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Read Ebook: Gourmet by Lang Allen Kim
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Ebook has 76 lines and 7842 words, and 2 pages
"You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threat to the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealistic slops for another hundred days, without the small consolation of this sauce I had the foresight to bring with me, I'd likely be in no condition to jet us safely down to the Piano West pad. Do you understand, Belly-Robber?" he demanded.
"I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed, slave-driving...."
"Watch your noun," Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. "Your adjectives are insubordinate; your noun might prove mutinous."
"Captain, you've gone too far," I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, was scarlet, his chest heaving with emotion.
"Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship's Surgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain," Winkelmann said.
"Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you," I said. "The other officers and the men have been more than satisfied with his work."
"That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds," Winkelmann said. "Doctor, you are excused. As are you, Belly-Robber," he added.
Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered him to my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on my bunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metal bulkhead. "You'll have that drink now," I said.
"No, dammit!" he shouted.
"Orders," I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. "This is therapy, Bailey," I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throat like water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it.
After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. "Sorry, Doc," he said.
"You've taken more pressure than most men would," I said. "Nothing to be ashamed of."
"Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey," I said. "You've worked your fingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're not appreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A year from now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start that restaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman."
Bailey nodded and smiled. "Thank you, Sir," he said.
I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses were now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of irony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that was a price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmann theory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captain had pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, I thought.
Noon mess was nearly as awful as breakfast had been. The coffee tasted of salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment were vehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, for the decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He served the algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galley oblivious of the taunts of his crewmates.
"Then he's beat the Captain at his game," I said.
"The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks," the crewman said.
"Thanks, Doc," Bailey said.
I smiled and took another bite. "You may not realize it, Bailey; but this is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph; you couldn't have done it without him."
"You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?" Bailey asked.
"He was driving you to do the impossible," I said; "and you did it. Our Captain may be a hard man, Bailey; but he did know how to coax maximum performance out of his Ship's Cook."
Bailey stood up. "Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor?" he asked.
I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job. He persuaded his men by foul means, true; but it was all for the good of the ship and his crew. "Do I like Captain Winkelmann?" I asked, spearing another piece of my artificial steak. "Bailey, I'm afraid I'll have to admit that I do."
Bailey smiled and lifted a second steak from the warming-pan onto my plate. "Then have another piece," he said.
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