What would happen when we shipped back to the States in September, the hurricane season? What chance would an old oilcan like this have in a real blow? No chance at all. Then what have you got? The lifeboats—those rotted, dry old crates were worse than nothing.
Perry, having really stirred the pot, now took over. Nobody wanted to stay a moment longer on that ship. As soon as she docked in Rio Santiago we'd desert to a man.
That was not the way Perry wanted it. He knew the Argentine—in fact he was the only man aboard who'd ever shipped to little Rio Santiago.
"Naw, naw," he objected gathering the loudest-mouthed squawkers around him. "Go on d'beach in dat lousy port? Nah."
Then he bent his head confidentially into the center of the group and in a hoarse whisper which you couldn't hear beyond twenty yards he continued:
"Lissen, dere's no sense in skipping ship in any port down in d'Argentine. D'ting to do is wait till we come up again, see what I mean—?"
"And go on d'beach in Montevideo, huh?" one eager voice interrupted. "Jeez, dey says dere's more cat houses dere den any place in de woild. Boy—"
"Naw. Naw—lissen." Perry screwed up his face and impatiently wagged his gnarled forefinger. "Naw, that's no good either—"
Then he dug his head down further into the middle of the group and went on with his loud hoarse whisper. "Rio—now dat's where. If you go on de beach dere—boy, oh boy," and with a wave of his hand thrust out in front of him, he gestured that the world is yours, you beachcombers, in Rio de Janeiro.
Everybody listened respectfully and some grinned and nodded their heads. So did I. Beachcombing, that's something; and I'd rather keep everybody's mind on this planned mass desertion than on those other ideas that had come from Perry's big mouth this afternoon—education schemes for Mush and me up in the wheelhouse or provisions for crossing the Equator.
We all went to supper with Perry still talking with his head bent in the middle of us as he gleefully contemplated insurrection, and repeated his hoarse admonition that everybody keep his mouth shut. He entered the mess with his big flat cloth cap off, his head erect, looking from side to side with a look in his eye which said I deny all accusations.
Sunday-night supper was the best-tasting food we ever had aboard that ship. That Filipino Chef really did something. There were large bowls of rice along the table, and when we were seated along came Flip with a couple of immense platters of steaming curried chicken. And though it was served up simply without the usual shredded cocoanut, spiked ginger and all the other exotic sweet and bitter condiments that go with the dish, it was the best curried chicken I'd ever eaten until then and since—and I've eaten good curry!
By the shape and line of the lumps of bird under the yellow brown gravy piled in the platters I recognized our leftover chicken dinner. Old Pat the oiler, as he watched me stow away the stuff and I made no secret of my enthusiasm for it, gave me a big knowing wink. Evidently, the old guy knew the potentialities of the Chef and that the best curry in the world was made from old long-dead icebox roosters left over from dinner.
And that's what we ate for supper aboard that ship every Sunday night.
10. Father Neptune's Torture Brigade
THAT MAVERICK WASN'T INCLUDED IN OUR PLANS for deserting ship. It seems the whole working crew—the deckhands and the black gang—were in it, but they left the Maverick out. As far as we were concerned he could bloody well sink with the Old Man, the Swede Mate, and old One-Ton, the Chief Engineer. So the Maverick still had only one thing to talk about— that mysterious torture he contemplated for the pale, rangy guy. Mush, and me.
My reputation for drawing was spreading. I'd had some more sitters and I'd been thumbtacking my drawings up in our cabin. The Filipinos who used to bring us our change of sheets and the Mate who inspected our cabin had spread my fame up on the officers' deck. Mush and Al were my press agents in the crew.
Birdneck approached me early one evening. "Would you do my portray? I see the ones you did of the blond kid. No kiddin' —if I could draw like dat I'd quit d'sea."
I was flattered and happy to make a drawing of his head. There was still plenty of daylight. I'd draw out on deck. We were only two days away from the Equator, and that damn Maverick hadn't shut up for a week about "Hey you—wait'll Fadder Neptune comes aboard down on d'line. Wait'll dat redheaded gal, dat daughter o' his, gets ya. She's a hot baby. Haw—"
The fat Sailing Man with great relish had explained to Mush and me finally what real keelhauling was. "Well, the way they used to do it in d'old days, they'd tie a line—a long line— around your middle, see. Then they'd tie anudder on the other side of ya. Then a couple of men would throw ya over side, holding onto the line o'course and them what's holding the other line would drag it around and under the stern and they'd haul you down under the keel of the ship and then haul you up. That's all."
"That's all? Hell, didn't that drown the guys?" "No, not always. They had a line tied to 'em, I tol' you." "Didn't it hurt—didn't they get caught in the propellers—?" The Fat Guy took his pipe out of his mouth and spat on the deck.
"Those ships didn't have no propellers. Oh, they might have got scraped a bit 'ginst d'barnacles, but they'd pull 'em up gasping like and half-drowned—if they had any life left in 'em."
Mush and I shuddered and walked off. "Did you think he meant that? Wonder if that old bastard is kidding us," Mush asked me.
I went forward to get my pencils and drawing paper. I looked over the heads I'd thumbtacked up along the bulkhead opposite our bunks and wondered who of this bunch I could depend upon in a fight. After all, I had immortalized them in my drawings (to a degree). They owed me something. I was not going to take this being mauled about lying down. I'd fight or I'd run.
Mush's head brooded glumly on the wall—I'd posed him with his eyes looking down because staring at his popeyes too long would always recall that seasick morning. A few drawings of Al—him with his short upper lip. Someone had told me a short-upper-lipped person can't be relied on. That might be as untrue as the saying—Chinese, I think. Tang period—"Beware of the man with the sparse beard." Now I had a sparse beard, none could be sparser, but I am a reliable individual—never broke my word or failed to fulfill a contract yet. A clasp of the hand with fingers crossed for the whereases, the party of the first part, is all I need to carry on my business. Maybe that short upper lip stuff was just silly, but Al had been avoiding Mush and me for the past few days and he'd gathered with that bunch of apes who talked of ceremonies.
I passed over some of the older guys' heads staring back at me to big Joe. That big Canuck was an enigma. For the sake of raising hell he'd do anything. That's how he'd collected most of the scars along his cheek and neck and that broken beak. He'd giggled and snapped his fingers and walked off when I tried to sound him out.
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.