Voyage Seven
Roger W. Young - Page 1
I wasn't home long before I had another ship, the Motor Vessel Roger W. Young, a brand new C-1-M-AV1 cargo ship out of Houston. Now what was strange about this cruise was that the Captain, a guy named John Ray, had come into the SIU hall and asked "One-eyed" Wallace to put together a hard-drinking and hard-fighting crew. Seems the rumor was that this Captain Ray fancied himself quite a drinker and brawler. Well, Wallace obliged him and it turned out to be one hell of a crew
I signed on as a wiper and Buddy Jordan, who I had just shipped with, was one of the oilers. Buddy was a big kid, a little younger than me. He was kind of peculiar and didn't get along with many people, though we always got along fine. Buddy liked to drink and he liked to fight. He would take a dislike to someone and he'd pick at them and keep after them until he would force them to fight. If you got into a fight, Buddy was a good one to have fighting with you.
We loaded three hatches of food stuffs as I recall and took it down to Cuba. It was a shake-down cruise, a quick trip out and back. We went to Puerto Tarafa just out of Nuevitas, Cuba, on the north coast of the island. We were there about four days, from February 16th until the 20th of 1945. The people were friendly and the place was wide open. I didn't see any of the rationing of things like back home or in Europe. They seemed to have plenty of everything in Cuba and it was cheap. The women were beautiful and the bars were nice with orchestras and all.
Now this Captain Ray wanted a crew of brawlers and that's what he got. We stayed drunk and there were lots of fights. Several of the crew ended up in the local jail. Ray had a hell of a time rounding up the crew so that we could get off when it was time to sail. And coming back there were fights all over the ship. Man, that was a rough bunch.
I had words with one of the engineers that almost came to blows and I walked off watch. He reported me to the Captain. The Chief Mate came to my foc's'le and told me to get my ass down into the engine room and he told me that the Captain was docking my pay five for one. I told him to screw that, in that case I refused to work. I said I wasn't going to work five days for a day's pay. Hell, I said that I'd just ride her back as a passenger. The Mate went up and told the Captain and then came back to say that if I would get back to work right away he wouldn't dock me anything at all. I didn't make any money off that trip anyway. When we got back to New Orleans I had to wire Della to send me enough money to get home. I had taken draws on my pay and had already spent everything in Cuba and on the voyage down and back.
I think that it was on that voyage to Cuba that Buddy Jordan got into a fight with another big guy. It was a brawl like the ones they stage in the movies. They fought up and down the deck and rolled around on the deck plates. They must have went at it for more than half an hour. Finally both were on their knees and so worn out in the end that neither could raise their arms to swing any more.