Far Tortuga Read Free Page B

dat hombre dere! Tell me he engineer, and den he go and do a job like dat!
    Though the Captain takes no pains to lower his voice, the man in the sombrero is expressionless; he gazes without interest at the island.
    Dass him! He stupid! Dat de mon! He stupid as a goat!

    Byrum and Athens fit a kerosene light into the binnacle; Vemon bends over them, hands on knees, trying to steady himself. Eventually the wheel is to be placed in the new pilot’s cabin, overlooking engine house, deck and sea, but for the moment it remains in its old position in the stern.
    Now dat is a hell of a arrangement. Dat is a
hell
of a arrangement, dat is. De mon at de helm cannot even see where de ship
goin
! On all de boats I ever sailed on, I never seen nothin to beat
dat
!
    He say he gots to leave it dat way, Byrum, bein he so broke. Spent all his money up down in Honduras, poor fella. Say he got to get a pile of turtle to pay for de next part of de job.
    Well, dat is bullshit, Athens! All de money de mon made smugglin up dere to Cuba, buyin dem Cuban sharkskin? All dem years of runnin guns all over de Caribbean Sea?
    All of de same, we gone make dis voyage with a bent shaft on de port engine, and with no cook, and with dis wheel in dis crazy way where de helmsman can’t see nothin but straight up de bunkey of de fellas layin in dere berths—
    Byrum straightens up.
    No
cook
?
    ASK ONE OF DEM TO RIG A LANTERN, AND LOOK AT DAT! TWO OF DEM DOIN IT, AND A THIRD ONE LOOKIN ON!
    We tryin to figure dis arrangement you got here, Copm—
    Nemmine dat! It go fine if de mens know dere job! But we ain’t never gone to sail if you fellas hang around back here!
    Propeller done now, Copm!
    The Captain turns to glare at Will.
    Heave up de anchor, den! We don’t get underway, we gone lose a day’s fishenin on de banks, and de season gettin away from us already! Go on dere, Buddy! You fella Brown, turn dem engines over, till we see de vibration! Wait now! Get dat boat aboard of here!
    Speedy has brought the catboat alongside. Pulleys lowered from foremast and boom are hooked to ring bolts in the catboat’s bowand stern; they shriek as the boat is hoisted from the water. Byrum holds her clear of the hull by bracing an oar against the thwarts, careening the boat well over on her side so that her keel is high enough to clear the rails as she is swung inboard and lowered to the deck. The sun glistens on the green algaic slime that fouls her bottom. The boat is lashed down on her side, keel outboard, to conserve deck space.
    Get on dere, Buddy! Get on dat windlass with de rest!
    Copm Raib? Reportin for duty, Copm Raib!
    Whirling, Raib bangs into Vemon, who is pitching up and down the deck. Vemon retreats. The Captain follows.
    I reportin to work here, Copm Raib!
    What you got into dat shirt?
    Raib shoots his hand into Vemon’s shirt and jerks the bottle out; they watch a button roll on edge across the deck.
    Copm Raib—
    Raib hurls the bottle out over the harbor.
    Goddom fool! Ain’t you fool enough already without dat?
    Vemon trembles. Fingering his shirt, he shakes his head violently back and forth, eyes closed.
    No, brother! I goin back ashore! Copm Raib? Now hear me, brother—I
needs
dat to tide me over! I can’t sail with you! You gots to put me ashore!
    Vemon abandons his shirt; his hands wave, finger bones spread. Raib grasps his scrawny arm and propels him aft down the companionway and into the deckhouse.
    In dis goddom lot I got two drunkards, one thief, and five idiots, dass what I got!
    The crew mutters.
    Well, he lucky he got
dat
much, flyin up de way he do—
    One of us got to be thief and idiot both, cause countin de boy dey only seven here!
    Got no cook, Athens say—
    The men glance at the Captain’s son, Jim Eden Avers, known as Buddy, a thin-limbed boy of seventeen who wears a long-billed cap on his long head.
    Buddy looks away.

    The windlass is an old-time oak-and-iron barrel drum cranked by hand levers. Byrum and the ragged man called