He was unable to guess what was going on in her mind. Had she any conception of the turmoil, the emotional crisis in his which she had helped assuage? His extra self, that part of his brain which seemed to function of its own, more objectively, more cool than he was himself, was telling him that everyone, Admiral Small and Captain Blunt included, had been conspiring to help. Keith and Buck and Al Dugan — all the crew of the Eel, in fact — had done so too. Each in his own way, as it came to each to understand. Even the admiral’s driver had tried — how did he know? Was the story of the lifeboats all over the base?
Last night Joan had seemed intuitively to understand more than anyone. She had been wanton, had deliberately given herself. It had been a deeply generous, totally personal effort to lift him from the purgatory into which he was drifting. And yet — of this he was sure — there had been something driving her, too. But could the explosion of feeling with which he had responded be called a cure? Or was it merely a compound of too much to drink — that, too, kindly intended by his friends — and the natural reaction of the sailor, just ashore?
The warm sensuousness of night was gone. During day, one retreated into convention, into formality. Maybe this was the barrier. Last night he thought he knew her. Today he was not so sure.
The Eel—complicated, intense, an example of man’s genius, pound for pound the most complex instrument modern technocracy and cleverness could devise — was simple by comparison. With the Eel he felt safe. Once you had mastered her, learned her needs and capabilities, Eel was always predictable. You could use her, play upon her, exploit her strengths and protect her from the consequences of her weaknesses. She was a comfort, because she was always the same. But why had sailors, from time immemorial, always personified their ships as female? Ships were not enigmas. Women by contrast were. He had no idea what Joan was thinking, or even if she was thinking at all, behind the restraint imposed by the morning.
They kept conversation alive because it was what you did. It meant nothing, had no sequence. Whatever the sentry at the entrance to the Shafter compound may have thought, his expression betrayed nothing. Richardson climbed into the front seat of the jeep beside Blunt. They set out for Pearl Harbor, driving a little faster than before.
Blunt’s mood had changed, or it might only have been suppressed earlier. He was ebullient, talkative, almost effervescent. Mired in his own thoughts, Richardson at first paid only enough attention to respond when response was necessary. He wished Blunt would stop, or at least shift to professional matters.
“You sure are a lucky man, Rich,” Blunt was saying, slapping the steering wheel of the jeep for jovial emphasis. “Half the guys I know would have given a year’s ration of tax-free booze to be in your shoes last night!”
Startled, Richardson could think of no answer appropriate to the remark. Something unknown, unexpected, had grated across his consciousness. This was, at the very least, out of character for the Captain Blunt he had known! Uncertainly, he gave him a searching look, did not reply.
Blunt took no notice. “She’s supposed to be the best piece on the island, but nobody knows who’s getting any of it. They say there’s some airdale in Lahaina — and then you come along, and your first night ashore…”
Maybe if he pretended not to hear what Blunt was saying he would get off this kick. A deep uneasiness clutching at him, Richardson managed to find something of interest in a rocky field off to the right. There was something strange, a different quality, almost a babbling note, to the incisive familiar tones. It was the last thing he would ever have expected to hear in that voice!
“When this story gets out, Rich, you’ll be more famous around here than if you sank two Bungo Petes!”
This could not be allowed! A burst of rage flooded to Richardson’s brain. In growing unease at the trend of Blunt’s conversation, he had been about to make another spare, noncommittal comment. A depth of anger which startled even himself boiled to the surface instead. “Commodore, if I hear one word about last night from anybody, I will punch you in the nose! Publicly!”
Blunt, about to say something more, stopped, took a long look at Richardson. The fury in his junior’s eyes was all too evident. He surrendered.
“Oh, hell, Rich, you didn’t think I’d go around telling about this little soiree we just had, do you? After all, I was in on it too, remember. That Cordy Wood, now, she’s really something. You know she’s a damn good wrestler. Slippery as an eel, and quick as greased lightning…”
But Richardson had found something else of interest in the area of sand and scrub bushes the jeep was now passing. His disquietude was complete. Surely Blunt had not intended to imply that he might boast about the previous evening! Yet he had done exactly that. And the balance of his remarks had been equally uncalled for. This was a side of his character which Richardson had never seen and could not, even having seen and heard, bring himself to believe was a part of the man he had so admired for so many years.
The old Joe Blunt was deeply sensitive, deeply understanding of his men and junior officers — and of their wives or girls as well. Richardson would never forget Sam Fister, his immediate superior in the Octopus, and what Blunt had done for him. When Sam’s girl wrote frantically that she was in trouble as a result of the submarine’s unscheduled stop in San Francisco, Sam had had the good sense to go right to his skipper. The letter was received in Cavite weeks after it had been mailed, as Octopus moored following a month-long simulated war patrol. No matter that Sam’s supervision was needed for the upkeep to be performed at Cavite, or that nearly six months remained before the prewar navy regulations allowed him to marry. Joe knew his way around, and he called in a good many of his I.O.U.’s that night. Next day, Sam was designated courier to Washington, and boarded the Pan-American Clipper with priority two orders. In three weeks he was back, a married man and ready to give his soul for Joe Blunt.
Later, purely by accident, Rich was present when Admiral Hart, Commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, told Blunt that someone’s wife had written her suspicions to someone else’s wife. Hart was justly feared as one of the toughest officers the navy had ever produced. Richardson, completely forgotten by his two superiors, stood marveling as Blunt laid his own career on the line to block investigation of Sam’s putative violation of regulations. He marveled even more when Admiral Hart agreed, somewhat unwillingly, but agreed nevertheless, that until he received official notice — as he would if Sam claimed quarters allowance for his bride — he had no obligation, at this time of increasing tension, to inquire into officious rumors that concerned neither the battle readiness of the Asiatic Fleet nor the safety of the United States.
Blunt, a model of rectitude himself, had always been tolerant of people and their problems with one single exception: when they hurt his ship or the navy. Although, through their men, women sometimes interfered with the smooth operation of Octopus, Richardson had never heard him speak of a woman in other than chivalrous terms. Yet this morning he had been callous, even degrading, in his comments about the two girls with whom they had just spent the night, and for no reason.
No doubt, in the course of her time at Pearl, Joan had given herself to more than one man. Certainly, she must have to Jim. It was probably true that there were many, for there could not be a man who, meeting her, did not want to possess her. Emotions and pressures of war affected both the male and the female, and considering the differences in their wartime roles, it probably affected them about equally. Joan, far more than most women, was actually participating in the war, and her outlook, correspondingly, might well be more like a man’s. Her job, obviously, had something to do with breaking down enemy coded messages — though this was his own intuitive deduction and could not be discussed. Doubtless, such employment must have its pressures.