Fo'castle Waltz

The morning we met the Captain coming down we started the day Soogie-Moogie-ing the outer bulkheads of his cabin— and I learned the meaning of that cabalistic phrase.

Soogie Moogie means simply washing down the white paint work with huge sponges dipped in buckets of water afloat with strong washing soda. Here's how it's done. For some strange and unexplained reason the yacht-polishing Swede Mate would meet in secret conference with our little Bos'n's Mate and brief him on what section of the ship he wanted us to tackle with our sponges, buckets, and hose. That decided, we'd march up to the prow where Chips (the big Russian who gold-bricked the ship's carpenter's job) kept the stores—with two buckets to each man. With the air of a high priest Chips would scoop a measure of powerful washing-soda powder out of a big barrel and drop it into one of our buckets. Then we'd troop back to the bathroom, a cement-paved large cabin that was a combination shower, lavatory, urinal, and laundry back aft next to the deck crew's fo'castle, where we'd fill both our buckets from the fresh-water faucet. There was a thin loose pipe hanging in the bathroom from which live steam was on tap; we'd heat our buckets with it and then we'd be all set to work.

Each of us would swing our sponge, laden with the soapy soda water (Soogie), over a section of white paint work. That powerful stuff would eat the black grease off fast—and take the skin of your hand, too. And if it splashed in your eye, get fitted for a black patch. Then quickly you followed up with your fresh-water sponge—I guess that was Moogie. Then somebody hosed that section, and the deck around, too, so the soda wouldn't eat its way down to the engine room.

There you have it. Soogie Moogie.

I still don't know why we did it, since the paint work would never stay clean more than a day. That old oil burner dropped soot on everything, and a black film would soon settle over our work.

Then the last hour of every morning would be devoted to washing down the fo'castle and the passageways back aft. That was a pleasant diversion and the only time we day men could vent our spleen on the A.B.'s.

We came into the fo'castle clattering and banging our buckets and brooms as loud as we could. The A.B.'s on the First Mate's watch, big Joe and Slim the Georgia Boy, would usually be sleeping with their curtains drawn. So would the bullet-head on the Third Mate's watch. When we'd wake him he'd growl senselessly. He had to get up soon anyway, for he had to turn to at noon. No use writing eight bells—that bell time system confuses me as much as it would you. I was always a little sorry when we wakened the stocky white-haired sailor with the pink eyelids who was on the Third Mate's watch, too. He was a gentle, soft-spoken old fellow.

Everybody up, we'd spray lye on everything—benches, deck, and bulkhead—hose it down, and then work away with those long-handled street-cleaner's brooms with such gusto that as we left the fo'castle scrubbed down and dripping wet but clean-smelling, I always felt if any germs had survived the assault, they rated a long life.

That was usually the morning's work, and we ate a well-deserved lunch. Hard work seemed to make the food taste better, or else my sense of taste had become corrupt by daily exposure to that fare.

Afternoons, we'd chip decks.

Now, there's a lousy job. Soogie Moogie has its pleasant aspects, a cooling pastime in the heat of the day and on this side of the equator—though splashing around in the wet when it got cold below Brazil was bitter and nasty. Chipping decks was a nasty business, hot or cold.

The Bos'n would send me forward to Chip's store to get the instruments of torture: chipping hammers—a vicious, narrow little hammer with ends like a small pickax—and the wire scrubbing brushes.

I'd always find big Chips stretched out taking a siesta on a couple of rolled tarpaulin, with his hard straw hat over his face to keep out the light. The first time I was sent up there I woke him:

"Hey, Chips, don't you ever work?"

He shoved his hat back, opened one eye, and grunted, "Huh? Verk? What t'hell ya tank I go to sea for? Verk? Naw, vacation."

Since the big fellow was an accredited A.B. with his Union dues paid up and good discharge papers, he could always get a ship. Obviously his life was one to be envied—one continuous vacation.

He slowly unfolded his long arm from behind his head, reached across the cabin to gather up the hammers and brushes, loaded me up, and said, "Good-by." Then, shoving his hat down over his face, he went back to sleep.

I never woke him again. I just gathered the hammers and brushes quietly and let him sleep.