The Death Ship Read Free Page A

spring a leak, or something, soon, and be forced to return and give me a chance to hop on again. I should have known better; she was too good a bucket to run foolishly on the rocks.
    Another hope of mine went bluey. I had hoped that the crew might object to leaving me behind and make it tough for the skipper, or even engage in a mild form of mutiny. Apparently they didn’t care. Anyhow, I wished that damned canoe all the shipwrecks and all the typhoons any sailor ever heard of from old salts spinning yarns that made even drunken quartermasters get the shivers.
    I was just about to doze off and dream of that little peach of a girl when somebody tapped me on the shoulder.
    Right away, without giving me a chance to see what was going on, he talked to me so rapidly that my head began to buzz.
    I got mad and I said: “Rats, be damned, beat it, leave me alone. I don’t like your damn jibbering. And besides I don’t know what you want. I don’t understand a single word of your blabbering. Go to the devil.”
    “You are an Englishman, are you not?” he asked, speaking in English.
    “Nope; Yank.”
    “Then you are American.”
    “Looks like it. And now that you know all about me, leave me in peace and go to your wifie. I’ve nothing to do with you, no business.”
    “But I have some with you. I am from the police.”
    “Your luck, old man. Fine job. How much do they pay the flats here? What’s troubling you with a swell job like that?
    Something wrong?”
    “Seaman, hey?” he asked.
    “Aha. Any chance for me?”
    “What ship?”
    “ Tuscaloosa , from New Orleans.”
    “Sailed at three in the morning. A long way off, I dare say.”
    That made me mad again. “I don’t need you to tell me any stale jokes.”
    “Your papers?” he asked.
    “What papers do you mean?”
    “Your passport.”
    “What?”
    “That’s what I said; let me have your passport.”
    “Haven’t any.”
    “Then your sailor’s identification card or whatever you call it in your home country.” He sort of pushed me.
    “My sailor’s card? Yes, yes.” Hell. My seaman’s card. Where have I got it? I remember now, it’s in a pocket of my jacket; and my jacket is in my sailor’s bag; and the bag is stowed nicely away under my bunk in the foc’sle in the Tuscaloosa ; and the Tuscaloosa is now gee, where can she be right now? I wonder what they’ve got for breakfast today. Sure, that damned cook has burned the bacon again. I’ll get him some day and tell him what I really think of him. Just let me be around, painting the galley. Guess I’m getting hungry.
    “Well, well,” said the flat, shaking me, “your sailor’s card. You know what I mean.”
    “My sailor’s card? If you mean mine, what I want to say, my sailor’s card I’ll have to come clean about that card. The truth is, I haven’t got any.”
    “No sailor’s card?” He opened his eyes wide in sheer astonishment, as if he had seen a ghost. The tone of his voice carried the same strange amazement, as if he had said: “What is that, you don’t believe there is such a thing as sea-water?”
    It seems that it was incomprehensible to him that there could be a human being with neither a passport nor a sailor’s card. He asked for the card for the third time, almost automatically. Then, as though receiving a shock, he recovered from his astonishment and sputtered: “No other papers either? No identification certificate? No letter from your consul? No bankbook? Or anything like that?”
    “No, no, nothing.” Feverishly I searched my pockets, so as to make a good impression upon him. I knew quite well I had not even an empty envelope with my name on it.
    Said he: “Come with me.”
    “Where to?” I wanted to know. Perhaps he was sent to fish up some derelict sailors for a rum-boat. I could tell him right then that not even wild horses could drag me aboard one.
    “Where? You will find out pretty soon. Just keep going.” He wasn’t so friendly any more.
    After some