"Look, Flip—you got me wrong—I'm not d'guy—I ain't never been on that ship. . . ."
From the Filipinos' high-pitched yapping I could hear the repetitious "teef, teef" of our own messboy, who was dancing about ineffectively on the outskirts of the squirming turmoil.
"Lemme up, Flip—jeez, Flip—lemme up—lemme get my papers—I'll show ya—I ain't ever shipped on her—lemme get to my locker."
The Filipinos were really letting him have it now. They'd gotten down to a system of flailing at his shoulders and head with the rhythm of sledges driving a spike. Blood began to show on his cheek.
And what were we white folk doing while these little brown men were beating the life out of a member of our own race?
I looked around the fo'castle, and they were all doing just what I was doing—lying in their bunks, flicking their cigarettes over the swirling mass of bodies on the deck; a calm respectful audience to a bit of mayhem.
One of the Filipinos, who looked like a bantamweight pug, perhaps because he was getting a little tired, started screaming at the others something that made them all slow down. Our own messman, finding a bit of room, dashed in and got in a few licks while the others were talking things over.
Then the pug threw his arms around our messman, shouting:
"All right, stop—dat's all—get d'paypa—let him up. Where's locka? Get d'paypa."
The sailor got up, still cradling his head and crouched over, and moved sideward toward the lockers near the fo'castle door, with the Filipinos close at his heels. He began to fumble in his pockets, presumably searching for his key, and suddenly he broke and ran through the fo'castle door and down the deck with a long line of the bloodthirsty little brownies streaming after him. He cleared the clutter of debris strewn along that deck like a frenzied deer.
We all tumbled out of our bunks and were out on deck sooner than I can tell it.
The lone electric light slung on the aftermast gave an eerie yellow glow to the strange manhunt. We could see the flash of the sailor's white undershirt after he'd got beyond the circle of the light.
"Christ, he's making for the ladder."
We all looked over the side and watched him slide down that long ladder, with the Filipinos almost stepping on his head. When he got to the dock, it looked as if he were trying to make for the protection of the darkened streets beyond the waterfront, but his pursuers were too close, and he turned and ran along the next pier to the ship docked alongside us—the one he'd said he had worked that had fed him lousy. We'd seen him move fast on our ship, but nothing compared to this.
Our Chief Engineer—the only officer aboard, a big soft man with a tremendous sagging stomach—had joined us. He lifted his big belly and rested it on the rail, and then blew clouds of smoke from the cigar he held clenched in his teeth. He blared, "What the hell's going on?"
One Filipino hadn't joined the chase. It was the Captain's messboy. "Dat's a crook—he steal gold watch from Filipino boy on dat ship, den he come aboard here."
We got the whole story later that night, but right now the sailor was almost up the long ladder of the other ship with the gang after him stringing along below. Just as he made the last few feet of the ladder, the Mate aboard that ship, who had quietly watched the progress of the chase, put his leg over the top rung of the ladder, and as the sailor reached his foot, the Mate kicked at his face.
"Get off this ship, ya bastard. You don't belong on here."
By now the Filipinos had reached their quarry and were clawing at him. His shirt had been ripped from his back and they were tearing at his dungarees.
"Jesus, lemme come on, Mate. They'll kill me. . . ."
The Mate calmly sat there, kicking at him as he repeated, "Get down, ya bastard. Get off this ship. You don't belong here."
Our engineer, who had been growling and puffing up a cloud of cigar smoke, let out a blast.
"Let him on—ya goddam sonovabitch. You ain't no white man.
The Mate kicked away.
"He can't come on this ship. He's your man. Come and get him."
I could well imagine old One Ton, our Chief Engineer, climbing up that ladder through that tangle of wiry little Filipinos to rescue the sailor—he never would have made it, even if he had only his own big sagging gut to carry. It would have bounced him off the hull before he climbed ten feet.
Somehow the Mate relented, and it looked as if some armistice were being arranged on the ladder. The Mate swung out and down, climbing over the sailor, and preceded him down the ladder, acting as a buffer between him and the bloodthirsty Filipinos. They all disappeared into the darkness of the street at the end of the docks and before they returned to our ship the Captain's messboy told us the rest of the story.
This sailor had worked aboard that ship before he joined us. About three o'clock that morning the Filipino boy aboard that ship had been awakened. An arm had reached across him as he lay in his bunk and grabbed the gold watch he had hung there. He had tumbled out and chased the thief along the deck but the thief had got to the ladder before he could be stopped. The boy couldn't chase after him—he was dressed only in his underdrawers. He got one glimpse of the thief's face as he disappeared down the ladder. It was our fancy sailor.
At breakfast, the sailor hadn't shown up. The Mate, when the boy questioned him, said the sailor had asked for his money, collected his duffle, and quit the ship. The boy had recognized him from a distance this noon in the group along our ship's rail. After his supper dishes were washed up, he had come over and told our mess crew.
Philip, the Captain's messboy, said, "The boy says you got teef aboard dis ship. I says who. He says, come on I'll pick him out."
Then they had made the tour of the poopdeck, and the thief had been marked. Later they had caught him as he had been quietly slipping over the side.
About the time Philip had filled in the details of the story, the bloody face of the fancy sailor came up over the rail and, after him, a puffing bluecoat, then the line of Filipinos. The cop led him back to the fo'castle. When he unlocked his locker, the contents were emptied out on the hatch under the light. Pawing around his papers, the cop picked out a pawnticket for a gold watch with that day's date on it. Then he looked over his other stuff and held up a brown suit of clothes. "This yours?" he asked.
The sailor mumbled through his bruised mouth. "Yeah."
The cop held the pants of the brown suit to the sailor's waist. The legs hung straight down and then fell in a neat ripple of folds on the deck. It was evident the suit belonged to someone about a foot taller than this stocky crook. The big Russian thrust himself forward. "Hey, goddam, dat suits are mine."
"All right, you'll get 'em back," said the cop. "Come on, you, pick up that stuff and take it down to the station."
They trooped off with the Filipino boy going along to make a complaint.
We lit up some fresh cigarettes.
"Christ, can you beat that?" came from the Phi Beta Kappa's brother. "A fancy movin'-pi'ture sailor!"
For a moment there was silence, and then as Flip began to tell the story all over again we heard a roar from the Chief Engineer.
We gathered around him and the Chef (also a Filipino), who was wearing a stained white apron with an immense meat cleaver clutched in his fist, and protesting the cleaver meant absolutely nothing. He'd been working in his galley (at ten o'clock at night?) and he'd heard the commotion on the deck. He hadn't grabbed it to join the chase.
The Engineer snorted something, blew a blast of cigar smoke, and turned and waddled back to his cabin. "Goddam savages. They ain't white men."
We all went back to the fo'castle.
I lay a long time in my bunk thinking over this first night aboard the S.S. Hermanita: the talk of shipwreck . . . the hunt for the crook—that Chef looked pretty mean with that cleaver in his hand; I'll bet he resented that final crack the Engineer had made. That was no way to develop harmony among mankind, equality of the races and all that. What if the Chef had a vengeful nature? The thought of amorous worms in the lumpy porridge didn't bother me so much as the question whether fine ground glass in oatmeal is as easily perceptible. At least you can see the worms.