Far Tortuga (25 page)
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
Rowing upwind from set to set in the rough water, Brown hurls his weight into his stroke in rage and snaps his oar off at the blade.
Dass it! Dass all I need! Come out here in a wind like dis with two greenhorns for a crew! Now h’ist dat sail, we go back to de ship!
Look dere, Doddy! Turtle shit! Dey
turtle
here!
I seen it, too! But we can’t set without no oar!
Gim dat poddle.
What?
Brown say give him dat Indian paddle; he use de paddle for a oar.
He do dat in dis goddom wind, he break his back—dat paddle
short
, mon! Got no pull in it!
We greenhorns, Doddy—we too stupid to know dat. So just give dat boy de poddle, and let’s see can we get us some dem net sot fore de night fall.
Speedy rigs the paddle to Brown’s oar thong.
In the heavy chop, the catboat pounds from set to set. Grunt by grunt, his mouth wide, speechless, Brown must stroke twice for every pull of Speedy’s oar.
By God, Byrum, dat greenhorn crew is de best crew dat I got! Dey strong and willin! To row all afternoon in dat mess out dere with a
paddle
—dat is
willin
! Brownie? Brownie, I got to hand it to you, boy, you done a job for me today!
Brown has raised broad blisters on his hands and broken them, then blistered the new skin beneath. He sits sullen with his pain, the hands limp in his lap.
Athens? What you and Wodie do dis afternoon? Lay in your bunk? I thought you was gone to butcher dat hox-bill, give us stew to eat!
Dat hox-bill be all over de deck! Can’t butcher turtle when de sea like dis!
So you say, den.
In the port companionway, the old man sits upright in the shadows. Behind him lie the turtles. Their mouths are closed and their breath infrequent, as in the sea, and the expiration, when it comes, is a hollow gasping.
A turtle sips air and subsides again. Its weary sigh, and the tears of lubricating fluid that squeeze regularly from its eye, go unnoticed
except by Wodie, who pauses now and then to adjust the headrests; the other men step on and over the bound, silent creatures as if they were part of the ship’s gear.
Weather changin, look like.
Weather changin, but not de wind. If dis were not de month of April, I tellin you I would be lookin for sign of hurricane. (
shakes his head
) When de stars shootin straight down into de wind, to de horizon—dass okay. But last night I seen stars shootin
across
—y’know? Cuttin right across de horizon. And dat makes me scared.
What do dat mean?
Raib bangs the wheel housing.
Wind, mon, WIND!
In Roatán, we lookin for a ring around de sun. In de Bay Islands. Ring around de sun and ring around de moon.
The Captain nods.
One telltale thing for a hurricane, you feel de wind pullin toward de north or de northwest. Course dere are regular northwest storms, but dat is in de winter time. Usually from July, August, September, October, anytime dat wind goes to de north, dere trouble comin.
Yah, mon. A north wind in September, mon, you better not stop dere askin questions, cause dat is
hurricane
.
Sometimes you can see a half-circle, cloudy—
Raib draws his arm in a half-circle over the horizon.
Yah. De old people call it a hard sky. My grandmother
squally and blusterous black clouds, and behind dat blackness is a tropical storm a-blowin. De squall from a hurricane will not be long fore it will sort of break up in its pass over. But fore it gets cleared up good, you will see another squall formin, and each time it blowin a little harder. (
sighs
) I never forgot dat hurricane in 1926, how de people was standin by dere door dere lookin to windward. I never forgot how dem people looked when dat hurricane come down—dey looked like
children
. De people stood dere in dere door lookin to windward at dat awful sky, and dere
faces
—dey looked like
children
.
A long silence.
Will’s voice comes from the deckhouse.
Dass de way dem fellas was lookin down at us from de rails of de
Majestic
. Dey just stood dere watchin in dat wind till de boats was out of sight. (
pause
) Dey looked like children.
Will? Come out and tell dat tale to Speedy while we eatin.
No, mon. I done with dat.
Whole gale.
At twilight the wind jumps and buffets. A heavy chop batters the ship, which labors on her moorings. Over the wind men have to shout, and when dark comes, they avoid looking out to sea. Soon they stop talking and lie still in their berths.
The wind rises through the night to fifty knots or better. Intermittently the sky is clear, and the masts of the rolling vessel carve great circles in the stars. The hull squeaks and bangs with strain. Where the ocean crashes on the reef, wind and waves are lost; there is no time, no space, but only the chaotic rush of the dark universe.
Raib prowls the ship most of the night, watching to see if the anchor drags, checking the water in the bilges, taking soundings. Periodically he goes to the port companionway, where his father sits staring straight away into the storm. Then he returns aft and sits against the wheel housing to rest. Sometime after midnight, Byrum comes out of the deckhouse and sinks down near him: then Speedy comes aft from his own bunk in the engine room. The three sit close by the doorway of the deckhouse, which vents a sad stale smell.
Won’t come in out of de wind, den.
No, mon. He won’t sleep.
Ain’t got time to sleep, no, mon. Not when you dyin.
In his bunk, Athens stops snoring long enough to cough, a long string of dry coughs and a wet one. He sits up in order to spit, sees the three men watching him, and swallows. Even in his bunk, his cap sticks out to one side of his head. Mouth slack, he listens to the wind a moment, then curls down around the cardboard suitcase that is still lying on his bunk.
… a sundog—gale-wind bird, some of de old people calls it—cause it a sign dat a hurricane is approachin. What? Well, sundog is a little color, little piece of cloud look more like a rainbow, on one side of de sun or de other. You don’t see it cept when de sun is goin down and at de time of de sunrise. From July on, mostly August, September, October, you must watch for de sundog, in de mornin and in de evenin. By dat you can always tell in what direction dat hurricane is travelin. In days gone by, before dere was any wireless and all to tell’m things, de people used to use de gale-wind bird as sign dat bad times was ahead.
A cigarette glows and dies. In the night shadow of the port companionway, a heavy rat sniffs the old man’s high black shoe.
Wind southeast, it seem like.
Yah. (
sighs
) I seen plenty of bad nights. You go out to de edges of dem high-sea bars, and a night like dis cotch you out dere, I want to tell you, it is not agreeable. De first year dat I sailed as pilot for dat old man settin out dere, it were de prettiest weather in de world, and dat afternoon before I got done settin, I saw de turtle comin in towards de nets. Goddom it, dat wind come down, and dat vessel started to drag her anchors. Dragged and hooked, every now and den she hooked into de rock, and she would keep on buckin and pitchin till she tore it away. Anyway (
groans
) de two boats was up alongside and she was
gone mash dem up. And we never had no crew, I mean to say, de crew was not experienced fellas. Experienced fellas don’t sleep very much after bad weather sets down. You take dis weather dat we got now, you fellas knows enough to get a little bit uneasy.
Yah. Goddom wind plays with de nerves.
Anyways, de next mornin, she pulled de anchor out de rock, and it come up short of a clew. So we went into Miskita Cay, dat was Tuesday night, and we never got back till Sat’day mornin. I found five turtle, but out of my gang of nets I lost sixteen, and de other boat lost seven.
Wind is de enemy of mon. Learn dat from school days.
Well, you got to have trouble if a east wind like dis cotch you out dere on de high-sea reefs. But what I do I take my boats up on deck before night. Dat way your men mightn’t get damaged, cause fellas dat is green, y’know, messin around in de night with boats, de vessel draggin or ye got bad weather to take in dem boats, you can’t fool too much before you get in trouble. It take real good men, good experienced men aboard of a vessel, to hondle boats like dat in rough weather. (
pause
) Course it very hard to find good men today. You two fellas is very good, and den Will—I speakin about de work on deck now. You fellas is about as good as you will find today. But it not like it used to be in de old days.
Modern time, Doddy. We de best dey is, we got to be good enough, ain’t dat so, Byrum?
Dass it. You lucky to get us, Copm Raib. You a very lucky fella.
Raib squints, looking at Byrum.
Well, I mean to say, a mon in de crew could take an order den, and keep his head. Now dey answer back—I don’t go for dat, mon. I don’t go for dat.
Time is changin, mon. De old days a mon burn de johnnycake, he walk de plank. Dese days we got unions and all of dat. A mon got rights.
