_ BOOK IV. AT THE SHIPYARD
CHAPTER IV
After the novelty of the joke wore off Mamise grew as uncomfortable as he. She was beginning to love him more and her job less. But she was determined not to throw away her independence. Pride was her duenna, and a ruthless one. She tried to feed her pride on her ambition and on an occasional visit to the ship that was to wear her name.
She met Sutton, the prima donna riveter. He was always clattering away like a hungry woodpecker, but he always had time to stop and discuss his art with her.
Once or twice he let her try the riveter--the "gun," he called it; but her thumb was not strong enough to hold the trigger against that hundred-and-fifty-pound pressure per square inch.
One day Marie Louise came on Jake Nuddle and Sutton in a wrangle. She caught enough of the parley to know that Jake was sneering at Sutton's waste of energy and enthusiasm, his long hours and low pay. Sutton earned a very substantial income, but all pay was low pay to Jake, who was spreading the gospel of sabotage through the shipyard.
Meanwhile the good ship
Clara, weaned from the dock, floated in the basin and received her equipment. And at last the day came when she was ready for her trial trip.
That morning the smoke rolled from her funnels in a twisted skein. What had once been ore in many a mine, and trees in many a forest, had become an individual, as what has been vegetables and fruits and the flesh of animals becomes at last a child with a soul, a name, a fate.
It was impossible to think now that the
Clara was merely an iron box with an engine to push it about.
Clara was somebody, a personality, a lovable, whimsical, powerful creature. She was "she" to everybody. And at last one morning she kicked up her heels and took a long white bone in her teeth and went her ways.
The next day
Clara came back. There was something about her manner of sweeping into the bay, about the proud look of her as she came to a halt, that convinced all the watchers in the shipyard of her success.
When they learned that she had exceeded all her contract stipulations there was a tumult of rejoicing; for her success was the success of every man and lad in the company's employ--at least so thought all who had any instinct of team-play and collective pride. A few soreheads were glum, or sneered at the enthusiasm of the others. It was strange that Jake Nuddle was associated with all of these groups.
Clara was not permitted to linger and rest on her laurels. She had work to do. Every ship in the world was working overtime except the German Kiel Canal boats.
Clara was gone from the view the next morning. Mamise missed her as she looked from the office window. She mentioned this to Davidge, for fear he might not know. Somebody might have stolen her. He explained:
"She's going down to Norfolk to take on a cargo of food for England--wheat for the Allies. I'm glad she's going to take breadstuffs to people. My mother used to be always going about to hungry folks with a basket of food on her arm."
Mamise had Jake and Abbie in to dinner that night. She was all agog about the success of
Clara, and hoped that
Mamise would one day do as well.
Jake took a sudden interest in the matter. "Did the boss tell you where the
Clara was goin' to?"
"Yes--Norfolk."
Jake considered his unmentionable cigar a few minutes, then rose and mumbled:
"Goin' out to get some more cigars."
Abbie called after him, "Hay, you got a whole half-box left." But Jake did not seem to hear the recall.
He came back later cigarless and asked for the box.
"I thought you went out to git some," said Abbie, who felt it necessary to let no occasion slip for reminding him of some blunder he had made. Jake laughed very amiably.
"Well, so I did, and I went into a cigar-store, at that. But I hadda telephone a certain party, long-distance--and I forgot."
Abbie broke in, "Who you got to long-distance to?"
Jake did not answer.
Two days later Davidge was so proud that he came out into the main office and told all the clerks of the new distinction.
"They loaded the
Clara in record time with wheat for England. She sails to-day."
At his first chance to speak to Marie Louise he said:
"You compared her to Little Red Riding Hood--remember? Well, she's starting out through the big woods with a lot of victuals for old Granny England. If only the wolves don't get her!"
He felt, and Mamise felt, as lonely and as anxious for her as if she were indeed a little red-bonneted forest-farer on an errand of mercy.
Ships have always been dear to humankind because of the dangers they run and because of the pluck they show in storms and fires, and the unending fights they make against wind and wave. But of late they had had unheard-of enemies to meet, the submarine and the infernal machine placed inside the cargo.
Marie Louise spoke of this at the supper-table that night:
"To think, with so little food in the world and so many starving to death, people could sink ships full of wheat!"
On the second day after the
Clara set forth on the ocean Marie Louise took dictation for an hour and wrote out her letters as fast as she could. In the afternoon she took the typewritten transcripts into Davidge's office to drop them into his "in" basket.
The telephone rang. His hand went out to it, and she heard him say:
"Mr. Davidge speaking.... Hello, Ed.... What? You're too close to the 'phone.... That's better.... You're too far away--start all over.... I don't get that.... Yes--a life-boat picked up with what--oh, six survivors. Yes--from what ship? I say, six survivors from what ship?... The
Clara? She's gone?
Clara?"
He reeled and wavered in his chair. "What happened--many lost? And the boat--cargo--everything--everybody but those six! They got her, then! The Germans got her--on her first voyage! God damn their guts! Good-by, Ed."
He seemed to be calm, but the hand that held up the receiver groped for the hook with a pitiful blind man's gesture.
Mamise could not resist that blundering helplessness. She ran forward and took his hand and set the receiver in place.
He was too numb to thank her, but he was grateful. His mother was dead. The ship he had named for her was dead. He needed mothering.
Mamise put her hands on his shoulders and gripped them as if to hold them together under their burden. She said:
"I heard. I can't tell you how-- Oh, what can we do in such a world!"
He laughed foolishly and said, with a stumbling voice:
"I'll get a German for this--somehow!" _