The Last Ship: A Novel

by William Brinkley

  “Jesus-God, it’s cold in here,” popped out of Talley at one point. “We’re going to freeze our buns off.”

  She was a butterball of a girl—less so now. She had a tendency to speak up, but with such a free-speech naturalness that it would have been like asking a macaw to shut up.

  “That’ll do, Talley,” Lieutenant Girard said sharply.

  Lieutenant Girard had of course been doing frequent calculations and reporting these to me. Now she said, speaking aloud thoughts we had unremittingly gone over, but with perhaps new elements now added:

  “At continued reduced rations we can live off ship’s stores for four months—allowing that for any kind of harvest ashore . . . figuring in an awful lot of fish . . .” Her voice bore down. “I mean a lot . . . I’ve checked all this with Palatti. He agrees.”

  Chief Palatti ran ship’s messes. He concocted the best food I had yet to eat in the Navy, and in addition was a ferocious scrounger in ports we visited for the choicest local products to liven up the daily fare. The latter talent unfortunately was no longer exercisable by him, but I did not underestimate his ingenuity even in an island waste. Indeed, given our circumstances, I looked on him as one of our mainstays.

  “If the fish come through . . .” She was looking straight at me.

  “Fish,” I repeated. The word seemed to stand in the air, as if representing salvation itself—or at least half of it. The other half of course being that southern plateau on the island. I waited a moment in the quietness. “Very well. We’ll just have to see what Silva comes back with.”

  I regarded her gravely. “Thank you for doing these projections. I value initiative, Lieutenant.”

  “It’s my job, Captain,” she said axiomatically.

  “Of course it is,” I said, a bit briskly. “I still value it.”

  I moved quickly on.

  “All right, Talley,” I said. “You can now get them out of here. I wouldn’t want you to freeze them off.”

  She grinned a bit sheepishly. “Aye, sir.”

  We were glad to move from the reefer cold, up to the second deck and back down past the watertight bulkhead into another compartment. We stood amid the small stores. Girard’s voice had become a liturgical monotone . . . “Trousers . . . Shirts . . . Hats . . . Shoes . . . Skivvies . . .” She stepped across a space. “Pantyhose . . . Brassieres . . . Panties . . . Blouses . . . Hats . . . Shoes . . . Sewing kits . . .”

  As she called out these items, my thoughts ranged away into areas somehow activated by watching her. In the past six months I had dealt with Lieutenant Girard and perhaps been more in her company than was the case with any other officer aboard; a natural, actually unavoidable thing: she was first our supply officer and, second, what the Navy calls “welfare and recreation officer,” more explicitly, in present circumstances, morale officer: and on my list of concerns none stands higher than stores and morale. Indeed a subtle and indefinable bond had been created between us as we conferred daily over the diminishing nature of the one and the not infrequently changing nature of the other; meticulous labors, exhausting, fraying of both mind and nerves. Difficult enough to go through so almost incessantly with anybody, saved, I somehow felt, by her characteristics: a sardonic smile breaking at just the needed moment across her lips to relieve a tension; a simple, modulating look from level gray eyes. She combined inner toughness with clarity of insight—stalwart assets, being as she is, so to speak, in our most direct lines of fire: that the men eat, and that they bear up. She faced stern facts entirely absent of that visible and depleting emotion which itself adds formidably to matters already demanding; complex problems, some fiendishly so, each as something to be coped with and handled, with a coolness apparently unassailable. I have not mentioned another aspect that may be as important as any: her effect on others of ship’s company. Her very steadiness as she went about her duties had the consequence of calming those more vulnerable than herself in our circumstances to problems of an emotional character; her self-possession acted to instill a similar state in her shipmates.

  Beyond this litany of virtues lay other suggestions, possibly not altogether so seraphic, some apparent enough, some little more than presentiments and so in doubt. Some may have found a certain severity in her, an intimation of iron within, an excess of poise, a quiet knowingness that might at times seem to flirt with a felt superiority, a breath of loftiness. I knew of none of these carried, thus far, to the clearly intemperate. If she had a fault as an officer it may have been that in exactitude she was in some ways perhaps overly unbending. She carried that greatest of all handicaps that may befall a woman: She was simply too bright for most men of this world.

  Something “remote” about her: In the two years since she had come aboard I felt I had learned nothing of what lay behind this composed, impregnable exterior except for one thing. I had discovered—mainly through reading her service record and reviewing her PQS (personal qualification standards) that accompanied her—that she had had as fierce a desire to go to sea as any man I had known; and being persistent, even exasperatingly so, in achieving her purpose and what she judged fair (with an adroit ability, one sensed, to equate the two)—something I gleaned also from the comments in these reports of her previous commanding officers—was one of the first women to do so. She had come straight out of Wellesley College (a scholarship student, the daughter of a small-town newspaper editor in North Carolina) into the Navy as an ordinary seaman recruit, at just the time the Navy had announced its imminent opening of the world’s oceans to women, the latter act, I had an idea, strongly determining the former. She had gone through boot camp at Great Lakes, and after assignment to NAVSTA Norfolk, into Officer Candidate School. She had wanted gunnery. No such sea billets were then open to her gender. She had taken supply rather than mildew on the beach. Then two years aboard a cruiser as a junior supply officer. The moment one looked at her in uniform one saw an exceptional thing. She wore “water wings.” They certified her as a surface warfare officer; meaning that in addition to fulfilling her supply duties she had mastered and passed the rigorous tests in every major combat system the ship carried, including standing actual watches in each. Two more years ashore, recurrent requests for further sea duty and at last aboard the Nathan James as supply officer. Her service record revealed another curious point at the time of but mild interest to me: she had specifically requested the duty she had got: a guided missile destroyer. However first-rate a supply officer, she had made certain that she qualified for gunnery. She was by now Navy as much as any man. I was suddenly aware, watching her on the ladder, that she had mastered with seeming ease something I had felt, since these matters began, to be among the most difficult of feats: at once to be a Navy officer and remain a woman.

  There was no doubt in my mind that she possessed as something close to an absolute both the desire and the determination to get what she wanted. I had often felt this trait carried to her degree to be the very engine force of those possessing it; further felt it to be the Jekyll-and-Hyde of human personality characteristics: inherent in it, its accompanying drive capable of producing either the greatest good for others or the greatest harm. So far at least we had been beneficiaries of the former. And something else: However little exercised it was to date, I would have been disappointed if my judgment that she had something of the bitch in her was in error. I spoke of presentiments: In our daily sessions of late there had entered, though but now and then, a curious and puzzling tension, inexact as to source, clothed in a penumbra seeming to hang in the air; emerging, faintly disturbing, as if forerunner to . . . yes, I should say, to a testing of wills. Over what? That deeply submerged, unresolved, not yet even spoken, matter of the women? Or something else? I cannot know. It is at these moments—they are hardly more than that, seeming to pass as swiftly as they arise—that I seem to sense the presence of another quality: a considerable willingness for power; a lack of hesitation at outright ruthlessness to acquire it and apply it with maximum force should opport
une circumstances present themselves and she in her view find it necessary. And then a thought that startled me: The reason I recognize that secluded strain of ruthlessness in Lieutenant Girard is that I have acquired it myself; we would not be here today had I not.

  “Three hundred and ten men’s skivvies,” she finished up crisply, and turned back facing me.

  “What’s the drill on issuing these items, Lieutenant?”

  “As requested by hands, sir.” She had not missed a beat.

  “Well, cease and desist on that. Henceforth I want to see a rationing schedule. A tough one.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Some of it isn’t very practical in present latitudes.”

  “No, sir. All dress blues. The men would suffocate in them.”

  This was the blue woolen uniform worn in cold parallels; from our Barents duty, along with much other heavy-weather gear. “Men,” in this context shipboard, as in others, along with most pronouns and possessives, meant women as well. “Persons” and similar degeneracies in speech, the Navy, with its ancient respect for language, found impossible to assimilate; radarwoman, sonarperson, helmsgirl: wisely the Navy steered away from this nonsense. It might have caused ships to collide, have ended up foundering the fleet. I never heard the women complain about it.

  “They scratch,” said Talley.

  “Storekeeper Talley puts the matter clearly, sir. Possibly we could alter and adapt it in some way,” Lieutenant Girard said. “Shall I see what I can come up with?”

  “By all means, Lieutenant.”

  Suddenly, a shot out of nowhere square into the mind, came Selmon’s admonition: the possibility, however remote, of a forced return to cold latitudes. I said nothing of this. I did say, “Put the actual alterations on hold.”

  “Aye, sir,” she said without suspicion. “No point in doing them until present clothing runs out. With proper care that shouldn’t be for some while. I’ll recalculate for present latitude.” She waited a moment. “If we’re stopping here.”

  I cannot say if the last was a fishing expedition. Knowing Girard, I hardly thought so. In any event I ignored it.

  “Yes, do these calculations, if you will.”

  “We don’t need to wear much around here,” Storekeeper Talley said. “That’s for sure.”

  I looked at Lieutenant Girard. I thought her eyes rolled.

  “Until you do,” I said, “cease issuing all clothing. If someone asks for a new pair of pants—or pantyhose—lend him a sewing kit. Lend. Get it signed for.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m wearing mended pantyhose right now,” Storekeeper Talley said.

  “Belay it, Talley.”

  “Aye, ma’m.”

  “Can we get on with it?” I said.

  Through another door and we were in the ship’s store storeroom containing toiletries and so-called “crew comfort” items. Again on shelves reaching from deck to overhead the stacked cases stood. Again Girard sounded them out.

  “Toothpaste . . . Toothbrushes . . . Bath soap . . . Razors . . . Razor blades . . .” A step. “Lipstick . . . Rouge . . . Mascara . . . Tampax . . .”

  “Duration time?” I said.

  “It’ll be much shorter, sir. First to go will be the soap.”

  “Then let’s start. Right now. On all of this. The tightest rations possible.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  I looked over at the shelves of cigarette cartons. We had gone over that list.

  “Starting now,” I said, “the cigarette ration will be one pack a week.”

  “One pack, sir?” Lieutenant Girard said.

  “And no new smokers. At that ration, how long will the cigarettes hold out?”

  She flipped through the clipboard. “Four months, sir. More or less. I’ll get you a more precise figure.”

  We stepped back into the passageway. Tally opened a locker. Neatly arranged on shelves in battened racks to secure them in high seas was what sports equipment we had: a half dozen footballs, a dozen baseballs, a half dozen baseball bats, a catcher’s mask, three volleyballs and a net and stanchions for it. Only the footballs appeared used.

  “When’s the next touch football game, sir?” the storekeeper said brightly.

  “We’re all aware you’re the ship’s star, Talley.” Which happened to be the truth.

  “That’s for sure.” The smallest pause. “Since you say so, sir.”

  We proceeded up to the first deck and the ship’s library. I regarded the shelves for a few moments, in a way I had not extended to the other stores. There it was. There they sat. An assortment of fiction and nonfiction, from a standard list. Some of the names surprised me. I skimmed the authors. We had not done badly.

  “The Navy did pretty well by us,” I said.

  “They give you a choice,” Girard said. “The Navy can be flexible, sir.”

  “Is that a fact, Lieutenant? I’m delighted to learn about the Navy’s flexibility.”

  “What I meant, sir,” briskly, “was that they do supply a list. Then they give you what’s called an optional choice. Up to five hundred volumes.”

  “You’re saying you picked five hundred of these? I didn’t realize that anything went on aboard this ship involving a figure of five hundred that the captain was unaware of.”

  “I felt it was an authority you would have wished delegated, sir.”

  “I never had the opportunity to delegate, did I, Lieutenant? Well, I suppose you acted within your authority.”

  “I thought so, sir.”

  I looked at her. No sarcasm. She never really used that. Merely getting the facts out. Altogether 985 books. Not a bad figure, and the quality quite high. We were very fortunate. I felt consolation. In addition, fifty complete Bibles. One hundred New Testaments, half of these red-letter versions for the words of Christ. Two copies of the Talmud. One hundred copies of the Army and Navy Hymnal and Order of Worship, all about exactly how to do it for Catholics, Protestants, Jews—by, in our case, one chaplain. Then I looked toward the overhead and a light came on in me. Parked on a long upper shelf was a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I riffled it with my fingers, stopped at one—HERMOUP-LALLY.

  “These,” I said, touching them. “I want the entire set put under lock and key.”

  She looked at me a moment, as though she might ask.

  “Will do, sir,” was all she said.

  Here also were our music tapes—316 of them, it turned out. Not bad at all. Beethoven, Mozart, Bach. We had Handel’s Messiah. Rock, jazz, country, folk. The Beatles. Woody Guthrie. Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston. I wondered but did not ask whether a portion of these had also been selected by Lieutenant Girard, or all by the Navy. Also 500 videocassettes of American movies. Also our stores of paper and pens were here and my eyes drilled in on these with a special intensity, mind thoughtful, waiting in the stillness. Five dozen reams of 20-pound bond. Thirty thousand sheets of paper. One hundred dozen-sized boxes of ballpoints.

  “Cease at once issuing paper and pens,” I said, for some reason a bit sharply, to Girard. “To anyone. For any purpose.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Six spare typewriters; 192 typewriter ribbons.

  “What’s the shelf life of these, would you say, Talley?”

  “For a guess, sir, five years.”

  Five years: I made a mental note. We had finished.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” I said. “Talley.” And added, meaning it: “In particular, for the anticipation you’ve shown.”

  “I’ll get with the projections,” the lieutenant said smartly. “More accurate ones. How long each specific item will last. Now that we’re here. You should have them by zero eight hundred tomorrow. Will that do, Captain?”

  “That’ll do just fine, Lieutenant.”

  “Come along, Talley. We’ve got work.”

  “Aye, ma’m. That’s for sure.”

  * * *

  Just lately the first fringes
of gray had begun to appear on the doctor’s temples, rather suddenly. He lit a cigarette.

  “That’s it, Skipper,” he said, handing it over. “Complete. Not exactly Bethesda Naval. But we’re pretty well fixed.”

  Now I studied the list I had told him to have ready. Penicillin. Tetracycline. Aspirin. Maybe sixty other medicines. Shots for every disease conquered by man. Typhus, tetanus, typhoid. Plague. The narcotics, resident in a combination safe I could see on the bulkhead beyond him. The sick-bay medicines suffused the air around us in an odor of antisepsis. I had shut the door.

  I tipped back in my chair. “The men, Doc. Would they be okay working here? Just a professional opinion. Any medical land mines I’m missing that you picked up?”

  On my instruction he had been on the island starting at first light, applying his keen eye to it.

  “Too early to tell completely, of course. I’d say we could have come out on far worse places. Fresh water. Not many colds, bronchial problems, on this parallel. We’re well stocked. We’ve got enough penicillin to wipe out syphilis and clap in the Seventh Fleet. Of course we had in mind Alexandria, Port Lyautey, and bella Napoli. It’s one plague we shouldn’t have to worry about here. I should have specialized in tropical diseases. Not that the surroundings don’t look healthy enough,” he added quickly. “Nothing I saw that seemed to attack health directly—given the usual precautions. I suppose it depends on whether we’re talking long-term or short-term.”

  Yes. Well, not even the doc was going to get it out of me. “It isn’t just the usual hard work,” I said. “In that sun. Stoop labor. That’s the operable phrase. You know about it?”