Books › Blue Book v073 n06 [1941-10], 1941 › scan 17
Scan 17
Blue Book v073 n06 [1941-10], 1941
36 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1dropped to her knee and took that man's head in her hands. "John, John," she kept crying over and over. "I've found you. I knew I would." Then she was on her feet, her eyes blazing with anger as she faced the master of the Pandoman. "Why did you hit him? Can't you see he's—" She broke off, on the verge of hysteria, appealing to Doctor Proust. "Help him, Doctor. He's—"
3"He'll be all right," the Doctor murmured, "once the whisky washes out."
5Captain Baintree felt a good many things come tumbling in ruins about his ears. "He means that much to you?" he asked bleakly.
7"Why shouldn't he? Why do you suppose I came here?" Her lips were trembling. "Salvage Harry, indeed! Why don't you get him on his feet instead of knocking him insensible? Is that—"
9"Althea!" Braunberg was wringing his hands in abject desolation. "Can't you settle this quarreling later? You will ruin my place! Althea, I beg of you!"
11Somehow he dragged her away. Harry knew that. He heard Braunberg's unctuous voice out there, fawning reassurance and apology, till like tremulous music coming to a ruined place, he heard the sound of a violin again. There was bitterness in his eyes. When he turned to look down at the bleary-eyed man sprawled out in the chair, his voice was icy. "You're a sailor," he said flatly.
13"What the hell do you care?"
15"I don't… What ticket?"
17"Ticket?" The man in dirty drill stiffened. "Who told you—"
19"I know. I've seen them before. I don't care how much red ink you got splashed on it. Or why. What is it? Mate?"
21"Sure." He rubbed the stubble of beard on his chin. "John Aldrich, chief mate of the Jacinta when she bust her back on the Duxbury Reef!" His voice was harsh. "Seven men drowned: I saw them. If I told you it wasn't my fault, you'd laugh like hell! Wouldn't you, now? You'd have some fun! If I told you the Old Man—" He broke off, staggered erect, turned for the rattan screen at the rear of the bar. "Let me out of here. I've messed up her life enough. I—"
23"Some women stick," Harry Baintree cut in grimly, "and others don't. Althea's one of the kind who does. I'm master of the schooner Pandoman. We sail in half an hour. You want a job?"
25"Job?" John Aldrich spun on his heel. "You'd give me a berth?"
27"Second mate. For her—not you." Harry turned toward Doctor Proust, who just stood there with his large eyes staring. "You tell her, Doctor," he said softly, "I'll bring him back on his feet—or on a plank."
29Proust knew Harry never carried a second. The Pandoman was manned by Malays, officered by two whites: Baintree and his first mate Mr. Larch, the serang standing the master's watch when the weather was clear and fine. So the surgeon wanted to say something, knowing how Harry felt, knowing what Althea meant to him. But he couldn't. He didn't know the right words. He just nodded while Captain Baintree hooked Aldrich under the elbow, steering him out the rear door. Proust heard the crunch of rickshaw wheels before he turned away, mournfully shaking his head. The last note of Althea's violin reached him, like a thin echo of tinkling bells. And two billiard-balls from the table in Braunberg's parlor for shipmasters clicked loudly together with a fatal sound of finality….
31So Captain Harry Baintree took the Pandoman to sea with John Aldrich for a second mate. She went poking through the islands, picking up her exotic cargoes in the jungled little ports. Mahogany logs, copal, rattans, gum, and spice. John Aldrich lounged through his watches on the poop, smoking innumerable brown cigarettes. Mr. Larch was plainly scornful. "No good," the mate told his skipper with certainty. "The sap's washed out of him. If you'll forgive me, sir," he growled, "I don't for the life of me see why you bring these broken-down beachcombers into the ship at all. Aint we got troubles enough?"
33He stumped off, angrily. Captain Baintree couldn't blame him. Aldrich was just dead weight. The red ink on his ticket fouled his blood. Harry began to wonder if he'd ever get it clean. That fellow with the slack jaw and the blank stare wasn't worth a girl like Althea. But some women were funny that way: they had a rule of values men couldn't understand. Meanwhile, the Pandoman, working north, coasted Palawan before she started running south again across the Sulu Sea. The wind was foul for Sibutu Passage. But with the brilliant green islands over the stern, there was a free run before the wind the Malays called barat. Who would think of trouble in a place like that? The ship ran easily with a quartering breeze, topsails set. And that's when it happened, toward dawn of a brilliant starry night with the serang and Aldrich keeping the deck.
35Harry fell asleep with the sound of a fair wind keening aloft. It was the last thing he remembered before hell broke loose on board the Pandoman. The explosion was violent. It rocked the ship as if her whole for-
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