"O-o-h boy! anudder wictim. . . . And you, blubber-mouth." He was talking to Mush. "You too—"
I asked the white-haired guy:
"What's this Equator stuff?"
"Oh—it's nothin' if they ain't rough. ..."
The Maverick heard that.
"Surewewon't be rough—haw-haw. Wait'll Ol' Fadder Neptune gives him a shave and wait'll Fadder Neptune's redheaded daughter gives him a kiss—"
The Bos'n had come down to the deck. The hilarity quieted down a little, though nothing could hold that Maverick guy now that he had some nasty business planned. He was noisy and swaggered around.
The Bos'n gathered the day men around him and told us about the boat drill we were going to have—which we already knew about—and gave us all our stations. Just about the time he'd made it clear the ship's bell began to clang. The Bos'n snapped out his watch, glanced at it, looked up at the bridge, and said quietly, "That's it."
Then he climbed up the iron ladder two steps at a time. Incidentally, that little man was so sure-footed I remember he was one of the only ones aboard that ship who came down those steep ladders face front and fast—he'd hardly touch the steps, even when the ship had a pretty good roll to her. Everybody else except a few of the A.B.'s would climb down the ladders backward holding on to both rails.
The Bos'n dashing off that way didn't hurry the crew any. They grumbled, scowled up at the bridge where the Captain and the Swede Mate stood looking down at us, and slowly crawled off the hatch. Laboriously, and deliberately, they slowly climbed up the ladders to the upper deck. If there had been a real emergency that ship would have burned to her keel or sunk halfway down the ocean before they sullenly climbed to their stations at the hose outlets along the upper decks.
The white-haired guy, Birdneck, and I were assigned to the same station. As we stood there, I took up this Equator initiation ceremony again. Frankly, I was worried. It sounded like the sort of thing I'd read about and expected before I came aboard, but I didn't want any of it now. I liked the quiet uneventful days and pleasant nights as they were.
I nervously asked the white-haired guy, "What do they do— what's this stuff the Maverick was talking about?"
The old fellow said quietly, "Oh, it's nuthin. Just a little fun; don't worry about it. On the big passenger liners they make a whole business of it and everybody has a good time. But on a little ship like this— Some of these fellers sometimes get rough. Yes, I've seen it happen. Sometimes some of the wild fellers do something and somebody gets hurt. I've seen nice boys hurt pretty bad—"
His voice was soothing, and he shook his head slowly.
"Yeah," came from Birdneck, who stood there with his hand on the brass handle of the hydrant to which we'd attached a dry canvas hose. Birdneck was to turn the water on, we to play the hose come the day when the ship bums up.
"Yeah, that damn Maverick— It's guys like him that makes trouble. An' you know there's a couple of more guys aboard this ship'd join up with 'im if he started..."
"Yeah, but what do they do?"
"Oh, different things. You know that Maverick guy," he was talking and gesturing at the old man. "He's always stirring up trouble—back there in our cabin—"
Oilers rated separate quarters—they were a step above firemen and wipers. Pat, the Maverick, and Birdneck bunked together.
"Sometimes old Pat—you know he's a good old guy—he's old that's all. This goddam Maverick is always trying—"
I broke in, "Look, can't ya tell a fella what happens? What's this Father Neptune—?"
"Oh, that's nothing. That's just—well what's hard is if some feller like that gets the idea to try some keelhaulin'—like they used to do in the old days—"
"Well, what's keelhaulin'? Why doesn't somebody explain some of this?" I was getting panicky about that damn Equator.
"Well, keelhaulin', that's when they tie a line around you."
The ship's bell sounded again and interrupted his explanation.
"That's the other signal. Gotta git up to d'boat deck. You got number two lifeboat too, kid—come on. Where d'hell is number two lifeboat—?"
And he was already halfway up the ladder to the boat deck, the old guy trailing him. I didn't know what to do with my section of the canvas hose, so I dropped it and ran after them, muttering, "Gawd, nobody tells me nothing."
Boat decks of all ships are usually nice places—the S.S. Hermanita boat deck was no exception. It's airy and free feeling up there and the wooden deck under your feet was a welcome change from the iron decks below.
Some of the men were gathered around the lifeboats in little groups at each end of them. They seemed to be fumbling with the ropes that held them up. Perry had pried up a section of canvas that covered his lifeboat and he had his head in it and was talking to his group. The little Bos'n tapped him on the shoulder and Perry ducked out again with a grin and joined the others who were tugging ineffectively at the lanyards trying to work the davits.
Birdneck, the old guy and I had found our number two lifeboat. And who do you guess was among the gang assigned to our lifeboat number two? Yep—that goddam Maverick.
Birdneck said under his breath, "Jeez, jes' imagine being shipwrecked with that louse."
And our other potential company in peril was the fat Sailing Man, a beak-nosed old fireman. Mush, and a few other non-consequential guys, and then the blubbery Chief Engineer who had finally waddled up to join us and took complete charge.
Now what ten would you choose to be shipwrecked with on a desert island? I don't mean books—I mean buddies. I had no choice. Mine were picked for me and there they stood, all lined up.
"Here, you men. Why d'hell don't you swing that boat out? What d'hell you waiting for?"
Mush who had joined us at our end softly said, "You, sweetheart." But the Chief didn't hear him.
The Captain and the Swede were both shouting orders from both ends of the bridge. All along the deck the men were straining at the lanyards and shoving at their lifeboats to swing them out. Not one of those boats had budged an inch!
The pulleys and apparatus were so coated with successive layers of paint, it would have taken dynamite to blast them loose. After we'd strained and pushed a while longer, the ship's bell sounded again. The drill was over.
"Next time we'll swing 'em out and goddam well get them over side," growled the Chief, and he started down the ladder to the lower deck. He climbed so slowly those of us who had automatically followed him were piled up waiting for him to make the lower deck.
"Ch-r-ist," hissed Birdneck, "didja see dem lifeboats. Ch-r-ist, if anything happens aboard this ship—good night."
"They looked bad, all right," said the white-haired guy.
Perry came along looking as he always did when he was full of some special inside stuff. He leaned all over us as he tried to keep his voice down.
"Jeez, those boats ain't got any equipment at all. They ain't been caulked, they're as dry as a bone. The seams on 'em are opened up like that," and he spread his thumb and forefinger while he cocked his eye to measure.
"The way the davits are crusted up you'll never swing those boats out anyway," the white-haired guy mournfully added.
"If we hit something," put in Birdneck, "I'm swimmin'. I'll be a sonovabitch if I'd go in a lifeboat with that Maverick bastard."
I didn't say anything—what was there to say?
Back down on our own deck Perry had quickly spread his inside dope—what he had seen when he had ducked his head inside the lifeboat. Everybody grumbled. Every blemish on the old S.S. Hermanita was held up to ridicule and enlarged, every officer down to the inoffensive Filipino purser berated and dubbed a bastard. And that Swede Mate—that brass-polishing, yacht-swabbing, scurvy-bitten scum—they exhausted their vocabulary on him.