by John Boyd
Again Hansen shook his head, reached over, and dialed home. Helga answered in a voice still heavy with sleep, “Hi, Ben.”
“Helga, I intended to call to finalize our luncheon arrangement, but strange things have been happening—Frank Hewitt was cashiered, and Ralph Johnson committed suicide last night.”
“Frank I understand, but do you mean Anne’s husband. Ralph?”
“Yes. We were talking about him last night.”
“You were talking about him, Ben. I was talking about Ben Jonson… So, Ralph killed himself. Well, he must have wanted it.”
“He didn’t want it. He came home after eighteen months at sea and found Anne pregnant. The shock did it.”
“I suppose Anne will be able to support the child on Ralph’s pension.”
“That’s true, Helga, and that’s the irony of it. She kills him and collects his pension.”
“You said he killed himself.” Helga was obviously still half asleep.
“Yes, but morally she’s responsible. Through her infidelity the Navy has lost an officer it took tens of thousands of dollars to train.”
“Training for what, Ben?”
“To navigate a ship. Eventually to command.”
“Doesn’t the Chattahoochee have one of those little black boxes ? What do you call it, an inertial navigation device?”
“Yes.”
“They cost about six thousand dollars installed, don’t they?”
“In round figures, yes.”
“Ben, I’ll never understand why the Navy spends so much money to train a man to do what a little black box can do.”
“Instruments break down, Helga.”
“You still have the box, Ben. The man broke down.”
There seemed to be an element missing in her conversation. “Dear, you can’t put a money value on a man’s life.”
“I didn’t, Ben. You did. I was recapping your figures.”
She had him there, he had to admit. “I’m upset, Helga.”
“I know, Ben.” Her voice grew suddenly tender. “You were seeking certainties in this, our life. Well, Ralph found his. I’ll arrange for the flowers and go over and help Anne.”
“Then you won’t be aboard for lunch?”
“I don’t think it would be proper. You men will want to be alone with your grief.”
“Helga, there’s nothing I don’t wish to share with you and Joan Paula…” He could feel himself swinging closer to her, feel the beginning warmth of their old intimacy, when the base telephone operator broke into his call.
“Captain Hansen, I have a top-priority call awaiting you from the Pentagon.”
A true Navy wife, Helga heard the operator and hung up promptly.
It was Harvey Arnold. “Ben, I just got the word! Admiral Darnell wants the whole scoop on Chief McCormick—service record, medical log, the works. He’s calling the Norfolk base infirmary to put an analyst on standby, but he wants you, personally, to check out the chief’s story, make sure it’s more than just scuttlebutt…”
“Harvey, doesn’t the admiral consider it below the dignity of a captain to check on…”
“Ben, if McCormick won’t tell his captain the truth, who will he tell? There’s something big breaking here, top priority and top secret, because I don’t know what the hell’s going on, myself. Ring me back, Ben, when you get the scoop.”
“Very well, Harvey. Over and out.”
It gave Hansen short-lived satisfaction to click first. Always it had been his pride as an officer to hoist “execute” promptly, but how did a captain in the United States Navy go about verifying the alleged carnal relations of a chief water tender? “Orderly,” he called, almost wearily, “bring me the service record and medical log on Chief Water Tender McCormick, and pass the word to the quarterdeck for the chief engineer to report to the captain.”
Before the engineering officer arrived, Hansen had read the service record of Angus Hull McCormick, CWT, a native of Cumberland, Tennessee, age thirty-seven, unmarried, with a high school education and nineteen years in the Navy. His medical log showed three venereal complaints. By far his greatest distinction was his proficiency in rating, an incredible 3.9. His military appearance also rated a 3.7.
Hansen laid the records aside when the chief engineer entered, but he did not invite him to sit. The engineer had oil on his dungarees. Besides, he used language suited only for the engine room or for the merchant navy from which he had transferred. Hansen didn’t care to prolong the engineer’s visit. “Chief, I’m trying to evaluate Chief Water Tender McCormick in nonprofessional areas. Does he tell the truth?”
“To my knowledge, Skipper.”
“There’s an article in the ship’s paper about him. Does he brag about his relations with women?”
“No, sir. The story comes from his running mate, Farrel. Those two have a standing bet on who gets first gash when they hit port, and, believe me. Captain, McCormick’s the champ.”
“Very well, Chief. Thank you.”
“Sorry I can’t be more help. Captain. I hit the beach, myself, last night, and I…”
“Chief, my interest in this matter is purely professional. I’m directing you to keep this conversation confidential.”
“Absolutely, Skipper. You can count on me!” It was the first time in his naval career that the captain had seen a leer put into a salute.
Before the captain had a chance to call McCormick, his orderly announced that Commander Morris Gresham wished an audience. Hansen rose to greet his unexpected caller, a commander in the medical corps, slight of build, with bulging brown eyes, a receding hairline on a receding forehead, and a receding chin which gave his pointed nose such prominence that his mustache merely altered his profile from molelike to seal-like.
He carried a briefcase.
“Good morning, Captain Hansen.” The voice was low and well-modulated. “I was free when Admiral Darnell called, and he tells me that you might have one of our profile boys aboard.”
Hansen felt himself strangling in a noose of unreality, but he managed a smile and a wave of the hand. “I’m not familiar with your shoptalk, Doctor, but please join me in a cup of coffee.”
“If you have tea, Captain.”
“By all means. Tea for the doctor, Marcos.”
Hansen turned back to his guest and said, “Have a seat, Doctor. I’ve checked McCormick’s service records. Care to look?”
“Indeed I would, Captain.” He was accepting the folders as he sat down, and when he hit the seat he was absorbed, oblivious to the arriving tea or the waiting captain. Once he paused, tapped his finger on the folder, and said, “Does that follow? Yes, it follows.”
Hansen considered the doctor’s unilateral dialogue undiplomatic in the presence of four stripes. He asked, “What is this profile business?”
Dr. Gresham lifted his eyes, blinked twice, and said, “A personality index profiling male attitudes toward females. We call it Lothario X.” His lids lowered and he was lost again.
When he wolf-whistled between his teeth, Hansen asked, “What’s this profile business all about?”
“I’m in the dark, myself. It’s a secret project that the Bureau of Medicine is working on with the Bureau of Personnel.” He paused. “The nonpsychological factors bug me.”
Obviously, the doctor was finding more in the service record than the captain had found. He would nod at times, in agreement with himself, tap the paper, and resume reading. “Wonderful! Wonderful! Breast feeding!”
“A nonpsychological factor?” Hansen inquired.
“Definitely psychological. No, he checks out in the nonpsych areas: age thirty-seven, native-born, bachelor, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, and he’s from Tennessee.”
“What does that mean, psychologically speaking?”
“Nothing. That’s what bugs me.” He closed the file, tapping it with his fingertip. “Freud would have a field day with this fellow.”
Hansen resented the term “fellow” for a Navy
hand. “How can you say that about a man you’ve never seen?”
Dr. Gresham tasted his cold tea, replaced the cup, folded his hands over his briefcase, and focused his eyes on the captain. “He’s a bachelor at thirty-seven, which evinces a latent hostility toward women as a compensation for an overly active Oedipal drive. This means he loved his mother but resented her relations with his father. Now, get the picture, Captain. When McCormick finds libidinal expression, symbolically he’s seducing his mother and thereby taking a backhanded swipe at his father.”
“His parents are dead,” Hansen reminded the doctor.
“Parents never die, Captain: We merely bury their bodies… So, McCormick’s made this marvelous adjustment on a sado-masochistic level; because incest is frowned upon by his Puritan ethic, he’s punishing himself. In short, he’s whipping and getting whipped, simultaneously.”
“Are you saying he’s abnormal. Doctor?”
“ ‘Abnormal’ is a loaded word. In the sense you use it, definitely not! McCormick is the super, all-time, ail-American boy. Now, take his job, water tender, down where those liquids drip, gurgle, and blurp—the genito-urinary tract of the ship. And he loves it. Notice that three point nine professional aptitude? But wait. Captain! He’s a water tender, not an oiler. Water’s the fluid of life, symbolically drawn from the breasts of Mother Earth. Remember, in all probability he was breast-fed, coming as he does from a mountain area. This points to a double drive, anal and oral, fixated on the sado-masochistic level. Incredible, Captain! Eros charged with the memories of mother love. Spanked at one end, fed at the other. The gamut. Imagine the richness, the texture, of this libido. For it, the act of love is nursing, punishment, revenge, sinning, expiation of sin, plus the job-oriented joy of blowing tubes. This libido has so many plus factors that it reaches spiritual levels of anal-oral eroticism and, heed my words. Captain…”
As commanding officer of a floating scientific laboratory, Hansen had known intellectuals, had learned to tolerate their enthusiasms, but this egghead was a hummer. His owl’s eyes glowed, and his mole’s nose twitched. Listening, Hansen felt sympathy for all landlubbers at sea on a raft in a hurricane.
“For this man, love is an apotheosis. He punishes sinners, particularly the authoritarian figure of his father, whom he subconsciously identifies with God, and the mother he loves. One who punishes God achieves brotherhood with God. Moreover, Captain, God is also fixated on a sadistic erotic level, spiritually speaking, and only He and McCormick punish sinners because they love them. Thus, McCormick becomes a saint in the boudoir. At the explosive moment when his libidinal urge is released, the marmoset soars on the wings of an eagle right into Abraham’s bosom.”
“He’s a Protestant,” the captain said.
“That’s the point. Captain. In this area, terms lose their meaning. McCormick’s experience cannot be defined in the lexicon of the sex psychologist. It is supercharged, hypercarbureted, sixteen-cylinder whoomph! What does he look like. Captain?”
“I don’t know.”
“Immaterial. He’s probably tall, rawboned, blue-eyed, possibly red-haired, with a protruding Adam’s apple.”
“We’ll find out… Orderly, pass the word for Chief Water Tender McCormick to lay up to the captain’s quarters, on the double.”
“We must beware of his sense of humor, Captain, because he has the subtle wit of an abstract reasoner.”
“How could you analyze his reasoning power?” Captain Hansen’s question was punctuated by the bosun’s whistle followed by the summons to McCormick.
“How did the orderly get to the quarterdeck so fast?” the doctor asked.
“He telephoned.”
“Ah, I see… McCormick’s reasoning power. He’s Anglo-Saxon, and abstract reasoning is the British national genius. Something to do with their fogs and mists. The French genius is for painting. In their brilliant sunlight, they respond to color and clarity of line. Anglo-Saxons are more literary minded. They breed the Shakespeares, the Miltons, the Johnsons…”
“Ben Jonson?”
“I was thinking more of Samuel Johnson… Your antecedents were Scandinavian, I take it. They have a dual national genius—for breeding and for sailing.”
“Then why are the Scandinavian countries underpopulated?” The man’s theorizing irritated the captain who barely restrained the harshness in his voice.
“Because they sailed away from their miserable lands to breed Normans, Englishmen, Scots, Turks. In Aleppo, once, I met a beautiful blonde, blue-eyed Levantine. Ah, such rapport…”
Sixteen cylinders were beginning to purr, but Hansen had no time for dalliance, past or present. “Doctor, I have to evaluate the truth in McCormick’s story, and McCormick didn’t tell the story.”
“That bothered me. Captain,” the doctor sprinted ahead. “Men such as McCormick ordinarily don’t boast. Well, the truth’s relative, anyway.”
“Yes, but I’ve got to get the facts.”
“Put him on his scout’s honor.”
“I’ll put him on his honor as an American bluejacket.” Hansen’s voice was harsh. “How long have you been in the Navy, Doctor?”
“About three months, sir. I had a large practice in Beverly Hills, but it dwindled away. All of a sudden, the women didn’t need psychiatrists anymore.”
That explained it—a Beverly Hills head shrinker. Hansen’s raft quit pitching, and the sea grew glassy until a lanky, red-haired man with a protruding Adam’s apple stepped through the door and said, “Chief McCormick reporting. Captain.”
CHAPTER 3
“At ease, Chief,” the captain said. “Dr. Gresham is here because the story in the ship’s paper attracted attention, shoreside.”
“Captain, I sure hope that little old girl wasn’t any Typhoid Mary.”
“No, Chief,” the doctor said, “the Navy’s having a personnel problem, and you may help us solve it.”
“I heard about it, sir. Are the women on strike, Commander?”
Gresham opened his briefcase. “That’s as good an answer as any.” He pulled out a pipe, a tobacco pouch, and a clipboard with a sheet of graph paper attached. “We think it’s a boycott as part of a woman’s peace movement. The Chinese missile threat seems to have frightened the ladies.” He thumbed the tobacco into the pipe. “We hope you can help us isolate elements which make up male sex appeal.” He lighted his match and sucked the flame into the bowl. Between interstices in the down-drawn flame, he said, “Now, Chief, I want to ask you a few questions in a sensitive area.” Gresham’s voice became low, resonant, comforting. “If it embarrasses you to have your captain present, I’m sure…”
“Doctor, I’d rather Captain Hansen hear. We’ve got some confused hands below, and I hear tell he’s got some confused officers. If I can help, I sure want to.”
“Then, be seated. Chief,” the doctor said. “Remember, even the most personal questions I ask are ultimately impersonal. We’re aiming at a general definition of a specific set of traits.”
“Commander, I’ll tell anything I know, but I don’t have no power over women. Sometimes it takes me as long as an hour and a half to get them persuaded, because I don’t fool with nothing but nice girls.”
“Then, how do you account for the three venereal complaints on your health record?”
“Doctor, I think three out of eight hundred and sixty-three girls, counting after puberty, speaks well for the decency of women all over the world.”
“Fantastic!” Dr. Gresham was losing his objectivity. “Were there any before puberty?”
“Might say I fungoed a few.”
Gresham jotted a point on his chart, looked up, and asked, abruptly, “Do you practice masturbation?”
By heavens, Hansen thought, they had not changed that question since he was a midshipman.
“You can call me either a liar or a pud puller, Doctor. You take your choice, sir.”
“Wonderful! Wonderful! What about your mother? Ever have a yen for her?”
> “No, sir. Ma was a little bony.”
Almost gleefully, the doctor made another quick jab at his chart. “When you are approached by a homosexual, do you resent his advances, welcome his advances, remain indifferent to his advances?”
“Well, that depends on the fruit, Doctor. Generally speaking, I’m friendly. I figure I might need a reserve supply someday.”
Listening with only half an ear. Captain Hansen felt that McCormick might be pulling the doctor’s leg, but there was an air of sincerity about the chief, and Hansen felt an affinity for this man who was pouring out his secrets to aid his comrades. However, the affinity was strained slightly near the close of the interview when McCormick started to come up with some theorizing in answer to the doctor’s more general questions.
“And when you’re talking to them, Doctor, concentrate on that little thing… Get them close to a piano playing bass notes.”
“Wonderful! Wonderful! Sympathetic vibrations.”
Hansen rose and went to the porthole, looking out as he tried to hit upon some method of verifying the chief’s story. Personally, he didn’t doubt it—the American woman had too much independence to join in a general boycott—but he could not officially testify on the ground of personal belief.
“Don’t sit like a Frenchman,” he heard the chief instruct an awed doctor, “with your kneecaps together, nor like an American with your legs crossed. Hold your knees about three feet apart, rest your arm over your leg so that your hand droops, like this. All lines draw attention to your crotch. Now, for dancing, we got the whore’s waltz. That’s a real twanger when you’re doing a tango.”
Well, the doctor had used frank language, himself, the captain mused, glancing at his watch, but he wished McCormick would belay the theories. He wanted to get the verification in before Captain Arnold was on the line asking for a report.
“Marvelous! Now, Chief, would you cross your legs as the Americans do?”
Gresham leaned down and pulled a small rubber mallet from his briefcase. “And pull your trouser leg above your knee. That’s right. Thank you.” He flicked the mallet and tapped beneath the chief’s kneecap. In response, the leg kicked slightly forward. “Fabulous!” the doctor chortled. “That’s called the Babinski reflex. If you don’t have that, you don’t have anything. Chief, you’ve got it.”