The Cay (3 page)

The S.S.
Hato
took her first bite of open sea and began to pitch gently. We turned toward Panama, as we had to make a call there before proceeding to Miami. Down on the well decks, fore and aft, were four massive pumps that had to be delivered to Colón, the port at the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal.

I stayed out on deck for a long time, sitting by the lifeboat, looking back at Curaçao, feeling lonely and sad.

Finally my mother said, “Come inside now.”

W
E WERE TORPEDOED
at about three o’clock in the morning on April 6, 1942, two days after leaving Panama.

I was thrown from the top bunk and suddenly found myself on my hands and knees on the deck. We could hear the ship’s whistle blowing constantly, and there were sounds of metal wrenching and much shouting. The whole ship was shuddering. It felt as though we’d stopped and were dead in the water.

My mother was very calm, not at all like she was
at home. She talked quietly while she got dressed, telling me to tie my shoes, and be certain to carry my wool sweater, and to put on my leather jacket. Her hands were not shaking.

She helped me put on my life jacket, then put hers on, saying, “Now, remember everything that we were told about abandoning ship.” The officers had held drills every day.

As she was speaking, there was another violent explosion. We were thrown against the cabin door, which the steward had warned us not to lock because it might become jammed. We pushed it open and went out to the boat deck, which was already beginning to tilt.

Everything was bright red, and there were great crackling noises. The entire afterpart of the ship was on fire, and sailors were launching the lifeboat that was on our deck. Steam lines had broken, and the steam was hissing out. Heat from the fire washed over us.

When the lifeboat had been swung out, the captain came down from the bridge. He was a small, wiry white-haired man and was acting the way I’d been told captains should act. He stood by the lifeboat in the fire’s glow, very alert, giving orders to the crew. He was carrying a brief case and a navigation instrument I knew to be a sextant. On the other side of the ship, another lifeboat was being launched.

Near us, two sailors with axes chopped at lines, and two big life rafts plunged toward the water,
which looked black except for pools of fire from burning fuel oil.

The captain shouted, “Get a move on! Passengers into the boats!” Tins of lubricating oil in the afterholds had ignited and were exploding, but the ones forward had not been exposed to the fire.

A sailor grabbed my mother’s hand and helped her in, and then I felt myself being passed into the hands of a sailor on the boat. The other passengers were helped in, and someone yelled, “Lower away.” At that moment, the
Hato
lurched heavily and something happened to the boat falls.

The bow tilted downward, and the next thing I knew we were all in the water. I saw my mother near me and yelled to her. Then something hit me from above.

A long time later (four hours I was told), I opened my eyes to see blue sky above. It moved back and forth, and I could hear the slap of water. I had a terrible pain in my head. I closed my eyes again, thinking maybe I was dreaming. Then a voice said, “Young bahss, how are you feelin’?”

I turned my head.

I saw a huge, very old Negro sitting on the raft near me. He was ugly. His nose was flat and his face was broad; his head was a mass of wiry gray hair. For a moment, I could not figure out where I was or who he was. Then I remembered seeing him working with the deck gang of the
Hato
.

I looked around for my mother, but there was no
one else on the raft. Just this huge Negro, myself, and a big black and gray cat that was licking his haunches.

The Negro said, “You ’ad a mos’ terrible crack on d’ead, bahss. A strong-back glanc’ offen your ’ead, an’ I harl you board dis raff.”

He crawled over toward me. His face couldn’t have been blacker, or his teeth whiter. They made an alabaster trench in his mouth, and his pink-purple lips peeled back over them like the meat of a conch shell. He had a big welt, like a scar, on his left cheek. I knew he was West Indian. I had seen many of them in Willemstad, but he was the biggest one I’d ever seen.

I sat up, asking, “Where are we? Where is my mother?”

The Negro shook his head with a frown. “I true believe your mut-thur is safe an’ soun’ on a raff like dis. Or mebbe dey harl ’er into d’boat. I true believe dat.”

Then he smiled at me, his face becoming less terrifying. “As to our veree location, I mus’ guess we are somewhar roun’ d’cays, somewhar mebbe fifteen latitude an’ eighty long. We should ’ave pass dem til’ dat mos’ treacherous torpedo split d’veree hull. Two minute downg, at d’mos’.”

I looked all around us. There was nothing but blue sea with occasional patches of orange-brown seaweed. No sight of the
Hato
, or other rafts, or boats. Just the sea and a few birds that wheeled
over it. That lonely sea, and the sharp pains in my head, and the knowledge that I was here alone with a black man instead of my mother made me break into tears.

Finally the black man said, looking at me from bloodshot eyes, “Now, young bahss, I mos’ feel like dat my own self, Timothy, but ’twould be of no particular use to do dat, eh?” His voice was rich calypso, soft and musical, the words rubbing off like velvet.

I felt a little better, but my head ached fiercely.

He nodded toward the cat. “Dis is Stew, d’cook’s cat. He climb on d’raff, an’ I ’ad no heart to trow ’im off.” Stew was still busy licking. “ ’E got oi-ll all ovah hisself from d’wattah.”

I looked closer at the black man. He was extremely old yet he seemed powerful. Muscles rippled over the ebony of his arms and around his shoulders. His chest was thick and his neck was the size of a small tree trunk. I looked at his hands and feet. The skin was alligatored and cracked, tough from age and walking barefoot on the hot decks of schooners and freighters.

He saw me examining him and said gently, “Put your ’ead back downg, young bahss, an’ rest awhile longer. Do not look direct at d’sun. ’Tis too powerful.”

I felt seasick and crawled to the side to vomit. He came up beside me, holding my head in his great clamshell hands. It didn’t matter, at that moment,
that he was black and ugly. He murmured, “Dis be good, dis be good.”

When it was over, he helped me back to the center of the raft, saying, “ ’Tis mos’ natural for you to do dis. ’Tis d’shock o’ havin’ all dis mos’ terrible ting ’appen.”

I then watched as he used his powerful arms and hands to rip up boards from the outside edges of the raft. He pounded them back together on cleats, forming two triangles; then he jammed the bases into slots between the raft boards. He stripped off his shirt and his pants, then demanded mine. I don’t know what happened to my leather jacket or my sweater. But soon, we had a flimsy shelter from the burning sun.

Crawling under it to sprawl beside me, he said, “We ’ave rare good luck, young bahss. D’wattah kag did not bus’ when d’raff was launch, an’ we ’ave a few biscuit, some choclade, an’ d’matches in d’tin is dry. So we ’ave rare good luck.” He grinned at me then.

I was thinking that our luck wasn’t so good. I was thinking about my mother on another boat or raft, not knowing I was all right. I was thinking about my father back in Willemstad. It was terrible not to be able to tell him where I was. He’d have boats and planes out within hours.

I guess the big Negro saw the look on my face. He said, “Do not be despair, young bahss. Someone
will fin’ us. Many schooner go by dis way, an’ dis also be d’ship track to Jamaica, an’ on.”

After a bit, lulled by the bobbing of the raft and by the soft, pleasant sounds of the sea against the oil barrel floats, I went to sleep again. I was very tired and my head still ached. The piece of timber must have struck a glancing blow on the left side.

When I next awakened, it was late afternoon. The sun had edged down and the breeze across us was cool. But I felt very hot and the pain had not gone away. The Negro was sitting with his back toward me, humming something in calypso. His back was a great wall of black flesh, and I saw a cruel scar on one shoulder.

I asked, “What is your name?”

Hearing my voice, he turned with a wide grin. “Ah, you are back wit’ me. It ’as been lonesome dese veree hours.”

I repeated, “What is your name?”

“My own self? Timothy!”

“Your last name?”

He laughed, “I ’ave but one name. ’Tis Timothy.”

“Mine is Phillip Enright, Timothy.” My father had always taught me to address anyone I took to be an adult as “mister,” but Timothy didn’t seem to be a mister. Besides, he was black.

He said, “I knew a Phillip who feesh out of St. Jawn, but an outrageous mahn he was.” He laughed deep inside himself.

I asked him for a drink of water.

He nodded agreeably, saying, “D’sun do parch.” He lifted a hinged section of the raft flooring and drew out the keg, which was about two feet long. There was a tin cup lashed to it. Careful not to spill a drop, he said, “ ’Tis best to ’ave only an outrageous smahl amount. Jus’ enough to wet d’tongue.”

“Why?” I asked. “That is a large keg.”

He scanned the barren sea and then looked back at me, his old eyes growing remote. “D’large kag ’ave a way o’ losin’ its veree size.”

“You said we would be picked up soon,” I reminded him.

“Ah, yes,” he said instantly, “but we mus’ be wise ’bout what we ’ave.”

I drank the tiny amount of water he’d poured out and asked for more. He regarded me silently a moment, then said, his eyes squinting, “A veree lil’ more, young bahss.”

My lips were parched and my throat was dry. I wanted a whole cup. “Please fill it up,” I said.

Timothy poured only a few drops into the bottom.

“That isn’t enough,” I complained. I felt I could drink three cups of it. But he pressed the wooden stopper firmly back into the keg, ignoring me.

I said, “I must have water, Timothy. I’m very hot.”

Without answering, he opened the trap in the
raft and secured the keg again. It was then that I began to learn what a stubborn old man he could be. I began to dislike Timothy.

“Young bahss,” he said, coming back under the shelter, “mebbe before d’night, a schooner will pass dis way, an’ if dat ’appens, you may drink d’whole kag. Mebbe d’schooner will not pass dis way, so we mus’ make our wattah last.”

I said defiantly, “A schooner will find us. And my father has ships out looking for us.”

Without even glancing at me, he answered, “True, young bahss.” Then he closed his eyes and would not speak to me any more. He just sprawled out, a mound of silent black flesh.

I couldn’t hold the tears back. I’m sure he heard me, but he didn’t move a muscle of his face. Neither did he look up when I crawled out from under the shelter to get as far away from him as I could. I stayed on the edge of the raft for a long time, thinking about home and rubbing Stew Cat’s back.

Although I hadn’t thought so before, I was now beginning to believe that my mother was right. She didn’t like them. She didn’t like it when Henrik and I would go down to St. Anna Bay and play near the schooners. But it was always fun. The black people would laugh at us and toss us bananas or papayas.

She’d say, when she knew where we’d been, “They are not the same as you, Phillip. They are different and they live differently. That’s the way
it must be.” Henrik, who’d grown up in Curaçao with them, couldn’t understand why my mother felt this way.

I yelled over at him, “You’re saving all the water for yourself.”

I don’t think he was asleep, but he didn’t answer.

When the sky began to turn a deep blue, Timothy roused himself and looked around. He said, with just an unfriendly glance at me, “If luck be, d’flyin’ feesh will flop on d’raff. We can save a few biscuit by eatin’ d’feesh. Too, wattah is in d’feesh.”

I was hungry but the thought of eating raw fish didn’t appeal to me. I said nothing.

Just before dark, they began skimming across the water, their short, winglike fins taking them on flights of twenty or thirty feet, sometimes more.

A large one shot out of the water, skimmed toward us, and then slammed into the raft flooring. Timothy grabbed it, shouting happily. He rapped its head with his knife handle and tossed it beneath the shelter. Soon another came aboard, not so large. Timothy grabbed it, too.

Before total darkness, he had skinned them, deftly cutting meat from their sides. He handed me the two largest pieces. “Eat dem,” he ordered.

I shook my head.

He looked at me in the fading light and said softly, “We will ’ave no other food tonight. You bes’ eat dem, young bahss.” With that, he pressed
a piece of the fish against his teeth, sucking at it noisily.

Yes, they were different. They ate raw fish.

I turned away from him, over on my stomach. I thought about Curaçao, warm and safe; about our gabled house in Scharloo, and about my father. Suddenly I blamed my mother because I was on the raft with this stubborn old black man. It was all her fault. She’d wanted to leave the island.