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the shrimper, climbed aboard, and asked the captain if he would donate a bucket of shrimp to the crew of the BUSTER. Not an unusual request, just a return for a favor because many times we had pulled a lugger into deep water after it had run aground in fog. The captain told me I'd have to ask the factory manager for shrimp because the shrimp had been sold. I was a bit dejected about this, and started to leave when two little boys passed me running, the larger one chasing the smaller one around the deck of the big lugger. I cried out, "Better get those kids ashore!" The words were not out of my mouth when the little fellow, about six years old, lost his balance and tumbled over the side into twenty feet of water. Quick as a flash I dove overboard and under the lugger. I opened my eyes and saw a little leg kicking. I grabbed an ankle with my left hand and began to swim against the strong current. When we got free of the boat I hugged a wharf piling with my right arm and hooked my right leg around it, then I lifted the little ankle as high as possible and a crew of the shrimper pulled the boy head down from the water. I climbed back on deck and was sitting on the hatch combing, trying to get my wind, when someone said, "Look at all that blood." I looked down and saw that my right hand, forearm, and leg was lacerated by the barnacles on the piling. As I got up to leave, I heard the captain say, "Fill that bucket with shrimp and put it in the man's pirogue." I learned later that the little boy I saved was the captain's son. After I gave the shrimp to Louis, our deck hand and cook, I went up to Fuller's office and asked Ed Keller to doctor my wounds. Ed was Fuller's office manager and a real gentleman. I could not help remarking that things were getting mighty tough when a man had to save a life in order to eat! Little did I know at the time how tough things could really get!
Blackie and I were having a cup of coffee one morning when Fuller's chief engineer, Guy Courter, came aboard and asked if we had any diving equipment on the BUSTER. Blackie answered in the affirmative. Guy asked what we would charge to cut off five temporary piling below the mud line. Blackie looked at me, winked, and told Courter we would remove all five piling for $100.00. Guy knew that divers earned no less than $50.00 per hour, so he asked how long it would take to complete the job. Blackie
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answered, "Two hours." We shook hands after Blackie told Courter to have the hundred on the center-pier early next morning. On the way out to the center-pier, Blackie told me his plan. Louis and I rigged a three-inch hawser with a one-inch steel cable and a loop at the cable's end. We allowed about sixty feet and fastened the hawser to the tow bit. Blackie swung the BUSTER around and backed into one of the pilings. Louis and I placed the loop around the piling and Blackie gave Macon Crawford, our engineer, a bell and a jingle (full speed ahead) and the piling broke off about six feet below the mud line. We repeated the maneuver four more times and the job was completed in thirty minutes! We tied up alongside the center-pier and Blackie collected our money from a sheepish looking Courter. We split the money four ways and lived well for awhile.
Two weeks later Bill Moore came by with enough money to pay us up to date and he issued orders to tow all his equipment to Morgan City, then take the BUSTER and one barge on to Beaumont, Texas. Bill also brought supplies for the trip. Six days later we pulled into Morgan City. We tied the big driver and two barges loaded with equipment up at a dock on the Atchafalaya River, then headed for Beaumont with the last barge.
Just after we entered the Neches River, not too far from Beaumont, our stern bearing went out and we began taking on water so fast it took both our bilge pump and our deck pump to keep us afloat! When we reached White's shipyard we were lucky enough to find a Ways big enough to handle the BUSTER (she was 65 feet long). We got the bearing off and had it rebabbited. This took several days so we cleaned and painted the bottom of the tug. Mr. White put us back into the river but attached the BUSTER for the haulout debt. We called Bill at his office in Texas City but he told us we would have to sit tight until he raised some more money. We were beginning to run short of food again, so I decided to catch a freight back to New Orleans which would leave one less mouth to feed. I did, however, sign on a ship bound for British Honduras, but when I walked back to the oiler's forecastle with my bag I found two Jamaican Negroes sleeping off a drunk, so I walked back to the salon deck, found the captain and quit! Next morning I caught a Southern Pacific freight train. Before I caught
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