Voyage to Somewhere (27 page)

On the bridge I sat down on my stool and dully looked out over the sea. The clouds and mist had closed in so tight around us that the sea did not look like a big place—it looked like a closed room. I nodded. I do not know how long I slept.

I was awakened by a terrible scream from below. At first I thought the wind had been mixing itself with my dreams, but the mad scream was repeated. Leaping from the bridge, I ran below and entered the passageway.

The first thing I saw was the body of the monkey on the deck. The monkey had not only been killed; it had been torn, dismembered, smashed. After that it had been trampled. All I saw was a flattened pile of bloody fur. Farther aft I heard the laughter again. It was high and quiveringly hysterical. It was allied to the moaning of the wind; it rose and fell with the wind, and intertwined with it. I dashed toward the laughter. In the crew's mess deck I brought myself up short. Mr. Warren stood there laughing. His hands were covered with blood. In one hand he held a pistol, and with the other he hung on to the table to brace himself against the roll of the ship. Before him cowered the cook. Beside the cook stood Mr. Rudd quietly smoking a cigar. Mr. Warren stopped his laughter abruptly and turned his glazed eyes toward me.

“Hello, Captain,” he said.

“Hello, Mr. Warren,” I replied. Both our voices sounded absurdly normal.

“Captain,” said Mr. Warren, “bring Wortly in here.”

“I can't do that, Mr. Warren,” I replied. “Wortly is in the forecastle. The men can't get out of the forecastle.”

A sly look came into Mr. Warren's eyes. “Why not?” he asked.

“The decks are all awash,” I said.

Suddenly Mr. Warren began to laugh again. Mr. Rudd took a step forward, but Mr. Warren immediately swung the gun in his direction.

“Bring Wortly in here,” he said to me again.

He pointed his pistol at me and smiled. “Bring Wortly in here or I'll kill you,” he said.

“Why do you want Wortly?” I asked.

The ship rolled, and for a moment I thought Mr. Warren was going to fall. He caught himself.

“I'm going to kill that wicked bastard!” he said.

The ship shuddered. Mr. Warren leaned sideways against the table. Still he did not fall.

“Why do you want to kill Wortly?” I asked.

“There are too God damn many wicked bastards in this world,” said Mr. Warren.

The ship trembled. Suddenly she gave a terrific lurch, and all of us fell to the deck. Mr. Rudd rolled on top of Mr. Warren. I sat up and saw Mr. Warren's outstretched hand with the gun right before me. I grabbed it and wrenched the gun away. Mr. Warren stood up, half carrying the enormous weight of Mr. Rudd. The cook tackled him around the ankles. All three of them fell to the deck again. Mr. Warren dragged himself to his knees. I hit him on the head with the butt of the pistol. He collapsed.

“Did he kill anybody?” I asked Mr. Rudd.

“Only the monkey,” Mr. Rudd panted.

We carried Mr. Warren to his stateroom, and tied him in his bunk.

Leaving Mr. Rudd with Mr. Warren, I returned to the bridge. The ship was rolling wildly. A glance at the anemometer told me the wind had reached a hundred and thirty knots. The whole ship was vibrating like a plucked string. The surface of the sea was no longer gray. It was white. An urge to do something took possession of me. No change of course was possible. No chance to seek shelter. Oil on the water? Something to try. I called Boats and told him to rig oil bags over the stern. He disappeared, and a moment later I saw him and White stagger across the fantail with a canvas seabag stuffed full of cotton waste and oil. They heaved it over the rail, and lashed it there. The foam alongside became stained with black. Otherwise there was no difference. “Let her drift,” I remembered Mr. Rudd saying. “Say the hell with it and let her drift.” I shrugged my shoulders and went below.

Mr. Warren was still unconscious. I found Mr. Rudd with him shaving his head where I had hit it. He worked carefully and with great tenderness. When the bandage had been applied, he took a cold cloth and wiped Mr. Warren's forehead. Mr. Warren's face was as composed as the face of a sleeping child. He stirred a little and opened his eyes. Slowly his features became contorted. The muscles in his face twisted and writhed and his lips curled back. He strained against the lines that pinned his legs and arms down to the bunk. Suddenly he uttered a piercing scream. Involuntarily Mr. Rudd and I stepped back. Mr. Warren tried to sit up and look at us. For a moment I thought a trace of recognition glimmered in his eyes. “Mr. Warren,” I said. He interrupted me with laughter. Sinking down in his bunk, he abandoned himself to laughter. Mr. Rudd and I turned and went out. The laughter followed us, mocking and wild. It rang through the whole ship above the whine of the storm. The cook came out of the galley and with an awed expression stood looking toward Mr. Warren's stateroom. In the passageway we passed a seaman on his knees with a rag and a bucket. He was cleaning up the remains of the monkey. As he moved the rag back and forth, he himself slid on the deck with the motion of the ship. As I went by he looked up, but said nothing. I went back to the bridge.

The next day the wind fell. During the evening it fell back to sixty knots. We started the engines and turned around. I plotted an estimated position and draw a course to Okinawa. When morning came the sky was heavily overcast, but the ceiling was higher. The great waves no longer marched across the ocean in orderly rows; abandoned by the wind, they were confused and ran in cross directions like a routed army. The sides of the waves were glossy and smooth, but they were still high, and the ship labored badly. We were forced to proceed at slow speed. As the day wore on the seas gradually subsided, and we worked up to eight knots.

I figured it would take about six more days to reach Okinawa. I had still been able to plot only estimated positions. The sun did not come out and I knew only in a very general way where we were. Mr. Warren lay bound in his stateroom, alternately laughing and sobbing. From time to time we changed his bonds. When we did this Boats had to hold down his shoulders and Guns had to hold his legs.

My physical weariness and the continual crying of Mr. Warren combined to produce in me a strange sense of unreality. I awoke in the night and lay listening to Mr. Warren. Covering my ears with a blanket, I went over and over the computations I had made to decide where we were. Doubt obsessed me. I began having nightmares. Sometimes I awoke sweating with the illusion that in a howling gale we had piled into a great, ragged reef.

On the second day after the typhoon was over, the sun came out and I got one line of position. In the evening just before darkness obscured the horizon, the moon appeared for a moment, and I got a fix. It put me about thirty miles away from my estimated position. Somehow the fix did not stop my doubts. I wondered how exact it was. A dozen times I checked my figures. Afraid that my concern would show on my face and infect the whole crew, I stayed in my cabin. The feeling of unreality increased. Suddenly the whole conception of celestial navigation appeared to me to be absurd. I was standing on a ship straining my eyes to see millions of miles to the sun in order to find my position on one, small, whirling planet. It didn't seem practical. Becoming disgusted with my thoughts, I went below to see Mr. Rudd. As soon as I opened the door to the passageway, the wails of Mr. Warren assailed my ears more loudly.

“Can't we put a gag on him?” I asked Mr. Rudd.

“I'm afraid he'd choke,” Mr Rudd replied.

To get away from the screams I returned to the bridge. I sat there until evening. A few stars appeared through the diminishing clouds and I got a good fix. Still I couldn't believe it. A pinpoint on the chart in our chartroom from the whirling stars overhead? Absurd! I retired to my cabin and lay down. This ship, I thought, is made of steel, which is a kind of melted earth. This earth was dug up somewhere in the States. Where? Michigan, maybe. Do they mine iron ore in Michigan? Anyway, this ore was dug up, a part of the earth out of the earth, and was put in a ship made out of other earth to be carried across the Great Lakes. This earth was put into a furnace, and was heated and treated and rolled. It became steel and was made into this ship. The SV-126. And I was told I was in command of all this carefully treated earth. I was given some men, a Negro whose ancestors were African savages and a boatswain's mate who is an ex-cop, and I sailed out here and found out where I was by looking at the stars. All this I did because some people in Japan made some airplanes out of bamboo and the earth, and flew those airplanes to Hawaii, and dropped some bombs they had made on some ships we had made. That's how it happened. That's how it really happened.

A piercing scream from Mr. Warren interrupted my thoughts. I got up and went on deck. The sky had cleared. Peacefully the stars lay in their patterns. I stood by the rail a few moments, then returned to my cabin and slept.

CHAPTER THIRTY

F
OUH DAYS LATER
we arrived in Okinawa. My first concern was to get Mr. Warren to a hospital. I went ashore, but the only hospitals I could find were run by the Army. They did not want to take naval personnel. The port director told me where a hospital ship was anchored. We weighed anchor and sailed across the crowded harbor. Finally we found the hospital ship, lying white and sparkling among the dark gray merchantmen and tankers. Flags signaled them: “We have insane man aboard. Can you take him?”

They signaled back: “Affirmative.”

After a moment's thought I told Flags to ask the hospital ship to send over some orderlies equipped to handle a violent case. Fifteen minutes later the white boat from the hospital ship came alongside. Two pharmacist's mates and a doctor were in it. They put Mr. Warren in a strait jacket, placed him on a stretcher, and carried him away. I made out the reports on him and handed them to the doctor. The boat shoved off. We stood looking after it. I suppressed an absurd impulse to wave good-by. On the bridge above me I could hear the clicking of the blinker light. I glanced up. Flags was receving a message from ashore.

“It's from the port director,” he called down to me. “They want us to come in and unload right away.”

All that night we worked unloading the burial supplies. Air raids were common in Okinawa, and I wanted to spend no more time there than necessary. After we had unloaded, however, we were told to stand by for further orders. The ship needed repairs after the typhoon, and I wanted to go back to Manila to get them. After telling this to the authorities ashore, I came back to the ship and went to my cabin. Wearily I lay down in my bunk. The ship was very quiet. Somewhere far across the harbor I heard the monotonous ring of a chipping hammer. I slept.

For more than twelve hours I did not awake. When I went into the wardroom for breakfast I felt refreshed. For the first time I was able to look around me and notice the crew. The seaman who brought in my breakfast looked gaunt. The cook's apron was dirty and his sleeves were rolled up over dirty arms. I went on deck. With only one boat in the davits the ship looked lopsided. Lying on the fantail with his head on a coil of line was Guns. He slept quietly. His black beard was matted around his neck, and the lids of his eyes were dark. I walked forward into the forecastle. As soon as I opened the door I was met by the stink of human sweat and the sighing of many people breathing. In the bunks lay the yellowed bodies of men. They slept in contorted positions, as though they had been thrown there. Their bed linen was gray and foul.

“We'll have to have a field day,” I thought. “Everything's a mess.” Shrugging my shoulders, I walked aft to Mr. Rudd's stateroom. I found him sitting at his desk drinking. At his feet was an empty gin bottle. Books lay scattered over his unmade bed. When I came in he got to his feet unsteadily.

“Sit down, Captain!” he said. “Sit down and have a drink!”

I cleared a place for myself on the bunk and sat down. Mr. Rudd handed me a glass of gin. I gulped it. Suddenly I wanted to get drunk—not just a little drunk, but very drunk. Mr. Rudd filled my glass again. Overhead an airplane droned. Mr. Rudd paused with the bottle in mid-air, but the sound of the plane's engine died, and there was no burst of gunfire to meet it. He put the bottle down on the desk. “Captain, what are you going to do after the war?” he asked.

“Go home,” I replied. “Get off this ship and go home. I'm going to get a job and build a house and have children.”

“Very good,” said Mr. Rudd. “Very commendable. Do you know what Mr. Crane is going to do? He's going to make a lot of money. He says he is. And the bastard will. Going into a brokerage office, or start a nightclub, or some damn thing.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Stay in the service,” answered Mr. Rudd. “Stay in the service and run ships and drink gin. That's what I'm going to do.”

He poured himself another drink, and for a moment stared down into the glass.

“Do you know what Mr. Warren's going to do?” he asked. “He's going to go to college with his wife. Somewhere in the Middle West. He's going to live on a farm and go to college. It isn't as impractical as it sounds. He's going to keep cows. The poor bastard! The poor, poor bastard!”

“Don't think about it,” I said. “If we think about it we'll all go nuts.”

“Don't worry,” he said. “I'm not nuts enough. That's my whole trouble. I think I've busted out of all the crazy conventional ideas of the world, but I haven't. I'll finish out my life making the engines of one ship after the other go around. I'll sit around getting drunk as I am now. Pretty soon I'll forget the whole thing.”

He crawled into his bunk, sank back on his pillow, and turned over. The liquor was beginning to creep up on me. I started to go to my cabin. In the passageway I met Boats.

“This ship is one hell of a mess,” he told me. “Is it all right to break out all hands and get her cleaned up a bit?”