Fo'castle Waltz

That "stuff" was a mountain of garbage piled high on the afterdeck. I guess big ships pay to have their garbage picked up by the garbage scows, but little tubs like this S.S. Hermanita can't afford that luxury, and since you're not permitted to dump your garbage in the New York harbor, the stuff was piled up high on deck and shoveled off when the ships got out at sea. I'd noticed our pile getting higher and higher until it reached the messdeck, and made its presence felt even up on the bridge. I had some vague thought they might be drying it out to sell as fertilizer.

I shouldered my shovel and went back and got to work. All morning I shoveled. But the elements were against me. The wind kept blowing the stuff back at me and back on deck. A few A.B.'s and some of the black gang sat on the hatch and watched my Herculean struggle and cracked wise.

"Use your teeth, kid."

"Push it over."

And one cackling bon mot from old Pat, the oiler who had joined my audience, sent them rolling.

"That's sure shoveling it 'ginst the tide. Hey, boy?"

About noon I finished and went forward to our cabin to pick up some cigarettes and console Mush. He was still abed, his face to the bulkhead.

"How you doin', Mush?" I greeted him cheerily.

"Feel a little better, I guess. Guess I'll get out."

Then he turned his pale face to me.

"Phew! Jeezes, you stink. 0-o-o-h! I feel sick." His eyes rolled a hurt, accusing glance at me as he retched horribly and turned back to the bulkhead with a groan.

It wasn't my fault. I was just trying to cheer him up.

For the next three or four days Mush, Al, the Fat Man, and I worked stowing gear, picking up odds and ends all over the ship. Al was right about the Bos'n. He worked us ragged. The A.B. on watch would join us for a short spell, but the A.B.'s were always favored. They mustn't get too dirty with the greasy cables or any of that stuff since they'd have to take their turn at the wheel—and the wheelhouse and bridge were kept shining bright and clean and must not be messed up with deck filth.

So every morning we four would climb to the Captain's deck with long-handled brooms, the kind the street cleaners use, and a couple of buckets of sand. We'd leave our shoes on the deck below, not that the old Turk, Captain Brandt, was a Mohammedan. That was so we'd not drag any filth up on his wooden deck. We were there to wash it down, not dirty it up. The Bos'n would join us, wearing huge rubber hip boots and dragging a long black water hose attached somewhere to a hydrant on the deck below.

Our job was a simple one and pleasant. We'd roll our dungarees above our knees. Did you know that's why sailors' dungarees and trousers are bell-bottomed—to facilitate rolling? A sophisticated young lady had argued a theory (in my studio some time ago) why sailors' trousers were so snug around the middle—which you may or mayn't dispute. She contended that, since sailors spend so short a time in each port to facilitate amorous conquests and since they have little time to dilly-dally with a prolonged courtship, in the interests of science—to propagate the race of the courageous men of the sea— their trousers were designed snugly for the same reason gentlemen wore padded, embroidered codpieces in the good old days. And since I wear dungarees as I work in my studio and she wore rather thick-lensed glasses and was a complete stranger, I switched the conversation to a more spiritual level—I did not dispute her argument.

Then to return to our morning's schedule. We'd roll our dungarees. The Bos'n would straddle the big black hose, looking more like a cat than ever—a veritable Puss-in-Boots with the hose tailing out behind him. He'd turn the nozzle and shoot a stream of water down the deck. We would throw a few hand-fuls of sand, and then we'd scrub away. I recall, too, that sometimes we'd use a brick-shaped rock attached to a long-handled stick—holystoning the deck—but we couldn't have used it much since I don't remember much about it.

Just about the time we'd finished the Captain's deck—and it looked nice and damp and clean—the Old Man himself would climb up, shuffle across our nice clean job in his old slippers, open the shuttered door of his cabin, and slam it shut without saying a word. No "Good morning, gentlemen"— nothing!

We always met him coming up and only once saw him going down, but that once cleared up a minor mystery which had concerned me for many days.

Captain Brandt's costume on clear sunny days (and there were many of them brittle and clear) never varied. He wore those old leather slippers on his brown bare feet, a clean, white, freshly starched Ship's Officer's suit that might have fit a long time ago. His jacket was always flapping open, showing his white undershirt, his scrawny neck, and his top trouser button opened over his potbelly. Pushed back on his head was a white linen yachting cap, the top of it worn through, exposing his sunburned old pate.