“What do you mean?”
“I want to finish voyage. I want to stay on Phoenix.”
“I’ll talk to the family.”
I did, and we decided to accept Nick’s offer. So Nick stayed on with us, and from that moment an entirely new relationship began. Having thrown in his lot with us, breaking completely with his mates, Nick now came over wholly to our side, giving us unswerving loyalty and warm friendship. It was an amazing transformation.
Moto’s role in the case was a strange one. We still liked him very much; we felt strongly that he didn’t want to go but that some force stronger than himself compelled his action. He brooded for long hours, obviously miserable; and yet he either would not or could not revise his decision.
I learned in town that it would be almost impossible for me to send Mickey and Moto back from Kingston, as ships bound for Japan rarely called there. It would be far easier, I was told, to carry them on with us as far as the Canal Zone, where arrangements could easily be made. Mickey objected so violently to this suggestion that I told him he had full authority to go to town and make his own arrangements for the passage. He and Moto spent several days in town, but Mickey finally had to admit that my information was correct and they agreed to go on with us to the Panama Canal.
However, I made it very clear that they would travel as passengers and would have no hand in sailing the Phoenix. The family and Nick would handle the boat alone.
While here, it seemed wise to haul out once more, making use of the rather primitive (but cheap) marine railway in the old Naval Dockyard, instead of waiting until the Canal Zone, where prices, under American administration, were likely to be high. Sir Anthony enlisted the services of about twenty men from Port Royal to lend us a hand for a day—at 10 shillings apiece—and we all turned to on the huge cranks of the massive, hand-operated winch, taking an entire day literally to inch our thirty tons up the incline.
During our stay in Port Royal we went into the city only two or three times. There was no bus service between Kingston and Port Royal, and the tiny ferry-launch ran only one trip each way a day. The town was hot, dirty, and not too colorful. Although the Christmas season was in full swing, we found little that tempted us to buy.
Port Royal, however, we liked very much, and after a day’s work on the boat we would often take a stroll through the old town, with its ancient stone houses, narrow streets, and vital air of history. We knew that in the waters just off the dock, buried in the earthquake of 1692, lay the remains of most of the town, with its warehouses still full of booty taken by the pirates. Here, in the middle of the seventeenth century, was the city acknowledged to be the wickedest in the world.