Fo'castle Waltz

The ham was brought to the table. It was mainly a large mis-colored bone with a little wart of mahogany-tinted meat at one end. Our host whittled off a few slivers of it and served. As we gnawed at the fibrous, tasteless stuff he told us the history of that ham: how long it had lain buried in a pit of lime, sulphur (and molasses?) and the ash of good Carolinian white pine. How it was brought north—his wife had kinfolk down south (remember they're clannish and would never release such a treasure to any but their own flesh and blood). How long it lay in their cellar ripening and ripening and ripening, with a cut lemon resting on it. That lemon was to keep away the rats!

We were told we should have seen that lemon when they finally decided to carve and scrape away the sulphurous green mold and cook this ham. I had wetted down, ground up, and swallowed my chip of this venerable historic lump of decayed schweinefleisch and decided, as I did again in Rio Santiago and I do now, ham is dull. Bring on the Cossacks.

After the Hamites had sputtered their delight in that Argentine version of their favorite food, we called for music. The fat Sailing Man with shreds of ham dripping from his chin roared a chanty. We shouted him down and called for Chips. With some ceremony Chips brought out his beautiful, silver-inlaid, four-hundred-dollar accordion. But before he could get started on his regular march, Scotty had started a whirling fling on his harmonica and he hopped a sword dance over a couple of mop handles crossed on the deck. When he'd exhausted himself with his blowing and dancing, big Joe did one of his Island songs and hula'd. Everybody gave him room and he wiggled his path up and down the narrow fo'castle.

Joe could have danced all night and we'd have been happy to watch him, but Slim, the Georgia Boy, had begun one of his low blues songs off at one end and a circle had gathered around to watch him work up his shuffle dance. He was a lean, thin-chested boy and his wind wasn't much good. Soon he gave up trying to play his harmonica as he danced and persuaded Scotty to accompany him.

Scotty learned the lazy Southern songs quickly, but when he blew into his instrument they came out Scotch and brisk. Slim tried to correct his tempo—he'd hum his song and beat the slow measure with his hand. Scotty's head nodded solemnly up and down, but when he brought his harmonica to his mouth, Slim's rhythm—"Seven years with the wrong woman"—came out sounding like "The Campbells are coming." He couldn't get the languorous magnolia quality Slim got in his stuff. It was all thorny. Highland brier.

Slim finally gave it up and tried to play a few flings for Scotty, but he couldn't blow hard or fast enough. Then, after a few more drinks, they both tried to make music for Joe's hulas, but that didn't work either.

At last they all asked Chips to play music—none of their own music—he'd concede nothing. He played his long repetitious march and he played it the rest of the night over and over again. They tried their own dancing to his music but none of it worked. We finally settled for a fo'castle waltz to Chips' music.

The fo'castle was long and narrow and only two couples could dance at a time. When they passed there was a lot of swearing and butt bumping.

I sat with the wallflowers at one end of the fo'castle. Pat, the oiler, the old guy with the pink lids, and I sat on a bench. The old guy was having a swell time. He'd wave his cup and tap his foot to the music and he kept pulling his upper lip down to keep from laughing out with no control. He hadn't been allowed ashore by the Medical Officer and I guess evenings aboard while the crew was out helling around must have been lonesome. This busy hilarious party was a great treat. To Pat the party was just another drink. He sat with us because the bottles were stacked under our bench, and he tanked up.

The bullet-headed guy, the athlete, came down to the fo'castle after his evening's exercise. He didn't miss a night even in port to perfect those beautiful, useless muscles. He sat down at the end of our bench and poured himself a drink. Nobody had invited him and he hadn't chipped in—he didn't rate. After gulping a few cups of wine he sat there morosely squinting at the dancers and grinding his teeth.

Chips with no warning stopped playing his accordion. The dancers Scotty and Al, Birdneck (who was a good waltzer) and Joe, looked rather silly with their arms around each other as they turned to watch Chips unstrap his accordion and stand up and stretch. He was thirsty and wanted a drink of wine.

We all got off the bench to let Chips get at the bottles underneath—all except Pat. He couldn't. He sat carefully erect, sweating and glowing as he mumbled something about "Shure, give all the boys in the orchestra a drink." Then he tapped his foot, tossed his head, and winked as he deedle-dum-dummed a fragment from an Irish jig.