Stomach Cramps

It was Willem first, the stoker, with his forearms like a spar, who returned his morning ration to the water off the yard, and he laughed about it after, and we laughed about it too — for a man works down in boiler heat, it's what the heat will do.

Then the cook declined his own fare, which we counted as a jest, and the galley boy slept fourteen hours and woke up unrefreshed, and the second engineer came up complaining of his head, and the sun was its own argument for everything they said.

It's the heat, it's the heat, it's the long days lying still upon the sea. It's the heat, it's the heat — it'll pass, it'll pass, let it be.

Now I've kept the log unblemished, every heading, every knot, and I've written down the weather, and the weather's what we've got: a flat sea and a high glass and no reason under sun that a quarter of the watch-bill should be moving like they run

on some slower kind of clockwork, like their springs were winding down, like the ship had grown a gravity that pulled at every man — but I logged it as the climate, for the climate stood to blame, and a log wants only causes it can carry in a name.

It's the heat, it's the heat, it's the long days lying still upon the sea. It's the heat, it's the heat — it'll pass, it'll pass, let it be.

And you'll forgive me — I'll be plainer. You have asked me to be plain. There was nothing you could point to. There was nothing like a stain. There was only men diminishing by fractions, day on day, in the manner of a candle, which is slow, and gives no smoke, and is high enough above you that you never smell the burning of the wick.

I had meant to write more fully of the color of the strait, of the birds that follow rigging, but the hour's grown late, and there's men on double watches now, and gaps along the rail. All's well. The weather's holding. I will finish this tomorrow if I can.

It's the heat, it's the heat, it's the long days lying still upon the sea. It's the heat, it's the heat. It's the heat.