Fo'castle Waltz

"An' you—you feller with the glasses" (you'd think that I damn Scandihoovian would have known my name by that time) "you quit that goddamned singing and stop that smoking." I had just lit a cigarette during his exchange with the Fat Guy. Everybody else was smoking, and that goddam Swede picks me for a special admonition; that boiled me.

"Like hell I will. What the hell—who d'hell—I'll goddam well sing and smoke as much as I goddam well wanta— The hell you say—"

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He shouted and waggled his finger at me from up there but I was shouting and too mad to hear anything. I scrambled out of my bilge and standing on the bottom of that ship dressed in a smear of bilge goo and my last pair of shoes I screamed up at that Mate for quite a spell—giving better than I took. I was fighting for my inalienable right to sing and smoke as I worked, but somehow my argument seemed to center on the three pair of shoes I'd ruined for the lousy forty dollars a month I was getting, while the A.B.'s—with their fine fancy hip boots stood around getting sixty-five dollars a month—and I wound up:

"Put your fancy A.B.'s in the bilges with their fancy hip boots, and then I'll get back to work the bilge, and not till then."

The Mate exploded up there against the blue sky.

"You— You— Get back in that bilge and get to work."

"You put your A.B.'s in—"

I indicated the Polack in his big boots. I guess he understood it was not personal; he was just a symbol and he served willingly. He grinned at me and gave me the wink.

"You get back to work, or I'll come down."

"I don't give a goddam what you do. I ain't going back in that bilge—"

The Mate glowered down at me with his mouth clamped shut. Even from that distance I could see the veins swelling out on the sides of his neck. Then he swung his leg over the top rung of that thin iron ladder and started down.

Nobody said a word. Al, Mush, and the Fat Guy, who had made up a low-voiced chorus of attaboys, you tell 'em, kid, to my fiery accolade, had shut up. The only sound in that big empty hold was the regular scrape of the Mate's feet on the iron rungs. The sun was almost overhead. One blazing ray shot down through the hatch and played on his white shirt as he climbed down that long, thin ladder. I'd never noticed how straight it was before. It was a pretty lengthy strip of thin iron to be so straight. The guys in the bilges stayed where they were. None of them moved; only their eyes followed the Mate's shirt down.

Dramatic—huh? That's what I thought.

When the Mate reached the bottom of the ladder he came at me with his head lowered, his eyes tough under the visor of his cap. He stood in front of me with his fists on his hips for a moment as he eyed me, softening me up. Then he pointed stiffly toward the bilge and in a low tense voice he said:

"Get back in that bilge."

"I told you what I think about that. You put your A.B.'s in there with their—"

"Sh-u-t up," he shouted. "Are you going to turn to—or ain't you?"

"NO—I ain't."

"Very well then— You come up to the bridge—at once— right now—"

And he turned and climbed back up the long ladder. I looked over at my buddies in the bilges. They all looked as if this was very serious. Mush had that worried pop in his eyes again. Al and the Fat Guy stared up after the Mate, then back at me, and gave me a somber sympathetic shake of the head and said nothing.

I climbed the ladder. When I reached the deck I saw the Mate was already halfway up the ladder to the Captain's deck. So the bastard's going to put a flea in the Captain's ear before I can have my say— We'll see about that. I scrubbed myself down quickly in the drum of kerosene, ran back aft and took my bucket bath, dashed forward again to get clean dungarees— you couldn't carry any bilge or deck filth up on the bridge —and since my last pair of shoes was covered with bilge scum I raced up to the bridge barefooted.

The Mate had already done his stuff, and he stood there in the wheelhouse with his hands clasped behind his back giving me the evil eye. Perry was at the wheel. He had a box seat to this drama and by the quivering of his leg I could see he felt it.

Captain Brandt stuck his head out the chartroom door.

"Come in here, boy."

"Yes, sir."

"H-m-m, close that door."

I did and stood there waiting while he turned his back and shuffled over to a desk chair and sat down. His coat fell open; he was wearing no shirt and his vest dangled open too. That was the first time I'd ever been in the chartroom. It looked like a small architectural drafting room with charts, tables, and a couple of stools. It felt clean, bright and modern—a nice place to work.

The Captain wiped his glasses on a fresh handkerchief and he set them on his nose deliberately. Then he leaned back looking over them and said, slowly:

"Boy!—the Mate tells me you refuse to turn to."

"No, sir—that's not it, not exactly. You see, I—"

His eyebrows already high went higher. His cap rode with them.

"H-m-m— No?"

"No, sir, what I mean— I—"