A faint little smile came to Doc's lips. "The medal you mean, of course," he said gently. "Well, that would be nice. That would be a nice thought." He sat quiet for a moment, as though he had lost the train of his argument. Then he resumed: "But to get on with what I was saying, boy. You alone of one million men in this ocean have been blessed with the clap. .Now when you go back to the States—where are you from, by the way . . . ?"
"Sir? Rapid City, South Dakota."
"All right, when you go back to South Dakota, people are going to point you out and say: 'The only man in the whole Pacific Ocean to get the clap, and he comes from our town! Why, I knew him when he was just a little boy!' You'll be just as good as a hero. You'll get your picture in the paper. You'll talk on the radio. They'll make a terrific fuss over you. Are you going to throw all that away?"
Lindstrom didn't seem to follow the argument. He said, "Sir?"
"Do you want me to cure you?" the Doc paraphrased. "Do you want to throw away your achievement, your medal, your distinction? Do you want to be clap-less like all the million other men out here?" He painted a metaphor: "Do you want to be just another member of a mob scene or do you want to stand out? Which is it?"
Somehow—Lindstrom wasn't sure just how—the Doctor had conveyed in his talk the delicate threat that if his advice was disregarded it would be rank ingratitude; it would hurt the Doc. Lindstrom felt this and scratched his mop of hair and sought the softest words possible. "Well, sir," he said finally, "I sure appreciate what you say and there's a lot in what you say, but all the same if you think it's okay I'd like to get cured."
The Doctor looked sorrowfully over to Lupich. "He wants to get cured." He shrugged. "All right," he said. "But be sure you know what you're saying. Don't do anything now that you're going to regret later. Maybe it would be a good idea if you slept on this thing and came back tomorrow with your decision. What do you think?"
Lindstrom saw that the suggestion was a good one and he considered it. He scratched some more. Then he said: "No, sir, thanks all the same, but I don't figure I'll change my mind. I kind of think I'd like to get straightened out now."
The Doc shrugged again in final defeat. "All right," he said sadly. "You're the doctor." He turned to Lupich. "Sulfathiazole."
When he left sick-bay that morning, Lindstrom was a quite disturbed and unhappy young man. For one thing, he knew that he had hurt the Doc. For another, he wasn't entirely certain that he had taken the right course. The Doc had sown doubt in his mind, and Lindstrom didn't quite have the equipment to put it out. He went and sat on a bitt on the fo'c'sle for a long time, reviewing the Doc's arguments and his own convictions, weighing them against each other. The more he thought about it, the more certain Lindstrom became that he had done the right thing. Just to be absolutely sure he decided to get Dowdy's opinion on it. Dowdy was his boss, the divisional leading petty officer, and Lindstrom, and better minds than Lindstrom's, considered him infallible.
He found Dowdy down in the boatswain's locker, splicing a section of wire cable. He told Dowdy the whole story, including the Doctor's arguments, and Dowdy didn't even look up from his work. As he talked on, it became more and more obvious to Lindstrom that he had done the right thing. He finished on a note of scornful superiority. "And you know what? The Doc wanted me to keep the clap, he wanted me to keep it like a medal, he said. Hell, he's crazy, ain't he? Did you ever hear anything so crazy?" And Lindstrom laughed and slapped his knee and looked to Dowdy for confirmation.
He came to the wrong man. Without interrupting the delicate work, Dowdy said evenly: "No, he's not crazy. He's absolutely right. You're the one that's crazy. You've got holes in your head if you get rid of the only dose of clap in the whole damn Pacific."
Lindstrom was really unhappy then. It took him two full days of steady, torturous ratiocination to re-convince himself that he had made the right decision. And even then, whenever he saw Dowdy, he would feel stirring the pangs of doubt.
CHAPTER FOUR
It seemed to Lieutenant Roberts that he had just fallen asleep when the flashlight shone in his face, awakening him for the watch. He had been dreaming and in his dream his dead mother was there; it was summer at his home and he was going out to play tennis. His mother was sitting on the porch drinking a Coca-Cola, and as he went out she said: "On your way back pick up some pastry for supper." And he got into the car and started off, and at the corner he smashed right into another car; and when the driver of the other car came toward him, he saw that it was Captain Morton. The flashlight shone questioningly in his face and he was fully awake by the time the messenger called: "Mr. Roberts! Mr. Roberts! It's eleven-thirty, sir. You have the watch."
Roberts put a hand to his eyes and rubbed them. "Okay," he said. "Thank you." The messenger went out, stumbling in the darkened stateroom against the chair. Carefully, he pulled the door to behind him; he knew that Mr. Roberts would get up; you only had to call Mr. Roberts once. Roberts lay on his back not moving a muscle, numbly, tiredness an actual ache in his legs, considering the fact that sleep was over and now for four hours—another four of the hours that wheeled past ceaselessly like ducks in a shooting gallery—he must get up and stand in the darkness. Here we go again, he thought; and as he lay there he felt the old incipient despair that for two hours he had eluded returning again. To stop it he stopped his mind; he had learned well how to do that. He lay there and all he was doing was breathing and listening. In the hot, pitch-dark little room there were four distinct sounds. There was the noisy breathing of Langston in the bunk above him—a long wheezing inspiration, then a pause, then a wet, angry snort. There was the hissing drone of the blower in the overhead and the whirring of the fan that wearily pushed the heavy air over to the bunks. Over on the desk the cheap alarm-clock ticked stridently. Roberts raised his head and looked at the luminous dial: eleven-thirty-five. He lay still a moment longer; then he stretched and sat up. In the darkness he reached to the deck and put on his stockings and shoes and still without turning on the light he found the rest of his clothes and put them on. As he went out he closed the door quietly, although he could have slammed it fifteen times without awakening Langston.
He went down to the wardroom, where one overhead light burned dimly. It was deserted; a few old and much-tumbled magazines were strewn about the tables. There was no one in the pantry either; not even the steward's mate with the watch. Incuriously, Roberts looked through the refrigerator for something to eat and, finding nothing, poured himself a cup of coffee from the Silex and sat down at a table. He picked up a six-months-old copy of Time and looked at the book section to see if he had read it. He had; he threw it aside. He drank the black coffee in deep swallows and felt better; it smothered some of the weariness, his legs felt better, he could stand the watch now. He stretched again, shook his head like a swimmer with water in his ear, put on his cap, and walked slowly up the two ladders to the charthouse. There he initialed the Captain's night-order book—always the same: "Call me at any time if in doubt"—and looked at the chart. The closest land was four hundred miles. He went out into the wheelhouse.
Usually, before he took the officer-of-the-deck watch, Roberts would stand at night in the rear of the wheel- house and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Tonight, though, as soon as he stepped into the wheelhouse, he could see. A bright moonlight was streaming through the portholes and almost right away he could make out every object in the room and every person. He asked the helmsman: "Where's Mr. Carney?" and the helmsman told him: "Out on the port wing." Roberts went out on the wing and found Carney leaning on the pelorus.
Like all watch-standers about to be relieved, Carney was jovial. "Welcome," he said. "And good morning."
Roberts smiled wryly. "Good morning," he said. He waited for Carney to give him the dope.
"Well," Carney began, "we're steaming along in this here ocean at ten knots, seventy-two r.p.m., and the base course is two-five-eight and that's what we're steering. No zigzag, no nothing; everything's peace
ful."
"I trust Stupid's gone to bed?" said Roberts.
"Stupid's gone to bed."
"Okay," said Roberts, "anything else?"
"Nope, nothing else. No course changes."
"Okay," Roberts said. "I've got it."
"Okay." Carney made a gestured salute. He stood around a moment, trying not to appear too anxious to go below. "Hell of a bright night," he said.
"It really is."
Carney shifted his cap and yawned. "Okay," he said vaguely. He slouched off into the charthouse to write his log and turn in.
Roberts had the watch. For maybe the thousandth time in two and a half years he had the watch. He stood alone on the wing and considered this fact. For a moment he thought of figuring just how many watches he had stood; then he gave it up. He pinched his eyes in an old nervous mannerism and got ready. This would be a long watch, the mid-watch always was; and besides, there was nothing doing, which made it worse. He might as well get the watch organized, get that over with. He looked into the gyro repeater and checked the course with the helmsman. He checked the gyro with the standard and steering compasses. He asked the talker if everyone had been relieved on the guns: they had been. He had the talker ask Radar if there was anything around: there wasn't. That squared away the watch. Now there was nothing to do, nothing at all to do but stay on the course, and a moron could do that.
He walked back to the wing, leaned against the windshield, and looked out at the sea and the night; and for the first time he noticed what an incredible night it was. The moon—what an enormous moon! It had risen yellow and round and fat, and now that it was higher it had shrunk a little, but still it was round and full, and no longer yellow, but molten, incandescent silver. The light it spread was daylight with the harshness filtered out, unbelievably pure and even and dimensionless. On the bridge you could have read a newspaper: it was that bright. The moon now was on the port quarter and all the way to the horizon it parted the water in a wide, white glistening path that hurt the eyes; and back where the horizon should be there was really none at all, there was only this pale blue, shimmering haze where sky and water merged without a discernible break. And the sea was even more remarkable: Roberts had never seen the sea quite like this. There wasn't a ripple anywhere; there was only the faintest hint of a ground swell, an occasional bulge of water. The surface, glazed as it was with moonlight, looked heavy, coated, enameled: it was that perfect. The ship slid through the water with an oily hiss, and the bow cut the fabric like a casual knife. At the stern, the wake was a wide, frothing rent, but farther back it was healing and not so wide, and far, far back the fabric was whole and perfect again.
Holy Christ, thought Roberts, this sea is a phony, a mirage, an illusion. There couldn't be a sea like this. It's a lie, a myth, a legend. It's not real.
And a not-at-all faint, interior voice answered him: Don't you wish it weren't?
Yes, said Roberts, I do for a fact: I wish it weren't.
And then he added: But this ship can't be real. There couldn't possibly be a ship like this.
The voice concurred: You're right there. There couldn't be.
But there is, Roberts said.
But there is, the voice agreed.
"Like a damn mill pond," said a voice at his side; a more plausible and more corporeal voice. Roberts looked up at Dolan, the second-class quartermaster.
"The smoothest I ever saw it," Roberts said.
"It really is." Dolan looked about, almost squinting in the shiny moonlight. "What a hell of a night to be out in this place!" ,
"I was thinking the same thing."
Dolan, his eyes still scanning the water, shook his head. "Man, that beats me." He was young, only twenty-one or so, but he was a smart one; savvy; shrewd. He had been aboard not quite a year, and in that time he had established himself as one of the most formidable crapshooters on the ship. From his first day aboard, he had stood watches with Roberts, and a nice feeling had grown up between the two. When they stood a watch there wasn't any nicely shaded officer- enlisted-man relationship: there wasn't even any awareness of difference. They just stood and talked together: two men with the mutual background of the United States, the bond of this ship, a mutual dislike of the Captain; stood and gossiped and speculated and told stories and reminisced: things two men together are apt to do anywhere. Their watches were really one continued conversation which they could resume at any time with no consciousness of a break.
"Crap game tonight?" Roberts asked.
"Yeah," Dolan said. "I played about eleven, then I quit."
"How'd you make out?"
"Horseshit. That's why I quit. I couldn't hit a lick. I went in with a hundred and I dropped that and then I borrowed fifty from Vanessi and I came back a little, but then I dropped that too. So I figured it was time to get out of there."
"Who won all the money?"
"Vanessi. Dowdy and him. That guy Vanessi was up about eight hundred bucks when I got out. He was hotter than a firecracker."
Dolan was quiet a moment, then he said suddenly: "By the way, did you hear about Dowdy? Him and the Old Man?"
"No. What did he do?"
Dolan laughed delightedly, an obviously choice morsel to present. "That son-of-a-bitch, you know what he did? Tonight? The Old Man called him up, something about the boats, and when they got through the Old Man started crying the blues to Dowdy about the officers on here; what a miserable bunch of officers there was, and what a miserable outfit the Navy is, and how he wished he was back in the merchant service and could get hold of some of the officers back there. And then he says to Dowdy: 'I know the officers on here hate my guts. That's all right; I don't care about that. Now tell me what the crew thinks of me.' And Dowdy looks at him and says, 'You really want to know, Captain?' And then he says: 'Okay, you asked me and I'm telling you. Captain, they think you're a prick.'"
"Hooray for Dowdy!" Roberts said. He clapped the pelorus. "He really said that?"
"Absolutely! He said, 'Captain, they think you're a prick.' And he said the old man turned blue in the face, he was so mad; and at first he couldn't even talk, he was that mad. Then he told Dowdy to get the hell out of his cabin!"
"Say, that's wonderful!" Roberts said admiringly. "I'm going to see to it that Dowdy gets recommended for the Navy Cross."
The two worked on the Dowdy incident until its possibilities were exhausted; then they moved on to other matters. Dolan did most of the talking: he was a garrulous young man with impressively complete information on all strata of shipboard life, which he passed on faithfully to Mr. Roberts. Roberts, in turn, supplied opinion when asked, advice when asked, and a certain amount of information on officers' doings, which were somewhat inaccessible to Dolan's probing. Like all good gossip sessions, theirs was a reciprocal affair, and like a good session it served its purpose; it passed a weary hour. Tonight they each had another story of the Captain to offer, but, following on the perfect finality of the Dowdy incident, these sounded dull and anti-climactic. Then Dolan held forth for some time on the quality of the latest batch of jungle juice that Olson had brewed. Dolan's argument was that the beverage would be improved by sticking to straight raisin mash and omitting such miscellaneous and accidental fruit juices as could be stolen from the issue room. Roberts conceded he might be right. Then Dolan asked Roberts's opinion of the chances of getting sent back to the States with a fungus infection of the ear. This, in turn, led to a discussion of various ways of getting a medical survey which lasted for quite a while. When there was a lull in the talk, Dolan looked at his watch. "Jeez, a quarter of two," he said. "Okay if I go down for some coffee?" Roberts said it was, although it always took Dolan half an hour to get a cup of coffee.
"Shall I bring you some?" Dolan said, starting down the ladder. Roberts shook his head.
Alone on the wing again, he took his glasses and studied the horizon. There was nothing there; there was nothing at all in the night but this ship, the point of reference in infinity, and this sea
that planed away in all directions to the curving line of its visible limits. A little wind had come up, and on the sea there was a little swell; the ship rolled in it ever so gently and slowly. Roberts watched as the foremast wheeled in a stately arc against the stars of the Southern Cross, a pointer tracing on the blackboard of the sky. A quarter of two: well, that was good; that was better than he expected. That's where it paid to have someone to talk to, someone like Dolan; the time went down so much more easily. A quarter of two. Two hours down, two to go. It was when you were alone like this, nothing to do, no one to talk with, that the time went hard. It was a hundred times better to run in convoy and be busy as hell; a station to keep, the zigzag plan to run, ships to watch out for. It was when you were alone like this, no ships and no Dolan to engage the front of your mind that it got bad. You started thinking then, and that was always bad. Never think: that was one of the two great lessons Roberts had learned. The other was, once started, how to stop thinking. When his mind started to work in the all-too-frequent pattern—subjectively, wishfully, unrealistically or too realistically and, in the end, despairingly—there was only one thing to do and that was to stop it; to wipe his mind blank as a slate washed with a sponge, and to keep it that way. He had learned to do that, and he considered the knowledge a priceless boon. He could stand for hours as he did now, his mind shuttered like a lens; and the tiny corner of it that would never quite close completely engrossed with such an external as the mast pirouetting among the stars, or the phosphorus that flared in the bow wave. And sooner or later the watche6 always ended—he had learned that too—they always ended.
There were footsteps on the ladder and Dolan was back. He busied himself for a moment in the wheel- house, getting the two-o'clock readings; then he came out. He was eating an apple and he handed one to the officer.
"Clocks go back an hour tomorrow night," Dolan said between bites. "Not on our watch, though."
Mister Roberts Page 5
