The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal (11 page)

By this time, we were almost cleared and I was going at full gallop, headed for the after rail to say my last words. No more than a yard from it, Boo got under my feet and I went over the stern sideways, like a grape popped from a hull.

It was indeed quite a jolt to find myself spread-eagled in the air and then plunging down into the warm Atlantic Ocean.

I bobbed up again, and the last I saw of the
Elnora Langhans,
Reuben was on the stern, laughing his head off and waving good-bye. From where he stood, I guess it was very funny. From where I was, fun was not it. The
Conyers
was drawing away, Boo barking at me from the taffrail as if fd jumped in for pleasure.

For several reasons, I am sorry to say that Cap'n Reddy did have to stop his ship, after all. Treading water, I heard that foghorn voice thunder out, "Fool overboard. All main yards aback"

He was a very fine seaman.

A
BOUT AN HOUR
later, dried off now,
I
stood worriedly outside the captain's stateroom with Tee and the worst Jonah who ever put to sea. We'd been squirming around three or four minutes, but there was no use in putting it off. I knocked very lightly, hoping the
Conyers
master was taking a morning nap. No such luck There was an answering, and we went in.

At his desk, turning in his chair, he looked at the three of us for a long time, gray eyes appearing to come out of lightly smoking brick kilns. He was in a dangerous state that we Outer Bankers call a "cold bile." At last, he spoke and directly to me. "Falling overboard is either an act of God or of stupidity, and I can't charge you for the former. You cost me an hour of running time."

Without hesitation, I said, "I'll pay for it, Cap'n."

His brief laugh was like a rusty nail, square at that, being pulled out of oak heart.

Boo suddenly twisted around and began to bite at fleas in the section where his tail joined his body. His teeth clacked and he made a wet, slobbering noise, calling attention to himself at the worst possible time.

The captain studied him a moment and then said, "During all that nonsense on deck, I heard your brother make reference to that dog. Now, how would he know him? I understood the dog belongs to this young lady. I made the mistake of not inquiring his history."

Some history, Boo had. Nonetheless, trapped all the way, I began, "Well, Cap'n—"

Josiah Reddy interrupted me sharply to let us know his current frame of mind. "Someone on this ship has been lying and I don't take kindly to that."

Mindable of exactly what he meant, I looked over at Tee and she nodded. It was past time to tell the painful truth in that spit-and-polish cabin before a royal king of the ocean. So I began the night when the
Malta Empress
hit Heron shore, washing Teetoncey up half frozen, and she took it from where Consul Calderham met her at the EC&N train arrival in Norfolk almost a month ago. We left nothing, or very little, out.

Meanwhile, the chief culprit sprawled down comfortably and slept through most of it, awakening now and then to dig under his chin with a hind paw. Fleas gathered there and back on his flanks, mostly.

The master of the
Conyers
did not sleep. His nutmeg face went from interest and sympathy when I talked about the
Empress
wreck and Tee's speechless condition to disbelief when I discussed attempting to salvage the hundred thousand dollars in silver off Heron bar; back to true sympathy when I told him about Mama. Tee's story of how she maneuvered in getting aboard did not make him happy. He had been fooled by her and didn't exactly appreciate it, orphan or not. To finish, I made a short defense in our behalf by saying we came from good folks: Tee's mama and mine were fine, upstanding women; Tee's papa had been a plantation owner in the Barbadoes and a barrister in England; mine was a heroic surfman. It was just that we had all been the victims of circumstance and a bumbling dog.

At the end of this long hour, Cap'n Reddy seemed limp. He said wearily, "Just go. I have to think about this. I've been sailing forty-six years and thought I'd heard everything."

Outside the door, Tee sighed deeply. "I feel better now, Ben."

I did, too. For a while.

I quickly learned that when a sailor makes a fool of himself ashore, falls off a barstool, or gets knocked into the sawdust, everyone laughs and talks about it for days, but when a sailor makes a fool of himself at sea, such as stumbling overboard, silence follows as if everyone is embarrassed, including the vessel. I was barely spoken to at dinner, and the same existed at supper. Tee didn't fare much better. Even the bosun was cool to her. By and large, we were ignored and out-casted. The story had gotten around. We had conspired to hoodwink Cap'n Reddy, and I had caused the crew extra work in stopping the ship. I also think there were some suspicions about me bringing Tee aboard for ulterior reasons.

Immediately after supper, Tee went to her cabin and I cleaned the pantry, then went forward to complete my chores in the galley, where the Bravaman didn't have much to say, either.

I kept to myself that entire evening and finally sat up on top of the fo'c'sle house until late, looking at the stars and wishing I'd never heard of the prettiest four-master bark from Cape Race to the Horn.

The captain was taking his nightly stroll, pacing as usual with his hands behind his back, and after a while he walked up to me. I jumped down, legs trembling a little. Not again, I hoped.

"You said your papa was a surfboat captain."

"Yessir. Lifesaver. He went out to vessels in distress, no matter the waves. That's what killed him. Big surf."

"Where did he serve?"

"Hatteras Banks, sir."

"How did he die?"

"His boat capsized. A ship had broken up in a gale of wind."

I could barely see Cap'n Reddy's face, so I didn't know what expression was on it, and I wasn't prepared for what he had to say next.

"If I can get a man to replace you, you can pay off in Bridgetown. I think you should try to get that little girl safely back to Norfolk."

I said, "Yessir, but I'm ready to go on to Rio, and pay my debt."

He was silent.

I said, "I'm sorry about today, Cap'n. I won't make that mistake again."

"Not likely," he answered.

I said, "I want to work off that hour of running time that I cost."

He replied, "I've canceled that debt. More things than one have been lost at sea. When you get back to the Banks, which I hope will be soon, tell the surfmen the master of the
Conyers
sends his respects and regards." Then he walked away.

I stood there a long time, wondering exactly what he meant when he said, "More things than one have been lost at sea." I've come to believe he was talking about all the John O'Neals. They'd canceled many a debt in fifteen-foot surf.

In fact, just about four-thirty the next morning, when the coffee was beginning to bubble, I talked to the Bravaman about the captain's change of attitude toward me. Eddie said that all sailors had a warm spot in their hearts for surfmen. He further said that sailors who had to pass the Hatteras Banks in the dead of winter were especially sympathetic just because they were scared witless.

Therefore, my position was more favorable now that it was known who I was.

R
EUBEN LONG AGO
said he was about to blow up and burst on his first sight of foreign soil, Cuba in '88, and it was the same with me that warm April morning when the Barbadoes island loomed over our port bow, with a few green mountains reaching up to touch drifting cotton clouds. Tee had me awaken her early, and now we stood in the fresh, moist, pink tropic light as the
Conyers,
full-sailed and heeling slightly, swept on toward the Atlantic coast of this easternmost of the fair Caribbees. On the lee side, out of the Atlantic Ocean rollers and wind, was the lapping Caribbean Sea and the ports of Bridgetown and Speightstown.

Any good geography published around 1900 will tell you that the island, twenty-one miles long and fourteen wide, shaped like a shoe with toe to the north, is a slice of "rolling old England" and that one of Eddie Cartaxo's Portuguese ancestors first landed on it, when only the Arawak Indians were there, living in thick forests. The Carib Indians killed off all the Arawaks and then abandoned the island, because it didn't have too much freshwater. The British took it over about the time that a man from Brazil brought up a
single
sugarcane plant. Then the British hauled in black slaves and white slaves to clear the forests and work the plantations. Now and then the French and the Dutch tried to grab it.

Coconut trees ring the beaches, and there are such things as purple moonflower plants and jasmine and mamey apple and lime and pawpaw and sweetsop, along with a few monkeys. There are over five hundred stone-house windmills, nothing like our stilt-house corn mills on the Banks, and such things as yellow-breasted mustache birds and poisonous manchineel trees. The island got its name of
Los Barbados
(which means hairy) from the Portuguese because of the bearded fig trees that grow on inland cliffs. But I knew none of these things when I stood agog on the wet deck as Cap'n Reddy piloted the bark down on Bridgetown, tacking back and forth.

I had one advantage, though: the castaway girl. Pointing far off, she said, "That's Mount Hillaby, and all the valleys around it are filled with breadfruit and banana trees. And we can't see it yet, but Point Kitridge is over there." Last time she'd been to this place, her parents were alive, and I think she was having a mixture of memories, happy and sad, face holding a hint of shadow. Her finger went northwest. "And way around there is Bathsheba. This time every day, the Bajan flying-fish fleet goes to sea from Bathsheba, through the coral reefs." The finger went southwest. "And down that way, in Christ Church Parish, was our plantation..."

She faltered and I said quickly, "Tell me about the flying-fish fleet."

There wasn't much to tell: Each dawn, the boats went out to shoals far offshore, hung bags of spoiled, mashed crabs and bottom sprats into the water to make drifting oil, which attracted the flying fish into nets. It was said they were delicious broiled and topped with Creole sauce or baked in fish pie. That island was world famous for its meals of flying fish.

Tee got over her memory tugs, but unfortunately I did not have long to stand out there and jabber and sightsee. After serving up breakfast, my usual drudge chores were demanded, no matter that the land grew larger every hour. Imagine being bent over the captain's bathtub, scrub rag in hand, when Sam Lord's castle appeared on shore about ten o'clock. Oh, I stole looks topside now and then, but there is no more grievous sentence, as any sailor can testify, than to be at work belowdecks when the four corners of the earth are unfolding not a crow's flight from the mainmast.

***

Running on in, we passed Foul Bay and Long Bay, and then rounded South Point on our steady way to old Bridgetown, founded somewhere around 1630; picked up Needham Point Lighthouse, a stubby beacon, and then went smartly into Carlisle Bay, outside the harbor and Careenage, dropping anchor and sails in early afternoon, a joyous moment. Officially, our voyage was logged in as completed at 1340 hours, April 4, 1899.

No sooner had the
Conyers
settled down on her chain than the Barbadian boatmen, six or eight of them, rowed up around the stern in their skiffs, shouting to the captain.

"Hey, Cap n, you hire me, eh?"

"Oh, his boat will sink," said another. "You will drown. You must hire me."

"I'ave the finest boat in this bay, an' I do thank you for just hiring me," yelled another.

Cap'n Reddy laughingly shouted back to them, "You're all a pack of rascals." He'd been to Bridgetown many times.

One boatman then yelled, "But, Cap'n, we are noble rascals."

"Aye," said Reddy, and there was more laughter. The boatmen would be used to go back and forth ashore, and visit other ships if necessary.

Bridgetown:
I had made it safely. Had my sea legs. Salt was in my brow and I felt fine. The air was hot and smelled of sweet flowers. Despite some minor troubles, it had all worked out. We were together. Tee was beside me, with big Boo stationed at her feet, likely wondering what this was all about. I do doubt that any Banks hound had ever ventured so far, even by accident. To be sure, he would be the first dog from Heron Shoal ever to set paw on this particular slice of the British Empire, upon which the sun never sets. He gazed around, sniffing. The smells were new to him, too.

And had my own light and airy head been on a swivel, it would have rotated three hundred and sixty degrees. Over there, around a jetty, were the buildings of Bridgetown, and the busy inner port, with schooner masts sticking up. In the blue bay itself, fringed with wind-bent coconut palms, were eight or ten large ships, both sail and coal-burning, and I was quite surprised to see the Britisher
Cashamara,
a white-hulled steamer, swinging at hook not far from us. She'd left Norfolk a full three days after the
Conyers
and was already here, taking on bagged sugar brought out in small barges sculled by a long sweep. Not knowing where to look next, I had only one thing in mind: stepping foot on that warm Barbadoes earth. The Bravaman said that would be possible once we got health clearance.

So we waited.

I
N TIME
, a boat rowed our way containing three officials of Her Majesty's government. I had never seen sailors such as the two bending at oars in the boat plainly marked
HARBOUR POLICE
. Flat straw hats were perched on their heads; queer uniforms from there down.

Tee knew, of course. "They're wearing the Jack Tars of Lord Nelson. Middie blouses and bell-bottoms. But they don't wear pigtails anymore."

"I'd hope not," I said, thinking that no man on the Banks would be caught dead in pigtails.

As we all watched, the three officials clambered up the accommodation ladder, wearing other clothes I'd never seen on any person. White short pants and white stockings. White helmets.