Baa Baa Black Sheep Read Free Page B

motorboat had a bar but that it didn’t open until we passed the three-mile limit. The first meal was not just put on to make an impression, for the quality and quantity continued throughout the lengthy voyage.
    The pilots had been having quite a ball in San Francisco, telling anyone interested in listening that they were missionaries. And we were equally loquacious in telling our new shipmates, approximately sixty people we had never seen before. During our first conversations these lovely people listened attentively, refraining from talking about themselves.
    At my table were two men and a woman doctor. But what I did not know, not until after I finished shooting my mouth off, was that the other three members of my table were honest-to-goodness missionaries. And furthermore, there were fifty-five of them aboard—men and women. How phony I felt. My orders on what to say, my passport, couldn’t possibly cover my feeling of embarrassment. If only I had let them talk first!
    Sixteen hundred, the
Bosch Fontein
was ready to pull out. The recruiting captain, immaculate in a fresh uniform, presented Smith with a packet of sealed orders. He shook hands with us, placing an arm around each, telling us how badly he wanted to go overseas with us.
    The
Bosch Fontein
was fast for a combination freighter-passenger. She was doing about sixteen knots. As we stood on deck, looking up and back at the Golden Gate Bridge, we knew that we were finally on our way. By 1730 we had progressed beyond the three-mile limit, so the ship’s cocktaillounge was opened. Our twenty-seven gathered together in the ship’s lounge, which was to become our headquarters. Here we were occupied comparing notes upon our newly found traveling companions.
    We were trying to figure out how a clergyman gag would stick with a gang of long-hairs, like we thought these people were. What would we tell them? Or should we merely clamp up and be the strong, silent type?
    There happened to be three strangers in the bar. One I judged immediately to be a pilot because his eyes had crow’s-feet clear back to his ears. And his blue eyes—too blue to be described—peered out under half-closed lids.
    I had noticed this same man all day out of the corner of my eye before the ship sailed. He had been always walking by, as if trying to listen in on our conversation. A German spy maybe, because I darn sure didn’t know German from Dutch. And over to our table he came, saying: “Mind if I join you? I’m Bob Heising.”
    “What is the dope, boys?” he asked. “Where are you going? What kind of a deal have they got you on?”
    “There isn’t any deal,” we tried to answer. “We are members of the clergy. Just what it says on our passports.”
    “Oh, hold on a minute,” he laughed. “Let me in on the dope. I know pilots when I see them. I myself am going over to fly for KLM Airlines in Java.”
    “No, no, we are not pilots,” we repeated, remembering our orders.
    “Oh, now, come on, give me the dope.” He laughed again. “I have drunk myself out of enough jobs around the world to give you all a job.”
    “But, no, we are not pilots,” we tried to say again.
    But again Heising laughed: “When I see an Army Air Corps officer with LaFayette Escadrille wings on the bottom of his jacket, and practically kissing you all good-by at San Francisco, you can’t tell me you are a bunch of clergymen.”
    What the hell was the use, trying to kid a guy like Heising and being ridiculous? The answer: we didn’t. The idea that if you can’t lick them then join them came in handy.
    Bob Heising filled us with tall tales from practically all over the world. He told us about nearly getting killed one time in Mexico City when he and a couple other Americans went to see a bullfight, the reason being that they hadpersisted in shouting:
“Viva el toro”
all through the performance.
    Bob enlightened me on the fact that the pay we were getting was inadequate. The Dutch were paying pilots