The Last Ship: A Novel

by William Brinkley

  It was at this time that Lieutenant Girard asked for an appointment with me.

  * * *

  Concurrent with these developments, another had proceeded as it were on parallel tracks. As the weeks went on, what had before been but a muted underlayer as to the Arrangement palpably altered; a distinct suspense entered the settlement, which seemed to wait now almost daily and more ostensibly for the news that it had happened; this, in turn, no news forthcoming, before long beginning to be further leavened by a certain apprehension. I began to detect a subtle change in the rather beatific state of affairs previously existent as between the men and the women. Fully as much in the men as in the women, perhaps more so, almost as if it was they who were at fault, had let the women down. By now the circle had been completed as it were, Girard so informing me. Each of the participating men had been at one time or another with each of the women (had “known,” using the biblical term, each of the women). Hope did not vanish. Nature can be slow to pick her times. All understood that. Nevertheless, given the numbers, the opportunities, all the seemingly favorable mathematics of it, the many weeks that had passed . . . The Jesuit even went this far: He approached the seven men who had chosen to abstain. They had done so for differing reasons. One or two, that they had wives at home—yes, they actually stated that as reason; more, despite the Jesuit’s having vetted everything, on moral or religious grounds; one at least, Porterfield, from whom due to his having been a seminarian pre-Navy, the last-named the expected reason, actually something else altogether, his putting it to me rather haltingly, almost with embarrassment. “It isn’t a matter of religion. It’s—well, sir . . .” He hesitated at the word. “Esthetic?” I supplied it. “Something like that I guess.” To these the Jesuit now put it that they had an obligation, a duty, to participate, almost—not a habit of his—pleading with them, promising that if they would do so, they could then return to their state of abstention and no further entreaties would be put to them, or demands made of them. (All this he related to me.) They agreed, with considerable reluctance, and with one exception, Noisy Travis, an immovably stubborn man. Results negative. An interesting side effect: Of the six previous holdouts, two now saw their way clear to overcome their objections and enter as full-timers in the Arrangement.

  Girard’s demeanor in our sessions: just the beginnings of a kind of analytical anxiety, the suggestion of an eerie fear, not large thus far but seeming of a peculiarly virulent character, as though one were taking slow, helpless steps toward some precipice—some terrible nothingness. All this conveyed, felt by transference in myself, not in anything she said; rather in the very absence of reporting. Nothing to report. A presentiment making its appearance like a third person present as we discussed by now rather routine matters of supply and slight matters of morale, anything to keep us off that other paramount subject. This foreboding augmenting not just in us but in all hands. Soon a kind of dejection, almost gloom, as to results so far—absence of results, I should say—hung over the settlement, as though we were about to be confronted with a profound horror as to ourselves.

  * * *

  Our other lives: There was one difference between us. She felt the secrecy, if it was that, necessary, at least for the time being. I chafed at the deception: wanted our rendezvous moved to her own private dwelling, one she had along with the other women amid the trees. Wanted it done outright, everything in the open, ready to handle any problems that might arise, any objection as to our being the only two who were solely each other’s, as opposed to the sharing required of all others, men and women alike. She had a point in that they might not know; therefore let us take time for reflection as to what was best. True, they had seen us appear suddenly that day, entering the settlement at a run, summoned by the GQ klaxon tolling the discovery of the bodies of the three women: At first we thought that had told them all; later came to believe they might have concluded that we had simply been on a reconnoitering of a rather unexplored part of the island, an “outing” such as others constantly took. It was difficult to say: oneself at the center of that kind of emotion that existed between us can be blind as to such observations; still I felt our relationship, if known, was unresented. Whether it was known or not, or resented or not, one had no choice but to continue it. Beyond that I went along, for now; we waited.

  But without once discussing it, we knew one thing to an absolute: the stern danger that lay in permitting anything of what was happening between us to enter into that other relationship that had stood so long, worked so well, myself captain, her morale officer and now especially leader of the women. That this presented no real difficulty I think derived from the fact that, the responsibility so deep-rooted in each of us, we could not have lived with ourselves had we let anything impair our duties to ship’s company. We were careful to preserve formalities. Two persons each we had become; living two lives; kept entirely separate, our former roles remaining precisely as before, knowing we must not let that other new life touch the old one. So far it had worked.

  * * *

  When she came that day to my cabin by the cliffside, unusual for her to make a special appointment, ordinarily waiting for our regular weekly session, one knew beforehand that some point of reality had been reached—and one had a pretty good idea what it was. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the actual moment. Reporting to me that they had tried everything—every combination, she meant.

  “I don’t think it’s going to happen,” she said.

  The words in their finality at first inexpressibly poignant; then it was as if a great darkness had settled over us. We sat in silence; a sense of utter desolation filling the air. One looked out over the waters and expected to see the darkness standing down to the earth. The complete and unexpected . . . yes, terror I felt. I must have blocked out its significances; one oddly coming at that moment to stab cruelly at me: that rather joyous enterprise in which ship’s company was putting down on paper all that they knew or remembered; that, for one thing, could be promptly scuttled. A void. One felt one had fallen into a void, its nature while definable simply as the absence of a time frame known as the future yet one felt a failure, or a refusal, of the mind to reach through to any real comprehension of such a thing. One felt an unspeakable numbness; an unbeing. New, unprecedented emotions. Nonexistence reached down and touched us. Her words, breaking into my thoughts, startled me.

  “Do you remember what Mr. Selmon once said, Captain?”

  I looked at her as one looks for the first time with pity at another. Hope dying so hard. My own words taking on a certain hardness to snap her out of it.

  “It doesn’t apply, Lieutenant. The women will have been equally affected with the men.”

  “The doc,” she said. “We got to talking. He told me about some research he knew about. He said he and Selmon had discussed it.”

  “Research?”

  And she told me what it was. My response flat, the decision reflexive, only from the long-ingrained habit always to listen.

  “We’ll have the meeting tomorrow,” I said. “At thirteen hundred hours.” I named the officers. “See to it.”

  “Aye, sir. Thirteen hundred hours.” She stood up to go. “Oh, by the way, Captain.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve decided to participate in the Arrangement.”

  Something happened in me that had never happened before. I just looked at her.

  “How long have you been thinking about that?”

  “It hasn’t anything to do with us.”

  “The hell it hasn’t.”

  “Not a goddamned thing. It’s this: I won’t allow any chance to be missed.”

  I was angry, shaking almost. Spoke hard.

  “I suppose you won’t have need for our weekly business in the cave?”

  “What a child you are. I’ll be there next Thursday as usual. For the ‘business,’ as you call it. Suit yourself whether you want to join me.”

  She turned and walked out.

  * * *


  Present at the meeting in my cliffside cabin: the doc, the Jesuit, Girard, Thurlow.

  “As Selmon and I agreed, we know next to nothing on the subject. We of course do know,” the doc said, “one thing. Within limits, different individuals, male or female, are affected differently even by identical doses. But there was a hint—a bare hint in some of the data that was beginning to emerge—of something else. Some of the studies were beginning to suggest that there was a finite chance that the reproductive capacities of women would not be so quickly, or so completely, altered as would those of men. Some very preliminary studies suggested this possibility. Nature and Darwin at work again, Father? Extra protection for the female of the species?”

  “Please continue, Doctor,” the Jesuit said crisply.

  “For the most part, these investigations were conducted by a man named Rosenblatt—first name Hillel—working at Rockefeller University in New York. I got to know him when I was there—in that way was pretty close myself to what he was up to. Two or three other places in the country on to the same thing, trying to find out. Using guinea pigs and Norway rats, of course. Couldn’t do that sort of thing on human beings. And even so they had reached only a very tentative hypothesis stage. Not nearly enough evidence to support a conclusion. Still . . .”

  The Jesuit’s zeal in the matter, large before, something we had become accustomed to, was now perfervid, as if he were a desperate man. Pressing the doc.

  “I understand the individual variations. I have more of a problem with such a precise, across-the-board effect—with the women not being equally sterile. They underwent the same exposure.”

  “I don’t understand it myself, Father. But then you and I, we are not geneticists, are we? And we have not done the experiments, have we? Rosenblatt and the others were. And they did.”

  The doc was not one to bring up a matter he felt had no validity at all—he would have seen that as reflecting on his professional integrity. He gave that familiar bland look of his: It had long seemed to me a kind of disclaimer that yet hid something he was inclined to believe; as though he were covering all his flanks, just in case.

  “I do not know but what the women are sterile, the last one of them. I am merely mentioning some of the studies. You have to remember that the body of literature on this subject was like a thimbleful of water to the sea.”

  “Yes, yes, Doctor,” the Jesuit said. He was impatient with such metaphors. I think he felt he was being patronized. “Let me get this straight. If your Rosenblatt and the others were right, there would be a possibility that the absence of fertilizations may be traceable entirely to the men—all of them thus far sterile. And that some of the women at least may still be able to reproduce—given fertile men to do it with.”

  “That’s it, Father,” the doc said imperviously. As a nonbeliever of any sort in anything religious, I think he took an impudent delight in so addressing the priest. “If Rosenblatt was indeed on to something.”

  “But even those studies were inconclusive?” I said, as if reminding.

  “Very much so, Skipper,” the doc said. “They were ongoing. Stopped by what stopped everything else. I remember reading Rosenblatt’s last paper on the subject. Hypercautious, as those people always are. But there was something new, a conviction beginning to take hold that he might be on to something. Making clear that his hypothesis might apply only to some women, that the margins of advantage over men in this area might be small but still determinative ones—and flatly stating he had been unable thus far to isolate any reasons for the phenomenon, if existent. Rosenblatt—perhaps a little too much of a philosopher for such a good scientific investigator—apostrophizing, as I mentioned to the chaplain, that it might be Nature at work. Stepping in once more. Still making it very clear—nothing absolutely conclusive. Yet he seemed to be saying . . .”

  “So we would still be throwing dice,” I said.

  “Perhaps slightly loaded dice, Skipper,” the doc said. “Who knows how many times you would have to throw them . . . And even if there is substance in these conjectures . . . If it were one woman in a thousand that fell under Rosenblatt’s hypothesis, our chances would be remote. If, on the other hand, it were one in—say twenty-one . . .”

  I had to have it confirmed, once more. I turned to our new radiation officer.

  “The Russian men, Mr. Thurlow?”

  He said it flatly. “As to exposure to radiation: no comparison. Far less, sir. We tested the last one of them, as you know. To a certainty. Minimal.”

  “We have to try it,” the Jesuit jumped in. “Captain, forty-one of the Russian men, as I understand the Pushkin plan, are to stay on the island, become a permanent part of the community?”

  “That is correct.”

  “So there is no hurry as to them. But fifty-three will be leaving. What is that timing, sir?”

  “Five days now.”

  “Then I respectfully suggest that the departure of Pushkin be delayed . . . what is the hurry for that anyhow? Keep those men here until we find out to a reasonable certainty . . . As to one or more of them; one or more of the women . . .” He turned and addressed himself directly to Lieutenant Girard. “. . . And that for that period of time, only they . . . while they are here, nobody else. Not the American men. Not the Russians who are to remain—we have them for later, if need be.” He waited and added: “As a temporary arrangement. If the women will accept the Russian men.”

  One had almost a chilling sense as he spoke, the quick apprehension, the seizing on a plan, something almost ruthless about it; amazed at the meticulousness of his ardor, at the quick precision of his logistics.

  “Miss Girard?” I deferred to her.

  By now it was the absolute law of the settlement. Anything concerning the women was subject to their veto; if exercised, that ending the matter; no explanations required; all sovereign as to themselves.

  “Accept the Russian men? We would welcome them,” she said quietly, as we all looked at her in astonishment. In her tone a certain contempt that stupid men, ourselves, had wasted all this time when the women had already decided the issue; almost as if she had let us run on, and then announced her decision, to make clear who was in charge in these matters.

  “Then I’ll speak with the Russian captain,” I said. I could not help adding, looking at her, “With your permission, Lieutenant Girard.”

  “You have my permission, sir,” she said. “Please do so at once.”

  I need to mention now, for a full understanding of this meeting, the fact that the Jesuit had come to me the day before it with a finding I had asked for after Girard’s report. Throughout he had been monitoring the entire process with a zeal that, at first seeming startling, a man possessed, had by now come to appear wholly natural, as if somehow part of his spiritual domain. (No one, not incidentally, had got along better than the Jesuit with the Russians, he and the Russian captain in particular having become quite friendly. I think they understood each other. On the Jesuit’s part, I had not the slightest doubt, to myself something almost grim in it, this: With the evidence as to the American sailors becoming ever more clear, he saw in the Russians . . . could he have predivined Selmon’s hypothesis? No, it was rather that he was prepared to grab any possibility.) The settlement, we all knew, had been quietly devastated by the failure to achieve pregnancies. The women; the men, as mentioned, curiously almost more so, somehow blaming themselves. What the Jesuit, with his impeccable sources, had to tell me was this: There would be no trouble with the American men as respected the Russian men and the women.

  “Our men won’t object to the Russians trying,” he had put it. “They are willing to—not have the women . . . Temporarily of course. As for the women: All they want is babies. That is all they have wanted all along. Whoever can give them that.” He paused a moment, his eyes far away, seeming to combine at once a fervor and a fatalism. “The Russian men—they would seem to be our last chance.”

  I had my session with the Russian capta
in, who acceded promptly to the delay in Pushkin’s departure. And so it was that there began in the cottages set prettily among the tall guardsmanlike trees a determination as to whether, in Selmon’s half-cynical phrase, “Submariners will be the new fathers of mankind; if there is to be mankind.”

  5

  The Nathan James

  It was a day of a peculiar loveliness, that on which the Nathan James, carrying half of ship’s company, cast off at first light for her biweekly run, the ever-sweetness of the island at that hour, its purity of air, the first notes of awakening birds, the island attended all around by the vastness of silent waters, the twin scents fusing . . . all seemed to reach with a deep-giving peace into one’s soul. It was Thurlow’s turn to go and as usual when that was the case, I stood on the cliffside, hearing reach up to me in that hushed universe the long low clangor of her anchor chains moving through the hawsepipes, the sun just making its first appearance over the horizon to create a carmine sea. Presently, the anchors secured, I could see her beginning to make her turn on waters mirroring the full elegance of her lines, pulling away from Pushkin. I could see some Russian sailors, each run now with about twenty aboard—the ones who were to remain on the island—learning destroyer skills chiefly under Thurlow’s and Boatswain’s Mate Preston’s direction while the Americans departing on Pushkin learned submarine ones. Thurlow on the bridge wing raising his hand, myself lifting mine back to mark farewells of a single day. It tore at my heart to think that I would be losing that fine officer, that rather special friend he had become, to that other vessel at anchor just below me. On the starboard bridge wing, I spotted also Lieutenant Girard, making her first run, simply having been too occupied with the matter of the women to do so previously, coming to me the day before with the routine request that she now be permitted to do so. A necessity really; although her additional duty of combat systems officer relatively nominal now, still her reason for going entirely cogent. “I need to run through the drills with Delaney and the men.” Then a wry smile. “I think I need it anyhow, Captain. An outing, as Preston says. I haven’t been to sea for a while. I can think better out there,” referring I knew to our own problem, to that subtle change that had taken place, though that life went on, the weekly visits to a remote cave: we never mentioned her other life. Continuing as we had, not knowing, not as yet even discussing, how things were going to come out with us. Permission for her to go on the James routinely granted by myself.