Ice Brothers (23 page)

Standing at the back of the room, Paul drank his share. It was hard not to contrast this revel with the predicament of the
Nanmak
, now ringed by enemy radio signals. Suddenly it seemed inevitable that the
Arluk
would soon be sent to help her. The thought that this might be his last party crossed his mind and seemed more gloomily realistic than melodramatic. Hilda's breasts jiggled magnificently as she attempted to dance with the captain. Now the victrola was playing Italian opera.

Paul's legs began to ache and the floor felt strangely comfortable when he sat on it. A thin bald man who explained that he was a doctor joined him. He carried a bottle of whiskey and kept both of their glasses full while in broken English he described the medical problems of the Eskimos. They suffered a great deal from tuberculosis, from venereal diseases, and from what white men call childhood diseases. Most died before they were forty. Eskimos melt like snow once white men arrive in great numbers, the doctor said almost casually. They can't handle alcohol. Sugar rots their teeth, and they exhaust their game supply soon after getting guns. It takes only a few years for their best hunters to become drunken beggars.

This news deepened the brown of Paul's mood. The Eskies were dying and probably he himself would not last long. Finishing his drink, he lay down on the wonderfully comfortable floor and napped. When he awoke sun was still streaming through the lace curtains at the windows. His watch told him it was a little after three, and he was suddenly unsure whether that was three in the morning or afternoon. Most of the other people were now sprawled on the floor. Mowrey was sitting with his back against a wall and his arm around Hilda, who was stroking his face. Mowrey did not react. His mouth was slightly open, and when the victrola stopped, Paul heard him snoring lightly. Hilda caught Paul's eye, and moving surprisingly fast on her hands and knees, crawled over to him. At that time and place her method of locomotion did not seem in the least surprising. Her great bosom swayed attractively in front of her.

“The captain, he no hold liquor good, you say?”

“I say,” Paul replied, and folded her into his arms as she sprawled by his side. The room was so full of tobacco smoke that his eyes stung. Some of the Danes had left and those who remained were asleep, as far as he could make out in the dim light. Hilda kissed him, her lips blubbery and soft, her breath coming hot and hard.

“No men here,” she said. “No men for very long time.”

“It must be tough.”

“You beautiful boy.”

“You're beautiful too.”

Certainly she seemed that at the time. He buried his face between her breasts.

“You come my place,” she said, stroking his hair.

They had difficulty standing up. It was hard enough for him to get on his feet, but almost impossible for her, and when he tried to pull her up, she won the tug of war and he found himself sprawled on top of her. After kissing some more, they crawled to a window ledge, and using that for support got to their feet with only two heavy falls. Her hand hit a whiskey bottle that had been left on the windowsill and sent it clattering against Mowrey's feet. Awaking with a grunt, the captain kicked it away. With much laughter and more embraces, Paul and Hilda put on their parkas in the vestibule and staggered out into the eternal sunlight. Holding each other up, they had not walked more than a hundred yards toward the nearest cabin when Mowrey came staggering after them. He had put on his parka but had not buttoned it, and in his hand he carried a bottle of scotch.

“Goddamn it, Yale, where are you going?”

“I'll see you aboard ship before long.”

“Damn your eyes, come back here! Are you stealing my girl?”

“I'm just helping her home.”

“Christ, she can get home alone. Come here! I want to talk to you.”

Paul hesitated.

“Come here!” Mowrey thundered. “Goddamn it, that's an order!”

“Better go,” Hilda said. “Maybe tomorrow.” Letting go of Paul, she staggered toward her little house.

Mowrey waited, taking frequent sips from his bottle. He was swaying as though he were standing on the deck of a ship in a gale, and sat down in the frozen mud suddenly as Paul approached.

“Give me a hand, goddamn it,” he said. “Lesson one: don't take the skipper's girl. Lesson two: don't fuck no Danish girls. They make trouble. Stick to the Eskies. There will be plenty of them farther north.”

They staggered toward the ship. Suddenly they were surrounded by sled dogs. Perhaps sensing the weakness of the stumbling men, they pressed close, snapping viciously, and retreated only a few yards when Paul and Mowrey roared at them. Throwing motions and even clumps of frozen mud hurled in their direction did not break up the circle the dogs formed around them. In a rage, Mowrey charged the lead dog, swinging his bottle. Only then did the dogs slink back to the shadows of the warehouse.

“You can't let them know you're scared,” Mowrey said. “Christ, let's take a breather. They'll let us alone now.”

Clambering to the top of a granite knoll, he sat down and took a sip from his bottle before passing it to Paul. The knoll commanded a view of the wharf, the ship and the harbor beyond, which glowed copper in the sun. A crowd of Eskimos and sailors were milling around on the end of the wharf near the ship. There was a lot of shouting and singing, but at the moment that seemed simply logical to Paul on this night of partying. Mowrey did not seem to notice.

“Christ, I can't drink the way I used to,” he said. “When I first came up here, I could drink for
weeks
without passing out.”

“When did you first come up here?” Paul asked.

“Christ, I was on a salt banker when I was just a kid. We fished just a few miles off shore here. We had a man bad hurt and we put in to find a doctor.”

“Things must have been different then,” Paul said, taking a gulp of whiskey. Somehow the stuff seemed to have lost its kick. It tasted like warm water, but his head was spinning.

“The Eskies were really Eskies then. Not many fucking Danes around. No fucking laws and regulations.” There was a pause while Mowrey drank and stared out over the iridescent harbor. “I was just a lad the first time,” he said. “Then when I was sixteen, I went in the navy. After the war, the first damn war, they didn't want me, but when the Coast Guard started to fight the Rummies, they wanted me. I fought Rummies for about five years. You'd catch one, turn him in and then the judge would let him go. The Rummies was all driving Cadillacs, and all I had was a broken-down Ford.”

“It must have been tough,” Paul said, accepting the bottle.

“It took me five years to figure it out. Then I quit and got me a Rummy ship. Had friends in the right places and did right well till they killed Prohibition. Then I went fishing again. Came up here and bought cod and furs sometimes. Ran arms down to South America. Had all kinds of rackets, but things got tough, I didn't know what the hell to do, but then the war started back up again …” Mowrey sighed with apparent relief. “I guess we better get back to the ship,” he said.

The noise of the Eskimos and sailors making merry at the end of the wharf increased as they approached. Groups of people were singing, dancing, shouting and a few were fighting. Almost all were carrying bottles. In the shadows near piles of stores couples were grappling and it was hard to tell whether they were wrestling or making love. As they reached the fringes of this crowd of more than a hundred celebrants, Mowrey and Paul did a kind of double-take.

“Jesus Christ, they're all drunk!” Mowrey said, dropping his own bottle. “Where in hell did they get the booze?”

“I better check the lazaret,” Paul said, and ran to do so.

The lock of the liquor locker had been broken off, and no sign of the bottles remained except empty cartons. When Paul went to report this to the captain, he couldn't find him. Suddenly Mowrey burst out on the gun deck from his cabin.

“Christ, they took every bottle I had!” he shouted. “I'm dry!”

There was panic as well as rage in his voice. A few of the men on the wharf stared at him, but the writhing crowd continued to celebrate. From the forecastle Cookie staggered, his tall chef's hat crumpled on his head.

“Don't blame me, captain!” he said. “I tried to stop them. They just broke in and handed out bottles to everyone.”

“
Who?
”

“Everyone! They all stole and gave to everyone else. They're all guilty, every last son of a bitch.”

“Who has the deck here?” Mowrey roared. “Where's Farmer and Greenberg?”

“I think they're asleep, sir. They tried to stop it, but there wasn't nothing they could do.”

“Yale, get those bastards up here,” Mowrey said, his voice suddenly turning dangerously sweet. “Greenberg was the senior officer present. I'll have to figure out whether to nail that Sheenie's balls to the mast or send him to Portsmouth for twenty years.”

Paul hurried to the wardroom. He found Seth and Nathan in their bunks. Seth had his eyes closed, but Nathan was reading a book.

“The skipper wants you,” Paul said to Nathan. “He's mad as hell. What in Christ's name happened?”

Nathan put down his book and sighed. “After you left with the case of whiskey, I went to sleep and so did Seth. When all the yelling woke us up, they had already broken into the booze and the party was already going full blast. We tried to stop them. No one would even listen. Have you ever tried to stop a crowd of about a hundred drunken Eskimos and sailors?”

“Why didn't you call the skipper or me?”

“He told us not to go ashore,” Seth said, opening one eye. “I figured it was an emergency, so I went up there. The skipper was asleep with a bottle in his hand and you were rolling around on the floor with a fat woman. I said to hell with it and came back to the ship. You were having your fun, so why couldn't the boys raise a little hell too? There was no way to get the booze away from them anyway except to shoot them. So I figured that we might as well let the thing run its course.”

“There really wasn't much we could do,” Nathan said. “As soon as they got their hands on the booze, they were completely out of control.”

“You better try to explain that to the skipper,” Paul said. “God help you.”

“I'll go too,” Seth said. “By God, if he takes me to court, I'll tell them I figured that what's good for the captain must be good for the men.”

Nathan was obviously nervous as he put on his coat to go to the captain, but Seth for the first time looked indignant. Paul followed them to the well deck, where Mowrey was standing, steadying himself with his hand on the cargo boom.

“Do you call yourselves officers?” he bellowed. “Where the hell were you when all this started?”

“We was asleep when it started,” Seth said. “And after it started, we couldn't stop it.”

“Farmer, you couldn't make a baby take its thumb out of its mouth. What have you got to say, Mr. Greenberg? You were legally in charge of this ship.”

“Mr. Farmer told it right,” Nathan said, his voice little above a whisper.

“What do you mean, you couldn't stop them? If they disobeyed direct orders, that was mutiny. Did you give direct orders?”

“I asked them to cut the noise and put the liquor back,” Nathan said. “Most of them didn't hear me.”

“To what individuals did you give a direct order?”

“I don't know, sir,” Nathan replied softly. “It was a very confused situation.”

“You
don't know!
Obviously you collaborated with this gross breach of discipline.”

Mowrey slurred these words, but he was beginning to act surprisingly sober.

“He's no more guilty than I am,” Seth said. “I figured it was an emergency, captain, so I went up to get you. I found you. You weren't in no shape to do nothing about it yourself. Bring us to court and that's what will come out.”

There was an instant of silence during which Mowrey suddenly smiled, his best sweet smile, and his voice was sweetly reasonable when he finally replied.

“So, Mr. Farmer, you are something of a sea lawyer,” he almost cooed.

“Facts is facts, sir. If you're smart you'll just let this thing run its course and forget it.”

“How thoughtful of you to give me advice. Thank you, Mr. Farmer. I know you want to help me to run this ship efficiently. Now, Mr. Greenberg, do you have any advice for me?”

“No, sir.”

“Mr. Schuman, I want you to log what I have to say now. Mr. Farmer and Mr. Greenberg are herewith charged with gross dereliction of duty, negligence, incompetence and insubordination. They are also charged with cooperating with enlisted men, names presently unknown, who breached our cargo and committed grand theft. They are also charged with aiding and abetting a mutiny. Both officers are hereby relieved of all duties. They are ordered to remain in their cabin until our return to a base where they can be transferred ashore for a court martial. Yale, I want that written up in the log right away. Then show it to me … Now Greenberg and Farmer, listen and listen well,” Mowrey said.

Letting go of the cargo boom, he forced himself to stand very straight. His voice thickened. “You may think you got me by the balls because I went ashore and got drunk. That's not as bad as letting the whole crew go crazy. When this thing comes to trial, the judge is going to pay attention to just one thing. They don't have many ice pilots. They got plenty of deadheads like you two. If it's a question of hanging you two or hanging me, you guess what they're going to do. Now go to your quarters and stay there till I say to come out. Your food will be brought to you. Dismissed!”

The two walked silently aft. Mowrey, followed by Paul, climbed to the bridge. Mowrey stood staring at the men ashore, many of whom were still singing and shouting, though others had seen his return and were gathering into subdued little groups.