Voyage to Somewhere (28 page)

“Yes, Boats,” I replied. “Break them out and get her cleaned up. Air the bedding. Wash down the decks. Scrub the bulkheads below.”

Boats went on deck, and I lay down in my cabin. A moment later I heard the shrill call of his boatswain's pipe.

“Hit the deck now!” he called. “All hands! Hit the deck, boys! Let's get going!”

I closed my eyes. The taste of the gin was still in my mouth. In the darkness the cabin whirled around my head. I wondered if I were going to be sick, but instead I slept.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

T
HREE DAYS LATER
, on July 1, we got orders to join a convoy returning to Manila. It was a small convoy, only fourteen ships. Many of them showed signs of damage. When we fell into position outside the harbor we found that we were again beside the tanker,
Rocky Point
. At first we had not recognized her, for she had unloaded her gasoline and was now riding high in the water. Her tall sides were red with rust. She recognized us. Her signalman blinked over to Flags.

“How did you make out in the typhoon?” he asked.

“O.K.,” Flags replied.

“You were lucky you dropped out of the convoy,” the
Rocky Point
came back. “Two days before we got in we were attacked and lost three ships.”

In spite of the small size of the convoy, we had seven destroyers to protect us. They zigzagged endlessly back and forth ahead of us and on both our flanks. The weather was clear. Not a cloud was in the sky and the ocean was as smooth as blue paint in a bucket. Although I had steeled myself against the voyage back to Manila, I gradually found myself relaxing. The barometer was steady. In the smooth water we easily kept up to the other ships. Mr. Crane did all the navigating, and his results checked with those of the commodore. During the nights I slept well and the days I spent comfortably seated on the stern. The crew gathered there when they were off watch. I listened to them talk. They boasted about the typhoon.

“Boy!” they said. “Do you realize that when we rolled over that time our mast was in the water? The cargo lights were washed right off!”

“I was almost washed overboard,” White said. “You saw it, didn't you, Captain?”

“Yes,” I replied. “You had a narrow squeak there.”

Many of the men inquired about Mr. Warren. “Do you think he'll be all right, sir?” they asked. “What do you think will happen to him?”

They recalled incidents about Mr. Warren, nice things he had done. “He was sure one swell officer,” they said.

During the evenings they played poker, hearts, and monopoly on the mess deck. After the games they mixed make-believe milkshakes with cocoa, powdered milk, and chlorinated water. Sometimes they took the ice cubes out of the trays of the reefer and replaced them with mixtures of condensed milk and lemon flavoring to make ice cream. If the cooks found them doing this they threw the mixtures out and cursed them; but sometimes the cooks did not find them out, and the trays had time to freeze. Then the men filled bowls with the ice-flaked substance and licked it secretly and delightedly.

The men practiced barbering and cut each other's hair. Two seamen shaved each other's heads for a lark. They called each other “cue ball” and “eight ball.” Everybody laughed.

The seamen got into metaphysical and religious discussions.

“Well, I figure that there must be something after we die. It don't stand to reason that there ain't nothing at all.”

“Ah, that's a lot of baloney. I'm going to have my fun right here in this world, because when this is over—brother, that's it!”

“You're nuts! There's got to be a God. Who made this world? Who made you? Who made me?”

“Me girl made me! How about you?”

Laughter. The seamen told lots of joked. Jokes about traveling salesmen, jokes about talking dogs, long jokes that didn't come to any point at all.

“Did you hear about the guy who had a pet bookworm? He called him Motor. One day he picked up a book and outbored Motor.”

Laughter. They played practical jokes on each other. Sparks wrote up a dispatch saying that White had orders to go home for thirty days' leave. He came running down from the radio shack and handed it to him.

“Is it a gag?” asked White.

“Hell, no. It's the real thing.”

“Quit kidding. I know better than that.”

Laughter. They wrestled on the deck and pushed each other off chairs.

“Do you want to get your face pushed in?”

“Try it!”

“If you don't watch out I'll tear off your arm and beat you over the head with it!”

Laughter. They tied knots in each other's laundry on the line. They hid a friend's mattress. One evening one of them turned on the public address system and sang two lines from a song of Frank Sinatra before the officer of the deck made him shut it off. All the seamen on deck sighed and made believe they were fainting.

Laughter. Sometimes the seamen made strange costumes to wear. They painted their hats green and made shorts with long, fringed edges from dungarees. On the backs of their shirts they painted nicknames they would like to have.

“Bluebeard.” “Shakey.” “The Hula King.”

Laughter. They laughed most of the time. In the forecastle, in the galley, and on deck I heard it. It was merry, spontaneous, and unforced—a voice laughing in the wilderness.

Three days after we had left Okinawa a Jap plane droned high overhead. The destroyers opened fire on it, but it was too high. In spite of the Jap plane, my feeling of well-being did not diminish. The weather was still perfect, and we had so many destroyers with us that they could almost put a ceiling of flak over each ship. After the Jap plane was sighted we set a gun watch, but I felt it was more a gesture than anything else. In the evenings I played chess with Mr. Rudd in the wardroom. The men saw us playing, and they themselves found a cardboard chess set in the recreational gear. A fad for chess swept the ship. It replaced hearts, poker, and monopoly. Wagers were made on the outcomes of the various games. There was great excitement when one of the black gang challenged Mr. Rudd. They played on the fantail with all hands off watch leaning over their shoulders. Mr. Rudd won, and everyone cheered.

The evening of the Fourth of July I sat with Mr. Rudd on the flying bridge. The awning there had not been replaced and I was glad, for we sat back in our chairs and looked up at the stars, which looked like a brightly lit city in the distance overhead.

“This is like the old days,” said Mr. Rudd. “I used to be stationed on a ship which never went out of Long Island Sound.”

“Sounds pretty good,” I replied.

“Well, no, it wasn't,” Mr. Rudd continued. “It wasn't a happy ship. Tight as hell. The old man lived by the book. I was a chief machinist's mate then and the black gang were always fighting with the deck force. Every Saturday morning the old man held an inspection. He put on his white gloves and walked all over the ship. He'd rub his hands over the bulkheads, and if the white gloves were even a little dirtied there'd be no liberty that night. The chief boatswain's mate played up to him. Every time one of my boys from the engine room came on deck he'd yell at him for having greasy shoes or dirty hands, or some damn thing. I told the chief boatswain's mate to go to hell. After that we had a regular war. Whenever we left a hatch to the engine room open, it was sure to catch a bucketful of water. I got pretty sick of it. One Saturday morning when the chief boatswain's mate was giving the decks a last washing down before inspection, one of my machinist's mates got a little enthusiastic about our quarrel with the deck force and shifted the suction on the hose from the salt water to the fuel oil tanks. All of a sudden black fuel oil spurted out of the hose all over the decks. It was a four inch hose with a hundred pounds of pressure behind it. Before the chief could throw the nozzle overboard the decks were covered with oil. By that time he was so God damn mad that instead of turning the hose off, he stuck the nozzle down a hatch to the engine room. We got a dose of oil all over our polished engines and steel decks. Everybody lost their heads then and forgot about turning off the hose. Our boys in the black gang came on deck and played the hose all over the deck gang. All of a sudden the old man came on deck in his dress whites, and somebody gave him a squirt. You never saw such a God damn mess in your life!”

I laughed. “What happened?' I asked.

“They were going to court-martial us all,” Mr. Rudd said, “but the old man didn't want the news to leak out that such a thing had happened on his ship. He restricted us all for a month and we spent the whole time cleaning up. There was fuel oil all over the decks, all over the white bulkheads below and two inches deep in the engine room!”

Still chuckling, we went below. I went to my cabin to sleep. Through the open porthole the moonlight streamed. “They won't have any trouble keeping station tonight,” I thought, and went happily to sleep.

I was awakened by a deep rumble like thunder and the shriek of our general quarters alarm. As I jumped to my feet there was a thud that shook the ship. Running on deck, I arrived on the bridge just in time to see the whole convoy turning sharply to the left. Boats had the deck and he was turning with them.

“What's the story?” I asked.

“Destroyer over there is after a sub,” Boats replied. “Look!”

I looked just in time to see a white geyser from a depth charge lift like a fountain toward the sky. The ship shook. A moment later the deep sound reached us. A colored light appeared on the mast of the commodore, the signal to commence zigzagging. The ships turned again and steadied off on a diagonal course from the destroyer which was dropping depth charges. Forward on our ship I could see the men sitting quietly by the guns. We watched the dark shape of the destroyer send up white fountains of water in the moonlight.

“Quite a Forth of July celebration,” Boats said.

The men at the guns scanned the sea in the hope that the submarine would surface and give them a target. Nothing happened. Gradually the convoy left the destroyer which was dropping the depth charges astern. The other destroyers closed in around us and we felt protected. Two hours later the destroyer which had been dropping the depth charges steamed up and joined us. No one knew whether or not she had got the sub. We changed back to the base course and continued as though nothing had happened.

During the next day it began to get rougher. The wind had nothing of the meanness it had shown during the typhoon, but a good swell started rolling. The sky was still blue, however, and I did not worry about a storm. In the evening Mr. Rudd and I met again on the flying bridge. The moon glinted on the rolling seas, and the ship left a white stream of foam behind her. On the fantail we could see a group of men talking. Their voices were low, and only a few disconnected words drifted up to us. Forward the bow lookout was clearly visible leaning against the rail.

“You know,” said Mr. Rudd, “it's funny but …”

I never knew what he was going to say. Suddenly a yellow cloud of flame illuminated the whole convoy like the glare from a tremendous flash bulb. Almost at the same time we heard a dull, deep-throated explosion and felt heat upon our faces. We jumped to out feet. The
Rocky Point
was a torch from which fire climbed to the sky. The fire twisted itself into one pillar like a candle flame a billion times maginfied. The
Rocky Point
had turned and was veering away from the convoy. Already she was listing. It seemed impossible that the dark blur of her hull could inspire so tremendous a flame.

“She's been torpedoed!” Mr. Rudd gasped.

Everything happened at once. A destroyer began dropping depth charges. The commodore began signaling. The flame from the
Rocky Point
blossomed out at the top and transformed itself into a towering cone of fire. Black clouds of dense smoke rolled from the ship. The sea was brighter than under a noon sun. The ships in the convoy began to turn away from the
Rocky Point
, and Boats gave the order to turn with them. Mr. Rudd studied the burning ship through the glasses. The clatter of our general quarters alarm made his voice difficult to hear.

“I can see men on her!” he shouted. “We ought to try to get them off!”

“You're nuts!” I replied. “We'd burn before we got there!”

“If you went alongside her now they could jump aboard!” Mr. Rudd shouted. “Her stern isn't afire—it's only her tank decks!”

He was still shouting. I shouted back, “I'm looking out for
this
ship, see? I'm not going to pull any God damn fool heroics!”

“We're the only ship who could do it!” Mr. Rudd yelled. “Can't you see, we're the smallest ship in the convoy! We could maneuver right alongside!”

Suddenly a destroyer headed for us and a blinker light flared from her bridge. Flags answered. I waited on tenterhooks for the message.

“Proceed—alongside —
Rocky Point
—to—take —off —men,” Flags shouted.

“The God damn fools!” I yelled. “What the hell's the matter with them?”

A blind rage at the destroyer swept me and quickly transformed itself into recklessness.

“All right, you bastards!” I shouted to the deck. “Get every God damn mattress we've got out on deck. I'm going to jam right alongside the burning bitch!”

The crew left their guns and raced for the forecastle. A moment later they appeared on the well deck dragging mattresses. Boats appeared on the flying bridge.

“Get half your men on the well deck to try to fend her when I come alongside,” I said to him. “I've got to bring her up at full speed and get away from there as soon as possible! Get the other half of your men on the hoses and wet everything down!”

Boats disappeared, and I saw the men dragging out the hoses.

“We'll only need two men in the engine room!” Mr. Rudd shouted. “I'll get the rest of them up here to help the tanker's men aboard!”