Captain Alfred Jerome-Paul sucked at his coffee, brain-numb, hoping that Churchill the cook was keeping a proper check of the supplies being loaded on. Those three rousers he had met last night were now edging up the gangplank, nudging their way past the docksmen who shouldered sacks of flour and potatoes. The three of them looked as ragged and blood-eyed as the captain felt.
The captain blew his nose on a blue bandanna and tucked it into the back of his trousers, letting it trail out over his belt. Cold coming on, mayhap.
Last night. Captain Jerome-Paul had fully intended to make an early night of it, just one dip of the wick at Madame Augusta's Trug House, Portland's safest and most genteel establishment on the Blain Street red-light row. Just one poke. Maybe a pop of rye. And he would dog back to his tidy aft cabin for a nightcap and then plenty of bunk time.
That had been the plan. And as often happened when Captain Jerome-Paul hit the streets for a pop and a poke, it turned into many pops and many pokes, all up and down Blain Street until well past three A.M. It amazed him that he awoke this morning in his own bunk. His head throbbed, his wallet was thin, and his pecker burned like a fireplace poker. How he managed to get back to the ship he would never know—unless these three youngers slogging up the gangplank had the story.
He slurped at the coffee again, forcing it down too hot and scorching his esophagus. Too old for this, he thought. Time to give it up to the likes of these boys. The three youngers boarded, each of them swinging a duffel, and the captain resurrected a dim memory that they had talked him into an illicit lift down the coast—for a sizeable fee.
Captain Jerome-Paul had observed that these three were rather free with the centimes from the moment they had met at Madame Augusta's. The talky one, who seemed to be the group leader, had been buying a stream of those weak house cocktails for the ebony-haired trug Bestilla (the captain's favorite—and there was a minor sting of jealousy here). The other two were singers, in a loose sense, a bastard's howling opera. They took their trugs two at a time, returned to the center lounge to tell all about it, then took two more back for another roll.
If it was possible to bust manners at Madame Augusta's, these three had done it.
And now, this morning, the captain had rolled out of his bunk, squinting painfully even in first light, and ordered the dockside craneman to load the last of his cargo—the shipbuilding timbers he would off-load at first port, Norfolk.
The talky stranger—the captain remembered his name to be something like Dolan. . .no, Delano—dropped his duffel to the boards. He approached the captain in sure and careful steps, a thumb hitched in his drawstring as if he had a tired putter down there that needed fresh air.
"Morn," Delano said.
"Ya," Captain Jerome-Paul replied. "The same morning when I last saw you, no?"
Delano coughed a laugh. "My buds and I have to count the days by sunrises, elst we'd neer keep 'em all straight."
"Then you nay be sailors."
Delano ran the tip of his tongue along his lower lip and looked back at his two companions: Jackie, admiring the parade of supplies being shouldered up the gangplank; Will, in the process of pacing off the massive deck, stern to bow.
"No," Delano said. "As I said last night. . .."
The older man shrugged, lips twisted, his pickled memory useless.
". . .we're landers, got to make Chautown before our travel papers expire."
Captain Jerome-Paul snorted. "Ya. Let's pretend I believe that. For a fee. . .."
"Ten thousand centimes, we said."
". . .For a fee, I can believe you're Madame Augusta's left knocker."
"Mmmm," said Delano with a knowing smile. "Or Bestilla's?"
The captain's lined face sagged grimly. He pointed a finger toward Delano's nostrils, saying, "I'll have to put you off at Norfolk, after we makes the wide swing around New York."
"What? No radiation suits? Ha."
"And you'll sleep with the crew in the forecastle. Ya?"
Delano saw that the captain did not want to be humored. "Ya. In the forecastle. Hmph. From the fuckusall to the forecastle."
Delano leaned onto the doorjamb of the forecastle, the bunks inside all empty except for Jack in his top slot, backboard side. Maybe he wouldn't mind Jackie's persistent complaining, he thought to himself, if the little red-haired pig-poker didn't whine like that, in that squeaky voice—about everything.
"They gots five crew," Jackie was saying. "Five swagasses, an' we gotta make do with us three? Hoy, I tole ya I could handle any ship, but this's one like a fairy tale. Two hunnerd feet and more! Jesus potatoes."
Delano stared grimly into the darkness of the cramped, sour-smelling room. Jackie was oiling the last of the three snub guns, his knobby fingers gliding a cloth back and forth. He poked a shell into each barrel and clapped the banger shut.
"You look in the captain's quarters yet?" Delano asked. "It's licensed by the Monitor like any other ship—framed there on his wall over the tilter jug. She's got anchor winches fore and aft like any other—so what if they's 200 feet apart? And sails and sheets and masts—so what if it's three masts, 'stead of one or two? Think of it like this: The three of us will make three real crewmen. Out of their five, they've got captain and cook—which we don' need for a little skim down ta the Blue Islands. We'll make do on Will's slop for a few days, done it afore."
Jackie was arranging his duffel bag to neatly cover the snub guns on his bunk. "I saw the timbers down inta hold," he said, looking worried. "With those little deck hatches, I can't figure for jesus potatoes how they got such long timbers down there."
Delano laughed, flecking his thumb at the white paint peeling up from the jamb. "There's an aft hatch, Jackie, half below the water line. Dockside, they loaded the timbers by crane, then caulked the hatch shut."
Jackie slid to the floor frowning, contemplating the ingenuity. "A hatch flat against the stern, caulked? Hoo. These timbers, they big enough for what you was thinking to build?"
"Ya, but thass my business," Delano said. He was looking grim again. "And Jackie, long as I'm paying the freight, don't talk jesus—that sort of thing upset my mama."
"But ho, jesus potatoes—they's fine. With whole peppercorns. . .?"
"Ya, I know. But don' talk jesus, okay?"