The Jonah Watch

Chapter 17

Howard was relieved from watch a half hour before Adrian closed Aphrodite, when Aphrodite’s lights lay like a dusty glow on the horizon. Radioman James came to relieve the watch and assume his contact station. His natural, pale, meager remoteness was overlaid by a pallor like a man who, having vomited all but that last resource, had taken to vomiting blood. Howard looked at James, muttered to him that Chappel was raring to eat someone. Howard prepared to leave the bridge.

“How bad is it?” James whispered.

“You sick?”

“I’m never sick. Never. You know that.”

“It’s bad.”

“They don’t deserve that,” James said. “It’s a lousy ship, but nobody deserves that.”

“I meant the other.”

“The other isn’t true.” James spoke with firm conviction. “Levere logged weather, so it’s weather. We all got to believe that.”

“You weren’t here.”

“Has there been a situation report?”

“Static. All I can tell you is that they’re still afloat.”

Howard left the bridge and headed for the messdeck. He passed the galley where Lamp wedged his huge bulk in a corner and built cold ham sandwiches. On the messdeck, hands not on watch were assembled and ready to take station. Third engineman Masters, as lanky as Wysczknowski, but with a face like an elf’s, looked up at Howard. He leered. Masters sat on the far, starboard side of the compartment. On some days, Masters appeared less grotesque than on others, or maybe it was that on some days he did not leer.

Men clustered on the damp, steaming messdeck. A few chewed on sandwiches, and the more adventurous attempted to drink rancid coffee from half-filled mugs; for even Lamp could not claim fresh coffee from that sea. Adrian rose in large and generous movements, coasting plumply down high, broad swells. The sea ran wide and huge. Shocks went through the ship each time it bottomed, and the half-full mugs spouted small brown geysers onto foul weather gear that was already soaked.

Men stared at the coffee-splashed surfaces of tables. They muttered to each other, a half-dozen private conversations. They seemed a collection of broken parts—a watch cap pulled over one man’s brows so that his eyes were dark sparks beneath the darker wool. An arm lay forward on a table, as if about to be chopped, the arm ending in a white clenched fist. Boots lay like dismembered feet, and a man’s back arched in a questioning line as he bent and whispered to a fellow. A leg, Masters’s, was contemptuously raised to plant a wet boot against a washed bulkhead, and streaks of dirty water ran down the clean white paint. Faces were halved by the huddled-together, half-dozen private conversations. There was no banter, no sarcasm, and men seemed to be isolating themselves from all but their most trusted chums. Brace, that nebulous part-time steward, part-time engineman, part-time seaman, sat alone and crouched, balled into himself in a far corner. He did not look like Amon, but he looked as Amon used to look just before crawling under a table.

Conally sat at the small table used by the bridge gang. Howard looked at Brace, then crossed the messdeck to sit with Conally. Footsteps sounded on the ladder and Glass appeared on the messdeck. He looked like he was casing a bank. He moved quietly to join Conally and Howard.

“Before you get started with your mouths,” Glass said, “I just wanta say that Racca is your basic dirty guy. I get along with him, but that’s what he is.”

“How is he?” Howard was startled, having forgotten his patient.

“A lousy busted arm. We musta had ten busted arms on this ship.”

“Well, ten busted somethings.”

“All mouth,” Glass said. “Did he break his mouth, we wouldn’t be having this.” Glass looked around the messdeck. He seemed like a citizen about to complain that you could never find a policeman when you wanted one.

“I ain’t Lamp,” Conally said, “but a guy can’t help it if he gets to thinkin’.”

“I’ve been on watch.”

“Racca’s passed the word,” said Glass. “Racca claims the kid Jonahed him into a bust arm, so the kid could get to the engine room.”

“Brace wasn’t anywhere near Racca.”

“And Racca says it makes no difference. All a Jonah’s got to do is be on board.”

“These guys don’t believe that. Nobody’s that dumb.” Howard looked about the messdeck as if he viewed the crew for the first time.

“No, but these guys are scared.”

“A guy does get to thinkin’.”

“You’re a bosun’s mate,” Glass said, “you’re not a pansy.” Glass stood, a sort of passion of indignation driving him to his feet. “Going on deck,” he said. “Up where the air’s only fulla water.” He could hardly have moved faster had he been making a getaway.

“I’d ought to book that punk,” said Conally. “Only probably he’s right.” Conally seemed lost in thought or dream. “Lost that flyer, got that bumboat, and the steward sent crazy over Jensen. Busted arm, ghost on the mudflats, ghost ahead-a the ship, and Jensen talking in the fog…” He stopped, looked at Howard, and Conally was a man who had tripped himself.

“He only grabbed me by the shoulder,” Howard said. “It really happened.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. I’m not Lamp, either. I know what happened.”

“He said look out for ice.” Conally looked around the messdeck, bent forward like a conspirator. “Said, ‘Ice—look out or you’ll lose’, an’ that’s all he said.”

“You’re sure it was Jensen?”

“Chum, do fish swim?”

Brace huddled, seemed entranced by Masters’s dirty boot plunked against the bulkhead that Brace had scrubbed so many times. Brace’s face was white with either fear or anger. As Conally and Howard watched, anger moved ahead of fear. A flush came to Brace’s cheeks. His forehead wrinkled, and his eyes narrowed with the kind of joy men feel when they are about to beat one offender or another into the deck. Brace stood, his way blocked by men sitting at the table. He shook his head like a punchy hearing bells.

“Lemme past,” he said. “I’ve had enough of this.” He pushed the man next to him, and that man was Wysczknowski. Wysczknowski looked up, saw the flush across the pale face.

“You got a right to try,” he told Brace, “but you try it on the end of a pier, not on this ship.”

“Let the Jonah past,” Masters said. “Let’s see who can break what.” He began to rise, but before he rose, he deliberately dragged the boot down the bulkhead.

Wysczknowski shook his head in a sort of sad amazement. “You just made a nice piece of work for yourself, chum. When we pick up this tow, then you clean that mess. If you don’t get it clean enough, you’ll paint it.”

Conally tapped Howard. “Get ready to get into this.” The two men stood.

From forward a hatch boomed, a dog slammed and Dane’s voice rumbled like engines. He called all hands to station. Conally and Howard stopped, paused, and Wysczknowski looked at Brace as if Brace was a circus poodle wearing a bow, a pink one. Brace stood in a futility of frustration as men reached for their gear and staggered forward to the ladder like soldiers making a stumbling attack across a plowed field. Brace looked at his clenched fists, caught his balance against a bulkhead, looked at the dark, dirty stain where Masters’s foot had rested. He looked back at his fists as if they were pistols that had misfired. His fists unfolded into hands, and his hands trembled from a supply of adrenaline that had nowhere to go.

“I haven’t got a station,” he muttered to Wysczknowski. “I don’t know who I’m working for.”

“In that case you’re working for me,” Conally told him. “Get crackin’.” Conally spun away and up the ladder. Howard headed for the medical locker. Brace followed, shrugging into his tarred and patched foul weather jacket.

Aphrodite lay stern to the sea. A captain who had worked miracles in keeping the thing alive was working a little practical magic. With pumps meeting the leak, but not overcoming it, and with an engine running high and bearing a load for which it was not designed, Aphrodite’s crew of two deckhands and an engineman shifted everything moveable to starboard. The vessel’s owner, who in later years would tire of buying senators and arrange to become one (his colleagues—having made their own arrangements—then calling him an honorable man), huddled life-jacketed and chattering in the wheelhouse, like a baboon that fears it will be robbed of a cookie.

The yacht lay head down as it backed into the swell. Floodlights cast nebulous pools to illuminate its narrow deck. The tall masts rose into darkness, and here and there, rigging that had been blown or cut away snapped, flapped, made near ghostly movements in the dark. The floodlights turned the surrounding sea blacker. The waterlogged bow was like a dull club as the thing slid into the trough. At each crash the bow dipped. Water swirled at the rails, crossed the forward deck beneath the lights in foaming currents, white, threatening, and eerie. Then, the reversing propeller extracted the bow from the sea as the stern lifted. The yacht heeled to starboard, and Howard, arriving on deck, did not at first see how that could reasonably be so.

“Runnin’ on his port tank,” Conally said. “Trying to shift weight to starboard so’s to lift the leak.”

“What’s the word? Do we tow?”

“Pump if we can. Send a pump across. Maybe try to patch.”

Floodlights along Adrian’s deck and on the boat deck turned men into postlike figures of brilliance and shadow. The crew stood along the rail. From the darkened bridge shone the small glimmer of the chart light and the green glow from instruments. The radio threw static, blanked as Levere spoke to Aphrodite; then came static, and the clear answer from Aphrodite. Dane stood like a blot before the starboard running light, his head haloed in green. Brace stood beside Conally. He seemed both intimidated and defiant. Mutters from forward mentioned Brace. The mutters were deliberately pitched so that they could be heard along the rail, but not on the bridge. The sea rolled, dark, huge, cold and indifferent. Dane moved, disappeared into the dark bridge. A buzzer sounded from the engine room.

“Whatever we’re going to do, we’re doin’ it,” said Conally. He looked across the water at Aphrodite, at the churning white water washing the bow. Through the open hatch sounded the light, quick footsteps of Snow as he mounted the ladder from the engine room. Snow appeared on deck, tapped Wysczknowski. “Relieve me on the board.”

Wysczknowski moved, light and shadow, disappearing through the hatch like a man swallowed, gulped beneath a surface of steel.

“Boat crew,” Dane bawled. “Get crackin’.” He swung from the wing and stormed toward the boat deck.

Snow tapped Fallon. “Let us have a submersible and an engine to the boat deck.”

“This is nuts,” said Howard.

“Naw. Sea’s high, but there ain’t no wind, much.” Conally hesitated, and it was certain that Conally did not know whether he spoke the truth or not. “Do me a favor. Get over there and fend off. Don’t leave it to some other guy.”

Fallon turned to Masters and McClean. “You heard the man.”

“I heard,” said Masters. “It’s Jensen all over again.”

McClean stepped forward, stepped back, finally got himself moving. “Lord, sweet Jesus. This one here’s a pickle. This one here’s a cob.”

Masters stood and watched him go.

“You want a busted head,” said Fallon.

“That’s how this ship gets run. Always bustin’ somebody.” Masters moved, just fast enough that he could not exactly be criticized.

The redheaded Rodgers and bosun striker Joyce stood beside the small boat like convicts about to be hanged. Dane worked on the boat, stripping the cover, and Conally, arriving, stripped the stays. “Take the deck,” he hollered at Joyce. “We’re taking along some snipes.”

Snow tapped Rodgers. “You stay aboard also, lad. The black gang must earn its living.”

Fallon stepped forward.

“You are presently the senior engineer,” Snow told him. “Stand down.”

Fallon mumbled, looked relieved, looked guilty. Glass tumbled into the boat. Fallon turned to see McClean and Masters struggling forward with the gear. The boat was ready, and Dane, Conally and Glass sat hunched, hands steadying against the falls. Snow turned to Joyce. He pointed at McClean and Masters. “Which man is the better oar?”

Bosun striker Joyce blinked, nearly cringed. It was the first time his professional judgment had ever been consulted.

“They ain’t neither of them amounts to a seaman, but I never saw Masters catch a crab.”

“Nor ever will,” said Masters. “Especially not tonight.” He stood above Snow, edging sideways and managing to cringe from Dane at the same time. He half raised his hands in either protest or defense. “It’s Jensen,” he said, helpless, a near whine. “Jensen.”

“I have no time to deal with you.”

“I’ll go.” Brace stepped toward the boat, and he did not step timidly. He turned to face Snow. “I’ve got nothing going for me aboard this pig iron, anyway. Have I?” He swung back, climbed into the boat. “Get the gear up here.” He leaned forward to hoist the pump, then the engine. “Later,” he told Masters. “Your boot down your throat.”

“If you girls is done gossiping,” said Dane, and he began roaring. If Dane spoke words, no one understood them in an exact way, but in a general way they could have been understood as far off as Boston. Men tended lines. The boat lowered as Howard ran to the main deck and fended off. As the boat reached the rail, Snow spoke mildly to Dane, as though they were not about to set down on swells that ran towering above the bridge.

Adrian climbed the seas, rode the tops of swells, and then dropped with alarming speed into the troughs. The small boat hung like a white shiver of Joyce’s fear as he took charge of the deck. To lower the boat at the bottom of the trough would splash it, rising faster than the ship. To lower at the top would allow the ship to run faster than the boat. Either maneuver could haul it beneath the swell, or throw it upward crashing into the davits. Joyce waited for the front side of a swell.

“Now.”

“Unhooked forward.”

“Unhooked aft.”

“Hump it. Hump it.”

Adrian rolled, seemed to devour the boat in shadow, and then the white flash of the thing escaped to stern, oars flailing like arms of the drowning.

Howard ran up the ladder, aft, watching the boat. He saw shapes of men leaving the boat deck. He nearly tripped over Joyce who half knelt against a chain.

“You did good,” Howard told him.

“Just lea’ me alone.” Joyce made sounds in his throat, his belly. He leaned forward on hands and knees, vomiting.

“You need a hand?”

“I’ll hose it down,” Joyce said. “Only don’t never tell nobody, will ya.”

Adrian worked to starboard as Levere came nearly cross sea to make a lee. The roll returned in a head-snapping shuffle down the swells that made the mast sing like a stringed instrument. The boat appeared, disappeared, appeared. The oars were steady. If Brace was pulling like supercargo, it could only be because he was intent on not crabbing his oar. Above the crash of water, Dane’s voice set the stroke and made comments about potlickers.

Howard dusted at himself, like a man on the plains and not at sea. He had a watch list that needed revamping. He made his way to the bridge.

Chappel stood, horse-headed and silent. Levere stood on the port wing, while Majors spun the helm. Chappel looked at Howard. “I should not have spoken as I did, earlier. We’ll discuss it later.”

Radioman James looked at Howard, looked miserable. He motioned Howard to the wing.

“They got casualties,” he said. “Two on Able and one on Abner. I don’t hardly know what to say.”

Howard stood, someplace between wonderment and fear.

“A’ course, they won’t say much on the box,” James said. “Except—you know how you can read that Diamond?”

Howard nodded, dumb, and now truly in fear.

“Because he’s a dago, probably,” James explained. “Emotional.” He paused. Helpless. “Two of them got bad burns on Able. Your friend Wilson… don’t give it any hope, no hope a’tall. I read that Diamond’s voice.”