The old pink-eyed guy consoled Mush. He had been up at the wheel as we pulled out and had heard the Captain instruct our pilot (the same old pirate who took our ship into Rio Santiago) to carry a letter back to our ship's agent in port. He had told the pilot the letter contained orders to send those guys down to Ingeniero White—our next port—and that he, the pilot, must inform the port police every courtesy and consideration must be shown these men, or Captain Brandt would be mad.
He was as fond of Philip as we all were. I wondered if he would have been so solicitous if Sparks alone had been left ashore.
That guy wasn't very popular with the crew. He was a Southerner, not the slow, gentle, drawling kind like Slim, the Georgia Boy, but a snappy, crackling tarheel. Perhaps what disturbed me most about that long, wiry, bespectacled guy was the way he wore his thick black hair parted carefully in the center, and he always talked quickly and long as if what he was saying was very important.
On some of those long pleasant evenings on the poopdeck, as we were coming down, he'd join us. He picked Al, Mush, and me to talk to and would freeze out anyone else who wanted to kid around with us by inviting us three up to his shack up above the boat deck.
We went up there a few times. His radio shack was a pleasant place, and we'd have liked it a lot better if he wasn't there. He'd stretch out on a padded, swivel chair—the only one in the cabin—fold his long, white hands under his chin, and yammer away for hours at a time. Once he told about the time when he was a guard at a military prison for conscientious objectors.
"Come sunup, we'd march 'em out to the truck garden 'bout a half mile from the camp. We'd keep 'em on the double till we got out to the field. Then we guards would stand around in the shade watching those bastards in the hot sun hoeing, pulling weeds, and stuff like that. Then we'd march 'em back for dinner.
"Remember one afternoon a couple of those yellow-bellied bastards said they had to go to the can. We couldn't have 'em messin' up the field and there were no bushes around—those bastards knew that. I figgered they were just stallin', so I marches 'em back quick. I kept tellin' 'em move faster, keep goin' on the double. They would for a bit and then they'd take it easy again.
"It was goddam hot and I began boilin' over. Well, suh, I fixes my bayonet 'n m' rifle, and I tol' those two smart conshies if they don't move faster I'd let 'em have it. That perked 'em up a bit and they began to jog. Then they started to stall again. One of 'em says his guts feel loose, he was scared he'd mess his pants if he runs. I tol' 'em both to double or I'd let 'em have it. Well, they started agin, but they didn't keep it up so I let 'em have it. I jabbed 'em in the ass with my bayonet—first one, then the other. ..."
We never went up to his shack again and when he came down to the poop somehow we managed to sidestep him until he quit visiting back aft. Since meeting that guy whenever I read of a lynching and the pictures would form in my mind, it seems to me the faces of that crowd of the bigoted, intolerant blackguards I read about all look like that guy.
It took us five days to reach Ingeniero White. We spent the first half of the trip stowing gear and the last half unstowing it in preparation for unloading.
Perry, after a day or two, was normal again, though neither he nor the Polack would talk about those nine days in the calaboose. Perry had quietly tipped me off to stock up on cigarettes from the slopchest.
"But I've already got a couple of cartons, Perry. I only smoke a pack a day."
"That don't make no difference. I'm tellin' ya, stock up."
"And—there's only some crumby brands left. There ain't no more Luckies or Camels."
"Now lissen, take 'em before they're gone—or you'll be sorry," he said, ominously.
"But why? Why, Perry? Gimme one good reason."
"Sure, I'll give ya a good reason—none better." And he ducked his head forward and with his mysterious, hoarse whisper, "Down here, American cigarettes are legal tender!"
"No!"
"Yeah, I'm tellin' ya—a carton of American cigarettes which you pays a dollar twenty in the slopchest, in a small port like Ingeniero White you can get as much as two dollars or two and a half, five, six or seven pesos Argentine money and furdermore, you don't pay the slopchest now. It's advance against your payoff—so it's just clear profit."
That sounded a bit complicated but it seemed the thing to do. Perry had smuggled ashore a couple of cartons when he treated Joe and me at that first lunch ashore in Rio Santiago. Right after supper that evening I raced to the purser's window. He opened his slopchest for an hour each evening.
There was a lineup, probably Perry had spoken to some others—or they knew about it themselves—though not many of the older guys were in that line. I took my place at the end and by the time I reached the purser's window all he had was a couple of cartons of Piedmonts and one of cigarettes that he must have been trying to palm off on some dope for the past ten years—a large box of Sweet Caporals. I took them too.
We tied up in Ingeniero White on a cold, dark morning. That was a dreary looking port. Perry told us it was named after an American (U.S.A.) Engineer named White. Take a commonplace word like engineer, give it a Spanish twirl, and you've got the name for a stretch of mud flats that suggest something important—Ingeniero White.
Our ship was easing up to a long metal pier that angled way out into the harbor. Perry for some reason felt he had to defend this port.
"What you bellyachin' for? This is a fine harbor—they ships more grain outa here than any place south of Buenos Aires."
"So what?" grumbled Mush.
"So what? See them granaries? They're big—big as you got any place."
"Yeah? Lissen, feller—you ever been to Chicago?"
"Naw."
"Well, what da hell you know of grain elevators?"
These flat granaries were the only buildings that stuck up on that murky stretch of coast. A few shaggy buildings were spotted along the road that led away from the pier—that must have been the town.
"Anyway," said Perry, backing down, "this place is only d'port for Bahia Blanca—it's just the outskoits of Bahia Blanca. That's a beautiful name, ain't it? Means white bay. They calls her the white queen of the south. Of course, this port's only the outskoits of Bahia Blanca—"
"Looks to me like the white queen got pretty muddy outskirts," I ventured. Perry turned one of his cross eyes at me while the other kept squinting angrily toward the shore.
"Whatcha bellyachin' for? Nobody stays in this town—it's only a few minutes to d'city. Dey got big cafes up dare—and houses like palaces, I'm tellin' ya."
Joe came along. "Oh boy—oh boy—what a croppy dump. Looks like a big gray cow wit sick stomach pass by. Plop—plop —plop."
Perry rolled that eye at Joe and just went on smoking. He smoked cigarettes very economically down to the last shred and left no butts. His cigarette was down to his last few puffs and he wasn't talking for fear of burning his mouth.
"Hey, lookit," Joe went on. "We're gonna have company. Looks like we gonna tie up between that Limey and those Belgium ships. Oh boy, look at that white paint works on de lousy Limey. Boy-o-boy, some Soogie Moogie—"
Joe was right. Almost all the superstructure, masts, cargo booms, on that Limey were a glistening senseless white—some Soogie Moogie on that stinker, we all agreed. There was another ship with her funnels and upper decks placed way back on her hull. Joe told me that was a Hog-Islander.
"Yeah, they built lots of dem cargo boats like that during the war—at Hog Island. They ship out of Mobile and ports like that in the Gulf and the crews on them ships is always a bunch of Texas guys."
"Well, that's good," I said. "We'll meet up with somebody to talk to, somebody who speaks our own language."