We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [56]
The more experienced among them had already figured out that this was the place where Captain Eagleton would try to make them jump ship. They'd been through this before on other vessels. When a voyage nears its end, a bad captain will treat his crew so atrociously that they'll throw in the towel. And invariably, once they're branded as deserters, they'll forfeit their unpaid wages—thus increasing the profits of the trip. And so it was on the Emma C. Leithfield. First of all, O'Connor reduced their water rations while they sweated in the tropical heat. And then the provisions grew scarce too. Isaiah had picked up some cooking skills since Giovanni was murdered in his own galley, but now his limited knowledge was entirely superfluous: the crew's daily rations dwindled to three small ship's biscuits per man, while on Saturdays they were given rice and a single piece of salt meat. Their stomachs screamed for food. O'Connor's dog ate better than they did. The whole strategy was so damn clever. So devilishly, fiendishly cunning. You spend eight months with a brutal and malicious jailer, and then he opens the door to your cell.
Yet they refused to come out. They still had a score to settle with him. But oh, how they longed to escape from his brooding presence and from their own terror.
They stayed because they had a plan. They stayed.
Faint with hunger and thirst, they scrubbed the deck and the deckhouse with sand and stones under the tropical sun. They were roused from bed a full hour before any of the crews of the other ships anchored in St. Iago, and couldn't turn in until long after the rest of the port was asleep. Shaded by an outstretched sail, O'Connor sat in his chair, with a loaded revolver in his hand and the huge hound at his feet. But he wasn't there to ensure they worked hard. Indeed, if one of the men had left the murderously hot deck, bolted for the gangway, and rowed himself ashore, he wouldn't have lifted a finger to stop him. Instead he'd have grinned in raw triumph and wished him a fair wind.
When the washee-washee girls sailed by in their canoes, with their pinned-up hair, bare shoulders, and flared dresses, calling out flirtatiously, "We're coming on board!" O'Connor rose and threatened them off with his revolver.
The battle of wills weighed the men down, and they became more exhausted, silent, and emaciated with each day that passed. But by now, the sum total of their injuries constituted a victory. They saw O'Connor's gaze become evasive and a puzzled expression begin to disturb the restful calm of his mangled face.
On arriving at New York they did two things. First, they signed off from the ship where their only consolation in the face of daily abuse and humiliation had been the limited triumph of passive endurance. Then, all together, they marched to the nearest police station and reported the first mate of the Emma C. Leithfield.
This had been their plan. It was Albert's idea, and it had helped them endure. They'd discussed killing O'Connor, but something—perhaps their own terror more than anything—had held them back. Albert had realized that if a captain fails to intervene with someone as out of line as O'Connor, then his ship is lawless. The crew can't make the rules on a ship just because the captain fails to, unless through mutiny—which is no more than a cry for help and does nothing but add to the general lawlessness. So if justice can't be found on board, it must be found ashore.
And that was why they marched together to the police station: not to