Ice Brothers Page 4

  Perhaps there was an element of that, but he was also worried about his ability to continue the token rent he insisted on paying to his father-in-law for the apartment and the allowance he gave to his wife to enable her to buy clothes. An ensign’s pay was mighty fine compared to that of a private in the army or an apprentice seaman, but it wouldn’t stack up very well against the income of an accomplished campus hustler. Paul wondered what the opportunities for bridge and poker would be in the service. Aboard a ship he would have to be careful, but he might get a chance to visit a few officers’ clubs.

  Paul tried to forget his financial worries as he parked in the driveway of Erich’s house and hurried to show his wife his new uniform.

  “You look lovely!” Sylvia said, “but you don’t look like my husband.” Then she burst into tears. After calming her, he took her to see a movie, a war film in which Errol Flynn mowed down whole armies.

  When they got home Sylvia’s mother told him that his father wanted him to call.

  “I got hold of this Mr. Katstein,” Charles said. “I also talked to Bill. Bill is handling the details. All you have to do is sign the master papers and give the keys to Katstein. The bastard will meet you aboard the boat at nine in the morning.”

  “Okay,” Paul said. That didn’t seem much of a reply to make to the momentous news that the Valkyrie actually was to be sold to a junkman, but no more words would come.

  Paul arrived aboard the Valkyrie an hour early. In the morning fog the graceful hull of the old yawl looked almost ready to sail around the world. This, he told himself, was no time for nostalgia and sentiment. He should pack his personal belongings. There were few—a moss green sweater which Sylvia had left there on her last summer visit, his .30-.30 shark rifle, a cheap sextant he had bought but never actually used. The thought occurred to him that he might take the binnacle and perhaps some of the cabinet doors with their diamond-shaped leaded panes before the buyer saw them, but suddenly he realized that he didn’t want any dusty souvenirs, parts of a corpse, following him around from house to house for the rest of his life. This old yawl, aboard which he had learned to sail and where he had, for better or for worse, wooed and won his wife, was in no danger of being forgotten.

  The teak decks were covered with grime, and there was some small pleasure in the thought that he would never have to scrub them again. Going below, he lit a fire in the shipmate range for the last time and poured himself a shot of rum. Once he had told his brother that if they ever did have to sell the yawl to the ship breakers, he would polish her up and deliver her, under full sail. Suddenly he felt old. He had no more impulses at all to undertake a gesture of that kind.

  Before long he heard the chugging of a diesel engine close by. Going on deck he saw a small harbor tug emerge from the surrounding fog. Black tires had been hung from her rail as fenders. As she nosed alongside, these squeaked against the white topsides of the yawl and Paul almost yelled in protest before he realized that now of course a few marks wouldn’t make any difference. A seaman on the bow tossed him a line and as he made it fast to a cleat on the yawl, a thin man in a camelhair coat which looked odd in these nautical surroundings stepped from the pilothouse of the tug and climbed nimbly aboard.

  “I’m Katstein,” he said. “You Paul Schuman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your brother showed me this vessel about a month ago. I just want to make sure she hasn’t been stripped.”

  “Nothing has been taken.”

  “All the inside ballast still there?”

  “All of it.”

  “We can get on with the papers then. There’s no use wasting your time or mine.”

  They went down to the cabin, which was warm enough now to kill the musty odor. The papers, which had been kept in a drawer of the chart table, were so damp that they were hard to sign.

  “I guess that’s it,” Katstein said, giving him a receipt for the documents which he already had prepared, and a certified check made out to Charles R. Schuman for three thousand dollars. “This is the way your brother wanted it handled. Is it okay with you?”

  “It’s okay with me.”

  “I’m going to tow her over to my yard right away. I don’t want this place to be sending me any bills.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s a beautiful old vessel,” Katstein said, running his hand over one of the leaded glass cabinet doors. “They don’t make ’em like this anymore and they never will again.”

  “I suppose. Do you want a drink, Mr. Katstein?”

  “Don’t mind if I do. I suppose you think I’m stealing this ship from you, don’t you?”

  “No one has offered us a better price.”

  “The day of these old vessels has gone. No one can afford them these days, even if there wasn’t a war on. If it’s any consolation to you, she won’t be making anybody rich. There’s not enough lead here to bring more than five grand, and I have to get rid of the hull and melt the stuff down.”

  “I wish you luck.”

  “Maybe they’ll use the lead to make bullets. It sure would be nice if this old keel finished Hitler, wouldn’t it?”

  The vision of the old yawl’s keel sailing through the air into Hitler’s face and smashing the dictator shook Paul. He poured himself another drink and refilled Katstein’s glass.

  “I guess it would be nice,” he said.

  “Well, I’ve got to get going,” Katstein concluded. “Will you help us cast off these lines?”

  Paul had already placed the personal belongings he had collected on the painters’ raft. Still carrying his glass of rum, he got aboard the platform. Placing it by the rifle, he paddled ashore. Leaving his possessions on the raft, he walked to the end of the pier and on a signal from the seaman aboard the yawl, let the stern line fall. Slowly he walked around to the end of the other pier and released the bow line. It took several minutes for the men aboard the yawl to coil these heavy lines. Then the tug made a chuffing sound and started to move the old yawl into the mist which shrouded the harbor. At this distance the white hull of the Valkyrie again looked almost new and in the fog her slender spars seemed endlessly tall. Paul watched until the swirls of mist completely obscured her. He tried to think deep thoughts about his youth disappearing into that fog, but they seemed phony as hell. The wind from the harbor was cold. He walked rapidly back to the raft and stood staring at the junk he had gathered there. Why save a rusty rifle when the Coast Guard would give him big guns soon enough? Why have a sextant that was little better than a toy? Paul kicked these items overboard with his right toe and they sank silently into the muddy waters. Only the moss-green sweater and the glass of rum were left. The rum he did not kick overboard. After taking a sip, he studied the glass as though for the first time. It was a cut-glass tumbler, part of a diminishing set that had been aboard the yawl ever since he could remember. It was strange to think that this was the last of the Valkyrie that he had left. The glass would make a good souvenir, but after draining it, he lifted it high above his head and, on impulse, threw it down on the raft. Instead of smashing, the heavy tumbler caromed off the wet wood and sank intact, indestructible to the last. Picking up the moss-green sweater, Paul hurried to his car without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER 5

  Only a few days later, on April 2, Paul received his orders by registered mail. It was not an impressive appearing document. Mimeographed on pulpy paper with blanks filled in a heavy hand with green ink, it said:

  From: Commandant, U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  To: Paul R. Schuman, Ensign, USCGR

  Subject: Order to active duty.

  1. You are herewith ordered to active duty.

  2. You shall proceed immediately to the First District Office of the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston, Mass. for assignment to duty as executive officer of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Arluk, and transportation to that vessel.

  3. In view of the proximity of your home to the First District Office, no travel allowance is g
ranted.

  “Well, they must think pretty well of you if they make you executive officer of a ship without a day of training,” Erich said when Paul showed him the paper.

  “I don’t know what it means,” Paul replied. “I think I’ll call Chris and see.”

  “Proceed immediately means that you’ve got twenty-four hours,” Christiansen said when Paul read him his orders over the telephone. “You better come up to the apartment tonight at about seven. I’ll find out what I can about the Arluk and let you know.”

  “Twenty-four hours!” Sylvia said. “What are we supposed to do when we only have twenty-four hours?” She looked very much alarmed, as though he might expect to spend that entire time spinning like a lathe with her in bed.

  “I’ll have to pick up the uniforms I ordered,” he said. “Maybe we ought to run over and see dad and mother.”

  It was not hard to do the things he felt he ought to do because he couldn’t think of much that he really wanted to do. The idea of driving off alone somewhere with Sylvia crossed his mind, but they had grown so mysteriously tense that without admitting it, they were afraid to be alone together. The worst thing in the world would be to have a fight just before parting and without knowing exactly why, they both felt one brewing.

  Their tension increased when they drove to the military tailor and picked up the gear he had ordered.

  “What on earth do you need a sword for?” Sylvia asked, as the clerk showed him this glittering object in a black scabbard with gold trim. “Does the Coast Guard expect you to fight submarines with that?”

  “I think I’m just supposed to use it in dress parades,” he said. “Anyway, it’s on my required list.”

  The truth was, he loved his new sword with its shining, delicately etched blade and gold handle, a sword which was part of a commissioned officer’s equipment, not just a costume piece or an antique. The fact that Sylvia regarded the sword as a joke annoyed him. When they got home, she asked him to show the sword to her family, and they insisted that he put on the elaborate belt with a big gold buckle which came with it. When he could not figure out how he could adjust the belt to prevent the scabbard from dragging on the floor when he wore it, everyone roared with laughter. Paul’s face turned red, and taking the sword off he put it in its tan leather carrying case.

  “Paul, where’s your sense of humor?” Sylvia asked.

  “Damn it, I don’t see anything very funny about this whole damn war, and I guess the sword is part of it,” he said. “All right, it’s ridiculous—let’s let it go at that.”

  “That whole list of stuff they made you buy is ridiculous,” Sylvia said. “Are you really going to wear those dress whites with the epaulettes on a ship?”

  “They gave me a list and I bought the stuff. So it’s funny. The whole war is one damn big comedy, at least to the spectators—”

  “That’s not fair,” Sylvia said.

  He knew she was right, but still he did not want her to laugh at him and his military regalia. Damn it, he was going to leave her soon, maybe forever, and he was going to have to try to be the executive officer of a ship, even if he was only a college boy and a summer yachtsman. He ached to be taken seriously by his wife, if by no one else. He wanted her to weep for him, not laugh.

  But Sylvia often made jokes when she was nervous, and maybe she was afraid of trying to live up to too much drama. Even when she tried to be serious, she couldn’t manage it.

  “I won’t make any more jokes about your sword,” she said. “When the war is over, it will make a nice souvenir. We’ll hang it over the mantelpiece, and you can tell our sons how you killed millions of Germans with it. I can just see you when you’re an old man, stabbing away at the air, showing your sons and grandsons how you did it.”

  That day went slowly for Paul. Somehow they were afraid to make love and afraid not to and when they did, they found themselves trying to act out much more emotion than they felt. Then Sylvia started to talk about all the girls he would meet in every port. In her way she was obviously trying to be brave, and Paul was ashamed of feeling that he somehow had already left her. His mind was full of questions about the Arluk. What kind of ship was she, and where would she operate? And why, as Erich had pointed out, had he been made executive officer, the Coast Guard equivalent of first mate, without a day of training? Although he had scored well in the twelve-hour examination on navigation and seamanship, he was all too aware that he knew nothing about such details as gunnery, communications, and service procedures. Without thinking about it, he had assumed that he would be given some sort of training, either afloat or ashore. The thought that he was immediately to be given such a responsible position aboard a ship of whatever size was a little flattering but very scary. He wondered and half hoped that Chris would find that a mistake of some kind had been made.

  Sylvia did not want to go with him to Chris’s apartment. She was uneasy there partly because the Coast Guard lieutenant’s manners seemed abrupt to her and partly because Katherine, Chris’s Swedish wife, nonchalantly nursed her baby in the livingroom even while guests were there. Without even bothering to keep a blanket draped completely over her huge bosom, Katie just sat there and chatted with the men while her baby sucked and fondled her breasts. Sylvia had never seen anything like this. She was angry at Paul when he said that he thought the sight of Katie nursing her child was beautiful and that he admired her for her lack of prudery. They had had a big fight about that, and about what was good taste and what wasn’t. After that Sylvia never wanted to go to Chris’s apartment again.

  So precisely at seven o’clock Paul presented himself at Chris’s door alone. Looking a little strained, Chris gave Paul and Katie a drink of scotch. Then he said, “You better go into the bedroom, Katie. We’ve got top secret stuff to discuss.”

  Katie withdrew, carrying her baby.

  “I don’t know whether this is going to come as good news to you or bad news,” Chris said. “The Arluk is a brand new Boston beam trawler we’ve just taken over. She’s being fitted out for the Greenland Patrol.”

  “Do they really want me to be executive officer without any training at all?”

  Chris shrugged. “Once you’ve qualified for the stripe, you’re not supposed to need training. That’s crazy of course, but we just are getting more ships than we are qualified officers. The skipper will break you in.”

  “Greenland,” Paul said. “I have no idea what that’s like except that it’s supposed to be cold.”

  “You can say that again,” Chris said with a grin. “In the interior, it goes to a hundred and ten degrees below zero. You’re lucky. On the coast it’s rarely worse than fifty below.”

  “I guess I better take my tropical whites.”

  “Hell, in the summer it often gets to sixty or more above there, and you may not be there in the winter. They may bring the trawlers back to Boston before the worst weather really sets in.”

  “That’s a comforting possibility.”

  “I haven’t told you the worst part yet,” Chris said, refilling his glass. “These trawlers aren’t really Coast Guard cutters—they’re just fish boats. And the captains they’re getting for them are nothing like regular Coast Guard officers, because what they have to be is ice pilots, and we don’t have enough of them to put aboard small ships.”

  “Who are they getting?” Paul asked.

  “Gloucester fishermen, even some Norwegians, Danes, and Icelanders we’ve made into American citizens. Old explorers, sea hunters, anyone who’s been on an Arctic expedition, old Greenland hands—there are a few around who love the place, believe it or not—the idea is to grab anyone we can who can get a ship through Arctic ice, and who understands the weather conditions up there.”

  “What’s so bad about that?”

  “Some of these guys are wild men. We’re getting drunks, queers, and Captain Blighs who still want to flog a man they don’t like. Of course we’re weeding out the worst as soon as we can and there are a few really great
officers in that crazy gang, but I have no idea what kind of a skipper you’re going to get. The Arluk hasn’t been assigned a commanding officer yet. She won’t be ready to sail for another month, and there’s nothing but a warrant boatswain and a skeleton crew aboard her. And now an ensign—you. You’ll be in charge until we find a skipper for her.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Don’t worry—you’ll just be tied up in the yard. The personnel officer doesn’t pay much attention to me, but I’ll do my best to see that you at least get a skipper who can speak English.”

  “That would help.”

  There was a brief silence while they both drank.

  “At least no one will be shooting at me in Greenland,” Paul said. “Compared to the assignments a lot of guys will be getting, Greenland may not be so bad.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Chris said. “There may be German submarines up there. During some times of the year, at least, those fjords, especially on the east coast, would be an ideal place for tankers and subs to rendezvous. Ever since the Germans took Norway and Denmark, they’ve had plenty of ice pilots who know that region like their own backyard. Greenland is Danish territory, you know—the Danes have been up there forever.”