Voyage to Somewhere (20 page)

“We'll only be on this shuttle run a few months,” I told Mr. Crane. “After that they've got us slated for Manila. We won't be in Manila long. The war isn't going to end in Manila. You can tell the men that when you hear them griping.”

“I'd just as soon stay right here,” Mr. Crane replied. “You've never heard me griping about no action. Put me on a cruiser and I'll fight, but on this bucket I'd just as soon stay right here.”

I laughed. “You and me both,” I said. “But it will help the men appreciate these next few months better if they know what they're in for.”

The town of Guian, we found, was just like Tacloban. After our first run between the two ports the men never went ashore in either place except to go to the sick bay or attend an occasional movie. We ran on a regular schedule, one day loading miscellaneous cargo in Tacloban, the next day spent en route to Guian, the next day unloading there, then back to Tacloban. We became so used to the routine that we felt almost as though we were never moving at all. Life aboard ship went on the same and we performed our duties as a woman knits while talking.

Livingston, the new Negro seaman, worked with the other seamen. I heard little comment about him. I watched him painting the well deck and noticed only that he painted a little apart from the others. He always picked a different section, painted that up to where the others were working, then returned to find another spot still undone. When I passed him in the mornings he always said good morning, nothing else. I forgot my fears about him. It came as a surprise when one morning a month after he had come aboard he came to my cabin and said he wanted to see me.

“What's the trouble, Livingston?” I asked.

“I want to know what my rights are,” he said.

“Rights? What kind of rights?” I inspected him closely. There was no outward excitement on his face, but he was almost too expressionless.

“That Boats,” he said. “Can he talk to me any way he likes?”

I sat down. Here is it, I thought. Now we're going to have trouble. Aloud I said. “What has Boats said to you that you don't like?”

“It ain't what he says,” Livingston replied. “It's how he says it. ‘Hey you, Livingston,' he says. ‘Come here now and step lively!' And I never do my work right for him. When we were painting out on the well deck the other day he said I had to paint with the others because it left a seam in the middle when I started somewhere else.”

It was a long while before I answered. “It probably does leave a seam,” I said at last. “A gang of men painting is supposed to start at one end of the deck and paint right down to the other end.”

“Yes, sir,” said Livingston. He still stood there immovable.

“I think you'll have to know Boats better to understand him,” I continued. “Some time ago I had a seaman in here who complained that Boats had hit him. I know that a lot of the men don't like Boats because he is gruff. You want to remember that he has been to sea longer than anyone else in the forecastle, and he cares about just one thing: keeping this vessel shipshape enough to be safe. When we started out he was almost the only man who had ever been to sea. Now he's trained the others and things are going pretty well.”

“Yes, sir,” said Livingston. He stood there just as he had been before, and I noticed that although he seemed almost unbearably tense, his hands hung loosely and open by his side. I might as well bring it out into the open, I thought to myself. We're getting nowhere this way.

“Livingston,” I said suddenly, “do you feel that aboard this ship you have been the victim of racial prejudice?”

He stiffened a little, and for a moment he did not answer. Then, “Yes, sir,” he said.

“From whom?” I asked.

There was a long silence. I noticed that he had closed his fists. “Boats,” he said at last.

“Exactly what has made you think this way?”

He shifted nervously on his feet. “Mostly the way he talks to me,” he replied. “And the way he orders me to do things. He never asks me nice.”

“Boatswain's mates rarely ask seamen to do things,” I said, “nicely or otherwise. It's Boats' job to tell seamen to do things. How long have you been in the service?”

“Five months,” replied Livingston.

“Well, Livingston,” I said, “I think you and I better have a talk right now. It's my firm intention to make sure that you get a square deal aboard this ship. If anyone insults you or treats you unfairly I want to know about it. But you've got to help me. You've got to figure out for yourself whether people are ordering you around because you're a seaman or whether they're ordering you around because you're a Negro.”

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Do you understand what I'm trying to say?”

“Yes, sir.”

I wanted to say, “Stop saying yes, sir,” and knew that would be absurd. “You go ahead and do your work now,” I said suddenly. “And tell me if anyone really does anything bad to you, something I can be sure about.”

“Yes, sir,” he said again and did not move.

“That's all, Livingston, you can go now,” I ordered.

“Yes, sir,” he said. He turned and walked out of the cabin. I sat by myself and smoked. Starting to go to Mr. Rudd, I decided not to and sat down again. After a few moments I got up and went on deck. I found Boats working by himself.

“Livingston was just complaining to me about you, Boats,” I said. “He complained about the way you talk to him. Have you treated him any different from anybody else?”

Boats put down the line he was splicing. “No, I haven't,” he said at length.

“In the future talk to him as nicely as you can,” I replied. “He's pretty sensitive.”

Boats looked at me with a puzzled expression. “I'll do my best,” he said.

I stood there somewhat at a loss. I could hear what Mr. Rudd would say if he were there: “What an awful thing—the captain of a ship tells a boatswain's mate to speak to a seaman as nicely as he can!” I looked at Boats, and saw that he was again preoccupied with the line he was splicing. Suddenly I wondered if Livingston had been right, if Boats had been unnecessarily hard on him.

“Boats, do you have anything against Negroes?” I asked abruptly.

“I'm no Southerner,” he replied. “I don't have anything for or against them. But this Livingston is a damn poor seaman. He just don't know how to do things. I have to be at him all the time.”

“Well, he's just been in the service five months,” I said. “Give him time to learn. He's probably never been aboard a ship before. Maybe he'll turn out all right.”

Although air attacks became less and less likely as the Japs were weeded out of the islands near Leyte, blackouts were still enforced. Blackout curtains still cut the air from our fetid living quarters. In the evening the heat was unbearable. Five minutes after we put on a fresh shirt it was as wet as though it had been dipped in a wash tub. Our skins became poisoned and irritated by their own sweat. A new rash, different from the New Guinea rot and the ubiquitous prickly heat, afflicted us. Mr. Warren's entire back and chest looked as though he had just received a severe lashing. When we went on deck the wind chilled our wet shirts and made us sneeze. The enlisted men put away their shirts and the officers never wore them except while at meals. Finally I repealed even this rule, and we gathered half naked around the dinner table. Still we sweated, and while we ate we glanced away from one another.

“God, men are unattractive,” I said at dinner, one night in March. “After this war is over I'm going some place where I never have to look at a man again. Do you know any place like that?”

“Some island,” replied Mr. Crane. “You could buy some island down in the Society group, and stock it up with whores.”

“The post war world at its best!” commented Mr. Rudd. “What an awful thing!”

“No,” said Mr. Crane, “I guess we'd get tired of that. After this war I'm going to make so damn much money that every woman in the country will be chasing me.”

“I thought you were already married,” Mr. Warren objected.

“I am,” Mr. Crane replied, “but that doesn't prevent me from liking to have them chase me, does it?”

“After this war,” Mr. Warren said, “I'm going to take adventage of the GI Bill of Rights. I'm going to take Rachel and go to some college in the Middle West where I can get a doctor's degree. You can live pretty cheaply at those colleges in the Middle West, and they're coeducational. Rachel and I could go to classes together. She hasn't gone to college yet, but you should see the stuff she reads, stuff that's too deep for me. We'll live there on a little farm, maybe, and keep a cow or two, and go to classes together.”

“It sounds like a pretty good idea,” Mr. Crane said hesitantly.

“Oh, it is,” Mr. Warren continued. “It's not as impractical as it sounds at first. Do you realize that in Ohio you can rent a small farm for around ten dollars a month? Of course you don't get plumbing and heating and electricty, but Rachel and I won't mind that. Classes would take only about half our time. The rest of the day we'd work on the farm. We'd grow vegetables and raise chickens.”

“That's not the life for me,” Mr. Crane interrupted heartily. “What I want is money. I've been thinking. I may not go back to that brokerage office with that bastard Howard. I'm thinking of starting a night club. Have you any idea how much night clubs make? You buy one bottle of cheap whisky for about ninety cents wholesale, and you sell it for fifty cents a shot. For the privilege of paying fifty cents a shot, the customer has to shell out a two buck cover charge. You get yourself a menu that calls hamburger Salisbury steak. That Salisbury steak will cost the customer two bucks and a half. He'll pay it too. I've done it myself.”

“It's funny the way everybody wants to make money,” Mr. Warren said. “I don't want it at all. Do you know what I think about when I think what I'll do after the war? I think about sitting in a field somewhere reading. I'd have my wife out there too. We'd be reading and talking about what was in the books. I wish you could meet Rachel. She's pretty, but she's intelligent too. You've seen her picture, haven't you, Captain?”

“Yes,” I said hastily. “She's very lovely.”

“She's just as smart as she is pretty,” Mr. Warren went on. “I'll tell you how I met her. It was in Los Angeles about two weeks before we sailed. I didn't know anybody there and I was walking through the park. I saw this girl sitting on a bench reading. As I went by I saw that the book was a copy of the Odyssey. It seemed funny to see such a pretty young girl sitting there reading Homer, so I sat down on the bench and in a little while managed to strike up a conversation with her. A week later we were married!”

“That's real nice,” Mr. Rudd said soberly.

No one else said anything. Mr. Rudd took a fingernail file from his pocket and started filing his nails. The file made a surprisingly loud rasping sound, and he put it away again.

“Right now,” Mr. Warren said brightly, “Rachel has a job selling dresses. She's saving the money she makes so we can go to college. She asked me to send her all my money so she can put it in the bank with hers. She's got quite a job. It keeps her real busy. I kind of hate to think of her working all the time, but I can't help admiring her for it. It takes a lot of guts for a young girl to go out and take a job. Do any of your wives work?”

“My wife has to stay home with the kid,” said Mr. Crane.

“My wife works sometimes,” I offered.

“Well, I think it's much better for a girl to be working if she doesn't have any children,” Mr. Warren continued. “I think it's much better for them to work than to just sit around with nothing to do but think and worry and write letters.”

Mr. Crane suddenly pushed his chair from the table and got up. He stood there for a moment looking a little surprised at himself, then mumbled something about its being too hot to eat anyway, and went to his stateroom. A moment later Mr. Warren finished his meal and excused himself.

“When I get back to the States,” I said to Mr. Rudd, “I'm going to look that guy's wife up and if she's what I think she is I'm going to beat the hell out of her.”

“You can't tell,” said Mr. Rudd. “You can't tell what she is.”

“Two letters!” I said. “That guy's received just two letters from her since we left the States. And all he does is talk about that damn woman like she's an angel.”

“Maybe she's just a scatterbrained young girl,” replied Mr. Rudd. “You can't tell. What difference does it make? He's happy as a king.”

“He sends her all his money so she can put it in the bank with hers!” I said. “I bet she puts it in the bank with hers!”

“As long as he can talk like he talked tonight he's getting his money's worth,” answered Mr. Rudd.

“And when he gets home he'll start his post war world with one hell of a surprise!” I replied.

“And so will we all,” said Mr. Rudd.

He lit a cigar. The smoke quickly filled the stuffy little wardroom. I lit my pipe in defense.

“What the hell,” I said, “maybe she's all right. She is just a kid. From her picture I don't think she's more than nineteen years old.”

“And if she's what you think she is,” Mr. Rudd replied, “Warren knows it as well as you do. Way deep down he won't be a damn bit surprised when he has to face it.”

“Did he ever tell you about a letter a friend of his wrote him about her?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Mr. Rudd, “he asked me about that too. That might be just like she says it was. Anyway, as long as he doesn't go home it will be the happiest marriage that ever was.”

When we returned to Tacloban from one of our trips to Guian we saw the SV-131 moored where we usually unloaded. We tied up alongside her. Mr. Stuart, her skipper, was ashore. I sat on the wing of our bridge looking down on deck. Our seamen were talking to friends they had on the other ship. While I sat there I saw Livingston come out of our forecastle and lean on the rail. At the same time a Negro on the SV-131 walked out on her deck. They saw each other at the same time, and walked over to stand opposite each other.