At nine-forty-five or thereabouts, three M.P.'s drove up with Denowsky, Corcoran, and Youngquist, all second division men, in tow. Denowsky, with the other two as riders, had stolen a D-8 bulldozer from an Army parking field and had knocked over three privies behind a barracks before being interfered with. The M.P.'s were pretty surly. Carney put another yellow slip in the log.
Five minutes later, Carney noticed a commotion back aft. A jacob's-ladder had been thrown over by number five hatch and a native girl was climbing it, assisted by Sam Insigna, the signalman, from the dock, and plenty of willing hands from the ship. Carney had to interfere, and Sam led the girl off. The two kept looking back at the ship. Carney wiped his brow groggily.
It was only a few blocks from the dock to the center of town. Shortly after ten o'clock, Carney heard a big noise over in town. There was a great deal of shouting and some screaming. This went on for maybe ten minutes and then there was the sound of at least three sirens. The noise stopped a few minutes later. Ten minutes after, an M.P. command truck and a shore patrol paddy wagon pulled up on the dock. Both were loaded to the brim with members of the starboard section. These men were a gory sight. Almost all of them were covered with blood and dripping blood. Their uniforms were in tatters and a few had lost their trousers. Vanessi, the storekeeper, had at least four teeth missing and several men had what appeared to be burns. Carney turned them over to the Doctor. They all seemed perfectly happy, those who were up and about. Even those who were unconscious had a peaceful smile on their faces. The shore patrol spoke ill-naturedly of a big fight with some soldiers in a dance hall. The shore patrol looked tired.
It took half an hour to put that bunch away. Then the Doctor went along number three hatch examining the bodies with a flashlight. The hatch cover was getting crowded.
At eleven-thirty, just when Carney was thinking he might get through the watch without further incident, a Navy station wagon stopped at the gangway. Four shore patrolmen got out, two officers and two enlisted men. The enlisted men, wearing forty-fives, stationed themselves at the foot of the gangway. The officers came on up. The Commander of the Naval Base, they said, had ordered the sentries stationed to prevent anyone, officer or man, from leaving the ship during the rest of its stay in Elysium. The immediate reason was that some sailors, certainly members of this crew, had broken into the home of the French consul and thoroughly taken it apart. Carney nodded dumbly. By this time he was well beyond surprise.
As they turned to go, one of the officers asked: "How long since these guys made a liberty, anyway?" Carney told him. The officer shook his head wearily and went on down the gangway.
That was all then. Pauley, who had the mid-watch, had an easy time. A few more bodies were brought aboard, and at two o'clock one of the bodies already laid out revived and tried to slide down the bow spring line. Those were the only incidents. Otherwise peace settled soddenly on the Reluctant. The liberty was over.
With the matin clarity of the new day, certain significant details of the liberty were revealed. The members of the starboard section were coherent this morning, although not inclined to be talkative, and from their information it was possible to reconstruct the evening. Upon leaving the ship, the entire section had repaired to the local saloons, where it spent the afternoon and early evening drinking native gin and cane whiskey. According to the reports, well corroborated by the evidence on top of number three, these were sturdy and mature drinks. By nine o'clock they had mowed down half of the starboard section. The main body of the survivors, about twenty strong, had marched upon a USO dance given for the Army. They were made to feel unwelcome there. The fight, while short, was intense. A few of the hostesses got caught in the middle of things and lost much of their clothing. The Chinese lanterns burning overhead were pulled down and accounted for numerous first-degree burns. The Reluctant contingent, outnumbered three to one, was at least holding its own when the M.P.'s arrived.
In addition to this main force there were several diversionary groups. Although no one would admit to direct knowledge of this, it was conceded that perhaps- one small group had visited the home of the French consul. The rumor was that a whimsical taxi-driver had advertised it as a whore-house. The visitors were justifiably angry when they found no girls in the darkened house, and among one of the several demonstrations of righteous wrath had thrown a large world globe through the living-room window.
A few other small patrols, such as those of Costello and Denowsky, had fanned to the outskirts of the town and found employment there. This, in outline, completed the picture of the evening.
The big news, though, was that David Bookser had not returned from liberty. This news startled everyone. A few of the crew remembered having seen him walking forlornly about town in the early afternoon, but no one recalled seeing him after three o'clock. It is interesting that the unanimous verdict of officers and crey was that Bookser had somehow met with foul play. It wasn't even considered that he might simply be over- leave. The exec sent Ensign Keith (escorted by the wary shore patrol) over to the Naval Base Commander to request a search for Bookser.
The Reluctant was three more days in Elysium. It was a time of healing and of aftermath. Schlemmer was released from jail when Ensign Keith went over and paid his fine. He was released because his complainant, a young lady of considerable professional reputation, could not be found to press charges. On the second day the Captain was summoned to the Base Commander's office. Afterward it was joyously circulated that he had gotten a royal ass-eating, and it was proudly reported that the Base Commander had informed him the ship would never be permitted to return to Elysium. On the third day two hundred dollars was withdrawn from the welfare fund and paid to a native truck farmer as reparation for one cow, deceased.
And still there was no trace of Bookser. The crew was visibly disturbed about this. Most still thought that Bookser had met with foul play—"one of them Army bastards." A few more argued that Bookser had just gone over the hill—"a religious kid like that, you know, he probably just got fed up." Two or three advanced theorists thought that Bookser had been stricken with something like amnesia. All were sorry that he was gone. When they talked of him now, it was in an elegiac way. "He was a good kid," they would say, using the past tense.
Except for the shadow that Bookser cast, the entire membership of the crew was in good spirits. The officers wondered about this. There was certainly ample cause for the port section to feel deadly enmity toward the starboard section; and yet an atmosphere of abnormal friendliness prevailed. On the last night in Elysium the reason for this good fellowship was made clear.
Wiley, the gunner's mate, came up to Mr. Langston, the O.O.D., and asked if it was true that the ship was sailing in the morning. Mr. Langston said it was. Wiley scratched his head and said, "Well, in that case I guess we better . . ." He leaned over and talked low into Langston's ear. Mr. Langston almost jumped. "Holy Christ, yes!" he croaked. "Get her off of here!" Wiley scampered below and returned a moment later leading a bewildered-looking native girl by the hand. The girl was dark and squat and rather ugly, and she wore sandals and a very dirty white cotton dress. She looked tired. "This is Malina," said Wiley, as he led her past the gaping Langston and on down the gangway. "Thanks!" he said to Langston as he bounded aboard again.
Langston had recovered a little and asked: "How did she get aboard?"
Wiley said easily: "Oh, Sam Insigna brought her out that first night. He tried to get her up a ladder on this side, but Mr. Carney seen him, so Sam got a bumboat and brought her out to the other side."
"Where in hell did you keep her?" Langston said.
"Down in hawser stowage. They fixed it up nice for her down there." Wiley grinned, and added an afterthought: "She liked it on here. She made four hundred some bucks!"
The ship sailed next morning at ten. At breakfast time even those who had held out hope gave Bookser up for lost. He came back at nine-thirty. The deck divisions were standing by to handle lines, and the second div
ision was assembling to hoist up the gangway. The quartermasters were gathering on the bridge and the signalmen on the flying bridge. A majority of the crew was witness to the manner of Bookser's return.
An American-made car drove along the docks; a girl driving, a sailor with her. The car turned into the entrance to a warehouse, a little distance from the gangway, and stopped. Perhaps the two in the car thought they couldn't be seen there. They could: they were. The men on deck watched, and the signalmen on the bridge watched, and after a moment the signalmen watched with binoculars. And this is what they all saw:
They saw this girl. With the naked eye the men on deck could see that she was pretty. With the glasses, the signalmen saw that she was beautiful. Her skin was burnished gold and her hair a black, glistening shawl about her shoulders. Her forehead was high and proud and her eyes were blue. The signalmen could see the tears in her eyes as she turned to the sailor, Bookser. Bookser kissed the girl and stroked back her lovely hair; and the deckhands watched and the signalmen watched. The kiss grew and lengthened and tightened and became the embrace of farewell; and the hands of the two ran helplessly down each other's bodies; and these hands told everything to the signalmen with the 7-50 binoculars. Then Bookser got out and the car drove away.
When Bookser came aboard and started forward to the compartment, the men on deck swarmed about him. They closed in with noisy cries and on their lips were eager, impatient questions. And then they stopped. There was something about Bookser that silenced them, something strange and high and inaccessible. He was pale and listless, and in his eyes there was sadness, and something worlds far away. "Hello," he said quietly, and he gave a little crooked smile. And the crew was suddenly humble before him. The coarse, impatient questions died on their lips and in their place came reverent, hesitant ones.
"Were you with her all the time, Booksie?"
Bookser nodded wearily.
"Where did you meet her, Booksie?"
"Over in the church," Bookser said vaguely.
"Who does she live with?"
"She lives alone up on top of the hill."
"What was her name, Booksie?"
"Lenora. Lenora Valencia."
"How did you know to come back before we sailed?"
"Her uncle," Bookser said dully. "Her uncle is foreman of the stevedores here."
And then, as Bookser turned to go, Steuben, the yeoman, asked the necessary, inevitable question. He asked it with infinite respect.
"Booksie, were you shacked up with her?"
There was a little silent moment. Bookser looked at them, and there was pride in his eyes, and defiance, and this awful loneliness. He nodded slowly. Then, slowly, he went down to the compartment.
The ship sailed then. It was a blue, shiny morning and a spanking off-shore breeze corrugated the surface and streaked its vivid blue with white. The Reluctant steamed along the coastwise channel, and the breeze pushed staunchly against the starboard bow. Elysium slipped astern, receded, diminished in scale against the dome of the sky. The fresh breeze blew on the faces of the crew lined along the rails, and they felt good. They were leaving Elysium, the only civilization the ship had known in three years; they were going back to obscene waters and steaming islands and sweating days and nights, and still they felt good. They felt good in the same way that an old and happy couple feels good, or that soldiers feel good after a battle, or that any group with the bright bond of communal achievement feels good. The crew was a unit at last, and the common artery of participation ran through and bound together such distant and diverse characters as Costello and Wiley and Ringgold and Schlemmer. They stood along the rail in little groups; but these were accidental groups with interchangeable membership, and not the tight, jealous cliques of old. Stuzyuiski and Kalinka, the shipfltter, who hadn't spoken to each other in a year, stood and kidded together. The crew felt good: they had a good thing under their belts, a cherished package waiting to be opened, a prize awaiting distribution.
When Elysium was small in the distance and without detail, like something seen through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, they opened the package. Each group opened it at about the same time, and each opened it the same way: slowly, gently, lovingly.
One man would open his corner of it:
"Did you see me clip that big sergeant at the dance? One of them gals had her blouse torn and one of her tits hanging out, and he was gawking at her, and I stepped up and caught him right on the button!"
And another would open it a little more:
"Yeah, and did you see me! I was standing up by the bandstand and this soldier takes a dive at me and I seen him coming and stepped out of the way and he went right on through that big goddam drum!" And a port section man would open his corner: "You know that gal Insigna kept down in number two? Did you know she got loose one night and started wandering around and she was just heading into officers' country when they caught her!"
And finally, and proudly, the real heart of the package, the prize, the essence, was exposed:
"But did you hear about Bookser! That crazy little son-of-a-gun went over there all by himself and got shacked up with most beautiful gal you ever saw! The signalmen said she was absolutely beautiful! They say he met her in a church over there—a church, for Christ's sake! And she kept him up at her house and he stayed over-leave and she brought him back just in time to catch the ship! Bookser, for Christ's sake!"
These things are quite symphonic in their development. Now, at first, the theme was stated simply and quietly. Later on, at chow, in the compartment, on the crawling night watches, it would be embellished and enlarged. Then various contrapuntal themes would be introduced: one man would add something new and isolated that happened, and another would insert something that didn't happen, but should have. That way the thing would grow and take shape, and finally, when it was rich and rounded and complete, it would summarily be scrapped and a new structure begun from the same material. There was plenty of material: the crew had struck a rich vein at Elysium. It was one which would build them a wall of strength against the attack of buttressed miserable days and nights.
And while the crew stood examining this rich thing, the solitary figure of David Bookser emerged from the compartment hatchway. Bookser had changed to dungarees, and now for a moment he stood blinking in the sunlight. It might have been a cue, the way all eyes turned to him. With the slow, mechanical step of a sleepwalker he started up the fo'c'sle. The groups broke and made way for him. They smiled at him and called to him: they spoke with warm and friendly but respectful voices, the way they might address a beloved officer like Mr. Roberts. Several men sitting on bitts got up and offered their seats to Bookser. But Bookser just smiled a sad, vague smile and nodded his head and kept going. He walked up to the very prow, and he stood there and turned his head back toward the pin-point cluster of Elysium and didn't move.
The crew stayed on deck for quite a while, until the islands began to grow dubious on the horizon. Then one by one, and in twos and threes, they went below: to work, to sleep, to sit and talk. Finally Bookser alone was left. He stood in the prow like a statue. Then, when the line of the islands was finally gone from the sky, he too went below. He went down to take among the crew his rightful place as hero- elect of a legend in the making.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lieutenant Roberts was the only one on the ship who gave a damn about the war in Europe, and he cared profoundly. Scarcely anybody else even listened to the news, much less absorbed it. And it was a time of great news. Now, in the last days of April and the first days of May, 1945, the Third Reich lay in its death throes. Peace for much of the world was only days away, maybe hours. It had already been rumored and denied, rumored and denied again. It was a time as exciting and, in the best sense, as great as the world had ever known: and in its minute displacement of the Pacific Ocean, the Reluctant went about its business and didn't even look up. Its talk was of worn and familiar things: the States, the chow in the mess hall, the movies, the
recent trip to Elysium, and long and always, the Captain. Once in a while a man would ask another, "They still fighting over there in Europe?" but he did it only to display his global awareness. He didn't really care.
Germany writhed in the awful constriction of Allied and Russian armies, vomited agony. The last-ditch defenders fought from the sewers of Berlin. Lieutenant Roberts sat for hours at a time in the radio shack with a headset on his ears, listening to the fading, crackling voices of the shortwave broadcasts. It was seldom that the ship was at an island owning a radio station, and much of the time shortwave was the only means of getting the news. The phonograph in the wardroom, endlessly tended by Carney or Billings or Langston, endlessly whining the sick, scratchy, distorted love- songs of two years ago—I'll Never Smile Again," "You'll Never Know," "Wrong, Would It Be Wrong to Care"- drove Roberts to the headset in the radio shack. It was virtually impossible to silence the monotone nostalgia of the turntable long enough for a news broadcast. Once Roberts had persuaded Billings, the communicator, to put out every morning a sheet of mimeographed press news. The experiment lasted only a week, and even Roberts had to admit its failure. The copies were being tossed unread into the trash baskets.
Roberts had just had a run-in with the Captain when the news came of the final surrender of Germany. The Reluctant lay at anchor in the bay of one of the islands.
It was early evening when the word came, the four-to- eight watch; and Roberts had the watch. Because there was no gangway down, he stood it on the bridge. There were several difficulties with the Captain. First the quartermaster dropped a megaphone on the deck of the wheelhouse, and the Captain was heard from on that. His cabin was directly below, and he couldn't stand noise overhead of any sort. At night, awakening him from sleep, an object dropped on the deck overhead would send him nearly out of his mind with rage.
Then, after the first incident, it wasn't ten minutes until the Captain came up on the bridge again. He was obviously looking for trouble, and he found it. He saw a group of men on the foredeck leaning on the rail. Leaning on the rail was his currently favorite prohibition. He stormed over to Lieutenant Roberts on the wing.
Mister Roberts Page 12
