At the Midway by J. Clayton Rogers

funnels, the black man seemed merely a vestige of the past.  Appearance was everything, and everything was white.
    The day after learning of the admiral's order, Amos had received his Clothing and Small Store Requisition: watch cap, pancake cap, cap-ribbon; two sets of heavy underwear, two white jumpers and trousers, two white hats, a heavy blue overcoat, a blue overshirt, blue trousers, six pairs of wool socks, six pairs of cotton; a pair of high shoes, bathing trunks, leggings, a silk neckerchief, two towels, two wool blankets; a scrub brush, shoe brush and whisk broom; soap, assorted buttons, needles, thread, and white clothes-stops for putting it all into a few compact rolls.  The Navy made a big to-do over the fact that this was given the men gratis.  But the bare truth was that this was the kit of an ordinary seaman.
    He needed a break from the young, innocent faces of the midshipmen in the junior officers' mess, so he went to the chief cook, an ancient black who always looked as though he were about to fall asleep, but who in fact possessed a stunning reservoir of energy.  He had to.  Overseeing the preparation of three huge meals a day demanded the most out of a man, if he wasn't to be met by the galley.
    "I'll take the slop," Amos told him, nodding at a couple of pails.
    The cook nodded wordlessly.  The story of Midshipman Beck and his coffee had already circulated back to the galley and scullery.  It was not surprising Macklin wanted to get away for a spell.
    Opening the galley hatchway, Amos was relieved to find a stiff breeze coming in off the port beam, hitting him directly in the face.  He would have to walk all the way around the superstructure and the aft turrets so that he could empty the buckets to starboard.  He'd been in the Navy too long to perpetuate the novice trick of throwing scraps into the wind--with a faceful of muck as the result.
    This little chore would take him at least ten minutes--more if he could dally convincingly.  With luck, he would not have to face Beck again until breakfast.
    It was dark, but Amos could see the Minnesota and the Ohio from the hatchway.  Their running lights glowed eerily in the light fog, like the globe lamps Amos had once seen on a misty street in Liverpool.  Ardois lights winked continuously, like insomniac insects.  Foggy tentacles reached out and grasped for the bridge and the brightwork.  One of them chucked Amos on the chin, and he shivered.  This was one of those uneasy nights when the world seemed set to grab you.  Perhaps this hadn't been such a good idea, after all.  Come to think of it, he could finish this task in five minutes, tops.  The tall ventilator funnels moaned, as if to hurry him on his way.
    He had taken only a few steps when he heard a man sobbing.  Resting the buckets on the deck, he peered into the darkness under one of the lifeboats.  It took him several seconds to make out the man prone beneath it--several seconds more to recognize him.
    "Gilroy?  That you?"
    The man did not answer.  The sobbing continued, only now Amos realized he was not crying.  He was suffocating, fighting for air.
    Even in daylight recognizing Gilroy would have been difficult.  His face was darker than Macklin's, yet he was a white man.  He was part of the Artificer Branch, a Fireman Second Class--one of the 'black crew'.  This was the group that lived and worked in the bowels of the ship, along with the stokers and engineers and coal passers.  The members of the black crew were the only white men Amos ever felt sorry for.
    Looking across at the Minnesota , he noted the water surging up around its armor belt.  For the first leg of their journey, Admiral Evans had ordered that a speed of eleven knots be maintained.  From Virginia to the Caribbean, no variation would be allowed.  The voyage had hardly begun, and already the schedule was tight.  At flank speed the Florida could manage 16.2 knots - - the slowest in the Fleet. These were spurts