Spooked


When our elderly English deckhand Jimmy slipped
on iron deck, bumped his head on the railing and died,
his demise shocked the young who didn’t know that
the claw of death could strike that fast.

We rolled Jimmy in a blue sheet (white beddings for
the officers and blue for the crew) and put him in
the ship’s meat freezer so small that his body was
rubbing up against carcasses of New Zealand lamb.

The cook next day came up from the storeroom, white
in face, claiming Jimmy sat there with a blanket over
his shoulders complaining that he was cold; and yes,
he had been seen on deck too just wandering about.

Twenty two, mostly young, men were now thoroughly
spooked by an elderly dead deckhand and we still had
a three weeks voyage before reaching port, where we
may not be allowed to bury him ashore.

Burial at sea, to everyone’s relief, bits of iron fastened
to his body, the captain read something from the bible,
Jimmy’s body lowered into the water with a splash and
horror struck we saw it sink very slowly