's grave. I'd like to leave as soon as the headstone's finished. That's supposed to be tonight. Will you be coming with us?'

She said, 'Well now, I don't know. I've seen the Tuamotus so many times, and it seems like this would be a kind of private party. The Captain says he'll have to come back here anyway to bring the pilot back before leaving for Seattle. I was thinking maybe I'd move into the hotel for three or four days while you're away, and explore the island.'

'I should think that would be very interesting,' said Keith.

' It might be;' she said doubtfully. ' They all speak French here and I don't, which makes things kind of complicated.'

They chatted together for a little in the deck saloon. Then she said, 'Time I went on shore if I'm going. Say, if I'm not back on board for lunch, tell the captain not to wait. If I find a decent looking restaurant that can understand what I'm saying, I'll eat there.'

She picked up a broad-brimmed sun hat with a gaudy ribbon, and went off, and up the gangway to the quay. Keith went out on deck and started to explore the polished cleanness of the ship, an entrancing occupation. The boatswain found him and showed him the anchor winch forward and the winches at the foot of each mast. 'All hydraulic from a central power generator in the engine room,' he said proudly. 'Used-to be manual, except the anchor winch, which was a great big electric cow of a thing. When Mr Ferris bought the ship, first thing he did was rip all that lot out and send down his engineers from Cincinnati to make a proper job of her. She's all hydraulic now, steering and all. Ferris Hydraulics.'

Keith was very interested indeed, and spent some time examining the winches and their reduction gears, which evoked his admiration for their clean and efficient design. From the deck the boatswain passed him on to the chief engineer, who took him down into the spotless engine room to show him the power generator, the main diesel, and the stand-by diesel. He spent an hour of sheer delight down there, and was finally discovered there by the steward, telling him that lunch was ready. He had spent the morning with machinery so clean that he hardly had to wash his hands.

He sat down happily to lunch with Captain Petersen, and gave him the message from Mrs Efstathios.

On shore Dawn Ferris wandered through the town, looked unintelligently at the big cathedral, wandered back to the waterfront and looked at the French frigate with the sailors with red pom-poms on their naval caps, and wandered along the quay looking vaguely for a restaurant, past rows of native fishing boats and yachts. Near the end of the row she came upon the
Mary Belle,
which she recognized by the tanned sails. Jack Donelly was sitting on the foredeck with his legs dangling over the side, fishing with a handline; a little pile of small, silvery fish lay on the deck beside him. He did not believe in buying food when there was food in the sea. He wore a pair of old blue jeans and nothing else; with his deeply bronzed torso he was a fine figure of a man.

Dawn stopped, and said, 'Hullo, big boy!'

Jack looked up, replied, 'Hullo,' and went on fishing.

She asked, ' What are you catching ?'

He jerked a little fish out of the water and added it to the pile. 'These.'

'Are they good to eat ?'

'I guess so. They look all right.'

'Are you having them for dinner ?'

The conversation was taking his mind off fish, but anyway he had enough. Enough, maybe, for two. ' I guess so,' he said. 'Fish fried with cornmeal fritters are good chow.'

She was suddenly weary of the sophisticated meals on board the
Flying Cloud,
and she had difficulty in understanding the French writing on the restaurant menus. ' Cornmeal fritters!'

He raised his head.' Say, can you cook cornmeal fritters ?'

'Can I cook cornmeal fritters! Try me and see.'

He got to his feet, an amiable giant about six feet four in height in his bare feet, all bronzed. ' Come on down, 'n let's see how you can do it. I'll fetch the sack aft into the cabin.'

In the
Flying Cloud
Keith Stewart was enjoying his first civilized meal for a month, not altogether sorry to be relieved of the somewhat monotonous diet of the
Mary Belle.
Over lunch he told Captain Petersen that he had given the little generator set to Jack Donelly in lieu of passage money. 'He's a nice kind of guy,' said the captain. 'He may not know much navigation, but he seems to get from A to B without it. Did you help him much upon the way ?'

Keith shook his head. ' I learned to take a noon sight for latitude. The officers of the
Cathay Princess
taught me. But the course was only a point or two east of south, and there was never much more than a hundred miles difference between my sight and his dead reckoning. He'd have got here perfectly all right without my sights.'

The captain laughed. ' Takes us all down a peg or two. It's wonderful the way they do it.' He^paused.' Make a good boatswain,' he said thoughtfully. 'I'd rather have him in the ship than some of the ones we got.'

He sat smoking with the captain for a time, and then went on shore and bought a little oil-can at a hardware store, with an empty bottle, and took them to a filling station to get filled with petrol and oil. With these in hand he walked along the quay to the
Mary Belle.
Jack Donelly was sitting in his blue jeans in the companion, looking at peace with the world and very pleased with himself.

Keith went down the gangplank to the aft deck and stepped over the tiller. ' I brought the gas and oil for the little motor,' he said. He showed them to the captain.

'Gee, that's real nice,' said Jack. 'Right kind o' gas and right kind of oil ?'

Keith nodded.

Jack was very pleased; everything in the world was rosy. 'That'll keep her going a long time.'

Til just take them down and put them on the shelf,' said Keith. 'Then you'll be all set.'

Jack did not move his big frame from the companion. 'Don't go down just yet,' he said in a low tone, but distinctly. 'Wait while she gets her dress on.'

Keith stared at him in horror. 'Wait while
who
gets her dress on?'

'The red-head,'Jack informed him. 'Some foreign name I forget. But she don't talk foreign.' He added thoughtfully, 'or act foreign, either.' He broke into a happy smile.

Keith thought only of escape from this situation. He thrust the bottle of gas and the oil-can into Jack Donelly's hands. 'Here, take these,' he said. 'I'll come over and see you later.'

'Okay,' said Jack phlegmatically. 'Be seeing you.' Friends and women, he knew, never really mixed.

Keith fled up the gangplank and walked rapidly away up the quay towards the
Flying Cloud.
On deck he passed Captain Petersen and said something incoherent about going to lie down in his cabin, and went and hid himself below. His first instinct was to keep well out of sight and avoid a meeting with Dawn Ferris. Whatever her problem was, he didn't want to get mixed up in it.

He lay on his bunk petrified with terror, waiting for the storm to break, till the steward tapped on the door and entered at about five o'clock. ' Captain says he's sending up a boy with a hand truck to fetch the gravestone,' he said. 'He wanted to know if you'd like to walk up with him, see the stone before it leaves the yard.'