Williwaw

by Gore Vidal

They crossed the bridge and went into the wheelhouse. Evans was at the chart table. “What did you find?” he asked.

  “One lifeboat knocked up and one ventilator on the forward deck gone,” said Bervick.

  “I saw the ventilator go,” said Evans. “You say the lifeboat’s out of commission?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Shipyard for us,” said Evans and that was all. He turned back to his charts. Evans put on an act sometimes, thought Bervick.

  “We’re going below, Skipper,” said Bervick and he and Martin left the wheelhouse.

  Duval was in the salon. His coveralls were smeared with grease and he looked gaunt. He was sitting at the table, alone.

  “When’re we leaving this place?” he asked.

  “Pretty soon,” answered Bervick. “How’re your engines?”

  “I guess they’ll be all right. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Bervick looked at the Chiefs grease-stained coveralls. “You have some trouble?”

  “One of the pumps stopped working. I think we got it fixed. The boys are testing it now.”

  “You look beat,” commented Martin.

  “You would be too. How did Evans manage to get us on the rocks, I wonder?”

  “He didn’t,” said Bervick. “Just fool’s luck that we got out of this thing this well.”

  “You mean so far,” said the Chief sourly.

  Bervick looked at him with dislike. Usually when they were working together there was no enmity but now, even on the rocks, he could not keep from disliking Duval.

  “What’s happened to the passengers?” asked Martin.

  “Damned if I know. They’ve probably gone out on deck or hit their sacks. That Major certainly got excited.”

  “They all seemed excited,” remarked Bervick.

  “I suppose you weren’t.” The Chief stood up and sighed deeply. “I think I’ll talk to Evans and see what’s going to happen.” He had started to leave when Evans came into the salon.

  “When we going?” asked the Chief.

  “Right away. Say, Martin, you take some men and go on deck and stand by while we go astern.”

  Martin left the salon. “Are you going to be able to handle the engines all right?” asked Evans, turning to the Chief.

  “I think so. What’re you going to do, go half speed astern?”

  “Full speed, I think. Depends how tight we are. Come on, Bervick.”

  Someone had tacked pieces of canvas over the broken windows in the wheelhouse. “Handle the telegraph for me,” said Evans.

  “O.K.” Bervick looked out the window and saw Martin with several deckhands. They were standing on the bow, waiting. Lieutenant Hodges was also on the forward deck.

  Evans maneuvered the wheel for several moments. “Ring Stand By,” he said at last. Bervick set the markers on Stand By. The Chief rang back quickly.

  “Slow Astern,” said Evans.

  Bervick rang the engine room again. The regular throbbing of the engines began. The ship creaked and shifted slightly.

  “Half Speed Astern,” said Evans, his hands clutching the wheel tightly.

  Bervick rang for Half Speed. The ship trembled. There was a ripping sound as they began to move from between the rocks. “There goes the guardrail,” said Bervick.

  “Full Speed Astern,” said Evans.

  Bervick set the markers on Full Speed. “Here we go,” he said.

  The ship, with much groaning as pieces of wood were torn from the bow, moved away from the rocks.

  Evans swung the wheel hard to port. There was a suspended instant and then the bow splashed off the rocks. The ship rolled uncertainly for a moment. Then they were free.

  “Cut the engines,” said Evans.

  The ship drifted away from shore.

  “So far so good,” said Evans. “Give her Slow Ahead.” As the ship moved ahead Evans swung the bow out to sea.

  “Now we can wait,” he said.

  “For the leaks to start?”

  “For the leaks.”

  “Maybe I ought to go see the Chief, see how the pumps are working,” suggested Bervick.

  “Sure, go below.”

  The engine room was hot. Fumes from the engines made the air almost unbreathable. Duval was watching the gauges. His assistants stood beside the engines.

  “Evans wants to know if the pumps are working.”

  “Tell him I think so. Got good pressure.”

  “I guess the engines weren’t bothered at all.”

  “You can be glad of that.”

  Bervick went up to the salon. Martin was looking out the porthole at the island shore.

  “We made it,” said Bervick.

  “Yes, we got off the rocks. I was afraid for a while we weren’t going to be able to. We were really jammed in there. Took the whole guardrail off.”

  “Did you look in the focs’le to see if there were any leaks?”

  “No. You think we should?”

  “Yes. You take the focs’le and I’ll go down in the hold.”

  On deck the wind was brisk but not strong. The air was clearer but the sky was still overcast. With night coming the weather might yet be good.

  Bervick slipped the covering off one end of the hatch. Carefully he went down the narrow ladder. The hold was dark and damp and smelled of salt and wood. When he got to the bottom he turned on a light.

  There were several crates of machinery on the deck of the hold. They had not been given much cargo to carry on this trip. Pieces of tarpaulin and lengths of line were strewn over the deck. Ammunition for the ship’s gun rolled about the hold. They had dismantled most of their gun and had stored the pieces. No one ever saw the Japanese in these waters.

  Bervick examined the damp bulkheads carefully. They seemed to be sound. He walked over the deck and could not find any sign of a leak.

  He turned off the light and climbed out of the hold. Martin was standing by the railing.

  “Find anything?” Bervick asked.

  Martin shook his head. “Everything fine. You find anything?”

  “No.” They went aft to the salon. Martin went above to tell Evans about their inspection.

  Major Barkison was in the salon when Bervick entered. He was nervous; his fingers played constantly with his belt buckle.

  “Do you think it’s over for good?” he asked.

  “I expect so. The heart of the storm’s gone by us.”

  “I hope so. That was really dreadful, the rocks and all that wind. Does this happen often?”

  “Occasionally it happens.”

  “It was awful. We’ll get back all right now, though. Won’t we?”

  “I hope so. Evans is good, he knows his business. I wouldn’t be too worried.”

  “No, I suppose it’s all over.” The Major shuddered. “That wind, I’ve never seen anything like it. It was terrible, all that wind.” The Major sat down heavily.

  Evans came into the salon. He seemed cheerful. He was smiling.

  “Martin tells me there aren’t any leaks.”

  Bervick nodded, “That’s right.”

  “We’ll get there then. I’m hungry. Is Smitty around?”

  “I think he’s below. I’ll get him.”

  “Fine.”

  “I gather,” said the Major slowly, “that the storm is over.”

  “Well, it looks like it. Never can tell, of course. We may have some more but the worst is over.”

  Major Barkison was relieved. “You know,” he said, “I must admire the way you’ve handled this. I’m going to recommend you for a citation.”

  Evans laughed, “Send me back to the States, that’s what I want.”

  “I’m serious,” said the Major. “You’ve done a remarkable job and we are all, naturally, most grateful.”

  There was an embarrassed silence. Bervick looked at Evans and saw that Evans was at a loss to say anything. Evans did not know how to say the right things.

  “I’ll get Smitty up,” said Bervick. />
  “Fine,” said Evans. “Go get him up. I’m hungry.”

  Bervick found Smitty in his bunk. “Come on and get up,” he said. “We want some chow.”

  Smitty swore loudly, “I seen everything now,” he said and he got out of his bunk.

  Bervick went back to the salon.

  Chapter Six

  i

  THEY had steak for supper. Smitty, in a mood of thanksgiving, had cooked an unusually good meal. He served it himself, almost cheerfully.

  “Such a nice quiet evening,” exclaimed the Chaplain. “It’s a real relief,” said the Major. “A real relief. I thought for a while that...well, that that was it, if you know what I mean.”

  “It was pretty close,” said Evans, smiling. His passengers looked much better. The Chaplain especially seemed happy.

  “Yes,” said the Major, “I think we’ve been lucky. Of course, we have Mr. Evans here to thank. If it hadn’t been for his...his efforts, I suppose, we’d be dead now.”

  “That’s right,” said the Chaplain, looking fondly at Evans. “You really did a remarkable job.”

  “Pass the sugar,” said Duval and he took the sugar when it was passed to him and put several spoonsful of it in his coffee. Evans could see that he did not like to hear his Skipper praised.

  “By the way,” said Evans, “I think we should really compliment the Chief. He sure did a good job. If his engine room hadn’t been operating I don’t know where we’d be.”

  “That’s right,” said the Major, “we mustn’t forget Mr. Duval.”

  “We’ve been extremely fortunate,” said the Chaplain. “Not of course that we all weren’t quite ready to...to meet our Maker, as it were.”

  “I wasn’t,” said Hodges abruptly. The others laughed.

  “Tell me, Mr. Evans,” said the Major, “when do you expect to get to Arunga?”

  “Tomorrow sometime, afternoon, I guess. Depends on what kind of time we make.”

  “Excellent.”

  “By the way,” said the Chief, “that ventilator, the one over the starboard engine; water and everything else’s been coming down it. You get someone to fix it?”

  Evans nodded; he looked at Bervick, “You want to take care of that?”

  “Sure.”

  Evans sat down on one of the long benches that lined the bulkheads. Martin was in the wheelhouse. They were on course and the barometer was rising.

  He shut his eyes and relaxed. The rocking of the ship was gentle and persistent. He had had an operation once and he had been given ether. There were terrible dreams....All through the dreams there had been a ticking, a heartbeat rhythm, and a floating sensation much like the sea. He began to recall the dream. He was happy, and when he was happy he enjoyed torturing himself in a subtle fashion. He pretended that he was under the ether again, that the rocking of the ship was the dream. He recalled objects that looked like straws set in a dark green background. Lights shone from the tops of the straws and deep deep voices speaking in a negro manner came out of the tips of the straws. He began to sink into the vastness of the ether dream. There was a struggle and then a sense of being alone, of being overcome. The deep voices kept throbbing in his ears. Then there was quiet.

  * * *

  “Did you have a nice nap?” asked the Chaplain.

  Evans opened his eyes and tried to look alert. “Just dozing.” He sat up. The Chaplain and he were the only ones in the salon. He looked at his watch: it was after ten.

  “I cannot,” said the Chaplain, “get over the great change in the weather.”

  “In the williwaw season weather does funny things.”

  “I had what you might call a revelation of sorts, if you know what I mean, during the storm.”

  “Is that right?” Evans wondered who was on watch. It was supposed to be his watch until midnight. Bervick had probably taken over while he slept.

  “I had a sort of vision, well not quite a vision, no, not a vision, a presentiment, yes, that’s what I had, a presentiment of something.”

  “Did you?” Evans was not sure that he knew what a presentiment was.

  “This vision, presentiment I should say, was about the ship.”

  “Well, what was it?”

  “Nothing much at all. It’s really quite vague to me now. It was only that we’d all get out of this, that no one would be hurt on the trip, that’s all. That’s why I suppose one would call it a presentiment. It was just a feeling of course. A kind of instinct.”

  “Is that right? I’ve had them too.” Evans wondered if the ventilator was still leaking.

  “Have you really? I know there’s a sort of intuition, a sort of sixth sense I would suppose you’d call it.”

  “Sure, that’s what I’d call it.” Evans wondered if there was anything to religion. Probably not, at least he himself had gotten along without it. He tried to recall if he’d ever been inside a church. He could not remember. In the back of his mind there was a feeling of great space and peacefulness which might have been the memory of a childhood visit to a church. He had seen some movies, though, that had church interiors in them. Churches where gray-haired men in long black robes stood in what appeared to be upright coffins and talked interminably about large resonant things. He had learned about religion from the movies and from the Chaplains he had met.

  The Chaplain, his sixth sense at work, guessed what he was thinking. “You are not particularly, ah, religious, are you, Mr. Evans.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that,” said Evans, who would have said just that if he had not disliked being thought different from other people.

  “Oh no, I can tell that you’re a...a pagan.” The Chaplain chuckled to show that this epithet was not serious.

  “I hope not.” Evans was not too sure what “pagan” meant, either. He wished that people would use simple familiar words. That was the main thing he disliked in Martin: the long words that sounded as if they meant something very important.

  “Well, there are many, many people like you in the world,” said Chaplain O’Mahoney sadly, aware suddenly of the immensity of sin, the smallness of virtue.

  “I guess there are.” Evans wondered if Martin had recorded the rising barometer readings regularly.

  “Did you ever feel lost?” asked the Chaplain in an almost conspiratorial tone.

  “What? Well, I don’t know.”

  “I mean did you ever feel lonely?”

  “Certainly, haven’t you?”

  The Chaplain was a little startled; then he answered quickly, “No, never. You see I have something to fall back on.”

  “I suppose you do,” said Evans and he tried to sound thoughtful and sincere but he managed only to sound bored.

  The Chaplain laughed. “I’m being unfair, talking to you like this when your mind’s on the ship and...and things.”

  “No, no, that’s all right. I’m very interested. I once wanted to be a preacher.” Evans added this for the sake of conversation.

  “Indeed, and why didn’t you become one?”

  Evans thought a moment. Pictures of gray-haired men in black robes and gray-haired men advertising whiskey in the magazines were jumbled together in his inner eye. He had never become a minister for the simple reason that he had never been interested. But the thought that was suddenly the most shocking to him was that he had never wanted to become anything at all. He had just wanted to do what he liked. This was a revelation to him. He had thought about himself all his life but he had never been aware that he was different from most people. He just wanted to sail because he liked to sail and he wanted to get married again because it seemed like a comfortable way to live. Chaplains and Majors wanted to become Saints and Generals respectively.

  “I guess I never really wanted to be a minister very much.” Evans ran his hand through his hair. He noticed it was getting long. He would have a haircut when they got to Arunga.

  “Some, I suppose,” said the Chaplain philosophically, “are chosen, while others are not.”


  “Isn’t that the truth?” said Evans with more emphasis than was necessary.

  The Chaplain squinted his eyes and took a deep breath and Evans could see that he was going to be lectured. He stood up and the Chaplain, looking surprised, opened his eyes again and exhaled, a slight look of disappointment on his face.

  “If you’ll excuse me I’m going up top. My watch’s now.”

  “Of course, certainly.”

  Bervick was standing by the windows, looking out. Evans stood beside him and they watched the sea together. The dark water shifted lazily now, gusts of wind occasionally ruffling the surface of the water. The night sky was black.

  “You been asleep?”

  Evans nodded.

  “That’s what I thought. Martin hit the sack.”

  “Barometer’s up.”

  “That’s nice. I don’t like low barometers.”

  “Nobody likes them.”

  Evans looked at the stump where the mast had been. “She really tore off hard, didn’t she?”

  “Glad I wasn’t under it.”

  “I guess the boys’ll really talk about us now, the guys on the other boats.”

  “Sure, they’re just like women. Talk, talk, that’s about all they do.”

  “I guess they’ll say it was my fault. Harms would say that. He’d want to cover his own hide for sending us out.” “Well, you didn’t have to go if you didn’t want to. That’s sea law.”

  “That’s true.”

  “But I don’t think they’re going to say it was your fault. Worse things’ve happened to a lot of other guys.”

  “It wasn’t my fault, this thing, was it?”

  “I don’t think so. You ain’t no weather prophet.”

  “There wasn’t any way for me to tell that there’d be a williwaw.”

  “Well, this is the season for them.”

  “But how could I know that it was going to happen? We were cleared at the Big Harbor.”

  “It’s on their neck then.”

  “I hope so, it’d better be. I couldn’t help it if we got caught like that, got caught in a williwaw.”

  “Sure, sure, it was no fault of yours.”

  Evans looked out of the window. He was getting a little worried. The thought that he might be held responsible for taking a boat out and getting it wrecked in williwaw weather was beginning to bother him. Bervick was soothing, though.