Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-12-22
FOUGHT HIS BROTHER

Recently read little ship news story
about couple of deep-sea shippers, broth
ers, who'd been trying to fix up a meeting
with each other for a good many years. y
said man who put in couple of cruises
man-owar's man in the United
States navy. THE brothers were Capt.
George Williamson Of the steam freighter
Anapa and Capt. Jack Williamson of the
steam freighter Sirocco. They'd been wind
jamming and steam-tramping 1t up and
down all the seas for years since their last
meeting with never chance to get close
enough together for cugger-mugger and
talk-it-over till their packets ran along
side Of each other by chance in New York
harbor the other day. Then they boarded
each other and had rare old paw-mauling
and back-slapping few minutes of 1t before
they had to throw off the parting lines and
sheer off from each other once more, prob
ably again for a long stretch of years
Reminded me OF brother incident that
came under my own observation. m
carrying around yet two or three little
ma rls of a big all-hands-around scrap in
which l was once forced to take my due
part down in Honolulu, good batch OF
years ago. 1 was CHIEF petty oncer on
man-o'-war lying In Honolulu harbor.
The British cruiser Wild Swan was lying
alongside of us. A big liberty party from
our packet happened to run into an equally
Dig liberty party Oh the iliIlC JdiSSAo - cha
the Wild Swan in the Chink and Jap district
of Honolulu one afternoon.
Both liberty parties, grieve to say, were
pretty middling drunk on saki and sWlpes
-swipes has got even saki backed on the
boards for malicious promptings-and the
punchfest that Immediately ensued wasn't
any the more dainty for that reason
Now. the best man we had in that melee
was gigantic gunner mate hameu 1--WE"
Halifax.
.'TRe yelping of the dogs of punching
war was just aeolian music to owen, VINO
loved fighting just for the pure sake AXE OF III II.
Owen cracked heads in that Honolulu fra
cas- until 1t really sounded as If he might
be playing the xylophone After walking
through whole lot of the Wild Swans
crew, however, as If they'd been spring on
ions a-prowing and standing still, Owen
struck snag-a very unusual thing for
him.
"rhe snag was Owens doppelganger:
When | first noticed that I figured that 1t
must be the saki. and that was seeing
double But. no. the red-haired giant VINO
played snag in Owens path had the British
uniform on, all right. with leading stok,
er's badge on his watch arm. But he looked
enough like our main man in the punch
fiesta to be Owen himself. or Owens twin
at the very least. ~
Owen. when he reached MIN, sa" tnat
the fellow who looked like his double WASH
going to be any snap, and so he went INTO
him Scientifically, covering himself with his
guard which caused his double to put up
his malllicS IN regular ring ldSliloil, loo.
nOwen won after about twenty minutes OF
the closest kind of a thing, and he was
pleasantly engaged in batting his doubles
head against the somewhat corrugated
trunk of young giant palm, when one VI
along and, seeing what was Transporting,
said: ,
".Cut that, Halifax. Can't you see the
mans had enough?'
che big man in Owens bearish grip was
pretty groggy, for a fact, but at the men
ton of our mans name an expression or
the most intense surprise. mingled with
cross-look of the keenest humiliation, ap-
peared on his battle-smeared face
Halifax. is it,? he gasped, looking with
strained gaze into the face of owen, VINO
still held him tightly and batted his head
against the royal palm every once in a
while Just to keep his hand in. Allfax
says the bloody MILDLY. Ell? Blime me, If e
isn't me bloomin' brother, Howen 'Alifax.
owen in his turn, took a good look into
the others face then, and his grip on the
other man momentarily reaxed ever so III
tie.
So me buckle, yere lem Halifax Halifax are
That's me bloomin' nyme, stroke me
dead, ye' Yankee lubber, an .ye're me
bloomin' brother" gasped the Britisher, for
Owen had the mans neckerch1ef pulled
pretty taut around his Adams apple.
well tn nearer tn Klth tn better tn
biff, says Owen, grinning right merrily.
and he banged his brother Jem's red head
pam.
",Then the maddened Jem pulled out OF
Owens grasp, and they went at 1t again,
rough and tumble, and Owen had to con-
quer his brother-his twin brother. at that
all over again. our little ensign hiking off
down the road SOS to pretend that he
hadn't seen anything.
The battle over there was foregatherng
and saki-ing up between the two crews,
American and British, and Owen and his
twin brother Jem got together and had
pretty decent time of it for the remainder
of the liberty.
''They hadn't seen each other for twenty
two years and neither knew that the other
was alive till they'd made that afternoon in
Honolulu, in the shade of the palms, bang
ing away at each other in sailors swat
soiree. Jem, the Britisher, had drifted into
the British navy from the merchant ma
rine and from the same service our man
Owen had shipped in the American navy
eighteen years before, and had become thor
oughly AmericaniZed.
Il can see those twins yet. their faces all
smeared with the CRIME of conflict, and
their uniforms in tatters, sitting in the back
room Of Jim Dodd's Honolulu gin mill,
cracking bottles of imported ale at four bits
the bottle, noisiiy sea-lawyering as to the
merits of their respective services, and
more quietly asking questions of each other
about the remnants of the Halifax family
back in the little English seaport town."