Sloan Wilson - Ice Brothers

Sometimes when he was too tired to sleep, Paul lay in his bunk planning how he might explain to Mowrey that it really was not his fault that he had been a college boy, not an old Greenland hand, when the war started, and that he was really working as hard as any man could to make up for his lamentable deficiencies. This sounded reasonable, but he realized with shock that Mowrey was not susceptible to this kind of logic. The truth was, he suspected, that Mowrey hated him for reasons which had little to do with his inefficiencies. The classic, justified anger which a mustang who had taken twenty years to earn a commission felt for a reserve officer who had won his almost overnight was undoubtedly a large part of it. If Mowrey, as he said, had started his career as a fisherman’s cabin boy, he might have developed a healthy or unhealthy hatred for anyone, especially a college boy, who appeared to be rich, “upper-class,” and soft while mysteriously being given most of life’s luxuries without effort. If Mowrey felt this way, he might really enjoy torturing his “Yale” for a few months before finally crushing him with the worst, most humiliating assignment he could devise.

Perhaps I’m going paranoiac, Paul thought, but there was at least a horrifying possibility that this dark diagnosis of his situation was right.

Paul’s confusion was increased by the fact that he continued to admire Mowrey as much as he hated him. There was no doubt whatsoever that the man was fast turning the Arluk from a shambles into an efficient Coast Guard cutter. Mowrey was much easier on the enlisted men than on his officers and most of them clearly respected, almost loved him. They worked hard and cheerfully for him, and as a reward, many of them were already being allowed regular liberty ashore.

Perhaps he was just being ridiculously oversensitive, Paul told himself. Farmer, after all, endured his share of insults without apparent resentment, and though Green looked tormented, he grimly tried to do his duty without a word of complaint. In a way Paul almost envied Green, because he could rightfully blame Mowrey’s crazy anti-Semitism rather than his own weaknesses for most of the abuse he got. If Green were transferred with a bad fitness report, anyone who thought about it would know that almost no Jew could get along with Mad Mowrey, and Green would not have to spend the rest of his life questioning himself.

The hell with it, Paul always concluded. As Sherman said, war is hell, but I didn’t understand that this is true even when we’re thousands of miles away from any foreign enemy.

About ten days after Mowrey came aboard he made such a complete ass of himself that for once Paul did not have to wonder who was right and who was wrong. Immediately after dinner that memorable night, Mowrey got all dressed up in his best blue uniform and went ashore, presumably for the night, as he usually did, but on this occasion he returned shortly before midnight. To the astonishment of the quartermaster on duty, he had a woman with him, a buxom blonde in a bright green coat. “Tell Yale I want to see him,” he said and went to his cabin with his friend.

“Captain wants you,” the quartermaster said, shaking Paul awake, and slyly added, “You’re going to get a little surprise.”

Paul was indeed astonished to see Mowrey pouring a scotch for a blonde who was sitting on his bunk in the sacrosanct commanding officer’s cabin.

“You wanted me, sir?” he said, trying to keep his face expressionless.

“Yale, I want you to meet Helen here. Helen, this is my Yale, a good boy if I can whip him into shape.”

Helen giggled and said, “Pleased.”

“Pleased,” Paul said.

“Yale, I want you to rouse up Cookie. Tell him we want scrambled eggs, sausages and coffee.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Then I want you to go to the bar across the street. Bring me four bottles of cold beer and a pack of cigarettes. What kind do you want, dearie?”

“Luckies.”

“She wants Luckies.” Taking out his wallet, Mowrey gave him a five-dollar bill.

“Is that all, sir?”

“Hurry it up. I want the beer.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Cookie cursed in German when Paul awoke him, but suddenly cheered up when he learned that he was to get food for the captain.

“Right away, right away,” be said, and began to get dressed.

Paul hurried to the bar, suddenly jubilant at the thought that he would at least get a chance to telephone his wife.

“Paul!” she said sleepily after the telephone had rung several times, “Where are you? Where have you been?’

“I’m still in Boston,” he said, and suddenly poured out his whole story, ending with his present errand.

“Oh, Paul!” she kept exclaiming. “I’m so sorry. What can we do? ”

“We can’t do anything, but I had to tell you. Damn it, now I’ve made you worry.”

“I was even more worried, not knowing what was happening. Look, if he has his girl down there, why can’t I come aboard?”

“I’m not an ice pilot,” he said wearily. “They’d crucify me. I wouldn’t bring you aboard that ship for anything anyhow.”

“Paul, I’ve got to see you soon somehow. I’ve never wanted you so much. When I think of all the times I said no to you, I want to shoot myself. I’ll never say no again.”

“That’s a dangerous promise. Look, I’ll see you tomorrow or next day. I’ll tell him it’s a family emergency.”

“You won’t be lying!”

After hanging up, Paul ordered a double scotch for himself. He was damned if he was going to hurry back with the bastard’s beer, he thought at first, but reflected that he better please him now if he wanted to wangle some leave the next day.

When Paul got back to the ship with the beer and the cigarettes, Mowrey was waiting for him on the gun deck. He had a glass of whiskey in his hand and was by now obviously drunk.

“Yale, where the hell have you been?” he bellowed.

“I came as fast as I could.”

“The hell you did — you were hanging around that bar for half an hour!”

As Paul stepped to the well deck of the Arluk , he saw that Hansen, the captain of the Nanmak , was standing by his rail listening and watching. Hansen gave him a weary smile, shrugged and spread out his hands in a gesture of helplessness. For this support Paul was intensely grateful.

Paul gave Mowrey the beer, the cigarettes, and his change.

“Anything else, sir?” he asked.

“That’s all for tonight, Yale!” Mowrey said thickly. “For once you did your duty. Get the ship cleaned up early tomorrow morning. We’re going out to compensate the compasses.”

That meant another day would go by before he could see his wife. Paul walked wearily to the wardroom. There he found Green sitting at the table, looking as dejected as they both felt.

“He had me up to his cabin too,” Green said.

“Why?”

“He wanted music. That comes under my responsibilities as communications officer.”

“What did you do?”

“I gave him music. We have a portable loudspeaker.”

There was a pause while Green lit a cigarette. “I’m worried,” he said at last.

“Well, he may be a crazy bastard, but he said he’ll keep us alive and I bet he will, if any of us really want to live after a few months of this.”

“The question is whether he can keep himself alive,” Green said. “I’m serious.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t you see it?”

“See what?”

“If Captain Mowrey were just a terrible bastard who was also good at his job, we could stand it. The trouble is that he’s also an alcoholic. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to count on him.”

“Oh, hell, he’s probably been drinking all his life like that, but he’s always done his job well, everybody says.”