The Corral, Volume [23], Number 2, March, 1933 Page: 4
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Corral and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Hardin-Simmons University Library.
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THE CORRAL
have never heard of th' bloody fight me and Angus
had one night at the British King."
"Can't say I have, sir."
"We-el, it has to do with my contempt for th'
Irish. One night we had just made it in port at
Antwerp and I was telling a great number of Irish
jokes, mostly about Pat and Mike. You know,
pick 'em up from fust one seaman and another.
Angus-I knowed he was Irish-was sitting in one
corner with a gang o' his monkeys while I was
spinning these yarns. One about Pat and Mike in
Alaska. Just at the point Angus riles up with his
glass in hand and blood in his eyes. 'Wuz you in
Alaska at th' time?' he quizzed. 'Sure,' I said.
'Well, that wuzn't the Pat 'n Mike frum Ir-r-land.
They wuz partic'lar with their comp'ny'."
"I don't exactly know what happened. They
say he bobbed a chair in my face. But I came
out of it in time to bob my fist in his chin, and
me and Angus Derg and his whole pack of Irish-
men-and all Irishmen-hasn't been on such good
chinnin' terms as yet. Say-look at the glass!
She's making a big slump. We're going into this
blow dead center."
The mate glanced over his shoulder, then opened
the sliding door and called the lookout upon the
bridge.
The captain stood with his stocky legs far apart.
There was quite a roll in the deck now, and the
"New Boston" was beginning to corkscrew-first
a forward dive and a roll as she came up, show-
ering spray over her bow. He gazed far ahead,
fathoming out the individual grey clouds smother-
ing the horizon in the twilight. There was a game
flicker in each of his stony eyes, which he narrowed
down in a brow-covered squint. His pipe was in
his mouth and he eagerly stomped the deck with a
worn pair of sea boots.
"Goin' down for my cocoa, Matey. Call me if
they's an upturn. We're going to have dirt before
morning. You can lay to that." He crept out on
the wind-swept bridge. The "New Boston" was
showing her age, he felt, for she was creaking and
groaning like a Yukon log raft. She buckled and
dove into the trough ahead of a monstrous dark
wave and shuddered. The captain put a leathey
hand upon the rail for support and steadied him-
self for the moment. He had started down
the steps to the lower bridge when he paused and
retraced his steps.
"Matey, have the apes make everything fast."
"Yes, sir," came the muffled reply from the
house.
The crew's foc's'le was alive with preparedness.
Every extra pair of trousers was being donned
for the watch ahead. Men on duty would dash inand snatch a warm cup of coffee and dive back
into the blizzard. Oilskins were dragged down
from the bulkheads and warmed in the scant heat
of the radiators. Boots were drawn over extra
pairs of woolen socks. Extra dungarees and sweat-
ers were being crowded into. The battering sea
jostled men about in their bunks as they sought a
few winks of sleep before the stroke of what for-
bode, and in the dining quarters the ire of the star
mess boy had been aroused when the tossing of the
ship upset a great panful of soup. The steering
engine ground in narrower intervals, tugging and
straining with the five-ton rudder.
Joking and laughing, several men stood in the
storm doors before they would have to be closed
for the duration of the spell. The slight ordinary
seaman stood silent and calm. He fumbled awk-
wardly with the string of his sou'wester and looked
at spray splashing on the deck. The lights from
the midship passageways played upon the flinging
spray and lighted the mainmast to the top. One
of the mess-boys, half-pitying, half-envying, stuffed
a chocolate bar into his oilskins.
"You may need this before morning. The night
lunch'll be eaten right up," he said, and was
thanked by the pale youth.
From up for'ard came the faint but certain one
bell. Fifteen minutes more of shelter and then-
into the fury.
"First rough sea you've been in, eh kid?" an
able seaman inquired.
"Yes, sir," the ordinary replied timidly. The
fellow's voice was kindly, though it was the first
move toward conversation he had made.
"You stick to me when we go for'ard. You
might want to know how to dodge these dampeners
--the big waves-when they wash over the docks."
"Yes, sir." The boy went into his cabin. It
was the smallest of the crew's quarters and was
single. He wrapped a heavy scarf--a present from
his mother about him and turned about. Around
the walls of the cabin he had hung the pieces of the
conspicuously clean sailor suit he'd worn aboard
sailing day. Someone said that the work was too
dirty for that. He had not had it on since.
When he reached the passageway some of the
watch were bolting through the spray for amid-
ship. The kindly fellow who had said "stick by me"
had waited for him. Cautiously, the two stepped
out on deck, hovered near the hatch and waited
until a great deluge of water cascaded over the
deck, then, the able seaman nudged him to follow.
They arrived at the amidship ladder together just
as another great wave burst over the bulwarks and
spent its force in a mighty shudder.
Great veins of lightning now lit the sky. APage 4
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Simmons University. The Corral, Volume [23], Number 2, March, 1933, periodical, March 1933; Abilene, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth109431/m1/6/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Hardin-Simmons University Library.