Tramp Royale

by Robert A. Heinlein

  The gals put on formal evening gowns, seldom seen in a freighter, and quite a number of us wore neckties, making it a swank affair. It started out a bit slowly as formal affairs often do, but French Seventy-fives have a characteristic and rather slow effect on the emotions; the first salvo is over, the second salvo is short, and the third salvo is usually dead on, after which everyone is muy simpático.

  It was an occasion both pleasant and sad. The Gulf Shipper had become another home to us, and our shipmates were our family. We danced to the radio and we sang and we told stories but over it all was the knowledge that we would never meet like this again. However, the supply of ammunition held out and it is hard to be anything but merry when one of those salvos hits you dead on. I remember telling the chief mate that I was thinking of selling our house and taking a permanent lease on stateroom number three. He applauded the notion and we had a drink on it.

  Around dawn we reluctantly adjourned. I stood the rest of the four-to-eight watch with the mate on watch and then went down to breakfast. Ticky was a little tired but we were both determined to show up for breakfast as a matter of face-after which we went back to stateroom number three and died.

  I had no more than fallen asleep when I was snatched out of happy dreams by the most terrifying clamor I have ever heard. I found myself standing in the middle of the room trying to put on trousers; I had both feet in one leg and it was not working out too well. I became aware that Ticky was shouting at me. "Stop it! Those aren't yours."

  I stopped. Sure enough, they weren't. They were Ticky's slacks and were not only much too small for me but had curves tailored in in the wrong places. I passed them over as she said, "What in the world is it?" The awful clamor continued.

  "General alarm," I grunted. "Man the life boats. Hurry!"

  We did hurry, for I was reasonably sure the poor old Shipper was going down and I had just enough life left in me to wish to save it-or perhaps it was instinctual reflex. We were at our boat stations and quicker than some of the crew. We were fully dressed, aside from buttons and zippers and similar non-essentials, and were wearing our life jackets. The sea was calm and the weather clear; I tried to figure out the nature of the disaster. Perhaps war had broken out suddenly. There was a notice posted near the saloon telling what to do in case of atomic attack but I had not read it since the day we embarked.

  Our life boat station was right under the bridge. Captain Lee leaned over the rail and smiled at us with fiendish delight. "Good morning!" he said.

  The expression on his face was enough to turn it from a disaster into a boat drill. My mind started functioning again and I understood it all. The Captain, inhibited by his responsibilities as master of a ship at sea, had gone to bed early from the party. He had gotten up early as well, breakfasted in his cabin as was his custom, then had looked around to find a ship deserted and utterly quiet save for those on watch. Being of a sociable nature he had cured that by switching on the general alarm, a sound guaranteed to get Davy Jones out of his locker.

  No one can criticize a ship's master for holding boat drills; the book even advises that they be held by surprise and this one certainly qualified as such. But I was convinced at that moment that he had sounded that alarm for the prime purpose of getting me personally out of my sack. Right then I would have beaten him to death with a flyswatter had I had the strength to lift one.

  I'm sure Ticky would have held him. I would have needed help; he is considerably bigger than I am.

  That man has a low sense of humor.

  By evening I was able to grin about it, although feebly. By the time the Shipper stood into Valparaiso I had decided to forgive and forget; after all we were amigos and brothers. I was fond of him and I knew he was fond of me.

  But when he comes to stay with us in Colorado Springs next year he had better watch out for snakes in his bed and not go through doorways too hastily. Maybe I can lure him onto ice skates.

  Valparaiso does not have the most spectacular harbor in the world; that honor probably goes to Rio with Sydney and San Francisco fighting it out for second place. But it is one of the most beautiful. The shore line, almost circular, looks like a backdrop painted by a scenic artist with a fine eye for color and composition. We had plenty of time to look at it because the port authorities required us to tie to a buoy in the outer harbor to discharge a few drums of naphtha before we were considered safe to come alongside dock.

  The minor heavenly functionaries in charge of such things provide arrangements like this to insure a certain routine every time a ship comes into port: first, the passengers must be required to get up earlier than usual, preferably with a big head acquired at the Captain's Dinner; then they must be examined by the port surgeon and various police and immigration officials just as they are about to sit down to breakfast; next, the actual departure from the ship must be delayed so that they will arrive at customs just as it closes, or so timed as to miss a train, or both.

  This is a cosmic plan, not a human plan, for the humans who play parts in it are almost invariably polite, helpful, and anxious to expedite things. Other factors have to be thrown in to foil them of their kindly intentions.

  The drums of naphtha almost accomplished the full routine for us at Valparaiso had not Mr. Thackeray, agent for the Grace Lines and acting for Gulf & South American, owners of the Shipper, set himself firmly against the plans. Once the Shipper touched dock and put over a gangway he got us through the system with such speed that I am still gasping.

  Mr. Thackeray is a handsome, blondish young man who speaks perfect American. I assumed that he had been sent down from the States but he smiled and said no, that he was a Chileno who had never been out of his native country. This was our first contact with the dual fact that Chile is the most Latin of Latin American countries in many ways but the Chilenos do not look Latin according to North American preconception of that term. Tall blondes seem almost as common as they are in Sweden. There are many Chilenos of Irish, German, and English ancestry-but they are Chilenos, thoroughly assimilated. Most of them speak nothing but Spanish. Even the English seem to assimilate better in Chile than in most places. In Chile they become Chilenos, even though they tend quite sensibly to hang onto the very real asset of English as a second language.

  In the meantime our ten suitcases were piled mountainously on the dock and, as I had dismally predicted, the customs shed was a long way off. Part of my gloomy prophecy was wrong: it was not raining, there was merely a fine mist. But the train we had to catch in order to claim our hotel reservation in Santiago was to leave in only thirty-five minutes.

  Perhaps I should add that trains run on time in Chile, better than they do in Colorado.

  Mr. Thackeray conjured up porters with two hand trucks. Mr. Thackeray produced a Ford station wagon belonging to the Grace Lines. Mr. Thackeray negotiated the movement of our baggage, which had to be done along the docks inside the customs barrier, then settled us in the station wagon and whisked us outside the barrier into the streets and over to the customs station in comfort.

  There were no customs officers at the customs shed. Mr. Thackeray glanced at his watch, looked perturbed and said, "I'm afraid they have gone to tea. It's about that time."

  "Do they close down completely? Isn't someone left on duty? It's not very many minutes to our train time."

  "I'll see what I can do. Nothing can be done until your baggage shows up anyhow." He went away, leaving me with half a dozen fretful questions about was he sure the porters knew where to come and how far did they have to come and how long would it take and where was the railroad station and when was the break for tea supposed to be over, all unasked.

  Ticky and I sat down in the big, bare, gloomy shed and shared a cigarette and thought gloomily about home.

  In about ten minutes the porters arrived, slightly wet and very cheerful. I counted the ten suitcases and cheered up a little myself, just to see them. Mr. Thackeray returned, helped me pay the porters and, by request, advised me how much t
o tip. They seemed very much pleased with the tip-tipping is not as common in Chile as in Peru or as it is at home-and began spreading our baggage around the inspection tables. "Las llaves, Señor?" one of them asked.

  "Give him your keys," Mr. Thackeray advised. "It will save time. I think I'm going to be able to get one of the customs officers to come in." He went away again.

  The porters promptly got into trouble with a Valapak and I promptly had trouble with Ticky. It was not their fault; a scarf was packed immediately under a zipper in the Valapak. The thin silk caught in the zipper and jammed it; they tried to force it free and it got worse. Ticky sprang to the defense of her cherished chattels and tried to push them aside. With courteous gallantry they assured her that they would take care of it and did not give way. They spoke in Spanish but the meaning was inescapable.

  Three of them continued to sweat and strain while Ticky skittered around them, trying to push her way in, wringing her hands, demanding that they back away and let her do it, and shouting for a pair of pliers in a language known among her hearers only to me and I did not have any.

  Shortly there was a ripping sound and Ticky burst into tears. She then started expressing an emotional opinion of the country and its people. I took her firmly by the elbow and led her to the bench. "Sit down," I said fiercely, "and shut up. Remember what I told you eight thousand times on the way down. No matter what happens at customs, you must smile, smile, and smile some more."

  She sniffled and said brokenly, "I think it's an outrage that I have to sit here and watch while those men ruin my things."

  "It was just a scarf. Forget it."

  "I am not going to let anyone paw through my underwear!" She sniffled again. "I want to go home."

  "Too late. We can't even get back aboard ship. Somebody else has our cabin."

  "I am not-"

  "You are going to sit still and shut up."

  She shut up but she had all storm warnings still flying. Mr. Thackeray returned with a customs officer. But now it was my turn to get off on the wrong foot.

  The aduanero had left his tea a good twenty minutes early to help the gringos catch their train. I think he must have regretted it at once when he saw that the norteamericano did not have ordinary good manners. I could see that he was not exactly jovial and attributed it to his being interrupted at meals; I tried to be ingratiating, but I did not put it over.

  Mr. Thackeray touched my arm. "Take your hat off!" he whispered insistently. "He is growing quite annoyed."

  I snatched it off and blushed. "Please tell him I'm sorry."

  I had forgotten an elementary fact, a common element in many other cultures but unknown in the United States. This tired little official was not expecting me to take off my hat to him. He would never expect such a thing, unless we did so mutually as two equals meeting. But we were not meeting as equals; he embodied at that time and place the sovereignty of his country and he damn well expected me to show respect for it. It was symbolically equivalent to standing up for "The Star-Spangled Banner."

  In the United States the President himself is almost the only official accorded such respect for such a reason; even governors don't get much of it. We show respect to individuals when and as it suits us, according to the respect that individual has earned in our eyes. We show respect to high office in government, business, church, professions, or the military on the assumption that the holder of high office, be he bishop or brigadier, has probably earned respect or he would not have gained rank. But the notion that the most minor public servant embodies the visible presence of the sovereign state is an idea that has passed us by. An American, if he thinks about it at all, is likely to carry it one step farther and recall that he is the state, he himself-not that cop over there.

  Of course the cop is a sovereign citizen, too, but as a cop he is not sovereign but a servant of sovereigns . . . and the same for all other public officials, servants not masters.

  But our attitude is far from being universal. The phrase "On the King's Business-" conveys a very different notion. In Germany a few years back (and for all I know today) there was an offense which freely translated read: "Disrespect to an Official of the State"-by which was meant that you could be fined for arguing with a street car conductor! There are many places in the world where all public functionaries-policemen, school teachers, postmasters, train conductors, assessors-receive formal, hat-in-hand respect quite different from ordinary courtesy. To fail to offer it is to court inconvenience or even more serious trouble. In some hot-tempered places such as Indonesia a mistake in such protocol can be dangerous to life and limb.

  But not in Chile. The aduanero was mollified at once when I uncovered. He quit frowning and stalling with the declarations and went through our bags with great speed and very little disruption of the packing, so fast that I was pushed to keep up with closing and locking them. Mr. Thackeray said, "That's all let's go we'll catch that train yet!"

  "Where's the station?"

  "Just across the way." He hurried out, followed by me, Ticky, porters, and suitcases. He shoved money through a ticket window, seemed to snatch two tickets out of the air, and rejoined us without slowing down. "This way!"

  There was no time to check bags; Mr. Thackeray arranged with the assistant conductor to stow them in the vestibule of a car, then urged us on board. The train pulled out as we sat down.

  With the departure of Mr. Thackeray we at last found ourselves truly in a foreign country and a long way from home. Up until that time the Gulf Shipper had kept home with us, no matter if the stars changed and Orion stood on his head. Mr. Thackeray's sophistication, skill, and linguistic ability had sheltered us through the complexities of transition, but now we were alone. For the first time we felt twinges of homesickness.

  We soon discovered that we were cut off in another way: there was no one at all around us who could speak English. I wanted to find out when the train reached Santiago. I was not dead sure that the train ended there; perhaps in our mute ignorance we could be carried on past it. Or even if Santiago was the last stop, it might have several stations, like Philadelphia; we might wind up many miles from our hotel.

  I tried each member of the train crew as he passed down the aisle-no luck. I tried English on everyone near us-still no luck. I glanced around farther to see if anyone had looked up at the sound of English-not a soul. I felt around in my pockets and confirmed what I had suspected; all three of the Spanish phrase books we had with us were packed in our luggage. I recalled sourly the guidebook which stated that most metropolitan Chilenos spoke English and that all hotel people, all taxi drivers, and all persons connected with railroads and airlines spoke it fluently-I wondered if the hack who wrote that guidebook had ever been out of Dubuque and decided that he had probably smoked up his lies in the public library.

  I was not blaming the Chilenos. The fault was mine for not having learned the beautiful and easy Spanish tongue; I myself would be little help to a Chileno lost in Colorado Springs. It was simply unfortunate that both Ticky and myself had elected French in school, rather than Spanish.

  I considered tackling them in French, then got cold feet. My French is only a bit better than my Spanish; I am not a linguist.

  At last I again tackled the exceedingly English-looking young man seated in front of us. (He looked as if he must know English.) With the aid of a card and a pencil and a monumental effort by which I recalled that the Spanish word for "hour" was the same as the Latin I established that we were indeed on the train for Santiago, that it arrived at 8 p.m., that the distance was about 150 kilometres, and that we should get off at the last stop in order to reach Hotel Carrera. I had interrupted his reading but he was all patience and friendliness.

  It was the only time I was ever troubled by a language barrier. I never will be worth a hoot at any other language; I am eye-minded and even the English language can go too fast for me. But patience and friendliness are everywhere, and the use of writing (to tie down both the question and the answe
r and allow it to be studied), plus the use of the universal numerals, plus a cognate or two, are enough for any situation. Besides, the chap that wrote the guidebook was not too far wrong; there is usually someone within earshot who is happy to help.

  ("What sort of people," the frightened boy asked, "are there in this great city?"

  (The gatekeeper considered it. "What sort of people were there in your home village?"

  (The boy's eyes filled with tears and his voice choked. "They were the most wonderful, the kindest people in all the world!"

  ("Go on in, son," the gatekeeper said gently. "You will find them much the same inside.")

  After I had settled my old-maid worries we relaxed and enjoyed the ride. The train was very fast and the scenery varied from pleasant to magnificent. Santiago sits at the foot of the Andes at 1800 feet; the railroad winds up the valley of Rio Mapocho to reach it, through farms and foothills and mountains. We were in the southern rainfall belt and the hills and fields were green. The countryside looks like that near Santa Barbara, California, and numerous eucalyptus trees added to the impression.

  Presently the train's news butcher came around with tea. We had been advised to be wary of the local water but tea seemed a safe bet, and we were both hungry and thirsty, it being far past dinner hour in the Shipper. The train attendant hung little trays for each of us on the backs of the seats in front of us, then sold us, at charity prices, tea and sandwiches and strange little cakes. One sort seemed to be expanded nitrocellulose with sugar added but it was probably principally white of eggs.

  Then I bought magazines from him. We looked at the pictures and tried to puzzle out the text and told ourselves that we were "improving our Spanish." Perhaps we were, since any change would have been an improvement. I remember one cartoon strip which showed Perón of Argentina cussing out Uncle Sam for the benefit of an audience, then, in the next frame, falling into Uncle Sam's arms with shouts of "Amigo!" But most of it was not that easy.