Voyage to Somewhere (15 page)

“Did you ever hear Harry James play ‘Bugle Call Rag?' It's an old one, but he sure makes it new!”

“Once when I was home,” White said, “Betsy and I went out to a place where you can skate. They played music, and people could skate to the music.”

A great deal of their time the men spent in making jokes. Wortly, the coxswain, was in fine form.

“Did you hear about the fellow who was captured by the Japs?” he asked.

“No,” the others said, “what about the fellow who was captured by the Japs?”

“Well, the Japs took this fellow and they didn't give him anything but fish guts to eat for seven months. They beat him every day and they cut off his leg. Then one day they took him to a radio station and told him they wanted him to broadcast how well the Japs treated prisoners. This Jap officer stood with a big sword over this fellow's head, and told him if he said one wrong word he wouldn't finish it. So the fellow started: ‘I want everyone who hears this broadcast to know how well the Japs are treating us prisoners,' he said. ‘And I want you to tell everyone about it. Tell it to your friends. Tell it to the Army. Tell it to the Navy. Tell it to the Marines!'”

“What did the Jap officer do?” everyone asked.

“Oh,” said Wortly, “he cut off the fellow's head.”

The first five days at sea were cloudy and the nightly rain squalls with their attending poor visibility made everyone nervous of collision, but the sixth night the clouds cleared away and the ships sailed under a waning moon as clearly outlined against the sky as ships painted on glass. In spite of the fact that the moon made possible attack on us easier, we all welcomed the ease it gave to standing watch. The men debated about the possibility of our getting torpedoed.

“I figure a sub would let us go by and try for one of the big ships,” the chief boatswain's mate said.

“That's what I think too,” Flags replied. “Hell, this bucket isn't really worth a torpedo. How much does a torpedo cost, anyway?”

“I heard about twelve thousand dollars,” the Chief answered.

“And how much do you suppose this ship cost the government?” Flags asked.

“About eight hundred thousand I heard,” the Chief said.

“Hell,” said Flags, “I guess we would be worth torpedoing.”

Our good weather held. When we had been at sea ten days the moon had faded to a thin bright sickle, but the stars were so bright that the thin streaks of cloud still looked white against the deep blue sky. At two in the morning a course change was scheduled, and I went on the bridge. Ahead of us and to our right the blacked out ships were clearly visible. At the bow of each was the white arc of the bow wave, and each trailed a dim wake of phosphorescence.

“Not much trouble keeping position tonight, is there?” I said to Mr. Warren.

“No, sir,” he said. “Just like day.”

Just then the commodore signaled with a deep-throated whistle blast. The lead ships started to turn to the prearranged course. I waited till we had turned, then, seeing we were still in position, I started to go below. As I went down the companionway I saw Mr. Rudd sitting on the after end of the boat deck. He was sitting on a chair he must have carried there, and he was leaning back with his feet on a deck box. From where I stood I could see only the silhouette of his thick figure and broad head. Changing my mind about going to bed, I went onto the boat deck and sat down on a capstan beside him.

“What are you doing up here at this time of morning, Mr. Rudd?” I asked. “Don't you trust us?”

“Somebody's got to watch you flag wavers,” Mr. Rudd replied, but instead of continuing the banter, he lapsed into silence. I pulled my pipe from my pocket and started to light it, then remembering the blackout, I put it back in my pocket.

“Nice night,” I said.

“It is that,” he replied. “If every night was like this I'd be glad I was a sailor.”

“The profession would be overcrowded,” I said.

There was a long silence while we watched the glowing wake reel out behind us.

“Did you ever think of staying at sea?” Mr. Rudd asked. “After the war, I mean?”

“No,” I said. “I've got a wife. After the war I'm going home and build a house and raise a family.”

“Well,” replied Mr. Rudd, “I'll call on you. Will you give me a drink?”

“The best in the house,” I said.

Mr. Rudd pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket and put it in his mouth. He made no attempt to light it, but he held it in his lips as though he were smoking.

“You know,” he said, “I used to have a wife. A pretty nice girl, too, in her way.”

“Did she die?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “She divorced me.”

“Oh,” I could think of nothing else.

“You see,” continued Mr. Rudd, “I met her in Stoneham when I went back to visit my mother and father, after I had graduated from college. She lived next door, and she taught Sunday school in my father's church. She was pretty.”

He paused, and gave me a look which was nearer to embarrassment than any I had ever seen on his face. “I wasn't so fat then,” he said.

“Of course.”

“We got married, and I was pretty happy. We moved back to Boston where I had my research job. My mother and father were real pleased about it, and they came to visit us all the time. It was just as though I had never left home. We lived in one room on Beacon Street. We didn't have much money, but I was happy all the time. I had a wonderful job, more like studying than working for pay. We were trying to find out more about the composition of wood cells, and indirectly, about all living cells. Then, when I was through, I came home, and I was happy.” He spoke almost defensively.

I felt called upon to say, “Of course you were happy, Mr. Rudd. It sounds like a wonderful life.”

“It was,” he said. “But the pay wasn't very high. My wife wanted to move into an apartment. We couldn't really afford the kind of apartment she wanted. I used to talk to her a lot about my work. She always said, ‘Yes, but why don't they pay you more?' We started to get into debt …” He paused.

“Bill collectors can be pretty tough,” I said.

Mr. Rudd continued, “I wouldn't have minded them so much, but it kind of changed things between me and my wife. Then one day she told me I just had to go out and get a job paying more money. ‘Have you ever thought of selling?' she asked. The next day I got a job selling for the same chemical company I had been doing research for.”

“How did that go?”

Mr. Rudd shrugged. “Oh, fine,” he said. “I made all kinds of money. After we got all our bills paid off, my wife suggested we build a house in Stoneham. I said all right.”

He paused again, and was silent so long I was afraid he was not going to continue. I took my pipe from my pocket and held its smooth bowl in my hand. “Damn it, I wish we could smoke.”

Mr. Rudd said suddenly, “I joined my father's church and the local country club and sold chemicals wholesale. Before I knew it I was just another God damn salesman playing golf every Sunday and calling Pullman porters ‘George.' I started drinking a lot and my wife and I started fighting.”

He turned and peered at me. “Not fighting in a nice way,” he said. “Fighting like we meant it over little things. It started when we built that God damn house. The architect called on us to show us the blueprints. ‘Here in the cellar.' he said, ‘We're going to have a rumpus room.'

“‘A what?' I asked.

“‘A rumpus room, darling,' my wife said.

“‘I will not have anything called a rumpus room in my house,' I said. ‘Call it a play room or a cellar or a bar or a game room or anything else, but not some damn cute name like rumpus room!'”

He paused and looked at me again. “It's funny I remember that argument,” he said. “We had so many.”

“Things get tough sometimes,” I replied. “It's hard to tell why, but they do.”

“After a while,” continued Mr. Rudd, “I went to hell. I started to drink too much. They had a lot of tea parties around Stoneham. My wife always was trying to get me to go to them. I started insulting people. I'd sit there listening to them talk. Sometimes I couldn't stand it any more. I started shocking them just for the hell of it. Usually when I was drunk.”

“You were in the wrong town,” I said. “I can see how that could happen.”

“Well,” replied Mr. Rudd, “it happened all right. Then one night I came home drunk and was sick. My wife stood there watching me. It's funny, I was drunk, but I can still remember it. She didn't try to help me. She just stood there watching me. When I got to bed she still watched me, even after I had my eyes closed. I lay there knowing she was watching me, and I yelled at her, ‘Why the hell are you looking at me?'

“‘I was just making up my mind,' she said. ‘In the morning I'm going over to the judge and get a divorce.'

“I felt sick, and I said the hell with it. In the morning when I woke up she was gone. Then I learned that she had spread the story all over town. The judge knew both our families, but even my family was against me. I didn't fight the case.”

I said, “You were never cut out to be a salesman.”

Mr. Rudd ignored me. “You know,” he said, “I wouldn't have minded her just divorcing me. She was right about that. I had given her a pretty raw deal. But she stuck me for alimony. I started to fight her then, but it was too late. She got the house, my bank account, and a third of my salary for the rest of my life. Even that I could have stood, but I had a lot of books I had collected while I was in college, and I had got together a pretty good research library before I was married. I went to the house to get those books. ‘Oh, hello,' she said.

“‘Hello,' I said. ‘I've come to get my books.'

“‘But they're not your books now,' she said. ‘Everything in the house is mine.'

“‘You can't read them,' I said. “You couldn't understand a word in them.'

“Then she smiled, and told me if I'd wait a minute she'd bring the books right down. She shut the door. I waited on the porch. I waited a long while. Finally old Tim Mahoney, the town cop, came walking up the steps and told me he'd had a telephone call saying I had been making a disturbance. I told him that I hadn't been making a disturbance, that I'd come to get my books, and that my wife had said she would bring them right down.

“‘She's the one who called.' Tim said.

“I went away and took the night train back to Boston. I was going to get my research job back, but I said the hell with it. I happened to see a recruiting poster by the post office. ‘Twenty-one bucks a month!' I thought. ‘Shell get a third of twenty-one bucks a month. That'll mean all she could get would be seven dollars a month!' Right away I went up and joined the service. I've been in ever since.”

Mr. Rudd took the unlit cigar from his mouth, examined the chewed end of it, and threw it overboard. “That's a hell of a reason for a man to join the service, isn't it?”

“I don't know. I guess it's as good as any.”

“No,” said Mr. Rudd. “It isn't. I joined for that reason, but that isn't why I stayed in. I like the service. You do your work and there's no funny business about it. You get your food and a place to sleep and you do what you're told. You never know why you do what you're doing, but you do it. It's not a bad life.”

“Yes,” I said, “it's not a bad life. In some ways it's easy.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

A
S THE
eventless days slipped by our fears of attack appeared absurd. Slowly our position on the chart crept nearer and nearer Mindanao. On the twelfth day out the commodore hoisted a signal which read “Attack by enemy aircraft may be expected.” The signal flags hung limply in the morning sun. They looked more like festive bunting than a warning. Nothing happened. The men joked about the expected attack.

“What the hell,” they said. “This is getting silly. The commodore has just got a bad case of nerves. Can't you see the old boy peering over the horizon and madly running up flag hoists?”

That night I went to bed and slept soundly. In the morning I was awakened by a knock at my door. It was a quiet knock. I sleepily called to whoever it was to come in.

Flags opened the door. “Sir,” he said, “a plane just came over and dropped a bomb.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “Ring up general quarters! Why aren't the men at general quarters?”

Flags looked a little surprised. “Oh,” he said, “the plane's gone now. It was so high that no one saw it until the bomb splashed.”

By the time Flags had finished speaking I was dressed and on my way to the bridge. I found the morning calm and sunlit. The ships were steaming along quietly and in order. Mr. Crane was sitting quietly on the wing of the bridge smoking a cigarette.

“Why the hell haven't you rung general quarters?” I asked.

He looked a little embarrassed. “Oh,” he said, “it didn't seem necessary. We were just steaming along, and suddenly there was sort of a geyser way over there, about a mile outside of that Liberty. We looked up. Finally the bow lookout saw a plane at about ten thousand feet. We just saw it an instant, and then it was gone.”

I reached for the general quarters alarm and rang it myself while Mr. Crane was speaking. The bell rang with what seemed an absurd urgency. On deck a group of men had been standing staring at the sky. As they dashed to their guns and donned helmets they looked sheepish.

“They don't realize anything is happening,” I thought. “They're afraid to make fools of themselves by making an emergency out of nothing.” Aloud I said to Mr. Crane, “What kind of a ship are we running here? Don't we even ring the general alarm when we're attacked?”

“I'm sorry, sir,” said Mr. Crane, “it just all seemed so silly. The plane was so far away. So was the bomb.”