Adventure Magazine Cover — page 99: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Makings of a Sailorman Bob Woten. “He only grinned when somebody tried to send him to the pay clerk for the key to the keelson. I’d already sent him after it once, and that was enough.”’ Hasty Day found Saltsman leading the deck force in the amount of work done in scraping decks, washing paint-work or polishing brass. He did it all thoroughly. In his speech he mixed the idioms of land and sea to the constant merriment of his shipmates. The new Bowditch which he pored over in his spare time became thumb-marked and torn with much handling, and the two ensigns found him often, in their watch below, at the door of their rooms with questions. “Now this declination,’ he would ask; “YT don’t rightly understand how the old sun plows as crooked a furrow as the book appears to make it. And what’s these little crowfeet here on the chart?” In England he bought a second-hand sextant and: learned painfully to take observations and read the vernier, and to keep his thick, sweaty fingers off the already stained arc. alte THE Alia discharged her cargo of oil and took on general mer- “Sj chandise between decks and enough ae ore in her lower holds for ballast. The raw cold of the North Atlantic was trying on the recruits. Before leaving the last English port a good many of them had severe colds. The hospital apprentice reported on the third day that he had put two men in their bunks. “Tt might develop into influenza, the captain. “Watch them closely.” The next day the number of sick was increased to nine—all afflicted with high temperature, aching joints and all the symptoms of the epidemic. ‘It’s the flu all right, sir,” the hospital apprentice told the captain. “TI’d like to have a nurse, somebody to help me take care of them.”’ “Take who you want,” the captain ” said ordered. “Keep them isolated in one compartment. Keep the place scrubbed and clean.”’ The hospital apprentice asked for a volunteer at the mess table that evening. “T’ll have to have a little sleep,” he said. “J want somebody to go on at night and 85 relieve me. All you have to do is to give the medicine and keep the worst ones covered up and in their bunks.” The men looked at one another without answering. There had been stories of ships found drifting helplessly with all the crew sick or dead. The disease was known to be extremely contagious, and no one was anxious to expose himself, There had come to them letters from their shipmates in receiving stations, telling of the awful toll of sudden death. “All right,” said the hospital apprentice. “Pil just pick out one of you and have the captain issue an order.” “T didn’t come here to wait on the sick,” grumbled one of the men. “You just take my job and let me do it then,” said Hasty Day, turning on the speaker with withering scorn. “All some of you fellows know about the sea is sight- seeing and drawing your pay.” ‘Do you reckon I could do it?” asked Saltsman meekly from the end of the table. ‘Sure, let old Salty do it,”’ came a chorus. _ “He’s germ-proof. If they got on him they’d laugh themselves to death.” ‘You're it, then, big fellow,” said Hasty Day, “if you mean it. But if you want to back out, Pll give one of these would-be comedians a chance. Most of them never got by that place in their lives where they first learned to let old George do the mean jobs.” “T’d try it,” said Saltsman. “Neighbors had to wait on the sick a little back home. It'd give me more time for my figgering, too, maybe.” “Unanimously elected,” said Hasty Day, glaring about him. And so it was decided. In the days that followed, the volunteer nurse had small chance to look into his navigation books. His patients demanded all of his strength and every moment of his time. Patiently he soothed their fever with ‘icy wet cloths, washed their faces and brought them food and drink. In between times, often to the accompaniment of groans and the labored breathing and muttering of men half delirious, he scrubbed and cleaned continuously: = He and the hospital apprentice relieved each other in turns of eight hours each, night and day, while the crew stood aloof, shunning with awe the affected compart- ment. More men caught the epidemic, Gomichbooks.¢o an)