The Last Ship (4 page)

“Entirely, sir. My fault altogether. I was out of line, sir.”

“Embark the men, Mr. Thurlow.”

We came up to where they were waiting at the boat. They stood in a desultory silence, their eyes ranging slowly back and forth over the island. I looked down the beach at our many footprints, winding away and out of sight, violations of the chaste sand.

“Do you think men have been here before, Captain?”

I turned, somehow startled. It was Barker, seaman apprentice, coxswain striker, only eighteen, a boy from Texas, literally the last hand, joining the ship in Norway straight out of boot camp at Great Lakes; had not, before coming aboard, even set eyes on the sea; lean and supple of body, tall, in any other society but that of sailors to be considered almost wondrously handsome, radiating an exceptional air of innocence. The question was almost as if, had they not been, how could they intend to be here now?

“If they were, it was a long time ago, Billy.” He was the one hand aboard everyone called by his Christian name, seeming that boyish, that young: nonetheless already on his way to becoming a fine seaman. My hand touched his shoulder, dropped. A gesture I would once not have made. “But—maybe it’s us—wherever there’s land somebody has to be first.”

He spoke almost shyly. “Yes, sir. I guess that’s so.”

I followed the men into the boat and we made for the ship. She rose gray and gallant beyond the blue-green lagoon, lean and alert, seeming to strain against the leash of her anchor, as if telling us that she was ready to up anchor on a moment’s notice. It was not so. The most brutal fact of all: so little fuel left. Still, she has done her job, I thought. She had brought us here, nearly a hundred degrees in latitude, from the frigid Barents to tropical seas, to all appearances sound in body and mind, if near, possibly, certain edges. Now I had to do mine.

All the rest of the day long, to the last of dusk, I kept the boats going back and forth from ship to shore, in a kind of series of liberty parties, such as they were, so that all hands could touch down on the island for an hour or so. So that all could feel the spectral, unreal thing 1 had felt: Land under our feet after four months on the oceans with only the decks of the USS
Nathan James,
DDG 80, guided missile destroyer, first of her class, beneath us. I stood watching the boats; stood looking, studying, in profound concentration, the stranger island, its plaintive scents drifting across to me, as if it should somehow be about to speak some counsel into my ears, saying either “Come and see” or “Stay away from me.” The one or the other. Knowing that it would say neither, holding steadfast to its impregnable air of mystery; knowing that the answer could come only from where answers always must in a ship off soundings—from within a captain’s secret all-lonely soul. Yet feeling surely it must be the former, how could it be otherwise: Remembering that moment when Lieutenant (jg) Selmon, gone ashore all alone with his instruments, staying overlong to make sure beyond all doubt of his findings, had finally returned, climbed the accommodation ladder to the quarterdeck where I stood awaiting him, and spoken in his quiet manner that imprimatur that took us a while even to comprehend before belief set in: “Captain, the island is uncontaminated.”

I: Morning

T
he memory so seared in my soul as to have become forever a part of me, as deep scars leave their rubrics upon the body; occasionally coming upon me suddenly, at unexpected times, but coming without fail at night, as ritualistically as the prayers children say on their knees before tumbling into bed; the very act of turning into my bunk presenting me with the terrible vision, clear as on a slide-viewer, of those four boats disappearing over the western horizon, swallowed up by the sea: 109 shipmates, two of these women, in a desperate, yes, in my view, fraudulent attempt to reach home, the mutiny led by an officer who I believed had deceived them. It was as if I had reached a compact with that remembrance to allow it its two minutes or so of daily reenactment if it then would allow me to find sleep; or perhaps a ship’s captain’s special knowledge that to permit it more was to surrender to it yet another victim, making it impossible for me to command. The tenacity of the memory was not altogether a negative thing, for it constituted also a warning that kept forever alert an absolute resolve on my part, exceeding all others, that it should never happen again with this of my ship’s company that remained; the memory rendering the further service of causing me to bear indelibly in mind that grim truth I had so imprudently, in an almost criminal negligence, let slide before: most mutinies are led by officers.

 *  *  * 

Nothing is more deadly to a ship’s company’s confidence in its captain than undue hesitation or procrastination. Thus well I knew the urgency of making my initial will concerning the island known, quickly, decisively, for any trepidations could only build and fester if the captain were seen as irresolute. The island’s first reconnoitering had implanted a cautious hope. I felt the prudence of a second appraisal. For that purpose I had sent Gunner’s Mate Delaney off, accompanied by Lieutenant Thurlow, in the early morning for a final assay of the grassy plateau. Since sea as well as land must prove fecund for us, Silva also I sent forth, seaward in a boat long before daybreak. One thing more. I determined that it was insistent that I take an exact and meticulous inventory of the ship as of this our moment of crossover. Delaney and Silva not being due back until noonday or beyond with their findings, I began on this matter.

To assist me in the first part of the task I would require Lieutenant Girard, my supply officer, and the lieutenant’s efficient if somewhat free-mouthed deputy, Storekeeper First Class Talley, and had so alerted them the night before. The three of us started on the task at 0600, when light was just appearing from beyond the east’s horizon, casting its halo of rose over the dark island which sat impassively awaiting our decision. Not until the sun had reached its blazing zenith, six hours later, did we complete the grim labor of tabulating what we had brought out with us, to last us for—how long?

 *  *  * 

When the Navy not long ago first commenced assigning a few women to ships, I felt it to be one of those incalculable fundamental errors that seem to be made only by civilizations in decline, a lapse profound and past comprehension in both the most elementary morality and judgment. The idea that we should take these embodiments—harbors, repositories—of all that is gentle and of final value in life, and God and Nature’s chosen instrument for the species’ very survival, and place them where they would be caught up in the ancient rough-and-tumble of shipboard existence, where peril was one’s daily bread, indeed where they might be maimed or slaughtered, and this act based on the concept that equality consisted in women doing exactly what men do: this seemed to me wicked to the point of malignancy, an abomination in the sight of the Lord and of pure reason, and a consummate fraud pulled off on half the human race by their own kind, abetted by a number of men masquerading as their champions. Besides these lofty moral considerations there lay a practical one. To add to the already immensely complex daily burden of operating a fighting ship a required ship’s company mixture of female and male appeared to many of us charged with the task an aberration little short of madness, comparable to putting ammunition stores alongside engine-room boilers. There was even this: any true sailor has learned long since the first lesson of the sea: never trifle with it, lest it turn on you. The sea is a tyrannical place, ruthlessly unforgiving of man’s frailties and miscalculations. I was not at all certain but that it might look upon this novelty—women aboard warships—as some kind of personal affront, a violation of the natural order, an act of hubris, an insolent challenge let loose upon its domain, not to be tolerated: and in its Olympian wrath in some fashion exact the terrible toll it never fails to levy for man’s arrogance toward it.

However, since the deed was struck, I treated females, once they began to come aboard the
Nathan James,
exactly as I did the men and officers. If equality was what they wanted, equality I would give them. I was not prepared further to insult them by setting for them standards lower than those I enjoined on my other sailors.

I never changed a particle in my view that the placement of women on men-of-war was a fallacy grave in the extreme. In particular, all my ethical reasons against doing so stood. But, that aside, I must in fairness say that, where practical matters are concerned, it worked out considerably better than I had foreseen. The doom and gloom predicted by many Navy men, myself among them, for ships with “mixed crews” was not forthcoming. Certainly not on my ship, or on any ship of which I had knowledge. For, I believe, a number of reasons. To start with: As it is true, by a process akin to natural selection, that the very best men and officers in the Navy make certain that they go to sea while the worst just as diligently seek out a “dry” career, earnestly managing never to set foot off the land onto blue waters—an odd, forever incomprehensible sort of sailor to my mind—such was true also of the women when the Navy began to send a certain number of these to sea. We got the best.

 *  *  * 

Our stores relating to keeping the body well-functioning fell, I calculated, into these groups and in order of importance: first, food, canned, bulked, and refrigerated; second, clothing; third, medical supplies; fourth, toiletries and assorted incidentals. The first, second, and fourth were the charge of Lieutenant Girard, so we dealt with these. Medical stores I would inventory later with the ship’s doctor. It was my feeling that an on-hands inspection might suggest ways to cut down further, to conserve, and tell us more directly where it was urgent we do so.

Hunger: No greater enemy exists. If it was not upon us it clearly had appeared on the horizon. Starting in the reefer deck in the bottom of the ship, we entered the dry provisions storeroom, the large compartment housing our canned and freeze-dried foods. We stood for a few moments in sober contemplation of how little there was left. Then Girard began to call out the item and the number of cases remaining while Talley checked them on her clipboard: lima beans, peas, potatoes, spinach, others. Moving on to flour, sugar, rice, beans, in hundred-pound bags. From that compartment, down the passageway to the bank of chill boxes, these the most diminished of all. Girard sounded forth and Talley registered the few boxes of beef, slabs of bacon, and the rest.

“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.