CHAPTER 19

Although Nathan had technically been removed from duty, he continued to decipher messages. Because Sparks could not copy the fast, brief reports which Nanmak sent in Morse code to Commander GreenPat, Nathan soon took to sneaking up to the radio shack to do so. If the captain guessed that this was going on, he did not object. The whole crew was bored with the Arluk’s slow passage through the ice from one port where the men were not allowed ashore to another, and they eagerly awaited information about the far more dramatic struggles of their sister ship, aboard which many of the men had friends.

Much of the news from the east coast of Greenland appeared to be mysterious. Several sources of German radio signals, some of which frequently moved, were often detected over an area of a thousand miles. No one was sure whether this meant the presence of many German ships, aircraft, shore stations or decoys of intricate design. Red paint streaks on the ice were not the only tangible evidence of the German presence. While following those tracks, the Nanmak picked up an empty bottle which had contained Polish vodka. The Germans, like the Americans, were usually careful to sink all trash in weighted sacks. Mowrey, however, apparently felt some guilt about empty booze bottles, and Paul had occasionally seen him sneak one over the side without bothering to weight or break it when he thought no one was looking. The possibility that some man aboard the German ship had a similar problem gave Paul a peculiar feeling. Like they said, war made strange bedfellows … and in strange ways.…

The ice floe was closer to shore and more tightly packed as the Arluk continued north on the west coast of Greenland. Mowrey soon hoped to reach a fjord almost exactly on the Arctic circle where a small air base was being built for emergency landings, but a narrow lead they were following suddenly closed around them and for the first time they were really stuck in the ice, unable to budge an inch in any direction.

“What do we do now?” Paul asked.

“Wait,” Mowrey said grimly. “This time of the year, it always breaks up sooner or later.”

The captain did not look well. He was pale and sweated a lot, even in the chill wind on the wing of the bridge. His hands sometimes shook so much that it was hard for him to handle the binoculars, and if possible, he grew more irritable every day. Even Guns and Boats, who had been his favorites, couldn’t do anything to please him.

Lying in his bunk in the wardroom, Nathan heard the captain’s voice rise almost to an hysterical pitch one afternoon when he found that a line which as an extra precaution was used to lash the depth charges in place when they were in ice had become loose and frayed.

“Guns, you’re about to blow us all up if you can’t learn to secure those charges properly,” Mowrey shouted. “Ice can knock them loose. In this stuff we couldn’t get out of their way. We’d be blown sky high.”

“Those charges are on safe, sir,” Guns replied. “They couldn’t—”

“Safe my ass! Don’t you try to tell me …”

On and on he raved. “Yale, come here. Put Guns on report. I want him restricted for thirty days for gross incompetence and insubordination.”

“Is the captain drinking much these days?” Nathan asked when Paul returned to the wardroom.

“A little, but I don’t think he has much left.”

“‘Has he got any left?”

“Cookie was bitching that he bummed some from him, and the crew is complaining that he’s dipping into some beer we’re supposed to be saving for them if they ever get ashore, but I think he’s almost dry. I think he’s trying to take himself off it. That’s probably what’s the matter with him.”

“He probably still has a few pints stashed here and there, but the bastard probably is trying to taper off. Does he have the sweats and the shakes?”

“Some.”

“I think you’re going to have a problem, Paul. When he really has to quit, he’ll be going through hell. He’s been drinking enough for the DT’s.”

“What will happen if he gets them?”

“Wildly erratic behavior, hallucinations, convulsions, maybe death.”

“Jesus Christ! He wants me to get some booze for him when we hit the next port. I hope I can.”

“Drugs can help him if he gets too bad. I checked the medical chest. There’s enough morphine there to last him a few days.”

“Do you think it will really come to that?”

“I don’t know. Alcoholics are unpredictable. Maybe he can sweat it out. I hope you can.”

When the ice pack finally freed them, they followed more narrow leads which led them around in a twenty-mile circle before they found open water. Mowrey spent much of his time shivering in his bunk, wrapped with blankets, despite the fact that a steam radiator kept his cabin stifling. When the tension within him became unbearable, he went to the hold, opened a case of beer and sat gulping the stuff in the dark until he calmed down. When he felt weak, he was almost embarrassingly complimentary to Paul, calling him the fastest learner he had ever met, promising to give him the best possible fitness report and a letter of commendation as well. When he felt strengthened by a dozen cans of beer, however, he often turned on Paul, sometimes with no excuse whatsoever. After watching Paul con the ship through the ice for an hour, he suddenly said, “Christ, I hate to think that you’re a Coast Guard officer.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t stand your looks. You look like a fucking little kid.”

“I guess time will take care of that.”

“A rich kid. Have you ever worked for a living in your life?”

“More than you think.”

“You look like a girl. I bet you fuck boys.”

Paul did not dignify this comment with an answer. Putting the binoculars to his eyes, he studied the ice ahead, where the pack curved out from the shore. Gulls flew overhead, dipping and wheeling with unexplained exuberance.

“Have you ever fucked a boy?” Mowrey persisted.

“For Christ’s sake, I’m married.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Call me anything you want, but I’m not a queer.”

“You’re not a real sailor either. You’ll never be one.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You don’t have the balls for it. You got no sea sense. And the men have no respect for you.”

“I’m sorry if that’s true.”

“How can they have confidence in a fucking baby chick?”

Paul was tempted to ask, “How can they have confidence in a drunk?” but he clamped his mouth shut and picked up the binoculars again. Apparently Mowrey read his mind. “I’m a ten times better sailor drunk than you are sober.”

“No doubt,” Paul replied, staring through the binoculars.

“You can butter me up all you want, but when it comes to your fitness report, I have to be honest.”

“No doubt.”

“If I give you a good report, they are liable to give you your own command. You couldn’t handle it.”

“Not yet.”

“Not ever.”

The enlisted men reacted to Mowrey’s stealing the beer being saved for a shore party by stealing it themselves. Perhaps Mowrey was muddled and guilty enough to think that he alone was emptying the big chest where the cases were kept. The screws in the hasp of the padlock were wobbly after having been taken in and out so often, but he did not seem to notice.

Yet Mowrey continued to be surprisingly effective when he was really needed. Four days before they reached the mouth of the fjord where the air base was being built, fog rolled in. They continued in the open sea until they figured that they were abreast of their destination, then headed into the ice pack, following any eastward lead. After turning and twisting for hours, Paul had no idea where he was. Occasionally the fog lifted a little, but there was nothing to see except icebergs and the reddish brown mountains, all of which seemed to look alike in the distance. The sun, the moon and the stars were all obscured in the haze overhead. For hours Mowrey stood on the flying bridge, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders to help keep off the wind.

“See that point of land broad on the starboard bow?” he asked Paul finally.

“Yes, sir. I’m not sure if it’s a point or a fog bank.”

“It’s a fog bank over a rocky point. Go around it and you’ll find the entrance to the fjord.”

“How can you tell?”

“Sea sense. You either got it or you ain’t. Can you take over now?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Mowrey went down to the hold, where he drank the last of the beer. The discovery that finally it was all gone almost panicked him, but he had held in reserve a bottle of pure alcohol from the medicine chest. That would keep him together until he reached the air base, where there was bound to be an officers’ club. He could get enough to drink there to last him until Paul found a source of major supply. The boy could do it, Mowrey was sure. He’d better.

While Paul worked the ship into the mouth of the fjord, Mowrey remained shivering in his bunk. The fjord itself was almost entirely clear of ice. On the chart Mowrey measured the distance, figuring that they had forty-eight miles to go to reach the base. After ordering the chief to give them all the power he could, he told Paul to call him when they reached the base. Downing the last of his medicinal alcohol, he settled into his bunk. It had been a near thing, but he had rationed the last drops of his booze exactly right.

The waterfront of the base under construction had few wharves, and those were crowded by big freighters and troop ships which had brought construction workers. The signal tower flashed a message to the Arluk, ordering her to anchor out in the fjord. When Paul told Mowrey this the captain jumped out of his bunk and studied the chart. “Christ, this isn’t a secure anchorage,” he said. “It’s too deep and no real holding ground.”

“The fathometer gives one-hundred-thirty feet,” Paul said. “We’ve got plenty of chain for that.”

“You won’t if you get a foehn wind,” Mowrey said. “Anchor, but stand sea watches. Lower the boat. I got business ashore.”

The launch had never before been used. It was a brand new motorboat twenty-five feet long, and Boats had kept its paint and varnish gleaming. Its two-cylinder gasoline engine refused to start, however. While two machinist’s mates worked on it, Mowrey paced the well deck cursing inefficiency, badly trained machinists, and especially Paul.

Finally the engine started. Mowrey leapt aboard, shouted for the coxswain, told the nearest seaman to get aboard and raced for the shore, not forgetting to make sure that the third repeater fluttered to the signal yard as soon as his feet left the deck of the ship. Taking the helm himself, he steered around the bow of a liberty ship and landed at a pontoon dock. Telling the men to stay by the boat, he hurried ashore. The first man he saw was a sentry standing at the gangway of a troop ship.

“Do you know where the officers’ club is?” Mowrey asked.

“Never been there, sir,” the man replied with a grin.

Mowrey charged up a muddy road that led up a steep hill. Quonset huts were everywhere, but few people were in sight. It took Mowrey a long time to locate the officers’ club, and when he did, he found that it was closed. A sign said that it would open at five o’clock. Mowrey, who had lost track of time, saw that his watch said it was a little after two o’clock. My God, it must be two o’clock in the morning, and that’s why the base seemed deserted. He walked around in a daze until he thought to ask directions to the chief petty officers’ club. This was a Quonset hut like the rest, but there were lights on in it. The door was locked, but it opened after he banged on it.

“We’re closed, chief,” a black steward’s mate said. “We’re just cleaning up.”

“I just got in here aboard a ship and I’m frozen to death,” Mowrey said. “I been standing watch all night. How about a drink?”

Zipping open his parka, he took out his wallet and gave the steward’s mate ten dollars.

“Well now, I guess we can accommodate you in an emergency,” the man said.

A chief steward’s mate and two others were drinking at the bar. The man who had admitted Mowrey asked what he wanted.

“A double scotch.”

“We ain’t allowed to serve doubles here,” the man said. He seemed to take a long while fussing with the bottle, the glass, and ice. Mowrey had left his parka on to conceal his rank and he was sweating profusely, despite the fact that he also had the shivers. His hand shook so badly that he had trouble getting another bill out of his wallet. The black steward’s mate took him all in at a glance.

“We got a law against doubles, but I don’t know no law against triples,” he said, and poured a highball glass half full of whiskey.

“Bless you,” Mowrey said fervently. “May the Lord be with you and with your spirit.”

The first swallow of the whiskey took the edge off the panic that had been building in him for days, and the first three swallows really began to dissolve it. His sweat stopped running and his hands steadied.

“I guess I’ll have another one of those,” he said. The steward’s mate had not taken his hand from the bottle.

Before leaving the ship Mowrey had tied a rubber hot water bottle from the medicine chest to a button of his uniform, leaving it hanging inside his coat. He had used this contrivance for this purpose many times before, and it was not difficult to pour every other drink into it. When he left the chief petty officers’ club two hours later, he had spent the fifty dollars in his wallet, but the hot water bottle was full and so was his belly. He walked back to the boat with confidence. One way or another, he would manage to leave this port with enough booze to last six months. Never again would he subject himself to the terrors of withdrawal. He felt as though he had just escaped from a sinking ship.

While the captain was ashore, the men aboard the Arluk complained bitterly about being kept aboard. The fjord was like a narrow mountain lake, with the water mirroring the clouds, and they could see no reason for standing sea watches at anchor here. When Mowrey finally returned, no one said a word as he climbed aboard. Flags lowered the third repeater and walked stonily to the forecastle.

Mowrey went to the bridge, sat on the stool by the wheel and lit a long cigar.

“Send Yale here,” he called to Boats.

“I’m here,” Paul said, coming from the wing of the bridge.

“I got three things for you to do when they open up ashore,” Mowrey said. “Talk to the harbor master and find a place to moor this ship, or at least a safe anchorage. That’s number one. Number two is find a way to buy beer for the men legally. Get them admitted to some enlisted men’s club in there, or at least find them a recreation field. They deserve some liberty.” He said this in a voice loud enough for the men on the gun deck to hear, and there was a loud cheer.

“Now come into my cabin,” Mowrey said.

He lay down in his bunk with his parka still on while Paul sat at the chart table.

“Let’s face it, we got to get some booze aboard here, at least four cases. We got a long voyage ahead of us, and when we’re done, we’ll probably be sent to the east coast to help Wally play tag with the Germans, from all I hear.”

“That seems possible.”

“I ain’t ashamed to admit it. I’m like a diesel engine—I can’t run without fuel. If anybody don’t like it, they can get themselves another ice pilot.”

“I understand.”

“How long will it take you to get four cases of booze? I mean the big cases with twenty-four bottles.”

“That will take money, sir, maybe seven thousand dollars or more.”

“I don’t have no money left, no more than I need myself. A smart man like you can find a way to promote some booze.”

“That may be almost impossible without money.”

“That’s up to you. Yale, today I’m going to write up two fitness reports on you and sign them both. One will send you to a supply depot in some godforsaken fjord and the other will get you a command of your own inside of a year, probably this ship when I move on. If you can’t come up with the fuel I need, I’ll transfer you with the bad report immediately. If you get the fuel, I’ll send the good one. If you’re that resourceful, you’ll deserve it. How about it? Is it a deal?”

“I don’t know, sir—”

“Isn’t your career worth four cases of booze, no matter what they cost?”

“You change your mind a lot, sir. I’m not sure I could count on you, even if I could get the booze.”

“I’ll give you your good report already signed. You can mail it yourself. I’d make a damn fool of myself if I tried to deny it. The comments will be written in my own hand.”

“That’s kind of you, sir. I have one more request.”

“What’s that?”

“Drop the charges against Mr. Green and give him a good report.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake! How can I drop charges that have already been logged?”

“Log books have often blown overboard, sir, especially from small ships in rough waters.”

“You son of a bitch, is that Sheenie doing something nice for you?”

“Sir, I’m going to need lots of money for the booze and I hope to get about half of it from him.”

“Why not all of it? God, you are smart. Sheenies always have money. Why didn’t I figure that?”

“Will you drop the charges and sign a good report on him?”

“How are we going to square the theft of all that booze if we’ve got no one to hang?”

“Report that we delivered it,” Paul said with a straight face.

“The Danes will deny that!”

“Nobody ever believes anybody when they talk about booze up here. Headquarters will forget the whole thing if we’re doing a good job at sea. They’re not going to drag a ship off the Greenland Patrol just to argue about a few cases of booze. Complaints will be made and the papers will be lost in the shuffle.”

“Well, you’re probably right. If Greenberg is coming into this thing, how about making it six cases of booze? Sheenies can always get money if they need it.”

“We’ll get as much as we can. Is that all, sir?”

“Take the boat whenever you want to get supplies and I’ll stand watch here. You’re a smart boy, Yale. I knew that the minute I set eyes on you.”

Nathan gave a bitter laugh when Paul told him about the deal Mowrey was willing to make, but he offered to go halves on “whatever we need to keep the old man from going over the edge.” Paul jumped into the boat at nine o’clock that morning to go ashore and make the best deal he could. He had no idea where to begin to try to buy four cases of liquor at a Greenland air base, or where he could get his share of the money.