The Ninth Wave

by Eugene Burdick

  When they went into the cave, Mrs. Burton turned on a switch. A line of weak electric bulbs went on. The necks of thousands of bottles gleamed. Along one wall a line of casks gave off a vinegary, sour smell.

  "These are excellent wines," Mrs. Burton said. "They're good for a reason. Good grapes, good heredity and good care. Best grapes in the world, the result of thousands of generations of breeding."

  Connie walked over and stood beside Mike. She whispered into his ear.

  "She's going to give you a lecture on good blood now, darling," Connie said. "Don't be angry. Just listen patiently and then forget it."

  "In humans it's the same thing," Mrs. Burton said. "Good blood and good environment. That's what counts."

  Mr. Burton wandered over to one of the casks. With a pipette he drew off a glass of wine and sipping it, muttered something. "Coming along fine. Good body, bit raw yet, but developing . . ." was all that Mike could catch. Nobody listened to him.

  "Yes, Mother," Connie said. "We heard you. Let's go back to the house. We're supposed to play tennis this afternoon."

  "You can spare a few minutes, Constance," Mrs. Burton said. "After all, if you're going to be married, there's nothing more important than what we're discussing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

  Mr. Burton came out from a shadow with a bottle in his hand.

  "One of our best years," he said. "Won't be perfect for another eighteen months, but then it'll be the best in California." He cracked the bottle against a post and it shattered. A jet of wine shot back over his arm, stained his jacket a soft purple. "Smell it. Generations of skill and breeding in that bottle. Wonderful, eh? Go ahead, taste it."

  "Don't, Father," Connie said. "He'll cut his lips on the glass."

  "What's the matter, Mike?" Mr. Burton asked. "Don't you like good wine?"

  "I don't know about breeding and good environment," Mike said. "Not a thing. But I know something about you. I know that both of you came from good old California families who left you a lot of money. And I know that neither one of you has earned a cent in your life. You even lose a couple thousand dollars a year on this vineyard. And I know that you run the vineyard because it's fashionable and you can play like the country squire and his lady. And I also know that you run a winery so that you can have a good excuse to lap up a couple of gallons of wine every day."

  Mr. Burton was standing beside one of the weak lights and he was staring at Mike. He seemed lost in admiration for what Mike was saying. He smiled faintly. The wine bottle hung at his side, dripping wine onto his pants and shoes. Mrs. Burton had stepped back into a shadow and all Mike could see of her was her fingers which knotted together, untwisted and then tore a handkerchief to pieces.

  "My family's nothing," Mike went on. "I don't know what their blood is like. If I had to guess, I'd guess it's pretty bad. I know something about environment. I was raised in a bad one. So that answers your questions, Mrs. Burton. No blood, no environment."

  "It doesn't matter, Mother," Connie said. "Those things aren't important. Really they aren't. Mike can do things."

  "I believe that," Mr. Burton said. He stepped away from the light and his lean face, the purple lips, the slightly bloodshot eyes, lost their distinctness. "I believe Mike's going to be all right."

  The handkerchief in Mrs. Burton's hands came apart with a slight rasping sound.

  Mike and Connie tuned and walked out of the cave into a warm spring day.

  Looking now into Mrs. Burton,s face as she greeted the guests and shook hands and directed the servants to pour champagne, Mike knew she would never forgive him for that day in the cave. He also knew that it did not matter.

  "Here's to you, Mike," Hank said. He was carrying a bottle of champagne in one hand and he poured a little into his glass after each sip. He did not look the least bit drunk. "Here's to old Mike who clawed his way up out of the laboring masses into the middle class. Old Mike, the upward mobile. Old Mike, the go-getter."

  Mrs. Burton came back and stood beside Mike and Connie.

  "Where do you go now, Mr. Moore?" she asked. "On to medical school?"

  "On to medical school," Hank said. "The Army is sending me to medical school and has assumed the fullest responsibility for my immediate future." He poured his glass full, sipped at it.

  "That will be exciting," Connie said.

  Hank looked at her and ignored what she had said.

  "Let's don't talk about me,?' Hank said. "Let's drink to Mike, the upward mobile, and Connie, his wife."

  "Mike the what?" Mrs. Burton asked.

  "It's a joke, Mother," Connie said.

  "Boy, is it a joke," Hank said and laughed. "It's really a joke."

  He held the champagne bottle up and it was empty. He threw it casually into the bushes. Mrs. Burton winced.

  "What're you grinning for, Mike?" Hank asked. "You aren't supposed to grin."

  "Just grinning," Mike said. "Can't a man grin?"

  Hank patted Mike on the shoulder and then turned and started to search for a full bottle of champagne.

  CHAPTER 13

  "Our Forces Suffered Light Losses . . ."

  The destroyer was three miles off the island. In the darkness the island was a long humped line of black. Occasionally, far up the mountains, a light flickered from a native village, but at once it vanished as the blackness rushed in; solidly, like a liquid.

  During the day, however, the island was different and made up of many things. The parakeets made slashing colored lines across the green of the jungle as they flew in short screeching flights; there was the endless tin humping of Quonset huts; there were the brown carcasses of wrecked planes. During the day the roads gave off curls of dust, forming a brown atmosphere which ended only at the white strip of sand which edged the island. During the day men stepped out of the dust, stood on the beach and looked out over the sea and the ships. Then the men turned back and disappeared into the brown haze; Seabees, Marines, fliers, Negroes, Californians, soldiers, generals, Mexicans, Okies and natives.

  The destroyer moved across the sea as if it were going through smooth black oil The screw kicked up a ball of foam that glowed solid and phosphorescent. From the bow of the destroyer a wave broke on each side and expanded away in two narrow bright lines. One of the lines shattered on the island. The other stretched away with a simple perfection to the horizon, where it vanished but did not end.

  The destroyer stayed to seaward of the transports and cargo ships that were unloading. The sound gear pinged endlessly, sending shrill blocks of sound through the water and making a biting echo on the bridge.

  In a cabin directly below the bridge Mike was sleeping. Drops of sweat swelled up on the sides of his chest, joined together and ran in trickles over his ribs and left a trail of itch on his skin.

  Mike was dreaming. It was an old and familiar dream. He was very young and he was wearing knickers and holding a sock cap in his hand. He was standing before a shiny glass window. In raised black letters across the window were the words, "Home-Made Sausage. See It Made." Inside the shop a fat girl was seated on a stool before a gleaming porcelain table. Her cheeks glowed and she had a delicate fringe of blond hair on her upper lip. She had an enormous bosom which hung, ponderous and warm, under the crisp cloth of her uniform.

  The girl smiled at Mike and shook her head at the five thin smears his hand made on the window. She turned to her table and deftly arranged a long wet glistening tube of skin. She put the tube to a nozzle that extended from a large machine. Gray meat flecked with red spots poured suddenly into the tube. The skin jerked and snapped on the table, writhed as the sausage filled it. In a few seconds the tube was full and was stretched to shiny thinness. Water bubbles popped out, and as the meat continued to shove into the tube the skin slowly stretched and the bubbles grew larger. The girl took the skin from the nozzle and a jet of meat shot out on the porcelain table and the machine stopped operating. Casually the girl took the long taut sausage and began to twist it into short links.


  Feet scuffled on the deck above Mike's head and he woke up. He lay still for a moment. His body came into contact with the wet sheet only at his heels, buttocks and head. Each muscle was stiff and contracted, each toe curled tightly, each finger was huge and separate. As the ship heaved slightly he felt his viscera roll softly. The general quarters buzzer went off and Mike came out of his bunk in a lunge.

  Mike stuck his feet in his shoes, pulled on his life jacket and went up the ladder. The moon was just coming up over the island. In the haze of dust it was heavy and distorted and yellow, but he knew that in a few minutes it would push into the cleaner atmosphere and become smaller and more remote and glow with a clean austere light. The water between the destroyer and the island caught up the yellow reflection in a single broad band of gleaming water.

  As Mike walked to his battle station on the wing of the bridge, the wind changed slightly and brought the heavy odor of the jungle across the water. It smelled of old rotted trees which never died, but shed a green excrescence which slid to the ground and mixed with leaves and vines. It smelled of ancient mud that bubbled with the gases of decay. And it smelled of newer smells also: gasoline, spoiled cans of C-ration, the reek of slit trenches, cordite, grease covered metal. The smell puzzled Mike. There was something familiar, nostalgic, well known about the smell. But he could not remember what.

  "What's up, Captain?" Mike asked.

  The captain was a small neat shadow on the other wing.

  "I don't know," Captain Dunbridge said. "Dog Cactus came up on the TBS with a six-bandit raid, but nothing shows on our screen. Of course nothing ever shows on that damned screen of ours except grass and friendly strikes."

  "What we need is a good radar repairman," Mike said.

  Captain Dunbridge grunted. Then he hummed and sang a line, "The world is waiting for good repairmen." He stopped suddenly and snarled at the helmsman, "For Christ's sake keep on two four oh. Your wake looks like a snake."

  "Steady on two four oh, sir," the helmsman said. The helmsman's voice was defensive.

  "Balls," the captain said. "Somewhere around two four oh, you mean."

  Mike liked the captain and he was the only officer on the ship who did. Captain Dunbridge was a small, cocky Annapolis man. He was utterly sure about everything in the Navy., He navigated beautifully, knew every linkage in the 5"-38, understood every line in the engine and boiler rooms. He respected every tradition in the Navy. And he did all this with a sort of grace and sureness that was mortally offensive to everyone. Even to other Annapolis men.

  The TBS speaker hummed and then crackled into words. "Dog Cactus to all ships and stations. Condition Red. I repeat. The condition is red."

  A report came up from CIC that there were two bogies on the screen, closing fast, but coming so low they were mostly lost in the grass at the bottom of the screen.

  "Talker, pass the word to the gun crews to keep a sharp lookout for planes on the starboard side," Captain Dunbridge said.

  The talker spoke into the sound-powered phones. The destroyer slid in closer to the transports and Mike could see the intricate superstructure of the transports silhouetted against the yellow loom of the moon. All the boats from the transports had run into the beach and the ships were utterly silent. Occasionally a helmeted head moved on one of the ships and high in the masts the radar antennas spun soundlessly.

  They all heard them at the same time. They sounded tiny and faraway, but the sound was foreign and dangerous and they knew they were Japanese. They simply sounded different from the P-38's and B-24's. The sound became snarling and loud, as if they were rushing down an empty tunnel toward the ship. Mike felt the air in his lungs grow hot and he put a finger to his face and at the feel of flesh upon flesh he could suddenly breathe easily again. The noise of the planes grew louder and Mike knew they were rushing down the path of moonlight which silhouetted the transports. He looked out to seaward and could see nothing. A 20-mm. started to spark, sending out a short stream of incandescent balls, then stopped uncertainly. Then the whole magazine traced out a long, beautifully wavering line.

  "Silly bastard," Mike said. "Probably an LCI that got panicky."

  At the same time he felt relief at seeing the tracers from the 20-mm. They gave a definition to the blackness of the night, announced that the fight had begun, were a sign that one could fight back.

  Suddenly two thin lines of exhaust flame became visible. At the same time, the planes started to take form out of the darkness. There were two of them, moving like shadows, very close to the water. They came slowly, their lines and shape utterly foreign. The transports started to fire. The 40-mm.'s made straight hot lines across the sky and then they were crisscrossed by the countless smaller tracers from the 20-mm.'s. The tracers all converged just behind and below the target. The planes seemed to be riding the stream of fire directly toward the transports.

  A black object detached itself from the leading plane and slipped into the water, leaving a white wreath on the smooth surface. Almost at once the object began to trail a finger of gleaming phosphorus. The torpedo straightened out and headed toward a transport. The plane pushed blackly on toward the ship, a wing delicately tipped the foremast of the transport and quite suddenly it started to tumble. It slowed down and moved in absurd wounded flight. It touched the water and bounced into the air and bits of material flew from it like torn-out feathers. Then as it bounced across the water it burst into a gigantic solid ball of flame. For a few seconds it looked like a huge flower, with a black skeleton in the center.

  Mike remembered the torpedo and turned back in time to see it hit. It hit aft on the transport and he felt a shock as the underwater explosion crystallized the water for a brief second. Then the destroyer shivered. From the stern of the transport a thick bright column started to rise slowly. In its yellow solidity Mike saw a machine gun mount, an ammunition locker and a man. They all turned slowly in black, perfect outline. As it reached its peak, all of the light went out of the column and it collapsed into the ocean.

  Then the air blast from the explosion hit the destroyer in a solid invisible wave. Mike felt himself pushed hard against the bulkhead and a row of rivets was moulded against his back. A signalman with his back to the explosion was forced to his knees and as he looked over his shoulder in surprise his movement was suddenly .accelerated. The man's face mushed soundlessly into the steel deck. The blast wave passed and Mike stepped away from the bulkhead. The signalman pushed himself up and his face had a soft grinning look. A tiny stream of blood ran like black mucus from his nose. He started to say something to Mike, but he only bubbled and then a white tooth came out of the mess of his mouth and fell to the deck. He suddenly was articulate.

  "God damn," he said. "God damn, but that happened fast."

  He walked past Mike onto the bridge. Mike felt a sharp rage at the two planes. He hoped the second one had been hit, but he could not see it and its sound was already remote and faraway. He felt a futile, hopeless, formless anger.

  "Mr. Freesmith, organize the rescue party," Captain Dunbridge said. The captain was giving orders to the helmsman. Between orders he gave instructions to Mike. "Take the rescue party to the fan-tail. Ease your helm. Stop the starboard engine. Back one third on the port engine," he said sharply. "The fan-tail is closer to the water. Put over Jacobs ladders and nets. Also some rubber rafts if you can."

  Already the transport angled up into the air. There was a ripping sound as some object tore loose and crashed down the tilted deck. A growing circle of fire burned around the sinking end of the ship. The crackling of burning oil and the crash of falling objects were the only sounds. The small bright eye of an Aldis lamp started to blink from the bridge of the transport.

  "'Send boats' is what they're sending, Captain," one of the signalmen said.

  "We don't have any boats," the captain said. "We'll come in close and pick up survivors."

  The destroyer, swinging in a wide beautiful circle, headed away from the transport. As Mi
ke ran back toward the fan-tail he heard the captain give the order to stop all engines. The rescue party assembled on the fan-tail, watched as the stern of the destroyer swung around and finally pointed straight at the transport

  "He's going to back down on them," Mike said. He felt a flash of admiration for the captain. "Put over cargo nets and Jacobs ladders. Don't take off your life jackets. Don't go into the water unless you get orders."

  Slowly the destroyer backed down on the transport, bearing precisely on the circle of burning oil. When they were fifty yards away Mike felt the engines stop and silently they slid toward the transport. He thinks of everything, Mike thought. He even got enough way on so that we will come up to them without our screws turning over.