Mister Roberts

by Thomas Heggen

  "Midnight?" Roberts said.

  "I guess so. Christ, they'd better. I think we've caught all the long watches so far. And then, when we go the other way and the clocks go ahead, we miss all of those. That's a bunch of crap!"

  Dolan worked his apple down to the core and threw it over the side. "What time does Frisco keep?" he asked suddenly.

  "Frisco?" Roberts said. "I think plus seven. Why?"

  "Plus seven," Dolan mused, "plus seven. We're in minus eleven now. That's six hours' difference." He ticked off on his fingers. "Man, do you know what time it is in Frisco right now? It's eight o'clock!"

  "That's right," said Roberts. "Eight o'clock yesterday."

  "Son-of-a-bitch!" Dolan was impressed. "Think of that, Mr. Roberts. Eight o'clock. Just the time to be starting out in Frisco!"

  Roberts didn't say anything and the quartermaster went on: "Man, how I'd like to be down on Turck Street right now. Just going into the old Yardarm. Things would just be starting to pop down there! Were you ever in the Yardarm, Mr. Roberts?"

  Roberts smiled. "Once."

  "I knew it!" Dolan said. "I might have known you'd get down there. It's all right, ain't it, the old Yardarm?"

  "A little strenuous," Roberts said.

  "More beasts down there than you can shake a stick at!" Dolan was getting enthusiastic in his recollection. "You know what, Mr. Roberts? The last time I was there, that was a year ago, man, I found a fine little beast. Cutest little doll you ever saw, blonde, a beautiful figure, really a beautiful girl. I was pretty stupid drunk, but I saw her and I started dancing with her and she started rubbing it up and boy, I sobered up in a hurry. I said, 'Let's go someplace else, baby, and she said, 'Let's go,' and we went out the door and I said, Where we going?" and she said, 'Come with me.' And we got in her car and she drove me right out to her apartment way out by U.C. Hospital. She had an apartment all to herself and this fine car, and, man, I was shacked up with her for a month. Her old man owned three bars and she was always getting me liquor and I was driving all over town in that Plymouth convertible and all the time shacked up with that fine beast. That was all right!"

  Dolan shook his head wonderingly. He was all wound up now. He went on and on, recalling other conquests in San Francisco. Roberts listened for a while, but gradually his mind wandered- He nodded his head at the right places, and smiled at the right places, but he was no longer listening. Against his will, knowing he shouldn't be doing it, he was thinking of San Francisco; he was back there himself now, reconstructing his own version of the town. He was thinking of eight o'clock, the hour when the evening came to life; drawing upon his intensely maintained recollections of two and a half years ago. He was thinking of .the signs lighting up along Geary Street, and the lineup waiting for taxis in front of the Saint Francis, and the cable cars climbing up Nob Hill, and the dusk settling on Nob Hill, filling up from the bay and from die city below. Eight o'clock in the nice bars—the Saint Francis and the Cirque Room at the Fairmont and the Top of the Mark and the Zebra Room at the Huntington—the air bright and murmurous with the laughter and the clink of glasses and the foolish, confidential talk; and over it all, soft and unheard and really astonishingly sad, the deep, slow rhythms of American dance music. And the girls, the fine, straight, clean-limbed American girls in their tailored suits, sitting, leaning forward, each talking with her escort, one hand extended on the table and just touching his sleeve. Or dancing tall and proud to the music that promised them bright and lovely and imperishable things. And at the bar all the young officers, the bright-eyed, expectant young officers, watching the girls, looking for something—they didn't know what—something that called at night with the dusk and the neon lights and swore to them that tonight, this very night, in this town, this bar, a thing of desperate loveliness would happen if only they found the right girl, found the right bar, drank enough liquor, smoked enough cigarettes, heard enough talk, laughed enough. But they must hurry, they must hurry!—the bars were closing, the ships were sailing, youth itself was running out. What was it they were seeking? It wasn't just a girl, although a girl was necessary. A girl wasn't the total; she was just a factor. It was more than that, Roberts thought—what was it?

  And the angry, critical, voice inside him answered: Why, you goddamn knucklehead! Who're you trying to kid? The bars are so goddamn noisy you can't yell from one table to the next. The women are a bunch of beasts with dirty bare legs and stringy hair. The boys are out for just one thing and that's to get laid. Who're you trying to kid, anyway?

  Dolan was asking him something. He wanted to know: "Any chance of this bucket ever getting back to the States?"

  Roberts said mildly. "You know better than that."

  "Yeah," Dolan said, "I guess so. But the engineers keep saying we've got to get in a yard pretty soon."

  "And they've been saying that ever since I've been aboard. There's nothing wrong with these engines that can't be taken care of right out here.1"

  Dolan shook his head sadly. "Yeah, this bucket will be running around here till" the war's over." He added determinedly: "But this kid is sure as hell going to get back before then. As soon as I get eighteen months in, if they don't send me back then, whiz over the hill I go!"

  Roberts turned and smiled. "What are you going to do, swim?"

  "If necessary!" Dolan said emphatically. "If necessary! Do you know there are thousands of bastards lying around the States who've never been to sea? Yeoman and storekeepers and all that crap. Thousands of them!"

  "That doesn't help us any."

  "No, but it should," Dolan said. "How long you been out of the States, Mr. Roberts?"

  "How long? Oh, two and a half years. Thirty-three months exactly."

  "Jesus Christ!" Dolan said, impressed. "That's a long time! How come?"

  Roberts pinched his ear thoughtfully. "I have a theory that all my records have blown out the window at the Bureau."

  "But thirty-three months! That's a long time!"

  Yes, Roberts thought, it probably was a long time. He wasn't sure just how long, but it must have been quite long. He thought of his little sister for a greater comprehension of thirty-three months than the calendar provided. Thirty-three months had been long enough for his little sister, four years younger, to meet a man, fall in love with him, marry him, and bear a child for him. It was long enough for his sister who had been slim and blonde and pretty, to become, according to the evidence of the camera, no longer slim, no longer pretty, and more than thirty-three months older. It had been long enough, he wondered, for how many couples to fall in love and marry and have children, for how many pretty girls to lose their looks? If all the couples who had met and married within that period were to march four abreast past a given point, how long would the procession take? A hell of a long time, he decided; probably another two and a half years.

  "I know one thing," Dolan was saying, "when I do get back I'm sure as hell going to get married. Little girl in Lakeland, Florida. Cute as hell. Did I ever show you her picture?"

  Roberts shook his head and Dolan said: "I got it right here." He pulled a wallet out of his dungaree pants and in the ample moonlight they stood and examined the likeness of a round-eyed, gentle-looking girl with bobbed blond hair. "Very pretty girl," Roberts said. "I'm going to marry that gal," Dolan said. "And then when I get out, I'm going to settle down right there in Lakeland and raise ferns. Make a million dollars growing ferns." "Ferns?"

  "Hell, yeah. There's a lot of money in them. People just don't realize. You can make a lot of money growing ferns if you get a little good ground." "I didn't know," Roberts said politely. "Yeah, hell, yes," Dolan said. "What are you going to do when you get out?"

  Roberts picked up a pair of glasses and raised them to his eyes. "I haven't the faintest idea. Run a chain of whore-houses, maybe. Grow ferns. Sell apples. Anything."

  "What were you doing before you came in?"

  Roberts looked through the glasses a moment without answering; then he put them down. "I
was going to school," he said. "Medical school. I'd just finished my first year."

  "Medical school? How come they got you in this outfit?"

  "I came in. It was my own idea." "Yeah, but how come? The draft couldn't get you in medical school, could it?"

  "No."

  "And you still joined this outfit?" Dolan insisted. "When you didn't have to?"

  Roberts smiled a crooked smile. "That was right after Pearl Harbor. For some reason I felt I had to get in the war." He shrugged as though to dismiss the subject. "I don't understand it myself now."

  Dolan was not be put aside. "Jesus," he said. "I shouldn't think you would. If I had a chance like that to stay out, I sure as hell wouldn't be here now!"

  "Jesus," he said again; and after a moment: "How many times a day do you kick yourself, Mr. Roberts?"

  "Several hundred," Roberts said quietly. "An average of several hundred;"

  "Are you going back to medical school when you get out?"

  Roberts shook his head and squinted up at the foremast. "Too old," he said. "I was twenty-two when I came in, I'm twenty-six now, I'll be twenty-eight when I get out. That's too old. I'd have to take a year of refresher work, then three more years of med school, then two years interning. That would make me thirty- four before I even started practicing. That's too much."

  The quartermaster was quiet a moment. "Jesus," he said after a moment, softly, "why in the hell did you want to get in the war?"

  Roberts's answer wasn't really an answer at all. "I didn't know then that there were such things as auxiliaries," he mused. "I just took for granted that I'd get on a can or a wagon or a carrier right in the middle of it. Instead I end up on a tanker in the Atlantic and this thing out here."

  "Jesus," Dolan said again. He shook his head doubtfully and looked at his wrist. "Three o'clock," he announced, "five after." He went into the wheelhouse to get the readings. He came back and leaned on the pelorus and the two stood together and looked out at the sea. A minute passed, and another, and then the watch collapsed, fell apart, was finished, done with. One minute it was three o'clock, and the next it was four. One minute Dolan was telling a story about the girlfriend of Dowdy's who got her picture in True Detective for shooting her husband, and the next it was three-thirty and time to call the reliefs. And from three-thirty, with no interval at all, the clock jumped to a quarter of four and Dolan was making an informal salute and spieling all in one breath and almost in one word, "I've been relieved sir, Garrity has the watch," and there was Ed Pauley standing beside him, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

  "A hell of a time to get a man up," Pauley mumbled.

  And the watch was over. "It is that, Ed," Roberts said quietly. "It is that."

  Pauley scowled around the horizon. "What's the dope?"

  "Two-five-eight. Seventy-two turns. No course changes. No zigzag. Stupid has a call in for six."

  Pauley nodded. "I saw that. Okay," he said. "I got it."

  "Okay," said Roberts. He turned to go.

  "Say," called Pauley. "Have you got God’s Little Acre?"

  "No, I don't have it. Keith had it the last time I saw it."

  "He's too young to be reading that," Pauley pronounced soberly.

  "That's true." Roberts went on into the charthouse and wrote his log. When he had finished, he sat for a moment slumped on the stool at the chart-table, rubbing his eyes. He considered going down to the wardroom for something to eat, then he remembered there was nothing there. He got up slowly and went down the ladder to his room.

  Nothing had changed: it could have been seconds that he had been gone. Langston was still breathing with the same rhythm and the same intensity. With the same whine the fan was pushing the same air across the room. The clock ticked on and on. Roberts undressed in the dark and got into bed. He lay on his back, his arms cradled beneath his head, his eyes open and staring into the darkness. Helplessly, before he could stop himself, he thought again of San Francisco. Now, as he saw it, it was midnight there and the bars were letting out; the couples walked arm in arm down the streets and the women laughed, and all of them were rich with the knowledge of some incomparable party to follow. A boy and a lovely, slender girl with shining black hair came out of the Mark and stepped into a taxicab, and as the taxi pulled away the girl lay back in the seat and turned to the boy with a slow, happy, secret smile. And down the steep face of the California street, past the careless, oblivious couples, a young man walked alone; back to the ship, the camp, the empty hotel room; another night spent of the dwindling supply, and nothing bought. What was he looking for? What was he missing? What had he lost?

  And then the sudden, angry voice clamored: Will you knock it off? Will you for Christ's sake knock it off?

  Abruptly as turning out a light Roberts stopped thinking, shut off his mind, composed himself for sleep. Mechanically, through the tiny corner left open, he calculated the day ahead: four hours of sleep now, the four to eight watch in the afternoon, and then all night in—no watch until eight the next morning. A whole night in—that was something to look forward to.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  To superficial observer, it might seem that there was a minimum of high, clear purpose to Ensign Pulver's life. A very close observer, scrutinizing Pulver under the lens, would reach the same conclusion. But if Pulver's direction was sometimes dubious, one thing was abundantly certain—that he would travel it in considerable contentment. Ensign Pulver was a quite happy and relaxed young man. He slept a great deal and very well, ate practically anything without complaint; and to any stimuli his reaction was apt to be remarkably amiable. He could and did absorb staggering amounts of well-intentioned insult, and his vanity appeared to be vulnerable on only one point; his feet. By accepted human standards, Ensign Pulver's feet were enormous, and he was delicate about them. He was apt to become abruptly dignified' and not a little aloof when they were offered for discussion. They were offered frequently.

  Ensign Pulver was a young man of a high degree of ingenuity. Most of this he directed toward his own well-being. Since foresight is the better part of ingenuity, he had reported aboard the ship burdened with a large and heavy wooden box. It would be fatuous to presume that this chest contained clothing. The three cases of beer, six quarts of bourbon, three of rum, one of gin, and two of Vermouth, had lasted, through admirable providence, almost six months, even though shared with Lieutenant Roberts and Ed Pauley and the Doc. Pulver had himself, over the objections of the other three, imposed the pace and the restraint. He had a predilection for certain things effete and sensuous, and he got a wonderful feeling of luxury from lying in his bunk sipping a beer or a Manhattan.

  Young Pulver got to spending a lot of time in his bunk, asleep and awake. On an average day he probably spent eighteen hours in bed. He was an engineering officer. Although few of the officers had anything, really, to do, Pulver had less than most. It would be neither unfair nor very inaccurate to say that, professionally, he didn't do a thing. So he had a lot of time on his hands, and this, with his native ingenuity, he converted to time on his back. His bunk became to him a sort of shrine, and but for meals and other undeniable functions, he was seldom out of it. It was an unusually well-equipped bunk. At the foot Pulver had rigged a small fan which wafted cool breezes over him on the hottest nights. At the side was attached a coffee-can ash tray, a container for cigarettes and another for a lighter. Pulver liked to smoke in bed while he was reading. Books were stowed in the space between the springs and the bulkhead. Beer was kept there, too, and it was possible to open a bottle on the reading light on the bulkhead.

  He read a great deal, being embarked upon an ambitious program of self-improvement. By education Pulver was a metallurgical engineer, and now read books that he had widely and willingly evaded during his college days. He read these books because they were the books that Lieutenant Roberts read; consciously or not, Ensign Pulver had set out to make himself over in Roberts's image. With regard to most objects, people, ideas, Pulver was languidly c
ynical; with a few he was languidly approving, and with almost none was he overtly enthusiastic. His admiration for Roberts was utterly unabashed. He thought that Roberts was the greatest guy he had. ever known. He prodded him with questions on every conceivable subject, memorized the answers, then went back to his bunk and assiduously absorbed them into his own conversation. He watched the careless, easy dignity with which Roberts met the crew, and studied the way that Roberts got the crew to work for him; and then he tried to apply this dignity and this control to his own small authority. Being honest with himself, he couldn't notice any increased devotion in the eyes of the men; or indeed, anything more than the usual tolerance. It is not very likely that Ensign Pulver would ever have read Santayana, or the English philosophers, or Jean Christophe, or The Magic Mountain, if he had not seen Roberts reading them. Before this self-imposed apprenticeship, he had been content to stay within the philosophical implications of God's Little Acre. He had read God's Little Acre twelve times, and there were certain passages he could recite flawlessly.

  His reading program didn't leave much time for anything else, but what leisure could be managed he devoted to planning characteristically ingenious actions against the Captain. He didn't really have cause for hard feeling against the Captain, because, being an engineer, he was quite remote from him. In truth, the Captain hardly knew Pulver was aboard. But because Roberts hated the Captain, Pulver felt duty-bound to do the same; and scarcely a day went by that he didn't present to Roberts the completed planning for a new offensive. To be sure, these offensives seldom went beyond the planning stage, because commonly their structure was so satisfying to Ensign Pulver that he felt fulfilled just in regarding it. Also he was not a very brave young man, and these things called for bravery just as surely as the battlefield.

  Once he figured out a way to plug, far down in the sanitary system, the line that fed the Captain's head, so that the Captain would one day be deluged by a considerable backwash. He never did anything about it. He figured out a Rube Goldberg device that would punch the Captain in the face with a gloved fist when he entered his cabin. He never did anything about this either. Then he was going to introduce marbles into the overhead in the Captain's bedroom, the marbles to roll around at night and make, an awful racket. He conferred frequently with the Doctor on ways of transmitting a gonococcus infection to the Captain. About the only plan he ever executed was one involving no personal risk. He did, one day while the Captain was ashore, actually insert shavings from an electric razor into his bed, on the theory that they would serve as satisfactorily as any good itch powder. If they did, the evidences were disappointing, for although Pulver watched closely, the Captain never appeared better- rested, and indeed, better-natured, than in the succeeding days.