“Captain, would you take a look here?”
I bent and looked through. I raised up.
“Keep an eye on him, Billy.”
His tall lean frame bent slightly to the glasses. I stepped to the pilot house door and spoke to the OOD.
“Mr. Sedgwick, we have a leopard ashore. Hard right rudder; bring the ship on a course dead-on to the beach. Reduce speed to minimum necessary to keep steerageway. Sharp watch on the Fathometer.” I spoke to the entire bridge watch. “All hands keep quiet.”
I stepped back to the wing, picked up the hand speaker attached to the bulwark shield.
“Mr. Selmon, this is the captain. Report immediately to the bridge.” I waited a moment. “All hands not occupied on ship’s duties report topside. Quiet ship.”
The ship swinging with a graceful quickness in the water, we headed stealthily at rpm’s at which she seemed barely to move, virtually wakeless, directly for shore and for him. The leopard had been simply standing there, all alone, looking out to sea. Now he appeared to look directly at the approaching ship, aware one felt that this object had made some sort of change of movement that was bringing it immediately toward him, however slowly. One felt he did not so much as blink an eye, but only watched. Barker still had the Big Eyes on him, myself 7x50 binoculars, but he was soon visible enough with the naked eye. I could hear the Fathometer watch sounding out depths to the OOD. Fifty fathoms, forty-five, thirty, twenty . . . We must have been no more than three hundred yards off when he next spoke.
“Fifteen fathoms showing, sir. Repeating, fifteen fathoms.”
“Now,” I said to Sedgwick.
“Stop all engines,” he said.
I heard the clank of the engine-order telegraph by the lee helm: presently, “All engines stopped, sir.”
We stood dead in the water, the ship seeming planted, swinging not at all in the stilled sea. Ship and leopard looking point-blank at each other. He stood there on the sand in absolute stillness; of a remarkable size; fawn colored with his black spots, his stately head, his powerful body; all grace, all beauty; motionless; waiting, fearless. I thought I had never seen a more magnificent creature. Below me, crowded along the lifelines, I could see the large numbers of ship’s company come topside; watching with fascination and a quietness equaling that of the leopard’s. We talked in hushed tones without lowering our binoculars.
“He looks a very healthy animal to me, Mr. Selmon.”
“So he does, Captain.”
“What’s the reading here?”
He let the binoculars come to his chest, stepped into the pilot house and looked at the repeater, stepped back and gave me the figures.
“Allowing us?”
“Two hours ashore, sir. Without harm.”
“If longer?”
“A man could live pretty well for anywhere from two to four weeks there. Downhill rather rapidly after that.”
“He looks too healthy for that.”
“He’s a leopard, sir.”
“I’ve already figured that out, Mr. Selmon.”
“Sorry, sir. I simply meant that different animals have different tolerances.”
“And that of a full-grown extremely healthy adult leopard?”
“I’m not certain anyone ever found out as to that particular animal, sir. I know I never did.”
Suddenly as we were discussing him, he turned and walked slowly, soundlessly, majestically, across the sand and into the trees until the bush had swallowed him up. We returned to our parallel course four thousand yards off. Somehow the hearts of all ship’s company lifted.
A Nice Outing
The schedule of our Jesuit chaplain, who must minister to Catholics, Jews, and Protestants, and in their own discrete rituals, had grown quite busy, as I have indicated, there having been an increased interest in religion aboard ship. Quite a number of the men have taken to reading the Bible. Fortunately we brought out more Bibles than anything, for use in regular Sunday church services. The Navy has always had a regard for the religious desires of its men; indeed that pennant bearing the Cross, as mentioned, is the only flag ever to fly atop the national ensign, during those services. The other day a delegation of the men came to me and asked if they could hold a short daily service and I granted the request. It takes place at 0600 on the fantail just about the time we are sailing toward the morning star and the sun is lifting from the sea. The number of sailors attending it slowly grows. It is a simple service. A reading of a few verses of Scripture, sometimes by the Jesuit, sometimes by a bluejacket or officer, standing on the vertical missile launcher, which makes a convenient pulpit. This is followed by a hymn or two . . .
A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing. . . .
To the voices of the sailors, accompanied by Delaney’s fiddle, Porter-field’s guitar, rising softly over the weather decks from aft, sometimes rather vigorously, as in this old Luther hymn, a favorite of mine, we have now become accustomed as heralding a new day of our search. It seems somehow not a bad way to start it, there being something reassuring, speaking of hope, in the music and lyrics of the old hymns. You can hear the service quite clearly from the bridge wing if you step out there to scan the waters. The Jesuit also quite often calls on Porterfield to give the homily, the helmsman having been a ministerial student before he turned mysteriously to the Navy.
Recently the chaplain came to me with the word that some of the men had asked for a baptismal service. Might we stop the ship somewhere in order to accomplish this purpose? I looked at him in astonishment.
“Did I hear you say baptismal service? And did I hear you say stop the ship?”
“Yes, Captain. You heard both precisely.”
“Good Lord, why can’t it be done aboard? Fantail, where you have services.”
“They want to be immersed,” he said.
“I didn’t know Jesuits did immersions.”
“A Navy Jesuit does. These particular sailors want it done like it was first done. To Jesus, by John the Baptist, in the River Jordan.”
“Yes, I know, Chaplain.”
He laughed. “I never doubted it, sir.”
“Too bad it doesn’t empty into the Mediterranean. We could take the ship there and make the thing complete.”
“Any place the water’s not over my head would do,” he said.
I waited. “Do you really think that’ll do any good?” I said then.
“Yes, I think it will, and I’m not thinking of the baptism.”
I gave a sigh. “Very well,” I said, “we’ll do it.”
Today we found a likely place. A strip of sandy beach, near a place called on the charts Zuwarah, not far into Libya. Selmon went in first and did his readings, which allowed us two hours ashore. A score of candidates had offered themselves for baptism. We went in in two boats, carrying them and some of their shipmates who wanted to witness the event.
We stood, all of us, in the stillness of the scene, meditative and attentive, on the white strand, the sea touching it with the barest of murmurs, while the Jesuit conducted a short service before the actual proceedings, commencing with a reading from the Gospel according to Saint Mark . . .
And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.
And straightaway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:
And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.
The words drifted out over the water, reaching up toward a windless sky. Porterfield played on his guitar and the men who knew the words joined in the singing of the baptismal hymn . . .
Shall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God . . .
T
hen the Jesuit and the candidates, all wearing their best sailor-whites, walked down into the transparent water and one by one he immersed them. First saying in a firm clear voice:
“I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
Said as a Baptist preacher would say it. Then with handkerchief held over the sailor’s nose and mouth, bringing him (or her) backward until he was fully submerged, then raising him back up in the symbol of the Resurrection, the one-word pronouncement, spoken with a clear-sounding and unmistakable authority into the silence of the watching sailors.
“Amen.”
Then the next sailor stepped forward for his turn. I was surprised at the Jesuit’s skills in a ritual to which he was unaccustomed—it somehow seemed neither inconsonant nor heterodox to see one in reverse-collar priestly garb performing it—and not an undifficult one physically; but then he was a man strong in physique, once, as noted, a Georgetown varsity boxer in the light-heavyweight division and still in excellent shape, recently had taken to giving boxing lessons to the men, to help, I think, soothe them. It was a pretty day, the bounty of an unclouded heaven looking down in seeming blessing on our band of sailors gathered on the shore, a gleaming catena of sunlight stretching across the water to our ship standing off, the only remission to the far horizon in the vast blue solitude of the Mediterranean. We stood enveloped in a radiant silence, a certain strange and indecipherable serenity seeming to touch all around, to lay upon the waters, the beach, upon all of us present. A distinct tang of chillness hung in the air. If any of the immersed minded the cold, it was not apparent; there was no shivering of the dripping figures. Twenty of ship’s company the Jesuit baptized, three of them women sailors: Radioman Parkland, Seaman Salinas, Yeoman Kramer. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, all were baptized. It was a benignant and somehow particularly satisfying undertaking and one curiously of a shipmate character, drawing the men together. When it was over, the drenched score, their dry shipmates, and the Jesuit wet to his waist stood on the beach while Porterfield played one last chorus of the hymn, of which all the twenty and the previously baptized who knew the words joined in . . .
Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
The beautiful, beautiful river,
Gather with the saints at the river
That flows by the throne of God . . .
As the last lines faded away, Selmon looked from his counter to me. “It’s time, Captain.”
We embarked in the boats, a little rapidly, and headed back out to the ship. Everybody seemed to have a good feeling. Preston put it best as we were nearing the ship.
“Captain,” he said, “wasn’t that a nice outing.”
I was sitting next to the soaked chaplain.
“Why, so it was, Boats,” I said. “A very nice outing.”
“By God, if I don’t think I’ll do it myself next time if we have another one. Begging your pardon, Chaplain.”
“Not at all, Boats,” the Jesuit said. “Any time. I shall await your pleasure in the matter.”
“Very good of you, sir,” the boatswain’s mate intoned gravely. “I’d like to think it over a bit.”
“Of course, I offer either sprinkling or immersion, as desired.”
“Very thoughtful of you I’m sure, sir.”
“Immersion’s pretty damned cold if you ask me.” The chaplain had begun to shiver a bit. “Still, the Baptists claim no one ever caught anything from an immersion even if they had to break ice to do it. I trust the record remains unbroken. Sprinkling’s simpler naturally. You can do it shipboard.”
The boatswain’s mate seemed to be pondering these matters of varying religious practices, of manifest choices presented one.
“If I do it I think I’ll go for the full thing,” he said after a moment. “They seemed pretty satisfied with it. Of course, if I decide I don’t know when there’ll be another chance.”
I looked at Preston, mildly shocked by these considerations he was contemplating. Through his partially opened blouse I could see on his chest a segment of Nelson’s great victory at Trafalgar. The boatswain’s mate sat in solemn thoughtfulness.
“Boats,” I said, “if you decide to be born again, I’ll stop the ship and have another baptism just for you.”
5
By the Lifeline
Restiveness
As we pass by Africa’s silent shores, a curious air seems increasingly to permeate the ship. Sailors as they live out their lives on ships are not traditionally a loud or noisy group of human beings. It is as though the lordly and unceasing sound of the sea had taught them that the human voice is a thing not best habitually raised. That tendency now seeming greatly enhanced as they go about their shipboard tasks; an excessive stillness, seeming to speak even in lowered, almost whispered tones, as if to disturb the soundlessness of the universe the least possible amount. A sense oddly almost of peace, approaching serenity. Of peace. Yet a tense quiescence.
Feelings move mysteriously throughout a ship at sea. Not merely from scuttlebutt either. More almost from that remarkable and precise sense sailors have of what is going on around them. It is as though some magnification of insight were granted them, in their own world contained entirely in their ship, an ability to see directly into the minds of their shipmates they know so well from this inescapable twenty-four-hour living with one another, to see even to a considerable degree into the mind of their captain however unrevelatory he may attempt to preserve his demeanor. Sometimes as I move about the decks, I find the eyes of one or more resting solemnly on me, a quiet look, neither hostile nor friendly, rather interrogatory, as if trying to penetrate what is taking place within me; now and then a sudden chill runs down me under those furtive glances. Of course, there is a great deal of all-too-available reality attached to these voiceless questionings. They can figure out for themselves, and no doubt have done so, that the Mediterranean being closed to us thus far, if it continues so, reaching Suez we will have to make one of two irreversible choices, cannot make both. And as the brutal knowledge slowly fills their consciousness, I have become aware of something foreboding in the air, a vague dread borne on fleeting, almost imperceptible signs. One can fear apparitions, fancy ghosts in our circumstances, but its persistence argues something more substantial. A sense of huge danger almost emergent; defining itself unmistakably as that greatest of all imperilments on the open sea: a ship becoming more and more divided against itself. The very stillness contributes to this feeling, giving it that same magnification. A sense of lurking expectancy. Of a grace period—for the ship’s captain, for myself, one with some unspecified, but of a certainty not interminable, time limit. And whichever course chosen, a considerable part of ship’s company by no manner to rest content with it. Though if ours were a society where votes were cast to determine decisions, and the vote taken today, I have little doubt where it would come down. The ship would have to make a 180-degree turn.
As if to help me in making the decision. With the doc, alone in sick bay.
“Could anything have happened to us? To us?”
He looked at me. “It’s possible. Personally I don’t think so. But we’re on seas where men have not been, Skipper.”
“Without chart or compass.”
“Yes.”
“There’s only one way to find out?”
“Only one, Skipper.”
I waited, made an abrupt change of course.
“Those ‘intermittent neuroses’ you spoke about. What a term.”
“Isn’t it?” he said rather jauntily, with a disdain for his own jargon. “Not absolutely absent with the women. But again, far more incidence with the men.”
Home
With Girard in my cabin, the door closed. She spoke as morale officer.
“One new thing, Talley tells me. Quite a number have mentioned we’re lucky to be at sea. They’re with the ship more than ever. A good time to have a ship. To be a sailor. They know that. Especially since . . .”
“They couldn’t be more right.”
“Home.” The word lingered, isolate. “It’s always been that, I guess. Never so much so as now. The ship is home.” She paused, quietly: “The word has the other meaning, too.”
I waited. “If, when it does happen . . .”
I paused a beat, looking at her; heard her finish it for me.
“It’ll come all at once, I’d say, sir. It may just explode.”
I sat back and made myself relax. “As long as they feel that way about the ship . . . I count on that. The ship: She will hold us together. Most of us anyhow. The others . . . We’ll handle that then, when it happens.” I said again, “What else?”
“Reading way up. Those nine hundred and eighty-five books we brought out. A major blessing, I’d say.”
“What are you reading?”
“Fathers and Sons.”
“I’m going straight through Dickens. Bleak House at the moment. How did we happen to bring all of him? Rather hoggish of Dickens.”
“Well, we couldn’t leave Dickens behind.”
The moment passed. I returned to business, to . . .
“What else?”
“They talk about their hometowns. Quite a few do.”
Something strange in the way she said this, picked up by her from my expression.
“No, not in that way. Those that do—as if they were still there. The nice places they’ve always been. Some even talk about going back in one of the small boats.”
The Last Ship: A Novel Page 33
