‘Hey, I saw Tin Can,’ Barset said, excited. ‘Destroyers, in World War II. It was terrific. Well, look, you don’t want to stay down here in this dog-hole.’
Goddard shrugged. ‘Why not?’ It would be interesting to live in the fo’c’sle with working seamen again.
* * *
The Filipino boy, whose name was Antonio Gutierrez, was a good barber, an AB gave him a sport shirt, and one of the black gang the loan of an electric razor. His face was still raw from sun and salt, but he managed to mow off the crop without too much discomfort, and he looked considerably more presentable as he mounted to the boat deck shortly after eleven. He didn’t see anybody on the passengers’ deck as he passed it, but as soon as he finished with the skipper he’d look up Mrs. Brooke and express his thanks.
It was a beautiful morning, sunny and hot, with just enough breeze out of the southeast to put a slight chop on the long groundswell as the Leander plowed ahead across an infinity of blue. Looked a lot better from up here, too, he thought, with the throbbing sound of power from the engine room ventilators and a solid deck under his feet; no matter how much you liked the sea, there was such a thing as getting too close to it.
The third mate was walking the starboard wing of the bridge. The captain was up, he said, and his office was through the wheelhouse, the door on this side. Goddard nodded to the helmsman, and knocked on the facing of the door, which was open. ‘Yes?’ a voice asked, and Captain Steen appeared. He was in tropical whites, the shirt having short sleeves and shoulder boards bearing four gold stripes. ‘Come in, Mr. Goddard.’ He gestured toward a big armchair. ‘Sit down.’ He was a gaunt, balding man with a solemn countenance, baby-blue eyes, and a long neck and prominent Adam’s apple, but to Goddard the impression was not so much the stern asceticism he had expected as it was a sort of self-righteous stuffiness and lack of warmth.
There was another armchair, a threadbare rug, and a desk with a swivel chair in front of it. On the bulkhead above the deck were two framed photographs, one of a small, neat house set in the awesome beauty of a Norwegian fjord, and the other of a woman and two young girls. At the rear of the office another door opened into the stateroom. Captain Steen sat in the swivel chair and took notes as Goddard told him the story. It was obvious he disapproved of the whole thing.
‘You realize you were very foolish,’ he said. ‘It’s a wonder to me your coastguard allows it.’
Goddard pointed out that single-handed passages in small boats were commonplace by sailors of all maritime nations and sanctioned by yacht clubs, and that there had been a number of single-handed races across the Atlantic. There was a difference between a competent seaman going to sea in a sound boat and some nut going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. He stopped when he realized he was wasting his breath.
‘But you did lose your boat,’ Steen said. ‘And it’s just the Lord’s infinite mercy you’re alive. Your passport was lost too, I suppose?’
‘Yes,’ Goddard replied. ‘Somehow it didn’t seem important at the time.’
‘Very unfortunate.’ Steen frowned and tapped on the pad with his pencil. ‘There will be complications, you realize, and a great deal of red tape.’
Goddard sighed. ‘Captain, every maritime nation on earth has machinery for processing shipwrecked and castaway seamen.’
‘Yes, I know that. But you are not a seaman, legally signed on the articles of a merchant vessel. To the Philippine authorities you will be simply an alien without identification visa or money. This places the company in the position of having to post bond.’
I’ll be a sad sonofabitch, Goddard thought. ‘I am sorry, Captain. I guess it was selfish and inconsiderate of me to swim over here and hail you that way.’
Captain Steen was pained, but forgiving. ‘I think you’ll agree that was uncalled for, Mr. Goddard. We are very happy to have been the instruments of Providence, but the formalities and red tape are something we have to take into account. Now, about your arrangements on here; you can continue in the hospital where you are now and eat with the deck crew’s mess, but you won’t be required to work your passage—’
‘Thank you.’
‘—unless you feel you’d rather, of course. The bos’n can always use an extra hand, and I am sure you wouldn’t want them to carry you for cigarettes and toilet articles you will need.’
‘But I understand you carry passengers.’ Goddard’s voice was still quiet, but there was a hard edge to it. ‘And the cabins are not all sold. I’ll take one, at the full rate from Callao to Manila.’
This earned him a pale but condescending smile. ‘Passage has to be paid in advance. And I’m afraid I have no authority to change the company rule.’
‘Is your wireless operator on duty now?’
‘He is subject to call at any time. Why?’
‘Would you ask him to come up and bring a message blank? I’d like to send a radiogram.’ Goddard slipped off the watch and set it on the desk. He felt like the type of overbearing, exhibitionist jerk he detested above everything, but he was too angry to care. ‘Lock this in your safe as security for the message charges; it’s a Rolex chronometer that sells for around six hundred dollars in this type of case. If you’ll tell me the name of your agents in Los Angeles, my attorneys will deposit with them this afternoon the money to cover my passage and other expenses from here to Manila, the bond you will have to post, and my fare back to the United States if the Philippine authorities hold you responsible for it.’
‘Uh—yes. Of course.’ Steen appeared to hesitate for a moment, and then calmly handed back the watch, immune to insult. ‘I guess it will be all right.’ He stepped out into the wheelhouse and spoke into the telephone, and in a minute the wireless operator appeared, a young Latin with a slender, inscrutable face still bearing traces of some ancient bout with smallpox.
‘Sparks, this is Mr. Goddard. He wants to send a message,’ Steen said.
Goddard stood up and said, ‘How do you do.’ Sparks nodded, neither volunteering his name nor offering to shake hands, and Goddard caught the little flicker of hatred in the jet depths of the eyes before they became impassive again. Yanqui go home. Could be Cuban, Goddard thought, or Panamanian. Or from anywhere south of San Diego, with our record.
‘You can get the States all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Sparks said, but it was Steen who volunteered the information they had shortwave. Sparks handed him the pad of blanks and went out into the wheelhouse to wait. Captain Steen looked in his files for the line’s agents in San Pedro, and said the fare from Callao to Manila was five hundred and thirty dollars.
‘Then two thousand should cover everything,’ Goddard said. ‘Any balance, you can refund in Manila.’ He wrote out the message, addressed to his attorneys in Beverly Hills.SHOSHONE DOWNWENT STOP PICKED UP BY SS LEANDER BOUND MANILA STOP PLEASE DEPOSIT TODAY WITH LINE’S AGENTS BARWICK AND KLINE SAN PEDRO TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS TO COVER PASSAGE, MANILA EXPENSES, AND RETURN FARE TO STATES STOP REQUEST AGENTS VERIFY RECEIPT SOONEST CAPTAIN STEEN LEANDER—GODDARD
Sparks made the word count and computed the charges. ‘That will be eleven thirteen.’ There was a barely perceptible pause, and he added. ‘In real money.’
‘You don’t have to lean on it,’ Goddard said softly. ‘I heard you the first time.’
Steen told the operator the company guaranteed payment, and the young Latin went out. ‘I’ll notify the steward,’ Steen said to Goddard. ‘He will take care of you.’
‘Aren’t you going to wait for the verification?’ Goddard asked. Steen indicated it wouldn’t be necessary. Maybe the watch had impressed him. Goddard went out, a little ashamed and regretting the whole thing; he didn’t care in the slightest where he was quartered, and working on deck would have been fun. He was surprised, too, that the sanctimonious fraud could have made him lose his cool; he’d thought he was impervious to the Steens of the world.