and gray-haired men advertising whiskey in the magazines were jumbled
together in his inner eye. He had never become a minister for the
simple reason that he had never been interested. But the thought that
was suddenly the most shocking to him was that he had never wanted to
_become_ anything at all. He had just wanted to do what he liked. This
was a revelation to him. He had thought about himself all his life but
he had never been aware that he was different from most people. He just
wanted to sail because he liked to sail and he wanted to get married
again because it seemed like a comfortable way to live. Chaplains and
Majors wanted to become Saints and Generals respectively.
“I guess I never really wanted to be a minister very much.” Evans ran
his hand through his hair. He noticed it was getting long. He would
have a haircut when they got to Arunga.
“Some, I suppose,” said the Chaplain philosophically, “are chosen,
while others are not.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” said Evans with more emphasis than was
necessary.
The Chaplain squinted his eyes and took a deep breath and Evans could
see that he was going to be lectured. He stood up and the Chaplain,
looking surprised, opened his eyes again and exhaled, a slight look of
disappointment on his face.
“If you’ll excuse me I’m going up top. My watch’s now.”
“Of course, certainly.”
Bervick was standing by the windows, looking out. Evans stood beside
him and they watched the sea together. The dark water shifted lazily
now, gusts of wind occasionally ruffling the surface of the water. The
night sky was black.
“You been asleep?”
Evans nodded.
“That’s what I thought. Martin hit the sack.”
“Barometer’s up.”
“That’s nice. I don’t like low barometers.”
“Nobody likes them.”
Evans looked at the stump where the mast had been. “She really tore off
hard, didn’t she?”
“Glad I wasn’t under it.”
“I guess the boys’ll really talk about us now, the guys on the other
boats.”
“Sure, they’re just like women. Talk, talk, that’s about all they do.”
“I guess they’ll say it was my fault. Harms would say that. He’d want
to cover his own hide for sending us out.”
“Well, you didn’t have to go if you didn’t want to. That’s sea law.”
“That’s true.”
“But I don’t think they’re going to say it was your fault. Worse
things’ve happened to a lot of other guys.”
“It wasn’t my fault, this thing, was it?”
“I don’t think so. You ain’t no weather prophet.”
“There wasn’t any way for me to tell that there’d be a williwaw.”
“Well, this is the season for them.”
“But how could I know that it was going to happen? We were cleared at
the Big Harbor.”
“It’s on their neck then.”
“I hope so, it’d better be. I couldn’t help it if we got caught like
that, got caught in a williwaw.”
“Sure, sure, it was no fault of yours.”
Evans looked out of the window. He was getting a little worried. The
thought that he might be held responsible for taking a boat out and
getting it wrecked in williwaw weather was beginning to bother him.
Bervick was soothing, though.
“You taking over now?” he said.
Evans nodded, “Yes, I’ll take over. You got a couple of hours, why
don’t you get some sleep?”
“I think I’ll go below and mess around. I’m not so sleepy.”
“By the way, did you fix that ventilator, the one over the Chiefs
engine room?”
Bervick frowned, “No, I forgot all about it. I’ll go now.” Bervick left
the wheelhouse. Evans checked the compass with the course. Then he
opened one of the windows and let the cool air into the wheelhouse. In
a few minutes he would go to his cabin and take a swallow of bourbon;
then he would come back and feel much happier as he stood his watch and
thought.
ii
Major Barkison and the Chaplain were in the salon when Bervick entered.
The Chaplain was putting on his parka.
“Hello, Sergeant,” said the Major. “We thought we might take a stroll
on deck before turning in.”
“It’s pretty windy still.”
“Well,” said the Chaplain, “I wouldn’t want to get a chill on top of
all this excitement.”
“Well,” said the Major, “maybe we’d better just go to our cabins.” The
Chaplain thought that was a good idea and Bervick was glad to see them
go.
He walked around the salon, straightening chairs and arranging the
books which were still scattered about. The salon was quiet, now that
the big wind had stopped. Even the bare electric lights seemed more
friendly than usual.
The after door opened and Hodges came into the salon. He slammed the
door and stood shivering as the heat of the salon warmed him.
“What were you doing out?” asked Bervick.
“Walking around. I think we’ll be able to see stars soon. Looks like
it’s clearing up.”
“Going to be quite a while before she clears that much.”
“Well, it looked pretty clear to me.”
“Clouds thinning maybe. I’ll be on deck myself soon.”
“You’ll see nice weather, at least that’s what I saw.” Hodges sat on
the bench and scratched his leg thoughtfully.
“Hope so.” Bervick tried to think why he had come below. He looked up
and saw that Duval was standing near him; he remembered.
The Chief was angry, “Say, Bervick, I thought you was going to fix that
ventilator.”
“What’s the matter with it now, we ain’t rocking much.”
“Well, it’s leaking all over my engine, that’s what’s the matter. I
thought Evans told you to get that fixed long time ago?”
“He certainly did. You heard him, too, I guess,” Bervick tried to
irritate Duval.
“Damn it then, what’re you going to do, just stand there like a stupid
bastard?”
Bervick frowned. “You watch what you say, Chief.”
“Who do you think you are telling me what I should say, anyhow?”
“Let’s take it easy,” said Hodges, remembering his superior rank and
deciding that things were getting out of hand.
Bervick and the Chief ignored him. “I don’t want you calling me a
bastard,” said Bervick. He enjoyed himself, fighting with Duval like
this. Somehow Duval had begun to represent everything that he hated.
“I’ll call you anything I like when you sound off like that. You think
you’re pretty smart, don’t you? Hanging around Evans all the time. You
and he think you’re mighty superior to everybody else.”
“We sure in hell are to you.”
Duval flushed a dirty red. “Shut up, you thick squarehead.”
“_Cajun!_” Bervick snarled the word, made an oath of it.
Duval started toward him. Hodges stood up. “By the way,” said Hodges
quickly, “where are the Major and the Chaplain?”
“What?” Duval stopped uncertainly; then he remembered himself. “I don’t
know.”
“They’ve gone to bed,” said Bervick. He was sorry that the Chief had
not tried to fight with him.
Hodges, pleased that he had stopped what could have been serious
trouble, tried to think of something else to say. He asked, “Do you get
into the Big Harbor often, Mr Duval?” This was the first thing that
came into his head and it was the wrong thing to say.
“Yeah, we go there once, twice a week,” said Duval.
“A lot of nice people there,” said Bervick, looking at Duval.
“All you got to have is money,” said the Chief softly, “money and
technique, that’s all you’ve got to have. Some people ain’t got either.”
“You’re right there,” said Bervick. “Some people got just one and not
the other. Some people that I could name are just like that.”
“Some people,” said Duval, beginning to enjoy himself, “haven’t got
nothing to offer. I pity those people, don’t you, Lieutenant?”
Hodges, somewhat puzzled, agreed that he pitied those people.
“Of course,” said Bervick, “there are some guys who sneak around and
get other people’s girls and give them a lot of money when they get too
old to give anything else.”
This stung Duval but he did not show it. “Sure, sure, then there’re the
big snow artists. They talk all the time, that’s all they do is talk.
That’s what Olga said someone we know used to do all the time, talk.”
“You must’ve made that up. Maybe she meant you. Yes, that’s who she
meant, she meant you.”
“I don’t think so. She knows better. This guy was a squarehead, the guy
she was talking about.”
“I think,” said Hodges, worried by the familiar pattern of the
argument, “I think maybe you better take care of that ventilator, like
you said.”
“That’s right,” said Bervick, “we can’t let the spray get on the Chief
Engineer. That’s getting him too near the water.”
“I been on boats before you was born.”
“Sure, they have ferries where I come from, too.”
There was silence. Bervick felt keen and alive and strangely excited,
as though something important was going to happen to him. He looked
at the Chief in an almost detached manner. Hodges was frowning, he
noticed. Hodges was very young and not yet able to grasp the problems
of loneliness and rivalry.
“Someday,” said the Chief at last, “somebody’s going to teach you a
lesson.”
“I can wait.”
“I think it would be a good idea,” said Hodges, “if you went and fixed
whatever you have to fix. You’re not getting anywhere now.”
“O.K.,” said Bervick, “I’ll fix it.”
“You going to do it alone?” asked Hodges.
“Sure, it’s too late to get anybody else to help. I couldn’t ask the
Chief because he’s too high-ranking to do any work.”
“Shut up,” said the Chief. “I could do it alone if I wanted to.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Why,” said Hodges, “don’t you do it together?” At Officers’ School
they had taught him that nothing brought men closer together than the
same work.
“That’s a fine idea,” said Bervick, knowing that Duval would not like
it.
“Sure,” said the Chief, “sure.”
They walked out on deck. Hodges stayed in the salon, playing solitaire.
There was a cold wind blowing and the ship was pitching on the short
small waves. Spray splattered the decks from time to time. The sky was
beginning to clear a little. Hodges had been right about the weather.
The ventilator was dented and slightly out of position. When spray
came over the side of the ship it eddied around the base of the
ventilator and water trickled through to the engine room.
Duval and Bervick looked at the ventilator and did not speak. Bervick
pushed it and felt it give slightly. Duval sat on the railing of the
ship, opposite the ventilator.
“I suppose,” said Bervick, “we should hammer the thing in place.”
“You go get the hammer then.”
Bervick walked to the afterdeck. He leaned down and raised the lid of
the lazaret. A smell of tar and rope came to him from the dark hole.
He climbed down inside the lazaret and fumbled around a moment in the
dark. Then he found a hammer and some nails.
“What took you so long?” asked the Chief. He was standing by the
ventilator, smoking.
“You forgot about blackout rules, huh? You making your own smoking
rules now?”
“You just mind your business.” Duval went on smoking calmly.
“I’m going to tell Evans,” said Bervick.
“You do just what you please. Now let’s fix that ventilator and stop
talking.”
Bervick got down on his knees and tried to wiggle the ventilator in
place. It was too heavy. He stood up again.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you get it in place?”
“No, I’d like to see you try.”
The Chief got down on his knees and pushed at the ventilator. Nothing
happened. In the darkness Bervick could see the lighted tip of the
Chief’s cigarette blinking quickly as he puffed. Duval stood up.
“You have to move these things from the top, that’s what you have to
do.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“That’s what you’re on this boat for, to take care of them things like
that. You’re a deckhand and this is deck work. This isn’t my job.”
“You’re the one that’s complaining. It don’t make no difference to me
if your engine gets wet.”
Duval tossed his cigarette overboard. “Take care of that.” He pointed
to the ventilator.
Bervick slowly pushed the ventilator over the opening it was to cover.
Then he picked up the hammer and started to nail the base of the
ventilator into the deck.
“How’s it coming?” asked a voice. Bervick looked up and recognized
Hodges. He was standing beside the Chief.
“Don’t know yet. Trying to nail this thing down.” He was conscious that
his knees were aching from the cold damp deck. He stood up.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Duval.
“Knees ache.”
“You got rheumatism, maybe?” asked Hodges with interest.
“Everybody has a little bit of it up here,” said Bervick and he rubbed
his knees and wished the pain would go away.
“I never had it,” said the Chief as though it were something to be
proud of.
“Why, I thought I saw you limping around today,” said Hodges.
“That was a bang I got in the williwaw. Just bruised my knee.”
“Well, I’ll see you all later.” Hodges walked toward the forward deck.
The ship was pitching more than usual. The waves were becoming larger
but overhead the sky was clearing and there was no storm in sight.
“Let’s get this done,” said Duval, “I’m getting cold.”
“That’s too bad. Maybe if you did some work you’d warm up.”
“Come on,” said Duval and he began to wrestle with the ventilator. It
was six feet tall, as tall as Duval.
“That’s no way to move it,” said Bervick. He pushed the Chief away and
he grasped the ventilator by the top. Slowly he worked it into place
again. Duval watched him.
“See how simple it is,” said Bervick.
Duval grunted and sat down on the railing again. Overhead a few stars
began to shine very palely on the sea. Bervick hammered in the dark.
Then, working too quickly, he hit his own hand. “Christ!” he said and
dropped the hammer.
“Now what’s wrong?” asked Duval irritably, shifting his position on the
railing.
“Hit my hand,” said Bervick, grasping it tightly with his good hand.
“Well, hurry up and get that thing nailed.”
Anger flowed through Bervick in a hot stream. “Damn it, if you’re in a
hurry, do it yourself.” He picked up the hammer and threw it at Duval.
The hammer, aimed at Duval’s stomach, curved upward and hit him in the
neck. The Chief made a grab for the hammer and then the ship descended
into a trough.
Duval swayed uncertainly on the railing. Then Duval fell overboard.
There was a shout and that was all. Bervick got to his feet and ran to
the railing. He could see the Chief, struggling in the cold water. He
was already over a hundred feet away. Bervick watched him, fascinated.
He could not move.
His mind worked rapidly. He must find Evans and stop the engines. Then
they would get a lifeboat and row out and pick the Chief up. Of course,
after five, ten minutes in the water he would be dead.
Bervick did not move, though. He watched the dark object on the water
as it slipped slowly away. The ship sank into another deep trough and
when they reached the crest of the next wave there was no dark object
on the water.
Then he was able to move again. He walked, without thinking, to the
forward deck. A wet wind chilled his face as he looked out to sea. The
snow clouds were still thinning. In places dim stars shone in the sky.
He walked back to the stump where the mast had been. He felt the jagged
wood splinters and was glad that he had not been under the mast when it
had fallen.
Slowly Bervick walked to the afterdeck. He had left the lazaret open;
he closed it and then he went into the salon.
Hodges was building a house of cards. His hands were very steady and he
was working intensely. When Bervick shut the door the house of cards
collapsed.
“Damn,” said Hodges and smiled. “Get it fixed all right?” he asked.
“Yeah, we got it fixed.”
“I thought I heard a splash a minute ago. You drop anything over?”
Bervick swallowed hard. “No, I didn’t throw nothing overboard.”
“I guess it was just waves hitting the boat.”
“Yeah, that was it, waves hitting the deck.” Bervick sat down on a
bench and thought of nothing.
“Where’d the Chief go?” asked Hodges.
Bervick wished that Hodges would shut up. “I think he went below. He
went around outside.” Once the lie was made things became clearer to
Bervick. They wouldn’t know what had happened for hours.
Hodges began to build his house of cards again.
Light glinted for a moment on Hodges’ gold ring. That reminded Bervick
of something. He was puzzled. It reminded him of something unpleasant
and important. Then he remembered: the Chiefs gold tooth which always
gleamed when he laughed, when he laughed at Bervick. Duval was dead
now. He realized this for the first time.
The salon was very still. Bervick could hear the careful breathing of
Hodges as he built his house of cards. Bervick watched his fingers,
steady fingers, as he worked.
No one would be sorry Duval was dead, thought Bervick. His wife would
be, of course, and his family, but the men wouldn’t. They’d think it
was a fine thing. They would talk about it, of course. They would try
to guess what had happened, how Duval fell overboard; they would wonder
when it had happened.
“You and the Chief were really arguing,” commented Hodges, putting a
piece of the roof in place.
“We’re not serious.”
“You sounded serious to me. It’s none of my business but I think maybe
you sounded off a little too loud. He’s one of your officers.”
“We didn’t mean nothing. He talked out of line, too.”
“That’s right. That’s dangerous stuff to do, talk out of line. There
can be a lot of trouble.”
“Sure, a lot of trouble. Sometimes guys kill each other up here. It’s
happened. This is a funny place. You get a little queer up here.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Hodges added a third story to his house.
“Me and the Chief, we don’t get along so well, but I ain’t got any hard
feelings against him, know what I mean?”
“I think so. Started over a girl, didn’t it?”
“There’re not many up here. The ones they’ve got there’s a lot of
competition for. We were just after the same one.”
“He got her?”
“Yeah, he got her.”
Hodges began to build an annex on the left side of the house. Bervick
hoped he would build one on the right side, too. It looked lopsided the
way it was.
“That’s too bad,” said Hodges.
“I didn’t like it so much, either.”
“I know how you feel.”
Bervick doubted that, but said nothing.
Hodges decided to build a fourth story. The house of cards collapsed
promptly. “Damn,” said Hodges and he did not rebuild.
Bervick looked at his watch. “I’d better get some sleep,” he said. “See
you in the morning.”
“Yeah, see you.”
Evans was singing to himself when Bervick came into the wheelhouse. The
man at the wheel looked sleepily out to sea.
“Fix the ventilator?”
“Yes.”
“Have much trouble with it?”
“Not so much.”
“Hammer it?”
“We hammered it.”
“Who helped you? Not the Chief?”
“Well, he stood by and watched.”
“Was he sore you hadn’t already done it?”
“He’s always sore about something.”
“I thought I heard you and him arguing below.”
Bervick played with his blond hair. “We had a little argument about
fixing the ventilator.”
“I’ll bet you sounded off right in front of the Major.”
“No, just Hodges.”
Evans groaned, “What the hell’s matter with you? Can’t you get along
any better than that with people?”
“Doesn’t look much like it.”
“He’s going to try get you off this boat, you know that?”
“I don’t think he will,” said Bervick and he was sorry he had spoken so
quickly.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know, I don’t think he’s that kind of guy.”
“I never heard you say that before.”
“Well, he’s not so bad, when you get to know him.”
“Is that right?” Evans laughed. “You don’t make much sense.”
Bervick laughed. It was the first time that he had really felt like
laughing in several months. The surface of his mind was serene: only
in the back of his mind, the thoughts he was not thinking about, only
there was he uneasy.
“Martin taking over at eight bells?”
Evans nodded. “You better get him up.”
Bervick went into the small dark cabin. Martin was asleep and breathing
heavily. Bervick shook him.
“Get up,” he said.
“Sure, sure,” said Martin wearily. He rolled out of his bunk; he was
already dressed.
“Afraid we might sink?”
“Sure, sure,” said Martin and he moved unsteadily to the wheelhouse.
Bervick sat down on his bunk and looked at the darkness. Duval was
dead. He imagined how it must have felt: the cold water, the numbing
sensation, desperation, and then the whole elaborate business of living
ended.
Evans opened the door of his cabin. “You asleep?” he asked.
“No.”
“I’m going below now. Which ventilator did you fix? I’ve forgot.”
“The starboard side. The one amidship.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You going below now?”
“I thought I’d look around before I turned in. Chief still up?”
Bervick controlled his breathing very carefully. “No. He said he was
going to hit the sack.”
“I won’t bother him then. Good night.”
“Night.” Evans closed the door.
Bervick lay in the darkness. He rolled from side to side in his bunk as
the ship lunged regularly on the waves.
It was not his fault. He was sure of that. He had handed Duval the
hammer. Well, he had thrown the hammer to him. He had not thrown it
very hard, though. The Chief had lost his balance, that was all.
Perhaps the hammer had hit him and thrown him off balance, but that was
not likely. The ship had been hit by a wave and he was on the railing
and fell off. Of course, the hammer might have been thrown much harder
than he thought, but Duval had caught it all right. Well, perhaps he
had not quite caught it; the hammer had hit him in the neck, but not
hard enough to knock him overboard.
Then Duval was in the water and Bervick had tried to get help but it
was too late. No, that was not right, he had not tried to get help:
he had only stood there. But what could he have done? Fifteen minutes
would have passed before they could have rescued him. Duval would have
been frozen by then. Of course, he should have tried to pick him up.
They couldn’t lose time, though. Not in this weather. He had tried
throwing Duval a line; no, that wasn’t true at all. He had done nothing
at all.
They would find he was gone by morning, or sooner. Then they would
talk. Hodges would try to remember when Duval had left and he would
remember hearing a splash: the hammer falling overboard. The Chief had
gone back to the engine room or some place like that.
Bervick slept uneasily. From time to time he would awaken with a start,
but he could not remember his dreams. That was the trouble with
dreams. The sensation could be recalled but the details were lost.
There were so many dreams.
iii
“I don’t see how it happened,” said the Major. “It’s been so calm.”
“I know, it’s been very calm,” agreed the Chaplain.
Major Barkison, the Chaplain and Hodges were in the salon. A half-hour
before, at three-thirty in the morning, Evans had told them that Duval
was missing.
In the galley the crew was gathered. The passengers could hear their
voices as Evans questioned them.
Hodges sat at the galley table playing solitaire. He had been asleep
when one of the crew had come and asked him to see Evans in the salon.
Hodges was sleepy. He hoped that Evans would finish his questioning
soon and let them go back to bed. It was exciting, of course, to have
a man disappear, and he wondered what had happened. Hodges could not
believe that Duval had fallen overboard. That was too unlikely. That
couldn’t happen to anyone he had talked to such a short time before.
“The decks are quite slick,” commented the Major. “It’s easy to slip on
them; all you have to do is slip and that’s the end.”
“I can’t believe it happened that way,” said the Chaplain. “He must be
somewhere around the ship. There must be a lot of places where he could
be.” The Chaplain, like Hodges, could not grasp sudden death.
“This isn’t a big ship,” said the Major serenely. “They must’ve looked
everywhere.”
“That water must be awfully cold,” said Hodges, beginning to feel awake.
The Chaplain shuddered and muttered something under his breath.
“Almost instant death,” said the Major. “Almost instant death,” he
repeated softly. The Chaplain crossed himself. Hodges wondered how the
water must have felt: the killing waves.
Evans and Martin walked in from the galley. Evans looked worried.
“Did any of you people see Duval tonight?” he asked.
The Major and the Chaplain said they had not.
“I did,” said Hodges.
“About when?”
“Around ten or eleven, I guess, I haven’t kept much track of time
lately.”
“What was he doing?”
“Well, he and Bervick were arguing about fixing the ventilator or
something.”
“I know all about that. Did you see him around later?”
“No. He and Bervick went outside to fix this thing. Bervick came back
in alone. He said something or other about the Chief going below.”
Evans sat down on the bench. The lines in his face were deep now. He
seemed to Hodges to have stood about all he could. First the williwaw
and then this.
“Go get Bervick,” said Evans, turning to Martin.
Martin left.
“I guess he fell off, if he did fall off, after Bervick came in,” said
Hodges.
“Could be,” said Evans.
“I can’t really believe this has happened,” said the Chaplain. “He must
be somewhere on the ship.”
“I wish he were,” said Evans. “I wish he were.”
“There will probably be an investigation,” said the Major.
Evans nodded. “They’ll be running all over the ship.”