ORDER FOR FRUIT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 June 1939, Page 6

ORDER FOR FRUIT

AN INCIDENT IN CALLAO. TRUST THAT WAS NOT MISPLACED. This concerns an incident following a passage across the Pacific in a steamer that found herself short of bunker fuel and then of provisions. There was some blame of management to this, so we will omit the ship’s name. After an interminable passage, steaming at less than five knots, living on salted mea't and dried peas, \ye made the port of Callao, our bunkers swept, the wooden lining being broken down and fed under the boilers. This port was not our destination in the clearance papers, and technically would be described as “a port of distress.” As we were a distressed ship, everything would be high. There would be much dickering for coal from a Welsh four-masted bark lying in harbour, and provision dealers would beam hopefully on our necessity. Our sea-weary men looked toward the shore with longing eyes. Far in the distance we saw the white sunsplashed towers of Lima.

The captain ordered the swinging out of a lifeboat, manned by six seamen, and I was designated as coxswain. We rowed in hopefully to the mole. “Now, Mister, when I land,” he cautioned, “back off from the quay, well off. Remember, Mister, no one goes ashore.”

We put the skipper on the stone steps and saw him take a carriage with a rascally looking ship chandler already in attendance. I backed off the boat and we lay under a pelting sun. The harbour glistened like hot brass. Two Peruvian men o' war slumbered under their awnings.

To seaward was the lighthouse of San Lorenzo, so high up on the volcanic hill that mariners, making port at night, often mistook the lantern for a star, at times a disastrous mistake. The hot stone quay had been deserted, until a disreputable-looking fellpw came to the stone steps and called to us. It might be a message from the captain. I backed in. But no, a thin Spaniard wanted to talk. Had we a billet on board, for a fireman? He pleaded, with a smile. Once, so he said over and over, he had been a fireman in the Pacific Mail —a fellow countryman, after a fashipn.

“Say,” I called, “is there any fruit ashore?”

“Si, Senor,” He nodded his head vigorously. I backed the boat in, and passed the ragged man a crumpled five-dollar “Get me some fruit,” I said, “and be quick.” The boat crew seemed to doubt my sanity, looking at each other knowingly as the one-time fireman in the Pacific Mail steamed up the quay under forced draught. We waited, waited for several hours. All mention, or allusion to my five dollars, was taboo. I was inclined to be strict in my younger days. Then came the captain with the ship chandler and following them a cart. We put a half dozen goat carcasses into the boat, some sacks of dusty vegetables and several baskets of bread. While this was going on a second cart appearer, a larger cart, heaped with fruit. “Hi. you!” The skipper bellowed at the chandler. “I never ordered that. What’s the game?” But I saw my man, the one-time fireman or the great Pacific Mail. All smiles he sat on the cart, an enormous cart laden with mouth-watering fruit. “That's some stuff I bought sir,” I said apologetically. \ "Si ,senor Capitain. Thees ‘‘fruit ees for the mate.” I have never quite lost my faith in human honesty since that day in Callao. —Felix Riesenberg in the “Christian Science Monitor."