aboard."
"Sure there was," said yeoman Wilson, and his chalky face contorted with indignation and confusion. "Not when we got there, of course. He just zapped out like if you pulled the plug on a movie."
"But that was the end of it?"
"That was the end of the scary part," Wilson said. "We finally got all the tows rigged, and we started off at a red-hot two knots, and that's when things got miserable. That's when we started breaking towline."
Chapter 8
Brace's shaved head was a tribute to amon's engaged concern, which was not patchy although Brace's haircut certainly was. In an attempt to save as much fur as possible, Amon snipped, clipped, razored, turned Brace's head this way and that, and proclaimed the finished job a masterpiece—and so it was, had Brace been a pagan living in Samoa. To the surprise of all hands, Brace took his ordeal with the insensateness of the Buddha. The mirror explained to him that he had a high forehead, above which, and fairly far aft, a low pool of fuzz rose like a spring, to flow forward in a questioning way toward his left ear where it was absorbed back into the water table of his skull an instant before it arrived. The right side of his head was clipped and spotted with patches of baldness, like an aging Marine suffering a twenty-year bout with jungle crud.
"It will grow back," Amon mourned. "Such is my fate."
Lamp, as practical as any cook ever gets, suggested that Amon borrow a camera and preserve the record. Amon sniffed with oriental disdain. "I am not a tourist," he told Lamp, then paused, " ... although I am a very long way from home."
"You look like you got hit by a flight of seagulls," Glass told Brace. "Sue the Chinaman."
"Like bilge scraping," said Fallon.
"Like shark bait," said Conally.
"Your envy is ugly," Amon told them. "You would foul up a free lunch. You would despoil the Last Supper."
"You are a heathen—yes—heathen." Lamp slammed the door of the oven, turned. "Now look what you made me do."
Dane sniffed like a consumer inspecting popcorn at the concession in a seedy theatre. "I liked him better when he was painted," Dane said to Conally. To Brace he said, "Get up the mast."
"The view is tremendous," Conally told Brace.
Dane yelled at the bridge watch. "Secure the transmitter. Man aloft. Acknowledge."
"I got it off," ... a distant yell.
Starting at the base of the mast and working upward, Brace chipped patches of rust, applied red lead to cleaned steel at the end of each day, climbed above the drying red lead on the next day, like a clam digger gradually following a tide. "If I start him at the top, he'll get dizzy and fall off," Conally explained to Howard.
Day followed day. Brace looked like a kite tangled among the wires of a telephone pole. He was perfectly situated to be the first man to see cutter Abner , bulked like a small, white and concentrated dot beside dark cliffs as it towed its string of refugees—but he was not the first. His attention was directed at placing an even coat of paint on the mast.
Lamp was the first to see Abner , or so in later years he claimed. "Boys, I be double-dog-damn," claiming one more minor miracle in that flat procession of days that saw Adrian hang against the pier impeccably dressed, like a partygoer waiting forever for an undispatched taxi.
Abner looked like a missionary lady leading derelicts to soup and prayer. Ezekiel rode high, directly astern on a shortened tow, its load of fish returned to the mindless Atlantic, that maw of gulls and basking sharks. Behind Ezekiel , Clara seemed to huddle frightened and scorched on the water; smoke and burn like a Puritan brand staining the house where rust already worked beneath blisters of paint. Alongside Abner , on snubbed tow, Hester C . made brief, impelled, black and gray dashes, like a rebellious child trying to escape the determined grasp of a pedestrian aunt.
The appearance of the tawdry group of collected wanderers stilled work in Portland harbor. Men laid tools
"Sure there was," said yeoman Wilson, and his chalky face contorted with indignation and confusion. "Not when we got there, of course. He just zapped out like if you pulled the plug on a movie."
"But that was the end of it?"
"That was the end of the scary part," Wilson said. "We finally got all the tows rigged, and we started off at a red-hot two knots, and that's when things got miserable. That's when we started breaking towline."
Chapter 8
Brace's shaved head was a tribute to amon's engaged concern, which was not patchy although Brace's haircut certainly was. In an attempt to save as much fur as possible, Amon snipped, clipped, razored, turned Brace's head this way and that, and proclaimed the finished job a masterpiece—and so it was, had Brace been a pagan living in Samoa. To the surprise of all hands, Brace took his ordeal with the insensateness of the Buddha. The mirror explained to him that he had a high forehead, above which, and fairly far aft, a low pool of fuzz rose like a spring, to flow forward in a questioning way toward his left ear where it was absorbed back into the water table of his skull an instant before it arrived. The right side of his head was clipped and spotted with patches of baldness, like an aging Marine suffering a twenty-year bout with jungle crud.
"It will grow back," Amon mourned. "Such is my fate."
Lamp, as practical as any cook ever gets, suggested that Amon borrow a camera and preserve the record. Amon sniffed with oriental disdain. "I am not a tourist," he told Lamp, then paused, " ... although I am a very long way from home."
"You look like you got hit by a flight of seagulls," Glass told Brace. "Sue the Chinaman."
"Like bilge scraping," said Fallon.
"Like shark bait," said Conally.
"Your envy is ugly," Amon told them. "You would foul up a free lunch. You would despoil the Last Supper."
"You are a heathen—yes—heathen." Lamp slammed the door of the oven, turned. "Now look what you made me do."
Dane sniffed like a consumer inspecting popcorn at the concession in a seedy theatre. "I liked him better when he was painted," Dane said to Conally. To Brace he said, "Get up the mast."
"The view is tremendous," Conally told Brace.
Dane yelled at the bridge watch. "Secure the transmitter. Man aloft. Acknowledge."
"I got it off," ... a distant yell.
Starting at the base of the mast and working upward, Brace chipped patches of rust, applied red lead to cleaned steel at the end of each day, climbed above the drying red lead on the next day, like a clam digger gradually following a tide. "If I start him at the top, he'll get dizzy and fall off," Conally explained to Howard.
Day followed day. Brace looked like a kite tangled among the wires of a telephone pole. He was perfectly situated to be the first man to see cutter Abner , bulked like a small, white and concentrated dot beside dark cliffs as it towed its string of refugees—but he was not the first. His attention was directed at placing an even coat of paint on the mast.
Lamp was the first to see Abner , or so in later years he claimed. "Boys, I be double-dog-damn," claiming one more minor miracle in that flat procession of days that saw Adrian hang against the pier impeccably dressed, like a partygoer waiting forever for an undispatched taxi.
Abner looked like a missionary lady leading derelicts to soup and prayer. Ezekiel rode high, directly astern on a shortened tow, its load of fish returned to the mindless Atlantic, that maw of gulls and basking sharks. Behind Ezekiel , Clara seemed to huddle frightened and scorched on the water; smoke and burn like a Puritan brand staining the house where rust already worked beneath blisters of paint. Alongside Abner , on snubbed tow, Hester C . made brief, impelled, black and gray dashes, like a rebellious child trying to escape the determined grasp of a pedestrian aunt.
The appearance of the tawdry group of collected wanderers stilled work in Portland harbor. Men laid tools
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