No tropical foliage flourishes there, no sea blue lagoons, no fruits, flowers and long golden beaches enhance their nakedness. They are barren reefs, spewed up out of the sea by submarine volcanoes. As you approach them they look like snow-capped rocks with a fringe of white foam edging them from the breakers that crash against their cliffs. The screech of white gulls fills the air for miles around. The guano islands are the home of the sea fowl. There they lay their eggs in mating season. Millions of birds find those rock islands every year. The rocks are hardly fit for human habitation, yet a few men survive on them.
The French government owns the greatest number of those guano islands, and the income from them amounts to a small fortune every year.
I’ll always remember my trip to those places for two reasons. First, it was on that voyage that I was introduced to the mysteries of strip poker and second, I saw a man so “female struck” that he swam a mile through a rough sea to get away from me.
The night before we sighted the Islands, Fred Nelson, Swede, Bulgar and Oleson were sitting in the lee scupper under the fo’c’s’le head playing poker by the dim green glow of the starboard running light. I wasn’t allowed forward of the mizzen mast unless my Father was with me, for that was the sacred domain of the crew. However, I went forward every time I got a chance, when Father wasn’t looking. This particular night I waited until I heard him snoring on his settee before I tried it. Running along in the shadow of the sails on the leeward side I came upon the four men in the midst of the game.
They didn’t pay the least attention to me. I stood by and watched them for about five minutes and then I butted in.
“Deal me a hand, will you?” I asked.
Swede looked up at me and then spat a big stream of amber juice over the rail. Oleson pretended he hadn’t heard me, and Bulgar just scowled his disapproval of my presence. However, Fred Nelson was more sociable.
“Sure, Skipper, you can play next hand—but I advise you not to. This is strip poker we’re playing.”
For the first time I noticed certain oddities in the men’s appearance. Swede had on nothing but his underdrawers. His shirt and dungarees were piled beside Oleson. Bulgar’s pipe and leather belt were in front of Nelson. When the hand was finished Oleson handed over his clasp knife to Nelson also.
“See what it is? Now do you want to sit in?” asked Swede.