But he was surprised that Canidy was afraid, and even more surprised that he would admit it. Now that he thought about it, it probably explained why Canidy had been drinking so much.
“I’ve heard a lot about Fisherman’s Wharf,” Canidy said. “What do you say we go have a look at it?” it was a plea, Bitter realized.
“What do we do about the hotel?”
“The ship sails at midnight. We go there at eleven,” Canidy said.
Ed Bitter wanted to do what he had been told to do, go to the hotel. But the prospect of sitting around a hotel room, reading magazines as if waiting for the dentist, now seemed as unpleasant to him as it did to Canidy.
He found a rationalization to go with Canidy: It was unlikely that Canidy would get so drunk that he would forget time and miss ship. But it was a possibility, especially if he was alone. It was his duty to go with him, to keep him out of trouble.
“What the hell Bitter said finally.
There was gratitude in Canidy’s eyes. Bitter was touched by it. He had another thought. Canidy was really his friend. He was damned glad Canidy was going with him to China. Going alone would have been very difficult, far more frightening.
At II: 15 they took a taxi to the Jan Suvit, the steamer that was to carry them to Asia.
The steward came to their cabin early in the morning with tea on a tray and told them breakfast would be served in half an hour. Canidy beat Bitter to their shower, and when Bitter came out, he saw that Canidy was wearing khakis, so he took khakis from his suitcase too.
They made their way through the passageways to the dining saion and took a table under a porthole near the door. The porthole was open, but Bitter noticed that the glass had been painted black.
Two large, ruddy men in their forties, wearing ill-fitting business suits, came to the door and stood there uncomfortably. Canidy glanced up at them, then away, and then back again. He knew one of them from Pensacola.
“Sit down with us, why don’t you, Chief?” he called out.
The heavier of the two men looked at him, frowning, and then smiled.
“Hey, Mr. Canidy,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d joined the Chinese Navy.” He walked to Canidy, gave him his hand, and sat down.
“Chief, do you remember Mr. Bitter?”
:,Yes, sir. How are you, Mr. Bitter?” ex-Chief Petty Officer John B. Dolan said, and gave Bitter his hand. “I don’t think you know Chief Finley. He just came off the Saratoga.”
They shook hands.
“I don’t suppose they have a chief’s mess aboard this thing, do they?” the chief said as a white-jacketed steward turned Dolan’s coffee cup over and filled it.
“I guess you’ll have to put up with this” Canidy said.
“I was a China sailor years ago Chief Dolan said, “before I signed over to aviation. You can quickly learn to like being waited on like this.”
Bitter had by then recognized the chief as a chief aviation machinist’s mate who had also been stationed at Pensacola NAS. He was a little embarrassed at not having thought that they would require maintenance and other ground personnel, and that enlisted men as well as officer pilots would have been recruited. He was a little uneasy sitting with enlisted men.
The steward returned with a hand-lettered menu. The variety was impressive, and the food, later, was delicious.
When they had just about finished eating, a man who looked to be in charge rapped his water pitcher with the handle of his knife.
“Gentlemen he said. “May I have your attention, please?”
There was a shuffling of chairs as people turned around so they could sit facing him.
“My name is Perry Crookshanks,” the man said. “And I signed on as a squadron commander. I’m the skipper, in other words. And I have some bad news-which is that this is not a pleasure trip. We’ll be at sea for a long time, and all you splendid physical specimens would be piles of blubber with all food and no exercise. So there will be PT every morning for thirty minutes before breakfast, and again at half past two, before you start your drinking. I expect to see everybody there, wearing shorts and a smile.”