The Last Ship (53 page)

Then the last hand was down, only their commander remaining, standing beside me on the quarterdeck. It was the first time since these happenings that we had been absolutely alone. For those of my ship’s company leaving I had feelings such that only the application of the last measure of self-control I possessed had enabled me to see them pass by and step onto that accommodation ladder. For the officer who now stood before me: I felt I had never known until now what anger was. Not so much for the mutiny as such as for taking them into what now lay before them. Knowing it would be as senseless as the other, I did all I could to suppress it as well. Not with a full success. We spoke in a kind of chill formality.

“I wish it could have been different, Captain,” he said.

“There was never any chance for that, Mr. Chatham. Once you started making demands of the captain of a Navy ship. Once you decided you knew best. I hope to God you know what you are doing, sir.”

“Naturally I believe I do.”

I had no patience with that; nor did I like his tone. I spoke with a cold rage. “I cannot forgive you for what you have done. I would have preferred to see you before a general court-martial had circumstances permitted. That is where you belong. Some of these men wanted to go on their own: That is true enough. But few enough I believe to cause the ship no harm. You did everything you could to encourage others. You misled them.”

“Not in my view, sir. Who is to say which of us is right?”

I was done with it. I looked down at the boats in the stilled waters, at their passengers, back to him. I wanted him out of my presence, gone. I spoke with an infinite disdain.

“Now, sir, you will get off my ship.”

He stepped onto the ladder platform, turned, facing upward, smartly saluted the national ensign high on the mainmast. The ancient Navy custom seeming a mockery; though I knew he did not intend it so, it was reflexive in him. Then he was moving down the ladder, stepping into the gig.

The little flotilla of gig and three lifeboats rode gently just behind the ship’s stern, hardly bobbing on the resting sea. The fantail of the
James
stood filled with sailors looking a last time down into the faces of shipmates numbering some of life’s closest friends. The men and the women in the boats looking up at us on the ship . . . it was almost more than the heart could bear. The Jesuit, standing on the very tip of the fantail, conducted a brief religious service, sprinkling holy water, saying a prayer over the boats and their passengers. “Our God and Ruler of the Deep who alone knowest the hearts of men, alone knowest the truth and meaning of thy servants’ decisions, guide these our shipmates on their long and difficult voyage over the great waters. Watch ever over them, give them calm seas and good passage. Great Navigator, bring them at last in thy everlasting mercy to safe harbor . . .”

Then simultaneously boats and ship were getting underway in opposite directions, the small and larger white wakes merging, hands of shipmates on both lifted in farewell. The
Nathan James
gathered way, proceeding slowly through the gently parting waters. All hands not on watch remained on the fantail, gazing as I did from the bridge wing at the four boats in column line, the gig towing the other three, moving away from us over a blue sea, glassy under the climbing sunlight, the stillness broken only by the quietened noises of gig and ship; the faces of all the occupants of the boats save only the coxswain at the helm of the gig seeming to me to the last turned toward the ship. Soon they were but specks on the vast and empty Mediterranean. Then they had vanished over the western horizon. I faced back, stepped into the pilot house.

“Right standard rudder,” I spoke to the helmsman, Porterfield.

“Right standard rudder, aye, sir.”

“Steady on course zero eight five.”

“Steady on course zero eight five, sir . . . Checking zero nine zero magnetic.”

I could see it up ahead. “Helmsman, take us through Suez.”

“Through Suez, sir.”

T
hurlow, Melville, Selmon. Navigation officer, engineering officer, radiation officer. It was with these three chiefly that I plotted our course with such care, probing long over charts spread out on the navigation table. It embraced three principal elements. The first was to take us on as direct a course as possible to the southern Pacific, where Selmon had calculated our best chances lay. Our course, as finally determined and refined in the light of all considerations, called for us to proceed N. by N.E. across the Arabian Sea as far north as Bombay; if finding nothing to turn about and make a S. by S.E. heading, reconnoitering the western littoral of the Indian subcontinent, and pass through the Laccadive Sea between the Maldives and Sri Lanka into the Indian Ocean; bending around Sri Lanka, east through Ten Degree Channel, then S.E. through the Andaman Sea and the Strait of Malacca, Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to port, Sumatra to our starboard, here crossing the equator; from the Strait of Malacca entering the Java Sea, Indonesia to our starboard, turning then on a course almost due east into the Flores Sea, the Celebes to the north, thence into the Timor Sea, past Cape Maria Van Diemen into the Arafura Sea, the great mass of Australia to our starboard, through Endeavour Strait and into the great ocean-sea of the Pacific. Such a course, while in no way definitive—we had not the fuel for more extensive explorations—should at least give us a fairly clear idea of conditions in Asia and the chances of habitability there by leading us past the named lands, while proceeding by the shortest route to the Pacific, should they all fail us.

We would, of course, allow for any detours along the way that seemed promising, approach various land areas both to determine if any contained living and viable communities of human beings, neither eradicated by direct hits nor contaminated unacceptably by fallout, and if so whether these might be of sufficiently hospitable nature to take us in; in the absence of such valid survivors, examining those areas to determine if any were, first of all, habitable as to contamination and if so able to support us through a natural fecundity of soil. We were not without hope in respect to these possibilities. Still, however, believing that our principal chances lay in the southern Pacific, and there in those areas “unknown to geography,” to use Thurlow’s phraseology. Allowing for the indicated side excursions, Melville now calculated that this procedure when completed would fetch us up at approximately 08° S. latitude and 164° E. longitude, where we felt with a reasonable certainty that, along with the above reasons, the long passage of fallout and hence its termination would have brought us to habitable regions. At that point, according to Melville’s rigorously measured computations, aside from emergency reserve, we should have remaining on the reactor approximately two months of running time in which to find a suitable place. All of these projections were based strictly on proceeding at a speed not to exceed twelve knots. It was thus that we emerged from the Red Sea and entered the waters of the Arabian Sea. The above reckoning, I should mention, allowed further for a brief exploration of east Africa on the chance—quite remote, but not, according to Selmon, to be dismissed entirely—that some livable area might yet be found along that coastline. A strictly controlled reconnaisance: We must not expend an excessive amount of fuel on this not overly promising diversion. I determined that we would test the shores of Somalia and of Kenya only so far south as the equator, and, should we find nothing, come about and proceed promptly on the first phase of our course, heading N. by N.E. bound for the Indian subcontinent.

This course decided, I gathered the remaining ship’s company early of a morning on the fantail, and, having brought the ship to rest at a point about twenty miles off a place called on the charts Ras Mabber in Somalia, once again mounted the after missile launcher to tell them all of this in considerable detail.

As I waited to speak to them, I thought how we stood on the brink of a vast unknown, lonely figures about to embark on the most uncertain of voyages, all beyond a black void. Yet something passed upward from them and into my soul, real as the sea around us. A strange and unexpected thing had occurred. Our numbers reduced from 305 to 195, I sensed to that captain’s certainty that succeeding the terrible events that had brought us to so much smaller a ship’s company, something had taken place of a nature I could never have foreseen. Abetted by that general inner urgency that had become so a part of us—that knowledge that griefs, however great, could not long be lingered over by men in our circumstance, survival itself requiring all attention to the pressing daily demands—we seemed instead in a mysterious and wondrous catalysis to be more tightly drawn together and to one another. It was as though in the act of choosing the ship, of making, for whatever reasons, these perhaps themselves varying hand to hand, that choice, the very fact of each hand who stood below me having separately, individually, of his own free will, personally done so, we were more shipmates than ever. Bound inseverably to each other; each and all bound to the ship; seeming to clasp us together in a fresh resolve. A faith incompatible with reason, greater by far than the facts as we knew them justified, all ahead of us, the passage we were about to undertake, speaking of uncertainty, saving only the certainty of hardship and nameless peril. Vain enough, too, I was that, yes, I felt that the selection each hand had made embraced not just a personal choice of the ship but of myself their captain as well. That sovereignty, so powerful before, seeming thereby not just reaffirmed but conspicuously augmented; any remnant of doubt as to its validity there may have been vanished; as though whatever my decisions might now be, there would henceforth be no thought of questioning them. Ship’s company, such as remained: They rested in my hands. They had made to me the great gift of their fate. Something deeper than earth knew cleaving us to each other. Its strength already put to the test. Watch and watch we now stood, with these reduced numbers. Four hours on, four off, around the clock, day after day; a shipboard test of men normally brutal; now, not a hint of complaining, of malingering. I doubted not the fears beneath; their suppressing them but made greater the courage.

I became aware of something else; something that came swelling on the air, like a field of force. In their faces something indomitable. For a moment—for the only time I could remember in all our odyssey except behind the closed door of my cabin, tears stood in my eyes; I fought them back: leaving something imparted from them to myself, my blood seeming to run freshly strong. A freshening of wind sounded its wailing sough, elegant as a flute, through the ship’s halyards. Then all was stillness again.

“Shipmates,” I said. “We face a future which I have to tell you is as uncertain as a future could be. The course we are about to undertake: It will not be easy; it will be harder than I can say; we will have to bear pain. It will test our endurance to the limits. We will learn what fortitude is. We will need the last hand pulling his best to make it through, and all pulling together. But we are not without assets. We are seamen. We know the sea. We have under us the ship. We are American sailors. That is another name for men of courage; men who do not whine and do not give up. We have been through much; we have stuck together. Have helped one another without thinking of it as help. We have been a good ship. It is that that has brought us thus far. If we hold fast to it, we can make it. Find a place, make a home for ourselves, yes, a good home. We have the skills to do it. But we will need more than that. A good ship is a band of brothers. There has never lived a blue-water sailor but knows that. We have been that also: band of brothers and sisters. That is our strength. Above all we must not give that up. I count on every hand to keep to it. To help any shipmate who may need help; to help the ship. More than that, the ship counts on it. We ourselves depend for our lives on it.”

Their eyes looking up at me, that look of dauntless steadfastness, that heartrending yet stirring sailor’s look I had never seen on the faces of other men of taking what might come reaching up to tear at my heart and soul, at everything that I was; yet nothing giving me more strength. Even as I related to them the grim facts, sparing none, it was as if they embraced them in their brotherhood, in their defiance. Even as I went over the course in the greatest detail, more so than I had ever done, giving all the reasons for it, they seemed borne down not a whit by the imparted knowledge of all the horizons that in all probability must be crossed, each full of unknown trials; none, even the final horizon, giving certain promise that we would find what we must find. I finished up.

“On slow revolutions we have the fuel to reach the Pacific, and enough remaining to give hope that we can find a place. We have food to get us there—though I have to tell you that rations must be reduced even further. We will work harder than we ever have. I expect every hand to do his part. Knowing that your shipmate is as tired as are you; his belly as hungry. No one knows what we will meet up with as we now start our voyage. It is possible—more than that it is likely—that we will encounter dangers far greater than any we have been through. We would hope to find others who would help us, take us in. There must be others out there, possibly willing to do so. But I can give no assurance as to that. If we do come across people, they may prove hostile to us. If it comes to that, we will make it alone. But we will make it. I aim to bring every man, every woman of us, through to safe harbor.” I waited a moment. “One more thing. Above all we have each other. You have stood stronger, more steadfast than anyone would have a right to ask for. No one ever led a finer body of men and women. I have never been so proud in my life of anything as to be your captain.”

Concluding, I asked the Jesuit to say a prayer for us. It was brief:

“Almighty God. Thou who watches over sailors, over all who venture on great waters, guide Thou now the
Nathan James.
Give her a true course through the seas which are Thine. Give us strength to meet adversity with perseverance, pain with faith. Keep us in our love for Thee, and for one another. Let us trust in Providence—and rely on ourselves. Remind us to care for the shipmate to our right, the one to our left; to help whosoever shall need help; as all of us, at one time or another, will. Grant us self-denial, constancy. Bring us through all trials, keep us from harm. O Lord Our God, Almighty Pilot, steer this ship safely over every horizon, to good haven. Amen.”

I then asked Porterfield to lead us in one of his hymns, the men seeming to like these. He picked one of their favorites and presently the voices of the men and women rose, softly blending . . .

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found

Was blind, but now I see.

The notes came swelling on the air, in the sailor voices falling out over the Arabian Sea . . .

Through many dangers, toils and snares,

I have already come;

’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,

And grace will lead me home . . .

I waited until the last strains had died away and only the brooding stillness held over the ship, across the waters.

I turned to my XO. “Mr. Thurlow, make all preparations for getting underway.”

Soon I could hear the great anchor rise, the long drawn rumbling of iron links running through the hawsepipe seeming overloud in the solitude that lay all around us. Slowly then the ship began to part the stilled waters, bound on our first exploration, the 200 miles of the coastlines of Somalia and Kenya—not a mile farther—we had allotted ourselves; that, barring a not expected habitability, would be our last look at that continent.

For the record: Not even trusting myself with both, I now gave one of the two keys required to launch the missiles to Lieutenant Girard, at the same time designating her to succeed Chatham as combat systems officer, a billet for which she had qualified during shore duty, one presumably to be chiefly titular from now on, concerned principally with upkeep, ourselves unexpecting of either attacking or being attacked by anything or anybody; having also instructed her before Chatham’s departure to obtain from him the combination to the safe in his cabin in which the key was kept and under no circumstance to reveal that combination even to her captain.

 *  *  * 

The diversion along the coasts of Somalia and Kenya was for the purpose, as indicated, of making a final determination as to Selmon’s belief that Africa was gone. He had arrived at this projection as to a near certainty in the penetration he had made near Carthage, courageously taking his counter a mile inland and observing its readings steadily incline. This result itself had added another piece of evidence to a fact long known, that interiors of land masses were almost certain to be both more quickly and more heavily contaminated than littorals; a premise borne out in our own experience, most notably on the European side of the Mediterranean, by those pockets of human beings we had encountered along its shores, their having fled there for the precise reason that the lands behind them no longer tolerated human kind. For our final validation I chose an empty beach we came upon some 150 miles into our allotted maximum of 200, near a place called Lama in Kenya. There I led ashore a small party, this time Selmon not going alone, but accompanied, besides myself and Thurlow, by a shore party of eight, all of them being expert marksmen and armed variously with carbines, automatic rifles, and sub-machine guns; all under the charge of Gunner’s Mate Delaney. As an index of habitability we hoped to encounter animals, the marksmen and their armament brought along not to dispatch any of these but to be used only if we were attacked. The party including also two of our biggest and strongest hands, Boatswain’s Mate Preston and Machinist’s Mate Brewster from the hole; also Bixby, along not as a signalman third but as one knowledgeable about animals, having been about to become a veterinarian when the Navy summoned her. As I believe I have mentioned elsewhere, Selmon had educated me in the fact that based on studies conducted during that part of his Radiation School Training spent near Amarillo, Texas, it had been established that as a rule animals possessed considerably higher tolerances than human beings, generally twice or more as much—over a period of forty-eight hours, 350 to 500 rads for man being considered the mean lethal dose as opposed to 1,000 for animals, these of course varying considerably animal to animal; while the Amarillo determinations included numerous species of domesticated animals, others such as elephants, lions, giraffes, hippopotami, not being prevalent in Texas, had not participated in the experiments, hence had tolerances unknown.