Shanghaied

Copyright © 2011 by David Paul Collins

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-4620-3183-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-3184-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-3185-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011914818

iUniverse rev. date: 06/03/2020

Dedicated to the memory of Orman Whittaker.

My mentor, my bo’sun, my friend.

Grand Cayman Island

He hath founded it upon the seas.

—Psalm 24, Verse 2

"The mariners all ‘gan work the ropes,

where they were wont to do:

They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—

We were a ghastly crew."

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

This book could not have been completed without the help of my best friend, my wife, Victoria, the author of seven books. Her personal and professional encouragement contributed daily and I extend an everlasting thanks for the generosity of her love. I thank our children for their support: Jennifer, David, Nicole, Kim, and Todd, and know there are great writers among our grandchildren: Morgan and Derek Stewart, Audrey and David Paul Collins III, Alex and Daniel Wahl, Timothy and Liam Felton.

Contents

 Maps

 Shipping and Mails, NY Times

 Maps

 Map

 Map

 Glossary

 Acknowledgments

 Credits

ONE

Boston, June 1956

No one suspected anything, not even my pals. Mom was preparing the family dinner with no idea that this would be my last Sunday at home.

Gramps might have wondered if anything was up but didn’t ask. My Irish grandfather loved Sunday as much as I did, especially if we were having a leg of lamb for dinner. Ay, we’ll be after havin’ a fine joint today, lad, and a pint or two to celebrate the Lord’s day. He ate like a horse on Sundays, packin’ it in for the week ahead, he’d say. Gramps always had a jug of whiskey on hand, sometimes two. My grandfather and I were a lot alike.

I wanted to tell him of the great adventure I was about to undertake but couldn’t risk it. My parents might think running away was his idea. It was all mine.

In school, I had read about Horatio Hornblower and his glamorous life at sea and then Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, who grew up not far from our house. He’d left home and sailed all the way to California. I loved Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, seeing myself in his wonderful stories of faraway places, strange-looking people, and magnificent adventure. I wanted my own magnificent adventure, just like them.

My plan was ready, hitchhike to New York, get a job on a ship, see Paris, Cape Town, even Rio. I would leave early, before anyone got up. Not even my little brother, Tommy, knew I was running away.

Our bedroom was at the end of the second-floor hall. It had once been a kitchen. The old pantry with its stale smells was our closet. Lime green bath mats covered cracks in the linoleum, and we draped our towels on pipes to dry. Pennants hung on the walls from the ball games I’d been to with my dad: the Boston Braves, the Red Sox, and a purple pennant from the college he wanted me to go to, Holy Cross. I could usually keep it neat by getting Tommy to do my chores. It was the best bedroom ever.

My side of the bed was next to the window, perfect for sneaking out to the porch roof. We used a stick to prop it open in the summer. Lying in bed, I would look out at the stars, watching them move across the sky and wondering where they went. In winter, the panes of glass looked like maps when they frosted over. Now that summer was here, there were shiny leaves on the tree limb hanging over the porch. It was bent low enough to slide down.

After dinner that Sunday night, we cleared our dishes and helped Mom clean up. Dad read the paper in the front room. I was changing my mind every other minute, fumbling about in the kitchen, telling myself I was doing things right. My parents would understand that I just wanted to travel a little. Along the way, I would find a phone and call them collect. The first letters they would ever receive with foreign stamps would be from me.

Begorrah ’n it’s off with ye now, Jack. Sure’n we’ll come to tuck ye in in a bit.

My mother had insights about me, knew things I did wrong before anyone. What have ye done, Jack? was a common greeting, and it usually followed something I had done wrong. I would always go straight to the bathroom mirror to see if the words he did it were written across my forehead.

Begorrah, yer up to something, Jack, and you don’t fool me, was her favorite saying. If she said it this time, she would be right. I was up to the biggest something of my whole life.

I’d done such a good job keeping my plans secret that she did not know. I’d been good at keeping secrets ever since I’d heard that spies do that. Maybe I’d grow up to be a spy.

When Mom came into the bedroom to kiss me good night, would she know that I would be gone by morning? In the muggy setting of that summer’s evening, she could have brought it up, she could have stopped me, she could have asked why I’d been edgy all week. She did not.

Irish mothers brought dignity and strength to their families. Circumstances like poverty or illness or loneliness were dealt with privately. My mom understood that it would only be a matter of time before her oldest son decided to go, to seek his own way. She never could have imagined it would happen at age fifteen. I was taller than the other kids and looked older for my age. I felt old enough to take off on my own.

There were plenty of clues. One night I’d left my schoolbag open in the pantry. Tommy, my twelve-year-old little brother, saw that it was stuffed with the kinds of things we took when we camped out in the backyard. If he guessed my plans he didn’t let on, even though the timing of our three-month summer vacation should have tied it all together. But he wouldn’t squeal; he would protect me.

My brother had already been sent to bed. Mary, my little sister, followed a few minutes later. Then it was my turn. I took the steps two at a time. Crickets chirped in the warm evening as I climbed into bed next to Tommy, already fast asleep.

There was a routine at our house. First my father, then my mother would come in to say good night. I waited in bed with my fingers crossed.

The old wooden door leading from the hall creaked. My father walked in and quietly bent over me.

We love ya, Jack. Yer a good boy, and ye know how to take care of yerself. A man needs to know how to take care of himself.

That was a long speech for Dad. He bent to kiss my forehead. He smelled good, familiar, and I felt his great strength.

In the bottom of my stomach, an ache grew. The ache made me want to kiss his stubbly cheeks, hug him, never let go. I loved him, respected him, would miss him terribly. My dad was the best man ever. He had taught me everything, especially about courage, honesty, and patriotism, like in the war with the men and women who fought to defend our way of life. I wanted to tell him that I was going on a little trip, that I’d be back soon and that he shouldn’t worry. I know his eyes misted when he turned to leave.

A moment later, my mother came in, still wearing her crinkly apron. For the first time I could ever remember, she was shy. How I wanted to give her a reassuring hug and say, Don’t worry. But that’s not what boys say when they are simply going to sleep.

Mother bent, kissed me on the forehead. Her eyes were moist. Time to shut the lights, Jack. It’s been a long day, and ye’ve got the whole of the summer ahead of you. Sure’n yer dreams will be takin’ ya far, Jack me darlin’, hie yerself off to sleep now. She quivered a bit when she said, I love you.

Mom patted her old apron flat and did not move for a long minute. She was looking at me. I turned away, tucked under my pillow, and heard her go, closing the door softly.

I was too excited to sleep. I wondered if condemned men slept the night before they were hanged. Fifteen-year-old kids about to run away to see the world did not.

It got gradually dark in the quiet of early summer. The New England night reached out to offer a special chance to chase a dream. My green schoolbag with its yellow strap was already hiding in the branches like a big Christmas ball, filled with my traveling kit: toothpaste, a comb, agate marbles, a couple of shirts, a sweater, khakis, two pairs of white socks, and some underwear. Stuffed in one sock was eighteen dollars I’d saved from my paper route. There was an extra undershirt and underpants because my mother always said I should have clean underwear in case I got hit by a car and had to be taken to a hospital.

A pint of Gramps’s Irish whiskey fit easily into the sack, too. It would come in handy if I needed to trade for a favor somewhere down the line. If not, I could drink some of it. Gramps loved whiskey, but he mostly drank too much then fell asleep in his big, red chair. I’d sneak up next to the side table and drain whatever remained in his glass. There was never much, but I loved every drop.

By the time the sun came up, I would be well on my way, hitchhiking to New York. It wouldn’t be long before some nice trucker slowed to a halt about a football field’s length beyond me. I’d jump on the running board and be off.

This wasn’t running away in the bad sense. I just wanted to see more than Fenway Park and Scully Square. No more trying to get on the church softball team, never getting picked when there were more than nine kids around. Running away was really not the right thing to call it, just taking a vacation trip to see the world. I could see lots during one summer vacation.

Dad always bought the New York Times on Sunday to read about sports. The Times cost ten cents, so we didn’t get it every Sunday. But whenever we did, I grabbed the section about ship arrivals and departures as quick as I could. It was usually buried in the middle under the heading Shipping and Mails. I loved the faraway names and could see myself in every one of those ports of call: Barcelona, Istanbul, maybe Hong Kong.

I wanted to see County Sligo in the west of Ireland, where my family came from, Paris, too. I’d read about it in a slick magazine with shadowy pictures of girls that gave me shivers. Maybe I’d get to Africa. Wow, Africa. National Geographic had great photos of African people. I would get a Brownie camera in New York and take pictures to show Mom and all the kids at school. When I got back, when everybody heard my stories, I would be the most popular kid in class, finally.

I’d read in Dad’s newspapers about where men went to get a job on a ship. Once, there was a picture of the building on West Seventeenth Street in New York where they signed up. The caption read, World Headquarters: International Maritime Union. That would be my first stop.

Some of the sailors in the union hall might think I was too young to go to sea, but I would stand up straight and tall, and I wouldn’t shave the fuzz over my lip for three days, which would help a lot. I would tell them I was really eighteen and hope they didn’t notice that my fingers were crossed. My plan might have to be adjusted a bit to get a job on a freighter or a big passenger liner. I couldn’t wait.

Sleep would not come. I lay on the bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, waiting for time to pass. The night birds chirping in the tree outside my window made more noise than usual. I wanted them to fly away so they didn’t start jabbering when I slid down through the branches. In the muggy heat of early summer, a couple of mosquitoes circled as I hid under the damp sheets.

It was the forever time preceding the greatest adventure any Irish kid from Boston would ever have.

TWO

What if I didn’t wake up until daylight? You’re not supposed to run away after breakfast. There was a little, silver clock on my bed table with a small steel alarm bell on top. I pulled it under the covers and shone my flashlight on the dial. Ten minutes past three, time to go.

Fire teams wouldn’t wake up Tommy, but I had to be quiet as I pulled on my clothes. The window creaked as I pushed it up, held it in place, and slid through to the roof, still wet from a rain shower. Earlier, I had practiced stepping off the roof onto the low-bent, sturdy branch. This time, I slipped as I grabbed my schoolbag and fell halfway, branches whipping and crackling like in a hurricane. I hung onto the trunk with both arms, waiting to see if anyone woke up. An eternity went by before I shinnied to the bottom.

As quiet as a mouse, I walked out on Dewey Street, where I could get a good last look at our house. Everyone would miss me, and I’d be sad, too, but I was off to New York City and who knows where else. In a few days I’d be back, probably.

The truck driver said New York City was the most exciting town in the whole United States. The New York Times certainly made it look that way, especially when they wrote about ships: cargo ships, hog islanders, reefers, passenger ships, tankers from all over the world. They slid through the Verrazano Narrows, past the Ambrose Lightship—its red beam blinking three times every six seconds—past the Statue of Liberty, to tie up within walking distance of Times Square.

The driver dropped me off in Midtown, and I headed straight for the union hall.

The five-story building looked bigger than it had in the newspaper, more like a school than the headquarters of a seamen’s union. At the top of the granite stairs, solid oak doors stood propped open. Inside, a swirling mass of men hung around waiting for berths on freighters or tankers bound for ports and pipelines around the world. The place smelled like a brewery and felt hotter than our school’s boiler room.

There were more than a hundred men edging in waves toward the front of the hall. They all looked alike: square jaws, steely eyes, and sneering smiles. They were the toughest crowd God ever assembled in one massive room. From the little I knew of the world outside Boston, I understood that these men were the kind who would not live peacefully ashore. They belonged to the sea.

I stood aside in awe, staring at the milling mass and a floor-to-ceiling blackboard at the front of a hall the size of two basketball courts. The men spoke to each other in New York City English mixed with foreign languages, all talking yet somehow keeping one eye on the blackboard.

A pasty-faced man in dungarees moved back and forth on a raised, chalk-coated runway, writing ships’ names and destinations and jobs to be filled—just like the Shipping and Mails columns in the New York Times:

I didn’t understand most of the words, but if RTW meant sailing around the world on the SS President Wilson, it was exactly what I had in mind. School started around Labor Day. She was on a ninety-five-day trip, so I would be a couple of weeks late. I’d be in enough trouble anyway.

Men watched intently whenever the potbellied writer moved to cross out a berth or add a ship. In the Times story, I’d read that old-timers would watch for a spot on a vessel they knew, newcomers took anything that would get them out.

In a smoky corner, a few old salts, retired or permanently on the beach, as they called it, swapped stories with ex-shipmates, not caring anymore who got a berth or who would be coming back the next day. Experienced hands had a set of standards for a good ship, I learned by eavesdropping at the edge of the crowd.

"Hey, Johnny. Shippin’ out on the Santa Paula? She’s a good feeder, not like that scow, the Rosa."

I was all ears for any conversation about getting on a ship.

No one took much notice of me until I made a path through the tough crowd toward a line that stretched in front of a wooden wicket window next to the blackboard. I’d watched men head that way when a berth was posted that caught their attention. There were lots of angry glances as I took a place at the end of the line.

Slowly, we moved forward. A short, skinny man wearing a longshoreman’s yarn cap turned and snarled, What you doing here, kid? College boy trying to get a job?

I’m in high school, I answered.

Get lost, he replied, scowling. He turned back toward the window and tugged the cap down to his eyebrows, shaking his head.

When it was my turn, I hoped for a better reaction from the crusty morsel of a man behind the brown, wooden wicket. A sign above him read, Seaman’s Papers.

I knew he was standing on a box, I could see the tops of his knees. He had to be a landlubber—the only man in the hall wearing a tie, a clip-on. Without his stamp on some paper, there was no point in bidding for a job.

What the hell do you want, kid? he snarled.

"I want to join the union and take the ordinary seaman’s job on the SS President Wilson."

He laughed. Got any experience?

Sure, I sailed on fishing boats out of Boston. Sometimes we stayed out overnight.

He laughed, too loud. Okay, I’ll get Billy the Big Tug to help you out. Billy, come on over here and help this lad. He cupped his hand as if to pluck an apple off the tree then lobbed the imaginary fruit like a baseball toward the street. Three guys hustled toward me.

Billy didn’t walk, he stomped, as did the two other tugs wearing red and black mackinaws following close on his heels. Mackinaws were winter coats, I wondered why they were wearing them in the summer. I didn’t have time to think about it too much, though, because the tugs each grabbed me under the arms as Billy led the way to the door. They threw me out—not a word, just shoved me down the stairs and walked away.

I was in the right place. They were not going to scare me off.

I went back up the stairs into the hall, elbowing my way toward the line, but I stopped when I heard a familiar Irish brogue from a couple of old salts swapping yarns about the good old days sailing under canvas. They were smoking, laughing, and smelling of early-morning whiskey.

Thomas Mulvaney and Albert Rooney, they said they were, from the west of Ireland, like my family. They told me that when they first went to sea it was in little black curraghs, then two-masted cargo ships and steam-driven freighters. They spoke about cruel ship’s bo’suns, drunken captains, and how they had once beat up all the cops in some port they didn’t remember. Mulvaney and Rooney decided to educate me.

What’s yer name, kid?

Jack.

All right, then. Where are yer folks from?

County Sligo.

Begorrah, you’re one of us, that be your name then, we call ya Jack from Sligo now.

Yer belly white and still wet behind the ears, and I’ve a good mind to call yer mither and tell her to come and collect you, said Rooney.

Begorrah Albert Rooney, wasn’t ye ’n me the same age when we set off? Now lave the lad alone. Sure’n, he’s one of us, said Mulvaney.

Now listen here, kid, he continued. Puerto Ricans and Chinks sail in the steward’s department, Poles and Czechs sail below—they’re the black gang. Mind you, it’s the Irish controls the deck department and the whole goddamn ship.

Rooney chimed in. The big boss is the bo’sun, and the ABs—those are the able-bodied seamen—report to him. The ordinary seamen work under everyone, they’re at the bottom of the scuppers. The captain is the boss, he’s head of the deck gang. No one’s ever worked themselves up to captain from the engine room or the steward’s department ’n don’t you forget that, kid.

Aye, said Mulvaney. You’re Irish, so you never sail with those other guys, you sail on deck. But you’ll never get a berth out of this hall, kid. You need a Z card to get into the union, and you need a year’s experience to get a Z card. Then you can bid for a berth. Take another year for your ticket to come up.

But I have to be back to school by September, I started to say, when I felt the loving hands of Billy and the tugs. I was on the way to the door again. They threw much better this time, missed half the stairs on the way to the sidewalk.

Billy and the Mackinaw boys didn’t understand that I really wanted to go to sea. I brushed myself down and stormed right back in to prove it.

They were waiting just inside the door. Billy knocked me down so his thugs could manage a more certain exit over the steps. One grabbed my wrists, the other my ankles and with an even better trajectory, they hurled me directly onto the street.

One, two, three… and away, I heard them say as I stifled a yell, flew through the air, and crashed on the sidewalk. Blood pooled on the sizzling pavement, mine, dripping from gashes torn open in my collision with the cement. Strips of flesh dangled from my bare forearms.

As I struggled to one knee, a hand grabbed my arm and offered support.

You are not going to try that again, are you? a kinder voice asked.

Sure, why? My Irish was up, and I was ready for a fight.

Because the next time they won’t be easy on you. He stuck out a hand. I’m Bernie Callahan, chief port agent here. Come on up to my office and we’ll talk.

He was the only guy in the hall in a suit. It was a crumpled, blue model, long in the pants and shiny. There was a thick knot in his kelly-green tie, but it didn’t choke his thick Brooklyn Irish accent.

No doubt he was the boss, the way people patted him on the shoulder as we walked back into the hot, smelly hall. Bernie’s upstairs office was huge, one filthy window open to the alley, a stained, wooden desk messy with yesterday’s doughnuts, mugs of stale coffee, and the New York Daily News. A small blackboard like the one in the union hall hung over a chattering teletype machine. Next to his chair stood the flags of the United States, the International Maritime Union, and a kelly-green banner of the Irish Ancient Order of Hibernians, Flatbush Chapter. My family’s branch was South Boston.

Bernie gave me the once over and barked, Sit down.

He sat at the desk, hands clasped, with the look of a schoolteacher who’s just caught a kid sneaking out the window to a baseball game. Callahan had seen it all, but I had the feeling that my situation was different. Blood continued to drip down my leg from a cut somewhere, but I tried to stop fidgeting.

What’s your name, kid, and where are you from?

My name’s Jack and I’m from Boston.

"I heard about you the minute you came through the door. Why didn’t you go away when Billy threw you out? I got a business to run here, kid, and you got to be crazy to think you can just bust into