NEWSREEL XX 2 страница

"Why they brought us to this hole I can't imagine and
now there's something the matter with the boat and we
can't leave for two days."

"That must be the Monterey."

"Yes. It's a terrible boat, nothing on board but women.
I'm glad to run into a fellow I can talk to. Seems to be
nothing but niggers down here."

"Looks like they had 'em all colors in Trinidad."

"Say, this rain isn't going to stop for a hell of a time.
Come in and have a drink with me."

Joe looked at him suspiciously. "All right," he said
finally, "but I might as well tell you right now I can't
treat you back . . . I'm flat and those goddam Scotch-
men won't advance us any pay.""You're a sailor, aren't
you?" asked the man when they got to the bar. "I work
on a boat, if that's what you mean."

"What'll you have . . . They make a fine Planter's
punch here. Ever tried that?""I'll drink a beer . . . I
usually drink beer." The barkeeper was a broadfaced chink
with a heartbroken smile like a very old monkey's. He put
the drinks down before them very gently as if afraid of
breaking the glasses. The beer was cold and good in 'its
dripping glass. Joe drank it off. "Say, you don't know
any baseball scores, do you? Last time I saw a paper
looked like the Senators had a chance for the pennant."

The man took off his panama hat and mopped his
brow with a handkerchief. He had curly black hair. He
kept looking at Joe as if he was making up his mind about

-19-

something. Finally he said, "Say my name's . . . Wa-
wa-wa- . . . Warner Jones." "They call me Yank on the
Argyle. . . In the navy they called me Slim."

"So you were in the navy, were you? I thought you
looked more like a jackie than a merchant seaman, Slim."

"That so? "

The man who said his name was Jones ordered two
more of the same. Joe was worried. But what the hell,
they can't arrest a guy for a deserter on British soil. "Say,
did you say you knew anything about the baseball scores?
The leagues must be pretty well underway by now."

"I got the papers up at the hotel . . . like to look at
them?"

"I sure would."

The rain stopped. The pavement was already dry when
they came out of the bar.

"Say, I'm going to take a ride around this island. Tell
me you can see wild monkeys and all sorts of things.
Why don't you come along? I'm bored to death of sight-
seeing by myself."

Joe thought a minute. "These clothes ain't fit. . . ."

"What the hell, this isn't Fifth Avenue. Come ahead."
The man who said his name was Jones signalled a nicely
polishéd Ford driven by a young chinaman. The china-
man wore glasses and a dark blue suit and looked like a
college student; he talked with an English accent. He said
he'd drive them round the town and out to the Blue Pool.
As they were setting off the man who said his name was
Jones said, "Wait a minute," and ran in the bar and got a
flask of Planter's Punch.

He talked a blue streak all the time they were driving
out past the British bungalows and brick institution build-
ings and after that out along the road through rubbery
blue woods so dense and steamy it seemed to Joe there
must be a glass roof overhead somewhere. He said how
he liked adventure and travel and wished he was free to

-20-

ship on boats and bum around and see the world and that
it must be wonderful to depend only on your own sweat
and muscle the way Joe was doing. Joe said, "Yare?"
But the man who said his name was Jones paid no atten-
tion and went right on and said how he had to take care
of his mother and that was a great responsibility and
sometimes he thought he'd go mad and he'd been to a doc-
tor about it and the doctor had advised him to take a
trip, but that the food wasn't any good on the boat and.
gave him indigestion and it was all full of old women
with daughters they wanted to marry off and it made him
nervous having women run after him like that. The worst
of it was not having a friend to talk to about whatever
he had on his mind when he got lonely. He wished he
had a nice good looking fellow who'd been around and
wasn't a softy and knew what life was and could appre-
ciate beauty for a friend, a fellow like Joe in fact. His
mother was awfully jealous and didn't like the idea of his
having any intimate friends and would always get sick
or try to hold out on his allowance when she found out
about his having any friends, because she wanted him to
be always tied to her apron strings but he was sick and
tired of that and from now on he was going to do what
he damn pleased, and she didn't have to know about
everything he did anyway.

He kept giving Joe cigarettes and offering them to
the chinaman who said each time, "Thank you very much,
sir. I have forgone smoking." Between them they had
finished the flask of punch and the man who said his name
was Jones was beginning to edge over towards Joe in the
seat, when the chinaman stopped the car at the end of a
little path and said, "If you wish to view the Blue Pool
you must walk up there almost seven minutes, sir. It is the
principal attraction of the island of Trinidad."

Joe hopped out of the car and went to make water be-
side a big tree with shaggy red bark. The man who said

-21-

his name was Jones came up beside him. "Two minds with
but a single thought," he said. Joe said, "Yare," and went
and asked the chinaman where they could see some mon-
keys.

"The Blue: Pool," said the chinaman, "is one of their
favorite resorts." He got out of the car and walked around
it looking intently with his black beads of eyes into the
foliage over their heads. Suddenly he pointed. Something
black was behind a shaking bunch of foliage. A screechy
giggle came from behind it and three monkeys went off
flying from branch to branch with long swinging leaps. In
a second they were gone and all you could see was the
branches stirring at intervals through the woods where
they jumped. One of them had a pinkish baby monkey
hanging on in front. Joe was tickled. He'd never seen
monkeys really wild like that before. He went off up the
path, walking fast so that the man who said his name
was Jones had trouble keeping up to him. Joe wanted to
see some more monkeys.

After a few minutes' walk up hill he began to hear a
waterfall. Something made him think of Great Falls and
Rock Creek and he went all soft inside. There was a pool
under a waterfall hemmed in by giant trees. "Dod gast
it, I've got a mind to take me a dip," he said. "Wouldn't
there be snakes, Slim?""Snakes won't bother you, 'less
you bother 'em first."

But when they got right up to the pool they saw that
there were people picnicking there, girls in light pink and
blue dresses, two or three men in white ducks, grouped
under striped umbrellas. Two Hindoo servants were
waiting on them, bringing dishes out of a hamper. Across
the pool came the chirp-chirp of cultivated English voices.
"Shoot, we can't go swimmin' here and they won't be
any monkeys either."

"Suppose we joined them . . . I might introduce my-
self and you would be my kid brother. I've got a letter

-22-

to a Colonel Somebody but I felt too blue to present it."
"What the hell do they want to be fartin' around here
for?" said Joe and started back down the path again. He
didn't see any more monkeys and by the time he'd got
back to the car big drops had started to fall.

"That'll spoil their goddarn picnic," he said, grinning to
the man who said his name was Jones when he came up,
the sweat running in streams down his face. "My, you're
a fast walker, Slim." He puffed and patted him on the
back. Joe got into the car. "I guess we're goin' to get it."
"Sirs," said the chinaman, "I will return to the city for
I perceive that a downpour is imminent."

By the time they'd gone a half a mile it was raining
so hard the chinaman couldn't see to drive. He ran the
car into a small shed on the side of the road. The rain
pounding on the tin roof overhead sounded loud as a
steamboat letting off steam. The man who said his name
was Jones started talking; he had to yell to make himself
heard above the rain. "I guess you see some funny sights,
Slim, leading the life you lead."

Joe got out of the car and stood facing the sudden
curtain of rain; the spray in his face felt almost cool. The
man who said his name was Jones sidled up to him hold-
ing out a cigarette. "How did you like it in the navy?"

Joe took the cigarette, lit it and said, "Not so good."

"I've been friends with lots of navy boys . . . I sup-
pose you liked raising cain on shore leave, didn't you?"
Joe said he didn't usually have much pay to raise cain
with, used to play ball sometimes, that wasn't so bad.
"But, Slim, I thought sailors didn't care what they did
when they got in port." "I guess some of the boys try to
paint the town red, but they don't usually have enough
jack to get very far." "Maybe you and I can paint the
town red in Port of Spain, Slim." Joe shook his head. "No,
I gotta go back on board ship."

The rain increased till the tin roof roared so Joe

-23-

couldn't hear what the man who said his name was Jones
was trying to say, then slackened and stopped entirely.
"Well, at least you come up to my room in the hotel, Slim,
and we'll have a couple of drinks. Nobody knows me
here. I can do anything I like." "I'd like to see the sports
page of that paper from home if you don't mind."

They got into the car and rode back to town along roads
brimmed with water like canals. The sun came out hot
and everything was in a blue steam. It was late afternoon.
The streets of the town were crowded; hindoos with
turbans, chinks in natty Hart Schaffner and Marx
clothes, redfaced white men dressed in white, raggedy
shines of all colors.

Joe felt uncomfortable going through the lobby of the
hotel in his dungarees, pretty wet at that, and he needed
a shave. The man who said his name was Jones put his
arm over his shoulders going up the stairs. His room was
big with tall narrow shuttered windows and smelt of bay
rum. "My, but I'm hot and wet," he said. "I'm going to
take a shower . . . but first we'd better ring for a couple
of gin fizzes. . . . Don't you want to take your clothes
off and take it easy? His skin's about as much clothes as a
fellow can stand in this weather." Joe shook his head,
"They stink too much," he said. "Say, have you got them
papers?

The hindoo servant came with the drinks while the
man who said his name was Jones was in the bathroom.
Joe took the tray. There was something about the expres-
sion of the hindoo's thin mouth and black eyes looking
at something behind you in the room that made Joe sore.
He wanted to hit the tobaccocolored bastard. The man
who said his name was Jones came back looking cool in a
silk bathrobe.

"Sit down, Slim, and we'll have a drink and a chat."
The man ran his fingers gently over his forehead as if it
ached and through his curly black hair and settled in an

-24-

armchair. Joe sat down in a straight chair across the room.
"My, I think this heat would be the end of me if I
stayed a week in this place. I don't see how you stand
it, doing manual work and everything. You must be pretty
tough!"

Joe wanted to ask about the newspapers but the man
who said his name was Jones was talking again, saying
how he wished he was tough, seeing the world like that-,
meeting all kinds of fellows, going to all kinds of joints,
must see some funny sights, must be funny all these fel-
lows bunking together all these days at sea, rough and
tumble, hey? and then nights ashore, raising cain, paint-
ing the town red, several fellows with one girl. "If I was
living like that, I wouldn't care what I did, no reputation
to lose, no danger of somebody trying to blackmail you,
only have to be careful to keep out of jail, hay? Why,
Slim, I'd like to go along with you and lead a life like
that." "Yare?" said Joe.

The man who said his name was Jones rang for another
drink. When the hindoo servant had gone Joe asked
again about the papers. "Honestly, Slim, I looked every-
where for them. They must have been thrown out."
"Well, I guess I'll be gettin' aboard my bloody lime-
juicer." Joe had his hand on the door. The man who said
his name was Jones came running over and took his hand
and said, "No, you're not going. You said you?d go on a
party with me. You're an awful nice boy. You won't be
sorry. You can't go away like this, now that you've got
me feeling all sort of chummy and you know amorous.
Don't you ever feel that way, Slim? I'll do the handsome
thing. I'll give you fifty dollars." Joe shook his head
and pulled his hand away.

He had to give him a shove to get the door open; he
ran down the white marble steps and out into the street.

It was about dark; Joe walked along fast. The sweat
was pouring off him. He was cussing under his breath as

-25-

he walked along-He felt rotten and sore and he'd wanted
real bad to see some papers from home.

He loafed up and down a little in the sort of park
place where he'd sat that afternoon, then he started down
towards the wharves. Might as well turn in. The smell of
frying from eating joints reminded him he was hungry.
He turned into one before he remembered he didn't have
a cent in his pocket. He followed the sound of a mechan-
ical piano and found himself in the red light district.
Standing in the doorways of the little shacks there were
nigger wenches of all colors and shapes, halfbreed Chinese
and Indian women, a few faded fat German or French
women; one little mulatto girl who reached her hand out
and touched his shoulder as he passed was damn pretty.
He stopped to talk to her, but when he said he was broke,
she laughed and said, "Go long from here, Mister No-
Money Man . . . no room here for a No-Money Man."

When he got back on board he couldn't find the cook
to try and beg a little grub off him so he took a chaw
and let it go at that. The focastle was like an oven. He
went up on deck with only a pair of overalls on and
walked up and down with the watchman who was a pink-
faced youngster from Dover everybody called Tiny. Tiny
said he'd heard the old man and Mr. McGregor talking
in the cabin about how they'd be off tomorrow to St. Luce
to load limes and then 'ome to blighty and would 'e be
glad to see the tight little hile an' get off this bleedin'
crahft, not 'arf. Joe said a hell of a lot of good it'd do
him, his home was in Washington, D. C. "I want to get
out of the c----g life and get a job that pays something.
This way every bastardly tourist with a little jack thinks
he can hire you for his punk." Joe told Tiny about the
man who said his name was Jones and he laughed like
he'd split. "Fifty dollars, that's ten quid. I'd a 'ad 'arf a
mind to let the toff 'ave a go at me for ten quid."

The night was absolutely airless. The mosquitoes were

-26-

beginning to get at Joe's bare neck and arms. A sweet hot
haze came up from the slack water round the wharves
blurring the lights down the waterfront. They took a
couple of turns without saying anything.

"My eye what did 'e want ye to do, Yank? "I' said Tiny
giggling. "Aw to hell with him," said Joe. "I'm goin' to
get out of this life. Whatever happens, wherever you are,
the seaman gets the s -- y end of the stick. Ain't that true,
Tiny?"

"Not 'aft . . . ten quid! Why, the bleedin' toff ought
to be ashaymed of hisself. Corruptin' morals, that's what
'e's after. Ought to go to 'is 'otel with a couple of ship-
mytes and myke him pay blackmyl. There's many an old
toff in Dover payin' blackmyl for doin' less 'n 'e did.
They comes down on a vacaytion and goes after the
bath'ouse boys. Blackmyl lim, that's what I'd do,
Yank."

Joe didn't say anything. After a while he said, "Jeez,
an' when I was a kid I thought I wanted to go to the
tropics."

"This ain't tropics, it's a bleedin' 'ell 'ole, that's what
it is."

They took another couple of turns. Joe went and leaned
over the side looking down into the greasy blackness. God
damn these mosquitoes. When he spat out his plug of
tobacco it made a light plunk in the water. He went down
into the focastle again, crawled into his bunk and pulled
the blanket over his head and lay there sweating. "Darn
it, I wanted to see the baseball scores."

Next day they coaled ship and the day after they had
Joe painting the officers' cabins while the Argyle nosed out
through the Boca again between the slimegreen ferny
islands, and he was sore because he had A.B. papers and

-27-

here they were still treating him like an ordinary sea-
man and he was going to England and didn't know what
held do when he'd get there, and his shipmates said
they'd likely as not run him into a concentraytion camp;
bein' an alien and landin' in England without a passport,
war wit' war on and 'un spies everywhere, an' all; but
the breeze had salt in it now and when he peeked out of
the porthole he could see blue ocean instead of the pud-
dlewater off Trinidad and flying fish in hundreds skim-
ming away from the ship's side.

The harbor at St. Luce's was clean and landlocked,
white houses with red roofs under the coconutpalms. It
turned out that it was bananas they were going to load; it
took them a day and a half knocking up partitions in the
afterhold and scantlings for the bananas to hang from. It
was dark by the time they'd come alongside the banana-
wharf and had rigged the two gangplanks and the little
derrick for lowering the bunches into the hold. The wharf
was crowded with colored women laughing and shrieking
and yelling things at the crew, and big buck niggers stand-
ing round doing nothing. The women did the loading.
After a while they started coming up one gangplank, each
one with a huge green bunch of bananas slung on her
head and shoulders; there were old black mammies and
pretty young mulatto girls; their faces shone with sweat
under the big bunchlights, you could see their swinging
breasts hanging down through their ragged clothes, brown
flesh through a rip in a sleeve. When each woman got to
the top of the gangplank two big buck niggers lifted the
bunch tenderly off her shoulders, the foreman gave her
a slip of paper and she ran down the other gangplank to
the wharf again. Except for the donkeyengine men the
deck crew had nothing to do. They stood around uneasy,
watching the women, the glitter of white teeth and eye-
balls, the heavy breasts, the pumping motion of their
thighs. They stood around, looking at the women, scratch-

-28-

ing themselves, shifting their weight from one foot to the
otheri not even much smut was passed. It was a black still
night, the smell of the bananas and the stench of nigger-
woman sweat was hot around them; now and then a little
freshness came in a whiff off some cases of limes piled
on the wharf.

Joe caught on that Tiny was waving to him to come
somewhere. He followed him into the shadow. Tiny put
his mouth against his ear, "There's bleedin' tarts 'ere,
Yank, come along." They went up the bow and slid down
a rope to the wharf. The rope scorched their hands. Tiny
spat into his hands and rubbed them together. Joe did
the same. Then they ducked into the warehouse. A rat
scuttled past their feet. It was a guano warehouse and
stank of fertilizer. Outside a little door in the back it was
pitch black, sandy underfoot. A little glow from street-
lights hit the upper part of the warehouse. There were
women's voices, a little laugh. Tiny had disappeared. Joe
had his hand on a woman's bare shoulder. "But first you
must give me a shilling," said a sweet cockney West India
woman's voice. His voice had gone hoarse, "Sure, cutie,
sure I will."

When his eyes got used to the dark he could see that
they weren't the only ones. There were giggles, hoarse
breathing all round them. From the ship came the inter-
mittent whir of the winches, and a mixedup noise of
voices from the women loading bananas.

The woman was asking for money. "Come on now,
white boy, do like you say." Tiny was standing beside him
buttoning up his pants. "Be back in a jiff, girls."

"Sure, we left our jack on board the boat."

They ran back through the warehouse with the girls
after them, up the jacobsladder somebody had let down
over the side of the ship and landed on deck out of breath
and doubled up with laughing. When they looked over
the side the women were running up and down the wharf

-29-

spitting and cursing at them like wildcats. "Cheeryoh, lay-
dies," Tiny called down to them, taking off his cap. He
grabbed Joe's arm and pulled him along the deck; they
stood round a while near the end of the gangplank. "Say,
Tiny, yours was old enough to be your grandmother,
damned if she wasn't," whispered Joe. "Granny me eye,
it was the pretty un I 'ad." "The hell you say . . . She
musta been sixty." "Wot a bleedin' wopper . . . it was
the pretty un I 'ad," said Tiny, walking off sore.

A moon had come up red from behind the fringed hills.
The bananabunches the women were carrying up the
gangplank made a twisting green snake under the glare
of the working lights. Joe suddenly got to feeling dis-
gusted and sleepy. He went down and washed himself
carefully with soap and water before crawling into his
bunk. He went to sleep listening to the Scotch and British
voices of his shipmates, talking about the tarts out back
of the wharfhouse, 'ow many they'd 'ad, 'ow many times,
'ow it stacked up with the Argentyne or Durban or Sing-
apore. The loading kept up all night.

By noon they'd cleared for Liverpool with the Chief
stoking her up to make a fast passage and all hands talking
about blighty. They had bananas as much as they could eat
that trip; every day the supercargo was bringing up over-
ripe bunches and hanging them in the galley. Everybody
was grousing about the ship not being armed, but the
Old Man and Mr. McGregor seemed to take on more
about the bananas than about the raiders. They were al-
ways peeping down under the canvas cover over the hatch
that had been rigged with a ventilator on the peak of it,
to see if they were ripening too soon. There was a lot of
guying about the blahsted banahnas down in the focastle.

After crossing the tropic they ran into a nasty norther
that blew four days, after that the weather was dirty right
along. Joe didn't have much to do after his four hours
at the wheel; in the focastle they were all grousing about

-30-

the ship not being fumigated to kill the bugs and the cock-
roaches and not being armed and not picking up a convoy.
Then word got around that there were German sub-
marines cruising off the Lizard and everybody from the
Old Man down got short tempered as hell. They all
began picking on Joe on account of America's not being in
the war and he used to have long arguments with Tiny
and an old fellow from Glasgow they called Haig. Joe
said he didn't see what the hell business the States had
in the war and that almost started a fight.

After they picked up the Scilly Island lights, Sparks
said they were in touch with a convoy and would have a
destroyer all to themselves up through the Irish Sea that
wouldn't leave them until they were safe in the Mersey.
The British had won a big battle at Mons. The Old Man
served out a tot of rum all round and everybody was in
fine shape except Joe who was worried about what'd hap-
pen to him getting into England without a passport. He
was chilly all the time on account of not having any warm
clothes.

That evening a destroyer loomed suddenly out of the
foggy twilight, looking tall as a church above the great
wave of white water curling from her bows. It gave them
a great scare on the bridge because they thought at first it
was a Hun. The destroyer broke out the Union Jack and
slowed down to the Argyle's speed, keeping close and
abreast of her. The crew piled out on deck and gave the
destroyer three cheers. Some of them wanted to sing
God Save the King but the officer on the bridge of the de-
stroyer began' bawling out the Old Man through a mega-
phone asking him why in bloody f -- g hell he wasn't
steering a zigzag course and if he didn't jolly well know
that it was prohibited making any kind of bloody f -- g
noise on a merchantship in wartime.

It was eight bells and the watches were changing and
Joe and Tiny began to laugh coming along the deck just

-31-

at the moment when they met Mr. McGregor stalking by
purple in the face. He stopped square in front of Joe and
asked him what he found so funny? Joe didn't answer.
Mr. McGregor stared at him hard and began saying in his
slow mean voice that he was probably not an American
at all but a dirty 'un spy, and told him to report on the
next shift in the stokehole. Joe said he'd signed on as an
A.B. and they didn't have any right to work him as a
stoker. Mr. McGregor said he'd never struck a man yet
in thirty years at sea but if he let another word out he'd
damn well knock him down. Joe felt burning hot but he
stood still with his fists clenched without saying anything.
For several seconds Mr. McGregor just stared at him,
red as a turkey gobbler. Two of the watch passed along
the deck. "Turn this fellow over to the bosun and put him
in irons. He may be a spy. . . . You go along quiet now
or it'll be worse for you."

Joe spent that night hunched up in a little cubbyhole
that smelt of bilge with his feet in irons. The next morn-
ing the bosun let him out and told him fairly kindly to
go get cookee to give him some porridge but to keep off
the deck. He said they were going to turn him over to the
aliens control as soon as they docked in Liverpool.