Refiner's Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

spoke as waves of white rolled and battered the ship in a night hour in the Mediterranean. His plan was quite complicated and quite correct.
    â€œFirst, I want the census to be analyzed. Separate the people into those who can effect the skills they claim, and those who cannot. Appoint one able man for each twenty-five who are incapacitated. He will be their captain, and he will drill them in lifeboat procedure, response to instructions in English, etc., etc.
    â€œAs for the rest, they are the heart of the matter. I want you to pay particular attention to athletes and strong workers. They will be put in the combat sections. Welders, mechanics, engineers, smiths, tinkers, will form a technical section. I want four translators who are proficient in our five main languages. Appoint five cooks. It would be best if they were professionals, but it doesn’t really matter, since what we eat is important but how it tastes is not.
    â€œAt the proper moment, about three in five of the engineering force will transfer to combat. The rest will be damage controllers. I want a medical staff of at least five, and one man, preferably an entertainer, to play records and to talk over the public address system. Oh yes, if there are enough musicians and musical instruments aboard, I want a little orchestra. It will change everything, as you will see if it materializes. When combat isn’t drilling it will labor for engineering. Anyone who is double or triple qualified will do double work. But there will be priorities. First is engineering and technical; second, combat. The rest, even.
    â€œBefore tomorrow, I want two things. First, five of you will circulate among all the people to wake them up and tell them that we are going to fight the British. Second, another five will do a competent analysis of the census in light of what I have just told you.
    â€œRemember, when you awaken someone in the middle of the sea, you are awakening him from a state of special dreaming, and he can rise to anything. If you tell him that he is to fight the British you may renew the man who was beaten down. Go and do it. Tell them that we will force our way past the cordon. Tell them anything. Tell them that their mothers and fathers are poised in heaven waiting, that now is the time for the dream of the Jews. By the love of God this ship rides eastward on moon-driven waves and with escort of heaven. Tell them that. With all they’ve been through, they are due for some sweet language.”
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    T HE CENSUS proved a valuable tool. Four hundred and twenty people were aboard. Of these, sixteen were musicians but only ten had instruments. A ten-man band was set up on the main hatch cover. Its composition was especially strange in view of the rousing marches and bandshell waltzes it played: it consisted of four violins, a bassoon, a guitar, a trumpet, a concertina, a snare drum, and a harp. At first there were six alternating conductors, but then from the bundles and scraped suitcases came another concertina, two harmonicas, and an ocarina. Although it was difficult at first to get any of the musicians to play the ocarina (they sneered at it as if it were a dead animal by the roadside), eventually a complex rotational system evolved in which everyone shared his instrument, and from this arose an extremely attractive little orchestra which played a sort of harp-and-bassoon-punctuated, violin-laden ragtime—further exoticized because one of the violinists was a Greek and could play only in Hellenic style. They set themselves up each morning and played until five, and they played a small concert of favorites before everyone went to sleep. Little children, including the tiny girl with perfectly proportioned Japanese-like features, ladybug eyes, and the white dove of ribbon, danced on a wide canvas-covered expanse behind the conductor. They behaved exactly like small children at a wedding. Sometimes even their elders did dances of delight as the strange ship