Free The Odyssey of Ben O'Neal by Theodore Taylor Page B

food," though she hadn't taken a bite.
    As I was heading back to the pantry to get the captain's plate, she called after me, "Waiter, could I please have a pinch of mustard for this mutton."
    I nodded, went inside the pantry, and shook.

    After my own supper, which I ate alone, perched on a box in that narrow closet of shelves, I helped the Bravaman clean the galley up and finally went back out on deck about eight-thirty. Except the on-duty watch—lookout on the bow, helmsman, and the bosun—all the rest of the crew had bunked down.
    There was a white slice of water at the bow, the sails were humming, and looking up through their ghostly sheeting, as the masts waved back and forth across the sky, were millions of stars. Far off to port was a faint, thin cut of light. Looming, crossing, and dying. I guessed it might be Hatteras Light. Time did pass. I'd climbed the lighthouse steps many a day. I let my eyes drift along the horizon, knowing that the Banks were there, hidden except for the light wand. I couldn't help but think of everyone. I even mustered a kind of wry laugh. If they only knew. Not only was Ben O'Neal, son of John and Rachel, abeam, but also the castaway girl and a well-known former duck dog. The directions of life could never be reckoned.
    Then, for a while, I watched the captain. I'd heard he took a brisk walk each night, weather permitting. He walked almost the length of the ship, near the rail, feet not far from the waterway. Back and forth, hands behind his back. Somehow, he timed himself so that he was always heading up as the ship rose on a swell. He never seemed to go downhill.
    This was more like it, I thought, as the great vessel plowed peacefully along. Salt spray reached up and spattered me.
    By nine I was very sleepy and decided to turn in. Avoiding Josiah Reddy, I went down the portside to the afterhouse and was just about to enter the hatch when the bosun moved forward from near the compass glow on the poop deck. He said, "Stand by to pump das organ."
    Pump the organ? At this hour? I was dead tired.
    He growled, "Get below to pump das organ. Das cap'n recitals til ten ven it is smooth like dis."
    Tee's room opened off the after cabin, and soon she came out, as Cap'n Reddy warmed up. He seemed to play very well but I could not see him. Sitting on a stool behind the organ, I pumped the Story & Clark lever until almost ten, thinking what Filene Midgett would have to say about this sorry performance of a ship's master. Filene would not allow a harmonica to be played in his station, much less a church organ.
    I recall that Cap'n Reddy taught Tee the words to "Shenandoah" and "Away to Rio." They sang duet for a while. They were getting along famously, and I do think a rich orphan has many advantages.
    At one point, she tinkled a laugh. "I could sail forever."
    Not with me, I thought.

14
    R EUBEN HAD ONCE said that no one except the captain got much sleep on a ship. That remark had not been of interest at the time, but now I was beginning to regret ignoring it. The lookout on the twelve-to-four watch, the graveyard watch, took a few minutes from pacing back and forth on the bow to awaken the Bravaman at 3:45 A.M . and then routed me out, after which he awakened the next watch, the four-to-eight. I went stumbling forward along the dark, slick deck half asleep, not even looking at the sea or sails, thinking that this was a hellship, indeed. Unless I was going to a duck blind, six-thirty was a sensible hour to be awakened on the Banks.
    Stumbling around, I got kindling wood going in the galley range, then added coal, and finally the Bravaman put the coffeepot on. I felt better after having a cup of it and a couple of biscuits, fare the new watch shared. Nobody said very much.
    I asked the Bravaman if this happened every single day in the week and he mumbled that it did, at sea; then went about fixing oatmeal and flying ham, while I cracked eggs, one per man, though the officers could have as many as