Eight bells sounded the end of the watch. Tod gave up the wheel to Swede Jorgenson and climbed with eager steps down the ladder to the main deck. It was four o'clock in the morning and home soil encircled the bay. He'd never be able to sleep in the stuffy seamen's quarters now; instead, he climbed to the forecastle head and, passing round the winch and the cables, leaned over the starboard rail.
A rose dawn was coming out of the east. The ship cut slowly through the still surface of the bay, turned to the right, and swung toward the docks. Fishermen's Wharf lay in blue shadow at the foot of Russian Hill. As the sun rose over the Berkeley hills, the windows of the houses, rising tier on tier, flashed yellow, as if a welcoming lamp burned on each sill for homecoming mariners. Tod's heart leaped. Home! He was coming home.
The freighter turned northward toward Angel Island to await quarantine inspection in the anchorage. Tod went below then and turned in. When he later woke with a start, he saw through the porthole that they were headed for the city. He gathered up his dunnage and hurried up to deck. The Araby was slipping into her berth at Pier 43.
He sprang to the bulwarks. A wharf office, incredibly small and gray, stood silhouetted against the moving traffics of the Embarcadero. At the sight, Tod felt his mounting pulse abruptly stilled. It brought up from the depths of his memory a bitter scene with Jasper Swickard more than three months before. He wiped it from his vision as he saw a group of men waiting there now. They were reporters, he knew, desirous of meeting the man who had brought the Araby back to her home port. Doubtless the insurance agents would be there, too, with words of commendation.
As he watched, the door of the office opened and the slender figure of a girl emerged. She stood on the little step, her tan coat whipped by the wind, a fur caressing her cheeks. Tod Moran swung up his cap. Sheila Murray's gaze, running eagerly over the ship, settled upon him. Her lips parted; then, pushing back the bronzed hair that blew across her eyes, her glance passed on to Neil Moran, who stood on the bridge ladder, motionless.
"All fast for'ard, sir," came a call.
Captain Jarvis's deep voice sounded from the bridge. "Signal 'Finished,' Mr. Burton."
Up from the engine-room skylight drifted a bell's harsh jangle. Tod stirred. Beneath his feet the deck's faint pulsation trembled into silence.
Voices sounded. The gangway scraped on the wharf. Tod saw his brother slip down and move toward the girl at the office door. With laggard steps, Tod followed. He halted at a bollard and stared at the city rising above him.
He was home once more, the voyage over. The crew would get paid off and scatter. Toppy, Swede Jorgenson, Tony the Wop, and their forecastle mates would each go his own way. In port, they would drink and carouse; on other ships, they would grumble, curse their lot, and carry on their sharkish tricks. But he was ready to forget all that. That was past. He was done with the sea.
And yet, and yet. . . . As he turned and looked across the straining hawsers at the Araby, lying there so quietly, so lifeless, yet withal so gallant, he felt his heart tug at its moorings. Here, this wouldn't do! At this rate, within a month, he'd want to be at sea again. He stood there in silence, while about him the life of the water front flowed on.
He saw the insurance men climb aboard. One raised his voice to the captain on the bridge: "Man, you've become a seven day's wonder!"
Tom Jarvis leaned over the rail and laughed deep within his throat. "Yes—and on the eighth day forgotten."
Tod Moran looked up. Forgotten?.. Well, not by him. He was bringing home a cargo of knowledge safely imprisoned beneath the hatches of his memory. That would be with him always. He saw Jarvis swing down the ladder to the chart room and pause for a moment at the rail in contemplation. Yes, even Tom Jarvis had changed. He was no longer the Tattooed Man; he had become master of the Araby. And gazing down across the hawsers, Jarvis flung aloft his hand in a gesture of farewell. Tod Moran could almost hear his voice softly vibrate: "We've made port, Joe Macaroni."
His huge figure disappeared into the chart room, and the Araby's upper decks lay deserted. Her funnel and foremast towered black against the blazing sky. Gulls swooped and wheeled about them, settled upon the bridge rails, upon the lifeboats, peering with curious eyes down at the galley. A departing cargo liner went by toward the headlands, and the gulls, with raucous cries, rose in circles and winged their way to sea.
SUPPLEMENT
About the author
Howard Pease (1894-1974) had 22 books published between 1926 and 1961, plus numerous short stories in magazine style publications. Born in Stockton CA, after high school graduation, he enrolled at Stanford University.
His college days were interrupted by time spent in France, and by shipping out during summers as a mess boy, wiper, or fireman aboard tramp steamers. He thus wrote from actual experiences as a member of the Black Gang, the engine room crew of the ships. His travels took him to every major port in the U.S., the Caribbean, Italy, France, Mexico, and into hurricane weather in the South Pacific. He eventually graduated from Stanford and entered teaching to ensure that while establishing himself as a writer, he would have an income.
He actually lived many of the stories and experiences in his books. Others he gained from tales told him via his friendship with a sea captain and first mate while he and his wife lived in a house in San Francisco overlooking the bay. He also lived in Tahiti and Australia, and learned about voodoo while one of his ships was in port in Haiti.
He loved to write and attributed many of his talents to those he learned from a creative writing professor at Stanford. However, his 6th grade teacher first interested him in writing, and his continued story efforts in high school started him on the path as an author. Pease had a tremendous ability as a “story-teller,” weaving events in such a manner that the reader was continually intrigued to read the next page, the next chapter, the next book. He also had a unique ability to make the reader “see” the setting, and actually “be there” on the ship, in the cafe, in the alley, in the forecastle, in the engine room, in the port, in the hurricane, on the Araby or the schooner Wind-rider, or in Marseilles, or Papeete.
Though he wove a story, he also had hidden but clear messages regarding corporate greed, poor labor conditions, religious divergences, actual history as with the underground in World War II, cultural and language differences, family relationships, self-determination for a chosen career, the arts—especially music and painting—-and the conditions of the society at the time of publication. He was a master in involving the reader not only in the story, but also in the social and psychological reflections of his book characters. Howard Pease wrote so that the reader could not put down most of his books until the final chapter.
One of the strengths of Pease was also a weakness. He wrote each book to stand alone; thus he repeatedly described in detail old freighters and tankers or sleek schooners, deplorable food, sleeping, bathing and working conditions, especially for those assigned to the engine rooms, weak officers, dense fog or horrible hurricanes, and the “weaving a rug” pattern used by Captain Tom Jarvis or Tod Moran to solve a mystery. Often, the plot involved an inexperienced young “landlubber” finally landing a berth as a wiper, mess, or ordinary and becoming a key focus in the story. Often repeated in a hidden manner was how Tod Moran adventures became mysteries, and the loyalty, in most books, of crewmen Toppy and Swede. Such nicknames as “Bilge” were common, as were the names of Blackie, Shortie, Sparks, Joe Macaroni, Bantam, and Slim, and the revelation in a later book, Bound for Singapore (almost a text for teachers of middle school youth) of how he learned to write effectively.