50 in 50

She stretched on and on, sleek metal and smooth paint, like something out of a history book. At her stern flapped an orange, white and green flag, while from her funnel trickled a thin streamer of pungent brown smoke. In a crumbling world she was a monument to the might of man and, suddenly, Giulio felt very happy. He was going to board her, travel on her, see this powerful machine in action. Since he was a child of the world's declining years he had known only grounded planes, skeletal cars, silent machines. Despite the danger of his mission he could not help but look forward with anticipation.

It was all he had ever dreamed of and more. The only formality was the actual boarding of the vessel. Sharp-eyed soldiers, weapons ready, guarded the dock against unwelcome visitors, and a uniformed officer examined his papers, stamped them, removed some, and waved him on. A cursory glance through his suitcase followed, then he was aboard. It was like entering the gates of paradise.

A ruddy, smiling purser checked his name on a list and assigned him to a b^rik. The man had a few words of basic Italian and a large vocabulary of gestures. Giulio made an effort not to understand the English.

"There you are, my lad, cabin number 144. Uno, quatro, quatro, do you have that? No kabeesh, ey? Sleep my old son, kip, dormir

there down below, bloody sotto, you know. Catch on? That's grand. Nod away, that's it, cools the brain. And here's a few quid against your month's wages. Soldi, got that? Can't have a man going thirsty. Fine now, move off, bugger avanti. Just follow the sounds of revel-ment and you can have a few jars with your mates to celebrate your voyage to the chosen land. Next."

The roar of masculine voices and laughter grew louder and louder as Giulio progressed down the corridor, until he pushed open the swinging doors of the saloon where the noise burst over him in a cloud of tobacco smoke and shouted Italian. Red-faced men, in shirts and neckties, were serving up great tankards of some dark, foaming beverage to dark-skinned, black-haired men who drank it at a ferocious rate. There were also smaller glasses of an amber fluid that was mixed with water from a jug. As Giulio pushed through to the bar he heard appreciative comments that while it was not good wine and heady grappa, it certainly was worth drinking in its own right. Roll on the ship. Giulio passed over one of the bank notes he had been given, the same, though of a smaller denomination, as those packed into his inner pocket. The Italians were right, the drinks were different but very palatable.

So were the meals. He went through the first one in a bit of a haze, but had joyous memories of a piece of meat big enough to feed a family of ten back home in Hoboken, floury potatoes, golden plates of butter, dark bread. All a dream — that was not a dream. But all too quickly the journey passed. He gained a few pounds on the voyage, enjoyed some massive hangovers and undoubtedly did immense damage to his liver.

The Italian passengers had very little contact with the crew of the ship. This did not appear to be a matter of policy, just that this was a working ship, a freighter for the most part, and the sailors were quite busy. This and the linguistic barrier kept them apart. Though Giulio did volunteer for a working party when one was requested; who knew what technical secrets lay in the bowels of the ship! He discovered little other than that the St. Columba was steam-powered, peat-fired, and built in Cork. All of which he was sure the CIA already knew. In exchange for this fragment of information he spent an exhausting afternoon shoveling peat past a broken conveyor belt from the bin. It was little solace that all of the others suffered as well, and returned to their quarters complaining bitterly and comparing the blisters on their hands.