Authors: Sloan Wilson
“The war will be over soonâ”
“How long? How long do you think?”
“Two years, maybe three.”
“How nice. I'll look like an old woman by then.”
“Hardly.”
“This damn climate ages us fast. The Eskimos die of old age at thirty-five.”
The stove was making the cabin almost too hot. Getting up, she took off her trench coat and he unbuttoned his parka.
“Do you want more Aquavit?” she asked.
“Please.”
“If you think Germans are around here, you might find them anywhere. There are coves and hidden harbors all up and down the coast. Look at this chart.”
There was a tremor in her forefinger as she traced the east coast of Greenland. “This is Supportup-Kangerdula Fjord,” she said. “It's only about thirty miles south of here. Watch out if you go there. Supportup means âthe blower.' For some reason the foehn winds blow worse there. Do you know about foehn winds?”
“A little.”
“Even the Eskimos won't go near Supportup-Kangerdula. They have all kinds of superstitions about it. They have superstitions about almost everything. Demons in the sky, all that.”
“I've read a little about them.”
“They're a tough people who leave their old people and girl babies out to die when food is short, but everybody loves them. I'm not sure why. They wash their hair in urine because the tannic acid in it is good for furs. They have no jealousyâthey think what we call love is a disease. They just want sex from each other and help with the work of living. They love everyone. Everybody always loves them, but I'm not sure I do. God, I'm talking like a madwoman. I can't talk to the old people here. It's a relief to talk. Sometimes I get tired of Swan being so sentimental about the Eskimos, but they are a wonderful people. They know how to survive, they are the ultimate survival experts.”
The cabin was growing hotter. He took off his parka and she turned down the stove before taking off her sweater. She was wearing a simple cotton blouse which was discreetly open at the throat. It clung closely enough to her to reveal that she was not as boyish as he had thought. The slight swell of her modest breasts was enough to start him swallowing hard.
“I know what it's like to be lonely,” he said, sounding corny to himself.
“How long has it been since you've been home?”
“Only about six months, but it seems forever.”
“You're married,” she said, glancing at the gold band on his finger. “Of course you're married. The Eskimos never really get married. We talk them into a ceremony, but they have no idea what it means. An Eskimo thinks that a man who will sleep with only one woman is crazy. They don't care what their women do. They have no word for jealousy.”
“Maybe they're smart.”
“Do you want some more Aquavit?”
“Yes.”
“Do you really have to sail in the morning?”
“When we report that there's no enemy activity here, there won't be much for us to do. And my men will want to get moving. They go half crazy when they're not allowed ashore.”
“I can't blame them. The Eskimos would love to have them, but they can't stand a whole crew. I heard about your ship at Godhavn or was it Godhaab? Somewhere on the west coast. War makes everybody crazy. God knows I should understand that.”
They finished the bottle of Aquavit. Paul never was sure just how it started, but suddenly she was in his arms. He remembered that she helped him when his hands trembled too much to unbutton her blouse, and she said, “Now you'll be sure I'm a German spy. All the German spies try to get you into bed, don't they?”
If the beginning was hard for Paul to remember in detail, he never forgot the middle and the end. At that time in her life, Brit was not a woman who had to be coaxed up to his level of feeling. She was not the woman the sex manuals had described as a delicate violin that had to be played skillfully and gently. She was more like a whole jazz band, or ten jazz bands playing together. She was, in short, the kind of woman whom Paul had dreamed about and who, he had been sure up to this point, did not exist outside his fevered mind.
“I hope I didn't shock you,” she said when they had both collapsed in exhaustion.
“It's been a long time for both of us. Give me a few minutes and shock me again.”
“I should hurry back. Mr. Swanson will give me hell. He's terribly jealous, if you want the truth of it. He loves the Eskimos, but he isn't one.”
“He has
hopes?
”
“Age doesn't mean much when there is no youth around,” Brit said with a shrug, as she buttoned her blouse, and suddenly Paul guessed that she was Swanson's mistress. The thought of that hurt, but not as much as it would have before the Greenland Patrol.
“I think I love you,” he said, not even embarrassed by the absurd abruptness of it.
“Don't be ridiculous. If icebergs could fuck, you'd love them.”
She made her voice hard, but her face was as soft and vulnerable as that of a young girl.
“No,” he said, “I'll never forget you, Iâ”
She broke into tears, covering her face with her sweater. “Don't,
please
, say you'll come back.” Her voice was muffled.
“Maybe I can someday.”
“Would it help if I broadcast some weather reports to the Germans?”
He laughed and they made love one more time before getting dressed and hurrying out into the dark. It was only four o'clock in the afternoon, but already the sky was black as midnight and the wind howled around the small red huts.
“I can't ask you to the house,” she said. “Swan will be waiting for me.”
She walked with him to the wharf. When he realized that Nathan had tactfully taken the whaleboat back to the ship, he said, “I'll need a flashlight to signal.”
“I'll run you back in our boat,” she said.
She started the old diesel in the heavy launch and cast off like an expert.
“What are you going to do after the war?” she asked.
“Live in a little white house in Wellesley, Massachusetts, rake leaves, raise kids and work in a bank, I guess. Or maybe I'll get a boat and sail around the world. Or maybeâ”
“My ketch would make it if we fixed her up.” She shrugged. “I need to dream. Anyway, promise to do it with me.”
“I promise.”
He had time to give her only a last quick kiss before she slid the heavy launch alongside the well deck of the destroyer.
“Is that you, skipper?” Nathan called from the wing of the bridge.
“Yes.”
The quartermaster stepped out of the pilothouse to take down the third repeater. Brit was already backing the launch away from the ship. Paul could hear the growl of her reverse gear, but she had already been swallowed by the night. A thought he had been holding back now possessed him: he had been unfaithful to his wife. Much had been gained, but he felt that much had also been lost. Maybe youth, he thoughtâI never had much innocence. Whatever he had lost, this was not the time to brood about it.
Paul slowly walked to his cabin. “Ask Mr. Green to come in,” he said to the quartermaster.
Nathan had withdrawn to the wardroom, but he soon appeared.
“What did you find in there?” Paul asked.
“Nothing. Their radio transmitter looks like the original Marconi set. It couldn't possibly have sent the stuff I've been receiving. I suppose they could have hidden transmitters, but I doubt it like hell. They're just a bunch of scared old people.”
“I guess.”
“Do you want me to tell GreenPat we found nothing here and ask for instructions?”
“I guess we better. They don't even want to let the men ashore for a beerbust.”
“Then we better get out. The men are in an ugly mood. Guns was even trying to bribe that Peomeenie guy to take him ashore in his kayak. And Mr. Williams has placed Boats on report for insubordination.”
“What did Boats do?”
“He called Mr. Williams a fucking pipsqueak. Mr. Williams started it, he got after Boats for never saluting him.”
“Jesus, I wish I could bust them both.”
“I think I've handled it. I got each aside and gave each hell for being a troublemaker. I said you'd transfer them both to the same weather ship. They seemed to pay some attention.”
That night Nathan sent GreenPat a message about their fruitless visit to Angmagssalik. Almost immediately a reply came: “Proceed to Scoresbysund. Look for enemy activity ashore there and remain alert for German ships.”
“Scoresbysund,” Paul said when Nathan showed him the message. “That's five hundred miles farther north. God, the ice will be thick there.”
“I've been picking up quite a few signals from that area,” Nathan said.
“Probably the Krauts have some Eskie up there with a hand crank set just to drive us crazy. All right. Have the ship ready to sail at dawn.”
Paul slept so soundly that night that Nathan had to shake him the next morning to wake him.
“Dawn's breaking, skipper. Shall I get the anchor up?”
“Do you think you can take her out of the fjord, Nathan?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So do it. And ask Cookie to bring me a cup of coffee.”
Soon the anchor winch began to grind. Paul thought of the miles of ice and gales ahead. Probably they would find nothing but rocks and a few more old Danes at Scoresbysund. Then they would be ordered to patrol the coast all winter like the Flying Dutchman until finally, perhaps on some dark Arctic night, they found their German ship.
Paul shivered. The memory of Brit's fierce little body was still too strong in his mind to make the thought of death supportable. There were better things to do in the world than to drown in icewater. He wondered how long it had taken the Vikings to recover their taste for battle after one good night ashore.
October was not ordinarily a fall festival in Greenland, and Eskimo Summer, as a few old ice pilots wryly called it, sometimes consisted of a howling blizzard with the temperature diving to 50 degrees below zero, but during the last two weeks of this October of 1942, the weather which the
Arluk
encountered was surprisingly mild and the ice was scattered enough to allow the ship to keep moving. As he recovered from his brief realization that life could be sweet, Paul kept reminding himself and his men that the purpose of the
Arluk
was to kill Germans, or at least to stop them from getting information about Greenland weather that helped them to bomb the cities of Europe into dust. Despite the brief deceptive peace of an Arctic calm, it was necessary to remember that they were living in the midst of a world war. News reports which Nathan had Sparks type up for the bulletin board told of the Russians still fighting for their lives after winning at Stalingrad. The British were shooting the Germans in Egypt while London burned, and in the Solomon Islands the Americans and the Japanese were killing each other by the hundreds every day. If the
Arluk
found no sign of the Germans but mysterious radio will o' the wisps all up and down the coast, her crew should be grateful, as every man aboard was aware, but contrary to all reason, they felt cheated. Even though they knew that any German ship they found probably would outgun them, most of the men were eager to fight, or pretended that they were, even to themselves. They kept asking to use the guns for target practice, a temptation which Paul resisted not only to save ammunition for some imaginary long battle, but because he instinctively felt that the
Arluk
should remain as inaudible and as invisible as possible. Sound could travel incredible distances over the ice, and the flash of guns could sometimes be seen for many miles. If a German ship was in the vicinity, the odds would favor the captain who was first aware of the presence of the other. Paul asked Nathan to use even his sophisticated radio procedures as little as possible. Because radar advertised its presence to any ship with the proper detection devices, Paul used his set only in the worst visibility, and then only as long as necessary to get his bearings.
When the radar set was on, Paul studied the small glowing chart it provided and tried to understand its implications for Arctic warfare. In the open sea there was great excitement whenever the radar picked up a target, but in the ice field the ship was of course surrounded by objects which the set duly recorded as glowing blobs. It took practice to interpret these. Rocky islands could be differentiated from even the biggest icebergs, and Nathan said that steel ships would show up more clearly than wooden ones. The only sure way to tell a ship from an iceberg, however, would be to study its motion. A ship which lay motionless in a sea of scattered icebergs would be virtually impossible to detect.
As the nights grew longer, Paul began to think of Arctic warfare as a battle between two men in a dark room. The one who stayed still and listened for the other to move would have the advantage. While trying to get to Scoresbysund, or while following orders to patrol the coast, the
Arluk
of course could not remain stationary, but at the first sign of an enemy in the night, Paul would stop his ship in defiance of naval custom, he decided. If an iceberg were nearby, he'd take cover under that, like an Indian hiding behind a rock. There he would stay as still as possible and wait for the Germans to move.
The trouble was, of course, that a weather ship would not have to go anywhere and would not have to patrolâshe could just lie motionless in the ice, detectable only when she radioed her reports, and if the Germans had found a way to relay high-frequency signals, one would have to be within sight of her to pick those up. Why in this war did the advantage always appear to be on the side of the enemy? It was certainly easier to hide a radio transmitter in the vast wastelands of Greenland than to find one. Far out in the Atlantic, convoys were always easier to attack than to defend. If there was a God and if he was essentially moral, why did the inexorable laws of warfare always favor the aggressor?