I cupped a hand, tried to see into the sun, called up to him: “Tremlow? Started painting the shack yet, Tremlow? How about knocking off early for a little boxing?”
It was the windward side of the ship, the eastern side, and even in the shelter of the boat the air was loud so that I could hear nothing but whistling overhead and far forward a heavy singing in the anchor chains. But I could see him and he had moved one foot so that it rested now against his rigid knee, and he was shaking his head at me, still grinning.
“By the way, Tremlow,” squinting, cupping my hand again, “who told you to take the tarp off the lifeboat? The tarp’s supposed to be on the lifeboat at all times. See to it, will you?”
I gave him a half-salute then — mere boy only a third my age and six feet five inches tall and a perfect Triton — and turned on my heel. The lifeboat remained a white impression in my mind, a floating thick-sided craft with a wide beam, deep draft, brass propeller, an enormous white sea rover with something amiss. But at least I had been too quick for Tremlow, once again had managed to avoid his deliberate signs of insubordination.
I took my bearings and made my way aft in time to help Mac into his vestments. We were in the sick-bay which was the most suitable spot on the ship for holding Mass, as I had insisted to the old man, and a few of the men leaned up on their elbows to watch.
“How goes it, Mac?” I said.
“Late as usual,” he said.
“No rush, Mac,” I said, “no rush,” and slipped the purple stole around his damp shoulders. “Did you notice the coral shoals off our starboard side around 0600 hours. Mac? Like a field of underwater corn or something. Or perhaps it was a couple of acres of broken bottle-green glass, eh, Mac?”
But I could see that he wasn’t listening, so I opened the white locker where he kept the cross and took it out, unwrapped it, gave it a few licks with the chamois.
“OK, Mac,” I said, “all yours.”
I was in the middle of my four-year stint on the U.S.S. Starfish and it was a bright pink and green dawn in early June and I was helping Mac, seeing how I could give him a hand. Helping Mac serve Mass though in the background, just hovering in the background, just doing what I could to help Mac start his day. I wanted to tell him about the lifeboat but kept quiet, busied myself with the various odd chores of Mac’s silent hour. But the bell was tinkling and I was trying to make myself look small. From far forward near the anchor chains the mushy rapid-fire sounds of a machine gun died away. I nodded, glanced significantly at Mac, because they knew better than to have machine gun practice when Mac was holding services in the afterpart of the ship. I walked over to a porthole — sea the color of honey now, sky full of light — then turned at a nearly inaudible little SOS from Mac and put a towel on my arm, stationed myself in the background. But not before I had seen that one of the black pelicans was flying high off our starboard quarter with his broken neck thrust forward and homely wings wide to the wind. The bird was good medicine for the lingering vision of the white lifeboat though not good enough as I discovered. Even the hours I had devoted to helping the chaplain failed to save me.
The sick and wounded were first and we made quick work of them, Mac and I, passing from bed to bed with the speed of a well-oiled team, giving to each man his short ration of mysterious life, freely moving among the congregation, so to speak, and stooping, pausing, wiping the lips — it was my job to wipe the lips — then disengaging the hands that clasped our wrists and hurrying on. I leaned over, felt the impression of parted lips through the linen, shut my eyes and smiled down at the unshaven face. “Feeling a little better today?” I whispered softly because Mac was already murmuring to the man ahead, and I daubed once more at the lips with the linen towel. “We’ll get you off to a good start anyway.” And I carefully found a clean spot on the towel.
And then the medicos were kneeling and it was 0730—time was passing, that much I knew — and Mac was straightening up and signaling to me to throw open the infirmary doors. So I threw them open, nodded to a couple of familiar faces, hurried back to Mac. Blond hair faded almost to white, wet blue eyes, enormous unhappy face like the tortured white root of a dead tree, tall brawny heavyweight wearing vestments and purple stole and khaki shirt and pants, poor Mac, and I watched the watering eyes, the dimples that were really little twitching scars in his great pale cheeks, watched Mac and everything he did as if I knew already what I owed him and as if all those days were upon me when Mac would be gone.
“Cheer up, Mac,” I whispered, “there’s a pelican following us. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
But still he was not listening, so I looked around, asked one of the medicos to bring me a fresh towel. Mac was standing in front of the cross with his chest caved in and his clasped hands trembling and his walleyes large and yellow and fixed on the silent faces of the men. I stood beside him, nudged him, and in a louder whisper tried again.
“The men are pretty devout, Mac, at least they aren’t taking any chances. They’re waiting for you. Let’s go.”
More tinkling of the bell. Infirmary jammed with men. Faces looking in at every porthole. Silent faces watching until they could have their turns inside. And inside all the heads were bare — gray pebbly helmets carried by chin straps or stuffed under perspiring arms — and tan or black or blond or red almost all of them were shaved, packed together like so many living bones, and in the silence and looking over Mac’s white shoulder I thought that all those young vulnerable skulls must have been cast from the same mold. The men were breathing — I could see the movement of their chests — they were waiting to return to battle stations, to return to work. Somebody coughed.
And then Mac shuddered and began. They pressed forward at 0800 hours, pressed toward the cross, all of them, with the blank vaguely apprehensive faces of young sailors who never know what’s coming — ocean, destruction, living dream — on their way toward the unknown. Blue denim, white canvas, windburned skin, here and there a thin-lipped smile, a jaw hanging down. I saw Sonny in the crowd, saw him trying to elbow his way to the makeshift altar and sneaking a couple of extra steps whenever he could. I smiled.
“Let me get up there,” I heard him whisper, “me next,” and then he too was in the front row and on his knees and when we passed, Mac and I, passed with cup, plate and towel, I felt the tug on my sleeve and knew suddenly that Sonny’s reverence was not all for God. “Got to speak to you, Skipper,” he whispered as I touched the comer of the towel to the shapeless swelling of those trembling lips, “got to have a word with you right away….”
I nodded.
So at 0940 hours the last stragglers crossed themselves and we were done. Mac went below for a shower while I wrapped the cross in the chamois, stowed it again in the white cabinet. The sea was still a honey-colored syrup streaked with green, the blue of the sky had faded nearly to white, I thought I could smell the spices of a distant land on the smooth clear moving air. If only I could have heard a few birds; I always missed the song of the birds when we were at sea. At least the pelican, sweet deformed lonely creature, was still high off the barrels of our sternmost guns.