Fo'castle Waltz

Perry, the old Sailing Man, and a few others said later the Second had a right to do as he did—and they looked at me accusingly when a few lumpy dark clouds appeared on the horizon a couple of days later. They brought us a quick gush of rain that lasted for half an hour; then the sun came out again and stayed as long through the day as it rightfully should, until we dropped anchor early one morning alongside the most beautiful green hill I've ever seen.

The guys said that was Staten Island—we were in the Channel that separates that Island from the Jersey shore. It is strange. I never saw that hill before or since—and I've lived on Staten Island, I've visited it time and again (some of my wife's friends), and I've been there on business. Perhaps it can only be seen from the deck of a patched-up little freighter with clean bilges and an empty hull, fresh back from the muddy coast of Argentina and its Nord-American-hating people who lived there in those days.

We lay in quarantine a while and then were towed to a dock on the Jersey side. Some of the old guys said, pointing out a string of battered ships riding at anchor, that that was the bone-yard—the grave of many a good ship. The ships were tied uji along that coast, stripped of their valuables, and their empty dead hulks lay there until somebody decided when or where they are to be sunk or sold for scrap. The old guys shivered a little and didn't talk much in the presence of the dead ships.

That was where the S.S. Hermanita anchored after her last voyage and died.

It wasn't until the next day that we lined up in the officers' mess, received our discharge papers, and were paid off. Everyone in the deck crew was packed up and ready to get away from that ship hours before the Purser laid out his books on a table and the Mate and Captain sat on either side during the payoff.

As we stood around I talked with the guys I'd hung around with. I wrote down their names on a long strip of paper. They were a good bunch and I hoped to hear and see them again sometime. For some reason their names surprised me as I read them over, waiting in the line-up at the payoff table. Their names made them strangers to me. A guy I had known as Bird-neck had a long Slovak surname—and stranger yet, his first names were Stanislaw Vladimar. Perry was elegantly Castillian; Joe as British as a Yorkshire pudding. I put that slip into my pocket to step up and sign for my pay and get my discharge papers. But I must have put it in the pocket with the hole in it—it disappeared along with that green hill and all that crew. I never saw any of them again—after everybody shook hands with everybody else and promised to look everybody up sometime.

With an enigmatic smirk Captain Brandt handed me my discharge papers. I didn't look at them until I was out on the deck and alone. Then it struck me right between the eyes—what goes on here? My rating, on the little square on that printed form reserved for conduct, was marked—very good! What the hell is this—?

Did my mutiny count for nothing?

I had no official record of my one-man mutiny—the brig, my irons, living on bread and water. I had nothing to talk about. Were they trying to gag me or cover up their sewer-puddle seamanship? Did that old sea turtle have some underhanded, crooked scheme to undermine my character—by word of mouth or something—or did he plan to keep the Log which must contain an entry of my mutiny until the proper occasion arose and then flash it when it would do the most harm?

After I'd regained my composure I faced the problem squarely and decided prompt action was necessary.

It was not that I distrusted Captain Brandt, but what if he presented only his side of the story and did not explain the pourquoi of my mutiny. I felt, since I'd met Captain Flint, the Port Captain, socially, he might say something to that man who helped organize the Havana Shipping Board. He, in turn, might speak to Mr. Grub—and so down the line or up. I'd be ruined socially and it might affect my career as a sculptor, if I were to get a reputation for being an uncooperative maverick.

With that thought in mind I hastily found a phone booth as soon as I left the dock to call Captain Flint. I'd explain what happened as sympathetically as I could, concerning my little mutiny—and not speak harshly, though firmly, about old Captain Brandt (if he put me in a bad light), the Swede Mate and the fumbling Chief Engineer—and, perhaps, make a few suggestions on how that sort of thing could be avoided in the future. I cheerfully dropped a nickel in the slot and hummed a bit of a tango I'd remembered from one of the bordellos in Rio Santiago.

I finally got through to Port Captain Flint.

"Hello, is this Captain Flint?"

"Yes," barked the old sea dog.

"This is Louis Slobodkin, Captain Flint. Remember me? I'm that artist who shipped out on the S.S. Hermanita. Remember, Captain Flint?"

"Yes, what do you want?" The bark had become a growl.