"Thanks." I said. "Thanks for cheering me up."
I was about to go out the door when he stopped me.
"Seriously," he said, "I wouldn"t worry. This ship is no different from any other. At bottom they"re all that way. After a few weeks she"ll be clean and all the boxes will be in all the right places and everyone will talk as though they knew exactly where they were going. She"ll be a good ship, a taut ship but a happy one, as they say. Small ships and big men. We don"t have to worry in the engine room-all American youths have innate mechanical ability. You can read that anywhere. You don"t have to worry. We"re all brave, courageous, loyal and true. The boys in blue will pull us through-shall I make a poem of it?"
"No, d.a.m.n it, things aren"t as bad as that. We will be all right," I said defiantly.
"Sure we will," he said. "Sure we will. That"s the funny part about it. That"s the part I"ve never been able to understand."
CHAPTER FIVE.
THE DAY BEFORE we were to sail a string of trucks came down and loaded our holds with a cargo of canned pineapple. As our first stop was Hawaii and because the labels on the cans clearly read "Grown and canned in the Hawaiian Islands," it was a little discouraging. I took it upon myself to telephone the cargo officer and ask him about it. He explained that the pineapples were grown in Hawaii and shipped to the United States for distribution to the armed services all over the world. Our shipment was consigned for New Guinea; the fact that we were to pa.s.s through Hawaii on the way was insignificant. Yes, the pineapples would make a useless voyage from Hawaii to the States and back to Hawaii, but that couldn"t be helped.
I said all right, and went back to the ship.
"If we sink," Mr. Crane said, "just write on my tombstone, "He died in a vain attempt to bring pineapples to Hawaii.""
"It"s not that I mind so much," Mr. Warren contributed. "It"s just that I"ve always loathed pineapples. They"ve always made me ill."
By the night of May 23 the ship was loaded, the hatches were battened down, and I saw it was possible to sail the next day as planned. An order came down from the district that no liberty could be granted the men on the last night in the States. This was a common practice I knew. Last nights in the States had too often resulted in frantic telephone messages home, breaks in security, wild parties, and AWOL. Nevertheless it was difficult to tell all hands that their last night must be spent aboard ship. Some of them had their wives in town and nearly all of them had girls. To tell them they had to spend their last hours sitting on a ship alongside a wharf was a lot to ask. When the word was pa.s.sed, however, there were no audible complaints. The men went about their work, and, if anything, the ship was quieter than usual. For the first time I saw a very serious look on the faces of the younger seamen.
At supper that night there was little conversation in the wardroom. After the soup had been eaten in silence and the main course had been brought in and carried away almost untouched, Mr. Crane and Mr. Warren excused themselves and went into their staterooms. I stirred uneasily in my chair. It seemed to me that we were already at sea; the tie with the sh.o.r.e had already been broken. The streets of the city of Wilmington were not far distant from the wharf alongside which we were moored, and the sounds of traffic were clear, but the honking horns and occasional sounds of voices seemed removed from us.
On the bulkhead outside the wardroom we had hung a mailbox, and from time to time I could see through the open door a seaman or a petty officer come and drop a letter in it. As the evening wore on this occurred more and more frequently, and the performance carried with it always the same little pattern of sound. First I heard footsteps coming down the pa.s.sageway; then the seaman appeared, reached up to the mailbox, and I heard the gentle sound of the letter dropping inside. Next, more than usually, the seaman knocked with his knuckles a little against the side of the box to make sure the letter had fallen all the way in. After that there was a pause, and I heard footsteps walking up the corridor again toward the forecastle. These repeated sounds and the distant clatter of traffic were the only noises to be heard.
I became restless myself and went into my cabin and wrote a letter to my wife. When I had finished it I dropped it in the mailbox, caught myself knocking against the side of it just the way the others had, and went back into the wardroom. Mr. Rudd had gone to his stateroom, and I was alone there. The clock on the bulkhead read eight o"clock. Nineteen hours before we sail, I found myself thinking.
Another seaman came and dropped his letter in the mailbox, and I found myself waiting for his retreating footsteps. Instead I heard a knock at the wardroom door and saw White, a seaman of about eighteen, standing there with his cap off.
"Will the mail go off in the morning, sir?"
"Yes, White."
"I put in my letter that they might not hear from me for quite a while. Will that be censored?"
"No, White. I think we can let that go through."
"Thank you, sir."
He turned and I heard his footsteps going away. I waited undeterminedly in the wardroom a faw more minutes, then got up and knocked at the door of Mr. Warren"s stateroom. I found him seated at his desk writing a letter. Tacked to the bulkhead above his desk was an enlarged photograph of a very beautiful girl of about eighteen. The shape of the girl"s face, with high cheekbones and large, intense-looking eyes, made the picture arresting, and I found difficulty in keeping my eyes away from it; my glance kept straying toward the photograph. Mr. Warren bade me sit down on his bunk, and paused in his writing.
"It"s kind of a tough way to spend the last night," I said.
"Yes, sir, it is."
"When you censor the mail in the morning I think it"ll be all right to let the men say that they won"t be able to write for quite a while."
"Yes, sir."
I caught myself glancing at the photograph again and looked away. I wondered what it was about it that made it so different from the usual pictures of pretty girls. I decided it was because the girl in the picture looked as though she were just about to say something. Mr. Warren saw me looking at the photograph.
"That"s Rachel. She"s my wife," he said.
"She"s very lovely."
There was a moment"s pause and then Mr. Warren started talking very fast.
"She"s in a hotel uptown," he said. "We"ve just been married a week. I guess she"ll be surprised when I don"t come tonight, but I told her it might happen any time. She won"t worry, I don"t think. She"s pretty independent."
"She won"t worry," I said.
I glanced at his desk and saw that the letter he was writing was already many pages long. It struck me that I knew by heart every word that he had written.
"Well," I said, "she"ll probably get your letter tomorrow afternoon."
"Yes," he said, "that"s what I figure."
I got up and went out. As I walked back to the wardroom I could hear his pen resume its scratching.
I sat in the wardroom and tried to read. Somewhere up in the city a siren threaded its way through the distant streets. A fire, I thought, or maybe an ambulance. Somebody ash.o.r.e had his problems too.
It was nine o" clock. The men were still shuffling in to the mailbox. On an impulse I got up and walked forward to the forecastle. When I opened the heavy iron door the quiet babble of voices stopped. The forecastle was a large compartment that followed the shape of the bow. Along both sides were triple tiers of bunks. In the dim light I could see the half-naked bodies of the men in their bunks. Most of them were propped up on one elbow writing on tablets. In the middle of the forecastle squatting on deck were four seamen, and it had been these whom I had heard murmuring. One of them had a cheap map of the Pacific unfolded. It looked like a Standard Oil road map, and the seaman who had been holding it, a dark-haired boy of about twenty, still had his finger pointing somewhere in the middle of it. All the seamen, those on the deck and those in their bunks, were looking at me.
"I just thought I"d look in," I said. "How"s it going?"
There was a rustle of movement, and I heard a sort of anonymous, "Very well, sir. Everything"s fine, sir."
I stood there uncertainly. My eyes became used to the dim light and penetrated the dark corners of the compartment. Over every bunk some kind of photograph had been pasted up. There were snapshots and enlargements, and a few pictures of movie stars. The forecastle had lost its bare newness.
"In the morning, sir ..."
A mild little voice came from a far corner. I looked and saw a very slight seaman with a shock of straw-colored hair. "He looks like someone," I thought, and in a flash it came to me that the face looked like some juvenile actor I had seen.
"In the morning, sir, would it be all right if we sent telegrams?"
"I"m afraid not. Only if there is an emergency."
"Oh, there"s no emergency, sir."
Another pause.
"I don"t really have to send a telegram, sir."
All the men seemed to be waiting expectantly.
I took out my pipe and lit it. "It"s pretty hard to have to stay aboard like this," I said. "But you see there is a reason. If everybody got ash.o.r.e it would be easy to find out just when the ship was sailing. It would make it lots easier for the enemy."
There was a respectful silence.
"And you know," I went on, "this isn"t going to be a bad trip. We"re going to see lots of places. You"ll have lots to remember. And if we all learn our jobs there won"t be anything particularly dangerous about it."
There was another rustle of movement that somehow signified a.s.sent.
"Well," I said, "good night. If you"re worried about anything, let me know."
There was a m.u.f.fled chorus this time. "Yes, sir. Good night, sir."
I turned and walked out. When I had reached the deck I heard someone behind me. I turned and saw the huge, gray-haired first cla.s.s boatswain"s mate I had noticed before.
"Good evening, Boats," I said.
"Good evening, sir. I just though I"d tell you-they"re all right. They"re green as gra.s.s, but they"re all right."
"Yes, Boats, I think they are all right."
He hitched up his shirt and took out a package of cigarettes. Carefully he lit one.
"Well," he said, "good night, sir."
"Good night, Boats."
He went back into the forecastle and shut the heavy iron door behind him. I stood by the rail looking down into the narrow strip of water that divided the ship from the land.
CHAPTER SIX.
THE MORNING of the day we sailed we spent snugging everything down. I prepared a last list of gear we did not have and telephoned it to the Commander.
"That"s all right," he said. "You can get everything you need in Hawaii."
At two in the afternoon, an hour before we were to cast off our lines, a truck came down on the dock with a huge drum of steel cable. This we were to carry to New Guinea as deck cargo. I was busy making a last minute check of the charts and told the chief boatswain"s mate to get it aboard. He was a thin little man with a very loud voice, and he seemed pleased at the prospect of using the booms for the first time. All the time I was working on the charts I heard him shouting. The booms squeaked, and when they picked up their load I felt the ship heel over perceptibly as she bowed under her burden. The drum of cable weighed over two tons and was over eight feet in diameter. As the booms brought it amidships the ship straightened up again. Looking down on deck, I could see the men struggling to set the drum down just forward of number one hatch where it would be most out of the way. There was a jolt as the deck felt the impact of the weight, and the tackle swung free. The seamen stood in a circle around the drum looking pleased with themselves.
At three o"clock sharp the harbor pilot came aboard. He was a big man by the name of Mr. King.
"Let"s get going," he said. "I"ve got five more ships to take out this afternoon. I haven"t been home on time for supper for a week, and tonight"s my wedding anniversary."
Over the ship"s public address system we called mooring stations. Mr. Rudd hurried down into the engine room. Boats took the wheel, and the quartermaster stood by the engine-room telegraph. On deck the chief boatswain"s mate rallied the men around the mooring lines. On the wharf yard workmen waited to cast off the lines.
"I"ll take her away from the dock," I said to the pilot. "Then you take over."
The engine-room telegraph jingled as we rang up "Stand by." I paused for an instant.
"Cast off number one," I said finally.
There was a splash as the line fell from the wharf into the water, and the seamen on the bow heaved it in.
"Together, now!" I heard the chief boatswain"s mate say. "d.a.m.n it, heave together!"
"Cast off number four."
There was a strain on number four, and the workmen on the wharf could not get the line off the cleat. The chief boatswain"s mate ran aft.
"Give her slack there, boys, give her slack," he said, and the line slumped into the water. I watched the end of the line as it snaked through the water toward the ship and came dripping up on deck.
"Cast off number three."
There was a flurry of activity on the after part of the well deck and a cheery voice called up, "Number three is all free, sir!"
"Right full rudder."
Boats swept his huge arm around and spun the wheel.
"The rudder is right full, sir," he said. His voice sounded very sure and matter of fact.
"Port engine ahead slow."
The engine-room telegraph jingled, and almost immediately I felt the heavy throb of the engines and the deep-throated hollow coughing of the exhaust.
"The port engine is ahead slow, sir," the quartermaster said. He sounded nervous.
I leaned over the wing of the bridge and watched the bow nudge into the dock. Number two line creaked at the strain. The stern slowly swung out.
"Port engine stop," I said.
The engine-room telegraph jingled almost before I had finished the sentence and the quartermaster said, "The port engine is stopped, sir."
"All engines back slow."
Again the engine-room telegraph. The quartermaster looked up, smiling. "All engines are backing slow, sir."
The ship moved backwards through the water slowly, and number two line, the last to hold us to the wharf, lost its strain.
"Cast off number two," I said.
The workmen on the dock cast it off, and without waiting to see it hauled aboard, hurried off. The line trailed for a moment in the water, then the seamen hauled it in and coiled it on deck.
"All lines are aboard, sir," the chief boatswain"s mate called. "Shall I secure the deck for sea?"