"I was about to call out, 'Aye, it was me,' when another man beat me by bawling, 'It was the Big Sailor, sir!' That was a name both Cat and I were often hailed by.
"'Well,' snarled the mate, 'the captain says that such good thinking in times so hard as these should be rewarded. He's seen the job and approved.' He took a gold coin from his pocket and tossed it on the table in front of Cat. 'There you go, Big Sailor. But I think it's as much as any man should do.' And then he turned and clomped from the mess hall. A cheer went up for Cat as he pocketed the coin; I couldn't see his face.
"The anger in me started now, but without direction. Should it go to the sailor who'd called out the name of the hero? Naw, for he had been down on deck, and through rain and darkness probably he could not have told me from my rival anyway at that distance. At Cat? But he was already getting up to leave the table. And the first mate, the same first mate of this ship here, friend, that we're on now, he was out stomping somewhere on deck.
"Perhaps it was this that caused my anger to break out the next morning when we were in calmer weather. A careless salt jarred me in a passage way, and suddenly I was all fists and fire. We scuffled, we banged, we cursed, we rolled. In fact, we rolled right under the feet of the mate who was coming down the steps at the time. He sent a boot into us and eight different curses, and when he recognized me, he sneered, 'Oh, the clumsy one.'
"Now I'd had a fiery record before. Fights on ship are a breach few captains will allow. This was my third, and one too many. And the mate, prompted by his own opinion of me, got the captain to order me flogged.
"So, like a carcass to be sliced and bid on, I was lead out before the assembled sailors at the next sunrise and bound to the main mast. I thought my wrath went all toward the first mate now. But black turned white in my head, into something that I could bite into, when he flung the whip to Cat and cried, 'Here, Big Sailor, you've done your ship one good turn. Now rub sleep off your face and do it another. I want ten stripes on that one's back deep enough to count easily with a finger dipped in salt.'
"They fell, and I didn't breathe the whole time. Ten lashes is a whipping a man can recover from in a week. Most go down to their knees with the first one, if their rope is slack enough. I didn't fall until they finally cut the ropes from my wrists. Nor was it till I heard a second gold coin rattle down on the deck from the first mate's hand and the words to the crew, 'See how a good sailor gets rich,' that I made a sound. And it was lost in the cheer which sprung from the other men.
"Cat and one other lugged me to the brig. As I fell forward, hands scudding into straw, I heard Cat's voice come, 'Well, brother, that's the way the luck goes.'
"Then the pain made me faint.
"A day later, when I could pull myself up to the window and look out on the back of the ship, we caught the worst storm I'd ever seen, and the slices in my back made it no easier on me. Pegs threatened to pull from their holes, boards to part themselves; one wave washed four men overboard; and while others ran to save them, another came and swept off six more. It had come so suddenly that not a sail had been raised, and now the remaining men were swarming to the ratlines.