The Sea is My Brother (19 page)

“We get lifeboat drills from tomorrow on,” continued Eathington, “and fire drills sometime this week. You know your boat and fire stations?” he added accusingly.

“No,” admitted Bill. Eathington scoffed.

“They're up on a notice in the alleyway!” he sneered.

Bill went out and glanced at the notice; he found his name in a group assigned to lifeboat number six and fire station number three. Well, if it came to a torpedoing,
there would be little time for reference to the notice, so he might just as well remember his lifeboat number.

Bill blanked his cigarette and mounted the hatchways; when he pushed it open he found himself on a moonlit deck. Black-out hatches would help very little tonight, he reflected—the destroyer could be seen in the moonlight ahead as clearly as in the daytime. Yet, it was dark enough to conceal a periscope, by George!

Someone nearby echoed his thoughts: “Look at that moon! Clear as day.” Two seamen were leaning on the poop deck rail.

“They can see us, all right,” laughed Bill.

The seaman grinned: “An' we can hear them!”

“Yeah,” snarled the other seaman, “That's unless they cut their engine and just wait for us.”

“They do that,” admitted the other seaman. “No submarine detector can spot that.”

“The moon,” mused Bill. “Lovers want it but we certainly don't.”

“That's a mouthful,” said one of the seamen.

They were silent as Bill gazed at the wake of the ship—a ghostly gray road back to home, unwinding endlessly and lengthening with every turn of the propeller. He shivered despite himself.

“Well,” said the seaman, “let 'em come.”

Bill strolled forward. The air was cool and clean, charged with the briny thrill of the waters. The
Westminster
's funnel, rocking gently in silhouette against the moon, discharged clouds of blue smoke and darkened the stars. Bill gazed longingly at The Big Dipper and remembered how he had studied this body of stars on quiet nights along Riverside Drive . . . they were far from New York now . . . and going farther.

He went below to Wesley's focastle. Curley held his guitar and strummed meditatively from his top berth while the others lounged and listened. Joe was at the mirror inspecting his bruises.

Curley began to sing in a nasal, cowboy voice.

“Martin here?” asked Bill.

Charley rose from his bunk and yawned: “He's standin' bow watch . . . I'm relievin' him in two minutes.”

Charley picked up his jacket and strolled out. On the bow, Wesley stood with legs apart gazing out, his hands sunken in a peacoat, face turned up to the stars.

“Take over, Charley,” he said. “Hello there man.”

“Hello Wes,” said Bill. “How about the game of whist with Nick?” Wesley took off his peacoat.

“Right.”

They sauntered from the bow, where Charley took up his station with a noisy yawn and a loud, sleepy groan.

“Haines is at the wheel,” said Wesley motioning toward the bridge house above.

“How's bow watch?” asked Bill, remember how lonely Wesley had looked standing at the head of the ship in the face of the night waters, an erect, brooding figure.

Wesley said nothing; he shrugged.

“Lonely standing there watching the water for two hours, isn't it?” pressed Bill.

“Love it,” said Wesley firmly.

When they opened Nick's door, his light went out.

“Hurry the hell in!” cried Nick. “Don't stand there picking your nose in the dark.”

When Bill closed the door after them, the stateroom was flooded with light. Nick and Danny Palmer were seated at a small card table.

“Ah!” cried Palmer. “Now we have a foursome.”

Wesley threw his peacoat on the bed and lit up a cigarette, while Bill drew a chair to the table.

“What is it?” asked Nick, fondling his moustache.

“Suits me.”

“Me too.”

“Your watch finished?” Nick addressed Wesley.

“Yeah.”

“How is it out?”

“Moon bright as hell.”

“Bad night, hey?” smiled Palmer.

“Could be worse,” grunted Wesley, pulling up a chair. “These ain't hot waters like the Gulf or off Newfie and Greenland.”

Nick dealt the cards blandly.

“When's your engine room watch?” asked Bill.

“Midnight,” said Nick. “We can play lots of games till then,” he added mincingly. Palmer laughed.

They scanned their hands silently. Bill glanced at Wesley and wondered how he could watch the sea for hours and then coolly take part in a game of cards. Wasn't it a dark, tremendous thing out there on the bow? Wesley looked up at Bill. They stared at each other in silence . . . and in that brief glance from Wesley's dark eyes, Bill knew the man was reading his thoughts and answering them—yes, he loved and watched the sea; yes the sea was dark and tremendous; yes Wesley knew it and yes, Bill understood. They looked down.

“Pass,” mumbled Danny, arching his blond brows.

“Check,” said Wesley.

Nick rolled his tongue around his palate.

“Three,” he said at length.

Bill waved his hand toward Nick. Nick grinned: “Are you giving me the palm?”

“Surely, the world is yours, Lenin,” said Bill.

Danny laughed smoothly.

“How true,” he purred.

“Diamonds is, trumps is,” mumbled Nick.

They began to play in silence.

“I'm moving in with Nick,” Danny presently announced. “Don't you think it's much nicer up here than down in that smelly focastle?”

“Surely,” said Bill.

“Don't let him kid you,” raced Nick. “Damn his excuses. He really wants to be near me.”

Palmer laughed and blushed. Nick pinched his cheek: “Isn't he beautiful?”

Wesley smiled faintly while Bill adjusted his glasses with some embarrassment.

Nick resumed his play with a blank expression.

“No, but I really like it up here much better,” Danny struggled. “It's much more pleasant.” Wesley stared curiously at him.

Nick slapped an ace down with a smack. Smoke curled from Wesley's nose as he pondered his next move. The room was plunged into darkness as the door opened; they heard the waves outside swish and slap against the side of the moving ship.

“Don't stand there scratching your head!” howled Nick. “Close and come in.” The door closed and the room was lighted again. It was one of the gun crew.

“Hello, Roberts,” greeted Nick. “Sit ye down.”

“I didn't know you ran a gambling hall,” laughed the young soldier.

“Just whist.”

The soldier perched himself up on Nick's bunk and watched the progress of the game. After a few minutes, Wesley rose.

“Get in the game, soldier,” he said. “I'm pullin' out.”

“You should,” mumbled Nick.

Wesley ruffled Nick's hair. Bill put his own cards down: “Where you going Wes?”

“Stick around,” cried Nick. “We need your foursome.”

“I'm goin' down for a cup of coffee,” said Wesley. He picked up his peacoat and went to the door.

“Hurry up!” said Nick. “I want to be in the dark with Danny.” Danny laughed suavely.

Wesley waved his hand at Nick and opened the door; for a moment his thin frame stood silhouetted in the moonlit door: “Okay Nick?” he asked.

“Don't close it yet!” howled Nick.

When Wesley had left, they laughed and began a new game.

At ten o'clock, Bill left the game and made his way down to the galley. The mess hall was crowded with seamen playing dice and drinking coffee. Bill had a cup for himself; then he went back to the moon washed deck and watched the big yellow moon sink toward the horizon. He felt a wave of peace come over him . . . his first day at sea had proved as uneventful as it was casual. Was this the life Wesley had espoused? . . . this round of work, feeding, ease, and sleep, this mellow drama of simplicity? Perhaps it was the sort of thing Everhart had always needed. What he would do now is go to sleep, wake up, work, eat, hang around, talk, watch the sea, and then go back to sleep.

Nothing could disturb this wise calm, this sanity of soul; he had noticed how quickly the seamen, and Wesley in particular, had put a halt to Joe's sacrilegious rebellion—no, they wouldn't have fellows like Joe “foul everything up.” And what was this “everything?” . . . it was a way of life, at sea; it meant equality, sharing, cooperation, and communal peace . . . a stern brotherhood of men, by George, where the malefactor is quickly dealt with and where the just man finds his right station. Yes, where he had once felt a deficiency of idealism in Wesley, he now
found more idealism, and more practical affirmation of ideals there than in his own self.

Bill took a last look at the night sea and went below to sleep. He stretched in his bunk and smoked a last cigarette . . . he hoped he would dream.

 

Wesley was up before sunrise for his next watch. The bosun told him to do something around the deck, so Wesley picked out a broom and went around sweeping. No one was around.

The sea was rougher that second morning out, its swells less smooth and more aggravated by a wind that had picked up during the night. Wesley went topsides and watched the smoke fly from the funnel in ragged leeward shapes. He began to sweep along the deck, still dull with sleep and not able to stop yawning, until he reached aft. Two soldiers stood below him, near the four-inch gun, consorting like monsters in their earphones and orange lifebelts.

They waved at Wesley; he waved his broom.

The ship had begun to rock in the heavier swells, its stern jogging slowly in massive wobbles. The wind whipped across the waters sporting a dark green shadow of chasing ripples; here and there, a wave broke at the top and crested down a white edge of foam. In a few days, Wesley mused, rough seas would develop.

In the East now the sun had sent forth its pink heralds; a long sash laned to the ship, like a carpet of rose for Neptune. Wesley leaned on his broom and watched for the sunrise with a silent, profound curiosity. He had seen sunrise everywhere, but it never rose in the shaggy glory that it did in North Atlantic waters, where the keen, cold ocean and smarting winds convened to render the sun's young light a primitive tinge, a cold grandeur surpassed only in the further reaches of the north. He had seen wild colors off the Norwegian North Cape, but down here off the top of Maine there was more of a warm, winey splendor in the sunrise, more of a commingling of the South with the North.

Wesley walked forward and breathed the salt-seeped wind deep into his lungs. He pounded his chest joyfully and waved the broom around his head, and since no one was around, he hopped around the deck like a gleeful witch with his broom.

This was it! That air, that water, the ship's gentle plunges, the way a universe of pure wind drove off the
Westminster
's smoke and absorbed it, the way white-capped waves flashed green, blue, and pink in the primordial dawn light, the way this Protean ocean extended its cleansing forces up, down, and in a terrific cyclorama to all directions.

Wesley stopped near the bridge and watched the destroyer up ahead. Its low form seemed to stalk the waters menacingly, her masts pitching gently from side to side, her guns alternately pointing above and below the horizons as though nothing could escape her range.

Wesley put aside the broom and sauntered around the deck. He found an oil can and went over to check the lifeboat pulleys; when he knelt down to oil one of them, the bridge house tinkled its bell. The wind whipped away the sound quickly.

“Brring, brring . . .” mimicked Wesley whimsically. “Music to my ears, damn it.”

In five minutes, the sun appeared above the horizon, a rose hill rising gently to command the new day. The wind seemed to hesitate in homage.

Wesley finished his work around the deck and clambered down a ladder to the next level; he took one last deep breath of the air and pushed open a door that lead midships. When he shuffled into the galley, Glory was already up preparing breakfast.

“Mawnin'!” boomed Glory. “If you lookin' for breakfast, man, you goin' to wait!”

“Just a cup o' coffee, Pops,” smiled Wesley.

Glory began to hum the blues while Wesley poured himself a cup of hot coffee.

“Where you from?” asked Wesley, jetting a stream of evaporated milk into his coffee.

“Richmond!” boomed Glory, removing his pipe. “I done lay down a hipe when I left Richmond.”

Wesley stirred his coffee: “I worked on a construction job down near Richmond once.”

“Richmond!” sang Glory, “dat's my town, man. I pulled outa there on account of a woman, yessuh!”

A seaman came in and unlocked the galley portholes; the pink light poured into the room with a gust of salty breeze.

Glory gazed through the porthole and shook his head slowly, like a great lion.

“I done put down a hipe when I left Richmond,” he moaned deeply. “A lowdown hipe!”

“What did your woman do?” asked Wesley.

“Man, she didn't do nawthin' . . . I done it all, old Glory done it all. I lost all her money in a crap game.”

Wesley shook with silent laughter. Glory poked his enormous finger in Wesley's chest: “Man, you think I was goin' to hang around there till she slit my gut?”

“No sir!”

“Hell, no! I done pull out o' Richmond an' dragged me North to New Yawk. I done worked up there for the W.P.A., in restaurants, and man, all the time, I had them lowdown
woman blues.” Glory chuckled with a rich growl. “I thought o' comin' on back to Richmond, but man I didn't have the guts . . . I shipped out!”