It is sometimes not appreciated by landsmen that sailors tend to be not only conservative but of a religious bent. This has been true since earliest times, and so much has been written on the subject, and the whys and wherefores of it, that I need not add to that considerable literature here. I will speak only to the question insofar as it concerned us, which was, as previously alluded to, that some of ship’s company had what could only be described as religious or moral considerations as to the course we were about to undertake. It was the element—my attention first drawn to it in the dialogue with the Jesuit on the clifftop—that was very much on my mind as we gathered finally to celebrate the completion of the settlement, the day on which Lieutenant Girard would announce the “Arrangement,” as I had begun to think of it, and on which those who chose not to be part of it would be allowed to stand aside. I was not at all sure but that their number might be considerable; the implications of such a division profoundly horrifying to me.
* * *
It was a gallant day, the kindly light of early morning radiant in cerulescent skies, the sunshine slanting through the tall trees and onto the large Main Hall where all ship’s company save for the Lookout Tower watch and the thinnest watch aboard ship (and these spelled so that all could participate) were gathered. Through the opened sides a faint and palliative westerly breeze came whispering off the sea far below and over the participants. The ceremony marking the completion was not, in some respects, unlike that held when a ship is commissioned; however, with certain other features added. A quiet sort of affair, as if deliberately containing, within the immenseness of emotion, that sense of victory, yes, triumph, that we had come through, all the fine shipshape structures around us testifying to the fact; a sense not of arrogance but of humility. A sense, too, of thanksgiving, as New World pilgrims might have gathered on shores of long ago, our prospects, I judged, more promising than had been theirs. So many elements, by God’s grace or by our own fortune, operating in our behalf: a new home blessed with favorable year-round weather, with parturient soil; an island thus far in all respects forthcoming, the bounty of the sea to feed us; ourselves to care for one another. The valiant ship that had brought us to this safe harbor and visible just below seemed herself a participant in the ceremony (how worthily so!), her single break in the aching infinity of sea nonetheless also marking our isolation, our imprisonment, knowing as every hand did the desperately low fuel supply remaining on her, all this bringing a sense of loneliness but even that seeming to bind us the more indissolubly. Further, never articulated, naming them, travails we had been through binding us as only travails can, and finally, and most of all, the future binding us. A hymn accompanied by Delaney’s fiddle, “Lead On, O King Eternal.” Lieutenant Girard had come to me with the word that the men wanted to name the island. Porterfield, she said, had suggested Deliverance Island and they seemed to like that. I had made it so and it was announced now. Toward the end of the ceremony, the words of Psalm 139 read by Porterfield falling sweet and clear over us, seeming a declaration of accomplished fact . . .
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
And yet, with all this sense of a band of brothers and sisters, a tension tangible to myself hung in the air . . . doubts as to what we were about to undertake. And most of all in myself, above-mentioned, the very real fear that enough might say no to the whole thing, for the stated reasons, with the most devastating consequences: establishing within our ship’s company and our settlement two groups, one supposedly “moral,” the other supposedly engaged in “immoral” practices. I was not at all sure we could survive that particular species of divisiveness.
Then came the Jesuit’s homily.
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* * *
* * *
Men and women both, they all looked up to the platform where he was standing and as he proceeded, I was witness to something extraordinary. Into those faces as he spoke came a slowly arriving . . . expectation, wonder—I do not wish to overstate this, but at times something very much like awe, as though they were being given a glimpse onto strange shores, the precise nature of which no man could predict but shores certain to be abundant with new and inexperienced behavior, conditions, yes, codes. And alloyed with all of this wonder, itself almost childlike in nature, just touching the faces through it, a sense of fear and of uncertainty, yes, the barest smattering of terror, but seeming of that kind also childlike, as children possess a fear of the dark—yet overridden, it seemed, as happens with children, by that beckoning of them into its surprises, its mysteries.
To reproduce the text of his speech would be to no purpose, for the reason that any literal interpretation of it might well obscure rather than reveal its real design. This, too, as with anything with him, all of intention—he seemed not to do, say anything, that was not of a purpose, absolutely clear one felt to himself if not by any means always, at least instantly, to his hearers. But now and then a phrase, a sentence, like a true compass pointed the way, to my mind unmistakably, provided guideposts to what was ahead; for today, I became aware, he had a very large intention; indeed, as he saw it, the largest. Always in those soft, assuasive tones. Of course, he had so much going for him to be able to accomplish all of this, this capture, as it were, of themselves. Ship’s company believed in him in a special way. If he said something was wrong, it was wrong; if he said something was right it was right. Part of the strength of it being that it was not something he abused: indeed his tolerance as to human weakness being as far-embracing as I had known in his profession. And not one ounce of proselytism on his part; not the slightest effort to be “popular.” That influence—power would be a better word . . . just flowed to him, a trust, a belief in—such as flows with all inevitability to the intelligent and to the strong and the cunning, and most of all to the resolute, to one with an absolutely fixed purpose, in circumstances such as were ours; for in the end perhaps all men are sheep, and only one shepherd. And this, also mentioned before, at this particular moment of the utmost importance: a power much abetted by the fact that into his ears in recent times had poured the pains, the anguishes, the guilts and the desires, the secret wishes and longings—perhaps these above all, the nature of the speech suggested, along with the reservations, the deeply held doubts of a “moral” nature—of such a large portion of ship’s company. He knew more than anyone what they wanted, knew they were waiting to be told, and that whatever misgivings might remain, only his imprimatur would remove them, if anything could; in fact, was the one thing that might effect that accomplishment urgent above all else if—yes, if his intention were to have any real chance at all. A phrase, a sentence, I say, sometimes—the present speech—homily a better word, though not especially at all of a religious character, but surely that—the best homilies being those that while carrying manifestly little weight of religious content in fact harbor the most. First taking care of one particular problem, absolutely essential to dispose of if his intention were ever to be given the chance to become reality . . . “Our duty not to the people back home—they are no longer in a position to be fit objects for duty, and especially so from their loved ones . . .” How I cherished him for that, for coming down so flatly against the course that Lieutenant Girard had assured me a good number of them were contemplating, even to the point of considering means to effectuate it. In fact, that was clearly one of his two principal purposes; to make them understand that “home” was now, right here. (He was leading, building up with such consummate skill, to the other and larger purpose.) Rather, he left hanging for a moment in the air, a duty to something else. The odd part being that having said to whom duty was not owed by ship’s company he did not go on to say at once to whom it was owed. I am certain the word “God” was not once spoken. He seemed peculiarly not to want to identify too—bluntly? too heavy-weighted? too vulgarly even?—the proper object of our duty; no reference whatso
ever made as yet in that regard. Maybe he wanted each to seize on the concept first . . . as if it were his or her own; nothing could be more Jesuitical than that. To me—and not because of any special acuity of my own but due solely to my having been made privy to his mind and its workings—it was nonetheless as clear as the cloudless skies that hung sweetly above us on that momentous day; clear also the fact that what he was saying was that nothing in the world was by comparison of the least importance. And least of all—reiterating the theme as in a symphonic work—any desire they may have had to return to a country, or what was left of it, where not only could they do no good whatsoever, not the slightest, but . . . He managed to convey that such an act, for men—and women—in our circumstances, would have been monstrous and that—and now he drew closer—we had but one true course, given the constitution, the makeup, of our ship’s company; that we did not so much as have the right to consider any other. The providential fact of our having both women and men aboard itself dictated our choice; in fact, that given that particular and rare condition, we had no choice. We were a “mixed” crew by a higher intent, as he had said to me: so that we could fulfill a function, man’s highest—his first duty of all. And finally this: It was time for that distinction, hitherto in all our relations shipboard forbidden, to be made, declared, shouted out, gloried in, for us like a ship to come about, strike a directly opposite course. Never even by allusion so far, perhaps saving it, giving voice to that other word but seeming to me, as clear as pennants on the ship’s halyards flashing their silent messages, to declare that no loyalty whatsoever existed save there. For what he was truly saying was that not only was there no sin in the procedures they were about to undertake, but that sin lay in the opposite course; that both the men and the women had an obligation to undertake them, that indeed they were to be looked upon as being done in the name of the highest power. Yes, that was it: It was their duty, their responsibility—words sacred to Navy people—their mission to do so. Did he actually use those words? I could scarcely say, so mesmerically, so convincingly did his words move over us, enter our souls. As much as saying that if sin were to be spoken of, or morality, it consisted in rejecting this incomparable bounty of having women present that had been our special dispensation, making of us a chosen people, that being all to a purpose. A moral duty: to continue the species first created by that highest power in the morning of time. Nor can I say to this moment whether he used a phrase so explicit. I think not. But nothing could have been more clearly understood.
And so it was. In the blessed and noble name of that endeavor he had given his blessing to the exceptional sexual practices, the trial and error of numerous combinations of men and women, on which our ship’s company were about to embark. When he stopped, finished with this avatar of oblique clarity, and a stillness unlike any before, different in character if not in degree from any I had ever experienced, the subdued sea from below the cliffs sounding suddenly like an overloud drumbeat—a stillness seeming active and alive with the slowly awakening understanding on the part of ship’s company of what had just been said to them . . . when he finished and simply stopped, I felt a sense of something like exhilaration. If there had been any doubt remaining as to these practices before the Jesuit’s speech there was none after it (or almost none, as we were shortly to learn). He clinched it. He had given them his, therefore God’s, blessing, and without ever using the latter’s name. When he had concluded and they stood speechless looking up at him with that wonder in their faces I knew . . . In those faces not the slightest hint of lasciviousness, light-years from anything like leering, lust, concupiscence, that whole litany of the covetousness of the flesh. I do not wish to be misunderstood here. Neither was there in them the remotest hint of what has been called religious fervor, as scary in itself as the other. There was simply calm acceptance in the most practical sense, of the simplest, sailorlike nature. In what they were about to undertake they were doing no wrong. That was all they had asked for, that reassurance, and the Jesuit had given it to them. I knew we were on our way.
To conclude the ceremonies, Lieutenant Girard stepped forward and in as equable a voice as if she were announcing ship’s orders of the day, read the text of “The Women’s Conditions”; asked ship’s company if any wished to stand aside and not participate. I felt I was holding my breath. One by one, seven men only stood up, including Seaman Barker. I gave a vast inward sigh of relief. And one woman only, Coxswain Meyer. (This of course, by the women’s terms, while indicating that they had finally decided to let any woman, as well as any man, decide not to participate, granting Barker and Meyer nothing beyond the continued freedom to dispense with sexual activity altogether, most sternly as between themselves.) Thereupon, again as calmly as if she were reading out watch bills, read the assignments of the various men to the various women of ship’s company . . . “To Storekeeper Talley . . . Machinist’s Mate Brewster . . .” The readings proceeding like a most proper liturgy. “To Signalman Bixby . . . Lieutenant Bainbridge . . . To Radioman Parkland . . .”
* * *
Few men, as I have elsewhere suggested, are more directly acquainted with the effects of sexual deprivation than are ship’s captains. Any captain can readily apostrophize to an interested listener the sharp difference, tangible in the very air, between a ship’s company which has been six weeks at sea and that same company after three days of liberty in a port such as Naples, New York, or New Orleans, to name but three beguiling cities where that availability has never been in short supply to the seamen stepping foot on their piers. This is far from being an unimportant matter to the efficacy of a ship. Men thus accommodated make for a decidedly better functioning, if occasion arises, gallant ship than men who are not; more dutiful in their shipboard tasks, less apt in their edginess to make perhaps crucial errors. I would be certain that centuries before psychology “discovered” that the privation under discussion is a primary cause of neurosis, uncounted thousands of sea captains starting before the time of Homer, and without benefit of the terminology, had routinely reached the identical finding.
Now having under my command a ship’s company which had undergone such deprivation now going on to eleven months, I was in no way surprised at the dramatic change that occurred as the Arrangement proceeded. In those weeks that followed, a kind of deliciousness reigned in our settlement. A kind of new peace. Properly to understand these matters, one has to remember that the participants had long been shipmates and through as difficult tribulations of the sea as one could readily imagine had been brought to a closeness extraordinary even for that calling. And the fact was this: Without in any way disturbing that bond, they became something else altogether, something as it were grafted onto it: became men and women. This accomplishment was in no way fortuitous. Indeed I believe it was that previous relationship that made it work. At least so far. Jealousy, possessiveness, the feared disturbances that might attend the required mathematics—if these were to arrive at some future date, they had not thus far done so, certainly not in any ostensible way. Another less lofty reason surely coming into play as well: The men had been informed by the very terms of the Arrangement that any expression of these attributes would be grounds for the culprit’s expulsion from the Arrangement altogether; he would become a man without a woman. Powerful restraint, this; the women not only having all the power in themselves; all the provisions they had laid down being backed up as well by the full power of Navy authority—represented in myself.
Still, I believe it was the higher concern that was the driving force: the idea that we were all unalterably in this together exactly as we had been for so long in everything and would continue to be for the remainder of our lives, insofar as we could see the future; that we were as attached to one another as is one cell to another in the body’s own arrangement, that to cause harm to another was to inflict it on oneself; that a serious deviation in one of us from that dedication, that fixed standard of conduct, in which after all as Navy men and women we were so ing
rained, could initiate a terrible tide surge through the entire community, with unforeseen results. I think every hand felt to the deepest part of the soul that individual responsibility. We were brothers; sisters. The subdivision now allowed of being also men, women: It did not disturb the other. The case was just the opposite; it was precisely that bond that made possible with this ship’s company what might have had but a finite chance of working with another assortment of human beings. This new thing became but a delight, a very great one, added to the previous idiosyncratic relationship. And if I had to mention one factor above all that was its secret, I would say without hesitation: gentleness. It was accompanied by, embraced in, a great gentleness. Evidenced to myself by, among other signs, the striking fact that the men did not talk about it. I never heard a word from them as to what went on in the cottages, none of that prurient discourse which is not unknown among men having had their experiences with women, most of it also containing sure overtones of vanity. None whatsoever of that. I did not find this strange. It was portion of that respect—that infinite gratitude to them—yes, that something like the worship of women that now pervaded the settlement, in its quiet sort of way; for doing what they were doing; and simply for being what they were: women.
One saw an unmistakable new ease in the faces of the sailors, men and women both, the visible reflection of an inner quietening-down, a newfound and deep-reaching harmony, as they went about their regular duties, whether in the Farm detail under Gunner Delaney or the fishing detail under Boatswain’s Mate Silva (both of these men, as it happened, assigned to Operations Specialist Dillon), or the settlement-upkeep detail under Noisy Travis (himself, though, one of the seven abstainers). Men were better, women were better. One felt something else with the women: their absolute sense of being in control. Far from objecting to it, the men appeared to feel that this suzerainty was not only proper: It was the only way the thing would have stood a chance of working.
The Last Ship: A Novel Page 62
