I remarked that I wanted to see the other side of the island. It was for no casual reason. I wished to determine whether it held sites where we might build habitations ashore. It was an idea I had not so much as breathed to a single member of ship’s company. I feared to do so too early. It was of the greatest imperativeness to prepare them for it. First, by getting them accustomed to the island, even friendly to it. Then by making them dependent on it—the Farm was part of that. Then perhaps I might, with the proper portions of firmness, care, and gentleness, safely broach the idea of habitations. The better so if I had found a place suitable for these. There was a time in my command of the ship when I would simply have ordered it done. Technically I still could. But it would be a very foolish captain who did that now. Far better, perhaps even necessary—I did not wish to test those waters—to have their consent. Better still, their willingness. Best of all, their eagerness.
Hence, a certain deliberateness: one thing at a time. Certainly not until the crops were underway. Let the crops be a step, a big one, to anchoring them to the island. Nothing so much as food sources tied down animals. Men were no different; hunger was man’s strongest drive, as it was in any animal. He will not leave where there is food until he has assurance that it can be had at another place to which he goes. I had to bind them with that and if possible other ties before propounding anything like habitations. I stepped forward.
“I’ll take the wheel, Coxswain. You may sightsee for a spell.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Not with the greatest enthusiasm. I don’t think she liked anyone, even her captain, taking over her boat, which she considered hers. That amused me and it bespoke a good sailor.
“Here, take this,” I said, unslinging them.
With a natural, almost gibbonish, agility, at home in that boat more than in any room, she moved around out of her pulpit and took up a position forward, where she stood studying the island through the binoculars I had given her. As I brought the boat slightly inshore and then resumed our northwesterly course, paralleling the land, I looked alternately at the island and forward along the boat to the sea where she broke my line of sight, and thus necessarily at her. She was a small thing in her sailor’s dungarees, sailor’s white hat, less than a hundred pounds of her and probably managing the Navy minimum height of five feet with little to spare. She was at that crossover between girlhood and womanhood. She had an almond complexion, high-boned cheeks and impudent chin, and a flare of raven hair, kept rather short and bobbed but not so much so that I could not see some of it sticking out pertly from under her shoved-forward hat. If in some ways she was a girl yet, and you felt the dew still on her, in her trade of coxswain she was a full sailor. Anything concerned with that boat, she had a self-confidence bordering on the brazen, and wholly justified. She seemed almost permanently cross, as a guard and a tactic—don’t mess with me, Buster!—in a way that inwardly—often, if not invariably—amused me. You had a feeling that if you poked her she might bite you. She possessed a derisive little laugh, prohibitively not at me. At times I found myself impatient or even annoyed with a quality she had mastered into an art of being stubborn without being insubordinate. The skill of her boat handling made up for about anything, a fact I fancied she was quite aware of.
Not far beyond her, along the length of the boat, I saw Barker in the bow keeping watch on the water just ahead. We were far enough out not to have concern over sandbars, unlikely anyhow on this side of the island with its rocky shore.
“Barker!”
His head snapped around.
“Sir!”
“You may stand down for the present.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
He stepped from his perch and promptly came aft to join Meyer. She made no move to acknowledge his presence, but continued to inspect the island with absorbed interest through the glasses while he stood by her, rather as though in attendance, watching it through his naked eye. He stood a foot above Meyer, rail-lean, all limbs and bones. He had sun-streaked fair hair, a good-looking mouth likely to break into a sudden artless smile, and thoughtful, steady boyish eyes of sea blue. He was entirely placid and soft-spoken, not an unusual quality in apprentice seamen, except that I had the feeling Barker was that anyhow. A somewhat shy, almost somber young man, with an ingenuous face, the bones prominent everywhere, giving him rather the look of a novice Viking. There was something exceptionally unformed about him as yet, even allowing for his age; a high intelligence, yet a certain innocence of mind not only unacquainted with but unaware of the corruptibility of life. Meyer, who knew her own mind and where she was going, seemed light-years beyond him. His mind sometimes seemed off other places—I had no idea where, hers perpetually alert and on the matter at hand. She was twenty, he eighteen. Among her duties was to bring Barker, a striker for coxswain, along in his naval trade and I had every impression of a good tough taskmaster. For his part Barker, far from chafing at her strictness, appeared filled with a boyish eagerness to learn, and to be glad he had in Meyer an excellent teacher, to have a desire to please her.
Barker had one more attribute unusual and important to the ship. There is an official designation in the Navy that goes under the term “Expert Lookout.” Not a rating, it denotes a talent so rare, indeed baffling, that even the Navy has never been able to explain it—only to have the sense to recognize that the gift exists and can be an immeasurable asset to a ship; a tribute to the possession of a set of eyes that seem above human in their ability to see things on the surface of the sea. One man on our ship, Barker, was so designated. At sea his watch-bill duty was always lookout. When we actually expected to see, or hoped to see, something of importance, he was assigned to the primary lookout post, on the open bridge atop the pilot house, wearing a pair of sound-powered headphones, a mouthpiece on his chest so that he could communicate instantly with the bridge concerning anything he raised on the vast plain of the sea. The skill had been tested times without number and the designation proved accurate beyond all question. If Barker said something was there it was there.
Finally without looking at him she passed Barker the binoculars. He employed them for about a minute, then dutifully passed them back to her. An odd thought occurred to me: I could just have been their father, had I married and had children. Once I had regretted above anything else in my life that I had not done both of these things a man must if he is to call his life full. Now I was glad that it had been so. Just as well, with what was facing me, not to have the thought of that tearing at my mind, attacking my resolve. Now I had no one. No one at all. Save my ship and my people.
“Meyer,” I said.
The binoculars came down, the alert head around. “Sir.”
“I want to take her in. See if you can find a place in all that rock.”
I slowed us to one-quarter speed. She seemed to hesitate fractionally; then, leaning forward with the 7x50’s, began to sweep the shoreline, slowly, intently, her body bent now almost double across the gunwale. Finally she downed the glasses and spoke back to me.
“Captain, I think I see a place. Doesn’t look very good. But I don’t make out anything else.”
I stopped the boat. She came back and handed over the glasses. The boat rolled gently in the easy sea.
“About zero five zero, sir.”
I looked through the binoculars, across the water, sunlit until it entered the lee of the high rocks where sweet dark shadows lay. A white patch of sand, appearing little more than a handkerchief, but even so, larger than anything we had encountered, sat tucked into the granite shore.
“Awfully small, isn’t it, sir?” she said. I knew she was thinking of her boat.
“Why don’t we have a look. It might accommodate us.”
I gave her the wheel. “Take her in. Dead slow. We’ll all have to look alive here. Barker!”
He had been staring desultorily shoreward. He came out of some reverie and his head popped around.
“Sir!”
“Up in the bow. Close watch on
the bottom. Keep a sharp eye for underwater rocks. Sound back anything you see.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Coxswain Meyer brought the boat around cleanly and headed us inshore. Barker was flat on his belly in the bow, sticking well out so that he looked directly down into the sea. Intermittently he raised his head to sound back in a loud voice, “Clear, sir.” We were closing the cliffs.
Barker’s head came up from the sea. “Rocks to port!”
“Stop the boat, Coxswain.”
“Aye, sir,” and we came swiftly dead in the water.
I went forward, flopped down by Barker and stretched out over the bow. I could see the rock formation to port, mean and jagged looking, enough to stove in the bottom of something much stronger than our boat. Then I leaned far over and looked to starboard. All appeared clear. I raised up on an elbow.
“Nice eyes, Barker,” I said. “Coxswain!”
“Sir!”
“Take her twenty degrees to starboard. Dead slow. Steady as you go.”
“Twenty degrees to starboard,” I heard come back. “Dead slow. Steady as she goes.”
The boat turning, we crept in, both Barker and I sprawled alongside, our eyes hard and intent through the sea. The water showed cleanly to starboard until abruptly, beyond, loomed another rocky ridge. I raised up on my elbow and yelled back.
“Stop engine!”
The boat went instantly dead. I stuck my head out again and, with Barker, peered through the water. I could see the sand beginning to slope upward. It appeared we were in a tiny channel between two rocky protuberances. I raised back up.
“What do you think, Barker?”
“I think it’ll take the boat, sir. Just.”
“So do I. Coxswain! Ten degrees to port. Take her in.”
“Ten degrees to port,” came back at me and we inched in. My eyes and those of Barker tracked the bottom, Barker to port, myself to starboard, never leaving it. Then we could feel the boat bump up against the shore. We raised up. We saw ourselves perched on a patch of sand with the boat squeezed neatly between large rocks on either side, the beginnings of the underwater formations. Barker took a long breath.
“Just fits, sir.”
“Make her fast,” I said.
The sailor jumped out, taking the painter with him, and secured the boat to one of the rocks. I debarked onto the sandy apron. I looked the length of the boat at Meyer, still in her pulpit, hand on the wheel.
“A fine piece of work, Coxswain.”
“Sure looks close enough.” Her voice carried her disapproval still of this risk to her boat.
I stood and took a bearing on our surroundings. Up and down the beach, formations of high rock cliffs stretched far as eye could see. I looked upward at our own cliff, having to crane my neck far back to the hurting point to do it, for the cliff rose straight and high immediately above us, then near the top arched out to overhang us. I turned and looked to either side of the cliff. Northwest the cliff continued unbroken into the distance. On the other side, to the south, I could see where we were at a small break in the cliffline. Here a narrow ladder of earth went upward alongside the rock. I strained around and examined it. It looked steep, not much off the vertical, but trees grew from it, moderate-sized trees continuing to the heights. They could be our pulleys. I looked back at the boat.
It seemed secure enough there and I pondered. By rights I should leave someone with it: simply good seamanship. But for very particular reasons of my own, and ones I wished not to disclose, I wanted both of them with me. I wanted to see what it was like up there. But if it looked in any way possible, I wanted them to have seen it, too. Both of them. I wanted to get his reaction and I wanted to get her reaction. Possessives I seldom thought about in relation to my crew, except just of late. I had begun my careful and tricky preparations—how cunning does feed on itself! Nothing more quickly becomes a habit, a very way of life. I was finding that out. I think my ship’s company would have every tendency to believe a report brought them by their captain. But such a report brought as well by their own: It would not hurt. I decided. The boat was not going to wedge itself out from between those rocks. I craned again, gazing up the cliffside; turned back.
“Let’s all have a look up there,” I said. “I think we can get up with the help of those trees.”
Meyer looked surprised. I imagine she wanted to go. But she was coxswain of this boat. It was her boat.
“All of us, sir?”
“Yes, I know, Meyer. The boat will be all right. Let’s shove off.”
She looked still hesitant. When I give an order I expect it to be obeyed, not evaluated, and certainly not discussed.
“Did you hear me, Coxswain?” I said more sharply. “Let’s move it.”
“Aye, sir. May we give her another mooring, sir?”
“Very well,” I said shortly. “If you must.”
“Barker!” she snapped out. She was already throwing the line.
The startled Barker caught the line, having to jump to do it, and secured it to the opposite rock, affording the boat a double mooring.
“I suppose you’d like to put over the anchor, too,” I said, not meaning it.
“A very good idea, sir.” She scrambled around in the boat’s bottom, came up with it, and heaved it astern, where it hit water with a loud splash.
“Are you satisfied, Coxswain?”
“I think probably she’ll be all right now, sir.”
I looked at her. “Actually you were right, Meyer,” I said, a bit tersely. “Never leave a boat unattended. If you must, do everything to secure her.”
“I thought so, sir.”
I gave her a sharp look. She was straight-faced.
“Now shall we ascend?”
I led us around the cliff to the tree-laced earth just to its side. I started up. It was hard going, but the trees were sturdy enough and frequent enough that you could get ready purchases to pull yourself upward. I looked back to see Meyer just below me and Barker just below her. They were doing as I was doing, digging their feet hard into the angled earth, reaching out then for a tree, finding a handhold, pulling themselves to the tree, pausing there, digging their feet in, then passing themselves to the next tree. We hoisted ourselves up tree by tree. I could feel the sweat and the twitch in my thighs. Patches of broken sunlight came flickering down through the trees and I heard a bird squawk. They probably had nests in those rock cliffs. They had made them here rather than on the island’s windward, unprotected side. Those tern nests on the eastern shore had been summer-house breeding nests. Their real homes were here. Birds had their own built-in Beaufort scales, better than anything man knew. They must have seen high winds, and doubtless hurricanes, on the island, and being sensible creatures had situated their homes where they were properly sheltered. I held to a tree, getting breath. I looked back and saw Meyer holding on to another tree below me. I could hear her quick breathing.
“Are you all right, Coxswain?”
I started to reach out a hand, but caught myself. Looking at her I knew it was not a thing to do.
“Just fine, sir,” came back at me, quite briskly. “No problem.”
She looked below her. “Barker?”
I could just make him out beyond her, also holding on to a tree.
“All’s well down here,” I heard him call up. His voice had a panting edge to it. “I think.”
He stumbled momentarily and I saw her reach a hand quickly down to him.
“Come on, Billy,” she said, and yanked him vigorously up. I was surprised at a number of things: the strength in that taut little body as she gave a hand to such a bigger one; the sudden softness of concern and of entreaty, if insistent, in her tone; and even the name she called him—it had always been “Barker!” usually with an exclamation point and a certain rasp.
We moved upward, through the darkness and toward the sunlight, quite slowly, sweating, climbing steadily, working our way as we sought tree holds, pausing and gasping for breath
, then upward again. An odd matter of defenses crossed my mind: Anything up there would certainly be invulnerable to attack of whatever kind. It was almost by surprise that we found ourselves stepping out onto the top, and onto a broad smooth rocky shelf that surmounted the cliff like a pie plate. We stood there breathing hard. Straight down, far below, we could see the boat fastened snugly in her rocky moorings. Then, having regained breath, we looked up and down the island. Then, one on each side of me, together we gazed out to sea.
Sea and sky lay in an impossible solitude, in a comradeship of palest blues. Not a whisper of wind stirred, not the smallest strip of cirrus broke the towering vault of blue arching over the other mighty blaze of blue beneath. The sea stood naked: Not an object, not a speck flawed the surface, north, south or west to a horizon so distant you felt you could see the curve of the planet. Nothing, nothing but the infinity of blue, the great waters standing in awesome serenity, in all majesty, voiceless save for a lone and rhythmic susurration where they met the rocks below. You felt it must have been like this in the beginning, before God spoke to these waters and decreed earth. The sea looked the one immortal thing ever created, alone everlasting where all else, sooner or later, passed away; regnant, sacramental, only and true queen of the universe. I thought how the earth was seven-tenths ocean and that in that sense it belonged to sailors more than to anyone else, a thought which strangely lifted me. I felt I was gazing at eternity itself. Perhaps all along, from the beginning, only the sea had been meant to endure.
We stood there looking for what must have been minutes. Not a word was spoken and for that I felt an intense closeness to the two fellow seamen alongside me. But along with this came an overpowering sense of aloneness, as if there were only us on all the earth; an aloneness that seemed to speak to us, saying that all we had was ourselves and so must cling to and love one another, shipmates. And suddenly there was comfort, a kind of healing, in that. I thought one thing more, like a light of divination. The sight, what it gave to one, seemed an omen. Sailors believe strongly in omens. We must, with such as that, have come to a place meant for us.
The Last Ship: A Novel Page 10
