And The Deep Blue Sea — 22
He stared blankly, startled by the suddenness of it,
but then turned and looked in the direction she was
pointing. She ran out onto the wing of the bridge, her
arm still extended. ‘Right out there! I heard him shout!
He was waving!’ But the raft was out of the moon path
now and lost in the darkness behind it. The captain
emerged from the wheelhouse. She whirled to him.
‘Captain! Stop! Back up!’ She realized she must
sound like an idiot; what was the nautical term?
‘What is it, Mrs. Brooke?’ he asked.
‘She says she saw a man on a raft,’ the second mate
said.
She saw the exchanged glance. Passengers! The ship
was gaining speed, the raft falling farther astern by the
minute. She was frantic. Wasn’t there any way she
could make them believe it? The captain had reached
into a box below the bridge railing and lifted out a pair
of binoculars. ‘Back there!’ she cried out again,
gesturing. ‘He was in the path of the moonlight! I heard
him shout!’
The captain searched the area with the glasses. He
lowered them and said, in the tone of one indulging a
child, ‘It was probably a piece of dunnage, Mrs. Brooke.
Or some weed.’
‘Captain, I’m not an idiot, and I’m not drunk! It was a
man! Wouldn’t he show on the radar?’
‘Not on our radar.’ It was the chief mate, who had
emerged from the wheelhouse. He spoke to the captain.
‘Maybe she did see something. We’d better take a look.’
Before the captain could reply, he stepped past them
and lifted a life ring from its brackets on the rear
railing of the bridge. It was attached to a canister. He
ripped the canister loose from its supports and threw
the whole thing over the side. Karen heard it splash in
the water below them, and in a moment a torchlike
flame appeared, lighting up the surface of the sea as it
began to drop astern. The chief mate turned and called
out to the helmsman inside the wheelhouse. ‘Hard left!’
‘Mr. Lind!’ the captain said angrily, drowning out the
helmsman’s reply. It was obvious even to Karen that
Lind had vastly exceeded his authority, since it wasn’t
And The Deep Blue Sea — 23
his watch and the captain was on the bridge besides,
but the big man was completely at ease.
He winked at Karen. ‘Cap, it’ll cost us ten minutes to
find out. If there’s nobody there, I’ll buy the company a
new life ring, and Mrs. Brooke will give a cocktail
party.’
The ship was already beginning to swing. The captain
started to countermand the order, then shrugged and
remained silent. Karen sighed with relief as she
retreated from the bridge where she had no business.
Lind, she thought, was something of a man.
And with a mocking and reckless sense of humor that
could have wrecked it, she added to herself, thinking of
the ‘cocktail party’. Captain Steen was a Baptist, a
teetotaler, and a dedicated crusader against alcohol.
She crossed to the port side of the boat deck where she
could continue to watch the flare after they completed
the turn, trying to sort out her reactions to the odd fact
that she had probably saved a man’s life. What was that
old Chinese belief? That if you saved somebody’s life
you had meddled in his destiny and you were
responsible for him from then on?
* * *
Goddard saw the flame blossom on the surface of the
sea, and collapsed, shaking all over and too weak to do
anything for a moment. He saw the ship begin to swing
in her hard-over turn, circling to come back through
the area, and when he had his breath back he slipped
over the side again and began to push the raft toward
the circle of light, some two hundred yards away. By
the time he came up to it the ship had already reached
the limit of her opposite course and was turning toward
him again. He stopped in the edge of the illuminated
area with the raft between the flare and the oncoming
ship so he would be silhouetted against it, and climbed
back aboard. He waved, knowing they would have their
glasses on the light and would have seen him by now.
Lying on his back, he fought his way into the soggy
dungarees. He sat up, drank the last of the water in the
bottle, and waited.
And The Deep Blue Sea — 24
The ship came on. While still a quarter mile away
they backed down briefly on the engine to take most of
the way off her there, before they came abreast, so the
wash from the propeller wouldn’t sweep him away from
her. The engine stopped, and she began to drift slowly
down on him, coming to rest at last not more than fifty
yards away. He saw men working on the boat deck, and
one of the starboard boats started to swing out in its
davits. They didn’t know what kind of shape he might
be in, or whether there could be somebody else lying in
the bottom of the raft.
He cupped his hands. ‘Don’t lower a boat! Just a
ladder!’
A voice came back from the darkness of the bridge.
‘You sure? How about the accommodation ladder?’
That would be stowed, and it would take twenty
minutes to break it out and rig it. ‘Just a pilot ladder,’
he shouted back. He took a quick look around to be
sure there were no cruising dorsals attracted by the
flare, slipped over the side, and began pushing the raft
ahead of him. In a minute the beam of a flashlight
probed downward from the after well-deck to give him
a mark, and just before he reached the ship’s side there
was the rattle and bumping of a pilot ladder being
dropped over. The lower end of it was in the water
under the beam of light. He pushed the raft aside and
swam over to it. The end of a line dropped into the sea
beside him.
‘Make it fast around yourself,’ a voice called down.
They were determined to make a stretcher case out of
him, he thought, but they might have a case, at that. He
was pretty well used up. He treaded water while he
passed the line around under his arms and made it fast.
Grasping the chains at the ends of the ladder treads, he
started up, while the men above took up the slack in his
safety line. It was a long way up, and he found he was
weaker than he’d thought. Hands grasped his arms and
helped him over the bulwark and down on deck. He
shook with fatigue while water dripped from his body,
vaguely conscious of an excited buzzing of voices from
a number of the crew gathered in the well-deck. One of
the cargo lights was turned on. Somebody unbent the
And The Deep Blue Sea — 25
safety line while two men continued to support him,
apparently trying to lead him over to a seat on a hatch
cover. He shook his head.
‘I’m all right,’ he gasped.
The blond giant who had hold of his right arm let go,
grinned at him, and said, ‘I guess you are, at that. And I
thought I had a patient to practice on.’ He indicated the
open first-aid kit on the hatch cover. Beside it was a
pitcher of water. He poured a glass half full. ‘Easy does
it’.
Goddard drank it and returned the glass. ‘I had a
little on the raft.’
The only man present with an officer’s cap stepped
forward. ‘I’m Captain Steen. Are there any others?’
‘No, just me.’ Goddard grinned painfully, his sun-andsalt-
ravaged face feeling as though it would crack. ‘I’m
glad to meet you, Captain.’ He held out his hand. ‘My
name’s Goddard.’
They shook hands, Captain Steen somewhat stiffly,
apparently a man with very little humor. Steen turned
to one of the crew, and said, ‘Tell Mr. VanDoorn he can
get under way.’
Goddard looked at the big man who had helped him
aboard and given him the water. Though he was bareheaded
and clad only in khaki trousers and a shortsleeved
shirt with no insignia of any kind, he wore
authority as casually as he did the bedroom slippers
and the untamed shock of blond hair. ‘Mate?’ Goddard
asked.
The other nodded. ‘Lind.’ They shook hands, and he
asked, ‘Yacht, I suppose, with that Mickey Mouse life
raft?’
‘Yeah,’ Goddard replied. ‘I was single-handing—’ He
stopped, overcome with another attack of weakness
and shaking, and began to sway. Lind and another man
caught him before he could fall. They led him toward
the ladder to the deck above.
Karen Brooke had been watching from the corner of
the promenade deck as Goddard made his way up the
pilot ladder, marveling that a castaway would have the
And The Deep Blue Sea — 26
strength to do it. Apparently he hadn’t been aboard the
raft very long. Just as they helped him over the
bulwark, Mrs. Lennox came out of the passageway on
the starboard side and joined her at the rail.
‘Isn’t it exciting?’ Mrs. Lennox asked. ‘A real rescue
at sea. Who do you suppose he is?’
‘He must be off a small boat of some kind,’ Karen
replied. ‘It was a tiny raft, one of the inflated kind, and
I don’t think ships have them.’
‘A yachtsman! And look how tall he is.’ The older
woman’s interest quickened. ‘Almost as big as Mr.
Lind.’
Karen was amused, now that it appeared the man was
neither ill nor dying of thirst and no longer an object of
concern. He had cheated one species of man-eater, and
now was being marked down by another. Mrs. Lennox
had all the healthy interest in men of any normal, redblooded,
fifty-year-old widow, and she went to no great
lengths to conceal it. She was still quite attractive, with
a trim and sexy figure, smoky gray eyes, and a cascade
of ash-blonde hair. She was wearing pajamas, slippers,
and a nylon robe, but the hair was neatly combed and
she had put on makeup.
Karen gazed musingly down into the well-deck where
the man, surrounded by curious crew members, shook
hands with the captain and then with Mr. Lind, and
wondered if, in accordance with the old Chinese belief,
she should try to summon up some feeling of
responsibility for him. He really didn’t appear to need
it. Even exhausted, barefoot, naked from the waist up,
with water draining off him and his face covered with a
week’s stubble of beard, he was an imposing figure and
stamped with the competent look of a man who could
take care of himself.
‘Good show, Mrs. Brooke.’ The two women turned. It
was Mr. Egerton, coming down the ladder from the
deck above to join them.
He was the passenger in Cabin G, a lean, erect man
in his sixties with a gray moustache and gray hair,
against which the black eye patch was undoubtedly
dramatic but, to Karen, somehow vaguely theatrical, as
And The Deep Blue Sea — 27
though he had set out to contrive the effect. This was
unfair, of course, and she realized that part of it was
the clipped British accent, the occasional use of
military terms, and expressions like that same ‘good
show’. If you were a retired English army officer who
had lost an eye somewhere, you could hardly be blamed
if this were exactly the way a not very imaginative actor
would play the part. He kept to his cabin a good deal of
the time and seldom came to breakfast or lunch, so she
didn’t know him very well, but he had beautiful
manners and was an urbane and interesting dinner
companion.
‘The second officer informs me you were the heroine
of the affair,’ he went on. ‘Bit of good fortune for the
chap that you were up and about, what?’
Karen caught the swift glance from Madeleine
Lennox. The older woman recovered instantly,
however, and exclaimed, ‘Darling, you mean you were
the one who saw him? And you didn’t tell me?’
‘It was just an accident,’ Karen replied. ‘I woke up
when the engine stopped and went up on the boat deck
to look at the stars.’ Does that do it, dear? She went on
to tell how she sighted the raft at the moment it was in
the path of moonlight. Down in the well-deck, Mr. Lind
and a seaman were helping the man toward the ladder.
‘I wish somebody would come up and tell us
something.’
There was a shuddering vibration of the deck then as
the Leander’s engine went full ahead. She began to
move. Karen glanced off to starboard where the flare
was still burning in the darkness, starting to drift
slowly astern now as they went off and left it in the
vastness of the Pacific. She shivered, thinking of being
out there alone on a raft and seeing the ship moving
away.
Just as she started to turn back, she became aware of
the figure standing at the corner of the deckhouse. It
was Mr.—what was his name—Krasuscki? No, Krasicki,
she corrected herself. He was the passenger in Cabin
H, but she had seen him only two or three times
because of the illness that had kept him confined nearly
And The Deep Blue Sea — 28
ever since their departure from Callao. He was wearing
pajamas and a heavy flannel robe, and he did look ill,
she thought, with the hollow, almost cadaverous face
and the feverish brightness of the eyes. She started to
speak to him, but paused struck by the strangeness of
his behavior. Stock still except for a nervous twitching
at the corner of his mouth, he was staring past her at
Walter Egerton.
Egerton turned then, and saw him. Krasicki continued
to stare into his face with the same unwavering
intensity for another two or three seconds, then
wheeled and went back around the corner.
Egerton glanced at Karen, apparently puzzled. ‘I say,
that must be our fellow-passenger. Does seem a spot
feverish, doesn’t he?’
She nodded. It was odd, but entirely possible under
the circumstances; they had been aboard the ship for
six days now, but this was the first time they had seen
each other. But why had Krasicki stared that way? It
wasn’t simply ill-mannered, she thought; there’d been a
trace of madness in it, or the horror of a man seeing a
ghost.
And The Deep Blue Sea — 29
3
It was called the hospital but it was only a spare room
on the lower deck that had originally housed the gun
crew when the Leander was built and put into service
toward the end of World War II. It contained four
bunks, a washbasin, some metal lockers, and a small
desk. Naked and still dripping, Goddard was seated on
one of the lower bunks toweling himself after the
ecstasy of a freshwater shower, knowing that any
minute now the reaction would hit him and he’d
collapse like a dropped soufflé. Lind had just come back
from somewhere, and the passageway outside was still
jammed with crew members peering in.
Word had already spread that he’d been sailing a
small boat single-handed across the Pacific, and as they
grinned and voiced their congratulations and the
cheerful but inevitable opinion of working seamen that
anybody who’d sail anything across the ———ing ocean
just for the fun of it ought to have his ———ing head
examined, they tossed in on the other lower bunk a
barrage of spare gear including several pairs of shorts,
some slides, a new toothbrush in a plastic tube,
toothpaste, cigarettes, matches, and a pair of
dungarees. A young Filipino in white trousers and a
singlet pushed his way through the jam with a tray
And The Deep Blue Sea — 30
containing cold cuts, potato salad, bread, fruit, and a
pitcher of milk. He set it on the desk.
Goddard let the towel drop and began a shakyfingered
attack on the cellophane of one of the packs of
cigarettes. Lind held the lighter for him. With the first
deep and luxurious inhalation he began to float away
and wasn’t sure he’d last as far as the food.
Lind produced a pint bottle of whiskey from
somewhere and twisted off the cap. ‘Better splice the
main brace.’
Goddard lifted the bottle in a gesture that included all
his rescuers, and said, ‘Cheers.’ He took a small drink,
felt it burn its way down his throat, and returned the
bottle to Lind. One might prop him up for a few
minutes, but two would drop him in his tracks. He
looked around. Captain Steen was regarding him with
pious disapproval from the doorway.
‘You ought to be down on your knees thanking God,’
he said, ‘instead of drinking that stuff.’
‘Believe me, Captain, I was,’ Goddard said. ‘When I
saw your flare light off, it struck me that might be an
appropriate spot for a little dialogue.’
It was obvious Steen regarded this as flippant, but he
merely said, ‘Yes. Well, get some rest. Come up to my
office tomorrow and we’ll get all the information for the
log entries and reports.’
He disappeared, leaving grins and amused winks
behind him. Somebody made a remark in a language
Goddard didn’t understand, provoking laughter, and
another said, ‘Who this guy better thank is that babe
with the knockers. She was the one seen him.’ This
called forth a chorus of whistles, universal gestures,
and cries of ‘Mamma mia!’ and ‘Sweet Jesus!’
‘All right, all right, that’ll do!’ Lind’s voice, though
good-humored, cut through the ribaldry with a paradeground
authority that brought silence.
It all seemed to Goddard to be coming from far away
through a dreamlike and winy haze compounded of
total exhaustion and the euphoria of alcohol and
tobacco. He drew on a pair of shorts, took one more
And The Deep Blue Sea — 31
long drag on the cigarette, and reached toward the tray
of food. ‘There’s a woman aboard?’ he asked.
‘Two,’ Lind said. ‘It was Mrs. Brooke that sighted you.
We’re a real gung-ho crowd on here; with a radar and a
crew of thirty-eight, we find out from the passengers
what’s going on.’
Goddard drained the glass of milk and put it down
with elaborate care. He’d never been this drunk in his
life. For an instant he was back there on the raft
watching the ship draw away from him in the night, and
it started to come for him. Gripping the pipe railing of
the bunk so they couldn’t take it away from him, he
looked up at the big mate with profound solemnity.
‘Eternal vigilance,’ he said, ‘is the watchword of the
successful passenger, Mr. Lind. Suppose I’d swum over
to a ship that didn’t carry any?’
He pitched forward. Lind caught him and stretched
him out on the bunk.
* * *
He was aboard the raft in a kidney-shaped pool
swinging the Jack Daniels bottle at a succession of
sharks hurtling out of the water at him while a nude but
faceless woman suntanned on a mattress at the pool’s
edge, watching boredly and murmuring an occasional
and indifferent olé. He awoke, thrashing and shiny with
sweat. It was daylight, and heat was stifling inside the
room. He saw the pipe bunks and blue bedspreads, and
for a moment he was transported back across a quarter
century and it was the fo’c’sle of the old Shoshone and
he was an ordinary seaman again. He remembered then
where he was—except, he thought sardonically, he
didn’t know where he was, or even where he was going.
Nobody had told him the name of the ship or where she
was bound.
In effect, he mused, he was reborn, as innocent of
information and at the moment as schooner-rigged as
the standard day-old infant. He had on a pair of shorts
somebody had given him and a Rolex watch as a legacy
from the previous avatar that by all logic had ended
when the ship started to go off and leave him in the
And The Deep Blue Sea — 32
night, and that was about it. He glanced at the watch. It
said nine eighteen, which was the local apparent time
of his longitude the day the Shoshone had gone down,
and wouldn’t necessarily agree with the ship’s time, but
it should be within an hour. Almost at the same moment
he heard three bells strike. He set the watch to nine
thirty; chronologically at least, he was now meshed
with his new existence.
He was conscious of being ravenously hungry, and
sat up, wondering if they had left the tray of food.
Vertigo assailed him The faintness and black spots
passed in a moment, and he saw there was a bowl of
fruit on the desk. He quickly peeled and ate two
bananas and then an apple, and lighted a cigarette. He
could get a complete hot breakfast simply by opening
the door and letting them know he was awake, but he
wanted to be alone a few minutes longer. It wasn’t
every day you were reborn, and he’d like to examine
the phenomenon. Of course, sitting here he wasn’t
going to find out where he was bound, but that was
unimportant; he found he didn’t care in the slightest.
The cigarette was making him light-headed again.
Traditionally, he thought, life was supposed to take on
some deep and newfound significance now that it had
been given back to him. If it weren’t already in the
script, somebody would bring it up at the first
conference. I’m just spit-balling, fellas, but to me right
here is the turning point for Liebfraumilch—we gotta
find a better name for him, let’s make a note of that—
not just some penny-ante resolution he’s gonna stop
knocking back the sauce with both hands and screwing
everything in sight, but I mean, you know, something
big. Of course, he’s too old for the Peace Corps, unless
there’s a change in the casting, and I’ve just heard from
Bedfellow’s agent and he’s read the script and he’s ape
for it.
Goddard’s thoughts broke off then, and he grinned as
he remembered what Lind had said. It was a passenger,
a woman, who had sighted him, a Mrs.—Brooks? No,
Brooke. And judging from the comment, she must be
pretty, even after due allowance for the fact that among
seamen this far from port, Tugboat Annie or a
And The Deep Blue Sea — 33
reasonably chic orangutan would arouse some lewd
speculation. Fellas, believe me, I’m all for it—it’s a
sweetheart of a gimmick—here’s our guy, he owes his
life to this absolute doll with boobs you wouldn’t
believe—but that’s just it. Nobody will believe it. It’s
just too improbable, you with me? I mean, everybody
knows on a ship you got all these sailors on lookout up
there in the crow’s nest and on the yardarm and like
that, so who’s going to buy it was just the doll that saw
him? You’re right, Mannie, it would never work.
And anyway, Goddard thought, with another dizzying
inhalation of smoke, I’ve already ruined the staging of
the scene where they meet. Pommefrite—we gotta find
a better name for him, let’s make a note of that—
Pommefrite opens his eyes and she’s here in the room.
It’s a two-shot; his viewpoint is her back, about
threequarters, so he can see her hands, and she’s filling
a syringe very professionally from a vial with a rubber
membrane. The second setup, of course, we get
Pommefrite’s reaction: eccchhh! another needlethrowing
dragon. She turns, radiantly beautiful, eyes
right into the camera, widening a little and almost shy
as she sees he’s awake—
The door opened a few inches and somebody looked
in at him. ‘Oh, you’re up.’ A sharp-faced man pushed
the door on back and came in. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Fine,’ Goddard replied. ‘A little woozy yet. And
hungry.’
‘We’ll fix you up. I’m the chief steward. George
Barset.’
They shook hands, and Barset asked, ‘How about a
whole breakfast, ham and eggs and the works? Can you
handle that?’
‘Sure,’ Goddard replied.
‘How long was it? On the raft, I mean?’
‘Less than three days.’
Barset grinned. ‘Well, you sure came up smelling of
roses. I’ll be right back.’ He went out.
Goddard brushed his teeth, and looked at himself in
the mirror above the washbasin. Takes class, he told
And The Deep Blue Sea — 34
himself, to face something like that without a gun. All
his face not covered with a mottled black and gray
wire-brush of whiskers was burned a shiny red over the
old tan, and skin was peeling from his ears. And note,
gentlemen, that while this species of moose appears to
have no antlers, this is not true at all, as even the most
outstanding rack can be tastefully concealed in its hair.
Whether this concealment is a symbolic castration
forced on the bull by feminist and aggressive elements
within the harem or whether he simply hopes with this
camouflage to elude the constant demands for money
has never been completely established.
Barset came back bearing a pot of coffee. ‘Here you
go, Mr. Goddard. Rest of it’ll be along in a few
minutes.’
‘Thanks a lot,’ Goddard said. He poured a cup, black
and very hot, and sipped it. He grinned. ‘Good coffee.
It’s got authority.’
Barset lit a cigarette and sat down on the opposite
bunk. ‘Where you from?’
‘California,’ Goddard replied. ‘I sailed from Long
Beach about twenty-five days ago.’
‘Where to?’
Goddard shrugged. ‘Marquesas, and on down through
the islands. Australia, maybe. All ad lib.’
‘Just alone, in a puddle-jumper? Not even a babe?’ It
was obvious this made no sense to the steward. ‘You
going to write a book about it?’
‘No’ Goddard replied, aware that by thus disavowing
both sex and money as possible objectives he was
leaving the other no alternative to the seaman’s blanket
rationale for all types of exotic behavior: you don’t have
to be crazy but it helps. ‘What ship is this? And where
are we bound?’
‘Leander,’ Barset replied. ‘Manila and Kobe, from
South America. Callao was the last port.’
He went on. She was under the Panamanian flag, but
registry was the only thing about her connected with
Panama; she was owned by Greeks and under charter
to the Hayworth Line, with offices in London. She was
And The Deep Blue Sea — 35
built in 1944, reciprocating engine, single screw, and
she’d be pushed to make thirteen knots downhill.
Goddard began to form a picture of her, an old bucket
verging on obsolescence as she shuttled around the
Pacific basin from Hong Kong to Australia and the west
coast of South America to the Philippines and Japan,
able to compete with modern eighteen-knot freighters
only with the aid of tax breaks and lower wages.
Captain Steen, known as Holy Joe, was scowegian, a
Bible-pounder who got sidetracked and went to sea, a
booze-hater and a nickel-squeezer. It was that big mate,
Lind, who really ran the show; he’d go to bat for you,
and Holy Joe didn’t impress him at all, but he was too
good at his job for the skipper to get mad enough to fire
him. The second mate was a Dutch-Indonesian type and
the third mate was a young Swede.
The Filipino entered with a tray, and Goddard ate as
Barset went on talking. He himself was American. He
offered no explanation as to why he was on here,
working for probably half of what he’d get as chief
steward on an American ship, but Goddard was aware
there could be any number of reasons for this—union
trouble, woman trouble, or police trouble back in the
States. In his speech and manner there were faintly
discernible overtones of the wise guy, the promoter and
angle-shooter, which were always the same no matter
in which part of the jungle you ran into them.
‘Do you carry many passengers?’ Goddard asked.
Not many. They had accommodation for twelve, but it
was pretty hard for an old pot like this to compete with
those new freighters clipping it off at sixteen to
eighteen knots with air-conditioned staterooms and
fancy lounges. They had four at the moment, two men
and two women.
One of the men was a Limey, but not a bad sort of
Joe, about sixty-five, retired from Her Majesty’s Bengal
Lancers or something. He’d been living in BA, but
apparently the Argentine inflation was getting to be too
much for his pension so he was going to try the
Philippines. The other man had a Brazilian passport,
but must be some kind of Polack; his name was
And The Deep Blue Sea — 36
Krasicki. He’d been sick nearly ever since they’d sailed
from Callao. Lind treated him, but hadn’t been able to
find out what was wrong with him. A weirdo, anyway.
Stayed shut in his cabin when the temperature was
ninety degrees even out on deck, porthole closed,
curtain drawn, like he couldn’t stand daylight. Seemed
to sleep most of the day and stay up all night.
Sometimes in the afternoon you’d hear him having a
nightmare in there, yelling his head off. Kept a steamer
trunk in his cabin with three padlocks on it. Honest to
God, three. Reminded you of those store fronts in Lima
when they closed down for siesta, padlocks all over the
shutters like an overloaded mango tree.
One of the women was the widow of a retired U.S.
navy captain. Fifty, around there, probably, but looked
younger. Seemed to spend her time just knocking
around the world on freighters, and she’d been
everywhere at least once. A little on the Southern belle
side, but a real savvy type and interesting to talk to.
The other was younger, in her early thirties and a real
looker, pleasant and friendly enough but played it cool
and didn’t say much about herself. She was a widow
too, in spite of being that young, but he didn’t know
what had happened to her husband. She’d been
working in Lima and was on her way to another job in
Manila with the same company. He guessed it was
pretty dull for them up there with just two old crocks in
their sixties and one of them a kook who stayed
crapped out in his cabin all the time. They’d be tickled
pink to have another man aboard. Or was Goddard
going to be up there?
‘I don’t know,’ Goddard said. ‘Be up to the skipper, I
suppose.’
‘You stay down here,’ Barset said. ‘Holy Joe’ll
probably want you to turn to with a chipping hammer.’
Barset’s trouble, Goddard thought, was that he was
working entirely in the dark. There must be an angle
here somewhere, if he could only find it; a man you
fished naked out of the ocean a thousand miles from
land was a consumer right out of a huckster’s dream,
not only virginal but captive, but he was also an
enigma. Another man up in the passenger country
And The Deep Blue Sea — 37
would mean more tips, of which no doubt Barset got his
cut, plus the sale of drinks or bottled goods and
possibly other services, but you had to know something
of the prospect’s financial status. He was aware the
other was using the two women as bait, but it had been
just as obvious he’d kept himself severely under wraps
in speaking of them. Any smirks or nudges could
backfire on him disastrously if, for example, it
developed the prospect was another Holy Joe, or for
that matter, a fellow operator ready to embrace the
fuller life with an unverifiable line of credit, and it
wasn’t easy to pinpoint the cultural, moral, and
socioeconomic background of a man whose only visible
status symbols were a watch and somebody else’s
underwear.
‘What do you do for a living?’ Barset asked, coming to
the point at last.
‘Nothing at the moment,’ Goddard said. ‘I used to
work in pictures. Writer. Producer.’
Barset came to attention. This was a live one, if he
was telling the truth. ‘What pictures have you done?’
‘Tin Can,’ Goddard said. ‘The Amethyst Affair. And
several others. The last one was The Salty Six.’ And a
bomb. A comedic idea that didn’t work.
‘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.
And The Deep Blue Sea — 38
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 selfrighteous
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.
And The Deep Blue Sea — 39
‘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?’
And The Deep Blue Sea — 40
‘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.’
And The Deep Blue Sea — 41
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.
Lind was just coming in. He was bareheaded, in
khakis and moccasins, and apparently never wore
shoulder boards. He grinned at Goddard. ‘Stick around
a minute. I’ve got some things in my room you may be
able to use.’
‘Sure,’ Goddard said. ‘Thanks.’ He went out and
leaned on the rail on the starboard wing of the bridge.
And The Deep Blue Sea — 42
It would be a different ship, he thought, if Lind were
master of it.
And The Deep Blue Sea — 43
4
‘Appendectomy?’ Lind asked. ‘Spinal tap? Bothered
with impacted teeth? Lover’s catarrh? I’m always
looking for a live one.’
Goddard grinned and indicated the skull jammed
behind some books on the desk. ‘Not if that’s a former
patient.’
‘Bought it from a Moro down in the Celebes,’ Lind
said. ‘You can still see where somebody got him with a
bolo; probably the guy who sold it to me. Drink? Short
one before lunch?’
‘Sure, if it’s that or surgery,’ Goddard said.
Lind yanked open a drawer and brought out a bottle
of Canadian Club and two glasses. ‘Did you know that
the references to wine in the New Testament really
meant Welch’s grape juice? It was a faulty translation
from the Greek.’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard that,’ Goddard said. He looked
around the cabin again. While at first glance it would
appear it could only have been assembled by a pack rat,
a madman, or the vortex of a tornado, a more
subjective appraisal revealed the blazing and restless
mind that complemented the vast male exuberance of
its tenant. More outpatient clinic or dispensary than
living quarters, it also bore some resemblance to a
library after an earthquake, with traces here and there
And The Deep Blue Sea — 44
of a museum. Anchored to the deck was a sterilizer
containing scalpels, tooth forceps, hemostats, and
hypodermic syringes. Boxes and specially built shelves
held the contents of a small pharmacy—bottles, vials,
tubes, splints, packaged sutures, and rolls of gauze and
tape. There were several ebony carvings and a bolo,
and books were everywhere, in English, German, and
French, two full shelves plus more piled on the settee
and on the deck. Some were medical textbooks, in
addition to the standard first-aid manuals. Cugle and
Bowditch were sandwiched between Faulkner and
Gide. Goddard ran his eye on down the rows—Goethe,
African Genesis, Vance Packard, Also Sprach
Zarathuslra, L’Être at le Néant. There was a
combination, Nietzsche and Sartre.
Lind handed him the drink, and they clicked glasses.
‘Down the hatch.’
‘Skol,’ Goddard said. ‘You were a medical student?’
‘Two years. And you used to be a merchant seaman?’
‘A few trips as ordinary when I was a kid. How’d you
know?’
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