Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  Amos, Captain McKay whispered inside his head. Amos. I'm sorry. If you can hear me, let me explain. I had to do it for my friend. The best friend a man ever had in this lousy world. He's more than a shipmate. You died trying to rescue a shipmate. Can you understand loving another man that much? I hope you can. Otherwise, there's no hope for me.

  Sick Call

  "The whole goddamn ship is going haywire," Dr. Cadwallader said, as his fingers probed Gunnery Officer Moss's tender stomach.

  "What do you think is wrong, Doctor?"

  Moss was talking about his stomach, not the Jefferson City. He knew what was wrong with the ship.

  "I don't know. There's a locus of infection somewhere, Commander."

  Moss had been assailed by agonizing stomach pains on their return from bombarding Vila Stanmore. A large crab seemed to be moving around his midsection, trying to claw its way out. Was he developing an ulcer? He was in a panic at the thought of such a disability. An ulcer was a physical weakness. It suggested a man could not handle the stress of combat. He had decided to apply for a transfer, but now he wondered if he should drop the idea. He could not have an ulcer. He willed it away. But the pain persisted. He writhed as Dr. Cadwallader pressed hard on his upper abdomen.

  "What do you suggest, Doctor?"

  "How are your teeth? Any trouble with them?"

  "No."

  "Let's have the dentist look you over. Bad teeth can wreck the system. We may have to pull a few."

  "What's happening to Commander Parker?"

  "He's still aboard. The chaplain's threatening to go to the admiral. I don't think the captain can stall much longer. The man's deteriorating by the hour. I can't keep him sedated indefinitely. He'll turn into a dope addict — or a raving maniac."

  "Do you understand what's going on?"

  "I think the captain ought to be court-martialed. What do you think?"

  The claws in Edwin Moss's stomach pinched again. He was trapped aboard a madhouse — the nightmare of every career officer.

  "It hurts — down there. I've been bleeding."

  At first Harold Semple had been thrilled by the blood. It made him feel more womanly. Even the pain was acceptable. He remembered his sisters' pain when they menstruated, their bitchy complaints. But last night there had been too much blood, too much pain.

  At first he had liked the way Chief Clark had hurt him. He had divined it the night they met. He had sensed that love and pain were all one thing to Calvin Clark. Maybe it had something to do with watching those huge reduction gears, those great thrusting propeller shafts brutally turning the giant screws in the passive sea.

  Maybe it had something to do with the way Harold had seduced him. But the chief knew he was going to seduce him. He had not invited him to his cabin to discuss a transfer to the engineering department. Still there was a cold rage in his lovemaking, even that first night. It had filled Harold's soul with a wild joy. Pain was what he deserved. He was disobeying Edna. Ignoring her peck peck peck - her play-it-safe approach to life.

  By surrendering, by letting Clark do anything, Harold was not abandoning his dream of perfect love. He was testing love's power, trying to see if it could triumph over rage and disgust. Perhaps this love, so full of darkness, would explode like a gush of superheated steam, annihilating, purifying everything. Last night, after the deaths in the fire room, he had wondered if grief — the chief boiler tender had been Clark's closest friend — might make a difference. But it had only added to the rage, the savagery.

  Dr. Levy examined Harold's rectum. "What the hell have you been shoving up there, sailor?" he said.

  "Nothing, sir," Harold said.

  "The hell you say. It looks like you've been letting someone play games with a baseball bat. Ora five-inch shell."

  "No, sir. Honest," Harold said. "I thought it was hemorrhoids. I thought you could give me some ointment."

  "I'll give you a bad-conduct discharge if you come in here with this problem again," Levy said.

  What a son of a bitch, Harold thought.

  The next day Semple went on sick call again, after making sure Dr. Cadwallader was on duty. The ship's senior physician said it was an alarming case of hemorrhoids. He gave him the ointment and a dozen aspirin to kill the pain. He was such an old sweetie, Harold almost felt guilty.

  Doc, I can't sleep. I go up on deck and try it there. I go back down to the compartment. My head's killin' me. I don't know what's wrong. I'm on the bum."

  Dr. Cadwallader peered down Jerome Wilkinson's throat.

  "Maybe you've got cat fever. Your tongue's a little inflamed."

  "My head keeps killin' me, Doc. It's like there's pressure buildin' up there all the time."

  "Take these aspirins. Four a day."

  "Doc, how's the exec?"

  Dr. Cadwallader shook his head. "He's through."

  "I saw it comin'. The captain hated him from the day he come aboard. It's the Annapolis thing. They never wanted him to command a ship. They sent this guy out here to get him."

  "Maybe."

  "It makes me wonder about the whole fuckin' system, Doc. I mean, what are we fightin' for? To let these guys destroy a good Joe like the exec? I been with him a long time. I seen the kind of shit he's had to swallow. I could give that reporter an earful, let me tell you."

  "Why don't you talk to him?"

  "I don't wanta get my ass in a sling."

  "He won't use your name if you tell him not to."

  "No kiddin'?"

  "I'll tell him to look you up."

  The End Of Spring

  At your quiet gate only birds spoke;

  In your distant street few drums were heard. Opposite each other all day we talked,

  And never once spoke of profit or fame.

  Captain McKay sat in his cabin reading Arthur Waley's 1919 translation of the poems of Po Chu-i. The Jefferson City was back in Noumea, capital of New Caledonia, headquarters of COMSOPAC. Boiler technicians and shipfitters and welders were swarming through her fire rooms and engine rooms, giving her the overhaul she should have received in Australia.

  A knock on the door. "The chaplain wants to speak to you, Captain."

  "Let him in."

  Emerson Bushnell strode into the cabin. McKay had never seen him looking so determined. Instead of his usual cloud of doubt, a battle light shone in his eyes. "Captain, if you don't let Commander Parker go ashore at once to receive medical treatment, I intend to speak to Admiral Halsey."

  "What are you going to say?"

  "I'm going to accuse you of being responsible for his breakdown and then maliciously preventing him from receiving adequate care."

  "As usual, Chaplain, you don't know what you're talking about."

  "Captain, I am defending a beaten man against the tyranny, the sadism of the military mind."

  "No you're not, Chaplain. I can't explain what I'm doing. But I can assure you it's for a good cause."

  "You mean your promotion to admiral? That will be your reward, won't it? For crucifying this man in your search for a scapegoat for Savo Island?"

  "I'm not searching for a scapegoat. I'm searching for a guilty party-"

  "What if there is no guilty party? What if guilt only exists in your rigid mind?"

  "You sound so certain of that, Chaplain. Is there something you know about what happened that night that ought to be on the record?"

  "My task is to console, to heal the wounds war inflicts on men. I will have nothing to do with prosecuting or accusing anyone.”

  For a moment, Captain McKay was tempted to snarl some Old Navy epithets at Chaplain Bushnell. But he restrained himself. Bushnell was another warning sign. The situation was almost out of control. Earlier today, Lieutenant Mullenoe had told him some of the men were talking about a round-robin petition on Parker's behalf — a gambit only a half step short of mutiny. He could not let his ship collapse into total chaos. He had done everything in his power for Win Kemble. The record of Parker's cowardice, his incompeten
ce, was in the Jefferson City's log. His breakdown could be cited as further evidence of his probable guilt. He would have to let him go without the signed confession.

  "Commander Parker will go ashore today," he said.

  "Thank you," Chaplain Bushnell said and hurried out to report his victory over the powers of darkness. Captain McKay turned to another favorite poem, "At the End of Spring."

  If the Fleeting World is but a long dream, It does not matter whether one is young or old, But ever since the day that my friend left my side And has lived an exile in the city of Chiang-ling There is one wish I cannot quite destroy:

  That from time to time we may chance to meet again.

  Captain McKay threw the book on his bunk. Enough brooding on Tao and the fleeting world. Life was not a dream. The aging machinery in the belly of the Jefferson City was real. So were the guns she fired and the men who manned them. There was a war to fight, a ship to restore. He had to start healing the wounds he had inflicted on her.

  Another knock on the door. "Captain, a message from Radio Central for you."

  The Marine handed him the flimsy. Captain McKay read it once, twice, three times. WIN KEMBLE DIED YESTERDAY OF A SELF INFLICTED GUNSHOT WOUND IN THE HEAD. RITA.

  Going Ape

  Olsem Wamen? I gud? (How are things? Okay?)

  I gud nomo. (Just fine.)

  Tangkyu tumas. (Thank you very much.)

  On the starlit deck of the Jefferson City, Crockett Smith rehearsed the pidgin Frank Flanagan had taught him. Tomorrow he would begin his journey. He would test his faith.

  It was time to flee this supposedly civilized world, with its swirling hatreds and brutalities, its perpetual stink of fear and death. What he had seen and heard on the bridge of the Jefferson City when he was a talker there had convinced him. There had to be a better life deep in the jungle with people who lived with and spoke to animals.

  He did not expect to find Tarzan. The fools in the crew did not understand why he loved the Tarzan stories so much. They could not see their inner message, just as most of the people who read the Bible never saw the inner message of Jesus and the prophets.

  In the Bible, the inner message was love. In the Tarzan stories the inner message was the impossibility of love in the civilized world, in cities and towns, and its possibility in the jungle, with those who understood the language of animals. On this floating piece of civilization, the USS Jefferson City, love was a joke, an obscenity. No one could be trusted. Kindness was unknown. The captain tormented the executive officer, the officers tormented the crew.

  Events had conspired marvelously to create this moment of decision. His transfer to the bridge as a telephone talker had revealed the cruelty, the hypocrisy, of the ship's commanders. It had also given him a chance to study the quartermaster's charts and learn enough about the geography of the New Hebrides to formulate his plan. Just south of Espiritu Santo was the island of Malekula. One of the quartermasters had told him there were almost no white men on that island. Many parts of it had never even been explored.

  Tomorrow, when he went ashore for liberty, he would vanish into the jungle until nightfall. Then he would steal a boat and cross Bougainville Strait, using his compass to row due south on the prevailing trade wind to Malekula.

  Crockett Smith did not expect to find Tarzan. But he hoped to become Tarzan. He did not know what sort of animals he would find in the jungle on Malekula. But he would learn their language. The people who lived in the jungle would teach him. They would greet him with the same kindness and generosity the Africans had offered Tarzan. It was civilization that taught men to be cruel.

  On a hill overlooking the dark waters of Bougainville Strait a half dozen black men of the Namba tribe discussed the new white men, the Amerikans. They had watched their great steel ships off the coast, their guns firing thunder at the gods.

  The Nambas were the greatest warriors of the New Hebrides. No one could match their mana, the spiritual power the gods bestowed on men to deal with their enemies. But even their chief, Pantutum, admitted that the Nambas' mana could not match the Amerikans'. Everyone agreed they had a tremendous mana. How else could they have come across the ocean in these heavy ships with their great rifles? They were warriors to whom the gods had given special power. If the Nambas could capture even a part of that mana, perhaps they could prevent the Amerikans from conquering Malekula as they had conquered the other islands.

  There was only one sure way to capture a warrior's mama. But the missionaries, Father Jogues and Father Lafont, had forbidden it. They said it was a sin. Now Father Jogues and Father Lafont were gone. France, their country, had been conquered by warriors with a greater mana. They no longer gave shirts and rice and combs and bracelets to those who believed in their god Jesus.

  The Nambas did not trust white men. They had allowed the priests to live in their village because they had no guns and they brought useful gifts. But any white man with a gun was not to be trusted. Long years ago white men had come to these islands in ships and taken away thousands of people to work in a far-off place called Ostrelia.

  One of the men saw something on the dark water. It was a boat. Was it the beginning of the Amerikan invasion? They clutched their spears and ancient rifles and crept down to the beach. It was a very small boat and there was only one man in it. He leaped from the boat when it reached the sand and opened his arms to them. "Welkom, frends," he said. "Mi glad tumas her."

  He was speaking pidgin, the language of those who had been dragged to Ostrelia. They were people of many tribes and they had to learn to speak to each other while they worked for the white man. Only a few Nambas who crossed Bougainville Strait to trade pigs for cartridges and knives in Espiritu Santo spoke pidgin.

  "Seize him," Chief Pantutum said in Namban.

  They seized him and bound his arms with hemp. "Mi Amerikan. Mi frend," he said, smiling at them.

  Prodding him with their spears, they trotted swiftly through the jungle to their fortified village on a steep-sided volcanic mountain five miles away. They bound the Amerikan's feet and left him with the women in the igah, the ordinary part of the village where the huts stood in a semicircle, and retired through the screen of bushes in the center of the village to the ileo, the sacred dancing ground where the gamal, the men's council house, stood.

  In the gamal, Chief Pantutum called a meeting of the sukwe, the secret society that ruled the village. A man had to spend many years and a great deal of shell money to rise through the grades of the sukwe. He had to sacrifice many curved-tusked pigs to his ancestors and treat the village to numerous feasts. He had to dedicate gongs to be used in the sacred dances. The further he advanced, the greater grew his mana and the better his chances of sailing across the sea of darkness past the great dog who stood at the gates of paradise waiting to devour the souls of women and other ordinary beings.

  The debate among the leading men of the sukwe was long and serious. Much kava was drunk. They went into the sacred dancing ground, and Chief Pantutum tied onto one knee an ancient mask painted red on the forehead and black on the rest of the face with white spots on the cheeks and chin and a white stripe down the nose. A human arm bone extended through the nose and a pig's tusk rose from the forehead. They sacrificed a pig and sought the advice of their ancestors. Gongs were struck, and Chief Pantutum listened closely to their echoes.

  Finally it was decided. They could capture the Amerikan's mana. They brought him into the ileo and untied his arms and legs and gave him kava to drink. He gulped it down and smiled at them. "Mi frend," he said. "Mi likem olgeta pikininis. Mi likem olgeta ufala."

  "He says he likes our children, he likes all of us," said one of the men who knew pidgin.

  Chief Pantutum gestured him to keep quiet. The decision had been made. The ancestors had spoken. If there was anything wrong, the great god Tagora might awaken from his slumber and interfere. An unlikely event, they all knew.

  The kava began to make the Amerikan drunk. He rose and began to d
ance. He swung his arms and shouted, "Free, I'm free at last." None of the Namba understood him. Chief Pantutum thought he might be calling on one of his gods to rescue him. It was time. The chief seized a spear and plunged it into the Amerikan's chest.

  "From wanem? From wanem?" he cried and fell down and died.

  They carried him into the ilga, where the women had already prepared the fire. When he was well roasted, they carried him back to the gamal and devoured him. Chief Pantutuni, as befitted his rank, ate the heart, which would contain the most powerful part of his Amerikan mana.

  "What did he say as he died?" Pantutum asked the man who spoke pidgin.

  "He said, 'Why? Why?'"

  The Joker Is Wild

  Ninety miles south of Guadalcanal, near Rennell Island, where the Chicago had gone down a few months ago, the Jefferson City steamed in column behind the Columbia. She had also spent a week in Noumea, getting a turbine replaced. Captain Arthur McKay sat in his bridge chair, looking wan. According to the rumor around the ship, he had not eaten anything for three days. Horace Aquino, his Filipino steward, was tearing his hair out.

  Edwin Moss was the officer of the deck. He kept stealing sidelong glances at the captain, trying to decide if he was hung over or, worse, drunk. With some reluctance, Moss decided he was neither. With the same reluctance to abandon his worst opinions, Moss was impressed that a man could grieve so intensely at the death of a friend. As someone who had made no close friends at Annapolis, Moss envied McKay this emotion. It was noble, it was approved by those who studied human nature.

  On the other hand, the captain might be mourning the ruin of his career. According to recent letters from Mrs. Moss, who seemed to be compiling a veritable dossier on McKay, he had tied his future to Kemble's perpetually rising star. She claimed to have uncovered a joke from the class of 1917's yearbook, which went: Who is God? Winfield Scott Schley Kemble. And Arthur McKay is his prophet.

  The thought of a ruined career sent pain knifing through Edwin Moss's belly. The crab's claws had been replaced by a pair of pruning shears. He had had three teeth removed two days ago, and his jaw ached in dubious syncopation with his stomach. Obviously, Dr. Cadwallader had not yet located the locus of the infection. Yesterday he had given Moss a purgative which had kept him running to the head for most of the night. The infection was not in his bowels either.