Irwin Shaw - Rich Man, Poor Man

The ship flew the Liberian flag, but in two voyages he hadn’t come close to Liberia. The man called Pappy, the manager of the Aegean Hotel, had been as helpful as Schultzy had said he would be. He had fitted him out with the clothes and seabag of an old Norwegian seaman who had died in the hotel and had gotten him the berth on the Elga Andersen, Greek ownership, taking on cargo at Hoboken for Rotterdam, Algeciras, Genoa, Piraeus. Thomas had stayed in his room in the Aegean all the time he was in New York, eight days, and Pappy had brought him his meals personally, because Thomas had said he didn’t want any of the help to see him and start asking questions. The night before the Elga Andersen was due to sail Pappy had driven him over to the pier in Hoboken himself and watched while he signed on. The favour that Pappy owed Schultzy from Schultzy’s days in the Merchant Marine during the war must have been a big one.

The Elga Andersen had sailed at dawn the next day and anybody who was looked for Tommy Jordache was going to have a hard time finding him.

The Elga Anderson was a liberty ship, ten thousand tons. It had been built in 1943 and had seen better days. It had gone from owner to owner, for quick profits, and nobody had done more to maintain it than was absolutely necessary to keep it afloat and moving. Its hull was barnacled, its engines wheezed, it hadn’t been painted in years, there was rust everywhere, the food was miserable, the captain an old religious maniac who

knelt on the bridge during storms and who had been beached during the war for Nazi sympathies. The officers had papers from ten different countries and had been dismissed from other berths for drunkenness or incompetence or theft. The men in the crew were from almost every country with a coast on the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, Greeks, Jugoslavs, Norwegians, Italians, Moroccans, Mexicans, Americans, most of them with papers that could not stand inspection. There were fights almost every day in the mess room, where a poker game was always in progress, but the officers carefully refrained from interfering. Thomas kept out of the poker game and the fights and spoke only when necessary and answered no questions and was at peace. He felt that he had found his place on the planet, ploughing the wide waters of the world. No women, no worrying about weight, no pissing blood in the morning, no scrambling for money at the end of every month. Someday, he’d pay Schultzy back the one fifty he had given him in Las Vegas. With interest.

He heard steps behind him, but didn’t turn around.

‘We’re in for a rough night,’ said the man who had joined him in the bow. ‘We’re going right into a storm.*

Thomas grunted. He recognised the voice. A young guy named Dwyer, a kid from the Middle West who somehow managed to sound like a fag. He was rabbit-toothed and was nick-named Bunny.

‘It’s the skipper,’ Dwyer went on. ‘Praying on the bridge. You know the saying - you have a minister on board, watch out for lousy weather.’ . Thomas didn’t say anything.

‘I just hope it’s not a big one,’ Dwyer said. ‘Plenty of these Liberty ships have just broken in half in heavy seas. And the way we’re loaded. Did you notice the list to port we got?’

‘No.’

‘Well, we got it. This your first voyage?’

‘Second.’

Dwyer had signed on in Savannah, where the Elga Andersen had put in after Thomas’s first return voyage on her.

‘It’s a hell hole,’ Dwyer said. I’m only on it for the opportunity.’

Thomas knew Dwyer wanted him to ask what opportunity but just stood there staring out at the darkening horizon.

‘You see,’ Dwyer went on, when he realised Thomas wasn’t going to talk, ‘I’ve got my third mate’s papers. On American

ships I might have to wait years before I move up top. But on a tub like this, with the kind of scum we got as officers, one of them’s likely to fall overboard drunk or get picked up by the police in port and then it’d be my opportunity, see?’

Thomas grunted. He had nothing against Dwyer, but he had nothing for him, either.

‘You planning to try for mate’s papers, too?’ Dwyer asked.

‘Hadn’t thought about it’ Spray was coming over the bow now as the weather worsened and he huddled into his pea jacket. Under the jacket he had a heavy turtle-neck blue sweater. The old Norwegian who had died in the Hotel Aegean must have been a big man, because his clothes fitted Thomas comfortably.

“The only thing to do,’ Dwyer said. ‘I saw that the first day I set foot on the deck of my first ship. The ordinary seaman or even the AB winds up with nothing. Lives like a dog and winds up a broken old man at fifty. Even on American ships, with the union and everything and fresh fruit. Big deal. Fresh fruit. The thing is to plan ahead. Get some braid on you. The next time I’m back I’m going up to Boston and I’m going to take a shot at second mate’s papers.’

Thomas looked at him curiously. Dwyer was wearing a gob’s white hat, pulled down all around a yellow sou’wester and solid new rubber-soled, high, working shoes. He was a small man and he looked like a boy dressed up for a costume party, with the new, natty, seagoing clothes. The wind had reddened his face but not like an outdoor man’s face, rather like a girl’s who is not used to the cold and has suddenly been exposed to it. He had long, dark eyelashes over soft, black eyes and he seemed to be begging for something. His mouth was too large and too full and too busy. He kept moving his hands in and out of his pockets restlessly.

Christ, Thomas thought, is that why he’s come up here to talk to me and he always smiles at me when he passes me? I better put the bastard straight right now. ‘If you’re such an educated hotshot,’ he said roughly, ‘with mate’s papers and all, what’re you doing down here with al of us poor folks. Why aren’t you dancing with some heiress on a cruise ship in your nice white officer’s suit?’

‘I’m hot trying to be superior, Jordache,’ Dwyer said. ‘Honest I’m not. I like to talk to somebody once in a while and you’re about my age and you’re American and you got dignity, I saw that right away, dignity. Everybody else on this ship - they’re animals. They’re always making fun of me, I’m not one of

them, I’ve got ambition. I won’t play in their crooked poker games. You must’ve noticed.’

‘I haven’t noticed anything,’ Thomas said.

‘They think I’m a fag or something,’ Dwyer said. ‘You didn’t notice that?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Except for meals, Thomas stayed out of the mess room.

‘It’s my curse,’ Dwyer said. “That’s what happens when I apply for third mate anywhere. They look at my papers, my recommendations, then they talk to me for a while and look me over in that queer way and they tell me there’s no openings. Boy, I can see that look coming from a mile off. I’m no fag, I swear to God, Jordache.’

‘You don’t have to swear, anything for me,’ Thomas said. The conversation made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to be let in on anybody’s secrets or troubles. He wanted to do his job and go from one port to another and sail the seas in solitude.

‘I’m engaged to be married, for Christ’s sake,’ Dwyer cried. He dug into the back pocket of his pants and brought forth a wallet and took out a photograph. ‘Here, look at this.’ He thrust the snapshot in front of Thomas’s nose. ‘That’s my girl and me. Last summer on Narragansett Beach? A very pretty, full bodied young girl, with curly blonde hair, in a bathing suit, and beside her, Dwyer, small but trim and well muscled like a bantamweight, in a tightly fitting pair of swimming trunks. He looked in good enough shape to go into the ring, but of course that meant nothing. ‘Does that look like a fag?’ Dwyer demanded. ‘Does that girl look as though she was the type to marry a fag?’