Around the World Submerged (17 page)

In the next compartment, the Royal Dentist squirted unmentionable substances into the shorn pollywog’s ears and awful-tasting concoctions into his mouth, accompanied all the while by an insane giggling as though the person administering the treatment were actually enjoying it instead of being engrossed in a most serious and important duty. The next stop was up a deck to the officer’s wardroom, where a lusty gang of Shellbacks with brand new shillelaghs speeded the pollywogs’ passage. Then, they painfully shambled aft to the Royal Bathroom, a canvas-enclosed space beneath a deck hatch, where a bucket of cold salt water cascaded down on each man in turn and ceremoniously removed the last vestiges of his erstwhile status as a pollywog.

It took some time to initiate all the new men, since there were so many of them. After a while, leaving Neptune and his Royal Party to dispense justice by themselves, I proceeded aft to see how things were faring.

The ship was a mess, all right. In some dismay, I realized it would take days to repair the mess which the fun-loving Shellbacks and pollywogs had made of our clean decks and immaculate bulkheads. But it was a price worth paying. Chief Electrician’s Mate Herbert Hardman, covered with grease, minus half his hair, dripping water, expressed it. “I’ve waited thirteen years for this,” said he. “Nobody is a real sailor until he’s been across the line!”

By this standard, the luckiest man on board was John Moulton, Fireman Apprentice, only seventeen years old, who became a Shellback three months after graduation from boot camp.

During the entire initiation ceremony, the identity of the Little Gray Fox remained a secret, despite occasional attempts by the Shellbacks to elicit information by judiciously applied torture. None, however, would give him away, but I have always personally believed that it was Lieutenant George Sawyer,
Triton’s
First Lieutenant and the youngest officer on board. He also happened to be an ex-Yale crew man, who looked capable of taking care of himself in almost any kind of situation.

I missed seeing Sawyer tried, but was later informed by eyewitnesses that when asked whether he pled guilty or not guilty to the charges, he shouted, “Banzai!” at the top of his voice, drew a water pistol of his own, and before anyone could stop him, shot the King, the Queen, and the Royal Prosecutor. He was finally overwhelmed by the Prosecutor, the Attorney for the Defense, and a number of other Shellbacks, who, with a right good will, hurled themselves upon his struggling grease-plastered body.

The shillelagh-swinging Shellbacks prepared for a tough
battle when Sawyer appeared, but he scuttled between them so fast that they did more damage to themselves and the surrounding furniture than they managed to do to the thoroughly guilty Sawyer.

Finally, with all pollywogs properly initiated, King Neptune and his Royal Party announced they were cheered by the high caliber of our crew and that they had all been inducted and accepted into the august society of Trusty and Loyal Shellbacks. Promising at all times to be ready to assist his Loyal Shellbacks of the deep against pollywogs of the shallow coastal waters and especially pollywogs found on other ships, Neptune bade
Triton
farewell and returned to his watery realm.

Nowhere does it appear on the record, but the day before the ceremony, King Neptune had made a personal advance call on me to ask whether haircuts would be permitted. In 1952, when
Trigger
II crossed the line, I would not allow hair to be cut because within a few days we would be going ashore in Rio de Janeiro on liberty, and I didn’t want any of
Trigger’
s sailors wandering around town with zany-looking haircuts.

But this case, I now told Garlock, was different. There would be plenty of time for the hair to grow back.

There were, indeed, some dismayed looks, as the new Shellbacks regarded themselves in a mirror after the ceremonies, but all were assured that their hair would regrow by the time we got back to port. And, as a matter of fact, hard though it was to believe at the time, that is what happened.

It was a mighty funny ship’s company that carried
Triton
down the eastern coast of South America toward Cape Horn. Some men cut all their hair off; to give it all an even start, as one ex-pollywog expressed it. Others tried by one stratagem or another to make their heads look halfway decent, or at least symmetrical, but most simply didn’t bother, letting them stay the way they’d been trimmed by the Royal Barbers.

One noticeable thing was that the two Barbers cut each other’s hair some time during the ceremony, apparently to forestall
any possible attempt by pollywogs to seek revenge; and at least one Shellback took to wearing a sou’wester cap, strings tied snugly under his chin, whenever he went to sleep. His theory, he explained, was that while awake he was pretty sure he could defend himself; and before anyone could get the sou’wester off his head, he would be pretty sure of being awake.

Shortly after midnight of this day I turned in; the first leg of our trip was completed and the second one fairly started. We had had our share of ups and downs during these first days, and I wondered what the next leg would bring. Our course was now to the southwest, and in another week we would be at Cape Horn.

We had calculated that it would take us about seven days to make the long run down the east coast of South America to Cape Horn. It was technically the first leg of our circumnavigation, and I was glad that our first landfall and the horseplay at the equator were behind us. Now we could settle down and organize the ship for the long run. If all went as we hoped, we would see St. Peter and St. Paul’s Rocks again on the twenty-fifth of April.

Various projects were already under way. Dr. Ben Wey-brew, a psychologist from the Navy Medical Research Laboratory in New London, had issued a series of questionnaires to various volunteers from the crew. They were to mark them at different times during each day and turn them in daily. The Doctor’s project was to record such prosaic things as
sleeping hours; smoking and coffee-drinking habits; general feelings and moods, such as laziness or energy, depression or euphoria; how much food a man consumed and whether his eating habits changed during the cruise; his reading habits; how often he thought of his family; and other related matters. His questions seemed a bit strange to a number of us and when I asked about them, he explained that they were, in fact, derived from diaries kept by the men on
Nautilus
and
Seawolf,
who had carried out similar investigations during their long trips. Our data would add to the information thus amassed regarding the psychological effects of long cruises. The basic information would be valuable not only for future submarine operations, but for space travel as well.

One thing was already very evident: all hands were just beginning to realize how long a trip ours was to be. The crossing-the-line ceremony and the abandon with which hair had been cut brought our isolation home to all of us.

My off-hand comment that there would be plenty of time for the hair to grow back had apparently reached a large audience. The short bristles standing on stark white skin where there had been a handsome head of hair were a constant reminder that we still had a long way to go.

For a while, I was worried by the conduct of our high jinks the day before. Three of our pollywogs had refused to participate in the ceremonies. Even our technical and scientific personnel had accepted the full treatment, including Joe Roberts, who had been across the equator four times but never “officially,” as he put it.

In hopes the three holdouts would change their minds, I had refused to allow them to be dragged into the initiation. Later on, it was evident that I had missed my chance, if there had ever been one, to avert bad feeling—something we could not tolerate with a long cruise still before us.

For several days the matter preyed upon my mind, for it became apparent that some animosity was growing. Could this
be the beginning of a breakdown in the spirit of togetherness, which as a crew we must have for maximum efficiency, if not for an harmonious life aboard ship? Had I acted wisely in permitting our three holdouts to get away with their defiance? Might it not have been wiser to have haled them forth at the first sign of rebellion and have it over with, hopefully as a big joke—or would other things gradually occupy us and the whole affair blow over?

The matter was discussed privately with Ben Weybrew and Will Adams. There was considerable resentment of the three among the rest of the crew, Shellbacks all. If we were to give the holdouts credit for crossing the line, which they certainly had done even though not officially received by King Neptune and his Court, there would undoubtedly be even more resentment. If we held a special ceremony for them the next time we crossed the line—during the voyage there would be three more crossings—the best I could hope for was to minimize any possible outburst of vindictiveness by instant repression; active rancor was almost a sure bet, and during this sort of situation there is always a measurable loss of control.

Perhaps I felt the risk of trouble more than was necessary, but at any rate, all moves to give the three a special initiation were vetoed. In the end, we merely placed an official entry, carefully worded, in the records of everyone else, stating that they had crossed the line on such and such a date and had been received by Neptunus, rex, and his Court. Pollywogs were converted officially into Shellbacks, and Shellbacks were reaffirmed as such. No entry of any kind was made for the three holdouts. They would have to find another ship going across the line should they change their minds at a later date. Though we were to cross the equator thrice more, I decreed, there would be no further visits from King Neptune.

Along with everything else, this was the
Triton’
s shakedown cruise, and so a daily schedule of drills and exercises was laid out. In addition, a number of extracurricular activities blossomed.
The ship’s newspaper had become one of our primary sources of daily interest. Once a week we held our religious services. Courses in Spanish, mathematics, history, and civics were begun, with instructors, textbooks, and scheduled classes. The “
Triton
Lecture Association” was formed, created by Lieutenant R. P. (Pat) McDonald with the provident thought that after we returned from our cruise, there might be numerous requests for members of the ship’s company to lecture before various audiences. A little practice in advance, Pat suggested, would be useful.

There were indeed many separate and diverse activities going on. Some of us brought along books we had been planning to read or correspondence courses which, in many cases, were a prerequisite to advancement in rank, or rating. I found room in my cabin for the entire six-volume
Story of Civilization
by Will Durant, Samuel Eliot Morison’s biographies of Columbus and John Paul Jones, Admiral Mahan’s
The Life of Nelson
in two old volumes and Dr. Charles McKew Parr’s carefully researched life of Ferdinand Magellan,
So Noble a Captain.

All in all, there was plenty to occupy everybody as we proceeded on the first leg of our “official” circumnavigation.

As it happened, the run down the coast of South America started out smoothly enough, but it didn’t end that way. On the first of March, 1960, Jim Stark, a Commander in the Medical Corps, USN, and our ship’s doctor, sought me out.

“Captain,” he said rather abruptly, looking serious, “I’m afraid we have a pretty sick man aboard.”

This, of all things, was what I had been dreading most. “Who is it?” I asked. “What’s the matter with him?”

“It’s Poole,” said Jim, “Chief Radarman. I’m afraid he might have a kidney stone.”

My tone of voice must have indicated relief that it wasn’t something highly contagious like smallpox or meningitis. “Oh,” I said. “He’s not really sick then, is he?”

Stark grinned wryly. “It’s not infectious, Captain, if that’s what you mean, but he’s a pretty sick boy, all right. The trouble is there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“You mean you can’t treat him on board?” I asked, feeling the glimmerings of worry again.

Jim nodded. “He’s not sick in the sense of having a germ or a bug of some kind, but if you take a look at him, you’ll agree that if he doesn’t improve, we do have a problem. You need special tools for this, and we don’t have any of them. This is a job for a hospital.”

Stark produced a thick medical book with photographs and drawings to illustrate Poole’s problem. A stone had formed in one of Poole’s kidneys, had been dislodged, and was now in a ureter tube where it was damming the normal flow. The specified treatment was rather similar to what one might do with a clogged drain line on board ship, but as Jim patiently explained the techniques of doing it and described the delicate equipment which we did not have—which included an X-ray outfit—I began to understand his concern.

“Suppose the kidney stone remains stuck in the tube,” I said. “What happens then?”

“Well,” replied Jim, “in the first place, it’s terribly painful—and that’s what’s happening to Poole now. That’s why I’ve had to give him sedation. If there’s no relief—in extreme cases—there can be mild or serious damage of the kidney, which could result in a permanent injury. In an extreme case,” he said soberly, “if unrelieved, a person could die.”