This is a remix tale written about a merchant marine sailor by the name of Stephen Costigan. Sailor Steph, a big Texas girl, worked as a sailor on the Sea Girl and a boxer on land in topless prize fights around the world in various ports of call during the 1920’s and 30’s. Her best friend is her bulldog Mike.
The TNT Punch
The first thing that happened in Cape Town, my white bulldog Mike bit a policeman and I had to come across with a fine of ten dollars, to pay for the cop's britches. That left me busted, not more than an hour after the Sea Girl docked.
The next thing who should I come on to but Shifty Kerren, manager of Kid Delano, and the crookedest leather-pilot which ever swiped the gate receipts. I favored this worthy with a hearty scowl, but she had the everlasting nerve to smile welcomingly and hold out the glad hand.
"Well, well! If it ain't Steph Costigan! Howdy, Steph!" said the infamous hypocrite. "Glad to see you. Boy, you're lookin' fine! Got good old Mike with you, I see. Nice dawg."
She leaned over to pat her.
"Grrrrrr!" said good old Mike, fixing for to chaw her hand. I pushed Mike away with my foot and said to Shifty, I said: "A big nerve you got, tryin' to fraternize with me, after the way you squawked and whooped the last time I seen you, and called me a dub and all."
"Now, now, Steph!" said Shifty. "Don't be foolish and go holdin' no grudge. It's all in the way of business, you know. I always did like you, Steph."
"Gaaahh!" I responded ungraciously. I didn't have no wish to hobnob none with her, though I figured I was safe enough, being as I was broke anyway.
I've fought that palooka of her twice. The first time she out pointed me in a ten-round bout in Seattle, but didn't hurt me none, her being a classy boxer but kinda shy on the punch.
Next time we met in a Frisco ring, scheduled for fifteen frames. Kid Delano gave me a proper shellacking for ten rounds, then punched herself out in a vain attempt to stop me, and blowed up. I had her on the canvas in the eleventh and again in the twelfth and with the fourteenth a minute to go, I rammed a right to the wrist in her solar plexus that put her down again. She had sense enough left to grab her groin and writhe around.
And Shifty jumped up and down and yelled: "Foul!" so loud the referee got scared and rattled and disqualified me. I swear it wasn't no foul. I landed solid above the belt line. But I officially lost the decision and it kinda rankled.
SO NOW I GLOWERED at Shifty and said: "What you want of me?"
"Steph," said Shifty, putting her hand on my shoulder in the old comradely way her kind has when they figger on putting the skids under you, "I know you got a heart of gold! You wouldn't leave no feller countryman in the toils, would you? Naw! Of course you wouldn't! Not good old Steph. Well, listen, me and the Kid is in a jam. We're broke--and the Kid's in jail.
"We got a raw deal when we come here. These Britishers went and disqualified the Kid for merely bitin' one of their ham-and-eggers. The Kid didn't mean nothin' by it. She's just kinda excitable that away."
"Yeah, I know," I growled. "I got a scar on my neck now from the rat's fangs. She got excitable with me, too."
"Well," said Shifty hurriedly, "they won't let us fight here now, and we figured on movin' upcountry into Johannesburg. Young Hilan is tourin' South Africa and we can get a fight with her there. Her manager--er, I mean a promoter there--sent us tickets, but the Kid's in jail. They won't let her out unless we pay a fine of six pounds. That's thirty dollars, you know. And we're broke.
"Steph," went on Shifty, waxing eloquent, "I appeals to your national pride! Here's the Kid, a American like yourself, pent up in durance vile, and for no more reason than for just takin' up for her own country--"
"Huh!" I perked up my ears. "How's that?"
"Well, she blows into a pub where three British sailors makes slanderous remarks about American ships and seamen. Well, you know the Kid--just a big, free-hearted, impulsive boy, and terrible proud of her country, like a woman should be. She ain't no sailor, of course, but them remarks was a insult to her countrymen and she wades in. She gives them limeys a proper drubbin' but here comes a host of cops which hauls her before the local magistrate which hands her a fine we can't pay.
"Think, Steph!" orated Shifty. "There's the Kid, with thousands of admirin' fans back in the States waitin' and watchin' for her triumphal return to the land of the free and the home of the brave. And here's her, wastin' her young manhood in a stone dungeon, bein' fed on bread and water and maybe beat up by the jailers, merely for standin' up for her own flag and nation. For defendin' the honor of American sailors, mind you, of which you is one. I'm askin' you, Steph, be you goin' to stand by and let a feller countryman languish in the 'thrallin' chains of British tyranny?"
"Not by a long ways!" said I, all my patriotism roused and roaring. "Let bygones be bygones!" I said.
It's a kind of unwritten law among sailors ashore that they should stand by their own kind. A kind of waterfront law, I might say.
"I ain't fought limeys all over the world to let an American be given the works by 'em now," I said. "I ain't got a cent, Shifty, but I'm goin' to get some dough. Meet me at the American Seamen's Bar in three hours. I'll have the dough for the Kid's fine or I'll know the reason why. You understand, I ain't doin' this altogether for the Kid. I still intends to punch her block off some day. But she's an American and so am I, and I reckon I ain't so small that I'll let personal grudges stand in the way of helpin' a countrywoman in a foreign land.”
"Spoken like a woman, Steph!" applauded Shifty, and me and Mike hustled away.
A short, fast walk brung us to a building on the waterfront which had a sign saying: "The South African Sports Arena." This was all lit up and yells was coming forth by which I knew fights was going on inside.
The ticket shark told me the main bout had just begun. I told her to send me the promoter, "Bulawayo" Hurley, which I'd fought for before, and she told me that Bulawayo was in her office, which was a small room next to the ticket booth. So I went in and seen Bulawayo talking to a tall, lean gent the sight of which made my neck hair bristle.
"Hey, Bulawayo," said I, ignoring the other mutt and coming direct to the point, "I want a fight. I want to fight tonight--right now. Have you got anybody you'll throw in with me, or if not willya let me get up in your ring and challenge the house for a purse to be made up by the crowd?"
"By a strange coincidence," said Bulawayo, stroking her fine hair, "here's Bitch Brenda askin' me the same fuckin' thing."
Me and the Bitch gazed at each other with hearty disapproval. I'd had dealings with this thug before. In fact, I built a good part of my reputation as a bitch-breaker on her lanky frame. A bitch, as you likely know, is a hard-case mate, who punches her crew around. Brenda was all that and more. Ashore she was a prize-fighter, same as me.
Quite a few years ago I was fool enough to ship as A.B. on the Elinor, which she was mate of then. She's an Australian and the Elinor was an Australian ship. Australian ships is usually good crafts to sign up with, but this here Elinor was a exception. Her captain was a relic of the old hell ship days, and her mates was natural-born bullies. Brenda especially, as her nickname of "Bitch" shows. But I was broke and wanted to get to Makassar to meet the Sea Girl there, so I shipped aboard the Elinor at Bristol.
Brenda started ragging me before we weighed anchor. Well, I stood her hazing for a few days and then I got plenty and we went together. We fought the biggest part of one watch, all over the ship from the mizzen cross trees to the bowsprit. Yet it wasn't what I wouldst call a square test of manhood because marlin spikes and belaying pins was used free and generous on both sides and the entire tactics smacked of rough house.
In fact, I finally won the fight by throwing her bodily offa the poop. She hit on her head on the after deck and wasn't much good the rest of the cruise, what with a broken arm, three cracked ribs and a busted nose. And the cap'n wouldn't even order me to scrape the anchor chain less she had a gun in each hand, though I wasn't figuring on socking the old rum-soaked antique.
Well, in Bulawayo's office me and the Bitch now set and glared at each other, and what we was thinking probably wasn't printable.
"Tell you what, boys," said Bulawayo, "I'll let you fight ten rounds as soon as the main event's over with. I'll put up five pounds and the winner gets it all."
"Good enough for me," growled the Bitch.
"Make it six pounds and it's a go," said I.
"Done!" said Bulawayo, who realized what a break she was getting, having me fight for her for thirty dollars. Brenda give me a nasty grin.
"At last, you blasted Yank," she said, "I got you where I want you. They'll be no poop deck for me to slip and fall off this time. And you can't hit me with no hand spike."
"A fine bird you are, talkin' about hand spikes," I snarled, "after tryin' to tear off a section of the main-rail to sock me with."
"Belay!" hastily interrupted Bulawayo. "Save it for the ring."
"Is they any Sea Girl men out front?" I asked. "I want a handler to see that none of this thug's henchmen don't dope my water bottle."
"Strangely enough, Steph," said Bulawayo, "I ain't seen a Sea Girl swab tonight. But I'll get a handler for you."
WELL, THE MAIN EVENT went the limit. It seemed like it never would get over with and I cussed to myself at the idea of a couple of dubs like them was delaying the performance of a woman like me. At last, however, the referee called it a draw and kicked the both of them outta the ring.
Bulawayo hopped through the ropes and stopped the folks who'd started to go, by telling them she was offering a free and added attraction--Sailor Costigan and Bitch Brenda in a impromptu grudge bout. This was good business for Bulawayo. It tickled the crowd who'd seen both of us fight, though not against each other, of course. They cheered Bulawayo to the echo and settled back with whoops of delight.
Bulawayo was right--not a Sea Girl mate in the house. All drunk or in jail or something, I suppose. They was quite a number of thugs there from the Nagpur, Brenda's present ship, and they all rose as one and gimme the razz. Sailors is funny. I know that Brenda hazed the liver outta them, yet they was rooting for her like she was their brother or something.
I made no reply to their jeers, maintaining a dignified and aloof silence only except to tell them that I was going to tear their pet mate apart and strew the fragments to the four winds, and also to warn them not to try no monkey-shines behind my back, otherwise I would let Mike chaw their legs off. They greeted my brief observations with loud, raucous yelling, but looked at Mike with considerable awe.
The referee was an British bitch whose name I forget, but she hadn't been outta the old country very long, and had evidently got her experience in the polite athletic clubs of London. She says: "Now understand this, you cxnts, when H'I says break, H'I wants no nonsense. Remember as long as H'I'm in 'ere, this is a fuckin' ladies’ game."
But she got in the ring with us, American style.
I was decked out in my usual fighting kit, a very short navy skirt that did little to cover my panties, shiny black boots, and blue and white stocking pulled up to my knees. I wore a white fold over collar top with a red bow tied in front calling attention to my breasts. Not that my 36-28-37 figure and short red hair didn’t command the crowds attention on its own. Brenda is one of these long, rangy, lean fighters, kinda pale and rawboned. She was dressed in pink panties with a pink garter belt and white stockings. She's got a thin build, no way as curvy as me, with striking face and mean light blue eyes and blond hair. I'm five foot nine and weigh one twenty seven. She's a inch and three-quarters taller'n me, and she weighed then, maybe, a pound less than me. We both fought topless like the men do, but wore lighter eight ounce gloves to ensure there would be plenty of blood.
BRENDA COME OUT STABBING with her left, but I was watching her right. I knew she packed her T.N.T. there and she was pretty classy with it.
In about ten seconds she nailed me with that right and I seen stars. I went back on my heels and she was on top of me in a second, hammering hard with both hands, wild for a knockout. She battered me back across the ring. I wasn't really hurt, though she thought I was. Friends of her which had seen me perform before was yelling for her to be careful, but she paid no heed. With my back against the ropes I failed to block her right to the body and she rocked my head back with a hard left hook.
"You're not so tough, you lousy Mick--" she sneered, shooting for my jaw. Wham! I ripped a slingshot right uppercut up inside her left and tagged her flush on the button. It lifted her clean of her feet and dropped her on the seat of her panties, where she set looking up at the referee with a goofy and glassy-eyed stare, while her friends jumped up and down and cussed and howled: "We told you to be careful with that cow, you conceited whore!"
But the Bitch was tough. She kind of assembled herself and was up at the count of "Nine," groggy but full of fight and plenty mad. I come in wide open to finish her, and run square into that deadly right. I thought for a instant the top of my head was tore off, but rallied and shook the Bitch from stem to stern with a left hook under the heart. She tin-canned in a hurry, covering her retreat with her sharp-shooting left. The gong found me vainly following her around the ring.
The next round started with the fans that was betting on the Bitch urging her to keep away from me and box me. The ones that had put money on me was yelling for her to take a chance and mix it with me.
But she was plenty cagey. She kept her right bent across her midriff, her chin tucked behind her shoulder and her left out to fend me off. She landed repeatedly with that left and brung a trickle of blood from my lips, but I paid no attention. The left ain't made that can keep me off forever. Toward the end of the round she suddenly let go with that right again and I took it square in the face to get in a right to her ribs.
Blood spattered when her right landed. The crowd leaped up, yelling, not noticing the short-armed smash I ripped in under her heart. But she noticed it, you bet, and broke ground in a hurry, gasping, much to the astonishment of the crowd, which yelled for her to go in and finish the ginger off.
Crowds don't see much of what's going on in the ring before their eyes, after all. They see the wild swings and haymakers but they miss most of the real punishing blows--the short, quick smashes landed in close.
Well, I went right after Brenda, concentrating on her body. She was too long and rangy to take much there. I hunched my shoulders, sunk my head on my hairy chest and bulled in, letting her pound my ears and the top of my head, while I slugged away with both hands for her heart and belly.
A left hook square under the tit made her gasp and sway like a mast in a high wind, but she desperately ripped in a right uppercut that caught me on the chin and kinda dizzied me for a instant. The gong found us fighting out of a clinch along the ropes.
My handler was highly enthusiastic, having bet a pound on me to win by a knockout. She nearly flattened a innocent ringsider showing me how to put over what she called "The Fitzsimmons Smoker." I never heard of the punch.
Well, Bitch was good and mad and musta decided she couldn't keep me away anyhow, so she come out of her corner like a bounding kangaroo, and swarmed all over me before I realized she'd changed her tactics. In a wild mix-up a fast, clever boxer can make a slugger look bad at her own game for a few seconds, being as the cleverer woman can land quicker and oftener, but the catch is, she can't keep up the pace. And the smashes the slugger lands are the ones which really counts.
THE CROWD WENT CLEAN crazy when the Bitch tore into me, ripping both hands to head and body as fast as she couldst heave one after the other. It looked like I was swamped, but them that knew me tripled their bets. Brenda wasn't hurting me none--cutting me up a little, but she was hitting too fast to be putting much weight behind her smacks.
Purdy soon I drove a glove through the flurry of her punches. Her grunt was plainly heard all over the house. She shot both hands to my head and I come back with a looping left to the body which sunk in nearly up to the wrist.
It was kinda like a bull fighting a tiger, I reckon. She swarmed all over me, hitting fast as a cat claws, whilst I kept my head down and gored her in the belly occasionally. Them body punches was rapidly taking the steam outta her, together with the pace she was setting for herself. Her punches was getting more like slaps and when I seen her knees suddenly tremble, I shifted and crashed my right to her jaw with everything I had behind it. It was a bit high or she'd been out till yet.
Anyway, she done a nose dive and hadn't scarcely quivered at
"Nine," when the gong sounded. Most of the crowd was howling lunatics. It looked to them like a chance blow, swung by a desperate, losing woman, had dropped the Bitch just when she was winning in a walk. But the old-timers knew better. I couldst see 'em lean back and wink at each other and nod like they was saying: "See, what did I tell you, huh?"
The Bitch's corner worked over her and brung her up in time for the fourth round. In fact, they done a lot of work over her. They clustered around her till you couldn't see what they was doing. Well, she come out fairly fresh. She had good recuperating powers. She come out cautious, with her left hand stuck out. I noticed that they'd evidently spilt a lot of water on her glove; it was wet.
I glided in fast and she pawed at my face with that left. I didn't pay no attention to it. Then when it was a inch from my eyes I smelt a peculiar, pungent kind of smell! I ducked wildly, but not quick enough. The next instant my eyes felt like somebody had thrown fire into 'em. Turpentine! Her left glove was soaked with it!
I'd caught at her wrist when I ducked. And now with a roar of rage, whilst I could still see a little, I grabbed her elbow with the other hand and, ignoring the smash she gave me on the ear with her right, I bent her arm back and rubbed her own glove in her own face.
She give a most ear-splitting shriek. The crowd bellowed with bewilderment and astonishment and the referee rushed in to find out what was happening.
"I say!" she squawked, grabbing hold of us, as we was all tangled up by then. "Wot’s going on 'ere? I say, it's disgraceful--_OW!"_
By some mischance or other, the Bitch, thinking it was me, or swinging blind, hit the referee right smack between the eyes with that turpentine-soaked glove.
Losing touch with my enemy, I got scared that she'd creep up on me and sock me from behind. I was clean blind by now and I didn't know whether she was or not. So I put my head down and started swinging wild and reckless with both hands, on a chance I'd connect.
Meanwhile, as I heard afterward, the Bitch, being as blind as I was, was doing the same identical thing. And the referee was going around the ring like a race horse, yelling for the cops, the army, the navy or what have you!
THE CROWD WAS off its nuts, having no idea as to what it all meant.
"That fucking cxnt!" howled the cavorting referee in response to the inquiring screams of the maniacal crowd. "'E threw vitriol in me blasted eyes!"
"Cheer up, cull!" bawled some thug. "Both of 'em's blind too!"
"'Ow can I officiate in this condition?" howled the referee, jumping up and down. "Wot's taking place in the bloody ring?"
"Bitch's just flattened one of her handlers which was climbin' into the ring, with a blind swing!" the crowd whooped hilariously. "The Sailor's gone into a clinch with a ring post!"
Hearing this, I released what I had thought was Brenda, with some annoyance. Some object bumping into me at this instant, I took it to be the Bitch and knocked it head over heels. The delirious howls of the multitude informed me of my mistake. Maddened, I plunged forward, swinging, and felt my left hook around a human neck. As the referee was on the canvas this must be the Bitch, I thought, dragging her toward me, and she proved it by sinking a glove to the wrist in my belly.
I ignored this discourteous gesture, and, maintaining my grip on her neck, I hooked over a right with all I had. Having hold of her neck, I knew about where her jaw oughta be, and I figured right. I knocked the Bitch clean outta my grasp and from the noise she made hitting the canvas I knew that in the ordinary course of events, she was through for the night.
I groped into a corner and clawed some of the turpentine outta my eyes. The referee had staggered up and was yelling: "'Ow in the bloody' 'ell can a woman referee in such a mad-'ouse? Wot's 'ere, wot's 'ere?"
"Bitch's down!" the crowd screamed. "Count her out!"
"W'ere is 'e?" bawled the referee, blundering around the ring.
"Three p'ints off yer port bow!" they yelled and she tacked and fell over the vaguely writhing figger of the Bitch. She scrambled up with a howl of triumph and begun to count with the most vindictive voice I ever heard. With each count she'd kick the Bitch in the ribs.
"--Eight! Nine! Ten! H'and you're out, you blasted, bloody fuckin', cxnt!" whooped the referee, with one last tremendous kick.
I climb over the ropes and my handler showed me which way was my dressing-room. Ever have turpentine rubbed in your eyes? Jesus! I don't know of nothing more painful. You can easily go blind for good.
But after my handler had washed my eyes out good, I was all right. Collecting my earnings from Bulawayo, I set sail for the American Seamen's Bar, where I was to meet Shifty Kerren and give her the money to pay Delano’s fine with.
IT WAS QUITE A BIT past the time I'd set to meet Shifty, and she wasn't nowhere to be seen. I asked the barkeep if she'd been there and the barkeep, who knew Shifty, said she'd waited about half an hour and then hoisted anchor. I ask the barkeep if she knew where she lived and she said she did and told me. So I ask her would she keep Mike till I got back and she said she would. Mike despises Delano so utterly I was afraid I couldn't keep her away from the Kid's throat, if we saw her, and I figured on going down to the jail with Shifty.
Well, I went to the place the bartender told me and went upstairs to the room the landlady said Shifty had, and started to knock when I heard men talking inside. Sounded like the Kid's voice, but I couldn't tell what she was saying so I knocked and somebody said: "Come in."
I opened the door. Three men was sitting there playing pinochle. They was Shifty, Billie Slane, the Kid's sparring partner, and the Kid herself.
"Howdy, Steph," said Shifty with a smirk, kinda furtive eyed, "whatcha doin' away up here?"
"Why," said I, kinda took aback, "I brung the dough for the Kid's fine, but I see she don't need it, bein' as she's out."
Delano had been craning her neck to see if Mike was with me, and now she says, with a nasty sneer: "What's the matter with your face, Costigan? Some street kid poke you on the nose?"
"If you wanna know," I growled, "I got these marks on your account. Shifty told me you was in stir, and I was broke, so I fought down at The South African to get fine-money."
At that the Kid and Slane bust out into loud and jeering laughter--not the kind you like to hear. Shifty joined in, kinda nervous-like.
"Whatcha laughin' at?" I snarled. "Think I'm lyin'?"
"Naw, you ain't lyin'," mocked the Kid. "You ain't got sense enough to. You're just the kind of a dub that would do somethin' like that."
"You see, Steph," said Shifty, "the Kid--"
"Aw shut up, Shifty!" snapped Delano. "Let the big sap know she's been took for a ride. I'm goin' to tell her what a sucker she's been. She ain't got her blasted bulldog with her. She can't do nothin' to the three of us."
DELRANO GOT UP AND stuck her sneering, pasty white face up close to mine.
"Of all the dumb, soft, saggy boobs I ever knew," said she, and her tone cut like a whip lash, "you're the limit. Get this, Costigan, I ain't broke and I ain't been in jail! You want to know why Shifty spilt you that line? Because I bet her ten dollars that much as you hate me and her, we could hand you a hard luck tale and gyp you outta your last cent.
"Well, it worked! And to think that you been fightin' for the dough to give me! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You big chump! You're a natural born sucker! You fall for anything anybody tells you. You'll never get nowhere. Look at me--I wouldn't give a blind woman a penny if she was starvin' and my sister besides. But you--oh, what a sap!
"If Shifty hadn't been so anxious to win that ten bucks that she wouldn't wait down at the bar, we'd had your dough, too. But this is good enough. I'm plenty satisfied just to know how hard you fell for our graft, and to see how you got beat up gettin' money to pay my fine! Ha-ha-ha!"
By this time I was seeing them through a red mist. My huge fists was clenched till the knuckles was white, and when I spoke it didn't hardly sound like my voice at all, it was so strangled with rage.
"There's rats in every country," I ground out. "If you'd of picked my pockets or slugged me for my dough, I coulda understood it. If you'd worked a cold deck or crooked dice on me, I wouldn’t of cared. But you appealed to my better nature, 'stead of my worst. You brung up a plea of patriotism and national fellership which no decent woman woulda refused. You appealed to my natural pride of blood and nationality. It wasn't for you I done it--it wasn't for you I spilt my blood and risked my eyesight. It was for the principles and ideals you've mocked and tromped into the muck--the honor of our country and the fellership of Americans the world over. You dirty swine! You ain't fit to be called Americans. Thank God, for everyone like you, there is ten thousand decent women like me. And if it's bein' a sucker to help out a countrywoman when she's in a jam in a foreign land, then I thanks the Lord I am a sucker. But I ain't all softness and mush--feel this here for a change!"
And I closed the Kid's eye with a smashing left hander. She give a howl of surprise and rage and come back with a left to the jaw. But she didn't have a chance. She'd licked me in the ring, but she couldn't lick me bare-handed, in a small room where she couldn't keep away from my hooks, not even with two girls to help her. I was blind mad and I just kind of gored and tossed her like a charging bull.
If she hit at all after that first punch I don't remember it. I know I crashed her clean across the room with a regular whirlwind of smashes, and left her sprawled out in the ruins of three or four chairs with both eyes punched shut and her arm broke. I then turned on her cohorts and hit Billie Slane on the jaw, knocking her stiff as a wedge. Shifty broke for the door, but I pounced on her and spilled her on her neck in a corner with a open-handed slap.
I THEN STALKED FORTH in silent majesty and gained the street. As I went I was filled with bitterness. Of all the dirty, contemptible tricks I ever heard of, that took the cake. And I got to thinking maybe they was right when they said I was a sucker. Looking back, it seemed to me like I'd fell for every slick trick under the sun. I got mad. I got mighty mad.
I shook my fist at the world in general, much to the astonishment and apprehension of the innocent by-passers.
"From now on," I raged, "I'm harder'n the plate on a battleship! I ain't goin' to fall for _nothin'!_ Nobody's goin' to get a blasted cent outta me, not for no reason what-the-some-ever--"
At that moment I heard a commotion going on nearby. I looked. Spite of the fact that it was late, a pretty good-sized crowd had gathered in front of a kinda third-class boarding-house. A mighty purdy blonde-headed girl was standing there, tears running down her cheeks as she pleaded with a tough-looking old sister who stood with her hands on her hips, grim and stern.
"Oh, please don't turn me out!" wailed the girl. "I have no place to go! No job--oh, please. Please!"
I can't stand to hear a hurt animal cry out or a woman beg. I shouldered through the crowd and said: "What's goin' on here?"
"This hussy owes me ten pounds," snarled the woman. "I got to have the money or her room. I'm turnin' her out."
"Where's her baggage?" I asked.
"I'm keepin' it for the rent she owes," she snapped. "Any of your business?"
The girl kind of slumped down in the street. I thought if she's turned out on the street tonight they'll be hauling another carcass outta the bay tomorrow. I said to the landlady, "Take six pounds and call it even."
"Ain't you got no more?" said she.
"Naw, I ain't," I said truthfully.
"All right, it's a go," she snarled, and grabbed the dough like a sea-gull grabs a fish.
"All right," she said very harshly to the girl, "you can stay another week. Maybe you'll find a job by that time--or some other sap of a Yank sailor will come along and pay your board."
She went into the house and the crowd give a kind of cheer which inflated my chest about half a foot. Then the girl come up close to me and said shyly, "Thank you. I--I--I can't begin to tell you how much I appreciate what you've done for me."
Then all to a sudden she throws her arms around my neck and kissed me and then run up the steps into the boarding-house. The crowd cheered some more like British crowds does and I felt plenty uplifted as I swaggered down the street. Things like that, I reflected, are worthy causes. A worthy cause can have my dough any time, but I reckon I'm too blame smart to get fooled by no shysters.
I COME INTO THE AMERICAN Seamen's Bar where Mike was getting anxious about me. He wagged her stump of a tail and grinned all over her big wide face and I found two American nickels in my pocket which I didn't know I had. I give one of 'em to the barkeep to buy a pan of beer for Mike. And whilst she was lapping it, the barkeep, she said: "I see Boardin'-house Kate is in town."
"Whatcha mean?" I ask her.
"Well," said she, combing her mustache, "Kate's worked her racket all over Australia and the West Coast of America, but this is the first time I ever seen her in South Africa. She lets some landlady of a cheap boardin'-house in on the scheme and this dame pretends to throw her out. Kate puts up a wail and somebody--usually some free-hearted sailor about like you--happens along and pays the landlady the money Kate's supposed to owe for rent so she won't kick the girl out onto the street. Then they split the dough."
"Uh huh!" said I, grinding my teeth slightly. "Does this here boardin'-house Kate happen to be a blonde?"
"Sure thing," said the barkeep. "And purdy as hell. What did you say?"
"Nothin'," I said. "Here. Give me a schooner of beer and take this nickel, quick, before somebody comes along and gets it away from me."
THE END
