Voyage to Somewhere (22 page)

“I'd hate to give up going out there,” Livingston said.

“Now look!” I replied. “I can't keep on letting one man come in late from liberty! The whole crew would start being late!”

“I'll do my best, sir,” he said.

“All right,” I said. “I'll forget these last times you have been late. If it happens again, you'll get a deck court!”

Without a word he turned and went out. When I told Mr. Rudd about it later, he said I had been a fool.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you're not trying to convince Livingston you're not prejudiced against him—you're trying to convince yourself.”

“God damn it, I've tried to give him a square deal,” I said. “I can't help it if he's always late from liberty!”

“You could give him the same punishment you'd give anybody else,” replied Mr. Rudd.

“And then he'd think he was being manhandled. He'd yell Jim Crow. Oh, the hell with it!” I finished.

Unwillingly I faced the fact that I did not like Livingston. His whining voice irritated me, and there was always the demanding righteousness of the persecuted in his eyes, the everlasting assumption that other men were evil, that he would be the recipient of evil.

“That God damn personnel officer would send me a nigger!” I said without thinking.

“Why, Captain!” retorted Mr. Rudd. “What are you saying?”

Both supplies and the opportunity for repairs became more and more scarce. Gradually our diet was restricted. Fresh vegetables of any kind were never available, and we replaced them with dehydrated cabbage. Fresh meat became unheard of. Instead we ate canned Vienna sausage, a canned pork loaf we called Spam, and Bologna. There was no yeast for making bread. It was too hot to eat anyway. We all lost weight.

More depressing than the lack of food was the impossibility of getting repairs. When anything broke it stayed broken. The electric boat winch burned out, and the men hauled the boats up by hand. One by one our electric fans gave out and robbed us of their breeze. One of our freezing units ceased to function and restricted our supply of ice. The signal light on the port wing of the bridge was inoperative. The head in my cabin needed a new valve: when the ship rolled it spat up its contents all over the deck. The incoveniences of these breakdowns were minor, but they affected us. The whole ship by her gradual falling apart became a computer of dates. “Oh, that was before the boat winch broke down,” the men said when trying to remember when they had seen a certain movie. Time was measured by the progress of disintegration.

Little Horrid, the monkey, contributed his share to the confusion. He threw things overboard. Screwdrivers, fountain pens, and a precious electric light bulb were all picked up by him and, with what seemed deliberate intent, thrown overboard. The men cursed him and sent him chattering up the mast. He stayed there grimacing at them. As soon as their backs were turned he ducked down to the galley and stole from the cooks.

In Guian we once tied up alongside a large steel barge, and Little Horrid escaped. Guns came into my cabin and asked for permission to go aboard the barge in search of him.

“Hell, let him stay there,” I said.

“If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to catch him,” Guns replied. “I hate to see the little bastard get away.”

“All right, go get him,” I answered irritably.

Guns went out. I sat on the wing of the bridge to watch. I saw him climb up on the wide deck of the barge and walk slowly aft. Suddenly there was a brown streak and Little Horrid shot past him and disappeared in a little shack that covered the barge's generator. Guns too disappeared in the shack. A moment later he came out.

“Hey, some of you guys come over and help me,” he called.

Flags and White, followed by Boats and most of the deck force, clambered up on the barge and stood in a circle around the shack. They stood there a little self-consciously and joked.

“All this bother for one damn monkey!” Boats said.

Guns went back into the shack, and a moment later Little Horrid appeared on the roof. The men closed in around him, but with one huge jump he cleared their heads and landed on the deck. He appeared to have hurt himself a little, but he picked himself up and fled toward the stern of the barge. In that moment a change came over the men: they lost their reluctant good nature and started cursing. All of them ran after the monkey, but he was nowhere to be seen. They searched everywhere, and finally saw a line hanging from the stern of the barge to the water. Little Horrid was hanging from this line just below the level of the barge's deck. The men gathered about the line and started to haul it up. As the line came up Little Horrid went down it hand over hand until he reached the end. He hung there baring his teeth at the men.

“Now we've got the little bastard!” Guns said, and reached a gloved hand down for the monkey. Just before the hand touched him, Little Horrid let go of the line and with his little paws over his head dropped into the water. There was a swift tide running, and swimming furiously, he drifted between the barge and our ship on his way out to sea. The men hurried along the decks above him.

“Get a line!” they called. “Heave him a line!”

Livingston was standing on the deck of the SV-126. When the monkey came between our hull and that of the barge Livingston picked up a coiled heaving line and dropped him the end of it. Little Horrid caught hold of it and climbed up hand over hand.

“Catch him!” the men called. “Get hold of him!”

Livingston, however, had no gloves. Furthermore, he had never touched the monkey, and Little Horrid was baring his teeth hideously as he came up the line. Just as the monkey put one hand on the deck, Livingston recoiled. Little Horrid jumped back onto the barge and disappeared into the generator shack again. The men all were furious.

“You dumb bastard!” they called at Livingston. “Why didn't you catch him?”

“He'd bite,” Livingston retorted angrily. “Catch him yourself!”

The men turned to the generator shack. Guns went in and called out that he couldn't see him.

“He must be in the generator,” White said. “Poke around and he'll come out.”

Guns came out and picked up an old broom that was lying on deck. He disappeared into the shack again. “I see him,” he called. “The little bastard's right down in the generator. I can't get him.”

“Let's get a hose and spray water over it,” White suggested.

“Wait a minute,” Boats said. “You ain't going to put a hose on a generator.”

Widen broke away from the group and went into the shack. A moment later there was the coughing of an engine, and the generator started. Little Horrid flashed through the door of the shack and ducked through the legs of the men standing there. He was safe on the stern again. Widen turned off the generator, and all the men stood together looking at the monkey, who sat huddled and wet on the extreme edge of the deck.

“Spread out!” Guns ordered. “Spread out and walk aft!”

The men walked slowly toward the monkey. Little Horrid saw them coming and moved cautiously along the side of the barge. Suddenly he sprinted past the men and jumped onto a piling to which the barge was moored. The men gathered around the base of the piling.

“We've got him now!” they shouted. “Get him down from there!”

Guns picked up the broom and poked at the monkey. Little Horrid ducked behind the piling and clung there just out of reach. With curled lips he grimaced at the men.

“You'll have to climb up after him!” White said.

“Hell, I'll get him out of there!” Guns replied.

Wetting the straw end of the broom in the water, Guns waved it at the monkey and sent a shower of water in his face. Little Horrid flinched and cowered, but did not move. The men shouted, and Guns did it again. He flipped the water at the monkey with stinging force.

Mr. Warren came up and stood beside me. He seemed very agitated.

“Tell them to stop!” he said to me.

“Let them catch the damn thing,” I replied. “It will starve if we go away and leave it on this barge.”

The men, however, had given up any immediate attempt to catch the monkey; they were merely torturing it. Closer and closer Guns waved the broom. He took to feinting at the monkey, swinging and barely missing him.

“Let him have it!” White called. “Knock him down!”

The men's voices rose in chorus. Flags was shouting a steady stream of oaths at the monkey and Guns was saying, “Come on, don't let me hit you, you foolish bastard! Come down from there!”

Flags picked up a handful of nails that lay scattered on the deck of the barge and started throwing them at the monkey. They narrowly missed him. The monkey dodged. One hit his wet fur. The men cheered. “That's the way, Flags!” they said. “That'll get him! Throw them a handful at a time!”

Mr. Warren bounded from the bridge to the deck of the barge.

“Cut it out!” he said. “Leave the monkey alone!”

The men all turned and looked at him in amazement. There was a short and pregnant silence.

“We was just trying to catch him,” Guns said.

Without a word Mr. Warren reached over and took the gloves from Guns' hands. As he put them on I noticed that his own hands were trembling. He walked over and climbed up the piling. The monkey had no place to go, and Mr. Warren caught him easily. Holding the shivering monkey in one arm, he let himself down to the barge. Silently he handed the monkey to Guns. The men all walked back aboard our ship. They were silent, and they separated quickly. We all felt we had seen something best hidden.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

W
HEN VICTORY
came in Europe we were lying at anchor in Tacloban. Sparks came out of the radio shack and said, “The war's over in Europe.”

Flags turned to me and said, “May I announce it over the public address system?” I said yes. Flags turned on the public address system and into the microphone said, “Attention, all hands! Attenion, all hands! The war is over in Europe. Germany has surrendered. That is all.”

He replaced the microphone in its bracket. On deck several seamen came together and started talking in low voices.

“We'll knock off all but the routine work for the day,” I said to Flags. “Tell them we'll make it a holiday.”

Flags took the microphone down again and announced, “Knock off all but routine work. Today is a holiday.”

The men talked very little about V-E Day. The main feeling was of hope that Japan would surrender too. There was envy for those in the European theater. For them there would be cessation of boredom and danger. Somehow thinking about it made us feel more lonely.

That night Mr. Rudd did not turn up for dinner. The cook said he had told him he didn't want any. After we were through eating I knocked at the door of Mr. Rudd's stateroom and found him sitting at his desk. He had a bottle of gin in one hand and a glass in the other.

“I'm celebrating,” he said. “Don't tell me I'm not supposed to drink aboard. I'm celebrating.”

“I was going to ask you for a drink,” I said.

Mr. Rudd motioned me toward his bunk. I sat down. From the shelf above his sink he took a glass, washed a residue of tooth paste from the bottom of it, and filled it a quarter full of gin.

“No ice,” he said, “and nothing but this God damn over-chlorinated water to mix it with.”

“Fine,” I said. “Just give me the gin.”

I sipped it slowly. Mr. Rudd lit a cigar. “Well, it's over in Europe,” he said. “Over for a while.”

“You can't tell,” I replied. “Maybe it's over for good. Last time they thought it was over for good, and this time everybody is cynical about it. Maybe there won't be another war—things usually go the way we don't expect them to.”

Mr. Rudd laughed. “What a God damn pathetic hope,” he said. He drained his glass and refilled it. There was a prolonged silence during which we both drank. Out on deck we heard the men singing. Mr. Warren had issued them a double ration of beer. I listened to the words of their song, sung to the tune of “John Brown's Body.”

“When the war is he day afterover we will all join up again,

Oh, when the war is over we will all enlist again,

When the war is over we will all join up again,

We will in a pig's ass hole!”

Mr. Rudd listened, and laughed. “What an awful thing!” he said. “Well, here's to peace—let's drink to it!”

The day after V-E Day the SV-126 received a large truckload of mail. Mr. Warren got two letters, one of them on the pink stationery his wife used, and the other on ordinary white paper. As usual, he disappeared into his stateroom to read his letters, but this time we did not see him come out for a much longer time than usual. When he did reappear he looked more worried than I had ever seen him before. He ate dinner in silence and before dessert was served he excused himself and disappeared again into his stateroom. As the evening wore on I became more and more worried about him. At last I got up and knocked at his door. In a low voice he bade me to come in. I found him lying on his back in his bunk. Sitting down on his desk chair, I lit my pipe. For a moment I wondered how I could approach the subject delicately, but finally I decided to come right to the point.

“If you want to tell me to go to hell and mind my own business,” I said, “you go right ahead. I came in here to ask you if you got bad news from home.”

“No,” he said, “I didn't.”

He spoke as though he had said the direct opposite, but he got up from his bunk and straightened his tie. The sudden movement seemed to do him good. He smiled at me.

“Thanks for coming in, Captain,” he said. “Everything's going fine. I got a letter from Rachel. She still has her job and doesn't get much time to write. That's why I don't hear from her more. Also, I got a letter from my father. Dad says he's going out West on a business trip, and he intends to look Rachel up. None of my family have ever met her, you know. I guess I got a little blue thinking about how much I'd like to be there when they meet.”