The Ajax was coming into either the beginning or the end of a storm. Under the overcast sky, gray with lowering clouds, the seas began to mount in labored masses of water, which raised themselves up, with a kind of angry exhaustion, into great rolling waves. Into these waves the Ajax plunged, moving on an irregular course, which convinced the crew that submarines were suspected in the vicinity.
After a hurried breakfast — coffee and scrambled eggs eaten from a tray which had to be anchored by the hand holding the coffee mug, and swallowed between chattering teeth —and after duty in the sick bay. Williams went out again to the deck. All of the crew free from watch had gathered on the port side, and there, running parallel to them, was another destroyer of the same class, the USS Hero, presumably on its way to join them for maneuvers at Guantanamo Bay.
It was a fascinating sight to see this sister ship under steam beside them, as if they looked at themselves in a mirror. Williams had never quite realized before how long, clean and graceful the Ajax was, how alive and proud. The life lines had been put up again, but the crew stood holding to the rail, unmindful of the heavy seas. At this speed, waves broke over the weather deck and ran swiftly backward, so that the fantail of the Hero, and presumably that of the Ajax, trailed streamers of water like flowing banners of silk.
The free crew members of the Hero stood at the starboard rail of their own ship, and as the two ships sped forward like racing greyhounds they shouted back and forth across the intervening water, exchanging place names as they always did in such instances, as if to invoke from their anonymity the origins that gave them their identity. "Boston!" they called. "Brooklyn!" "Texas!" ("Yip-peee!") "Ioway!" "Ioway!" But when a figure appeared on the bridge of the Hero with a megaphone, all hands on the Ajax fell silent and motioned to the members of the opposite crew, pointing, to call their attention to the man on the bridge of their own ship.
The figure on the bridge of the Hero raised the megaphone to his mouth, and across the foaming water, above the sound of the seas, came the long cry, "Ho, Ajax!'' "Ho...! Ajax...!"
Captain Thompson appeared on the bridge and stood waiting.
"Prepare to take a message by line!" the figure on the Hero called hoarsely. "Prepare —to—take —a —message —by —line . . . !"
Instantly, activity broke out on the Ajax. While the speed of both ships slackened imperceptibly, and their courses held steady, McNulty waited forward on the port deck with three of his picked boys, Clancy, Pozericki and MacDougal. Above the sounds of the sea could be heard the urgency of McNulty's voice as he shouted instructions. "Hold yourselves ready, men!" he called. "But stay clear of the weather deck! Never go to the weather deck when the green seas run!" And Williams could see, leaning over the rail and looking forward, that in this stormy light the masses of water that mounted the bow of the Ajax were, indeed, as green as an emerald.
At that moment, from the Hero, came the sound of a faint but sharp discharge, and a line, thin and swift as a coral snake, darted across the water. It fell short. It was drawn back. Again the gun sounded. Again the line darted out and fell, agonizingly, short, with Clancy half over the rail, MacDougal holding him by the belt. Again the gun fired. This time the line flung itself over the rail of the weather deck, and Pozericki, unmindful of McNulty's warning, and moved by that quick fearlessness which had won him his place as one of McNulty's picked boys, ran forward to seize it. At that very moment a great wall of green sea swept over the weather deck and threw him with crushing force against the bulkhead.
What happened then happened in tense silence. The mass of water, retreating, left Pozericki in its wake, on his back inside the rail, one leg twisted in an unnatural way beneath his body. Wordlessly, McNulty fell to the deck and crept forward, grasping at whatever pipe or rail might hold him. He inched forward, then dragged Pozericki back as another wave swept over them and left them drenched, but safe, clinging to the rail. It was then that Williams heard for the first time the cry he had heard so often in his mind. It was Chief Kronsky. "Corpsman!" he called. "Corpsman!"
Almost by the time Williams had reached McNulty and Pozericki, Bullitt was at his side. A Stokes stretcher hung from brackets welded to the bulkhead, forward of the galley. Bullitt pointed toward it, and Williams brought it. Pozericki was conscious, but he was pale with shock. Four members of the crew who had been trained as stretcher bearers stepped forward, as Bullitt and Williams and McNulty lifted Pozericki into the stretcher. They fastened the webbing straps across his chest and abdomen, and across the divided sections for the legs; then the bearers picked up the stretcher and carried him aft, toward the ladders that led to the crew's quarters. As he followed with Bullitt, Williams heard again the report of the line gun from the Hero. He turned to see MacDougal, with firmly braced, widespread legs, and sun-bronzed head flung back with an air of triumph, pulling the line in, hand over hand. Behind it was the heavier line, to which the metal cylinder bearing the message was attached.
It was Pozericki's right leg; the bone was broken just above the knee. Doctor Claremont was called from the wardroom. He came to the after crew's quarters in his deliberate way, his expression grave and impersonal, his manner calm and unhurried. The Ajax had picked up speed again, and the vibration produced so much noise in the compartment that ordinary conversation was difficult.
Bullitt had already sent Williams to the sick bay, with brief, shouted instructions. He was to bring splints, muslin, gauze and webbing bandage and a morphine syrette. When he returned, Doctor Claremont administered the morphine in the thigh, after Williams had cut away Pozericki's dungarees. A crowd of curious crew members had gathered in the compartment and stood, pressing forward, in silence. Doctor Claremont ordered them back to the deck.
The setting of the broken bone, in a healthy young man with well-developed muscles, was a difficult problem. After several attempts, Bullitt took charge, and, with Williams and Doctor Claremont pulling, Bullitt, with great skill, reduced the fracture, bringing the broken ends back into place. It was touch and go whether they would remain in place without traction. Williams and Doctor Claremont maintained the tension while Bullitt splinted the leg and bound it. The construction of the Stokes stretcher itself, divided and shaped for the legs, would help. If they had expected to be at sea for some time they would have devised some makeshift method of traction. But since they were presumably near their destination, Doctor Claremont decided that they would simply keep Pozericki in the Stokes stretcher, and hold the leg in place by binding it to the metal webbing.
Stephen Pozericki, a large-limbed, white-fleshed, strong young man, endured all this with silent, stoicism and an unchanging expression. His face was deathly white, but he groaned only once, when the bone ends were set in place.
Doctor Claremont issued instructions for his care. Williams was to remove the rest of Pozericki's clothing and rub him dry, briskly, with a heavy towel. He was to be kept covered with woolen blankets, and persuaded to drink all the liquids he could tolerate. Williams was to stay with him to see that he came through the first few hours without any complications, and to check at intervals the deliberately exposed area of the bandaged leg to make certain that the splint had not been bound too tightly, affecting the circulation. After he had undressed Pozericki and rubbed him dry and covered him, Williams went to the galley for a pitcher and a mug. When he came back, Doctor Claremont and Bullitt had gone, leaving him with McNulty, who, now in dry clothes, stood over Pozericki with one calloused hand on his damp forehead. He was speaking to him in a paternal voice rough with sympathy. "You wouldn't listen to me, would you, boy?" he was saying. "Does it hurt bad? Can I do any damn thing at all for you, boy?"