Williwaw

by Gore Vidal

  Evans let his mind drift. Anything to keep from thinking of the coming storm. That was a bad thing about storms: you could not really get ready for one. Once you knew a storm was coming all you could do was wait and deal with it when it came.

  He wondered what would be said if he lost the ship. He could hear the Captain at Andrefski saying, “I knew all along that guy Evans would crack up. I told him not to go.” People were all alike that way. Make a mistake, or even have some bad luck and they’ll say that they knew it was going to happen all along. People were all alike, thought Evans gloomily. He felt like a drink. He would not let himself have one, though. He would have to be able to think quickly. His stomach was already fluttering as he waited.

  Evans looked over at the man on watch. He was still leaning out the window, his shoulders heaving. At last he turned around. He was pale but seemed relieved. “I guess I’m O.K. now,” he said.

  Evans stepped away from the wheel. “You sure you’re not going to get sick again?”

  “Yeah, I’m all right.” The man took the wheel. Evans gave him the course. Then Evans walked to the port side where Bervick sat watching the water. He was daydreaming. His eyes were fixed on the sea.

  In silence they looked out the windows. Except for an occasional sound of creaking from the bow, there was no sound to be heard in the ship. The wheelhouse was getting too warm, Evans thought. He unbuttoned his shirt. His hands shook a little as he did. This annoyed him.

  “Getting warm, Skipper?”

  “It’s too hot in here. The Chiefs really got the heat going fine. When we really need it in port he breaks something.”

  “Engine rooms are always like that. I’m glad I’m not an engineer.”

  The clock struck three bells. Evans looked at his watch. He always did that when the clock struck.

  “When do you figure we’ll be off Ilak?” Bervick asked.

  “Just about two hours. Just about seven-thirty.”

  Bervick scratched his long hair thoughtfully. “I don’t think this thing’s going to blow up for a while.”

  “I don’t either. We better just hope that we’re near a good bay when it does. I expect we’ll get the big wind tonight. It’s taking a long time getting here.”

  “That’s what I like.” Bervick looked at the black unchanging storm center. “Maybe we’ll miss the whole thing.”

  Evans smiled. “No chance, bucko, we’ll get all of it. Right in the teeth, that’s where we’re going to get it.”

  “I wish I never left the Merchant Marine.”

  “You got a hard life.”

  “That’s what I think.”

  “Don’t we all.” Evans made his mouth smile again. He tried to be casual.

  His ex-wife would get his insurance, he thought suddenly. He remembered that he had not changed it from her name to his family’s. He chuckled to himself. Everyone would be surprised. She would be surprised to get it; his family would be furious for not getting it. His father had four other sons and an unproductive farm. The insurance would be useful to them. He had not seen his family for seven years but sometimes they wrote to him. His mother always wrote. She was an educated woman but his father had never learned to read or write. He never felt there was much advantage in it. Evans thought of his family. His mind raced from person to person. He tried to recall how each of them looked. This was a good game that he often played with himself. It kept his mind off things that were bothering him, off storms, for instance.

  Evans thought of his wife. She was a nice girl. If he had met her at any other time than during a war they might have been happy. He did not know her very well, though. He could not decide whether their marriage would have been any good or not. He wondered what she was doing now and where she was. He felt rather sad that he had not had time to know her better. There were others, of course. There was consolation in that.

  A wave, larger than the rest, hit violently across their bow. Evans staggered and almost fell. Bervick and his stool were upset and Bervick was thrown heavily on the deck. He stood up swearing.

  “How did it feel?” asked Evans.

  “Guess.” Bervick limped across the wheelhouse and got the stool again. He placed it in one corner under the railing. He did not sit down again. “Waves getting larger,” he said.

  “We haven’t seen nothing,” said Evans. He looked at the compass. “Get on course,” he said sharply. They were a dozen degrees off.

  “O.K., O.K.,” the wheelsman was beginning to sound a little desperate. He had not been at sea long.

  Evans went back to his corner. He tried to recall what he had been thinking about, but his train of thought had been shattered. Only fragments were left to trouble him.

  He looked at the forward deck. It had never looked so clean. The constant spray had made the gray-blue deck glisten. The door to the focs’le opened and a swarthy face appeared. The fat cook looked out at the slippery deck. Carefully the fat cook stepped up on the deck. A small wave hit the bow. He tried to get back in the focs’le but he was too slow. The wave threw him against the railing. Struggling, he was floating aft. Evans could see him, soaking wet, get to his feet at last and disappear in the direction of the galley.

  “Some sailor, the cook,” remarked Bervick.

  “He’s some cook, too. He can burn water.”

  The wheelhouse door opened and Martin joined them. His face showed no particular expression. He seemed to be unaware of the storm. He glanced at the barometer.

  “A little lower,” he remarked.

  Evans looked at it, too. “Yes, the thing’s fallen some more.” He went to the chart table and recorded the barometer’s reading in the logbook.

  “When’s the wind going to start?” Martin asked.

  “Can’t tell yet, John,” Bervick said. “Around midnight, that’s my guess.”

  “How’re the passengers?” asked Evans.

  “They’re pretty bothered. The Chaplain’s sick as a dog.”

  “Where’d the Major go when he left here?”

  “He went to his cabin. I guess he’s in the sack.”

  Evans frowned. “I wanted them to stay in the salon. You should have kept them there. Suppose he comes walking down the deck and a wave knocks him overboard?”

  “That’s an act of God,” snapped Martin. For some reason Evans was pleased to have irritated his Mate. “Besides,” Martin added, “he’d already gone when I went below.”

  “Well, when you go down again get him back in the salon. What’s Hodges doing?”

  “He thinks it’s a game.”

  “I’m glad somebody’s having a good time.” Evans leaned against the bulkhead. The ship was not pitching quite so much now. The wind, what there was of it, was probably shifting. He remembered his insurance again. He wished he had taken care of it before they left. “Leave nothing undone and nothing begun,” a Warrant Officer in Anchorage had told him. The words had a nice sound to them. They were also true.

  “I’ve never been in a williwaw,” remarked Martin.

  Evans glanced at him. He did not like to hear a storm described aloud in advance. Evans had a complicated system of beliefs. If some things were mentioned before they happened they would take place exactly as mentioned. He never said much about bad weather before it broke. He would never have said this was going to be a williwaw. That was predicting, not guessing.

  “Weren’t you aboard that time we was off Umnak?” asked Bervick.

  Martin shook his head. “I was having some teeth fixed. I missed that show.”

  “I guess you did at that. You’ll make up for that now.”

  “I suppose I will.”

  A thirty-foot wave swept them amidships. The wheel-house creaked as the salt water cascaded over them. Martin stumbled. The stool rolled across the deck. The man at the wheel lost his grip; the wheel spun around. Evans grabbed it quickly. His right arm felt as if it had been ripped off. With a great deal of trouble he got the ship on course again.

  “You hang on
this,” he said to the wheelsman. “When you being relieved?”

  “In a half-hour.”

  “Well, keep holding it tight. We don’t want to wander all over this damned ocean.”

  “Pretty good-sized wave,” said Bervick.

  “Yeah, and there’re more where that came from.” Evans was breathing hard. The struggle with the wheel had tired him. His arm ached. He flexed it carefully.

  “Get your arm?” Bervick was watching him.

  “Just about pulled the thing off.” Evans went to the window and leaned on the sill. The wave that had just hit them was a freak one, for the sea was not as high as it had been. The wind definitely seemed to be shifting. The sky was becoming darker. There was snow ahead.

  Martin left them, and went below. Absently Evans rubbed his arm; it hurt him. He watched the water and waited for the big wind to come.

  ii

  Duval walked into the galley. He was hungry and, bad weather or not, he did not like to miss too many meals.

  Several members of the crew were playing cards at the galley table. They were taking the storm casually. They pretended not to be interested in what was happening outside.

  The ship rocked violently. Heavy coffee mugs slid back and forth on the galley table. Smitty sat in a corner of the galley, his chin on his knees. From time to time he would groan. The fat cook, in salt-soaked clothes, opened cans.

  Duval took a can of hash out of the locker. The ship rolled suddenly, slanting the deck. He stumbled across the galley and sat down on the bench with the others.

  “Lousy, isn’t it?” commented one of them.

  “Just a little blow, that’s all. You’ve never seen nothing till you’ve seen a tropical hurricane. This stuff up here is nothing like that. This is a breeze.”

  “Sure, we heard that one before, Chief.”

  “That’s the truth.” The Chief put food into his mouth. He had not realized how hungry he was. The fat cook poured him coffee.

  The men talked about the Big Harbor and other things. They did not speak of the storm which was beginning. They spoke of the Indian who had died at the Big Harbor. Everyone told the story differently and Duval was bored to hear the story again. He had never liked Aleuts anyway. He looked at Smitty in the corner.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

  “This water.” Smitty cursed for several moments. “This the last trip I ever make. I seen everything now. I’m getting off this boat, I’m going back fast. We ain’t never getting out of this.” His dirt-colored hands gestured limply. The others laughed.

  “Take it easy, Smitty,” said the Chief. “You going to live forever.” Smitty said nothing.

  Duval chuckled. He was not frightened by bad weather. He had seen so many storms and he did have confidence in Evans. Duval was not worried.

  The men talked of the Big Harbor and of all the things they had done.

  “Say, Chief,” said one, “did you see Olga?”

  “Sure I saw her. I always see her. Anybody with money can see her.”

  The man laughed. “I guess Bervick isn’t feeling so good today.”

  “He takes life too seriously,” said the Chief and that was all he would say.

  Hodges came into the galley from the salon.

  “What’ve you been up to, Lieutenant?” asked Duval, genially.

  “I’ve been wandering around the boat. I’ve never seen waves as big as they are outside. They must be over fifty feet.”

  “Not quite that big but they will be pretty soon.” Duval closed his eyes for a moment. He had found that closing his eyes for a moment or so was very restful. It soothed him to do this. He was not at all worried, of course.

  The light from the electric bulb overhead shone on his eyelids, and he could see nothing but red with his eyes shut, a warm clear red. He thought of the colorful bayou land of Louisiana. Usually he did not care where he was, but he did like color and there was no color in the Aleutians, only light and shadow on rock and water. The Chief opened his eyes.

  Hodges was biting his thumbnail. The Chief watched him. He wondered what he might have done if he had been as well educated as Hodges. Probably the same things. Life was about the same for all people; only the details varied.

  “I hear they expect the big wind around midnight,” said Hodges.

  “That’s what Evans says. He don’t know, though. He guesses just like the rest of us do. We guess, we all guess and most of the time we’re wrong.” The Chief enjoyed discrediting Evans occasionally.

  “Well, it should be some sight. I’m glad I’ll be able to see it.” One of the deckhands laughed.

  “You won’t like it so much,” said Duval. “Even though these blows up here aren’t nothing compared to what we used to have in the Gulf.” The crew laughed. Anything that could keep their minds away from the coming storm was good.

  “What’s happened to the Chaplain?” asked Duval.

  “He’s in the salon. I expect he’s feeling bad. He doesn’t take to this sea business at all.”

  “I suppose I’d better go see how he is.” Carefully Duval got to his feet and walked across the deck. He slipped once and swore to himself as he did. His balance wasn’t as steady as it had once been.

  Chaplain O’Mahoney was sitting at the galley table, his jaw set and his face white. He was playing solitaire. He looked up as they came in and he managed to smile.

  “I suppose it will be worse,” he said.

  Duval nodded.

  “That’s what I expected.”

  “This’ll really be something to tell our grandchildren,” said Hodges cheerfully. The Chaplain laughed.

  “Something to tell your grandchildren,” he said.

  “If you ever live to have any,” remarked Duval.

  They sat together around the table, each thinking of the storm. Duval watched the Chaplain’s hands. They were white and plump and helpless. The Chaplain, Duval thought, could not have fixed a valve or even changed a sparkplug in a car. Of course the Chaplain knew many things. He could speak Latin, and Duval was impressed by Latin and the Church rituals. O’Mahoney’s soft hands could give blessings and that was an important thing. Perhaps it made no difference that his hands were not practical.

  “Are you Catholic?” asked O’Mahoney, turning to Hodges.

  The Lieutenant shook his head. “No, we’re Episcopal down home.”

  “Indeed? I have known some very fine Episcopal ministers, very fine ones.”

  “We’ve got a lot of them down home, ministers I mean.”

  “I should suppose so. I knew some before I went into the monastery.”

  “What’s a monastery like, sir?”

  “Just like anything like that would be. Just the way you’d expect it to be. Perhaps a little like the army.”

  “It must be queer, being so out of things.”

  “One’s not so far out of the world. There is certainly nothing harder than living in close quarters with a group of people.”

  “I thought it was supposed to be a kind of escape.”

  “Certainly not. We have more time to think about the world. Of course, we do own nothing, and that makes life much simpler. Most people spend all their lives thinking of possessions.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Hodges. Duval did not listen as they talked. Instead he walked restlessly about the salon.

  Through the after door he watched the white wake foaming. The wind appeared confused: blowing from first one direction and then shifting to another. There was snow in the clouds overhead.

  The ship was tossed about like a stick in a river current. But somehow they managed to keep on course. The Chief tried not to think of this. He thought instead of a gauge on the starboard engine, but even that was too close to the storm. He turned and went back to the Chaplain and Hodges. Religious talk was soothing if nothing else.

  He asked O’Mahoney about his monastery. O’Mahoney was happy to talk of it.

  “A very simple place. Ther
e’s really not much to tell. We all have our different jobs.”

  “What sort of work did you do?” asked Hodges.

  “Well, I was in charge of the novices. Those are the beginners, the apprentices.”

  “Sounds like a First Sergeant’s job,” said Hodges.

  “Very much the same. I wish,” said the Chaplain wistfully, “that I was back in Maryland now.”

  “So do I,” agreed Duval. “In New Orleans, I mean. I’m tired of this place.”

  “We all are, but here we are. You have a wife, I suppose, in New Orleans?”

  “Yes, I got a wife and two kids. We lost a new one two years ago. I guess she was too old to be having kids.”

  “Such a pity, your child dying.”

  “One of those things, they happen all the time. I saw the kid only once so it wasn’t so bad.”

  The Chief sat down beside the Chaplain. Duval reached in his pocket and took out a knife. Carefully he whittled his fingernails. He concentrated on what he was doing. He would think of nothing else for a while.

  Suddenly the ship lurched and Duval was thrown off the bench. His knife clattered on the deck.

  He got to his feet quickly. The Chaplain was holding onto the bench with both hands, his face very white. Hodges was braced against a table. Duval looked down at his hand, conscious of a sharp pain: he had cut one of his fingers and it was bleeding. He waved his hand in the air to cool away the pain. Bright red blood in a thin stream trickled down his hand. The waving did not help. He stuck his finger in his mouth.

  “You’d better get a bandage on that,” said O’Mahoney helpfully.

  “Yes,” agreed Hodges. “That’s dangerous, cutting yourself.”

  “I know, I’ll fix it. You people better hang around here until Evans decides what to do. You might get the Major up.” Holding his finger in the air, Duval went quickly down the companionway and into his engine room.

  His two assistants were sitting beside the engines. They wore dirty dungarees and thin shirts; it was hot in the engine room. One of the oilers crouched in a corner. He had come aboard only the week before. Fumes from the oil, as well as the motion of the ship, had made him sick.