Джек Кейди: The Jonah Watch

Adrian ’s fourteen knots of flank speed were respectable in those waters. As the storm blew out and the speed rose, so did the anguished howling from the radio. The man was in a continuing seizure of fear, although if he had to take to his boats he was not in much trouble. The wind died, the swells began to knock down, and at worst he looked forward to an ugly night.

Of course, if his boats leaked worse than his trawler, the lot of them were dead. Adrian ’s task was to make knots. The Portuguese’s task was to pump and pray. It seemed a shame if he died, since he was going about the matter so badly.

They were a crew of sober men in the morning light. The sea was flat like a lake, and winter sun oiled its surface with a thin, red glow. The trim trawler silhouette changed from a high-riding, high-bowed sea boat before the morning sun. It looked like a pile of clutter on the horizon, like a barge on which spare parts of trawlers were randomly stacked. The bow was down, the stern riding low but enough exposed to make the wretched old crate look like a cigar butt wallowing in a gutter. Louise ’s boats were tied alongside, and, as Adrian closed, the Portuguese and his crew took to them. They waved and hollered and wept. They shrieked until Adrian was within a hundred yards, coasting off the way, reversing screws so easily that not enough turbulence entered the calm water to as much as rock the boats.

The deck gang hauled them aboard. They came like rats, but without the sleekness of rats. A thin, urchin-like Spaniard babbled his mother’s name and wept. An Italian, teeth chattering with cold, was pulled aboard and collapsed, uttering small puffs of shrieks. A beer tub of a German, leather-jacketed and swarthy, blubbered between thick lips. They smelled raw with booze, musty from sleeping for a week in their clothes. They stank like trash fish which someone had forgotten to throw to the gulls. They hugged icy stanchions, bundled onto the mess-deck to warm hands on coffee mugs and burn gullets with heavy slurping. Lamp tsked, served out food, crooned sympathy, and was obviously and thoroughly disgusted.

The abominable Portuguese would see the captain. Property was at stake. He climbed the ladder to the bridge, in a nervous state because he could not carry his coffee mug and still wring his hands. The Portuguese was thick, medium colored and of medium height. His entire sea ability was in the cut of his whiskers, which were as well greased as his pumps were not. Levere dismissed him to the main deck. The Portuguese rolled his eyes, gasped, incoherently babbled about seagoing codes. He stamped his feet like a child. He whined like a dog. He prayed to the Virgin and the devil.

Louise stood on the thin red water with gunnels still a foot above the surface. No decision was correct. Adrian ’s flotation would not support the trawler. If Levere came alongside and tied on, and if Louise slid, Adrian would be dragged over. Either that, or breaking lines might kill a man.

Yet, legally, Levere could not just allow the thing to die. It hovered on the sea, bowed like a tired workman, old and disgraced and unworthy. It had once been a strong, downeast work boat before the coming of the Portuguese. Now, in that romance of the seaman, it seemed that Louise wanted to die. The rusting winch and rusting cable lay in a last small chaos of despair. The rails were pocked deep, bleeding rust, and the thin pipe of the stack was disfigured where rust had flaked away and eaten out the top. Oil surrounded the gunnels to make the trawler a small blot on the rust-colored sea.

There was a hurried conference on the bridge, men muttering in the red dawn, casting pale shadows. Dane, Levere, Jensen. Howard jogged the dead helm and watched the drift. A quartermaster stood ready by the engine room telegraph and watched Louise .

“Not enough freeboard—submersible is ready—yes, well, but we must—of course—,” they murmured, unsecretly hoping that Louise would take the decision from them. “A snipe—no, I’ll go myself—life jacket—sure, sure, yes chum—back down after you’re aboard, ‘twill give you room—take a line—’twould foul surely—I mean carry the thing. Don’t tie on—”

The crew silently stood at the rail, and silently aided Jensen. The Portuguese swore blessings, cried in the name of the pope. Louise shuddered but rode no lower.

That Jensen loved not life but living. In later days Lamp would say that he was spiritual, but spiritlike is how he looked. He made two trips, moved quickly, lithe in the bulky life vest, walking soft across Louise ’s tumbled deck like a man treading on sharp pebbles. The submersible pump and the portable engine were heavy. He swung sideways. He was like a dancer portraying a crippled dream. His shadow was a wisp, faded and thin in the red light.

He approached the ladder that led below, looked about him, suspicious. Adrian was backing dead slow, the screw barely turning. Jensen shoved the submersible into the hatch, sat back on his heels, began to rig.

Dane descended from the bridge, tapped two seamen, and the three climbed into one of Louise ’s boats. They shoved off and hovered between the two vessels. Adrian ’s crew stood like a silent crowd along the rail. The Portuguese moaned.

Jensen rocked forward in his crouch, cursed, and with one smooth movement disappeared down the ladder. Dane’s yell was blanked out by Adrian ’s whistle. Levere’s voice followed, stern, sad and urgent. The sounds were like sparks over the eternal hush of the sea.

Jensen was what? A fool? No one knew what Jensen saw, what problem he faced that allowed him to make that decision. A discharge line snagged below Louise ’s tumbled deck? In that dark space his voice echoed as he cursed the pump. Thumps, movement and his distant voice swearing… and then a shiver through the old trawler and it shifted deeper, hesitated, and then it was gulped.

It made a rapid hole in the sea as it slid. The rusted stack tipped slightly aft. There was a motion, a last movement; an attempt to retrieve life at the hatch… like the fluttering of a Mother Carey’s chicken. The sea closed over the hole and the small boat carrying Dane and the seamen jumped and bucked. Adrian heeled. Waves splashed white, turned to ripples, fell back to red; and Dane—stony-eyed and unbelieving—returned to the ship and began systematically to kill the Portuguese. Levere and the deck gang pulled him off and locked the man in the safety of the lazarette. The Portuguese lived to make wine-soaked threats in the bars of Gloucester.

Flashing neon. Tailor-made blues. dragons stitched in Chinese silk. Men and women laughing. Old faces. Young faces. Liberty.

“I want a transfer.”

“You want another beer.”

“Me, too,” said Glass. “I want a transfer. To that Andy cutter down in Florida. I’m her next captain.”

“A zoo. An absolute zoo.” Brace’s unremarkable features were pale. He seemed alarmed at the thought of another beer.

“Make bags of money being captain,” Glass said. “Rake off the duty-free stores. Smuggle them to Cuba.”

“You want to grow up,” Howard told Brace kindly. “You want some sea time. Plus you want another beer.”

“You got it made,” Glass explained to Brace. “Me, I don’t got it made. Not ’till get next to those rich Cubans.”

Red neon. Blue neon. Green neon. Tattoo neon. Light pulsing on the wan faces of bar girls with names that were fabulous: Jungle Judy, Radar the Snipe, Feelie.

“I never did anything to make Dane hate me.”