Torpedo Run (19 page)

"Twenty-two miles," Peter said to himself.

"To where?" Mitch asked.

"See those islands? We're going right by them."

Mitch leaned over the chart studying the islands. "Who lives on 'em."

"Natives," Peter said. "Like the ones in New Guinea."

"With those red gums?"

"I guess so."

"Any Japs?"

"I don't know. Probably some—a few, anyway."

"Mr. Brent," Archer's cold voice said from behind them.

Peter turned to see Archer standing in the doorway, one hand gripping the frame.

"I have walked from one end of this deck to the other, Mr. Brent," Archer went on, "and I have not found a single man on watch."

"I think he just went below for a moment," Peter said, hoping that Jason would appear as suddenly as Archer had.

"Then he should have gotten a relief. What sort of ship are you running that in these perilous waters you allow her to be totally unguarded?"

"Well, I'm here," Peter said.

"Do you consider lallygagging in the chart house standing an alert watch, Mr. Brent?"

"I'll get someone up here," Peter told him.

"I think it's time for this crew to realize that discipline is all that will save their lives," Archer said. "From now on, night and day, I want you to see to it that there are five men on watch,
on deck,
at all times." Without waiting for an answer, Archer turned and disappeared in the darkness.

When Peter turned back to the chart he found Mitch looking at him with a curious, hostile expression. "Are you going to let him get away with that?" Mitch asked.

"Go read the book," Peter said, picking up the dividers again. "We're still in the Navy."

Archer's voice suddenly blasted out of the intercom. "Jason, Mitchell, Welborn, Goldberg, and White report immediately to your watch stations."

Mitch was still looking at Peter with that disdainful, questioning expression. "Why should five men have to stand on their feet all night when all it takes is one man?" he asked quietly. "Why don't you go tell Archer to get with it?"

Peter didn't answer as he unpinned the chart, rolled it up, and left the chart house.

On his way down the hatch he ran into Jason and the Preacher coming topside. "What's going on?" Jason asked.

"You're on watch," Peter said and went on down to his cabin.

As Jason and the Preacher came out of the hatch, Mitch on the bridge whispered down, "Hey! You guys. Up here." Then he leaned over as Goldberg and the Professor appeared on the foredeck. "Up here! Up here!" he whispered to them.

When they had gathered, Mitch said, still whispering, "Jason, you watch aft, Goldberg, you watch amidships and Professor, you watch forward. If Archer shows, break it up."

"What is this, Mitch?" the Preacher asked..

"This is a mess," Mitch said. He looked at the five men in the dark and went on. "I thought Brent was a man. I thought he was about the only officer who really cared what happened to a crew. Well, I was wrong. He's just like all the rest of the officers—all he's interested in is keeping his thumb on his number, getting himself promoted, and nabbing some shiny medals he doesn't deserve."

"Take it easy, Mitch," the Preacher said.

"I've taken it easy with him as long as I'm going to," Mitch said. "You weren't here, Preacher, when Archer told him to post a heel-and-toe watch for all hands. What did he do? Nothing! He just stood there like a little sailor boy and let that maniac get away with it." Mitch stopped and looked at them again. "I thought all we had against us was Archer, but now I know he's against us too. What are we going to do about it?"

"What
can
we do?" the Preacher asked. "What good will mutiny … "

Mitch cut him off. "Don't preach to me, Preacher. This won't be mutiny. This'll just be saving our lives. Don't you see what's going on? Archer and Brent are going to eat all the chow. They're going to stay alive while we drift around until we die. So here's what we do—there're ten of us, not counting Britches, and two of them. Now I just saw Brent chart the course we're on, and we're going within twenty miles of some islands. When we get there—maybe tomorrow night or the next—we'll get what chow they haven't already eaten, then we'll take the raft and row over to those islands. Man, we'll be like in paradise. Plenty of food, plenty of those dusky maidens, plenty of everything … "

The Preacher said quietly, "Aren't enough people getting hurt without this sort of thing, Mitch?"

"Who said we'd hurt 'em? If they want to ride the boat, let 'em ride it. We'll just tell 'em we're leaving and if they don't try to stop us nobody gets hurt."

"It makes more sense than drifting around until we starve to death," Jason agreed. "Two thousand miles … we'll all be dead."

"Except them," Mitch said. "They've got the food."

"They'll share it," the Preacher said.

"In a pig's eye they will!"

"Even if they did," Jason said, "it won't be enough for thirteen people. Do you realize how long we might drift, Preacher?
Weeks! Months!

"I think the only guy we'll have trouble with is Sko," Mitch said. "He still thinks Brent's the fair-haired boy."

From the darkness Goldberg said quietly, "Sko and me, Mitch."

"What are you, Goldberg, chicken or something?" Mitch whispered angrily. "This boat is never going to reach the Philippine Islands, and even if it did, so what? The Philippines are
crawling
with Japanese. Archer and Brent wouldn't live ten minutes after they hit the beach. Neither would we if we went along with 'em."

"I'm going where Brent goes," Goldberg said.

"Listen, Gerry," Mitch said, calmer now and persuasive. "Brent was a good guy. I admit that. When he was Exec under Jonesy he was a good guy, and even when he was skipper he was a good guy. But this Archer has beaten him down to nothing at all. He isn't like he used to be."

"You can say that again," Jason agreed.

"He's the same," Goldberg said.

"All right!" Mitch said angrily. "You and Sko stay and drift around until you die … Okay, what about the rest of you?"

"Sounds good to me," Jason said.

"If there's no violence, Mitch … Nobody gets hurt … " the Preacher said.

"I know Murph and Sam'll go. So will Skeeter and Willie. What do
you
say, Professor?"

"I say let's look at the character of Peter Brent," the Professor said in that way of his. "When we were fooling around with those transports I think you said he was a coward, didn't you, Mitch?"

"Well, at first … "

"That's what I mean," the Professor said. "At first he looked like a coward, but when he got going he went pretty well, didn't he?"

"That was before Archer," Mitch argued.

"Archer hasn't changed his basic character," the Professor said, "so I'm going to give Brent time to get going."

"How much time?" Mitch demanded. "A week? In a week we'll be in the Pacific. Just as good as dead."

"I'll give him until the rest of you are in the raft," the Professor said. "Then … I'll get in too."

"Good," Mitch said. "Now, Goldberg, you and Sko are the only ones who can mess this up by telling either Archer or Brent. So what are you going to do? Squeal on your shipmates?"

Goldberg took a long time to answer, but finally he said, "No."

"I don't think Sko will, either. So we're set," Mitch declared. "Now every time Brent takes a star sight I'm going to be there. I'll watch what he marks on the chart and when it's time to go I'll pass the word. We've got to do it fast and do it right. But until the last minute, we've got to be good little sailors, no matter what Archer or Brent make us do. Right?"

They were about to answer when Brent's voice came flatly out of the intercom. "Bridge?"

Mitch leaned to the intercom. "Bridge, aye aye."

"Mitch? Listen, break out the life raft and check it over real good. Then bind a one-inch line around the gunwales with a good-sized eye in it astern. Okay?"

For a moment Mitch stood staring at the intercom and then he said, "Yes, sir."

In the darkness Goldberg laughed quietly. "Well, Mitch, ol' buddy," he said, "it looks like those stupid officers have beaten you to the punch."

Peter Brent sat in the little cabin—hardly more than a closet—with the charts and books spread out on the fold-down desk and the bunk.

"Vailulu Madness," he read, "is a growing cult among the Melanesians of the Bismarck Archipelago. Sometimes known as Cargo Cult from the pidgin English of these people—cargo being in pidgin a man's possessions—it is basically a movement to get rid of all aliens, taking their 'cargo' in the process. Since these tribal natives are only two generations removed from the Stone Age this Vailulu Madness takes forms of extreme violence, including death by torture, murder of women and children and, in some cases, cannibalism. The cult seems to have originated in the Admiralty Islands, spreading from there to the more populated areas of the Archipelago.

"The inhabitants of the Admiralty Islands are a primitive, tribe-oriented group still clinging to many Stone Age practices. All adults and many children chew the narcotic plant, betel, which accounts for the characteristic bright red color of their gums. Adults also file their teeth to points. They are adept at sailing the outrigger canoes, making voyages of many hundreds of miles, but have few modern skills."

And then, underlined in the book, was the last sentence:
"Anyone coming in contact with the natives of the Admiraltys should regard them as extremely hostile, dangerous, and treacherous with allegiance to no one."

Peter closed the book slowly and stared at the chart with the penciled line of
Slewfoot's
course.

The Admiralty Islands lay ahead and to the starboard of the course. Peter had seen natives in New Guinea—almost naked, fuzzy-haired dark people, red-gummed and teeth filed to points—and he had not been attracted to them. There was no friendliness in their eyes, no appreciation for the many things the men had done for them.

Peter remembered particularly their worship of the crocodile. He had seen many carvings by these people of crocodiles, all of them in the process of eating people. The carved people were always half devoured, feet first, the rest of their bodies half out of the critters' mouths. And every one of the people had this silly smile on his face as though it was an honor to be swallowed by a crocodile.

Peter sat with the words of the book still strong in his mind—hostile, dangerous, treacherous … cannibalism, slow torture, murder—and, equally strong, the thought of the terrible wastes of the Pacific Ocean with the great storms roaring across it, or the mind-destroying calms. And he suddenly thought of what a destroyer captain had once told him—of a wave so enormous that it rolled the destroyer more than 90° and towered above the ship like a mountain of water. How could
Slewfoot
survive a sea like that?

Peter wished that Jonesy were here now to help him, to talk with him and, together, decide what to do for there was little time left; and the decision had to be made. The simple decision: try to get the boat over to the Admiraltys, or let
Slewfoot
go on out into the Pacific and take her chances across the limitless distances and the great hazards of that ocean.

But he knew that he would have to decide this thing alone—Archer would not help him. And if he decided to try to beach the boat in the Admiraltys, Peter was sure that Archer would be dead set against it.

Added to all the rest of the troubles, Peter thought of the crew. That a mutiny was in the making he was sure, with Mitch as the ringleader. Peter doubted if all of the crew were behind Mitch in the thing—Sko and Goldberg would be the last to join him—but it was only a question of time; and if Mitch were given the time it would take to drift for two thousand miles, mutiny was inevitable. That he, Peter, would go down with Archer was a fact.

It
had
to be the Admiraltys. Somehow they
must
reach those islands. His life and the lives of the crew hung on getting to land
soon.
It would probably mean trouble with the natives, but
Slewfoot
was still armed and dangerous. Peter was sure she was as dangerous as any Stone Age savages.

He rolled up the chart, got the tide tables and the books, and went across the passageway to Archer's cabin.

Mitch, in the dayroom, saw him cross the passageway and whispered to Joson, "There he goes to eat our chow."

Goldberg, who had been sitting beside Britches, got up in the dark and crossed over to Mitch. "I've been thinking," he said quietly, "and I don't like it, Mitch. I want you to knock off this talk. I don't care what you and the rest of the guys do, just knock off this talk."

"Can you make me, Goldberg?"

"Let me ask you one thing. Has Peter Brent ever put you down for foul-ups you've made on this boat? The answer is No. So you stop putting him down."

"Can you make me, Goldberg?"'

Goldberg stood over him in the dark and said, very quietly, "I can make you, Mitch." Then he turned and went back to Britches.

"Let's get out of here," Mitch said to Jason.

Goldberg watched them go, pausing outside the captain's cabin, trying to hear what Brent and Archer were talking about.

"What's up with Mitch?" Britches asked.

"He's yakking about mutiny."

"Maybe he's right. Archer … "

"You knock it off too," Goldberg said. "Any mutiny on this boat will be against Peter too, because he's an officer and he'll behave like one. And if Mitch tries it, Peter will go against him. He'll go until one or the other gets it."

"For
Archer?"
Britches asked, surprised.

"Not for Archer. Not for us. For the boat. He's not going to let a mutiny happen on
Slewfoot
if he can help it."

"No, I guess he wouldn't."

In Archer's cabin Peter spread the chart out on the bunk and got the books and tables ready. Archer sat at the desk reading. He had not spoken to Peter since telling him to come in.