The Last Ship (11 page)

“Captain, I been studying on it. You know what’s going to make the difference here? It’s this rain. Every day. It’s like
irrigation.
It’s what the Lord give this place to make sure things’ll grow.”

The gunner’s mate paused a moment. “Yes, sir, it’s this rain every day that makes this island so you could live on it.”

I was startled, as though he had read my thoughts, knew. But no. His face said nothing of that. He was speaking only of agricultural matters. He spoke again, in a tone of somber conviction, looking out over the meadow.

“Aye, sir. I believe it’s going to work, Captain. The Farm.”

“The Farm,” I repeated, looking at our meager beginnings on the plateau.

And after that, that is what we called it. The Farm.

The men began fetching the trays into the fields and under Delaney’s meticulous management carefully removed the plants and commenced to imbed them down the laid-out rows, then with their hands spreading earth around them as he showed them. Also implanting the seeds which Delaney had brought along in bags.

“Gentle, mates,” he kept saying, moving up and down the rows. “Sharp lookout where you walk.”

A row of squash. Another of peas, black-eyed. Several of beans—navy, pinto, lima. Several of potatoes. Corn, onions, cabbage, lettuce. We would see what worked, what grew, and concentrate on those.

Plowing and planting. Boatswain’s mates, enginemen, firemen, seamen; electrician’s mates, electronic technicians; signalmen, sonarmen; torpedomen, missile technicians; radiomen, quartermasters. Deck men, engineroom men. All labored, all sweated. The ridge might have been a ship, one that needed certain attentions, ministrations, and from all hands, and right now, to make her do what she was supposed to do. All the afternoon under the violent sunshine, an incandescent ball blazing down mercilessly on the bent bodies of seagoing men. At 1700 I called a halt to it.

The sailors raised up in the fields, and for a moment did not move but stood strangely there in the earth in a tableaulike statuary, as if themselves planted. Then in curious, almost balletlike motions their bodies began to sway this way and that: to assuage sorenesses, stiffnesses, muscles not used by shipboard labors but called forth by pulling plows—by stoop labor. I knew now. The hardest kind of work in the world. Then they all stood silent and motionless, dirt-streaked, bathed in sweat, looking at the field they had half transformed. No need even to murmur a well done. But what an immense pride I felt in them! A kind of wonder and innocence was on their faces as they gazed around them now at the reclamation they had wrought, their own pride shining as from some fierce inner light through the brutal physical exhaustion.

“Let’s go home, men,” I said.

Facing the ship, Signalman Bixby stood on the edge of the cliff with her portable light and signaled the message I gave her, a letter at a time.

STANDING DOWN FROM THE FARM SEND BOATS TO BEACH RENDEZVOUS FARM LOOKS GOOD CAPTAIN

I read the letters the ship’s blinker sent back in white bickerings across the water.

BOATS UNDERWAY SILVA BACK WITH FINE CATCH ENOUGH FOR ALL HANDS SILVA SAYS FISH AS GOOD AS CAPE COD SO MUST BE SOMETHING SINCE SILVA SAYS THAT’S WHERE GOD WAS BORN

I felt the surge of an immense relief. I had Bixby send this:

WELL DONE TO SILVA AND CREW PROCEED TO GRILL FISH CAPTAIN

I glassed the destroyer and could see three boats move out from her and proceed toward shore. We prepared to descend.

“Captain,” Delaney said, “do you reckon it would be all right to leave the gear here? Seems a lot of trouble to fetch it all back and forth every day. I been studying on it and I don’t know who’s going to steal it.”

I looked around at the great solitude of the island and smiled a moment.

“Permission granted, Gunner.”

So we stacked the gear—grappling irons now plows, entrenching tools now shovels, and the rest of it—neatly beneath the cover of the trees. Then, a company of seventy or so sailors, we started over the ridge. We went around the creek, along the cleared path, came out on the beach, and walked up it. Even before we got there we could see up ahead the boats beaching. The men looked bone-tired. They looked good, as though to say, we are seamen but if need be can learn land’s ways. As we went up the beach Porterfield, the helmsman, got out his harmonica and began playing. It had always been one of his favorite songs.

Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you,

Away, you rolling river,

Shenandoah, I can’t get near you,

Away, away, I’m bound away

’Cross the wide Missouri . . .

Some of the crew took up the words, singing as we went along, the lilting haunting strains of the men’s and women’s voices drifting out over the motionless lagoon . . .

Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter,

Away, you rolling river,

For her, I’ve crossed the stormy water,

Away, away, I’m bound away

’Cross the wide Missouri . . .

I looked back at the long trail of our footprints in the sand. By tomorrow they would be gone with the tide and we would make fresh ones. We got in the boats and headed out. I think we were all looking forward to Palatti’s chow; hungry from God’s hard labor. Stoop labor. Surely of all work done by men He must look with special mercy on those thus engaged since only the most needful of men do it. As we neared the ship, the sun which we had seen emerge from the sea that morning now was moving swiftly back into the same stilled waters. Then we could begin to see the lights of the ship come on and cast their glow across the sea, welcoming sailors home.

F
or my inspection of the other side of the island I chose the boat that had Coxswain Meyer and Seaman Apprentice Billy Barker for its crew. She was our best boat handler and we might, in coming in close as I intended, be in tricky waters, for I had no notion of what was around there. I wanted to see. Of the three boats one was assigned permanently now to Silva and his fishing detail. The other two and a lifeboat towed behind one took the men into the Farm in the morning, and returned to the ship. Fishing and farming, both got started quite early, fishing at about 0400 and farming an hour later, that is, the boats shoving off for the island then, the early start meant to beat the heat a little. We cast off immediately after Coxswain Meyer had returned from taking our farm crew in. It was a little after 0530, with a certain pleasant, not coolness but lightness of air. From island and sea came the first fresh scents of morning.

We headed south, keeping fairly inshore, Coxswain Meyer, perched at the console amidships, standing easy and alert with her hand on the wheel, Barker, the boat hook, keeping a watch forward for any shoals or bars, and myself standing aft—no problem in a sea so polished we glided over it—scrutinizing the shoreline and the island, sometimes with the naked eye, sometimes with the 7x50 binoculars I had slung around my neck. My field of vision moved to the ship standing off and receding for a last glimpse before we should make the turn for the other side. Contemplating her, I was taken again with that troubling wonderment I had each time she was about to leave my sight, as to whether she would be there when I got back. A silly foreboding, surely, and yet what a constant temptation it was and what a small party of hands it would take to accomplish the deed. It could be done while so many of ship’s company were at the Farm and to sea fishing, while her captain was off, let us say, on a reconnoitering of the island’s far side . . . If I had had plans for the ship, why should I think others would not? I put the thought down; realities were enough to deal with. I had no time for imaginings. But not before I found myself, hardly knowing I was doing so, lifting the binoculars and glassing the ship stern to stern and observing identifiable members of ship’s company going about their normal shipboard tasks. Then I lowered the glasses quickly, feeling foolish and a bit embarrassed with myself over requiring this reassurance.

We came to the end of the island and looked up toward the plateau where we could see the small figures of our shipmates working the Farm. We waved and could make out their waves back. We began to round the island. Then, as we came about its southernmost end and veered on a northwesterly course, suddenly the boat was kicked up in the waters, the bow thrown high to starboard. I could see the sky above it from where I was flung against the gunwale, the sea crashing over the boat and myself. Forward I saw Barker pitched to the deck. Meyer had both hands grasping the wheel, coolly bringing the boat back to port while letting her ride through it. Then, as suddenly, we were in gentle waters. It had lasted a half minute, dampened Barker and myself considerably, and that was it. We had just learned that a tide rip separated the two sides of the island. I looked at Meyer riding steady at her perch.

“Nice job, Coxswain,” I said.

“No problem, sir.”

She took us on around. The sun dried us all, crew and boat, fast enough and we proceeded on our N. by N.W. bearing. Up ahead I could see a big bulge where the island fattened out around its midriff, so that presently we had to steer slightly more northwesterly, my having told the coxswain to keep us a half mile offshore at all times. I had not expected to find the island so wide. As a guess, I would have said seven or eight miles at that fat point, though a more exact measurement awaited a future land crossing. Then, as we moved over a composed sea, we were presented with further intelligences and surprises.

The aspect of the western side of the island could not have been more different from the eastern side where we had gone ashore and above which had started the Farm. We should have had much more difficulty doing so here. Just getting ashore, for one. The eastern side, with its unbroken beach of powdery sand and with the sea touching shore like a caress, and with that sunny silky-grassed plateau above it, was by comparison a place of welcome and invitation. Here was its opposite. All was forbidding, inhospitable; all said beware, especially to seamen. A shoreline continuously rocky, high jagged rocks, ascending in long stretches to cliff height, rising straight out of the sea, with waves slapping sharply against them, with no beach whatever save for an occasional tiny apron of sand indented in that rocky countenance. But it had a fierce beauty of its own. Rocks and cliff were of a granitic appearance, of a Pompeiian-red hue, lovely with a kind of warriorlike defiance in the morning sunlight that played off them, altogether formidable and saying so. The range of rock coast and cliffs stretched northwest as far as I could make out. As I minutely glassed this barrier, my first thought was that if storms came to the island it would be a far safer place to be. On two counts. First, as I have mentioned, the prevailing winds of the latitude were southeasterly, making the other side of the island the windward side: storms would bring the high winds and the big waves to attack that shore unopposed. Provided he could get established ashore here, the western part, being on the leeward side, would afford far more safety for man. The eastern side might look more inviting. The truth was, heavy enough weather, certainly anything resembling a hurricane, would almost surely sweep away everything present of a man-made character. Further, even if the odd westerly blow came, the rocks and cliffs on this side would present an ungiving fortress against which sea and wind could beat and break as long as they pleased.

I remarked that I wanted to see the other side of the island. It was for no casual reason. I wished to determine whether it held sites where we might build habitations ashore. It was an idea I had not so much as breathed to a single member of ship’s company. I feared to do so too early. It was of the greatest imperativeness to prepare them for it. First, by getting them accustomed to the island, even friendly to it. Then by making them dependent on it—the Farm was part of that. Then perhaps I might, with the proper portions of firmness, care, and gentleness, safely broach the idea of habitations. The better so if I had found a place suitable for these. There was a time in my command of the ship when I would simply have ordered it done. Technically I still could. But it would be a very foolish captain who did that now. Far better, perhaps even necessary—I did not wish to test those waters—to have their consent. Better still, their willingness. Best of all, their eagerness.

Hence, a certain deliberateness: one thing at a time. Certainly not until the crops were underway. Let the crops be a step, a big one, to anchoring them to the island. Nothing so much as food sources tied down animals. Men were no different; hunger was man’s strongest drive, as it was in any animal. He will not leave where there is food until he has assurance that it can be had at another place to which he goes. I had to bind them with that and if possible other ties before propounding anything like habitations. I stepped forward.

“I’ll take the wheel, Coxswain. You may sightsee for a spell.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Not with the greatest enthusiasm. I don’t think she liked anyone, even her captain, taking over her boat, which she considered hers. That amused me and it bespoke a good sailor.

“Here, take this,” I said, unslinging them.

With a natural, almost gibbonish, agility, at home in that boat more than in any room, she moved around out of her pulpit and took up a position forward, where she stood studying the island through the binoculars I had given her. As I brought the boat slightly inshore and then resumed our northwesterly course, paralleling the land, I looked alternately at the island and forward along the boat to the sea where she broke my line of sight, and thus necessarily at her. She was a small thing in her sailor’s dungarees, sailor’s white hat, less than a hundred pounds of her and probably managing the Navy minimum height of five feet with little to spare. She was at that crossover between girlhood and womanhood. She had an almond complexion, high-boned cheeks and impudent chin, and a flare of raven hair, kept rather short and bobbed but not so much so that I could not see some of it sticking out pertly from under her shoved-forward hat. If in some ways she was a girl yet, and you felt the dew still on her, in her trade of coxswain she was a full sailor. Anything concerned with that boat, she had a self-confidence bordering on the brazen, and wholly justified. She seemed almost permanently cross, as a guard and a tactic—don’t mess with me, Buster!—in a way that inwardly—often, if not invariably—amused me. You had a feeling that if you poked her she might bite you. She possessed a derisive little laugh, prohibitively not at me. At times I found myself impatient or even annoyed with a quality she had mastered into an art of being stubborn without being insubordinate. The skill of her boat handling made up for about anything, a fact I fancied she was quite aware of.

Not far beyond her, along the length of the boat, I saw Barker in the bow keeping watch on the water just ahead. We were far enough out not to have concern over sandbars, unlikely anyhow on this side of the island with its rocky shore.

“Barker!”

His head snapped around.

“Sir!”

“You may stand down for the present.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

He stepped from his perch and promptly came aft to join Meyer. She made no move to acknowledge his presence, but continued to inspect the island with absorbed interest through the glasses while he stood by her, rather as though in attendance, watching it through his naked eye. He stood a foot above Meyer, rail-lean, all limbs and bones. He had sun-streaked fair hair, a good-looking mouth likely to break into a sudden artless smile, and thoughtful, steady boyish eyes of sea blue. He was entirely placid and soft-spoken, not an unusual quality in apprentice seamen, except that I had the feeling Barker was that anyhow. A somewhat shy, almost somber young man, with an ingenuous face, the bones prominent everywhere, giving him rather the look of a novice Viking. There was something exceptionally unformed about him as yet, even allowing for his age; a high intelligence, yet a certain innocence of mind not only unacquainted with but unaware of the corruptibility of life. Meyer, who knew her own mind and where she was going, seemed light-years beyond him. His mind sometimes seemed off other places—I had no idea where, hers perpetually alert and on the matter at hand. She was twenty, he eighteen. Among her duties was to bring Barker, a striker for coxswain, along in his naval trade and I had every impression of a good tough taskmaster. For his part Barker, far from chafing at her strictness, appeared filled with a boyish eagerness to learn, and to be glad he had in Meyer an excellent teacher, to have a desire to please her.

Barker had one more attribute unusual and important to the ship. There is an official designation in the Navy that goes under the term “Expert Lookout.” Not a rating, it denotes a talent so rare, indeed baffling, that even the Navy has never been able to explain it—only to have the sense to recognize that the gift exists and can be an immeasurable asset to a ship; a tribute to the possession of a set of eyes that seem above human in their ability to see things on the surface of the sea. One man on our ship, Barker, was so designated. At sea his watch-bill duty was always lookout. When we actually expected to see, or hoped to see, something of importance, he was assigned to the primary lookout post, on the open bridge atop the pilot house, wearing a pair of sound-powered headphones, a mouthpiece on his chest so that he could communicate instantly with the bridge concerning anything he raised on the vast plain of the sea. The skill had been tested times without number and the designation proved accurate beyond all question. If Barker said something was there it was there.

Finally without looking at him she passed Barker the binoculars. He employed them for about a minute, then dutifully passed them back to her. An odd thought occurred to me: I could just have been their father, had I married and had children. Once I had regretted above anything else in my life that I had not done both of these things a man must if he is to call his life full. Now I was glad that it had been so. Just as well, with what was facing me, not to have the thought of that tearing at my mind, attacking my resolve. Now I had no one. No one at all. Save my ship and my people.

“Meyer,” I said.

The binoculars came down, the alert head around. “Sir.”

“I want to take her in. See if you can find a place in all that rock.”

I slowed us to one-quarter speed. She seemed to hesitate fractionally; then, leaning forward with the 7x50’s, began to sweep the shoreline, slowly, intently, her body bent now almost double across the gunwale. Finally she downed the glasses and spoke back to me.

“Captain, I think I see a place. Doesn’t look very good. But I don’t make out anything else.”

I stopped the boat. She came back and handed over the glasses. The boat rolled gently in the easy sea.

“About zero five zero, sir.”

I looked through the binoculars, across the water, sunlit until it entered the lee of the high rocks where sweet dark shadows lay. A white patch of sand, appearing little more than a handkerchief, but even so, larger than anything we had encountered, sat tucked into the granite shore.

“Awfully small, isn’t it, sir?” she said. I knew she was thinking of her boat.

“Why don’t we have a look. It might accommodate us.”

I gave her the wheel. “Take her in. Dead slow. We’ll all have to look alive here. Barker!”

He had been staring desultorily shoreward. He came out of some reverie and his head popped around.

“Sir!”

“Up in the bow. Close watch on the bottom. Keep a sharp eye for underwater rocks. Sound back anything you see.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Coxswain Meyer brought the boat around cleanly and headed us inshore. Barker was flat on his belly in the bow, sticking well out so that he looked directly down into the sea. Intermittently he raised his head to sound back in a loud voice, “Clear, sir.” We were closing the cliffs.