Read Online Down to a Soundless Sea by Thomas Steinbeck - Free Book Online Page B

post. I have included the cost.”
    Mr. Gladis handed Chapel a long manila envelope and, as an afterthought, dropped a few more coins into Chapel’s palm. “Get something for yourself at Billy Doonen’s, son. I swear he’s got the best German suds around. A little something for the black gang wouldn’t go amiss either, if you take my meaning.” With a wink, Mr. Gladis produced a shiny galvanized beer bucket like a rabbit from a hat.
    Chapel looked at Mr. Gladis, smiled, and then cast his eyes to Captain Leland on the wing of the bridge. Mr. Gladis guessed the question. “I’ve already sounded that quarter, Mr. Lodge. Half the Turkish shag is for Captain Leland, and the suds are his present to the Filipino boys. He brags of having thebest black gang in the company’s fleet. It pleases him to pay them special tribute now and then. And there isn’t one of them coves that wouldn’t take a bullet for their Señor Capitano. Just see to it you get your carcass back on board in time. You’ll hear the ship’s whistle blast the last half and quarter hour and, trust me, Captain Leland won’t wait for you, son. So make it sharp and timely, and spare us all his temper.”
    A strange sensation overcame Chapel as he made his way down the gangway to the long pier at San Simeon. He felt a sense of cold foreboding about leaving the ship. He kept looking over his shoulder as he made his way up the road. It was as though he expected his ship to disappear at any moment, leaving him beached and homeless again.
    Old Mr. Que Chew bowed at the mention of Mr. Gladis. He was most happy to assemble Chapel’s order, with special compliments to Mr. Gladis, of course. He had seen the
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come in and was only waiting for his old friend to make an appearance. The old Chinaman said he was sorry not to have the honor to wait on the chief engineer personally, but he understood the constraints of duty. Bowing once more, Mr. Chew asked that his best compliments be forwarded to Mr. Gladis.
    Before he left, and using his own funds, Chapel purchased a three-pound bag of homemade, peppermint-stick candy, and the same weight of licorice taffy. He knew the Filipino stokers were more than a little fond of both. Peppermint, according to black gang mythology, helped stokers bear the incessant heat of the fireboxes and boilers. Licorice helped relieve the effects of coal dust in the lungs.
    As suggested, Chapel stopped off at Doonen’s Cafe for a beer and to fill the suds bucket, but he kept walking out to thefront porch to make sure that the
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hadn’t secretly slipped her cables and deserted him. He knew these sensations were absurd on the face of it, but Chapel could not fend off the apprehension and anxiety that he might be deserted and left to his own unlucky, landlocked devices.
    He made his way back down the road to the pier long before he was expected. Numerous wagons had disgorged their loads of wool bales before heading back up the hill. Chapel stood next to an old, crippled sailor watching the ship’s derricks neatly lift and stow the huge bales in her holds. The old sailor had lost a leg and used a crutch cut down from a small oar. He leaned against a piling with an inescapable gaze of longing and sadness in his eyes.
    Chapel knew instantly the specific yearning that gnawed away at the old man’s heart. He would have worn a similar expression if his secret dread had been fulfilled by his worst expectations. To stand ashore while life and home departed on the evening tide without a token of regret seemed the worst of all possible fates to Chapel. It had been known to break a poor sailor’s spirit.
    The two seamen watched the ship load cargo in silence. Their bond was obvious and unspoken. Without taking his eyes from the aerial ballet of wool bales, Chapel proffered the bag of peppermint sticks as an open invitation. The old man’s dismal countenance brightened appreciably as he helped himself to a red-and-white-striped glory