He had just named three circumnavigators of the globe. The last mentioned, a Russian naval officer, being also in my own opinion one of the greatest of Antarctic explorers, I could not resist the opportunity to show off.
“Fabian Gottlieb Von Bellingshausen,” I said.
He turned to me. “Captain, you have impressed me.”
“Good. I was trying to do just that.”
“The world needs circumnavigating again.” His glance found the horizon. “What a voyage to make now—to see what is out there!”
“Agreed, sir. Any seaman would jump at the chance.”
“Precisely. Do you find any major objections so far, sir?”
“I would prefer you continue.”
“Of course. As between the two vessels, it would seem obvious which should undertake that voyage. A matter surely hardly arguable. Pushkin. Far less exposure for the crew. Submerged, she could penetrate the deepest zones of radiation . . . we did so in . . . Russia. Any coastal city, anywhere. She could . . . just for example, having spoken of that city . . . come right into New York harbor. Stick her scope up. Find out what really happened, what it’s like, or a pretty good firsthand idea. To your people. Of course we know what in substance we shall find there. That is hardly the point. It is that there is something to having seen for yourself—in a matter so urgent—what you already know. One is compelled to do so, have one’s own look. There is something in a man that insists on that if it is at all possible—as it is now. Something especially in a seaman that says this must be done. I found that true for myself and my men as to Russia,” he said matter-of-factly. “We knew what we would find. Still, we had to see with our own eyes. Terrible as it was, I know now it was an absolute necessity—for the mind. For one’s soul.”
He paused, rearranging himself a bit on the rock. I had a small worry that he had moved too near its edge. An odd thing occurred to me—he seemed to be trying to persuade me, almost as a bait, that we should have a look at our home as he had had at his, at its known devastation (supposedly taking a given number of us in Pushkin—I waited for that, as to its details); odd in that it seemed a strange sort of concern for him to have. It was time for me to insert something.
“Some of my ship’s company believe they will find habitable land there, thriving people; a place they can stay.”
“Good,” he said calmly. “Those possessing such fantasies above all should be included in those who go in Pushkin. When they find out so differently, they can come back and tell the others. You will be rid of that problem.”
It was as if he had disposed of a minor detail, speaking very much like a ship’s captain instructing me in the handling of a vexing, if easily solved problem. Having done so, he continued at once from this aside; above all, his voice radiating a captain’s certainty as to course.
“I would not dishonor it by calling it the satisfying of a curiosity, this look at one’s home . . . that part is a duty. But the ship really goes for something else altogether. However great the necessity of the other, that is not the ship’s principal mission. The ship has a far more important one than that. She goes looking for places with greater likelihood of having people. That’s what she’s really looking for—people. Human beings. Like ourselves.”
He paused, reflectively. “There’s a practical side to this. She might, let us say, find people to bring here, making certain first that they are uncontaminated—the radiation officer would see to that. Not many—the island is too small. A few people carefully chosen. We would be compelled to be selfish, selective . . . people chosen for their skills or for something else useful to this community. More women would help.” That reference so quickly made, with no emphasis whatsoever, a mere example, his moving so immediately on that any particularity as to it was lost, if intended in the first place. I decided not. “That but one of many possibilities. All dependent on what the ship finds out there.” The slightest nod of the head toward the unrevelatory horizon.
Abruptly he turned directly to me, his voice while full of conviction all equable up to now, modulating to something deeply earnest, insistent, even with a proselytizing note.
“But the true reason for sending the ship is not even the practical one in that purely selfish sense. The reason is . . . simply that we have to know. If there are other people than ourselves. That is what we have absolutely to find out, Captain. We have no choice. I cannot explain why. I do not think I need to do so.”
Of course I understood all of that. But there was something else and I held in my hand the core of my astonishment. This time I stepped in with it.
“You want to take your ship off and do that?”
He smiled faintly. “Not exactly, Captain. The ship, yes. I have a plan there, too.”
I was about to ask the next question, feeling for the first time in the air that foreboding sense that after all of these brotherly interchanges, something else—hard, barrier differences—was about to make its appearance, when deliberately before I could, he proceeded in almost a new voice, discursiveness vanished, replaced by short, clipped phrases as to a plan obviously workable, perhaps brilliant.
“Pushkin to make that voyage. Ship’s company . . . say, two-thirds of it—by necessity consisting of our people . . . the particular skills known only by submariners. The other third brought ashore . . . taken into this community. Replaced, that one-third, by your own sailors . . . their skills as destroyer men, seamanship skills, radio communications skills for an instance, easily transferable to a submarine . . . no problem whatsoever there, a minimum of indoctrination . . . a Russian-American submarine at that point and thereafter . . . just as here an American-Russian community.”
And he simply stopped. I sat quite overwhelmed by my impressions. More than by any other single one, at the fluent way he had taken over, as it were. His references to the island, to anything . . . as if they were now all jointly held, by my people, by his people, jointly owned, simply taking that for granted. He had a complete plan for everything, down to the finest detail: One-third of Pushkin’s crew put ashore, to be replaced by an equivalent number of our people . . . yes, it was almost as if he had taken charge. I could not—indeed at this point was not prepared to do anything . . . other than stall.
“An interesting arrangement. I would hate to see yourself leave, Captain.” I said it almost as a formality.
An actual grin, a tone turned light. “But I would have no intention of doing so. My fine executive officer is qualified in all respects to command—as much as I may like to think otherwise, my own presence entirely unnecessary. Pushkin goes on an exploration to find out what there may be on the rest of the earth, beyond this island. May find nothing. The important matters will be here . . .” He paused, seemed again almost proprietarily to look around. “This island. Where we have something of a certainty . . . All the important matters will be proceeding here . . . After all, this is now the center of the universe.” He smiled mischievously . . . “Wouldn’t want to miss them. Why, I would not think of leaving here.”
I was astonished. Since the “Magellan” voyage was almost irresistible to any sailor, especially to the captain of the ship which would make the voyage, why was he himself not going? Wonderments crowded my mind, yes, suspicions. To give voice to these . . . if there was one thing above all we must avoid, it was suspicion of any kind as to each other’s motives. Once they got in . . . To assure that they did not, he had taken that first immense step himself—the immediate, voluntary transfer of the fuel I have mentioned, without first trying to extract concessions of any kind. I must not be the one to introduce misgivings as between us.
“I would not think of leaving here,” he had said. A beat of a pause. I believe I suggested that there was no reason to suppose that his uprightness excluded cunning. “Unless you should not want me.”
It was my turn. “Come off it, Captain.”
“I thought I had rather good English. I don’t think I know that expression.”
“Of cours
e you do. You do now.”
He laughed outright. “Then I shall consider myself invited aboard. That is to say, if . . . if the plan goes with you. Naturally you will need time to consider . . . Of course, if you do not like my plan, you can take the James and all her ship’s company, conduct all of these explorations yourself, leave the island to us in safekeeping—we’ll keep it in good shape for you until you return.”
He had looked at me, saying that. His eyes had a light in them, his face an expression to be sure of a certain mirth . . . still, I had the distinct feeling one could not be sure that if I had said, “Why, what a splendid arrangement; we’ll see you in a year . . .” One could not be sure at all. Impressions, thoughts, feelings, many of them in conflict with one another, rushing in on me; a time to say nothing, make no commitment; to back off; establish, after the hardest and coolest appraisals, a position. Then I knew what my problem was. Through all of this onslaught came one overriding concern—two such sea captains as sat on this cliffside both being on a single island . . . each accustomed to sovereignty, himself of a strong personality, hardly a man inclined to passiveness . . . such a circumstance seemed to me fatally flawed . . . there could be trouble, built-in, inherent, inescapable . . . trouble . . . Frankly, I wished he would go with his ship. I could hardly order him to do so . . . if nothing else the fuel he had brought us restraining me, seeming to exclude that option. Indeed that seemed to be the problem: I could not order him to do anything. I spoke pleasantly.
“I will discuss it with my officers and ship’s company of the James,” I said. “And let you know. Quite presently.”
“I shall await your answer, Captain. Incidentally, if Pushkin goes, we will need a new VLF antenna for her to report her findings back to us.”
It was as though he had anticipated every detail.
“That will be no problem.”
I had half-risen to go.
“Captain?”
“Yes?”
He spoke offhandedly, as though he had simply forgotten to mention another detail.
“One thing is to be taken for granted, of course. I hardly need say this. But lest there be any mistake, let me state it clearly—in what I believe you call plain English. I have been too long a sailor not to know that there can be but one ship’s captain. Surely you assumed this in all that I had to say. I simply want there to be not the slightest misunderstanding as to that. Remaining here, I submit myself without reservation to your command, Captain. And to whatever duties you may deem me fit for.”
So at last, I thought, he was inside my mind. If I had not known it before, I knew it now: I was dealing with a formidable human being.
“The matter had not occurred to me,” I said. “But I appreciate your stating it so definitively, Captain.”
He had stood up. “I am very hungry,” he said.
I stood alongside him, held his arm for a moment, why I cannot say, perhaps as though, subconsciously remembering the Jesuit, remembering also that he was still in recovery from his long ordeal on the submarine, I wished to remove him from the cliff’s edge.
“Then let’s go eat,” I said.
Climbing down through the green, it was with a certain startlement that I realized he had not so much as come near to asking about the women, whether the participation of his ship’s company in the settlement was to include participation in them as well. I wondered why he had not done so. That he took it for granted? Or, just the opposite, that he would not even ask, now or ever? Simply leave it up to us. Even as I had these thoughts, as we walked along the stream bed, from him came the most casually pitched question, seeming idly asked.
“Any effects of the radiation on your men you’ve noticed so far?”
Something quite awful passed through me. I continued my steps, steadied my voice.
“Nothing noticeable.” I told a technical truth.
“I’m glad to hear it. That was my chief concern about you. Especially when you were telling me about the passage through that terrible winter. Naturally—as I’ve indicated—that was one advantage—maybe the chief one—a submariner would have over a surface-ship sailor.”
* * *
It was Silva’s crew who found them. Having taken his fishing detail off the northern part of the island, a vicinity which had been yielding with exceptional abundance of late, he sighted something come to rest against a tiny spot of sand, one of those that here and there interrupted the high rocky cliffs on the eastern side. Saw the boat, approached, saw then Nathan James-2 painted on its upturned side. The boat itself heavily battered, the sail which had been rigged collapsed, as if having encountered vicious seas. Later, looking at it, I was to remember that strong storm that had hit the island. It was not until he had come still nearer that Silva saw what was lying across the deck. They had tied themselves in. He put out a line and towed what was left of the boat down the waters to the settlement. We would never know but I was to wonder. Had they found nothing, realized it was hopeless and headed back to the only refuge? The Jesuit conducted the funeral services, brief readings from the Scriptures in the Main Hall. All of ship’s company then marched up the hill, following men bearing the two coffins Noisy Travis had fashioned, of very differing sizes, hers Preston alone carrying on his shoulder. Earlier Noisy had made a cross to place over Billy, of the same fine wood that had gone into the settlement buildings; then had come to see me in a quandary about Meyer.
“A Jewish girl, I believe,” he said. “A Star of David, Captain?”
Meyer had been about as nonreligious as a person could be. I remembered that humorous scene by the lifeline when she had complained of Billy’s going on a bit too much about it. I was certain she would not have wanted the Cross, little more the Star of David.
“We have to put something,” Noisy said. “Can’t have something over Billy’s, not over hers. Wouldn’t seem right, Cap’n. I knew her pretty well, sir. I reckon she wouldn’t mind.”
It was a remarkably long speech for the carpenter, and the only one involving an effort at persuasion, even insistence, I could recall ever having heard from him, its heartfeltness reaching through to me.
“You’re right, Noisy. Make it a Star of David.”
Our little cemetery stood on one of the island’s highest points, over the green a vast circumferential view of the sea, reaching to all horizons. It was as if we were still aboard ship, committing their bodies to the deep. We stood there, all wearing whites instead of the dungarees that had become our uniform, as the Jesuit read the familiar words. A slight easterly breeze was blowing, rustling the pages in his breviary, his having to hold them down . . . In sure hope of the Resurrection . . . In sailor fashion, ship’s company joined in its own requiem, Porterfield in his wisdom choosing not a hymn, in consideration of Meyer, but a song, in consideration of Billy, that for reasons unknown has long had an almost mystical meaning to sailors; one also he knew they both had liked. “Shenandoah.” The voices, men’s and women’s, rising softly in the air, falling out over the peaceful sea.
Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter,
Away, you rolling river,
For her, I’ve crossed the stormy water,
Away, away, I’m bound away,
’Cross the wide Missouri . . .
They went down in the separate coffins; the burial ground itself one space, however, so that they lay side by side, under Noisy’s two escutcheons, united at last, forever so, high above the immortal sea.
3
Thurlow’s Warning
A ship will deteriorate if it just sits. An exercise run: the Nathan James needed that, and regularly, say every couple of weeks. Before, not daring to expend the fuel, we were now freed up to indulge this matter virtually essential if we were to preserve the ship. We had had three now. The ship casting off at first light, returning at last light. Standing out, going over the horizon, making turns, executing various drills, shiphandling, seamanship, gunnery, sonar tracking and a score more, keeping her at low speeds to conserv
e fuel even though she now had such ample reserves. For purposes of these maneuvers I had divided ship’s company into “starboard” and “port” crews; each of about eighty-five hands, alternating in the biweekly run, one under myself, the other under my executive officer Thurlow, so that all hands could keep their shipboard skills up to the mark. It had turned out that the men actually looked forward to the cruises, to resume being sailors if only for a day. Men now farmers, yanked from their tilling; men now carpenters from their settlement-upkeep chores; fishermen from that detail; all to discover again that they were still seamen, sailors; boatswain’s mates, radarmen, electrician’s mates, signalmen, machinist’s mates, gunner’s mates, enginemen, and all the many other specialties, given a chance to turn once again to their old skills, the idea being if they should ever be needed again—if the ship should go somewhere—neither she nor her crew would have rusted away. Wholly unlikely that eventuality now seemed, unless—what each week appeared a more and more remote possibility, until it became in our minds an almost dismissible idea—radiation might yet move in, attack the island which by now had become such a possession of ours, an ever-growing satisfaction in it, in its livability, in what we had made of it—more and more feeling, not just a refuge, but like—home. We could not protect ourselves against that distant chance of contamination except, should it ever happen, to flee from it on the ship. The exercise also serving another need—to keep the men sharp in what also seemed improbable, some attack on the island by unknown other ships or persons suddenly appearing from over the horizon and seeing what they would see, understandably desirous of possessing for themselves this forthcoming island, and all we had added to it—Billy Barker’s claimed sighting came to mind; the ship then being required to defend the island. As to the former contingency, I had had a conversation once or twice with Thurlow, who, after Selmon, being ship’s company’s most knowledgeable man in the field, had succeeded him as radiation officer, concerning the possibility of anything atmospheric ever driving us out of here. He was entirely reassuring—well, not quite entirely, having acquired from his predecessor that mind-set as to the always unpredictable character of that new element, though not confronting us, it seeming an incontestable truth that elsewhere it had become an ineradicable part of the earth; of its very anatomy.
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