The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal

by Theodore Taylor

  Finally, the night Mama died.

  The tears came on without warning.

  5

  MOST OF MRS. CROWE'S boarders had already breakfasted and were on their way to the N&W yards with lunch pails, several down to the glistening river to catch a workboat for the Southern Railway terminal over at Pinner's Point, across the way. There was an early morning hurry that I'd never noticed on the Banks, where everyone wriggled stocking toes over a second cup of coffee and mulled the weather before lifting the door latch. There was no calm daybreak here. The city seemed to awaken on the move and was rumbling by seven o'clock.

  Mike Grant, standing on the front porch, was leaving, too, for Union Station. Anxious to go. Even fidgety. "Look me up when you come back in, Ben." He seemed wound up.

  "I sure will."

  The drummer nodded, almost as if I were a stranger, pounded down the steps, and headed rapidly for Main Street, long legs eating ground.

  I called after him, "Thanks again."

  Floating back came, "Good luck." Then the boy from Scranton, Pennsylvania, turned the corner and was gone. Perhaps forever.

  I stayed on the porch a moment longer, then thoughtfully climbed the stairs back to the fourth floor. I usually did not meet someone of a morning and see him go off the next.

  I sat on the bed a few minutes and then said to myself, I've got to do it now. This minute or never.

  Tugging the brown jacket on, adjusting the blue wool cap at an angle on my head, I peered into the small mirror a moment, sticking my chin out, thinking that even a scraggly mustache like Mike Grant's would be of some help. Finally, taking a steadying breath, I descended to the kitchen, where Mrs. Crowe was doing the breakfast dishes. I stood in the doorway. "I'm going now."

  She looked up. "Just follow the directions I gave you."

  I nodded.

  Her eyes took me in, shoes to wool cap. "You should have books in your hand, and be going off to school, not to any rough-and-tumble docks."

  I didn't know how to answer that.

  She lifted a reddened finger out of steam water and aimed it between my eyes. "If Mr. Jordan is in right mind, he'll tell you to stay exactly put until your big brother comes back."

  "Yes, ma'am," I replied, sorely tempted to do just that. "I'll only see what kind of ships they have."

  "Be off," she said curtly. "Find out for yourself."

  "Yes, ma'am." I nodded and walked out.

  It was too early to go to the ship chandlers, I thought—an awful excuse—so I bought a copy of the morning Norfolk Virginian-Pilot at the corner of Plume and Granby, then sat down on the curb to read the shipping section, which was always a bible for Filene Midgett. After the mail rider visited, Filene could not make it through the day without reading the arrivals and departures, who was loading what, and what ships were feared lost.

  I must go forward a little bit and look back upon that March of 1899. Though I did not realize it and few other people did, it was a time of great change. The twentieth century was nine months away. Electric railways and horseless carriages were already on the streets. Although it was noisy and smelled like something out of the devil's own kitchen, the internal-combustion engine seemed to have a future. Marconi's wireless was soon to be going aboard ships, and the Wright brothers, of Dayton, Ohio, absolutely believed they could do what birds did: fly.

  It was all happening and I had little knowledge of it. Even the face of the sea was changing, and I had little knowledge of that either.

  That sunny Wednesday, along Norfolk's sprawling waterfront were one hundred and fifteen schooners, one brig, two barkentines, three barks, and forty-eight steamers. They were tucked by wharves and piers all the way from the spines of rail tracks at Lambert's Point south to below the high steel bridge over the Elizabeth River's muddy East Branch.

  No sailing man quite believed his day was over, and it wasn't yet, but the British freighter Inchmaree, loading for Rotterdam, could carry more in two holds than the biggest schooner in port. According to the newspaper, her manifest (the cargo list) would show 155,174 bushels of corn, 100 bales of cotton, 5,840 sacks of flour, 75 hogsheads of tobacco, 50 barrels of dried apples, 1 flat car of softwood logs, and 67 cars of hardwood logs, and much more. Smoked pork and hog guts and lard.

  Along the waterfront, down from Freemason and Jackson and Fayette streets, Commercial Street and the narrow lanes, then flanking the distance of East Main Street, with its saloons and tattoo parlors, there was a sound of winches and a slap of steel cables. The SS Habil, West India Fruit and Steamship Company, had loaded general cargo for Kingston, Jamaica. She'd bring back bananas, oranges, and coconuts. The J. Otter-bein was loading iron pyrites and manure salt for Hamburg. Steamers of the Clyde Line, Merchant & Miners, Johnston Blue Cross, Baltimore Steam Packet, White Star Line to Liverpool, and others, were also working cargo, and mixed in with them were the tall masts of ships that still sailed before the wind.

  Almost on the hour, both the iron hulls of the steamers and the bellying canvas of the windjammers passed out Hampton Roads, put Willoughby Spit off to port, and then took departure on Cape Henry, dipping into ocean swell.

  I had no thoughts of going to sea on a coal burner. Men of the Banks had always started before the mast and I would be no different.

  But that's how it was that Wednesday.

  6

  AT ABOUT EIGHT O'CLOCK I found myself nervously standing by a brick building near the waterfront, looking at a brass-lettered sign:

  J. M. JORDAN'S. SHIP CHANDLERS

  ESTABLISHED 1865

  It was no will-o'-the-wisp business, by any means. Already the wheels of commerce were grinding in the widening light. Dray wagons were being loaded with ship supplies, and I paused by one wagon as meal, flour, meat; paint, tar, wire, and coils of rope came off pushcarts and out of barrows. A ship would soon sail.

  Finally, bracing myself once more, trying to look as tall as possible, hoping my voice wouldn't betray me, I went inside J. M. Jordan's and was immediately awed. Laden shelves climbed right up to the high tin ceiling. Ladders on wheels could reach the very top cans and cartons. There didn't seem to be a thing on earth that wasn't stacked, piled, or barreled somewhere on the premises. If Mr. Burrus thought he had a thriving store in Chicky, he should have taken a gander at Jordan's. There was a selling section, with a long counter; then a wide door and ramp that opened into a bustling warehouse. Toward the back, near an office, was that big coal Heatrola Mrs. Crowe had mentioned. Circled around it, though it wasn't fired this fine spring morning, were the shipmasters, as predicted, talking and smoking and drinking chicory-root coffee from white mugs.

  I stood uncertainly looking from face to face, wondering if any of them knew Reuben. In the blue-coated flesh, they were a sight to see. Weathered and muttonchopped and full-white-bearded and clean-shaven, they were nothing less than bedazzling. Kings of the ocean. If any of them were coasting captains, masters who made short hauls along the coast, they couldn't help but know the Elnora Langhans, because she'd sailed the Atlantic shores and down in the Caribbean for many years.

  Listening to them a moment, I decided to approach a counter clerk and ask forthrightly for Mr. Jordan. Meanwhile, my eyes caught several large blackboards on the back wall, SHIPS IN PORT, well more than a hundred of them, were chalked in; SHIPS OVERDUE & UNREPORTED, three of them. Closer to the boards, I recognized a few names I'd seen before through the long glass from the cupola at Heron Head Station, ships that had passed close inshore. Date of arrival and scheduled date of departure were by each in-port ship, along with the lying-to wharf or anchorage.

  Still delaying, I read the name of each vessel and then forced myself to the counter. "Could I please see Mr. Jordan?"

  The clerk was gray-haired, aproned, and not friendly. "About what, boy?"

  "A job."

  "Mr. Robert Keen does the hiring. He's in the warehouse."

  "I mean a job on a ship. Mrs. Crowe sent me and I think Mr. Jordan knows my brother,
mate on the Elnora Langhans."

  "Wait here." The clerk seemed harried for so early in the morning.

  In a moment, a portly, kindly faced man filled the office doorway, heavy gold watch chain taut across his sloping vest. "Mrs. Crowe sent you? Why, I thought she hated anything to do with ships."

  The captains laughed.

  I began walking toward the chandler.

  "For what did she send you?"

  "I'm trying to find a cabin boy's job. On a sailing ship bound for the Caribbean. Any ship. Reubens down there somewhere and I—" The words were escaping all too fast, I knew.

  "Slow down. For one thing, very few sailing vessels take on boys nowadays, more trouble than they're worth. For another thing, who are you? Who's Reuben?"

  "I'm Ben O'Neal. Reuben's my brother. We're from Heron Head, on the Hatteras Banks. Mama died last month and I've got to find—"

  "Slow down, Ben."

  "Yessir."

  I licked my lips and started off again. "Reuben's on the Elnora Langhans, on a run to the Barbadoes and Trinidad from Port Fernandino and I want to see him. Very badly. I must see him."

  Mr. Jordan nodded understandingly. "I know Reuben. Fine man. But you don't look much like him."

  "No, sir." (Reuben resembled Mama, with a big nose and reddish-brown hair. I looked like John O'Neal, with dark hair and a smaller nose.)

  "I also knew your papa," Mr. Jordan went on. "But I doubt either one of them would want me to send you helter-skelter down to the Caribbean. No guarantee you'll get within two hundred miles of the Langhans. She may be coming north when you're going south. And I don't know offhand of any ship that needs a boy." He looked over to the collection of masters around his cold stove.

  A captain with a heavy, round, crimson face and white muttonchops answered. "I don't need one. I'm headed for Boston, anyway."

  "Sorry," replied another, and it was echoed by a third.

  A fourth said, "Last boy I had stumbled all over himself and was seasick the whole voyage."

  I turned my head. "I won't be seasick."

  There was skeptical laughter.

  Feeling everything slipping away from me, I looked back at Mr. Jordan. "But I came up here to go to sea..."

  "I think you should go back home."

  Desperation fell over me and I said frantically, "There's no one at home. I have to find Reuben." It was imperative after last night's long think.

  Mr. Jordan sighed and looked over the in-port board, studying it at length. The captains examined it, too. "There's only one vessel leaving for the Caribbean the rest of the week," Mr. Jordan finally said. "Sails to Barbados day after tomorrow. But I wouldn't recommend it to a dock rat."

  The master with, the muttonchops added, "I would just as soon sail with a combination of dodo bird and hangman as I would with Josiah Reddy."

  Josiah Reddy. The name meant nothing to me.

  "Aw, Sam," said another captain. "You're just jealous. Joe Reddy's a bit odd, but he's got the finest, fastest bark on this coast. He beats us all in and out of port."

  "Dodo bird," repeated Mr. Jordan, as though he had a bitter memory.

  Cap'n Sam laughed hollowly. "Odd? He still uses sea chanteys when he gets under way. Won't hoist sail with the donkey engine. Makes his men pull every inch up. He's been known to sit out on his jibboom and sing to the ocean. He sprinkles sugar on the water to rise a breeze."

  "First-class lunatic," said Mr. Jordan.

  Everyone laughed again.

  "And something else. That bosun of his..." added Mr. Jordan, leaving the description dangling ominously.

  "Gebbert? He's mean and rough and slave-drivin', but he gets the work done. I'd like to have him in my ship."

  I didn't flinch through all this. There wasn't a more difficult man anywhere than Hardie Miller, of Kinnakeet, and I had survived him on more than one occasion.

  Mr. Jordan continued. "Ben, tell you what, since you seem so bound and determined, in about a month, young Cap'n Ted Hubbard will put in with the Omar Hubbard, of the Columbus Line. I'll make sure you get passage. He goes to Kingston, Barbados, Trinidad, and other places. You'll likely have to work your way, but you'll be in good, sane hands. Reuben knows him, I'm sure."

  I shook my head. "I can't wait a month, sir. I haven't got that much money."

  Mr. Jordan rubbed his jaw. "Well, I guess we can find something for you to do around here. Shine brass or empty spittoons. Sweep up. Two dollars and lunch a week. Now, you go back to Mrs. Crowe's and then report here tomorrow morning at seven-thirty."

  "Isn't there any other sailing ship leaving this week or next?" I asked, feeling low.

  "I'm afraid not," he answered. "You got here too late for the Lois Solomon, and the Cashamara sails Monday but she's a British steamer."

  As he turned back into the office and the captains began chatting again, I lingered on to look at the in-port board. The masters weren't listed. Only the names of the vessels. Which one did Cap'n Reddy command?

  Just as I was leaving, very depressed, Mr. Jordan came back out of the office and called to me. "Ben, I almost forgot. There's a message here for you."

  I could not believe it. No one but Mrs. Crowe and the railroaders knew that I'd come to Jordan's. I took it anyway and glanced at the handwriting on the envelope. My disbelief turned to astonishment. Unless I was very mistaken, the penmanship, neat and orderly, was done by none other than a thistle-waisted four-foot-ten-inch girl I knew as Teetoncey. Built like a healthy broomstraw and sharp-nosed, at this moment she was supposed to be in, or nearing, London, her home. At least those were the intentions of not two weeks before.

  I thanked the ship chandler and stuffed the envelope into my hip pocket, refusing to open it; fearful of opening it. Though I was alternately smitten and peeved with her, every time I'd been involved with that girl disaster seemed to lurk.

  Outside, another dray was being loaded, and I stepped up to one of the handlers. "Excuse me, could you please tell me which ship Cap'n Josiah Reddy commands?"

  The burly man finished shoving a barrel of salted fish into the wagon bed, wiped sweat from his brow, rubbed his hands on his dirty apron, then laughed. "No trouble tellin' you that. He commands the bitch of the Atlantic."

  The coarse language was startling. "Could I please have her name?"

  "The Christine Conyers, prettiest four-masted backbreaker from Cape Race to the Horn, so they say."

  Backbreaker? Nonetheless I asked, "Where is she?"

  "Don't rightly know. But you can find out at Hudgins & Hurst, chandlers and sailmakers, No. 11 Roanoke Dock. They provision her. We don't. They're reservin' a place for Joe Reddy in the insane asylum up to Richmond."

  Everyone thought that Mis' Mehaly Blodgett, of Buxton Woods, was loonier than a feeble-minded pelican, but she wasn't once you got to know her.

  I thanked him.

  "What's your interest in the Conyers?"

  "I hope to hire on as cabin boy. To the Barbadoes." There was only one of those islands, but everybody on the Banks spelled it and pronounced it that way, as if it were two.

  The handler laughed caustically. "You'd be better off swimmin' there." He went about his work.

  On that note, I left the area of Jordan's and went around the corner. I stopped and put my back up against a brick wall and fished the envelope out of my pocket. It was addressed: Ben O'Neal, of Heron Head, Hatteras Banks. Urgent.

  I debated a moment, then ripped it open. It was from the girl, all right, and someone else.

  It said:

  Dearest Ben:

  I am on Phillips's Barge No. 7, tied up south of the Clyde Line docks. Come quick. I need your help.

  It was signed, "Love, T. & B. D." I read it twice.

  Unmistakably, Teetoncey and that troublesome dog, Boo. They weren't anywhere near London.

  It seemed to me that I had enough peril and difficulties ahead without further calamity arising. Why it was, I don't know, but I had the feeling that message was going to hang a
round my neck like an anchor chain.

  7

  I FELT NEED for a good stifFener, as Mr. Burrus would say before having a root beer. And some hard thought, additionally. Being near Robert Holmes, Druggist, I went on in there and sat down at that solid-onyx Tuff Revier double-stand soda-water fountain, one of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen. I ordered a lemon drink. Then I began to think, first things first. No matter Teetoncey's plight, whatever it happened to be, I had to get to the Christine Conyers and apply for a job. Sailing day after tomorrow, there was no time to waste. That was all settled.

  What I couldn't understand was why Tee wasn't on the Vulcania, or a similar steamship, about to make landfall in England. She had left the Banks eight days before and from my information was to be shipped immediately by Consul Calderham to New York, thence to London to resume living in her big and fancy house. Even though her parents were dead, courtesy of the sea, and she'd have to live with the servants now, bossing them around, there was not much to pity about that girl. She had pluck. We had gone through a whole big good-bye scene, professing admiration for each other; I had watched the Neuse sail away with her, accompanied by my former duck dog, a departure gift. They had taken to each other. Now she was still around. And with her, roughly a hundred pounds of yellow-gold Labrador, with soulful dark eyes and overlong ears, the most one-minded dog on earth. Worthless now that he had retired from retrieving ducks.

  I could only imagine that she had foolishly run away from the uncaring British consul for one reason or another, not that I could blame her. Yet she was duty-bound to return to London and resume her wealthy life in Belgravia, one of the better sections of that city.

  For a moment, I thought about going directly to Phillips's Barge No. 7 to determine what she had done, right or wrong, but then decided to visit Consul Calderham first. Tee was not above twisting the truth, as I had learned, and, perhaps, neither was Calderham. But it seemed sensible to get his story before confronting the girl.