Matelot

Nor were they long finding what they sought for; first the grub matter was hunted up, and go where you would, you was sure to meet lots of Matelo’s [matelots—sailors] wending their way to their various quarters, loaded to the bends with what they called Belly Timber.

“‘Hellow,” says Jimmy, “here’s some dunnage as has belonged to some poor matelo’,” and with that he picks out a wad of somethin’ and begins for to open it.

Matlo, name used to describe themselves by British bluejackets. Falling into disuse. Corruption of the French matelot.

A sailor would refer to a soldier as a ‘“leatherneck," and a soldier would call a sailor a “flat-footed matlow.” […] I must really congratulate you upon the collectlve composition of your guests. First, we have the “flat-footed matlow” (laughter), who has aspirations that must be satisfied in this incarnation or in another

[…] a chief petty officer, snarled something under his breath about bloody 'am-fisted matelots […]

So far as the average matelot was concerned, there was little romanticism about the preference for frigates, destroyers, frail E-boats that could be blown up with one well-aimed cannon, and submarines, those breeding grounds of TB and madness.

One day, a stalwart sailor was brought in with a severe fracture below the knee […] A week later the leg had turned septic but the matelot was endearing cheerful. "Never mind, Sister" he assured Anne. "I'll get a piece of whalebone, like Captain Ahab."

Our matelot took us out to sea in what I believed was not a very seaworthy boat.

There were no signs and no one quite knew how to navigate the museum, including, as it was Fleet Week, gaggles of boyish sailors all in their summer whites. It looked like a Frank Sinatra movie. A bunch of these matelots surrounded a police officer, who said: "You guys are from the USS Cole? Thank you for your service. Want me to take you around?"

[…] "Among the Brethren of the Coast—we tykes no wimmen save in passing, as it were, they being bothersome, frail and scatterbrained creatures. Instead we tykes a blood-brother, or matelot ... A matelot, 'e fights along side o' yer, nurses yer if yer falls sick. Wots 'is is yours and whats yours is 'is ... Take Klaas yonder, and young Pedro [described earlier as a slender-hipped boy with deep feminine brown eyes]; they shared the same barbacoa six, seven year and ye'll never come on 'em more than a few yards apart." To this explanation [Harry] Morgan listened in growing amazement and began to comprehend why none of these bestial-appearing boucan makers had so much as addressed Kate.