The Last Ship: A Novel

by William Brinkley

  I was really becoming rather fond of him. For one thing, his enduringly untroubled air, seeming little altered by events. He seemed to come down on the side of harmony, the lessening of tensions, a welcome gift. When not engaged in his profession, where his exactness as to degrees, minutes, seconds, of latitude, longitude; as to star-sights; as to anything dealing with the present course or position of the ship you could take as gospel, no verification required—away from all that, a kind of splendid carelessness about him. Despite this, in some ways I looked upon him as our most vulnerable officer. His voice often took on an extraordinary sweetness as he talked, as now, and said, startling me:

  “One thing, in the Pacific, I’d get to see the Southern Cross. I’d like to do that sometime before I check out.”

  It was spoken casually, lightly, not thinking of decisions; of immense choices; only of the stars he loved. The silence held again, a pleasant absence of compulsion. Then, before we both turned to go below, his quiet murmur of a voice, the words falling like inevitability itself, full of poignancy and an unspeakable heartbreak, though spoken offhandedly, carelessly, upon the stillness of the night.

  “Actually, I don’t have anybody back there anyhow,” the words piercing my soul. Paused a beat. Then:

  “I’ll go where the ship goes. That’s my preference.”

  Orel

  Tonight standing by the lifeline with young Ensign Jennings, a junior OOD, the youngest officer aboard by a considerable margin. He suddenly said to me:

  “Captain, those three hundred and eleven thousand people—that was the figure, wasn’t it, sir?”

  It would have been no use pretending I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “That’s about a thousand per man in ship’s company,” he said.

  I waited in the abrupt tension. Then: “Do you believe in hell, Captain?”

  “I don’t know that I believe in hell for anything. And I certainly don’t believe in it for what we have done.” I waited a moment. Then said quietly, “Leave it, lad.”

  Dominoes

  He had recently started his Garden.

  “You liked farming, didn’t you, Chief?”

  The predicate seemed too mild.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Delaneys have been farmers in those hills—well, just about forever, I reckon. Aye, sir. I liked it all right. I guess you like anything you grew up with. Most times, anyhow.”

  “I suppose you do. Then why the sea?”

  “Five boys, sir. Somebody had to go. It wasn’t that big a farm. We drew lots for it.”

  I turned and looked at him. “You drew lots?”

  “Actually we each drew a down domino after my dad had shuffled them.” He laughed shortly. “On the kitchen table. One night after supper.”

  I thought, my God, dominoes. I asked: “Then why the Navy? After you drew the one domino.”

  “Two was the lowest.”

  He paused then, to make sure, I think, that he was answering his captain with a scrupulous accuracy, just as he had about the domino; or perhaps to sort out himself a rather complex question. He spoke in his quiet manner.

  “Well, sir.” He paused again. “I’ve not studied on it too much. But I guess it was kind of this way. I had a mind there were maybe two things a man could get close to: worth a man’s putting his life into. I’d had one. It was the other. I didn’t know the first thing about it. I’d never even seen the sea. Never even been out of Missouri. Cricks was about all the water I’d ever seen. So I don’t know where the idea came from. Anyhow that’s the way I figured it. The land or the sea. I don’t put it real well, sir.”

  “You put it all right. Would you go back—given the chance?”

  The question seemed almost to shock him. “Oh, no sir. I like both, but negative, sir. I’d never go back. One time I might of. Boot camp I might of. But now . . . That farm thing. I guess it’ll always be there. But to go back. Not now.” He paused and said, as if that said it all: “I guess I’m a sailor now.”

  “Yes, I guess you are.”

  Crew of Number 2 Boat

  Two entirely separate conversations, an hour or so apart on the same night; neither, I was certain, realizing the other had spoken to me.

  “What a pretty night, sir. Better than the Barents.”

  He stood tall and loose-limbed over me, hovering it seemed.

  “Aye, Billy. What sea isn’t.”

  Barker gave his boyish laugh. “Yes, sir.” A pause. “Both a long way from Bronte, Texas.”

  “Interesting name. There were two pretty well-known English novelists by that name.”

  “Yes, sir. Ours was named for Charlotte. Wrote The Professor, Shirley, Villette. And, of course, Jane Eyre.”

  I looked at him in astonishment.

  “Naturally the town library had everything written by the lady it was named for. Incidentally, there’s a tradition in Texas of naming towns for ladies. Don’t know why. Bronte’s only got nine hundred and eighty-seven people. I’d like you to see it sometime, sir. It’s a pretty little town.”

  “I’d like that,” I said. How we always speak in the present tense, I thought. Even I do it. I could hear his voice going on, seeming not much beyond a choirboy’s.

  “About as small as a town can come, I reckon. Mom used to tell people visiting us the first time, relatives from off somewhere needing to be told how to get there, that we lived just beyond Resume Speed.”

  I laughed. “Sometimes I think everybody in the Navy came from a farm or a small town. I don’t know why. It just seems I almost never meet a Navy man from a big city. You like it?”

  “Like what, sir?”

  “The Navy. You like being in the Navy?”

  “That I do, sir. I don’t know why either.”

  We both laughed softly at that. Suddenly I made a decision. I figured it might help my thoughts. I turned a little toward him, looking upward.

  “Billy. I want a straight answer on something.”

  “I’ll sure try to give you one, sir.”

  “Where do you really want to go?”

  “Want to go?” As though the question was such a strange one to him.

  “Want to go?” he repeated it. “Why, wherever the ship goes, sir. Doesn’t make that much difference really. Wherever the ship goes will be four-oh with me, sir.”

  Just like Thurlow, I thought; but for what a different reason. I had found out something. We were silent then, comfortable in watching the sea.

  “You should be up for your rating soon, Billy,” I said then. “How do you like Coxswain Meyer for a teacher?”

  “Well, sir, she must be just about the best coxswain there is. I’m pretty lucky to have her, I reckon. Yes, sir. Also she’s . . . well, isn’t Coxswain Meyer fun though, sir?”

  “Fun?” The word shot out before I had thought. It was the last I would have used to characterize Meyer. I could think of a few others. He must see her with different eyes. I looked out at the sea, peaceful under the stars. Perhaps he had not noticed. “Oh, indeed she is. A lot of fun.”

  An hour or so later, Meyer. So diminutive, so slight alongside, I almost had to bend my head for conversation.

  “Barker,” I said. “Is he going to be ready for his coxswain exams soon?”

  She was cautious. “He’s coming along. But he needs some more work in approaching. Maybe when we put into port. Practice taking liberty parties ashore. Provided we anchor out rather than pier up.”

  “Yes, that’ll help.”

  As with Billy, I thought I would try something, and for the same reason, to help my thoughts.

  “For example, some of those Pacific islands that haven’t got piers.”

  “They would do just fine,” she said analytically, nothing of my intent registering on her. “He wouldn’t get any practice with the ship docked in Charleston Harbor. Or New York.” She gave a raucous little laugh. “Do you realize Barker has never even seen New York. A regular hayseed. Act
ually I don’t think he was ever out of Texas before he got in the Navy. Would you believe it? Eighteen years old and had never been out of Texas, for God’s sake. An absolute hayseed. But he’s not bad. At least he’s teachable. I’m bringing him along,” she said firmly.

  “You grew up in New York?”

  “Grew up in New York?” she said, as if it were a dumb thing to ask and anything to the contrary out of the question. She spoke in those feisty tones of hers. “Absolutely.”

  She wasn’t through with Billy.

  “Yep. Very immature in some ways. Would you believe it? Actually quoted something to me out of the Bible the other day.”

  I smiled in the dark. “Are you serious?”

  “I’d swear to God if I weren’t an atheist. But he’ll make a good coxswain—when I get through with him.”

  “I’m sure he will, Meyer. When you get through with him.”

  “I just wish he’d stop quoting the Bible to me. Well, Captain, I’m going below. Shut-eye time, you know.”

  It was almost as if she were dismissing me.

  “Of course, one mustn’t underrate Billy almost anywhere. You might want to ask him some time about Jane Eyre.”

  Poker

  Standing alone by the lifeline, mind searching always for something favorable, I thought of the reports we had been receiving steadily from Pushkin; proceeding off the coast of West Africa from Rabat as far south as Cap Blanc, finding no habitability, deciding then to come about and strike a course for Russian waters. Routine, but messages of reassurance where that virtue was in short supply, and they lifted me as I tracked her course: All went well with her. My reports back that thus far North Africa would not admit us and that we continued to stand toward Suez. Visualizing him surfaced to receive these. Something forgiving, somehow greatly comforting in the fact of another ship out there and of our two ships being able to feel each other out through the great imponderable; mind quietened by these thoughts.

  So windless was the air as the James moved through the great continuing silence, so light her wake at the reduced speed I had ordered, that I could hear every word of the singing coming from the small group assembled on the fantail. It happens every night the weather is fair. Gathered around Porterfield and his guitar, assisted ofttimes by Gunner’s Mate Delaney and his fiddle, songs from the hills, hymns, songs Porterfield and Delaney grew up with; the gently pitched voices falling plaintively out over the Mediterranean . . .

  Down in the valley,

  The valley so low,

  Hang your head over,

  Hear the wind blow . . .

  The voices of the men sailors blending with those of women sailors to Porterfield’s sweet guitar . . .

  Hear the wind blow dear,

  Hear the wind blow,

  Hang your head over,

  Hear the wind blow . . .

  You would never think it to look at him, what an exceptional helmsman is Seaman Porterfield. He is tall and gangly and if you saw him moving around you might well deem him awkward, floppy as a bird dog. But once at that wheel, his lean and embracing figure bent over, almost cradling it as if cradling the ship herself and crooning to her a coaxing lullaby, his elongated and bony fingers moving over the spokes with the attuned precision and mutual understanding of a virtuoso of music and his instrument, immaculately synchronized to her every swerve and movement, his reflexes instantaneous: There he is all helmsman. The ship seems somehow to perform better for him, to respond with more alacrity to his ministrations, as if expressing a distinct preference for him over others aboard in the intimacy of ship and steersman; it is as though there was a special communion between them. I would want him there in any storm at sea, and in any tight maneuvering, and so he has been on countless occasions, in many seas. He is from Kentucky, out of the hills. There is a rather astonishing fact about Seaman Porterfield. He has been in the Navy five years. He has an intelligence well above the average, more than sufficient to take him into petty officer rating—most likely boatswain or quartermaster—and would long since have been there, probably at a level of first class and ready even to become a chief, since besides the ability to master a skill he is a natural leader of men. Then a strange thing happened, and one new to my Navy experience.

  Porterfield one day requested an audience with me and stated calmly that he would prefer to remain a seaman. The reason given: He liked very much being a helmsman, steering the ship, which seamen do and thus at the point of becoming a petty officer an activity he would cease. It was a request so startling that I believe I would have rejected it on the spot but for one circumstance. We were on Barents duty at the time, and day after long day had been navigating waters as brutal as I had ever experienced. On watches with Porterfield, I had observed that there was something extraordinary about his helmsman’s work—a touch, a way, an uncanny anticipation of, sensitivity to, what the ship was about to do, that seemed to put him in a class by himself. He totally loved that particular job—steering the ship—in a manner that seemed to reach into realms of the mystical, some might say spiritual. The request annoyed, even angered me. I told him what it was my duty to tell him, and what I felt to be true, that for a sailor to remain in a seaman’s rating when everything about the Navy, and for his own welfare, had it that a man moved upward, was, for starters, plain stupid. “I know, sir,” he said quietly. “I know that.” And looked at me, saying no more. “I’ll think about it,” I said. “Meantime, for God’s sake, you can stay a seaman.” Neither of us ever brought the matter up again. There was one other rather odd aspect to Porterfield: For a man about to be ordained a minister of the Gospel suddenly to go into the Navy is an unusual thing.

  There are few men I am more glad to have aboard than Seaman Porterfield. For reasons having nothing to do with his helmsman’s skills. He has become a mainstay. When I think of the times ahead, I find myself not infrequently thinking of him, in an expectation of something from him far beyond his rating and his steersman’s duties. There is about him the quality of an insidiously assuaging, easing, reassuring nature that affects the other men, brings them down to his own measured emotional temperature. There are people like that, rare in my experience, difficult of definition, whose very presence seems in some unexplained manner to calm men’s thoughts and actions, the very air; just as there are others who seem, and just as curiously, to agitate all of these things from the moment they enter a room. His being of the former category has already in some almost abstruse way been of high value in these times; and I foresee will be even more so in those to come. A quiet unobtrusive humor, an attunement to human feelings and thoughts of the moment that seems as precise as that to the ship’s helm, an unvoiced (for he never “preaches”) but infectious assumption that all things will come right—and with all this, in Porterfield’s case, a profound touch of the con.

  Later that night I find myself standing by him at the lifeline midships, looking out at a tender waveless sea through which we glide without roll or pitch, sea and ship seeming caught up in some precise and sympathetic harmony with each other. Tonight’s fantail music session was over and lights-out near. We both, as sailors will for no particular reason unless it be for some kind of reassurance, looked up at the ship’s running lights. Still turned on at sunset as they had always been, eternal and silent voices of safety and of warning for any approaching ship, collision of ships at sea being the one occurrence never forgiven, never forgotten, marking both captains, and the vessels themselves, for the duration of their lives with the sea’s scarlet letter: How remote the ancient law now seemed, gazing at that starboard green, those shipless waters. Still, each night, we put on the running lights, out of habit, out of a persisting hope.

  We stood looking across the barren waters unfolding all around us to far horizons, shimmering under the stars; stood alongside, the bond between us of the sea seeming to transcend any difference of rank. We had chatted a bit. Then our eyes, as if on command, in the manner of sailors before heading for sleep, jointly trace
d a parabola from the constellations down to the sea, as if bidding good-night to it, will see you tomorrow. I had half turned to go to my cabin when Porterfield spoke in the soft twang-drawl that always fell with an insinuating gentleness on the ear.

  “Did you ever play poker, sir?”

  “Poker? A little.”

  “It’s a mighty fine game.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard.”

  I caught the mild throat-clearing. “Yes, sir, it’s a very relaxing game.”

  It seemed we were to have a pre-slumber conversation about the many virtues of the game of poker. Not for a moment did any notion occur to me that it would be a casual one. Porterfield was a man of intentions.

  “Very relaxing,” he murmured. “I’ve been thinking, sir.”

  I was silent. He was perfectly capable of navigating his way through whatever it was.

  “Wondering if the captain would mind if we started a little poker game, sir. A friendly game.”

  I looked up at the stars, by old habit, just to make sure that they were about their proper business and where they should be, always searching out one or another of them, simply by whim, to certify the matter. In this case, Betelgeuse. He was, I was reassured to see, on station. The stars never fail us.

  “What would be the purpose of this game, Porterfield?” I asked, still studying Betelgeuse. The drill requires that any such request be given its due consideration, without unseemly haste. Not to do so would only lessen its importance and make nobody happy.

  “Well, sir . . . poker is a mighty relaxing game, Captain.”

  “So you’ve said.” My eyes came down from the constellations and rested on the hushed seascape. “Men certainly need to relax.”

  “Aye, sir,” the helmsman intoned soberly. “Relaxation does wonders for men.”

  I thought to bring us away from these pious homilies with something more explicit. Besides, it was my turn.

  “Did you play it at that seminary in Louisville?”