Fo'castle Waltz

"Must be the Bos'n's Mate. Heard he's coming on this morning. Looks tough."

"That little fella tough?"

"I've seen 'em like that before—watch 'im. He's tough."

I guessed all the men recognized that quality in the Bos'n. We ate quickly, and nobody stalled after breakfast. As we came back to where we'd left the little Bos'n, we found him flipping hatch covers by himself with the agility of a cat, neatly turning them one on the other and then sliding them down the deck— no mean feat that.

Watching him as we came along, we realized this little man, with his high, sharp cheekbones, his three-cornered eyes set a little aslant in his head, his precise feline movement, was no ordinary sonovabitch—and no one ever called him that. He might have been mothered by a cat—maybe a puma or one of the other slender sinewy members of the family Felidae. He looked like a pale, tawny cat, moved like one, and, as I remember his voice—his high-pitched, yowling voice—he sounded like one. He seldom smiled; when he did, his skin tightened away from sharp, white teeth in a three-cornered grin!

And did he drive us! As I think of it even now, my back creaks—but the crew took it. He didn't stand back and bark his orders but he'd grab hold, and with his face an expressionless blank, say, "Let's turn this, fellers."

As hard as we worked, he was always ahead of us and working harder. The crew had resented the Mate standing with his hands on his hips or astride the upper deck barking orders and driving us on. But nobody felt like stalling when the little guy grabbed something twice as big as himself and weighing three times as much and said quietly; "Now let's turn this."

Those hatch covers he'd been working on alone as we came down from breakfast were a two-man job. Every morning since I came aboard that old tub our first task had been uncovering the hatches. The hatch was covered in sections by heavy, unmanageable planks about eight feet long, two feet wide, and darn near six inches thick, and they weighed a ton, or so it seemed to me. They were laid out in two rows across the hatch, a center beam catching them over the hatch proper.

Somehow or other I'd always be stuck with the end at the crossbeam. The man on the deck end of the hatch cover had something to cling to to give him purchase, but on the hatch itself there was no succor. I'd grab my end and lift and uncover my own ruin every morning—the deep black pit of the hold. If my partner at the other end of the cover were to yank it just a little, I'd be pulled off balance and be bounced ignominiously into that hell hole. I was always polite at my end as I'd sing out with a cheerful lilt to my voice:

"O.K., feller—now easy goes it. Heave—" The hatches were uncovered every morning to air the empty hold, and covered each night to keep the rain out, I imagine. Every evening as we'd cover them I always enjoyed helping pull the big tarpaulin like an immense canvas tablecloth over the hatch. There was something nice about it—it was like handling a big sail. I know the fat Sailing Man enjoyed it, too, for he'd mumble something like "Le's reef her, boys" and under his breath begin a chanty—"As I was a-rollin" or "Whiskey made me go to sea. ...

The Phi Beta Kappa's brother would discourage him with an unsympathetic bird.

"Save yer breath. Fatso, and pull. . . ."

For the next few days longshoremen loaded case oil and a miscellaneous assortment of machinery in our holds.

The Captain came aboard and watched us work from the bridge. I'd passed him a number of times while working with the crew. He never gave me any sign of recognition. Al and Mush looked askance at me, since I'd told them what pals he and I used to be.

Al and the Russian were right about the sailors coming on. New men were joining every day. New men, young guys—unquestionably these were sailors. They came aboard usually with a large canvas roll of duffle slung over one shoulder, balancing this weight with a battered, bulging suitcase. There was a professionalism to them—the way their eye took in the ship and you.

There was a cheerful momentum to the work. Rumor had it we'd be loaded in a day or two; then we'd be signed on and ship out. I worked harder, particularly when I felt the Mate's eye on me. I wanted to sign on—the sailors had said that out at sea the work was easier.

The work on deck seemed clear and clean-cut in spite of the confusion of the unloading. A couple of older men came aboard, too—one, a hard old guy with a face that had been smashed up. He looked like that Mike McTeague, the prizefighter. The other was a wiry, rangy old man with a wild and glittering eye.

One of those last evenings I was dressing to go ashore and pay my folks a last visit. Al was getting into a fancy pair of white pants to call on some people he knew in Long Island. As we dressed, the old man with the glittering eye came into the fo'castle and opened his locker. He swung the door open and turned to us.

"Ya want to see somethin'?"

I looked up from tying my shoelace.