“No!”
“We’ll pump first, Nick. Let’s go!”
“Do it yourself!” he suddenly burst out, in a black temper. Nothing like this had ever happened before and all of us were petrified. We had been in Japan long enough to know the strong emphasis placed on courtesy and conformance. We knew that Nick’s outburst, which might have been taken in stride by Westerners, was an unthinkable breach of Japanese etiquette.
There was a dead silence which stretched endlessly. Then, without a word, Nick stepped forward and began to pump the bilge.
After the job was done and the sail up again, Nick came back to the cockpit and apologized. He said that he knew I was right, but he had just felt tired. We discussed what we could do about the problem of getting the bilge cleared when we were heeling and decided that another pump, with extensions on both sides to the turn of the bilge, would do the trick. (This was duly installed, in Honolulu, and has proved very effective.) Then we shook hands, and that ended it. For the rest of the passage, Nick was his former stolid, dependable self.
The next problem, which set in less dramatically but threatened to be more serious, concerned Mickey. After we sailed from Hiroshima, and during our quiet cruise up the Inland Sea, Mickey had been the brightest and gayest of our group. The ditty he sang constantly, which roughly translated meant “I’m going to Honolulu where the coconuts grow,” had earned him the private family nickname of Coconut Boy.
However, after our first bad night on the open ocean, Mickey had quieted down considerably. He seemed to realize for the first time that there was a lot of water between him and his coconuts. Gradually his activity and behavior deteriorated until at last he took to his bunk, rising only to go to the head and for meals—which he seemed to eat with a fair appetite.
The first night that Mickey defected completely, Nick and Moto conspired to absorb his watch between them, without reporting his indisposition. But by the next day there was no concealing the fact that Mickey “not feel so good,” and although Nick and Moto offered to continue taking three-hour watches until he felt better, it was agreed that we would share and share alike.
From then on, Mickey was relieved of active duty until further notice and the rest of us went on a schedule of two on and six off. This of course meant that each man’s watch, instead of shifting each day, remained the same. Ted drew two dark watches (0400–0600 and 2000–2200) and found himself carrying a man’s role in earnest. In addition to his job as navigator, he already doubled as cabin boy—a thankless job that included siphoning kerosene from the deck drums, draining the dishwater from under the sink, and keeping the water jugs filled from the main tanks (we had no pump). It was not an easy life for a sixteen-year-old who had had few responsibilities for the past three years beyond picking up his own pajamas—and had often managed to avoid even that by stalling until one of the Japanese housegirls did it for him.
Yet, Ted responded wonderfully, and I found myself depending on him more and more. In these modern days fathers aren’t supposed to get to know their sons, especially their adolescent sons, but in the case of Ted and myself, never were conditions better for getting acquainted. Ted’s watch preceded mine, and I often went up a bit early, especially at night, to give him a reassuring word and stayed on to chat of this and that. His nature is quiet and reflective; his interests run to mathematics, astronomy, the sciences, and for relaxation, the classics. Our subjects ranged far afield and more often than not Ted was the mentor.