The Last Ship (39 page)

“You should be up for your rating soon, Billy,” I said then. “How do you like Coxswain Meyer for a teacher?”

“Well, sir, she must be just about the best coxswain there is. I’m pretty lucky to have her, I reckon. Yes, sir. Also she’s . . . well, isn’t Coxswain Meyer fun though, sir?”

“Fun?” The word shot out before I had thought. It was the last I would have used to characterize Meyer. I could think of a few others. He must see her with different eyes. I looked out at the sea, peaceful under the stars. Perhaps he had not noticed. “Oh, indeed she is. A lot of fun.”

An hour or so later, Meyer. So diminutive, so slight alongside, I almost had to bend my head for conversation.

“Barker,” I said. “Is he going to be ready for his coxswain exams soon?”

She was cautious. “He’s coming along. But he needs some more work in approaching. Maybe when we put into port. Practice taking liberty parties ashore. Provided we anchor out rather than pier up.”

“Yes, that’ll help.”

As with Billy, I thought I would try something, and for the same reason, to help my thoughts.

“For example, some of those Pacific islands that haven’t got piers.”

“They would do just fine,” she said analytically, nothing of my intent registering on her. “He wouldn’t get any practice with the ship docked in Charleston Harbor. Or New York.” She gave a raucous little laugh. “Do you realize Barker has never even
seen
New York. A regular hayseed. Actually I don’t think he was ever out of Texas before he got in the Navy. Would you believe it? Eighteen years old and had never been out of
Texas,
for God’s sake. An absolute hayseed. But he’s not bad. At least he’s
teachable.
I’m bringing him along,” she said firmly.

“You grew up in New York?”

“Grew up in New York?” she said, as if it were a dumb thing to ask and anything to the contrary out of the question. She spoke in those feisty tones of hers. “Absolutely.”

She wasn’t through with Billy.

“Yep. Very immature in some ways. Would you believe it? Actually quoted something to me out of the Bible the other day.”

I smiled in the dark. “Are you serious?”

“I’d swear to God if I weren’t an atheist. But he’ll make a good coxswain—when I get through with him.”

“I’m sure he will, Meyer. When you get through with him.”

“I just wish he’d stop quoting the Bible to me. Well, Captain, I’m going below. Shut-eye time, you know.”

It was almost as if she were dismissing me.

“Of course, one mustn’t underrate Billy almost anywhere. You might want to ask him some time about
Jane Eyre.
”

Poker

Standing alone by the lifeline, mind searching always for something favorable, I thought of the reports we had been receiving steadily from
Pushkin;
proceeding off the coast of West Africa from Rabat as far south as Cap Blanc, finding no habitability, deciding then to come about and strike a course for Russian waters. Routine, but messages of reassurance where that virtue was in short supply, and they lifted me as I tracked her course: All went well with her. My reports back that thus far North Africa would not admit us and that we continued to stand toward Suez. Visualizing him surfaced to receive these. Something forgiving, somehow greatly comforting in the fact of another ship out there and of our two ships being able to feel each other out through the great imponderable; mind quietened by these thoughts.

So windless was the air as the
James
moved through the great continuing silence, so light her wake at the reduced speed I had ordered, that I could hear every word of the singing coming from the small group assembled on the fantail. It happens every night the weather is fair. Gathered around Porterfield and his guitar, assisted ofttimes by Gunner’s Mate Delaney and his fiddle, songs from the hills, hymns, songs Porterfield and Delaney grew up with; the gently pitched voices falling plaintively out over the Mediterranean . . .

Down in the valley,

The valley so low,

Hang your head over,

Hear the wind blow . . 
.

The voices of the men sailors blending with those of women sailors to Porterfield’s sweet guitar . . .

Hear the wind blow dear,

Hear the wind blow,

Hang your head over,

Hear the wind blow . 
. .

You would never think it to look at him, what an exceptional helmsman is Seaman Porterfield. He is tall and gangly and if you saw him moving around you might well deem him awkward, floppy as a bird dog. But once at that wheel, his lean and embracing figure bent over, almost cradling it as if cradling the ship herself and crooning to her a coaxing lullaby, his elongated and bony fingers moving over the spokes with the attuned precision and mutual understanding of a virtuoso of music and his instrument, immaculately synchronized to her every swerve and movement, his reflexes instantaneous: There he is all helmsman. The ship seems somehow to perform better for him, to respond with more alacrity to his ministrations, as if expressing a distinct preference for him over others aboard in the intimacy of ship and steersman; it is as though there was a special communion between them. I would want him there in any storm at sea, and in any tight maneuvering, and so he has been on countless occasions, in many seas. He is from Kentucky, out of the hills. There is a rather astonishing fact about Seaman Porterfield. He has been in the Navy five years. He has an intelligence well above the average, more than sufficient to take him into petty officer rating—most likely boatswain or quartermaster—and would long since have been there, probably at a level of first class and ready even to become a chief, since besides the ability to master a skill he is a natural leader of men. Then a strange thing happened, and one new to my Navy experience.

Porterfield one day requested an audience with me and stated calmly that he would prefer to remain a seaman. The reason given: He liked very much being a helmsman, steering the ship, which seamen do and thus at the point of becoming a petty officer an activity he would cease. It was a request so startling that I believe I would have rejected it on the spot but for one circumstance. We were on Barents duty at the time, and day after long day had been navigating waters as brutal as I had ever experienced. On watches with Porterfield, I had observed that there was something extraordinary about his helmsman’s work—a touch, a way, an uncanny anticipation of, sensitivity to, what the ship was about to do, that seemed to put him in a class by himself. He totally loved that particular job—steering the ship—in a manner that seemed to reach into realms of the mystical, some might say spiritual. The request annoyed, even angered me. I told him what it was my duty to tell him, and what I felt to be true, that for a sailor to remain in a seaman’s rating when everything about the Navy, and for his own welfare, had it that a man moved upward, was, for starters, plain stupid. “I know, sir,” he said quietly. “I know that.” And looked at me, saying no more. “I’ll think about it,” I said. “Meantime, for God’s sake, you can stay a seaman.” Neither of us ever brought the matter up again. There was one other rather odd aspect to Porterfield: For a man about to be ordained a minister of the Gospel suddenly to go into the Navy is an unusual thing.

There are few men I am more glad to have aboard than Seaman Porterfield. For reasons having nothing to do with his helmsman’s skills. He has become a mainstay. When I think of the times ahead, I find myself not infrequently thinking of him, in an expectation of something from him far beyond his rating and his steersman’s duties. There is about him the quality of an insidiously assuaging, easing, reassuring nature that affects the other men, brings them down to his own measured emotional temperature. There are people like that, rare in my experience, difficult of definition, whose very presence seems in some unexplained manner to calm men’s thoughts and actions, the very air; just as there are others who seem, and just as curiously, to agitate all of these things from the moment they enter a room. His being of the former category has already in some almost abstruse way been of high value in these times; and I foresee will be even more so in those to come. A quiet unobtrusive humor, an attunement to human feelings and thoughts of the moment that seems as precise as that to the ship’s helm, an unvoiced (for he never “preaches”) but infectious assumption that all things will come right—and with all this, in Porterfield’s case, a profound touch of the con.

Later that night I find myself standing by him at the lifeline midships, looking out at a tender waveless sea through which we glide without roll or pitch, sea and ship seeming caught up in some precise and sympathetic harmony with each other. Tonight’s fantail music session was over and lights-out near. We both, as sailors will for no particular reason unless it be for some kind of reassurance, looked up at the ship’s running lights. Still turned on at sunset as they had always been, eternal and silent voices of safety and of warning for any approaching ship, collision of ships at sea being the one occurrence never forgiven, never forgotten, marking both captains, and the vessels themselves, for the duration of their lives with the sea’s scarlet letter: How remote the ancient law now seemed, gazing at that starboard green, those shipless waters. Still, each night, we put on the running lights, out of habit, out of a persisting hope.

We stood looking across the barren waters unfolding all around us to far horizons, shimmering under the stars; stood alongside, the bond between us of the sea seeming to transcend any difference of rank. We had chatted a bit. Then our eyes, as if on command, in the manner of sailors before heading for sleep, jointly traced a parabola from the constellations down to the sea, as if bidding good-night to it, will see you tomorrow. I had half turned to go to my cabin when Porterfield spoke in the soft twang-drawl that always fell with an insinuating gentleness on the ear.

“Did you ever play poker, sir?”

“Poker? A little.”

“It’s a mighty fine game.”

“Yes, I’ve heard.”

I caught the mild throat-clearing. “Yes, sir, it’s a very
relaxing
game.”

It seemed we were to have a pre-slumber conversation about the many virtues of the game of poker. Not for a moment did any notion occur to me that it would be a casual one. Porterfield was a man of intentions.

“Very relaxing,” he murmured. “I’ve been thinking, sir.”

I was silent. He was perfectly capable of navigating his way through whatever it was.

“Wondering if the captain would mind if we started a little poker game, sir. A friendly game.”

I looked up at the stars, by old habit, just to make sure that they were about their proper business and where they should be, always searching out one or another of them, simply by whim, to certify the matter. In this case, Betelgeuse. He was, I was reassured to see, on station. The stars never fail us.

“What would be the purpose of this game, Porterfield?” I asked, still studying Betelgeuse. The drill requires that any such request be given its due consideration, without unseemly haste. Not to do so would only lessen its importance and make nobody happy.

“Well, sir . . . poker is a mighty relaxing game, Captain.”

“So you’ve said.” My eyes came down from the constellations and rested on the hushed seascape. “Men certainly need to relax.”

“Aye, sir,” the helmsman intoned soberly. “Relaxation does wonders for men.”

I thought to bring us away from these pious homilies with something more explicit. Besides, it was my turn.

“Did you play it at that seminary in Louisville?”

The helmsman was not thrown for a moment. “Sir, I’m glad you asked that,” he said in solemn tones that suggested we had arrived at a juncture of profound import. “It makes the exact point I’m trying to make here, sir. We did have a little friendly game now and then, we students for the ministry. Generally on Saturday nights.”

I turned and gave him an inquisitorial glance. He stood there tall and gawky in the moonlight. “Saturday nights? I should have thought you would have been burning the midnight oil, putting the finishing touches on your sermons. Saturday is right before Sunday.”

“Aye, sir, that it is. Myself, I know I always preached a shade better the next day—the Lord’s Day, that is—if I’d had a little poker game the night before. That’s how soothing that game is. Made no difference whether I’d won or lost. Of course, winnings went into the collection plate the next day.” He paused. He was a man scrupulous with facts. “Half did.”

“That was very commendable.”

“Actually the Scriptures only require a tenth.”

“I’m sure the Lord thought half a very generous division.”

“I hope so, sir,” he said.

He waited while we studied the sea.

“Aye, sir,” the steersman continued. “A mighty relaxing game. Nothing in the Bible against poker; leastways that I could ever find.”

“I imagine you know your Bible, Porterfield.”

“Well, sir, a man can always know it better. Did you ever find anything, Captain?”

“Find any what, Porterfield?”

“Anything in the Bible against poker.”

“Not in the King James Version,” I said.

“That’s the one I use, too, sir. Shame all those counterfeits came along.”

“I imagine you also know your poker.”

“Just average, sir,” Porterfield said. I had a feeling this would be far too modest an appraisal. I sensed a faraway look in his eyes. “But it’s a mighty lovely game.”

I gazed up at the heavens, back at the sea.

“The Bible—the King James Version, that is—might not have anything to say about poker,” I said. “But
Navy Regulations
does. Strictly forbids gambling. Are you aware of that article, Porterfield?”

“Aye, sir,” he said rather gloomily. I heard a cough. “Actually it’s the
Manual of the Judge Advocate General,
article one thirty-four.”

“Thank you for the correction, Porterfield.”

We both waited, both listening, with the second set of seaman’s ears, alert for anything out of the ordinary, heeding the gentle sureness of the ship sliding through the sea, the ship telling us by that sound that all was well with her. I had spoken as though the subject were closed. I heard the helmsman’s voice again beside me.