The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal

by Theodore Taylor

  It was well past noon when we arrived on the powdery, pink beach at Holetown, and there, as planned, were the bosun and Nils. The bosun greeted Tee happily, saying, "Guten Tag," which means good afternoon, and they jabbered in German for a moment; then she climbed into the yawl, ducked down, and Gebbert shoved off, quickly raising sail. He made a long tack and then headed east for Carlisle Bay and the schooner Ritter.

  So far, so good.

  We went back to Bridgetown the same way we'd come and I was relieved to be out from under the sticky heat of the tarp.

  We went directly to a market on a narrow street called Swan, and there Eddie bought bananas, plums, sweetsop (a pulpy fruit I'd never seen before), pawpaw (a smaller, orange-colored fruit, also new to me), yams, string beans, carrots, cabbage, and beets. Tossing the tarpaulin over them, we made our way back to the dock.

  Just before we got there, Mr. Cobes, looking ahead, suddenly said, very quietly, "Bruggadung." I learned later that it is supposed to be said very loudly, BRUGGADUNG, and means two forces colliding with bad results. On the dock was the Queen's Solicitor, Sergeant Watkins, and about a half dozen police.

  We plodded on out there in the Daily Bread, and Collymore came at almost a run to jerk the canvas cover off the vegetables. "Where is the girl?" he demanded.

  "Isn't she in Graystone Gaol?" I answered.

  He was furious. "No, she ran away last night. She left a note on her door saying she was tired, and I didn't check until almost noon today."

  Tee was right. He wasn't very smart.

  The Bravaman shook his head. "We haven't seen her lately." And that was true. It had been more than an hour since we'd left Holetown.

  Mr. Cobes offered his advice with a gleeful grin. "M'lud, mebbe she lick-about the caves."

  Collymore threw him an angry glare, and we began unloading the vegetables as the Queen's Counsel, now irate, shouted to search all the schooners in the basin. The poor, completely innocent Jeannie Johnson, of Castries, was boarded a moment later by six police, setting off pig squeals.

  Soon I bade Bridgetown farewell, having only seen a bit of it. Both ships would sail at the dawning Friday, April 7.

  22

  ABOUT FIVE-THIRTY, when I was beginning to carry supper aft, three Harbour Police boats, loaded to the gunwales, rounded the jetty and dipped oars toward the Christine Conyers. In the lead boat was the Queen's Solicitor, standing like an explorer. In a few minutes, Basil Collymore, Sergeant Watkins, and six or seven more of Her Majesty's police came up the accommodation ladder. Called to deck, Cap'n Reddy greeted Solicitor Collymore warmly. "Welcome back to the Conyers," he said, unafraid of the official.

  Collymore's starchy reply was, "I really doubt if I'm welcome. The Appleton girl disappeared from my home last night and we're here to search the vessel. I have the proper papers, Captain."

  Josiah Reddy smiled. He was not the least bit awed. "You don't need papers for that. Look as you might."

  "Where is that dog?" Collymore asked suspiciously.

  With two fingers between my teeth, I let loose a blast. Old Boo came trotting out from behind the afterhouse, tail wagging, grinning at Collymore, it seemed to me, leathers black and shiny. A nasty grin, almost.

  Satisfied about that, Collymore nodded unhappily and then ordered Sergeant Watkins to search the ship. Some of the police went forward, some aft, and all hands just stood by aloofly for about twenty minutes. The police poked through the crew's quarters and galley, down into the forward hatch. They looked around the afterhouse and finally gave up.

  Cap'n Reddy said to Collymore, "You see, she isn't aboard."

  The solicitor replied doggedly, "We'll find her, sir. The island's too small to hide her."

  Cap'n Reddy agreed. "That seems to be a fair statement."

  Solicitor Collymore was first down the ladder into the boats, and Sergeant Watkins was last. Just before he set foot on the immaculate wooden grillwork of the platform, Watkins said to Cap'n Reddy, "The little girl isn't on this ship, is she?"

  "Of course not," the captain replied.

  The sergeant then looked down at the runty figure of Collymore Q.C., O.B.E., M.A. with great disdain and smiled, his teeth sparkling against his black skin. "But she is on a ship?"

  "I wouldn't be surprised," the captain answered soberly.

  Sergeant Watkins said, "I hope she has a safe voyage home," saluted smartly, and then pounded on down the accommodation ladder.

  We watched them go, knowing that Tee was now as safe as Boo's fleas, quoting Mama. Everyone was helping, and as night edged across Carlisle Bay and Bridgetown, I packed my seabag for transfer to the Harriet B. Ritter. Then, in late evening, I said my good-byes and gratitudes to Cap'n Reddy, Eddie Cartaxo, Bosun Gebbert, Nils, and Barney, some of the finest men who ever walked a deck.

  It pays to have foreign-speaking friends, as I learned about eleven o'clock that night when a boat bearing Boo and myself bumped against the Ritter's ladder. A sleepy sailor was on gangway and anchor watch; Tee was on hand, of course, to greet her four-footed lover. They were happily rejoined on the midships deck of that sleeping schooner beneath a tropic quarter moon. Bridgetown, across the way, was quiet and lifeless.

  Tee said, "Oh, Ben, I'm so glad to see you," as if we hadn't fried under the tarp in the afternoon. But she lavished most of her attention on Boo, as expected.

  I still did not know how Hans Gebbert had worked all this out and promptly asked. Tee said it was very simple. The chief mate of the Ritter had been born in a place called Wilhelmshaven. So it was that two sentimental Germans had put their heads together to rescue the British castaway girl. And that's why Gebbert had said to me, "Vee did it." The two of them. They struck a blow against the Collymores and Graystone Gaol.

  However, I had been very instrumental myself in putting the whole thing together and expected some praise. I did not get it. She jabbered on about the two Germans, and my feelings were a little bit hurt. I finally said, "Tee, it's been a long day and I probably have to work tomorrow."

  She replied, "Yes, you do. Gustav said he would use you in the crew."

  So it was "Gustav" already for the chief mate, first-name basis, and undoubtedly they had jabbered back and forth at each other, courtesy of the teaching of Tee's cook back in London. I repeat that it pays to know a foreign language, but Tee seemed to make friends easily in any language.

  "Crew? I'm glad to hear that," I said. No more being a waiter, washing dishes; scrubbing the captain's bathtub. "They have a galley boy on here?"

  "A galleyman," she corrected. "Your exact position will be as a workaway."

  That meant I wouldn't get paid. I didn't mind that so much, but I was suddenly annoyed—coming aboard my second ship and having her know everything about it. Whether she knew it or not, she was acting like Kilbie Oden back on the Banks, this warm late night. Ten minutes into anything and he was an expert. Tee had now been aboard seven hours or so. "You've met the cap'n?"

  She nodded. "We had dinner together. He's very nice, Ben. Nothing like Captain Reddy; he's quiet and businesslike. I told him all about you."

  "What did he say?"

  "Nothing."

  That let me down a little more, and I said, "I think I'll go on to bed."

  "Yes," she said, "find yourself a bunk in the fo'c'sle."

  I stared at her in the moonglow. The fo'c'sle. She was beginning to get very nautical. I was tempted to ask if she'd taken over the bosun's job. Instead I said, "That's where the crew usually sleeps."

  She yawned and scruffed Boo's neck. "We'll go along, Ben. The hatches have all been caulked. Everything is ready. We sail at dawn."

  Just like Kilbie, and I ignored it. "Where are you two sleeping?"

  "We have a spacious cabin aft. It even has a freshwater basin in it. And the captain told me that anytime I wanted to take a bath, please use his tub. I'm afraid you're restricted to one bucket of freshwater a week. You'll have to use seawater other times."

  That didn't matter. Oh,
was I glad I wouldn't be galley-swamper on this voyage. Scrubbing her bathtub ring would be the final undoing.

  She smiled at me in the Caribbee silver light and leaned forward and upward to kiss my forehead. "I'm so glad you're aboard, Ben," she said, and bid me good night.

  I grunted the same as she disappeared toward the companionway of the afterhouse, hound padding beside her, joyously reunited. Like Mama, Filene, Jabez, and so many other Bankers before them, I believe that I was acquiring the knowledge to take things in stride. My main goal was to deliver that girl back in England and I could not let petty things stand in the way.

  It was hot and dark inside that fo'c'sle and didn't smell very good, but I found an empty bunk among the eight. The snores inside that cabin were enough to saw the Ritter's oak keel half in two. Too tired to do anything else, I didn't bother to undress, just took my shoes off and crawled upon that donkey's breakfast, finding it just as lumpy and moldy as the one on the Conyers. The night passed. Quickly, it seemed to me.

  Suddenly there were noise and talking. A lamp had been lighted, and all around the cabin men were pulling on their trousers and shirts, slipping their galluses over their shoulders; cinching their belts. Scratching and groaning, they paid little attention to me.

  I threw my legs over the bunk, got on my shoes, and stumbled around a minute, waited my turn at the crew's toilet, washed my face and hands in seawater, then had coffee and a biscuit, introducing myself to whoever was interested.

  Eventually the bosun came forward for coffee and saw me. His name was Malone, and he was old and leathery. He said, "Stand by the bow, and hose the anchor chain when we get under way. Keep your feet out of the running gear."

  I said, "Yessir."

  Malone said, "I'm not a 'sir,'" and that was that.

  Smoke drifted up from the stacks of the donkey-engine boilers on both ships at cool, reddish dawn. Spouts of steam were coming out forward from both the Conyers and the Ritter, and the slow clank of windlass pawls broke the bay silence as anchor chain came aboard. I squirted ours, though there wasn't any mud on it, Carlisle Bay having a sand bottom.

  Soon, puffs of gray began to stand out on the Conyers as she raised sail, even as the anchor was heaving in. Then I heard Frank, the chanteyman, begin "Away to Rio," and knew exactly what was happening on the deck of the bark, Cap'n Josiah Reddy standing aft like a sea god. For them Brazil was almost a month away. For a few seconds, I felt a chill going up and down my spine. I felt a sadness, too.

  Several of the Ritter sailors laughed when they heard the chantey. Fools they were, I thought. They were already spoiled with modern conveniences. They did not have salt in their blood.

  Neither was Cap'n Tobias old-fashioned like Cap'n Reddy. He would have nothing to do with ancient chanteys and such. Tall and thin, with sparse white hair, a brush of milky mustache, gaunt-faced, he was wearing white pants, a white shirt, and a blue felt squash cap. Not much different from the Manteo lawyer who judged the sharpie races on July Fourth in Shallowbag Bay.

  The sails on the Ritter would be mostly raised by the steam engine, not hand-hauled. The halyards would be led forward to the gypsyheads, steel drums on either side of the fo'c'sle house. The gasping engine would do the work of pulling canvas up. Far cry from the glorious Conyers.

  Soon the captain walked forward, looked around, and said quietly to the mate, "Set the mizzen." Nothing like a rousing Reddy yell. And the throat and peak halyards were quickly led to the gypsyheads. In a moment "Gustav" said, as if still half asleep, "Heave away togedder." It was all humdrum compared to the Conyers.

  Tee and Boo came up about that time, and I said a depressed good morning as I went about my squirting. They stood out of the way, near the fo'c sle.

  After the anchor came up short, chain almost straight down, the Ritter's mains'il was set, as was the fores'il; then the jibs. Finally "Gustav" called out tiredly, "Man to the wheel," and then the anchor was heaved home. The four-master Harriet B. Ritter paid off before the wind.

  As the anchor chain was stopped off for sea and the hose went limp, I looked longingly at the Conyers, still hearing a faint "Up she rises" as the bark, too, took the breeze and got under way for Rio, fleeting and fluttering like a giant bird, enough to take a person's breath away.

  I had just a moment to stand by Tee and Boo. I said, "Oh, my, there goes a grand vessel, Tee." She nodded. I even think Boo felt the same. We were all of blue mood.

  So the two ships went their separate courses, on separate tacks. Cap'n Reddy looping out for the southeast; Cap'n Tobias to haul around and slide between St. Vincent and St. Lucia, headed for Mona Passage, up off Porto Rico, northbound.

  As workaway, I polished brasswork, tarred the rigging, painted a little now and then, and stood the 8-to-12 P.M. lookout watch on the bow; helped change sail now and then during the sixteen-day trip.

  There isn't much to tell about that voyage north. As workers, the sailors were no better or worse than those on the Conyrs, but they seemed dull as oyster hulls in comparison to Cap'n Reddy, the Bravaman, and Bosun Gebbert.

  The weather was mostly good, and I worked away as best I could. Tee did her usual, captivating everyone on the ship. Compared to her and that dog, I was just tolerated. I suffered silently, keeping my goal in mind. I did convince Tee that we three should get off in Norfolk, and she twisted Cap'n Tobias and "Gustav" around her finger to accomplish that.

  On April 21, we were put ashore in the pilot boat as the Harriet B. Ritter continued her voyage to Baltimore.

  23

  AFTER A LONG WALK from the pilot station, we were on the front porch of. Mrs. Crowe's about 3:30 P.M., and I rang her bell. In a moment, the door opened and she stood there, mouth agape. She said, "I never thought you'd come back here." Yet I noticed that she didn't seem surprised that Tee and the dog were still in my tow.

  "You've been all over the newspapers," she said.

  We had? That stunned me.

  "We've only been to the Barbadoes island," I said.

  "And you escaped handily from there, the Pilot said day before yesterday."

  I didn't like the way she used the word "escaped." Nor did I like the fact that she seemed very nervous, as if she preferred we go quickly away. She didn't invite us in. I said, "We came back on another ship. The British authorities tried to arrest Tee."

  Mrs. Crowe nodded. "It's been all over the paper."

  Be that as it may I said, "Mrs. Crowe, we'd like to rent two rooms for several nights and straighten out our problems; keep Boo down in the basement."

  She seemed very jumpy, not at all like her old, spicy self. "Well, I don't know, Ben. I could get in trouble with the city, even the federal government. I've never harbored fugitives before. Knowingly, anyway."

  "Fugitives?" I echoed, in a shocked tone. "You know we haven't done anything wrong."

  "That's not what the British consul told the Pilot. I've got those stories inside. And you didn't tell me the authorities were looking for 'Wendy Lynn Appleton last month. That was deceitful."

  Tee spoke up and told the truth: "I thought it best not to. I was only going to be here that one night."

  Mrs. Crowe shook her head in dismay. "I don't know what to do. You two should really turn yourselves in."

  I said to Tee, "Maybe we should talk about that." It was all far more serious than I ever thought. The newspapers, of all things. I'd never even been in the Manteo weekly, except as next of kin to John and Rachel O'Neal. And now that I had made it, it was probably as a criminal.

  Mrs. Crowe looked up and down the street, then said, with misgiving, "Well, come on in and we'll talk. But I make no promises."

  So we went in, and I took Boo down to the basement, then returned to the parlor. Mrs. Crowe was still jumpy and promptly brought out two clippings.

  The first one was from March and reported that Consul Calderham had alerted Norfolk police to a British runaway, further stating that he believed this juvenile, Wendy Lynn Appleton by name, had been persuaded t
o stow away on a Brazil-bound ship by thirteen-year-old Benjamin O'Neal, of Heron Head, North Carolina. Further stated was that O'Neal and others of Heron Head had repeatedly thwarted the efforts of Consul Calderham to return the girl to London.

  It was nothing but a repeat of the mean letter to Collymore, and I quickly pointed out to Mrs. Crowe that Calderham had not told the Pilot the reason why Tee had run away in the first place: the reason the landlady well knew, down in the basement at this point. But I noticed that Mrs. Crowe began to ease her nerves a bit.

  Then we read the second clipping dated two days previous, and I submit it here:

  RUNAWAYS EVADE BRITISH POLICE ON BARBADOS

  Two juveniles sought by the Norfolk police were reported today to have evaded British authorities on the island of Barbados several weeks ago.

  British Consul General Henry Calderham said that he had received a letter from the Honorable Basil Collymore, Queens Solicitor at Bridgetown, stating that Wendy Lynn Appleton, a British juvenile being sought for removal to her native country, had apparently escaped and was thought to be aboard an American vessel bound for Baltimore. The letter was brought to Norfolk by the Furness ship, Cashamara, arriving yesterday.

  (That swift ship again, I thought.)

  Consul Calderham said that the Appleton girl probably was still in company of the one Benjamin O'Neal, a "dodgy" Outer Banks boy believed to have aided her flight from Norfolk in March. Calderham stated that he was requesting the U.S. Marshal to issue a warrant for O'Neal's arrest and is receiving the full cooperation of United States immigration officials in apprehending the girl.

  No wonder Mrs. Crowe had been nervous at the front door. We sounded worse than thieves and murderers. Dodgy. A marshal's warrant for my arrest. I could only imagine the dumfoundery of Filene and others on the Banks as they read this terrible story.