The Bedford Incident

by Mark Rascovich

  Dearest Martha: — Well, I made it to the Bedford and am just settling down aboard her . . . or trying my best to. During the transfer I met Barney Hirschfeld for a moment and think he’s in a real mess of some kind, although I’m not quite sure what. Better not say anything to Estelle about it for the time being. Had a long talk with Captain Finlander and think he is

  He was sitting there, tapping his front teeth with the pen while wondering whether he really wanted to write that Finlander was “a fine officer who will be a pleasure to serve under” when he heard the noise of some men entering the surgery. Patients? He decided he did not want to write Martha any definite opinions quite yet, tore up the sheet of paper and threw it in the wastebasket. Then he got up and went to find out what was happening.

  Two seamen had come into the surgery and Porter could tell at a glance that they were perfectly healthy. But he was astounded to find them emptying the contents of a bucket into the sink while Chief Pharmacist McKinley was watching with eager anticipation. The contents of the bucket were unmistakably garbage.

  “What in hell are you doing?” Porter exploded.

  The two seamen came to attention. McKinley smiled. “Seems we’ve picked up some goodies, Commander,” he said pleasantly.

  “What’s this garbage doing in my surgery?” the surgeon bellowed, certain that he was being made the butt of some kind of insubordinate prank. This belief was heightened by the smugly amused expressions on the faces of the seamen.

  “It’s all part of our total ASW program, sir,” McKinley told him. As Porter glowered into the sink at what appeared to be some moldy cheese rinds, potato peelings, vegetable scraps and half-dissolved bread crusts, the chief pharmacist went to a cabinet and brought out a microscope case. “Captain Finlander says hunting submarines is sometimes like hunting animals,” he explained while setting up the instrument. “You can tell a lot by their droppings. For instance, from this garbage we might be able to tell the nationality of the ship it came from, how long since they threw it overboard and, from that, whether it was a Russian sub still within our immediate area.”

  The surgeon was now almost speechless. “You mean to tell me I’m expected to do some kind of pathological work on this vile stuff?” he stammered.

  “Oh, no, sir,” McKinley shot back. “That’s a smelly job only for enlisted men.” The two seamen laughed quite openly, then shrank back and hurriedly left the surgery with their bucket as Porter wheeled on them. The chief pharmacist sobered and worriedly looked at his superior. “I’m sorry, sir. I guess I should have forewarned you about this. But, no kidding, it’s SOP for us to pick up any floating refuse and go over it pretty thoroughly. Two weeks ago we tracked a sub — the one we call Moby Dick because he bugs hell out of the skipper — and lost all sonar contact. But then we picked up two loads of his garbage and knew he was still in the area. Red cabbage with lots of black pepper is a dead giveaway of Russian ships. If it’s got traces of hydrogenated fats — butter, you know, sir — it’s pretty certain it comes from submariners because, like our own, they get the fanciest rations. Trawlers cook in vegetable oils mostly; the Norwegian ones in fish oils. The state of decomposition of the cells tells us how long it’s been soaking in salt water. Really pretty simple and sometimes effective.”

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch!” the surgeon exclaimed, again staring at the filthy mess in the gleaming sink.

  “Don’t worry about it, sir. I’ll take care of the whole thing. Excuse me.” McKinley respectfully pushed the lieutenant commander away from the sink and, with a pair of forceps, gingerly transferred some soggy potato peelings to an enamel tray. “Potatoes are real dandy for determining how fresh the droppings are,” he explained and began preparing the specimen for microscopic study and doing it with all the starry-eyed eagerness of a young scientist on the track of a cure for cancer.

  12.

  Ben Munceford had been too late for breakfast. The wardroom was deserted when he arrived there a little after eight-thirty, the officers having scattered to their respective duties and the stewards having reported to meet the new surgeon. But there were a Thermos full of coffee and a plate of very good doughnuts on the sideboard, so he was able to stem his hunger, although the lingering smell of bacon and eggs left him with a frustrated yearning. When he finished ten minutes later, he found himself still alone and set out in search of some activity, having in mind to find the shaft which led to the wheelhouse and bridge. He quickly became lost in the passageways and wound up going through a door which opened upon the main deck. Starlight still shone through a pale dawn and the cold bit savagely at his ears. He quickly retreated inside and eventually found his way back to his cabin, withdrawing into it in a very disgruntled state of mind. The next twenty minutes he spent examining and loading the movie camera which had been loaned to him. Then he tried on the regulation arctic parka; it fitted him well, but he decided to wear his own camouflage jacket this morning just to flaunt his independence at the surly executive officer. He was putting it on, preparing himself for another lone reconnaissance through the Bedford, when there was a knock and Yeoman Pinelli came through the curtain.

  “Good morning, sir. I’m sorry I’m late, sir,” he said, addressing Munceford with the same formality he would show toward an officer.

  “Late for what, sailor?” Munceford asked.

  “The captain asked me to assist you, sir,” Pinelli reminded him. He spotted the camera lying on the desk and picked it up, handling it with the familiar ease of a professional photographer. “Is this satisfactory, sir? Are the lenses what you want?”

  “They’ll do, thanks.”

  Pinelli noticed the empty film box. “You’ve loaded it with that, sir?” he asked with a frown. “I’d advise a faster emulsion. The light is very poor and the few daylight hours are usually socked in anyway. We use a Tri-X type of film and push its ASA rating to four hundred at least. Have you got plenty of that kind, sir?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll let you have some. How about a Solarpack for night and interior shots?”

  “Didn’t think I’d need one. Besides, I was told to travel as light as possible.” He saw the shocked expression on the yeoman’s dark Italian face as he stared down at the jumble of photographic knickknacks in the case which was open at the side of the desk. Reaching out with his foot, he kicked the lid closed. “Look, sailor. I don’t want to put you to a lot of trouble over gear and stuff. All I need is to have somebody show me around the ship so I won’t keep getting lost. That’s all.”

  “The captain told me to assist you, sir,” Pinelli doggedly insisted. He was now looking at Munceford’s jacket, and the strain of keeping control of his facial muscles made them do strange things. “If you will follow me, I’ll take you to the darkroom and get you straightened out . . . ah, I mean fixed up, sir. By the way, it’s thirty-two degrees below freezing outside.”

  “I’ve got thermal long-johns and a sweater on under this,” Munceford snapped. “So let’s get going, okay?”

  Another long trek through the Bedford’s gently heaving, red-lit, deserted passageways. Then Pinelli opened a door and motioned Munceford inside a darkroom which immediately impressed him as a marvel of technical and organizational efficiency. Developing tanks and contact printers; a sixteen-millimeter automatic motion-picture film processor; a sink with thermostat and circulator; compartmented shelves holding trays, chemicals, print papers and a better assortment of film than most camera stores ashore could offer; a filing cabinet and a desk; a felt-lined, glass-topped case full of lenses, each neatly snapped into a holder and with its optics protected by rubber caps; another case held graphics, miniature and movie cameras. All of this was compressed into an air-conditioned space measuring no more than eight by twelve feet; every inch had been carefully designed for maximum utility. As the yeoman reloaded his camera for him with more suitable film, Munceford looked around and realized that nobody on this ship would be impressed with his own skills and equipment. “How muc
h has all this set back the poor taxpayers?” he ungraciously asked.

  “I don’t know, sir. I didn’t buy it myself.” Pinelli matched Munceford’s tone with a snidely polite one of his own.

  “From the looks of it, you’d think that getting pictures of the enemy was the main business of the Bedford.”

  “Well, we do that too, sir,” Pinelli told him. “There’s a teloptic Mark VII mounted on a turret topside which can get a recognizable shot of the officers on the bridge of a ship two miles away. It can be tracked automatically by radar, just like the guns and rocket launchers. But mostly we shoot for technical records, like the captain told you, sir.” He handed him back the camera, which he had loaded three times as fast as Munceford could have done it. “There! Figure ASA four hundred on this emulsion if you are shooting for TV negative. Now I’ll rig you a Solarpack light.” He went to one of the equipment cases and unlocked it with a key out of a large bunch he carried on a brass ring.

  Munceford’s jealous resentment of this sailor’s obvious technical superiority was overcome by a curiosity over his background. “Listen, stop sirring me. I’m no officer, you know. What’s your first name?”

  “Vincente, sir.”

  “Mine’s Ben.”

  No answer.

  “All right, be formal if you like. How come you know so much about photography? Is that part of navy training these days?”

  “The navy has had an official photographic section since March of 1922, sir,” Pinelli dryly informed him as he checked the battery of the Solarpack. “I was an apprentice in the photo labs of Time Inc., but decided the navy could give me the all-round experience I need in the profession, so I signed up for a four-year hitch. When I muster out, I’ll have my old job back with a promotion.”

  “Doing it the long, hard way, eh?”

  “Is there any other worth a damn, sir?” the yeoman asked, then hung the Solarpack by its strap over Munceford’s shoulder. “Where do you want to start shooting?”

  Munceford made a wry grin. “So let’s do it that long, hard way you admire so much, Vincente. Bottom up, from the engine room?”

  Yeoman Pinelli shook his head and shrugged. “Okay, but it looks like one of those rare days when we will have some sun. You won’t have too many opportunities to work on deck, and if you want my advice, I suggest you take advantage of them.”

  “All right — on deck, then.”

  Pinelli wiggled into his parka and selected a camera of his own to take with him. “The captain wants some pictures of you working, sir,” he explained. “I guess it’s for the PRO at COMFLANT. Hope it’s all right with you.”

  Munceford would normally have welcomed his picture being taken for a Fleet Headquarters, but somehow he had a feeling that Pinelli considered himself to have been assigned to cover the activities of a freak. “What the captain wants, the captain gets.” He shrugged with resentful indifference and followed the yeoman out of the darkroom. They emerged into the cold morning sunlight of the foredeck just in time to witness the garbage operation.

  Munceford blinked and squinted his eyes to get them adjusted to the sudden brilliant light shimmering from sea and sky. To his surprise, he found that the Bedford had almost stopped. A couple of hundred yards away, slabs of drifting pan ice were bobbing on the glassy swells, their polished surfaces catching the sun rays and throwing them back at the ship in blinding flashes. A pair of skua gulls circled the bow with plaintive calls, protesting the Bedford’s stealthy approach to the raft of garbage which had, until a few minutes ago, been their rightful treasure trove. Some hooded heads were peering over the windscreen of the bridge, watching a pair of seamen wielding a dip net at the end of a twenty-foot aluminum pole. They swung it over the side and leaned far across the lifelines, moving carefully and goblin-like in their heavy arctic clothing.

  “What in hell’s going on here?” Munceford asked.

  “We call it the cherry-picking detail,” Yeoman Pinelli answered. “Actually collecting refuse to check if it originates from a Russian sub.” When Munceford eagerly began to move toward the scene of action, simultaneously trying to yank his exposure meter out of a pocket, he followed him, calling out: “Shoot it at F-twenty-two, sir. It’s awfully bright.”

  “You and your damned fast emulsions!” Munceford grumbled, then shouted at the two seamen with the dip net: “Hey, you guys! Hold it a second! I want to line up a shot of this!”

  The two men turned their heads and stared with startled surprise at the approaching figure in the garish camouflage jacket, then were jolted back to their job by a bellow from the bridge: “Wake up, down there! If I have to make another approach, it’ll be your hides!”

  Munceford had still not quite grasped what was happening, but sensed it was something unusual and should be recorded on film. As he frantically wound up the camera, he began to run to reach a position close enough for a good shot. He was still running while bending into an awkward crouch and raising the viewfinder to his eye when he sailed out over a sheet of pure ice sheathing part of the foredeck. Suddenly he was entirely horizontal and suspended in mid-air for a flailing instant before landing flat on his back with a dull thump; the camera hit with a more brittle sound and went skidding off in the opposite direction, shedding several bright little component parts as it did so. As the wind was knocked out of him, it blasted across his lips in the form of a single coarse four-letter epithet which rang loudly over the still arctic sea and was clearly heard by the masthead lookouts leaning out of their crow’s-nest, one hundred and ten feet above. It was also heard on the bridge, of course, where more heads popped over the windscreen, including one in a long-billed fisherman’s cap. The only two men who could not afford to look at the strange sight were the seamen manipulating the dip net; they had just plunged it into the raft of unsavory flotsam now heaved upward on the long pole and swung it back in over the deck with its meshed sack bulging with dripping garbage. Munceford sat up and was splattered by an ice-cold sobering little shower as it passed over his head. He heard a sharp the-click of a camera shutter, then Yeoman Pinelli reached him and yanked him to his feet, exclaiming:

  “Jesus, sir! Be careful! There’s lots of ice on deck!” He did not linger to waste any sympathy on the correspondent, but turned his attention to the far more important movie camera. Retrieving it and its dislodged pieces out of the scupper, he tenderly began to examine them.

  Munceford clamped his mouth down over more bitter profanity which was starting to well up out of him and felt his face burn in spite of the freezing cold. Somehow he managed to make a sound which was like a laugh. “That was a damned fool thing to do! I hope the camera isn’t busted.”

  “I’ll have to check it out,” Pinelli sourly answered. He aimed it at the two seamen who were busy emptying the contents of the net into a bucket and shot a few feet of film. “Sounds all right, but . . .” He shook his head doubtfully, then reacted to the captain’s voice calling down to him from the bridge:

  “Pinelli! Will you take a secure grip on Mr. Munceford and escort him up here, please!”

  13.

  “What kind of clumsy loudmouths are being issued War Department press cards these days?” Commander Allison asked the captain with disgust. They were on the bridge, looking down on the foredeck.

  Finlander smiled. “Munceford’s no Ernie Pyle, but I think he’s just what we want. What they call a hack in his profession. He won’t come up with anything much, yet our records will show a card-holding correspondent has covered the operation, proving everything has to be above board and run as safely as any friendly little cold war should. Right?” He gave his executive officer a sly wink and turned to the OOD, who was standing behind them. “All right, Mr. Harwell, resume your base course, but try to stay clear of the ice.”

  They all went into the wheelhouse, where Lieutenant Harwell rang up ALL AHEAD STANDARD on the annunciator and gave the helmsman a heading which would continue taking the Bedford northward along the Greenland coast. Ensign Bas
comb, a lanky meteorological officer on loan from the Naval Air Service, came in from his morning observations and took personal credit for the fine weather. Chief Quartermaster Rickmers, a leathery veteran of eighteen years of destroyer duty, cynically predicted snow by afternoon. The talker, a redheaded seaman attached by a headset and cord to the master communication panel, announced: “Masthead lookout reports a whale spouting; bearing zero-five-zero, estimate one mile range.”

  Captain Finlander glanced through a window in that direction and was able to catch a vanishing puff of vapor rising above a swirl on a distant swell. His wiry eyebrows cocked themselves in a mischievous line and he nudged Commander Allison with his elbow. “Ask the CIC if they have anything to report. Ask it sort of casual-like without tipping them off about that whale.”