by Sloan Wilson
“Captain, I just brought your invoices over,” the mate said.
“Invoices?”
“We’re giving you two hundred and twenty thousand gallons of high octane, about five thousand barrels. After we get you loaded, we’d like to have you test it and mark it OK on our copy of the invoice.”
“Test it?”
“We don’t like to be picky about it, but there’s been a lot of trouble lately. Some of these little tankers have dirty tanks, or they unload half the high octane and fill up with the low. A lot of planes have crashed and they always try to trace it back to us, so now we keep records.”
“I see.” Make sure someone else gets the blame.
“I know a lot of these little ships don’t have the gear for real testing, but you can just write down that the gas we gave you was a proper green. You can test it in a jar.”
“Okay,” Syl said, and accepted the papers.
When the mate left, Syl sank down in the desk chair. Nothing had been said about the near collision. Maybe the mate had figured that Syl had simply calculated the movements of his vessel with rare precision, or maybe he had not thought about the incident at all. People on tankers probably get too used to trouble to react much. He wondered if he’d ever get that way …
Leaning back in his chair, Syl stretched his arms. One good thing that he could say about being scared half to death was that it didn’t leave much time for acting out. When the sweat came cold to his face and his knees shook, that—take it or leave it—was the real Sylvester M. Grant, the inner man finally revealed.
Couldn’t leave him there for long, though. Put him back in the bottle before he scared everyone to death.
It took about three hours for the big tanker to fill the little one. As her tanks were flooded with gasoline the Y-18 settled so low in the water that some of the men who had never served aboard such vessels thought she was sinking.
Simpson continued to tell his horror stories … “Skipper, you want to learn this valve system damn well. If you turn the wrong valves, you can fill just the tanks on one side and capsize a ship like this. That happened only a couple of months ago at—”
“I get the picture,” Syl said. “Naturally, Mr. Simpson, we’re going to try to distribute the cargo evenly, just like on a freighter.”
“You want to fill all the tanks right to the top so there’s no air there,” Simpson pressed on. “That’s not like a freighter. We float only because gas is lighter than water.”
“I guess that’s as good a reason as any,” Syl said. “I don’t give a damn why we float, just so long as we do.”
The gasoline made a deep gurgling sound in the bowels of the ship as it poured into the tanks. She sounded like a great beast with stomach trouble. Vapors pouring from the vents at the masthead were invisible but dense enough to make shadows like writhing snakes on the deck below. The smell of gasoline was everywhere. Perhaps it did have an intoxicating effect. The men seemed a little silly as they joked about the girls they’d known in Brisbane, the quantities of booze they’d drunk, and the fights …
Finally the tank deck sank to a level about two feet above the water. Just the bow and stern were high enough to ward off seas. In a blow the whole waist of the ship would be awash, like a beach at high tide.
“Hell, tankers like this have survived voyages all over the world ever since gas was invented,” Syl said when Simpson intoned he’d often seen waves smash right over the tank deck.
“Not quite like this one, skipper. This was really designed to be a harbor tanker. When she was in the merchant marine she wasn’t even licensed for anything but sheltered and semi-sheltered waters. That’s why our radio equipment is so bad—”
“Mr. Simpson, why do you stay on this ship if you hate her so much?”
“Hate her? I don’t hate her. I just know her limitations. You have to face them if you’re going to cope with them.”
At this moment, and for a change, Buller’s bullishness was welcome if unrealistic.
“Hell, this little ship could ride through anything,” he said. “Waves break over a corked bottle, but it won’t sink.”
“Corked bottles don’t break up,” Simpson said. “They don’t provide any resistance to the waves. Our topsides are like a barn wall.”
“I’ve never known a barn to be sunk yet,” Syl said. “When will our tanks be topped off, Mr. Simpson?”
“Any minute now. I’ve got Mr. Wydanski watching it.”
“Test the stuff as soon as you can. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The aviation fuel showed pure green when Simpson fished some up with a jar on a string. After certifying it Syl sent a copy of the invoice up to the mate of the American Exporter and went to the bridge. The men waited by the lines without being called to their mooring stations. New Guinea was not much of a destination, but the men were more eager than ever to get to sea, where the routine of four hours on, eight off, was so restful. Predictable …
Now that the tanker was fully loaded, she was much less skittish—in fact she was so sluggish that she hardly answered the helm. No matter, she had advantages. She did not roll or pitch much when they got outside the harbor and encountered moderate seas on the starboard bow. Aboard his freighter Syl had had to check his compasses carefully each time he took a new cargo, but at least gasoline did not affect magnetic needles.
After setting the course for Milne Bay, New Guinea, Syl turned the deck over to Simpson and set the regular watches. Sorrel took down the red Baker flag and the men began to feel more safe. It was almost noon. The hot sun and brisk wind were pleasant as Syl sat in a canvas deckchair on the fantail, the only place where smoking was allowed when underway.
“Skipper, how long before we get to Hollandia?” Buller asked.
“It’s almost two thousand miles, the way we’re routed, about eleven days if all goes well.”
“Do you think they’ll have hit the Philippines before we get there?”
“I have no idea.”
“They wouldn’t send us in until everything is pretty well secured—”
“I doubt if they’d spearhead an invasion with a gas tanker,” Syl said, “but who the hell knows?” Mr. Buller seemed to be less than the happy warrior at this point, Syl noted with some satisfaction.
The propeller shaft deep in the bowels of the ship under his feet seemed to rumble unevenly—maybe a weak bearing. The wake of the ship stretched out astern as crookedly as a winding country road. She was hard to steer and most of the helmsmen were as green as the new paint job. Soon their dead-reckoning position would not be worth a damn, but if this weather held, they could get plenty of sun sights to correct it. He wondered if the radioman, Hathaway, was good at taking time ticks and if Wydanski in his mooning over his love left behind had really checked out all the machinery. Hell, survival was in large part a matter of luck on a voyage like this. You rolled the dice and hoped that the right spots would turn up, or you prayed that God would watch over you.
Only the seagulls were safe.
Because Simpson asked for the navigator’s job Syl gave him the four-to-eight watch, which would put him on the bridge at twilight for star sights. It also put him in the cabin he shared with his commanding officer during the evenings, and this soon began to drive Syl crazy.
When Simpson came off watch that first night, Syl was lying in his bunk reading a thick history of the Philippine Islands, one of Teddy’s gifts. The cartons of books were stacked neatly as possible around the desk and lockers, where Syl had lashed them with secure lines to prevent them from sliding around when the ship rolled.
“Captain, what do you plan to do with all these books?” Simpson asked as he came in. He stepped over a row of boxes and hung up his coat in a locker with his cap.
“Cramer said he could build some shelves. Mr. Wydanski is going to help him.”
Simpson sat down on the edge of his bunk.
“Where?”
“Here, the wardroom and the forecastle.
I want them available to everybody.”
“You’re going to need an awful lot of shelves. If they’re put up right, they’ll involve structural changes to the ship. We should get authorization for that.”
“Write a letter.”
“I’m not trying to be difficult, captain, but these books are your personal property. If you get transferred and take them with you, all those empty shelves are going to look funny—”
“I hereby give the books to the ship.”
“There are some problems there, sir. Some of those boys in the forecastle are only about seventeen or eighteen years old. Don’t you think we have some responsibility to choose books that are … you know, proper for them?”
Now it was Simpson the censor. God surely moved in strange ways, or through strange people.
Apparently Simpson had looked through the collection, and in an impish mood Teddy probably had included some fairly erotic stuff, including, God forbid, a few art books with some excellent photographs and drawings of nudes. “I don’t think there’s anything here that could hurt anybody,” Syl said. “Even teenagers know what a woman looks like. Especially sailors—”
“Did you ever think what could happen if some of them wrote home and described the books their officers gave them? At least three of our men are good Baptists. They asked if we could hold church services on Sundays.”
“I’m not asking or telling anybody to read anything. I’m just trying to make some books available. If the Baptists or anybody else wants to abstain, it’s fine with me.”
“Don’t you think that putting pictures of naked women up there is a needless temptation for men at sea?”
“Leave the naked women here if you want, Mr. Simpson.” He wanted to add, they’re safer with you. He also thought of recommending the Song of Solomon to Simpson, thought better of it.
Simpson stood up, took off his pants and carefully folded them over a hanger. He put his shirt in a laundry bag, his shoes on a nearby shelf in case he had to grab them in the middle of the night. His socks went into the laundry bag. In T-shirt and white shorts, he sat on his bunk and examined the spaces between his toes, inspecting for athlete’s foot. He took a tube of ointment from his locker and smeared some on his feet before going to the head. The sound of splashing was brief—Simpson had just been lecturing the men about wasting water. When he came out, he stood by his bunk and touched his toes twenty-five times, counting just under his breath.
“Skipper, I always get down on my knees and pray just before I go to bed,” he said. “It don’t embarrass me none to be seen praying, but I don’t want to surprise you.”
“Please go right ahead, Mr. Simpson.” What else could he say?
Simpson knelt by his bunk for what seemed an incredibly long time. Syl could hear him whispering the Lord’s Prayer under his breath, and those beautiful old rhythms were followed by endless mumbling. Apparently he was praying for a number of folks, one by one.
When Simpson finally climbed into bed, he kissed the photograph of his wife before lying down. Then he took his black Bible from under his pillow. His lips moved as he read, and every once in a while he would mumble the words, but not loudly or distinctly enough to be understood. This mumbling was not continuous enough to blend in with the other noises of the ship, the throb of the engine, the creak of the hull, the whisper of the wind in the blackout curtains which covered the open ports. Just when Syl managed to ignore it, the mumbling rose again, sometimes a monotone, sometimes curiously intense with a hint of genuine pain in it …
Syl put out his light, rolled over and tried to sleep, but it wouldn’t come. Finally he got up and went to the bridge. It was a pleasant night with a new moon riding high over a wisp of cloud. Cramer had the eight-to-twelve watch because he was in theory the least qualified and Syl figured that he himself would be awake during those hours. The chief boatswain’s mate was sitting on a stool in the pilothouse talking with the helmsman and the quartermaster, reliving the night of the great fight in the house in Brisbane.
Syl went to the wardroom. Buller, who was on the twelve-to-four watch, was trying to sleep on a bench with his feet in a chair. This small compartment was right over the main engine and poorly ventilated. It was so hot that Buller had stripped to a pair of underpants and his huge hairy torso glistened with sweat.
“Is something the matter with your bunk, Mr. Buller?” Syl asked.
“Wydanski snores. That crazy Polack sounds like he’s choking to death. I don’t know how his girl stood it. She must be getting her first sleep tonight since she met the old fart.”
“We’ll all have to get used to each other—”
“I can’t stand that bastard Simp. As soon as I saw that picture of Christ over his bunk, I knew we had a real nut on our hands. Why do those religious fanatics always want to make poor Jesus look like a bearded lady? Maybe I’m wrong, though. Maybe that’s a picture of his wife.”
“That’s the other one, the big photograph.”
“How does he tell the difference?”
Syl felt like laughing, but making fun of Simpson with Buller made him feel uneasy. He poured a mug of coffee from a pot on an electric burner on a nearby shelf.
“Would you like a game of chess, skipper?” Buller said. “I found a set in the drawer over there.”
“You’re on.”
At college Syl had always been pretty good at chess and he looked forward to beating the big man. Buller rummaged in the drawer under the coffeepot and put a miniature set on the table. It had men with pegs which fitted into holes in the black and red squares. Buller picked up two of the diminutive pawns, shook them in his mammoth hands and held out two freckled fists which were still swollen.
“Pick one,” he boomed. “White gets first move.”
Syl got the black. They set up the men. Buller made his initial moves quickly, countering Syl’s ploys without apparent thought, and Syl soon found himself checkmated.
“You’re pretty damn good, Mr. Buller. Want to go again?”
“You ain’t going to beat me, skipper. I had a teacher who gave me what they call motivation to learn.”
“I’m listening.”
“She was the madam of the best whorehouse in New Orleans. I got a job as bouncer there when I was just a kid. That old whore was always looking for somebody to play chess with on nights when business was slow. She liked a tough game and she said that every time I beat her, I could get a free piece of ass from any girl in the house … You can move first this time.”
Syl shoved a pawn ahead and decided to try a fairly complicated attack his father had taught him a long time ago. Buller seemed impatient while he waited for each move. The big man kept leaning over the board as though he were going to eat it. Syl felt as though he were playing chess with an ogre, but a damn smart ogre. Buller soon checkmated him again.
“You’re out of your league, skipper,” he said, leaned back and stretched, his Herculean arms almost spanning the wardroom.
“It looks that way. At this game, anyway.”
Buller grinned. “Give me a chance,” he said, “and I’ll learn this sailor business in no time. Before this war ends, I want to command my own ship.”
“It’s not as great a job as you might think—”
“Maybe not, but now I’m in the damn service, I want to get a good military record. I aim to go back into politics. A good military record could mean a lot of votes.”
“You should be a flyer or a marine. Those guys get all the medals.”
“A lot of them get their ass shot off too. The Coast Guard sounded safe to me.”
“You can tell the voters all kinds of heroic stories—”
“Yeah, but being a junior officer wouldn’t sound too good. If I could say I’d been captain of a gas tanker in the South Pacific—man, that would be better than medals.”
“If the war lasts long enough, I suspect you might make it.”
“As soon as you think I’m ready, will you recommend me?”
“Maybe … it’s a tough business to learn fast. I learned it too fast myself—”
“But if you don’t mind my saying so, skipper, you’re just a kid. I’ve been in charge of football teams and big oil rigs. I know how to handle men. I studied surveying from the ground up and that’s just the same as navigation. Old Simp thinks he’s a navigator, but he just knows how to use the tables by rote. He don’t know a cosine from his cock, if he has one.”
“Plenty of good navigators just know the tables. The celestial stuff is the easiest part of navigation.”
“What’s the hard part?”
“Piloting.”
“Just going along the shore?”
“Ninety percent of the time it’s the shore that kills ships, not the sea. Piloting takes judgment and that comes with experience.”
“Chess takes judgment and I learned that in about a week.”
“I’m sure, but you won’t get a free piece of ass every time you win at piloting. You just lose your ass and everyone else’s if you foul up.”
Buller pushed his hand past his paunch, which slopped over the waist of his underwear, and scratched his crotch.
“Skipper, if you was on my football team, I’d give you hell. You think too much about losing. You got to have a will to win.”
“I have a will to keep myself and everybody else aboard alive. We’re supposed to get gas to the guys who’ll do the winning, get the glory.”
He got up and left the wardroom before Buller could reply. Alone on the fantail he stood watching the luminescent wake stretch out astern. He was on a ship he was right to fear, and with two officers he disliked, and could easily find himself hating if he didn’t watch it. The captain of a ship wasn’t supposed to let himself get involved in personalities. But with this much tension their first night out he wondered how they would feel after being confined on this ship for a year, and more …
