There was a moment of respectful silence when the Doc finished. Then, because they were all thirsty after the intense discipline of the seminar, the Doctor poured more drinks. The talk relaxed into loose and anecdotal discussion. Ed Pauley mentioned his friend who had rendered the same girl pregnant six times within the space of thirteen months. Pauley offered it as some sort of a record, and the Doc agreed that it very likely was. The Doctor brought up the well- known movie actress whom he had treated for alcoholic nymphomania. Then one of the rituals of their gatherings was acted out. While Ensign Pulver lay in the bunk and grinned hugely, the purity of his fiancée back in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was systematically impugned. Ensign Pulver always enjoyed this part of the evening immensely. He alternately grinned and chuckled while all the probabilities were invoked. Tonight Lieutenant Roberts introduced a new twist when he suggested that Pulver could send his girl no nicer nor more appropriate Christmas gift than a chastity belt. He further suggested that the carpenter shop could make a very fine one. Pauley and the Doc concurred heartily, and Ensign Pulver rolled on the bed in delighted laughter.
If Dowdy had not appeared, the evening would perhaps have gone on like that, deep in its routine, and ended in comparative tranquility. If Dowdy had not appeared, perhaps the Doctor would have remained merely pensively philosophical. Perhaps: although these things are by no means certain. It could be persuasively argued that the imminent departure of Lieutenant Roberts was too shocking a mutation for the ship to absorb without a brief, compensatory period of chaos. Or it could be more baldly argued that certain factions of the ship's company were simply ready for a good bender. At any rate, Dowdy did appear, and the evening did attain to a certain violence; and the Doctor did, to a certain extent, go berserk.
As a drunk the Doc was of the unpredictable sort. Up to a certain point he was disciplined if loquacious. Beyond that point the Doc got pretty primitive. There was the time at an officers' club at one of the islands when he tried to do battle with a four-striper. "Silly- looking, pot-bellied oaf," he had called the four-striper, who was not only twice his rank but twice his size as well. If he had not been also twice as drunk, the Doctor would undoubtedly have been a candidate for Portsmouth Naval Prison. That was one time, and there had been several others.
It was after ten o'clock when Dowdy knocked on the door. He stood sober and purposeful in the doorway. "Hear you're leaving us?" he addressed Roberts. When this was confirmed, he went on: "Well, a few of us are having a little party down in the armory and they said for me to ask you down to have a drink with us. That's all of you, naturally," he added.
Roberts questioned the Doc with a look. "Sure thing," said the Doc expansively. "Hell, yes, we'll have a drink. But first you have one with us."
Dowdy did that, and he did better than that: he had two. Then the Doc said: "We might as well take this with us." He picked up the quart of alcohol, now reduced to less than a pint, stuck it under his shirt, and then, in single file, the Doc leading, Ensign Pulver trailing, the group repaired to the armory.
They met a noisy reception. The new party was already in an advanced state. The armory was not a large room and now it was crowded. There was Olson, of course, and there was Stefanowski, of course. Kalinka, the shipfitter, and Vanessi, the storekeeper, were sitting on the workbench. The two gunner's mates, Wiley and Schaffer, were leaning on the rifle rack. Denowsky was not fixed but mobile, wandering up and down. The large ten-gallon crock sat on the deck in almost the geometrical center of the room.
Right away the Doc made a perfect gesture, one that symbolically and in fact wedded the two groups. He pulled out the bottle of alcohol, flourished it and emptied its contents into the crock. The cheers were almost deafening.
Dowdy was equal to his duties as host and he poured drinks of the amalgamated alcohol and jungle juice for the newcomers. "This here is a brand-new batch," he explained to them. "It turned out pretty good. The last batch we made, there was something the matter with it. I guess we let it set too long—it had kind of a green crust on top. Wiley there drank some and he peed green the next day. What do you suppose caused that, Doc?"
"Oh, some kind of a fungus growth in the bladder," the Doc said airily. "This is good stuff."
"Yeah," said Dowdy. "Anyway, I give that last batch away to the engineers. It didn't look good to me, and you can't hurt an engineer."
Then the toasts began. Stefanowski made the first, and, considering the occasion, it was just about perfect. Although he stood a little unsteadily, his words were firm and brave: "Now, by God, this drink is for the best damn officer I know, and that's Mister Roberts. And that ain't saying nothing against the rest of you officers because I think we got a good bunch of officers on this ship—" Stefanowski paused and qualified: "Except for that shithead of a Captain—and I think we got the best of the lot here tonight. But, by God, I say, and I bet you other officers agree with me, that Mister Roberts is absolutely the tops, and I'm sure sorry to see him go, and, by God, I think we ought to drink to him!" It is hard to see how it could have been more nicely put, and Stefanowski's toast was promptly and noisily executed.
There were many others. The toast idea caught the fancy of the party, and the level of the improved jungle juice went down markedly in the crock. After all present had been honored, toasts were drunk to, among others: Bela Kun, Chili Williams, the Captain's early demise, Girls Who Wore Black Pants, Girls Who Wore Pink Pants, Girls Who Wore No Pants, Cordell Hull, Winnie Ruth Judd, Boo-Boo Hoff, and Marjorie Ann Lundberg, of Coffeyville, Kansas. These necessarily took a long time, though not as long as you might expect, and in the course of them Dowdy sidled over to Lieutenant Roberts.
"Say," he said secretively, "Tom Olson's got a good idea. He says we ought to take care of the Old Man's palm trees tonight. You know the Old Man's got that watch up there now, but Olson says that Red McLaughlin went on at midnight, and hell, if he did, he's asleep by now. Hell, it's twelve-fifteen, and you know Red McLaughlin. So maybe if you and me and Olson sort of sneak up there now . . ."
The thing was done with style. Dowdy was right: Red McLaughlin was asleep, propped against the Captain's bulkhead. The two palm trees were removed from their five-gallon cans and dumped over the side. Red McLaughlin was sleeping with both arms outstretched and the empty cans were thoughtfully placed within their compass. Dowdy and Olson did everything—they insisted it was their ton. Roberts's role was that of honored observer, and when they finished, he complimented the boys on a thoroughly professional job.
The evening should have ended there. Right then and there it was a success. It had form, and accomplishment, and a nice feeling. Unfortunately the others in the armory had not this sense of structure and of proportion. Dowdy and Olson and Lieutenant Roberts weren't absent very long on their mission, but when they returned to the party, they found it noticeably deteriorated.
A bitter argument was going on. Denowsky stood accused of urinating in the crock of jungle juice. Everyone was standing around the crock and Schaffer was holding Wiley, who was making spasmodic attempts to swing at Denowsky. Everyone was shouting. It was a bad moment, and the Doctor's intervention was well-timed. "Quiet!" he yelled until he finally got it. Then, very pompously, he announced that he would make a test. While all watched, he took two glasses. He dipped one into the jungle juice and filled it. Then he looked around and on the workbench he spotted a bottle of ink. He emptied this into the other glass. He held the two glasses up and alternately poured one into the other, as though preparing a bromo-seltzer. Then, in his best scientific manner, one eye screwed shut and his face impartial, he held the glasses up to the light. He had almost breathless attention as he studied them. Finally he put down the glasses and made a gesture like a baseball umpire signaling a runner safe. "It's okay," he announced authoritatively; "the test is negative."
The decision was greeted with cheers; the acquitted man Denowsky was pounded on the back, and Wiley, released from restraint, promptly made another lunge at him. Finall
y Wiley was placated and the party resumed. It grew in size and in volume. It was depleted by one when Vanessi passed out quietly and was removed to the passageway, but then it soon acquired
Dolan, the quartermaster, and Morris, the signalman, and Ringgold, and two other first division men.
It was no longer possible to move from one end of the armory to the other. The party divided into several autonomous groups. One, with Wiley and Schaffer, sat on the deck in a corner and sang a new set of lyrics to "On, Wisconsin." The new lyrics consisted solely of a popular and colloquial four-letter verb or noun chanted over and over. Kalinka was the center of the little group in the opposite corner. Kalinka had been demonstrating the process of placing one's leg behind one's head; now his leg was locked behind his head and he couldn't get it down. It didn't seem to bother him, though; and in truth he didn't seem aware of it. He just sat on the deck and talked with a drink in his hand. A third group gathered around the Doctor and tried to convince him that they were deserving cases for medical discharge.
It was about this time the Doc decided that the punch was getting flat. He said it needed more alcohol and he said he knew where there was some if Olson could get him a hack-saw. Olson managed that right away, and the Doc said, "Come on!" Wiley went along and very furtively the three went to the medical storeroom and with much sweating effort sawed away the hinge of the lock. With a high sense of achievement they removed another quart. The Doc had the keys in his pocket, but he had evidently forgotten this. Only an equal forgetfulness on the part of the other two, or a rare sense of honor, saved the vulnerable alcohol locker from further and serious depletion that night.
Ringgold was the first casualty. Stefanowski had invented a game which became instantaneously popular. He would pour benzine on a trash-can full of oily rags, ignite the can, and step back while everyone else ran to the washbasin and drew water and threw it on the fire. They would fill whatever was at hand—glasses, helmets, a Silex bowl—and they would throw the water in the general direction of the fire while shouting such things as, "Here comes old Hook and Ladder Number Three!" Pretty soon there was an inch of water on the deck. Stefanowski built some splendid soaring fires, and the game would probably have gone on for a long time if Ringgold hadn't been hit in the back of the neck by a heave of scalding water.
Stefanowski's game converted him to a full-fledged pyromaniac. When a little later, Dowdy started forward to the head, he followed down the passageway a trail of three blazing trash-baskets. He located Stefanowski in the compartment, sitting on the deck beside his bunk, busily soaking his pillow with benzine. Dowdy raised Stefanowski's head to sufficient height, and held it in position with one hand while the other landed a sturdy uppercut. He placed Stefanowski in his bunk and went away with the bottle of benzine.
It was about two o'clock when it came to Ensign Pulver that he could walk on water. He announced his discovery to the party, and some believed him and some didn't. It was decided that he should demonstrate. The whole party, less Kalinka and Morris, who stayed with him, surged up to the quarterdeck. They stood at the rail while Pulver walked down to the foot of the gangway and stepped off as casually as from a curb. There was a strong current running, and although Pulver threshed energetically he was slipping rapidly astern. Denowsky decided that Pulver was drowning, and he climbed over the rail and jumped twenty feet into the water to save him. Both of them would probably have been swept out to sea if Stevens, the gangway watch, had not also been a qualified coxswain and an alert boy. Stevens scurried down the jacob's ladder into the LCVP tied alongside, started it up and went after the two. He had quite a time rounding them up. Although Pulver lay sprawled across the stern sheets, Denowsky for a long time insisted that he had drowned and wouldn't get out of the water.
When the two swimmers were finally laid out on the quarterdeck, Lieutenant Roberts left the party. He left it in heated discussion as to whether artificial respiration should be applied to Pulver and Denowsky, who lay on their backs and participated in the debate. Roberts slipped up the ladder and made it safely to his room. Although he was far from sober, he did two very wise and practical things: he locked the door and he set his alarm clock for six-thirty.
The wisdom of the first was demonstrated a few minutes later when there came loud voices and vigorous pounding on his door. Roberts kept quiet and finally the visitors went away.
He had set the early alarm because, although he was not at his most acute, it was clear to him that there would be unpleasant repercussions from the party. Roberts thought it entirely possible that the Captain might seek to identify him with the night's doings, and might further seek to detain him for a few days or a few months. Roberts was going to get away before the Captain got up.
The wisdom of this decision was emphasized not so very much later. Roberts had just fallen asleep when he was awakened by a crashing noise. At the time, he thought it the report of a five-inch gun, although he supposed it could be a bomb. He was not disposed to be curious, and he went back to sleep; very grateful that he was in bed with the door locked.
At six-thirty the clatter of the alarm was horrible.
Roberts heard it and awoke, and it seemed to him inconceivable that he could ever move again. His head was one great pounding agony and his stomach was so raw he thought it exposed. But as he lay in bed he recalled what was at stake; and finally, slowly, and with an awful dragging care, he got up. Slowly he dressed and slowly he walked down to the wardroom. There he drank a glass of orange juice and asked Jackson, the steward's mate, to bring down his gear. He took paper and scribbled little notes to Pulver and the Doc and Ed Pauley and Mr. LeSueur. It was seven-fifteen when he went out .to the officer-of-the- deck to request a boat.
Ensign Moulton had the deck and he clarified the matter of the explosion. It seemed that the party, at the Doc's suggestion, had decided to hold loading drill on the five-inch gun. There were dummy shells back there, and the drill had gone along uneventfully until some loader with a passion for realism introduced a live shell from the ready box. Some other realist pulled the lanyard on the firing pin. The shell had grazed the top of the mast of a ship half a mile astern and had dropped, it was hoped, safely out to sea. Moulton added that there would probably be all kinds of hell raised by the Captain and by the island commander.
Roberts thought so, too, and he was glad when the boat came around. He shook hands with Moulton, asked him to say good-bye to everyone, and got aboard. It was a fifteen-minute boat ride over to the tanker, and all the way Roberts sat in the stern sheets with his head in his hands and tried desperately not to be sick. It occurred to him that he should feel some emotion at leaving the Reluctant, but beyond his own physical misery there wasn't a thing. He didn't even look back. When he got to the tanker and stood at the head of the gangway, he did turn around to look for the ship which had been his existence and his despair for two and a half years. But in the forest of distant masts he couldn't even be certain which one it was.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There was a phrase, "magnetic personality," which, through the blurring and misuse common to our language, has come to designate any person sufficiently noisy at a party to compel attention. Even used with discipline, the term is inadequate, but still and all, it is valid. There are people of wonderful conductivity who draw rather than repel the tenuous and tentative approaches that we call human relationships, and through whom, as through a nerve center, run the freely extended threads of many lives. The plotted lives of most of us would show as lonely, atomic dots connected by a few wavering and accidental lines; while people of this special quality would emerge as the exact and inevitable intersection of a whole complex of sighted lines. The quality that they possess is not an aggressive one, not a conscious one, and it can never be one acquired. It is native and inescapable and may even be unwelcome to its inheritor. It admits of greater loneliness than is commonly thought possible. It is completely inaccessible to analysis, and about all you can say of its composition is that pe
rhaps it has to do with "life force," a concept equally nebulous. This quality of attraction and cohesiveness is, like most inelfables, best observed in its own void: when its possessor leaves a group of which he was a unit, he invariably depletes it by much more than one unit. Often his absence will mean the dissolution of the group.
Lieutenant Roberts was that sort of person, and dissolution is what happened when he left the Reluctant. In a very real sense, he had held the ship together. Awakening to the prospect of each toneless and reiterated day, every man on the ship took some degree of sustenance from the simple awareness that Roberts was aboard. Even the engineers, who hadn't cause to know him, would invent oblique ways to talk with him. In a curious way he ministered to and filled a great collective lack. Perhaps it was that an intensity sufficient for the allotted threescore years and ten was compressed into his short life. At any rate, he had that power. He was friendly, but not aggressively so, and he worked hard and was often tired, and when he was tired he could be very sharp and sarcastic. He had a desperate humor, and he had great tolerance and, probably, much humility. The crew members impose?! on him outrageously with their demands for his talk, his time, his counsel. He held the ship together as a magnet holds filings, and when he left, the filings fell into clustered and undirected confusion.
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