Fo'castle Waltz

Then the fat old Sailing Man—well, he had just indicated the way he felt about it. To him, dragging our mauled, broken, bleeding bodies up out of those shark-infested waters—we'd seen a shark three days ago—would have just been a nostalgic echo of the good oF sailing days when keelhauling was really keelhauling.

I was just about to dismiss the whole line of drawings and water colors I had done of the Filipino mess. I'd skied them— that's an academic term meaning a picture hung above the line of vision, up above the other drawings because they looked good that way. The Filipinos were all my friends but too little in an emergency such as this—except perhaps our own messman, old Flip.

I had a pretty good brush drawing of him hanging there with his big corncob pipe clinched in his teeth. He was a gentle-looking old fellow, but I'd seen him flare up the day before...

The heat had been getting us all that past week. Everyone was touchy and irritable—maybe that's why there were so many of the crew looking forward to really letting themselves out, why the "Fadder Neptune" torture brigade had so many recruits. The crew had made Flip's life miserable with their squawks about the grub. He'd taken it good-naturedly as he served us with his shiny face always smiling, his corncob tucked in a corner of his mouth and his sweat dripping into our food as he slapped the heavy plates down in front of us. But he boiled over the day before as he served lunch and a little grease from a plate of pork chops slopped over on the Maverick's arm. That worthy hopped up, grabbed the dish, and smashed it on the table, sending the chops slithering every which way.

"Yo' goddam nigga," he yelped. "Why d'hell doncha watch what you're doin'?"

Flip's black eyes flashed like smoldering coals suddenly afire. He silently whirled, disappeared into the galley, and was out again before the door swung close, with the longest, sharpest, brightest bread knife I ever saw. It was not one of those ordinary dull saw-toothed blades. This was one of those knives that had been resharpened until it had worn thin and developed a fine curve.

He faced the Maverick with his knife clutched low and blade up. In discussing it later, those of the crew who knew about knife fighting said his stance was perfect as he stood legs apart, toes out, knees slightly bent, and the knife waving back and forth, low in a cobra-like sway, its blade up and the point directed at the Maverick's gut.

He eyed the Maverick and in a thin, shrieking voice, shrilled as he advanced:

"Goddam—man—bra'k deeshes—damn bra'k deeshes—"

There was a swift breeze in the mess and I knew the Maverick was gone. We could hear him clattering down to the safety of the propeller shaft below.

Of course, that incident spoiled our lunch—if anything can spoil a lunch of greasy, fried pork chops and soggy bread, served up in a mess which smelled of kitchen garbage, as the temperature read 120 in whatever shade you could find.

Some of the crew gulped some water to unpaste their mouths, and they murmured, "You oughtn't to do that, Flip."

But Flip looked around, turning his head like a bewildered child and insisted:

"Goddam man—bra'k deeshes."

And it was evident the only retribution worthy of such a crime was to carve out the culprit's innards.

Back on the poop, during the general discussion about the incident in which the Maverick did not join—he had some sewing to do—the general consensus of opinion was that Flip's stance was perfect but he carried his knife just a mite too low. I remember a Bulgarian highlander (he claimed to be that— I knew him as an art student) telling me once that his countrymen had used their knives as Flip had on that day. And the Bulgar had demonstrated—he stood with his knees widespread, his blade held about the level Flip had held it as he waved a vicious plaster knife in my studio and showed me how Bulgar highlanders carve out their differences of opinion. He contended that that's the least harm you could do a man with a knife, since his countrymen were accustomed—on being bested in a dispute of that sort—to gathering up their intestines (which naturally spilled out on the ground), stuffing them back in their abdominal cavity, and wrapping themselves up with a long sash they usually carried for that purpose. Then they'd walk off and get sewed up again until the next time.

I didn't add this to the poopdeck's blood and thunder. They were doing all right without it.

Some of the guys had drifted into a discussion on knife-throwing. They generally disapproved of the commercial form displayed by the sideshow experts—those charlatans who, to a roll of drums, stand a skinny, frizzy-haired dame up against a board and, holding their knives at the point, toss them overhand from the shoulder and silhouette their girl friend (for whom they evidently feel a complete indifference) with a barricade of quivering stilettos. That method is slow, showy, and completely ineffectual in a fight.