Sloan Wilson - Ice Brothers

“He can block your promotions,” Paul said. “He can get you a lousy assignment.”

“Well, Paul, I never exactly had any career ambitions in the service and as for getting a lousy assignment, what could be worse for me than this?”

Nathan was certainly not crushed the way he himself would be in such circumstances, Paul realized with admiration. And he also suspected Nathan was putting on just a bit of a show of bravado to make Paul feel less guilty about writing him up in the log, as he knew he had to do.

That day Farmer was restored to duty, but Greenberg was kept confined to his quarters, where he lay in his bunk reading night and day. He did not complain and for a while Paul was able to tell himself that he was just shrugging the whole thing off. Maybe he even was glad that he could spend his time with his books instead of standing watch on the bridge.

That’s what he told himself until two nights later when Seth had the watch and he went to the wardroom with a cup of coffee and a sandwich for Nathan. He found the tall, gaunt man lying in his bunk, his hands covering his face. Nathan tried to hide his eyes in his pillow, but his shoulders shook and his sobs could not be muffled.

“Christ, get out of here!” he said. “I’m all right. It’s just that I feel so fucking useless . The Nazis are taking over the whole goddamn world and I’m not even allowed on deck on my own goddamn ship.”

So much for passivity and not caring. Paul wanted to die.

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.”