M&D Deep Duck: Section 6 summary

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Part 6:

Cherrycoke's audience has been joined by Uncle Lomax, back from the soapworks, where he makes a very inferior product. He steers a loxodrome [great navigational phrase]for the liquor cabinet as Cherrycoke continues:

Captain Smith has been replaced by Captain Grant, and the ship now has an escort -- a warship, the Brilliant. Grant, more aggressive than Smith, bristles at the thought of having to follow another ship. He's been given an odd set of instructions -- not to be opened until Tenerife -- that induces paranoia. Maybe he's being set up for attack? Cherrycoke has an annoying bunkmate, Unchleigh who despises reading of any kind -- even the Good book -- because it can only lead to coffee drinking and Whig politics. Mason and Dixon continue their grape versus grain debate. Their relationship has become one of easy banter since the l'Grand attack. 

Both Mason and Captain Grant have discovered that a reputation for insanity can be a useful way of getting people to keep their distance, while various sailors have their own issues to deal with: the tendency of musicians aboard the Seahorse to vanish, save the lone fife-player, Slocombe, a military fife-player inducted via an opiated pint of beer. The ship's full of eccentrics, from Jack "Fingers" Soames, who uses the eponymous gesture to induce people to leave him alone; Veevle, who can sleep through anything; one Bos’n Higgs [ha ha], who's obsessed with neatness, and Bodine, who, as usual, has found a novel place to stick his penis. 

As they approach the Equator, the entire ship conspires to make the crossing a memorable one for the three "pollywogs" -- Cherrycoke, Mason and Dixon. Cherrycoke implies to his gathered audience that being hit in the face with that famous British dessert, Spotted Dick, was one of a number of initiation indignities. Is he exaggerating or sanitizing?

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l