Wide Courses Part 18

"But why does the bosun hound him so? This man was no sooner aboard than the bosun began to crowd him."

"Did he? And perhaps you think the bosun of an oil-tanker's goin' to hand a man a type-written letter every time he wants to have a word with him. He's a good bosun. He knows his business, and he saves me a lot of trouble."

And what the captain did not say, but what Noyes imagined he saw in his eye, was: "And I'll be telling you pretty soon to keep to yourself your opinion of ship's matters."

When Noyes went to his room that night, it was for a stay of two days.

More than a year now since he had been to sea, and the weather pa.s.sing Hatteras had been bad. But now it was the fourth day out, and Hatteras was far astern, and the ship was plunging easily southward, with the white sandy sh.o.r.e of Florida abeam. A fine, fair day it was, with the Caribbean breeze pouring in through the air-port. The pa.s.senger shaved and washed and got into his clothes. Above him he could hear the captain dressing down somebody. He stepped out on deck.

It was two sailors who had complained of the grub, and he had made short work of their complaint. "I'll give you what grub I please. And that's good grub." That and more, and drove the two sailors, with their dinners on their tin mess-plates, down to the deck.

Noyes, who remembered that the company allowed fifty cents a day per man for grub, took a look and a whiff of the protested rations as the men went by. "Phew!" He ascended to the bridge. The captain turned to him.

"Did you see those two? Complaining of the grub, mind you. What do they know of grub? In the hovels they came from they never saw good grub."

Noyes made no answer. He was interested just then in the pump-man, who now came strolling along and presently overtook the protesting sailors.

The better to observe proceedings, Noyes took his station on the chart bridge aft. "And did you fellows think that any polite game of conversation up on the bridge was going to get you a shift of rations?"

the pump-man was saying. "Don't you know that what he saves out of the ship's allowance goes into his own pocket? What you fellows want to do is to go and scare the cook to death--or half way to it. If it's only for a couple of days, it'll help. Here, let's go back and shake him up.

Besides, we might as well start something to make a fellow smile. Most morbid packet ever I was in. You'd think it was a crime to laugh on her.

Come on."

The galley was a little house by itself on the after deck of the ship.

Noyes saw the pump-man call out the cook, and after a time, their voices rising, he heard, "Now, cookie, no more of that slush. Mind you, I'm wasting no time talking to the captain. I'm talking to you. We know that he slips you a little ten-spot every month for keeping down the grub bills; but even if he does, you'll have to dig out something better."

"I'll be giving you what I please."

"You will, will you?" The cook was a good-sized man, and he held a skillet in his hand, but he was taken by surprise. The pump-man whipped the skillet from him, whirled him about, ran him into his galley, and closed and bolted the door behind him. A stove-pipe projected from the roof of the galley. The pump-man climbed up, stuffed a bunch of wet cotton waste into the stovepipe, and with a valve which he seemed to be taking apart, took his stand by the taffrail.

Every few minutes he got up from his valve, put his ear to the door of the shack, and listened. After twenty minutes or so he opened the door, lifted out the cook, and held him over the rail. He was gulping like a catfish.

Noyes looked to see if the captain had witnessed the little comedy.

Evidently he had, for Noyes could hear him swearing.

Noyes, now on the bridge, was still chuckling over the picture of the scared cook when the pump-man came walking forward. He was swinging a pair of Stillson wrenches, one in each hand, as if they were Indian clubs, and singing as he came:

"Our ship she was alaborin' in the Gulf o' Mexico, The skipper on the quarter, with eyes aloft and low.

Says he, 'My bucko boys, it's asurely goin' to blow-- Take every blessed rag from her, strip her from truck to toe, And we'll see what she can make of it.'

And O, my eyes, it blew! And blew and blew, And blew and blew! My soul, how it did blow!

Aboard the _Flying Walrus_ in the Gulf o' Mexico.

"The sea--"

Noyes saw him leap to one side, even as he saw a heavy, triple-sheaved block bound on the steel deck beside him. Noyes looked up. Aloft was the boson, apparently rigging up some sort of a hoisting arrangement.

The pump-man stopped to pull out a handkerchief and wipe his forehead.

Then he, too, looked up. "Fine business. But did you think for a minute you--that I didn't have my eye on you?"

It took the boson a minute or two to find his tongue. When he did, it was to say, "Young fella, did you ship for a opera singer or wot?"

"I shipped for what you'll find my name signed against in the articles, and I'm on the job every minute. And I'll go on singing if it pleases me. And if it pleases me, I'll finish that song, too."

"Not on this ship, you won't, 'less you sing it in your sleep and me not in hearin'."

"I'll finish it on this ship, son. And it won't be in my sleep and you'll be within hearing."

A group of deck-hands snickered, and the boson pretended to climb down from the rigging. "You swine! What the--"

They retreated in terror. "It wasn't at you we was laffin', boson."

"Well, see that yer don't, yer cross-eyed whelps--see that yer don't."

"And do you mean to say, you collection of squashes, that you were laughing at me?" The pump-man, still grasping a wrench in each hand, started across the deck after them. "D'y' mean to--"

Down the gangway they retreated in a body. Noyes looked to the captain, but the captain was looking out over the ship's side.

Noyes went down to luncheon, and after luncheon took his cigar and his book to his room. When next he came out, he felt that something had happened since the little adventure of the falling block. The captain was pacing the bridge by fits and starts. The boson was leaning over the quarter-rail. The pump-man was busy on a small job forward.

The quiet was unnatural. Noyes decided to take his const.i.tutional on the long gangway of the main deck. As he paced aft he saw that some of the crew were laying the hatches on one of the tanks. He paced forward.

By the time he was aft again they were overhauling a large tarpaulin. He watched them while they stretched it over the hatch covers. He wondered what they were about, for the tanks of an empty oil ship are usually left open in fine weather.

Presently he heard one of the men say to another as they stamped down the tarpaulined hatch, "There--there's as good a prize ring as a man'd want." And then he began to understand.

He stayed aft, while through the smoke of one long cigar he thought it out. When he next went forward he stopped beside the pump-man, who was cutting a thread on a section of deck-piping. "Do you mind my watching how you do that trick?" he asked.

The pump-man looked up. "Surely not," adding after a moment, "though there's nothing much worth watching to it."

Noyes noticed how deftly the tools were handled. Then he said, "So you and the big fellow are going to have it out?"

"Yes, during dinner we agreed to settle it."

"But he's a notorious bruiser--liable to kill you."

"Maybe, but I don't think so. I've trimmed 'em bigger."

"Not bigger, if they could fight at all?"

"Maybe they couldn't, but"--from beneath the grease and soot of his face his teeth and eyes flashed swiftly upward--"they said they could."

Noyes took another turn of the long gangway. The tarpaulin was now clamped tightly to the hatch-combings, rendering it smooth and firm under foot. Camp-stools for the princ.i.p.als were also there, and two buckets of freshly drawn water in opposite corners.

"Mr. Kieran"--Noyes had halted again beside the pump-man--"what is it the captain's got against you?"

"Why"--he hesitated--"I don't think he's got anything against me exactly." His next words came slowly, thoughtfully. "He may have something against my kind, though."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you see, a man of the captain's kind can never get a man of my kind to play his game--and he knows it. What he wants around here is a lot of poor slobs who will take the kicks and curses and poor grub, say thank you, sir, and come again."

"But what game does he want you to play?"

"Well, I'm the pump-man. The ship has big bills for valving and piping and repairing. If ever the office got suspicious and called me in on it, why--" he shrugged his shoulders.