The Last Ship (77 page)

Immediately occurring, the question, who would assume command of the
James,
of the island? The idea of my own indispensability: I bore no greater burden, and it had grown through all our ordeal—and all our triumphs, explicitly what we had created on the island. Perhaps it is man’s ultimate curse. I even knew that, and its terrible dangers. And yet, knowing, even employing every effort to stand away from the question and look at objectively what could never be looked at objectively, I forever came up with the same answer, infused with vanity as much as a matter could be: I was not certain as to what would happen to ship’s company, to the island, without me. I had been the only captain this ship, these people—and this island—had ever known. I was not certain what might befall this community, and all that it had achieved and represented, on my own departure, whether by a substitution of myself or by another system of governance; what disturbances, troubles, even disasters might ensue in a system unknown to them. But more than that, system retained, I saw no one to take my place; supreme vanity or not, that was the fact as I viewed it. Besides—and this may have been the most compelling reason of all—my mission here was not finished (including most particularly what was happening in those twenty very special cottages). And finally—I must have been as bewitched as Ulysses by the sirens by the Magellan “rediscover the world” magnet to forget the fact—the person who would succeed me in command of the island would almost inevitably have to be the Russian captain himself: He had had no problem in rejecting that enticement, in designating his executive officer to go, himself to stay behind. The question instantly arising again as to why; given the agreed-upon wonder of such a voyage, how not going on it, and especially as its captain, could possibly be considered . . . one could not ask him . . . Opening doors of mistrust which one chose not to enter, knowing the certainty of mistrust’s deadly poisoning in our mutual community . . . still, again despite all my elevated excursions into the propinquity of sailors, and patently into how well such a circumstance had worked with us so far on the island, I was not prepared to trust the Russian captain—or anyone else—that far: ascent to the leadership of this island, this community of men and women.

And then, in its very soaring midst, this tide of vaingloriousness collapsed, fell apart, swept away by a matter I hardly dared admit: my relationship with Lieutenant Cirard, something that had spread to all parts of my being, all that I was, changing everything, in a way so all-embracing as to seem to me only a woman can accomplish in the experiences of men. When I said I could not leave the island, what I meant was that I could not leave her; knowing but one thing: never, so long as I might live, would I permit anything to separate us. It was a secret I kept tightly in my own heart. As I had these thoughts, the realization occurring for the first time that, with her near, I was content to live out my life on this island; bringing everything in me still, bringing as it were a final peace, all sweet and wondrous, that I had not known, it seemed, since that day, now seeming part of ancient times, that our missiles first left the
Nathan James
and ascended high into the blue skies of the Barents, bent on their terrible mission. No. I could not accompany
Pushkin
on the Magellan voyage. That decision became absolute in my heart. Thus, the faintest residue of reluctance remaining, I put the thought forever away and turned to the urgent affair now fallen upon my ship’s company as to whether they, variously, should remain on the island or take that almost mystical look at what we had once called home.

 *  *  * 

Specifically, what others of us should accompany
Pushkin.
In this instance, the proper course seemed almost self-evident.

Other than those already suggested, another of the several advantages offered by the proposed voyage was the fact that it would enable me to get rid of our “discontents,” men who felt there was something to go home to, some in a rather passive way, others more actively. I remembered Lieutenant Girard’s perception that these were waiting for the question of the governance to arise; if “majority rule,” should ship’s company elect this, their chances of taking the
Nathan James
on such a mission increased. But now they did not need to wait even for that uncertain condition. The Russian’s arrival with nuclear fuel for us would seem, as I have said, to set the
James
free. I had other intentions. For one thing I felt if the
James
went, so would I have to. Everything in me as her captain, so a part of my life as to feel myself inseparable from her, rebelled at the thought of letting her go, of watching her sail off over the horizon. I did not think I could do it. Something in me also fearful that if others took her, they might never bring her back. Thus the Russian captain’s proposal of sending
Pushkin
instead, along with its other bounties, resolved two of our major problems in my favor: the retention of the
James
here at the island; and, as I say, the giving these men what they so insatiably wanted, a chance to go back or at least have their look; his suggestion to constitute about one-third of the submarine’s crew American fortuitously coinciding more or less closely with the number of those who fell into the category I have just described. I did not fail to seize on the opportunity.

I called a meeting of ship’s company in the Main Hall, in which I explained in great detail the Russian captain’s offer to send
Pushkin
on a voyage which would explicitly include exploration of the coastal areas of the United States, dwelling in much particular on the immense advantage of the submarine in protecting our men from what otherwise, going on the J
ames,
the same voyage, was certain to be intense and very likely unacceptable levels of radiation, far greater than anything we had so far undergone even in our worst passages.

“I am pleased to say,” I told the hushed listeners, “that those of you who desire to take a look back home will now be able to do so. We have the Russians to thank for that. Although I know you think differently, you could never get near the coasts in the
Nathan James.
You will be able to do so in
Pushkin 
. . . I believe that your ‘looking’ will be confined to what you can see through a submarine’s periscope. Never mind. If you find differently, if the land is habitable,
Pushkin
will put all who so wish ashore. That is my agreement with her captain.”

The case for
Pushkin
was so strong, that for sending
Nathan James
so weak, that the former course was entirely embraced, in the quiet manner of sailors who can recognize facts when they are calmly and straightforwardly presented to them. The only question remaining: Who would the thirty-three be?

“They will be volunteers,” I concluded it. “If these exceed that number, lots will be drawn, within the submarine’s own requirements as to skills.”

The plan was adopted and I so reported to the Russian captain. In the three days allotted, forty-one men made known their desire to go. The excess number was small enough that, having no taste to have left behind on the island even eight hands who had no desire to be there, I persuaded the Russian captain to take them all and put ashore that many extra hands from his own crew.

I mention now with sadness the name of one officer who it was almost inevitable would be a part of
Pushkin
’s voyage. Lieutenant Alex Thurlow. To no one could the “Magellan” aspect of the voyage have held greater appeal. Its very idea excited him from the first—he
had
to go. I mentioned sometime back that besides being a navigator, Thurlow was a kind of “Vesalius” of the planet, in that same anatomical sense—its makeup, its peculiarities, its whimsicalities. Now it was unthinkable to him that he should not see the changes, however dread, that had taken place in his subject. But these were all selfish reasons. There were other reasons, of the most urgently prudent sort, why he must go. First, as I had told the Russian captain, “I have never known a navigator to equal him. That great gift is wasted on this island.” And of course his fluent Russian would make him indispensable as a link between the two bodies of sailors and officers: that the greatest reason of all for his inclusion. Indeed the Russian captain was so delighted to get him that he designated him to be executive officer of the
Pushkin
on her voyage. Thurlow was overjoyed at the prospect; I much cast down—it had been a slow process but I had become as fond of him as of anyone in ship’s company, perhaps more than any other. That mixture of blitheness and utter dependability; that curious otherworldly quality I had come to find so attractive; a man of grace; somehow making for a discrete relationship.

Preparations went forward. The forty-one chosen Americans in effect moved aboard the
Pushkin
and commenced the indoctrination which would transform them from destroyer men into submariners. During the coming weeks the Russian captain and I—along with his executive officer who would succeed to command, a strikingly younger officer than either of us but one who as I came to know him impressed me as both a first rate seaman and commander of men, Thurlow also always present—spent many hours in the submarine’s chartroom plotting the course of the great voyage. Whether
Pushkin
would literally circumnavigate the globe remained to be seen, depending on her findings. It was likely that she would do so, inspecting principally southern latitudes on the theory that some of these might have escaped (though we had found quite the opposite in the equatorial regions of the Sunda Sea), with the promised side excursion to the United States of America, the Americans aboard ready to depart the ship there and remain should they find uncontaminated territory. Going forward simultaneously, the provisioning of the submarine. We removed from the
James
to the
Pushkin
all remaining imperishables of food stores. In addition we stuffed the freezers and the lockers of the submarine full of the island’s own offerings, both from the Farm and those indigenous to the island itself; with quantities of frozen fish. Transferred one of the
James’
s VLF antennas to the submarine. Steadily
Pushkin,
standing there below the cliffs, approached the moment of weighing anchor and casting off on her “rediscovery of the world”; each time I looked down at her, a thin small seaman’s regret remaining that I was not going with her. Meantime, with the excellent food on which they now gorged, with the healthful work such as the Farm and fishing details, the Russians, so frail and ghostlike on their arrival, fattened up as it were quite rapidly, improved remarkably as to physical condition. Finally the submarine stood ready in all respects for sea. Her day of departure was set, a week hence. The excitement in those who were about to leave: Some even clung to the half-bizarre, half-poignant notion that they somehow would connect up with those former shipmates, 109 of them, that Lieutenant Commander Chatham had led off the ship in what now seemed the impossibly long ago.

It was at this time that Lieutenant Girard asked for an appointment with me.

 *  *  * 

Concurrent with these developments, another had proceeded as it were on parallel tracks. As the weeks went on, what had before been but a muted underlayer as to the Arrangement palpably altered; a distinct suspense entered the settlement, which seemed to wait now almost daily and more ostensibly for the news that it had happened; this, in turn, no news forthcoming, before long beginning to be further leavened by a certain apprehension. I began to detect a subtle change in the rather beatific state of affairs previously existent as between the men and the women. Fully as much in the men as in the women, perhaps more so, almost as if it was they who were at fault, had let the women down. By now the circle had been completed as it were, Girard so informing me. Each of the participating men had been at one time or another with each of the women (had “known,” using the biblical term, each of the women). Hope did not vanish. Nature can be slow to pick her times. All understood that. Nevertheless, given the numbers, the opportunities, all the seemingly favorable mathematics of it, the many weeks that had passed . . . The Jesuit even went this far: He approached the seven men who had chosen to abstain. They had done so for differing reasons. One or two, that they had wives at home—yes, they actually stated that as reason; more, despite the Jesuit’s having vetted everything, on moral or religious grounds; one at least, Porterfield, from whom due to his having been a seminarian pre-Navy, the last-named the expected reason, actually something else altogether, his putting it to me rather haltingly, almost with embarrassment. “It isn’t a matter of religion. It’s—well, sir . . .” He hesitated at the word. “Esthetic?” I supplied it. “Something like that I guess.” To these the Jesuit now put it that they had an obligation, a duty, to participate, almost—not a habit of his—pleading with them, promising that if they would do so, they could then return to their state of abstention and no further entreaties would be put to them, or demands made of them. (All this he related to me.) They agreed, with considerable reluctance, and with one exception, Noisy Travis, an immovably stubborn man. Results negative. An interesting side effect: Of the six previous holdouts, two now saw their way clear to overcome their objections and enter as full-timers in the Arrangement.

Girard’s demeanor in our sessions: just the beginnings of a kind of analytical anxiety, the suggestion of an eerie fear, not large thus far but seeming of a peculiarly virulent character, as though one were taking slow, helpless steps toward some precipice—some terrible nothingness. All this conveyed, felt by transference in myself, not in anything she said; rather in the very absence of reporting. Nothing to report. A presentiment making its appearance like a third person present as we discussed by now rather routine matters of supply and slight matters of morale, anything to keep us off that other paramount subject. This foreboding augmenting not just in us but in all hands. Soon a kind of dejection, almost gloom, as to results so far—absence of results, I should say—hung over the settlement, as though we were about to be confronted with a profound horror as to ourselves.