The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal (10 page)

Hanging on for dear life, I fell asleep about midnight.

Awakened just before four, I went topside in time to see the crew furling the mainsail. Lifelines had been rigged along the deck, as water was washing ankle- to knee-deep from stem to stern, the
Conyers
scooping it up as she dug into waves. She was burying the angel figurehead in froth, harpooning the mountainous seas with her jibboom.

Feeling queasy, I started to fire up the range. The Bravaman, hanging on with one hand, working with the other, said, "Don't bother. We can't cook." He told me to slice up some cold salt pork to serve with bread. I soon nicked my fìnger, and a moment later was hanging on to the fo'c'sle after railing feeding the fish, so to speak. My innards almost came up.

This time, Tee was not in sight.

With dense streaks of foam on the sea, edges of wave crests breaking into spindrift, the gale pounded the
Conyers
all of that day and night. No hot food was served, only salt pork and salt beef and biscuits. We sailed quite a distance under bare masts; then the storm blew over, leaving an afterswell that rolled us back and forth. Being ill, and joined by many others, I didn't see much of Tee during this time. Only once did we talk. Her face was deathly pale and she broke down, saying she was so sorry for what she'd done—coming on board foolishly. I said to forget it; she hadn't done anything so bad, after all. We had looked our Maker in the eye and everyone was feeling respectful.

I now think that a good storm is good for a person, even for a ship. The dust of the mind is blown away and the air is cleared. The ship is tested, as are the men. The pure and simple rising of the sun is appreciated.

The next morning, the weather turned fair and warm, the sea oily and smooth. The planes of canvas, up again over the
Conyers,
flapped listlessly. We were becalmed, but it was not unwelcome. The crew tarred the rigging, patched sail, and made minor repairs as the big hot ball quickly dried us off. It was as if the Mother Sea had said of her storm, "I just wanted to remind you..."

At breakfast Tee smiled weakly at me. "Thank you, Ben, for everything."

"It wasn't anything," I said, and it hadn't been, just a few words of comfort now and then in her hour of need. The war between us was over, at least temporarily.

That whole day after we'd emerged from the storm and afterswell was a strange one—of looking back and ahead, of revelation. Somehow it seemed that the Mother Sea was in one of those resting moods on a quiet, pretty day, just letting us float along, saying to us, "Now I'll give you all some time to sort yourselves out..."

Midmorning, the bosun gave me billy hell for dropping some grease on the deck when I emptied the garbage at the stern, and I came back to the galley yelling about what a loudmouthed trash fish he was.

Eddie heard it all patiently and then he said, "Everybody hates him until..."

"Until what?" I asked.

"Until there is trouble." His dark eyes held me.

I scoffed at the tubby Portuguese and he shrugged. "Get Barney to tell you what happened two nights ago when you were asleep."

So I looked Barney up, and he said he'd slipped in the rigging ninety feet up and was hanging by one hand, and it was that monster Hans Gebbert who came out and got him, saved his life.

As I said, a good storm is good for a person, sometimes even for a ship.

Tee helped me peel potatoes in the early afternoon, and about three we crawled out on the jibboom, under the flapping heads'ils, over the bowsprit and the angel figurehead. There is no nicer place on any ship than over the bow, on that boom far out over the water. Under way, you can look down and see the prow, a white bone in its teeth, slicing the sea. Porpoise make runs on it.

Becalmed out there is nice, too. For some reason, when the sea is flat as paint, everyone lowers his voice. The ship becomes very quiet. There is only a slight slap of rigging, a barely heard creak as the timbers and hackmatack knee braces wear lazily.

I rigged a fishing line and hook, covering it with white cloth, jigging it up and down, and soon had an amberjack on it. Aside from galley work, I full well realized now that I wasn't of too much use on that ship. But I did know how to fish.

After a while, I got to talking to Tee about us. I'd done some hard thinking in that bunk during the gale, before and after my prayers to save our souls, and I said, "We've got to tell the cap'n, you know. I mean, about you and me and our connection."

"I know," she said. "It was such a stupid thing for me to do."

Be that as it may, I said, "I bit off more than I could chew, too. I thought I was just coming to the Barbadoes to find Reuben. Now Eddie tells me I've got to go on to Rio. I signed on like everybody else."

"Then you must go," Tee said.

"What'll happen to you?"

"I'll get back to Norfolk." She laughed, a little nervously. "Then I'll go on to where I was supposed to go. Home."

My thoughts were troubled. I surely wanted to find Reuben, but I also felt I had a responsibility toward Tee, whether I wanted it or not. "I don't know what to do," I said.

Tee replied sensibly, "Well, why don't we start by telling the captain. Everything."

I didn't look forward to that, after seeing him chase that sailor up the mast. "He's not going to believe me. He'll be certain I asked you to come on here."

"It was all my fault. He'll believe me," she said.

I wasn't so sure. "Let's don't do it until a day out of Bridgetown."
An hour would be better,
I thought.

"Then we must."

I agreed, for better or worse.

About four o'clock, while I was jigging the fishing line, something hit like one of Mr. Stone's hotshot freights. The line began running out so fast that it burnt my palm until I got it down on the boom and stopped it off against the wood.

I yelled for help, and Nils, who was working up near the bow, climbed out, and about four-fifteen we horsed that thing in, carrying the line on back about midships. In not too long a time we looked down in the smooth, emerald water and saw an eight-foot shark. He'd swallowed the hook and had little chance to escape.

A cry of "Shark, shark," went up all over the
Conyers.
It was an omen. The captain's sprinkling of sugar on the water in the morning hadn't broken the calm, nor had his chantey. We now had a second chance.

With four of the crew helping, we got the shark up over the side and Nils dispatched him with a handspike, Boo losing his mind at the sight of the flopping fish. He barked himself hoarse, as he was inclined to do on the Hatteras beach when we hauled gill nets at sunset.

Cap'n Reddy came out of his quarters grinning. "We'll get a breeze now," he said confidently.

A tarpaulin was laid out on deck, and the Bravaman took his steaks off that big, white body, extracted the liver to fry it down for oil; then the rest of the man-eater went over the side.

Sure enough, about five-thirty the wind began to whisper; the flapping sails took hold, and the
Conyers,
after drifting most of the day, began to move again. So my stock was higher that night than it had been. The captain said five words to me, more than his usual one or two. There was shark steak, which tastes a little like swordfish, on the table.

For the fine days that followed, the wind stayed mostly to eastward, and Cap'n Reddy kept the square-rigger "full 'n by," taking advantage of every breath of air. The horse latitudes, which we had entered, smiled upon us, and we had very few hours of calm. In the "horses," the 30-degree latitudes, the winds are often light and variable.

Tee talked a lot about what we would do when we got to the island. She wanted to show me the castle of the land pirate Sam Lord and the cannon on the beach at Speightstown; the breadfruit trees, courtesy of Captain Bligh and HMS
Bounty;
Cotton Tower, where the West Indies Regiment had a signal station; the Animal Flower Cave, Cole's Cave, Dawlish Cave; and the Redlegs, last of the Scottish slaves. I couldn't wait to make arrival.

I think everyone in the dining saloon and about deck noticed that Tee and I were friendly now.

O
N A SPARKLING
, blue-skied morning two days out of the Barbadoes island, our sixteenth day at sea, all secrecy went splashing down, as was sure to happen, I suppose.

The island, just east of the Windwards, about opposite St. Vincent, below such islands as Martinique and Dominica and St. Lucia, above the Grenadines and Trinidad, places I fully intended to visit someday, was being reached on a gentle curve from the east, the
Conyers
making about four or five knots, sometimes six or more.

Preparing to enter port shipshape and spanking clean, the crew was holystoning the deck, adding spit and polish here and there. Busy, too; I remember that I was in the galley helping the Bravaman, and everything was going fine when Barney stuck his head in. "Brig comin' up on the starboard bow."

Just chatting, I had talked again to Barney about the
Elnora Langhans,
telling him all about Reuben and how much I hoped he'd be working cargo in Bridgetown when we arrived. So Barney was alerted to keep his owl eyes open for any brig that passed close aboard.

In high excitement and anticipation, I ran down the hot deck to the helm. The captain's long glass was in a locker space near the binnacle, the compass box, and I yanked it out without even asking permission.

The helmsman yelled, "Hey, bring that back." Nobody but the captain and the mates were supposed to touch that long glass.

I paid him no mind, raced to the bow, and focused on the brig, which was under all plain sail. I raked along the vessel with the glass and finally had the circle on the bow nameplate, which was just forward of the snugged-home anchor.

To be sure, it was the
Elnora Langhans,
two-masted and square-sailed, with schooner sails aft; heads'ils all spread and bellied; white bone in her teeth, as pretty a brig as I'd ever viewed. The Mother Sea had worked in her mysterious way, fating that Reuben's course would pass close to mine.

Naturally, I went flying back toward the stern, yelling, "Stop the ship! Stop the ship!"

Such confusion as you've never seen hit the
Christine Conyers.
From aloft and up and down the deck, sailors began shouting, "Man overboard," which wasn't the case at all. The bosun grabbed a line and dashed toward the stern to heave it out to the unlucky sailor. Two or three seamen climbed up to ready the yawl for launching.

Tee came out of the afterhouse, and I yelled at her, jumping up and down. "Reuben's out there. That's the
Langhans
"

Cap'n Reddy quickly appeared, too. "What 'n hell is goin' on?" he bellowed.

I barely made sense. "Stop the ship, Cap'n. My brother's on that brig."

"What are you doing with my long glass?" was his second bellow.

I didn't bother to answer that, just whooped again, "Reuben's on there," as he ripped the long glass from me.

Fuming, the captain cupped his hands around his mouth to shout, "Belay man overboard! Belay man overboard." Cancel the alarm, that meant; and I heard some choice curses fore to aft.

Despite his rage, the cap'n still said to the helmsman, "Bring her up a bit. Easy, now."

It is an old tradition of the sea, thank goodness, especially under sail, to greet another vessel; ask her destination and compare positions from the last sextant sight. If a friend of crew or captain is aboard the passing vessel, other welcome words are exchanged.

Cap'n Reddy would not deny the ancient tradition, but I made the mistake of asking "Are you going to stop the ship?"

He almost blew me down. "No, you idiot. We'll pass her close in."

I had to be grateful for that.

So I ran back to the bow to take advantage of every second as we glided past the
Elnora Langhans.
We were now closing rapidly as the captain pulled the
Conyers
eastward, and it looked as though there wouldn't be more than three or four hundred feet between us. The
Langhans
altered course, too, to come within hailing distance. All of her crew was up on deck, as was ours. What a thrilling event!

Finally, I saw Reuben, and my heart pounded. For a few seconds, I thought I might cry. There he was, by the forward rail, lean and trim, with Mama's big nose, looking not much different from how I'd seen him the spring before. A true Heron Head man.

When our bows were just about opposite, the
Langhans
bent north, the
Conyers
headed south, I yelled, "Reuben O'Neal! It's me, your brother Ben."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Reuben shouted back, "Ben, what are you doing in that ship?"

"I'm going to the Barbadoes."

"You lost your mind?" he yelled.

By now, the ships were passing swiftly and there'd be precious little time to talk to him. I began moving down the deck toward the stern. He was moving toward his stern, too, keeping pace.

"Nope," I shouted proudly. "I'm a seaman now. How are you?"

"Fine. How's Mama?"

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't tell him she was dead and gone in those few seconds. Wherever I got presence of mind, I don't know, but I yelled, "Mama'll be glad to know I saw you." And she would have been.

"You should be back home, Ben," he hollered.

"Where are you bound?" I asked.

"Port Fernandino. Ben, you get your tail back home where you belong and off these ships." That was big brother Reuben, all right, looking out for my welfare.

Then the first of two ordained disasters struck. Boo Dog, who must have been having his usual morning sleep somewhere on that warm deck, had awakened. Not only from the excitement of the ship passing but likely because he recognized Reuben O'Neal, he began yelping and running along, too, by my legs.

Reuben shouted over. "Is that Boo Dog?"

Not thinking, not a dollop of thought about identifying myself with that dooming hound, I yelled back happily, "Sure is."

Reuben, completely mystified by now, shouted, "Ben, you better write an' tell me what this is all about."