Sloan Wilson - Ice Brothers

“You can’t move a ship slow in fast water, sonny,” Mowrey said. “Yale, come here. Get Flags.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Paul said.

Mowrey led the way from the wing of the bridge into the pilothouse!

“Now you two fucked up once and I’m going to tell you once,” he said in his sweetest voice.

“What did we do, sir?” Flags asked.

“I suppose you don’t know either, do you, Yale?”

“I thought everyone did fine, sir. I thought it was a great job of tying up.”

“Yale, this is a United States Coast Guard cutter tying up alongside a navy ship in a naval base. What the fuck was the matter with our flag?”

“Flag, sir?” Flags asked.

“A United States Coast Guard cutter flies her ensign at the gaff of her signal mast while under way, and at her stern staff while moored. The moment our first mooring line is made fast, I want the ensign snapped down from our signal mast and another ensign snapped up on our stern staff simultaneously. ”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Flags said.

“Another thing. Flags, do you know what the third repeater is?”

“It’s a pennant we put up when you go ashore, sir, to show that the commanding officer is not aboard.”

“You got it, Flags,” Mowrey purred. “Now, I want that third repeater snapped up the moment my foot leaves this vessel when I go ashore, and I want it snapped down the moment my first foot touches the deck again when I come back. Do you understand?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Just by watching a vessel’s flags every man in the harbor can tell whether she’s a taut ship,” Mowrey said. “Now, they don’t call me Mad Mowrey for nothing. If you fuck up just once more, Flags, you’ll stand your watches in the crow’s nest for a week, and it will be damn cold up there when we get to Davis Strait. And Yale, it’s your job to make sure that Flags does his job. If he fucks up again, I’m going to put a notation in your fitness report that you’re no good at the detail of ship’s routine. It won’t take many notations like that to get your ass shoved ashore in the worst job they can find.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Paul said.

“But sir,” Flags protested, “how will I be sure when you’re going ashore and just when you’re coming back?”

Mowrey gave a genial grin. “There will always be a man on watch at the gangway, won’t there? You rig a flag halyard where he can reach it fast. You’re a petty officer, ain’t you? Don’t you know how to train your men?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Flags said. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“You’ll learn, sonny,” Mowrey said, and gave the boy what appeared to be an affectionate pat on the cheek, except for the fact that his huge fist became a hand only at the last moment. “Now I’m going ashore to the officers’ club. This once I give you warning.”

The third repeater, a white triangular pennant with a black stripe across the middle of it, snapped to the yard of the signal mast a few seconds later, just as Mowrey jumped from the rail of the Arluk to the deck of the Redbird . Paul smiled. The whole rigamarole was ridiculous, of course, but he was beginning to feel almost in spite of himself that there was a certain beauty in it.

When Paul went to the wardroom, it was so quiet that something seemed to be wrong. The throb of the engine, the creaking of the wooden hull and the clicking of every small, unsecured object in lockers and drawers as the ship rolled, all this had of course stopped, and now the wardroom was silent as a library, an impression that was increased by the activities of Seth Farmer and Nathan Green. As he did immediately upon arriving in any port, the old warrant officer was writing his wife a long letter on a pad of lined paper. Nathan was taking books from three big cardboard boxes and was storing them on every available shelf and in lockers.

“Where did all the books come from?” Paul asked.

“I bought them just before leaving Boston, but never got a chance to unpack them,” Nathan said. “Feel free to use them if you want.”

“What kind of books be they?” Seth asked, peering over his steel-rimmed spectacles.

“Kind of a varied lot. They have lists of books people would want on a desert island, but I picked my own. I found a lot of stuff on Greenland up at Goodspeed’s. The skipper got me curious.”

“I wouldn’t take him too serious when he talks about Greenland,” Farmer said mildly. “I always been told there ain’t nothing there but rocks and ice.”

“It says on the dust jacket of one of the books that Greenland has been called both the Land of Desolation and the Land of Comfort,” Nathan said. “Except for Eskimos, it was first settled by Eric the Red way back about the year nine hundred, but all the Norse colonies just disappeared after about five hundred years. No one knows why. I’ll tell you more after I read the book.”

“Let me borrow it when you’re done with it,” Paul said. “Can you guys hold down the ship for a few hours if I go ashore to look around?”

“Sure,” Seth said. “Ain’t nothing here but a navy base. If you’ll mail my letter, I don’t want to go ashore at all.”

“Now I know how to sound a fire alarm, I guess I can stand a watch in port if no one wants the ship moved,” Nathan said.

“If they want the ship moved, I guess any of us would have to call the skipper from the officers’ club,” Paul replied. “I have an idea we’ll always be able to find him there.”

After showering, changing into a clean uniform and polishing his shoes, Paul went on deck. The sun was still shining brightly near the horizon and he was momentarily confused when he glanced at his watch and saw that it was a little after nine in the evening. On the way north from Boston he had been too sick really to notice the lengthening days. Now there was a strangeness about the gradual retreat of night which gave him an old-fashioned sense of adventuring which he had not felt since first going aboard the Arluk . As he stepped from his ship to the Redbird , he saluted his quarterdeck with studied casualness and found himself wishing that there was a little pennant which could be run up when the executive officer left the ship. Absurd, absurd! For days he had been too sick even to think about smoking, but as he climbed a hill between two rows of Quonset huts, he felt in his breast pocket and found a cigar he had bought in Boston. Before meeting Mowrey he had always smoked cigarettes, and it was odd to realize that he was in some ways already starting to copy a man he detested so much. Still, it was fun to walk cockily along in the bright northern night waving his cigar with authority. He was twenty-two years old and was already the executive officer of a United States Coast Guard cutter on the Greenland Patrol. If he could get over his seasickness and learn fast, he might get command of his own ship inside of a year. In wartime things move fast, Mowrey had said.

Paul did not have to walk far before he found the officers’ club. It was a big Quonset hut and so crowded that there was small chance of his running into Mowrey, he was glad to discover. A triple line of officers at the bar was keeping a half-dozen Filipino bartenders busy and perhaps a hundred more officers were drinking at small tables. At the back of the room were several long, rectangular tables at which officers were playing cards. Tobacco smoke swirled up to the domed ceiling of the Quonset hut and a jukebox blared, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me.”

For a few moments Paul stood staring at the men at the cardtables. The green felt tablecloths were littered with poker chips. Paul strolled toward the bar. His cigar was making him feel slightly dizzy and he left it in a large can full of smoking cigarette butts. After buying a glass of ginger ale, he walked toward the cardtables. At two of them men were playing with coins as well as chips, but at a third many of the officers had stacks of bills as well as chips in front of them. Paul waited silently until a lieutenant commander lost a big pile and left the table in disgust. Moving forward, he put his hand on the empty chair and said, “Can you use new blood in this game?”