Yondering (Ss) (1988) by L'amour Louis

Author:L'amour, Louis [L'amour, Louis]
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2010-12-12T06:26:12.375000+00:00

THICKER THAN BLOOD

One shipped out of San Pedro in those days through what was called the Marine Service Bureau. Less politely, the seamen referred to it as Fink Hall or the Slave Market.

Upon arrival in port it was customary to register there and wait one's turn. At the time that was about three months. However, when I did leave San Pedro, it was by taking what the old wind-ship sailors used to call a `pierhead jump.' I shipped off the dock.

The Seaman's Institute maintained a dormitory for seamen ashore, a reading room, a game room, and a mailing address. Some of the best checker playing I ever saw was done there. On Wednesday nights there was entertainment.

When I arrived at the Institute on that last night, none of the regulars was around.

It was damp and cold outside, and I had but five cents in my pocket. Turning a newspaper to the shipping lists, I started checking to see what ships were arriving and where they were bound. A stranger loomed over me, asking, "What's the best way to get to Wilmington at this hour?"

"Walk," I said, "unless you've money enough for a cab." I explained the best route.

"But watch yourself. If you've got two dimes, don't let them rattle or you'll get rolled for them,"

"I've got a ship. They're coming in to take on fuel oil, and they radioed ahead for an able seaman."

"You're lucky."

"Why not come along? They might need another man." It was worth the gamble, and I'd no place to go and no place to sleep.

It was a dark night with a light drizzle veiling the lights on the Luckenbach dock across the channel. I took turns carrying his sea bag, as I'd none of my own. If I did ship out, I'd have to buy my outfit from the ship's slop chest. The ship was a freighter outward bound for the Far East, and it was due in at midnight. We were a few minutes late, but it had not arrived. We sat down under the eaves of the warehouse to wait, and it was after four in the morning before we finally saw it, creeping up the channel.

We went aboard and were signed on in the chief mate's cabin with the only light the reading lamp over his desk. I had no idea what I was getting into, but it made no difference. I was broke, and this was a job.

That ship was to be my home for the next six months, and before I arrived back in the States, I'd have been to Yokohama, Kobe, Nagasaki, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and various ports in Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and the Malay States as well as Singapore. With stops here and there we went on around the world to finally pay off in Brooklyn.

H E HAD IT COMING if ever a man did, and I could have killed him then and nobody the wiser. If he had been man enough, we could have gone off on the dock and slugged it out, and everything would have been settled either way the cat jumped.

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