The Bos'n called us together on the afterdeck to set the watch. It was like choosing up sides in a sandlot baseball game and, since when we were kids they never picked me, I wasn't expecting anything now.
We lined up, some smirking self-consciously while the Swede First Mate, the red-headed Second, and the young Third looked us over carefully.
The Swede had first choice. There were only ten men to choose from. The big Russian had maneuvered himself into a soft spot: he'd been appointed ship's carpenter, and on a shaggy, tramp steamer which was 99.5 per cent metal, that was a cushy job—so he was taken care of. After carefully studying the men—he didn't even look at me—the Swede picked a new man whom I'd seen for the first time just before we signed on. A big fellow as big as the Russian and broader in the shoulders —a guy named Joe. He was a handsome hulk with a curious gurgling voice—a nice guy, always grinning. He took a hitch in his belt, rolled out of the line, and with a swagger went down the deck toward the fo'castle.
Then the Swede asked a few abrupt questions from a long slim boy who gave a satisfactory response in a deep, Southern drawl, and the Mate O.K.'d him, too, for his watch. That was Slim, the Georgia Boy, I found out later. He stepped out, his face split in a big, pleasant smile, and with the slightest suggestion of a shuffling dance followed the big fellow down the deck. As I looked after them Al said in a low voice:
"Lucky stiffs—that's an easy watch. Four to eight in the morning, four to eight in the evening. Damn little chippiii' decks for them, damn little Soogie Moogie—"
"What's Soogie Moogie?"
"Shut up. Here comes the Second." And Al straightened up and tried to look good.
The red-headed Second Mate was looking Al up and down as if he were a horse he contemplated buying; then his eye hopped over me. He spoke a word or two to the fat Sailing Man, who growled his reply as if he didn't care if he were picked or not. The Second passed him up and crooked his finger at a cockeyed guy, another newcomer, further down the line. This guy went down the deck looking back over his shoulder with a hilarious black-toothed but silent laugh, and waited for the other man the Second Mate picked for his watch. He was a husky young blond Polack from Baltimore. With a shy, happy smirk he stepped out and strode after Cockeyes. He had a peculiar pigeon-toed walk, as if he gripped the deck with every step and pushed himself forward.
The line was thinned out now, and the young Third Mate seemed a bit embarrassed as he looked us over. The fat Sailing Man spat on the deck, almost hitting the young Mate's shoe. Seems he hadn't much respect for the Third, who I'd been told had just passed his examination; this was his first trip as a Ship's Officer. The Third looked up at the Fat Man from under the brim of his cap and passed him; then he spoke quietly to a stocky, white-haired, pink-eyed old man. He picked him and a pale ripply muscled fellow with a close-cropped platinum bullet-head.
Now, the three watches were set.
The little Bos'n's Mate faced the fat Sailing Man, Al, Mush, and me and said, quietly:
"Well, that's that. You guys are day men. Let's go."
And he led us off through the shelterdeck to tackle some stuff up forward.
"What gives?" I asked Al.
He said, "Hell, this isn't gonna be fun. This is the first ship that I been on that I haven't been put on a watch."
"Well, it looks all right to me."
"What do you mean all right? This little Bos'n will work the ass off you. There won't be any turns at the wheel—no leaning up in the prow and watching the seagulls and porpoises and flying fish. Don't you kid yourself, feller—"
"But what we gonna do?" I asked. "These guys on watch steer the ship, while the others stand look-out up in the front— I mean the prow. The black gang works the engines; the mess feeds us—looks pretty good. What we gonna do—?"
I had a rosy vision of stretching out on the hatch in the hot sun, somewhat in the fashion of those documentary water colors of Winslow Homer's I'd seen around. The hatch was mighty inviting.
Al looked at me blank. "What are we going to do—?"
The Fat Man, who was ambling along in back of us, stumbled on my heels in the dark shelter deck. He growled.
"Pick 'em up—goddam know nothin's—ain't a sailing man among them. I'll be goddamned if I wanna serve on any of their goddam watches!"
I guess he was hurt—he hadn't been picked.
The Bos'n called to us to hurry up. The ship was strangely quiet. Mush worried, "What's the matter? Something wrong? The engine's stopped."
The Fat Man snorted in disgust, the Bos'n smiled, and Al said in a low voice:
"Y' dummy, we're dropping pilot. There's Sandy Hook and the last time you see land for four weeks. Take a good look."
Mush and I looked at each other nervously—I swallowed. There wasn't much chance to linger on this farewell to my native land stuff. We were busy pulling up the ladder the pilot had used to let him down to the little tug that now was taking him back to the security of My America.
We pulled up the ladder—the Bos'n and Al did; the Fat Man, Mush, and I weren't doing much. We seemed to get in each other's way. With the ladder finally lashed down, Mush and I looked back at the rim of land outlined in the setting sun.
"Looks pretty, don't it?" Mush said with a bit of a tremble in his voice.
"Pretty! It's beautiful. Bet it's the most beautiful land in the world." My voice sounded shrill and strange to my ears.
"Look, you guys," Al broke in from the messdeck. (How'd he get up there? The Bos'n and the Fat Man were gone. I guess Mush and I had been leaning on that rail longer than we figured.) "Aren't you gonna wash up before you eat? Come on."
After a silent supper we went back to the fo'castle and sat around a while. The sun had gone down and there was a bit of chill in the air and the calm sea looked lonesome. Some of the men had gone to sleep. They pulled the little canvas curtains suspended along their bunks to shield them from the dim electric light.
We talked quietly as we sat on the edge of a long bench. Al told us that pilots made a lot of money steering ships in and out of the harbor—twenty-five dollars a day or some fantastic sum like that.
A voice from behind one of the curtains mumbled, "Why d'hell don't you guys shut up and let me sleep."
It was that bullet-headed A.B. on the twelve-to-four watch, the Third Mate's watch.
We were reluctant to leave the fo'castle for the isolated splendor of our own cabin up forward. It seemed that much farther away from home, but Al said he was turning in, too, so Mush and I carefully picked our way to the dreary, lonesome cabin. We tossed a penny—I got the upper berth, undressed, doused the light, and lay there, talking. Suddenly there was a shattering crash.
"Gosh! What's that?" said Mush.
"Dunno. We might have brushed a bit of debris, or maybe some flotsam. It couldn't have been jetsam—that's soft stuff."
Again we heard a deafening clatter, soon another, and then another. I was scared. Visions of shipwreck filtered through my mind. How do you get into a life jacket? I should have asked somebody.
Then a roaring smash that almost threw us out of our bunks. That decided it. We tumbled out and, trembling, got into our dungarees and out on deck quick.
The night was still and calm. There was a dim light up in the wheelhouse. We saw the Second Mate silhouetted against the star-sprinkled sky out on the open bridgedeck.
"We must have hit something that ripped the bottom out of us," I ventured.
A voice from the prow said, "What you kids talking about?"
It was the cockeyed guy standing look-out up there.
"Something happened—we must have hit something. Bet we got a hole in her as big as a barn door," Mush whispered cautiously. We didn't want to start a panic.
"What?" Cockeye climbed down quickly and stumbled into the passage that led to our cabin. We all stood still in the darkness for a moment. Then that ripping crash was heard again.