Fo'castle Waltz

He might have meant the Count of Monte Cristo, but I couldn't be sure, never having seen him read anything but the cheap pulp magazines I've mentioned earlier. By not too great a stretch of the imagination there could have been some parallel drawn between Dumas' hero and the figure I presented as I climbed up on the messdeck. I never read the book, but in the movie version I'd seen Edward Dantes had been played by a pompous young English actor whose scattered whiskers during the first few reels were not unlike mine—he too needed a haircut and was barefooted. The point of departure in our resemblance was my glasses—perhaps the Prisoner of Zenda had bad eyes too. I never got around to that book, either.

The Mate led me to the crew mess and told Flip to dig up some dinner for me. The old guy was glad to see me back and free again, and he served me with a cheerful chuckle. I didn't have much chance to talk to Al or the fat Sailing Man (Mush was off my list) as we swept out the number one bilges. The Mate sat up on the comer of the open hatch most of the afternoon—to quell my spirit, I suppose, if mutiny should once more well up from my depths of despair, or if I felt like singing again.

It was not until that evening up on the poop that I realized Mush, alone, was the only guy aboard who was scared to back me up. The crew was with me to a man. Though they admired and credited me with plenty of guts, they were disappointed I'd given in so soon. They had been working on plans to saw through the wooden bulkhead that separated the brig from our cabin. Chips was coming through with a saw from his stores. Philip was cacheing food from the officers' mess to feed me proper. Perry was going to give me the lowdown on my legal rights, and Joe, who was the most disappointed of all, had planned to direct my campaign on how to break the Mate. He shook his head and wished I'd held out till that evening at least and he'd have had a chance to tell me how to run a mutiny. He had had lots of experience.

One time—on one of those long voyages he'd made to Australia—he and two other guys had mutineed. They were all big fellows and on that crowded little freighter there wasn't any room for a brig. The Mate had shackled the three big mutineers to the metal rails that ran along their bunks in the fo'castle. They sat around and smoked or slept quietly through the day and came that first night they began getting in their licks. The First Mate is the police department aboard a ship and he is the keeper of the keys—of the brig, shackles, etc. Comes trouble, his responsibility as a jailer is added to his regular duties—his watch on the bridge from four in the morning to eight and from four in the afternoon to eight in the evening.

About one o'clock in the morning, while the Mate was sleeping fast so he could roll out for his early morning turn to, one of the mutineers raised his voice and shouted into the darkness for the man on watch.

"What's the matter?"

"Get the Mate, will ya? I gotta go to the can. I'm all cramped up."

So the man on watch roused the Mate who climbs down, unlocks the big bellyacher, leads him to the can, and stands around blinking sleepily until the guy has done his stuff, slowly. The Mate leads him back to his bunk, locks him up again to the iron rail, and goes off to get some more sleep, he hopes. About four bells (two o'clock) mutineer number two howls for the man on watch— Get the Mate, etc., etc. The sleepy Mate suggests maybe either number three or number one feel certain needs.

"What the hell you wake us up for? We were sleeping, weren't we?"

Come half an hour or so after the harassed Mate has climbed back up to his cabin—and mutineer number three goes through the same formula. Why didn't he come along when number two had bellyached?

"Jeezus, Mate, I didn't feel like it then. Can't help it if I didn't feel like it."

By the time the Mate stumbled up to the bridge at four in the morning, he was a very tired guy.

That mutiny lasted three hectic days and three sleepless nights for the Mate, until he broke down with a "now-listen-fellers."

The mutineers blamed their unpredictable bowels on the bread and water diet and general intestinal lassitude on their enforced inactivity. And the mutiny was broken—the mutineers broke it and almost ruined the Mate. He skipped ship in Sydney, Australia.

Naturally, my one-man mutiny could not be managed the same way. I'd be damned if I'd stay awake three nights running to harass this Mate, and besides, he was a shrewd Swede; I was sure he'd have unearthed a chamber pot and put it in my brig. Joe shook his head. It was too bad I'd given in before he had a chance to talk with me. He was sure he could have figured an angle and instructed me on the proper way to carry on a one-man mutiny.

31. The Boneyard