"Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was found gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by several of her company; especially by Radney the mate. He commanded the upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a coward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or on sea that you can conveniently gentlemen. Therefore when he betrayed this imagine, solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the seamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner in her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water; clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen- that bubbling from the pumps ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at the lee scupper-holes.
"Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ours- watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he had a chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower, and make a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may, gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled housings of your last viceroy's snorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, and a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he been born son to Charlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it.
"Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with his gay banterings.
"'Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this; hold a cannikin, one of ye, and let's have a taste. By the Lord, it's worth bottling! I tell ye what, men, old Rad's investment must go for it! he had best cut away his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that sword-fish only began the job; he's come back again with a gang of ship-carpenters, saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole posse of 'em are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom; making improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jump overboard and scatter They're playing the devil with his estate, I can tell him. But he's a simple old soul,- Rad, and a beauty too. Boys, they say the rest of his property is invested in looking-glasses. I wonder if he'd give a poor devil like me the model of his nose.'
"'Damn your eyes! what's that pump stopping for?' roared Radney, pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder away at it!'
'Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. 'Lively, boys, lively, now!' And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines; the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping of the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life's utmost energies.
"Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig to run at large.
"Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of household work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys, if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all these particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair stood between the two men.
"But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will understand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully comprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat still for a moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate's malignant eye and perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-match silently burning along towards them; as he instinctively saw all this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper passionateness in any already ireful being- a repugnance most felt, when felt at all, by really valiant men even when aggrieved- this nameless phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt.
"Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping the deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then, without at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads, as the customary sweepers; who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done little or nothing all day. To this, Radney replied, with an oath, in a most domineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his command; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an unlifted cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near by.
"Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt could but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still smothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the hammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do his bidding.
I will say that I am very familiar with the kind of pissing contest that Melville describes in this passage. When I was a teenager, my father insisted I go on plumbing service calls with him or my older brothers. I understood my father's motivation. He wanted to pass along his trade to me--give me some knowledge that I could use to support myself. I appreciated that paternal impulse.
However, being under the thumb of an older brother can sometimes lead to disagreements. These disagreements often take on the guise of boot camp humiliations. I was subjected to a kind of brotherly hazing that I didn't always appreciate. I understood, as a plumber's apprentice, that I had to follow my brothers' directions. Sometimes, as it does with Radney in the passage above, this power turned a brother into an asshole.
For example, one day when I was about fourteen or fifteen, I was working in a basement with one of my brothers. My job was to hand him tools, light propane torches, and run out to the service truck for supplies. As I recall, we were replacing a section of leaking waterline for the owner. The owner was standing by my brother, having a conversation.
The brother with whom I was working was never very patient. He sometimes enjoyed making me look stupid in front of customers. That afternoon, he asked me to dig through a bucket of copper fittings to find a 45. ("45" was short for a fitting that allowed two pieces of copper pipe to be joined at a 45-degree angle.)
I began rummaging through the bucket, pushing aside all the different fittings, looking for a 45. I pushed and rummaged, dug and rummaged some more. I couldn't find a 45, and I began to get a little panicked, because my brother had quite a short fuse. After about two or three minutes of searching, I heard my brother snort like a bull and walk over to me.
"What are you, stupid?!" he said. He took the bucket of fittings and spilled them out on the floor. He kicked through the fittings with his toe for a second, reached down, and picked up a 45. He held it up in front of my face. "Here it is, dumbass." And he turned back to his work.
I was young, but that afternoon, I just didn't feel like taking my brother's abuse. So, without saying a word, I turned, walked up the stairs and out of the house. I climbed into the service truck, closed the door, and stayed there for the rest of the job. I didn't help my brother carry his equipment out of the basement. Didn't help him gather up the copper fittings he had scattered across the basement floor.
At one point, as he was stowing a toolbox back in the truck, he said, "I could use some help here."
Quietly, without looking back at him, I said, "Go fuck yourself."
I was expecting a fist to slam into the back of my head. Instead, my brother closed the door of the truck and walked back into the basement to finish getting his stuff.
For the rest of the day, job after job, I simply sat in the truck and refused to help him. Instead, I read the book I had brought along. If I remember correctly, it was The Catcher in the Rye.
I won the pissing contest that day.
Saint Marty is thankful tonight for people who stand up to bullies.
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