Weeks later the Crimson Glory was cutting through the Pacific like the proudest of eagles, soaring beneath a bright blue sky with a full spread of canvas and bloated sails. Some crew were busying themselves dangerously in the rigging, others laboring on deck assisted by adventuresome members of the Princeton Rugby Club. By now the crew and the Princeton boys had bonded into one company, becoming a sailing team Captain Buckmaster occasionally referred to as the Bungling Back East Gang.  Noting that both his crew and all of the Wellington party were Easterners but for himself, a product of Oregon, and Jonesy who originated in California.

      Even Bart had overcome his initial spell of nauseating seasickness and constant stomach-churning regurgitation to master the basic chores of seamanship, his favorite of course, ringing the ship’s bell. As he expressed to his contemporaries at this days early meal setting in the ship’s mess, “I’m beginning to understand the lore and adventure of the sea but damn if I wouldn’t care to put down a decent meal topped off with my grandmother’s own bread pudding.”

      He was swiftly whacked on the back of the head with a large wooden spoon, Jonesy’s favorite utensil and weapon of choice.

      “You have bread pudding for a brain,” said an unappreciated Jonesy, leaving all present to make a mental note not to criticize the little man’s cooking. At least not while he was around.

      “Not so,” one of the boys informed Jonesy. Mr. Haile here is considered to be a near genius. The academic pride of Princeton.”

      “Umf,” responded an unimpressed Jonesy. “You’d never know it judging by his language skills.”

       Following the morning meal in question, Stanley, Bart, Captain Buckmaster, Chrisfield, and a few others remained in the ship’s mess. Stanley and the Captain were huddled over the old map, comparing it with the current charts of the day. The map was composed mostly of a rough likeness of the island along with its coordinates in longitude and latitude.

      “What do you estimate our arrival time to be then,” Stanley asked of the Captain.

      “I’d say a week. Maybe less. Depending on the winds and how true this map of yours is. But I suggest we put in for supplies before we get there,” recommended the Captain. “We’ve enough to hold us over but since our stay will be indefinite and we’re not sure what we’ll find or if we’ll even find the island...”

      “Re-supply. Where do you recommend?” asked Stanley.

      “Sumatra maybe or better yet here, New Guinea,” answered the Captain, pointing to a point on the map. “There’s a port there that’s adequate for our needs and it won’t take us far off our course. And they’re not the kind of folks to ask questions. After which we can run the islands and round Sumatra then it‘s all pretty much strait sailing.”

      Stanley looked over his shoulder to Bart who caught both his glance and meaning. Both recalled the old sailor’s tale about New Guinea and Borneo.

      “Why not Borneo? I hear they have a real spiffy jail,” offered Bart sarcastically.

      “Not practical,” answered the Captain, Bart‘s comment evading him.

      “Right,” agreed Bart.

      “Now, this island of yours,” continued Captain Buckmaster. “There’s no guarantee it even exists. Though I’ve heard a few bar room tales over the years. About a cursed island with some kind of monster. Hear the legend even turned into some silly Hollywood picture show. Always wrote it off as sailor’s bilge myself. Until I read your map that is. I‘ve seen a few of these old Portuguese maps over the years and I‘d say this one’s legitimate.”

      “Oh, then you read Portuguese?” asked Stanley.

      “No, not hardly. I had Jonesy read it.”

      “Jonesy. The cook?”

      "Sure," said the Captain as a matter of fact. "Jonesey's a rhodes Scholar. Um, Oxford, twenty-seven I believe. Speak more languages than a Libyan trader."

      Everyone in the room caught the Captain’s words and grew silent in disbelief.

      “Now, about your cargo. I think it’s time your boys were introduced and familiarized with it,” suggested the Captain. “In case they may need some of it. Can’t be too careful in this part of the world you know.”

      “Agreed,” said Stanley. “But after New Guinea. No sense in asking for trouble.”

      “Very well.”

      “What do you make our time to port then?” asked Stanley.

      “Better part of a day or two, or into a third. Then a day to take on supplies.”

      Just then Jonesy entered the mess with a pot of fresh coffee. They all turned and stared at him with new found respect.  Jonesy paused and stared back.

      “What?” he asked. “What’s wrong? You don‘t like my coffee?”

      They continued to stare in surprised silent astonishment of their newly revealed resident Rhodes Scholar. Jonesy set the coffee down then turned and mumbled in Chinese something about crazy ass white men as he exited the room.

      “A Rhodes Scholar?” said Bart.

      “Crazy ass white men,” repeated Jonesy.

       It was a bustling little frontier kind of port, New Guinea style. Wild in its own way but inviting if you were capable of self-preservation. Moored along the docks were ships of various kinds and sizes including the Crimson Glory and a rusty ill kept Greek tramp steamer nearby named the Ictinus.

      Captain Buckmaster laid a careful eye on both his ship and the dock as he roamed the Crimson Glory’s deck. He was also closely observing the supplies being brought aboard by his crew.

      “Make haste there men? We sail the tide in two hours,” he said as he checked his pocket watch. He looked down on the dock where he spied the crewman they had all come to know simply as, Irish.

      “You there, Irish.”

      Irish paused, a wooden crate on his shoulders, and looked up to the Captain.

      “Aye Skipper?”

      “You best go and gather up Wellington’s boys. Two hours mind you. We sail in two hours time.”

      “Aye Skipper,” Irish acknowledged as he passed the crate to another crewman and set off up the dock and into the nearby town.

      The port town was buzzing with a mix of nationalities hocking their wares or buying others.  Islanders, Europeans, Eastern, Middle Eastern, Oriental, even some native head hunter cannibals had come out of the frontier woodwork for some limited urbanizing. Through all of this ethnic mix wandered Irish in search of Wellington’s wayward rugby boys. During his wandering he eventually came to pass a produce stand at which he saw little Jonesy picking through a pile of strange and peculiar food and adding it to his basket, all the while arguing in some unfamiliar foreign language with the food stand’s highly animated vendor.

      “Yeah, yeah. So’s your mother,” declared Jonesy in English as he flipped the vendor a coin and walked away.

      Irish laughed at Jonesy’s lack of diplomacy then paused in the middle of the crowded street and listened tentatively. Ah hah, he thought as he turned to discover a nearby bar around a corner from which came the sound of young men chanting a college fight song.

       “In Princeton town we’ve got a team that knows the way to play.

      With Princeton spirit back of them, they’re sure to win the day.

      With cheers and song we’ll rally ‘round the cannon as of yore.

      And Nassau’s walls will echo with the Princeton Tiger’s roar.”

       “Not quite up to Irish standards,” Irish said to himself. “But a tune is a tune and that sounds like our boys.”

      He followed the noise as well as his nose to the drinking establishment, paused at the threshold confirming the chanting was in English and was indeed his lost boys, then entered to discover a spacious, if not cavernous, old place in which there had probably been served a million shots to a million sailors on a million nights with a whore house above and a shanghai business on the side. A place where legends were made and lies had been told, a true place of true ill repute. In the center of what passed as a dance floor Irish found the rugby boys, all fourteen of them, bent over in an interlocking intoxicated unsteady rugby scrummage chanting their fight song and looking more foolish than any of the million who had ever come before.

      Irish checked the old clock on the wall, determining he had just enough time to quench that nagging bit of dryness in back of his throat. He then sauntered over to the long bar and ordered a whisky. Receiving his drink, he turned, raised the glass to his American comrades and saluted them with a bit of his impromptu homegrown poetry.

      “There once was a girl in New Guinea, who unlike Gaelic mums was quite skinny.  But once on me lap…”

      Irish paused briefly when he spied at the door and entering the bar the ill kept crew of the ill kept Greek tramp steamer, all appearing to be ill tempered, ugly and thirsty. He continued his prose with caution.

      “But once on me lap, a bit of this led to that, and she soon became…”

      The Greeks wondered in, took a gander at the circle of upturned Ivy League asses and began to chuckle, spelling imminent trouble and causing Irish to discontinue his doggerel.

      “What’s this?” observed a bristle faced burly Greek sailor, in Greek of course.

      “I think maybe a bunch of clucking hens,” answered another.

      The Greeks all laughed and began clucking like chickens.  The burly one walked over to one of the upturned asses, inspected it humorously, then placed a hand on each cheek.

      “The last time I saw a clucking hen like this I made her sing like a rooster,” he laughed, looking at his fellow shipmates and patting the upturned ass as he would that of a sumptuous woman.

      The Greek sailors roared with laughter. When the burly one turned back, the ass in question rose and turned and he found himself facing a very large and unimpressed Big Tiny Braxton who held a rugby ball in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.

      Irish forgot his poetry, quickly downed his whisky and drew a cross on his chest.

      “May the saints have mercy on our souls and our sins upcoming never be told,” he prayed to himself.

      Big Tiny offered the Greek a smile, who smiled in return and upon seeing the rugby ball, took it and held it up for all to see.

      “Oh look!  Our hen has laid an egg,” he declared.

      The crew of the Ictinus exploded with insulting laughter and the affronting burly Greek turned back to face Big Tiny who continued to smile, seemingly enjoying the joke. Big Tiny then politely took back the ball, handed the bottle of beer to the Greek, spun the ball on the index finger of his left hand and while the Greek focused on the spinning ball, Big Tiny nailed him with a powerful right cross, sending him across the room and into the rest of the Ictinus crew.

      The commotion brought the rest of the rugby boys to their senses, causing them to break apart and rise to investigate. In doing so they exposed a near naked girl standing bewildered in the center of their circle. Angered and quick tempered, the Greeks retaliated and, as they say, all hell broke loose, bringing everyone to beat on everyone except for a very inebriated Bart Haile who remained holding his position in the circle until he finally realized he was alone. When he rose, a flying Greek sailed over his head and crashed against the wall. The girl screamed and scurried off leaving a bewildered Bart to turn and squint at the battered man lying in a heap at his feet.

      “Do I know you?” slurred a drunken Bart.

      The Greek could only moan in return.

      “Hmf, a snob eh,” replied Bart. “Must be a damn Yalie.”

      It was a colorful and classic bar fight. Chairs flew, bodies flew, tables flew, chairs broke, bodies broke, tables broke, Big Tiny knocked heads, a wily Chrisfield threw traditional boxing jabs and then of course there was Irish on top of the bar, a bottle in each hand, dancing a jig so enthusiastically one could almost hear the bagpipes. Irish danced from one end of the bar to the other all the while crowning one Greek after another with a bottle but not, of course, without first sampling the bottle’s contents.

      Then suddenly, from out of nowhere came a loud penetrating two-fingered whistle and an announcement stating clearly and fluently in Greek -

      “ATTENTION CREW OF THE ICTINUS.  YOUR SHIP IS ON FIRE!”

      The fighting Greeks froze.

      “Fire? Fire? FIRE!” they shouted in a panic as they snatched up their near dead and bleeding wounded and hurried from the bar to go to the aid of their vessel.

      The rugby boys of the Crimson Glory, the Princeton segment of the Bungling Back East Gang, stood huffing, puffing and battered but not defeated. All eyes turned to discover Jonesy standing by the door with his basket of strange food. Big Tiny wiped his nose clear of blood, looked up and questioned the little Chinese cook.

      “What the hell did you say to them?”

      “I told them you were escaped Siberian blood sucking leprous ridden psychotics who have sex with animals and Greek sailors,” smiled Jonesy.

      They all offered Jonesy a tired drunken smile and began nursing their wounds. Bart swaggered up to and leaned on the bar. Behind him plopped down a victorious Irish with a fresh bottle of whisky.

      “Yalies,” stated Bart in triumphant disdain.

      “Absolutely,” agreed Irish.