The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal (7 page)

Ah, hah,
I thought: the loan.

Nils shook his head and Parley said, "Well, come by an' see your ol' friend when you get back. I'll buy you a whiskey."

Nils walked to the wagon.

The second man looked very old.

"Who are you?" the saloonkeeper asked.

"Mumford."

Parley demanded, "Open your mouth, Mumford."

There wasn't a tooth in it. Parley squinted at the sailor. "How old are you?"

"Fifty-seven."

Parley grunted. "Poppycock. You been fifty-seven for twenty years.
Conyers
can't use you."

The old man's shoulders slumped and he shuffled off. I felt sorry for him.

It went that way through thirteen or fourteen more men, Parley Bakerby hiring three-quarters of them. Then, suddenly, I was at the table looking down at that nose with little, leafy red lines in it.

"Why are you here?" the shipping master asked.

I replied, "Cap'n Reddy said to sign me on as steward's boy. Dollar a week."

Parley Bakerby laughed. That's all. He made no other comment but looked at me closely as he shoved the articles toward me, pushing out the pen at the same time.

I did not get beyond the first paragraph when Bakerby said gruffly, "Boy, don't read it, just sign it. I ain't got all day."

I did as directed.

Then he shoved another paper across, and I filled that in.

While he was filling in his section, I looked at another piece of U.S. Government paper displayed on that table:

SCALE OF PROVISIONS TO BE
ALLOWED AND SERVED OUT TO CREW
DURING VOYAGE

Bakerby's voice jarred my thoughts as it occurred to me that we'd be eating a lot of potatoes. "Throw your bag in that wagon," he said. There was no good-bye, good luck, or offer of a loan. By the time I picked up my seabag, he was already towing the table back into Hudgins & Hurst and I was an official crew member of the
Christine Conyers.
There was nothing special about any part of it.

Soon, along with the rest, I was walking behind the double-horse wagon, about to start my long-awaited career. After a half block of plodding, with us looking like pallbearers behind a load of canvas sacks, I maneuvered up beside Nils, who was grizzled and hunch-shouldered, with a square face and hooky nose. I told him about the skinny sailor who'd warned me not to come aboard the
Conyers.

Nils said back, "There are one or three or more of them on every ship. They ain't happy 'less they mumble 'bout food an' the work an' the cap'n an' the bosun an' the cockroaches. They ain't happy till they make everybody else unhappy. They're mostly mouth an' ain't worth a damn themselves. Sea lawyers, they're called, worse than the land kind."

So much for that. "Is the captain really crazy?"

He looked down and over to reply. "Yes an' no," with a chuckle added.

"Does he throw sugar into the sea to rise a breeze?"

"Yep. That don't make him crazy."

"He sing from the bowsprit?"

"Sometimes."

I said, "He asked whether I like music and cats."

Nils laughed. "He owns a mangy cat an' plays the pump organ an' shoots at waterspouts."

He sounded crazy to me. "They don't like him at Jordan's."

Nils laughed and laughed. "That was in his drinkin' an' gamblin' days. He used to beat Jordan at five-card stud, and once Jordan was slow payin' up. So Joe Reddy hired a horse an' galloped in there an' shot up the molasses jugs. They had a helluva time moppin' that stuff up."

"I've never heard of a cap'n like him," I said.

Nils replied, "He's slowed down now, but ain't above usin' his fists if you git uppity."

"Why do you sail with him?"

Nils eyed me. "The
Conyers
works harder'n any, but the pay is good an' she feeds well. Never mind the cap'n if you watch your tongue an' do your job. Only man to keep in mind is the bosun. He's a stomper."

My gills were dry as we plodded on along Front Street.

F
OR THOSE
who do not know much about seafaring before the wind, a bark, which is not short for barkentine, is considered a full square-rigger, having mostly square sails, with fewer, smaller fore-and-aft (schooner) sails. A barkentine, on the other hand, has a combination of square sails and equally large schooner sails. Even on the Banks, people sometimes mixed them up, saying "barkentine" when the ship lying off was actually a full-fledged square-rigger, as was the
Conyers.
A pure windjammer.

Soon I stood on the pitch-seamed, scrubbed deck of Cap'n Reddy's vessel, seabag at my feet, and looked up the tall masts—fore, main, mizzen, and after, with crossing spars, the yards—mouth wide open, wondering if fd have the hardiness to climb clear to the royals, the topsails of all. The rest of the crew had already disappeared forward with their gear.

In a moment of cherished dream, I could almost see myself up there on a yardarm, the captain shouting to me, "Ben, give a look to that lee mizzen brace."

"Aye, aye, sir." A fond hope, perhaps to come true.

"Vel, vat you doin standin'?" yelled the bosun, looming suddenly. "Go to de Bravaman."

I had no idea what a Bravaman was, nor his location. I was struck speechless as the bucko mate glared down at me.

"Go to de fo'c'sle," Gebbert roared, lifting a boot toe, and I scurried that way. I well knew what the fo'c'sle was: the forecastle, or forward house, near the bow, where the crew lived.

En route, I chanced on the skinny sailor who'd given me the high sign not to dare come aboard the previous day, and learned his name was Barney. He came from a place called Jersey City.

"You did it, anyway," he said. "You'll be sorry."

"Had to," I replied, and quickly explained about Reuben down in the Caribbean.

"Watch out for that bosun," he warned.

I said I surely would.

In a moment, the two tipsy sailors came by, laughing and joking. That lasted just long enough for the bosun to grab them both by their collars and run down the deck with them full bore. Just before he reached the afterhouse, he let go of them. They drove on into the wood, their heads hitting like ripe melons, or so it sounded. They fell back on their behinds.

The bosun said to them, "Sober up."

Yes, he was a man to watch out for, I thought as I continued uneasily on to the fo'c'sle in search of the Bravaman, and I soon found him in the galley, which was mostly occupied by a big, six-hole coal range. A sink, chopping block, food shelves, and lockers took up the rest of it. On one bulkhead—wall—was a small statue of the Virgin Mary.

Meeting up with a Bravaman was to see someone smoking a long cigar, short and tubby, dark of skin, hair, and eyes, wearing a stained towel around his neck beneath which hung a small gold cross on a chain. I stood there nervously and said I was the new boy. He looked me over and said something like "Bong dia." That was not the way we spoke on the Banks, and I had no answer.

He laughed and said, "You work for me, you learn Portuguese." And that's exactly what
bong dia
was, just a cheerful good morning. That ship was full of foreigners and I won't attempt to spell it out the way he talked. His
j's
sounded like
s's;
so did his
g's.
His voice rose and fell like fast tides. "In" was "om" and "bom" was "bong."

Anyhow, Eddie Cartaxo had bad feet and limped along the deck as he took me aft. Everyone called him either Eddie or the Bravaman, the latter because he was from Brava, in the Cape Verde Islands, of which I'd never heard. They were off Dakar, Africa, he said, another far place.

Finally he showed me my bunk, and my mouth sagged.

***

Despite the maze of stout wire rigging, the spotless
Conyers
was a very simple but rugged ship, made of white oak and yellow pine, held together by galvanized-iron bolts. On the port side of the fo'c'sle was the galley; directly forward of it were two cabins filled with crew bunks and an eating table. On the starboard was the donkey steam engine and the carpenter shop. The donkey engine powered the windlass to raise the anchor, ran the pumps, and could hoist sails if Cap'n Reddy so chose.

Just ahead of the forward house, down a small hatch, was storage space for paint, tar, oil, rope, salt meat, coal, and other things. The anchor chain locker was up there, too. The cargo hatches, already battened down, were between the fo'c'sle and the afterhouse.

The fine tongue-and-groove afterhouse, just forward of the great, spoked helm (the steering wheel), was a little lower than the fo'c'sle. Entry was down a five-step companionway. In the paneled afterhouse was the captain's bedroom, with a double bed; bathroom, with a full-sized porcelain tub; chartroom; after cabin, in which rested the Chicago-made organ, bolted down; a dining saloon and rooms for the mates, bosun, and Eddie; a spare room for passengers. All in shining mahogany.

Then there was the narrow pantry, between the ice chest and the bosun's room, with a sink and serving board. Shelves with dishes and glasses, bowls and platters, tea and biscuit tins lined either side of it thwartships, and on the starboard side, beneath a square-window port, was a small bunk on which rode an old straw mattress and a dirty pillow. It was there I was to exist, among a thousand different smells, right under the bosun's nose. With mixed feelings, I unpacked and then went forward.

The galley range was firing up for dinner, and the Bravaman instructed, "Fill the coal bin but don't get any dust on deck. That bosun'll throw you in the chain locker and let the anchor loose." Him again.

So I began carefully lugging the soft Pocahontas nuggets up the ladder and out the forward hatch, holding the canvas bag tightly, keeping a weather eye open for Johann Gebbert. No longer was there any doubt about that German.

I will not bother with all the details of that long, confused day, but I spent a good part of it peeling potatoes while the
Conyers
was being prepared for sea. I well remembered that the official paper on Parley Bakerby's table said each crew member would receive one pound per day. By my calculation, I would skin upward of one hundred forty pounds a week, hardly my idea of sailors' work. Nor was feeding the captain's cat, cleaning his bathtub (about which he was finicky), making his bed, and dusting his cabin, as well as serving all meals aft. Those chores, among others, was what a steward's boy did, according to the Bravaman. Why didn't they just call it a trash-fish servant?

Sitting in the river breeze on the after side of the fo'c sle, just outside the sliding galley door, peeling away, I thought of Tee and Boo to get my mind off
batatas,
as Eddie called them. Soon this day, the pair would be arriving in New York City, a place Tee had previously visited. She'd check into a fine hotel and then make arrangements for her passage. Already, she was living the life of ease, as was the hound. With each passing moment, I was more and more sorry that I hadn't put more stock in going to the N&W yards, as Mrs. Crowe had suggested. Or I wouldn't have minded a job polishing that Winton automobile.

About four o'clock, I finished approximately twenty pounds of Northern Neck spuds, and the rest of the sundown time was devoted to feeding the captain (he barely acknowledged me) and his spooky-eyed Siamese cat, plus the mates. Then I washed the supper dishes and cleaned the pantry and went forward again to help the Bravaman.

While doing so, I said to Eddie, "You sure are dark."

"My mother was Senegambian and my father white Portuguese, but there is also Moorish blood on my mother's side." I wasn't sure what a Senegambian or a Moor was, but we had some half Arabs on the Banks and maybe that was close. The Wahabs, shipwrecked in the 1700s, were on the brown side.

"I'm cockney British and Irish mixture, so I'm told," I said. "Not a person on those Banks that wasn't originally thrown ashore. All castaways."

Eddie laughed. "Everyone has to be something."

"These Verde Islands, where exactly are they?" I asked.

"About two hundred miles off Dakar, about sixteen hundred to Brazil. How they ever got named green I don't know. There are many volcanos. Fogo, not my home, is the Island of Fire, with a volcano ten thousand feet high, always smoking."

"Never seen a volcano," I said.

"Well, you come to Cape de Verdes, you'll see them. Many beaches have black sand instead of white sand. But in the valleys, out of the wind, where I live, it is green, and we grow yams and oranges and tobacco. In two more trips, I'll go back to my wife and children. We have a nice stone house—volcano rock—with a thatch roof."

"What'll you do then?"

"Farm and fish. Brava, the southmost island, is good for that."

I put down the Cape de Verdes as another place to go sometime on my journeys, especially that Fogo.

About eight-thirty, the bosun stuck his head into the galley. He asked Eddie whether or not the passenger cabin was clean.

Eddie replied, "
Está bem,
" which I took to mean yes, or something like that.

Gebbert said, "Vee got some people comin' aboard tonight."

Eddie said, "I hope they like stew."

I couldn't have cared less. Never so exhausted in my life, I got into my bunk in that stuffy pantry about nine o'clock and was asleep before I could think of anything more than aching muscles.

All the great sails had been bent on, ready for hoisting. All the cargo, food, water, and ice were aboard. Crew and officers and weary steward's boy aboard.

We'd voyage on the morrow.

C
AP'N
R
EDDY
shouted, "Single up fore 'n' aft," meaning to take most of the lines off the dock, ready the ship for easing out into the channel.

Though I'd been on the move since 4
A.M.,
helping the Bravaman in the galley, any pesky doubts I'd had about the glories of the sea had vanished just after orange sunrise, when the tug
Mary Clark,
of the Joseph Clark Towing Company, came alongside. Feeling tingly all over, I now knew positively what Reuben had meant when he talked about it briefly. It was deep in the salt of my blood, this call of the wind and waves. Yet I had no idea what to do. Already the bosun had almost run me down when taking the tug hawser aboard. All hands were turned out and busy.