“I’m not the world’s best seaman.” Howard persisted with near desperate courage. “I’m better than Brace.”
“Yeah, but you ain’t Brace, short timer.” Then Dane relented, as though the echo of his own words offended his ears. “The punk has to learn,” he said quietly. “I know that you’re lots better.”
And Howard, fatalistic before a knowledge that he did not understand, and possibly having received a compliment, laid below to carry his errand.
Ice hung in dull circles as condensation froze on the ports. The brass dogs on hatches were covered with frost, brittle looking, like calcimine. As Howard crossed the fiddley, the hot air rising through the grates warmed his legs, but his shoulders felt the chill that radiated through the hull. Chief engineman Snow ascended the ladder from the engine room.
“These double-enders have two drive lines,” said Snow. “What is the problem, exactly?”
“I’m no engineman. I think the thing only has one transmission.”
Islander, certified in all respects ready for sea, had suffered a burned clutch. It was drifting toward the sharp waters near Bibb Rock, and it was an odds-on chance that the ferry was going to fetch the rock. The inshore wind was at twenty knots. Islander, streamed to a jury-rigged sea anchor, was drifting at half a knot.
“I must speak with their engineman.” Snow flitted from the fiddley, toward the bridge.
On the steaming messdeck, men waited for news. Brace sat and stared at the accomplished fact of a vat of peeled apples. Adrian rose and fell with slight and distant shocks as the increased speed pressed it against the easy sea.
“Come to the office,” Howard told Conally, and Howard’s voice was small and strained with his fear.
Conally stepped into the office. His swarthy Indian face, which was usually a mask of reserve, wrinkled with omen. He attempted to readjust his face, resume his mask. Failed.
“You’re supposed to take Glass and Joyce to the bridge,” said Howard. “You’re supposed to take the kid, too.”
“What’s goin’ on? What?”
“I don’t know what’s going on. Don’t know.”
“Do you think Lamp’s right?”
“Yeah,” said Howard. “Lamp’s right. So is Dane.” He paused, and he was as helpless as Conally. “Maybe the crazy part isn’t over,” he said. “Maybe Dane is nuts.”
“There’s six guys on that thing.”
“I don’t know what that means. We’ll do our best. What does that mean?”
“I dunno,” said Conally. “Maybe I’m nuts, too.” He turned to leave, turned back like a clipped apology. “I’ll do what I can,” he said. “I’ll try to stay between them.” He stepped to the messdeck and began hollering, swearing. Glass and Joyce stood, grabbed their gear, ran. Brace picked up the vat of apples, carried them to the galley, moving with approximately the grace and speed of a cow en route to a barbecue. Howard, rushing, brushed past—stopped.
“Get moving.”
“I’m moving,” Brace told him. “Just as fast as I promised to move, when people lie to me.” Brace refused to look at Howard, but Brace’s face was shamed, and it was clear that Brace was lying. He sat the vat of apples on the deck of the galley, looked up, and saw the awesome figure of Lamp standing above him and looking down.
“You’re lying, sonny. Get truthful and get moving.”
“It’s an emergency,” Howard said. “It has nothing to do with what we talked about. It has nothing to do with whether you go to engine room or deck.”
“It does have to do with what we talked about, but not the engine room. It’s worse than that.” Brace’s eyes showed a hint of unreasonable fear.
“Get moving, sonny.” Lamp bent, picked up an apple, tossed it, caught it. “We mostly serve these in a pig’s mouth. After we roast him.”
Brace moved.
“Yellow?” Howard stood in momentary disbelief.
“Naw,” said Lamp. “He ain’t yellow, but he sure is trembly, ain’t he?”
The small bridge, when Howard returned, seemed packed with Adrian’s entire crew. The increased speed caused spray to rise at the bow. In the sunshine, the light spray became pale feathers of blown ice; like a sown blessing from an apostolic hand creating parables of seed on rocky ground. The ice fell to the decks in hoar flakes and pebbles.
“I want crash mats on the bow,” Levere told Dane. “Rig them while we still have daylight.”
“Phil—Cap—” Dane faltered as he displayed a familiarity with Levere that the crew had never before heard. “The plates won’t take it.”
“Will the line?”
Dane slumped, and he momentarily looked like a stubbed cigar butt. Then he straightened, stomped a foot. “If we don’t get more wind. If we can get it head to wind, let the wind blow through it instead of agin it.” He stomped his foot again, either to shock his rheumatism into obedience, or in a display of anger. Howard, who in later years would have more than several occasions to wonder if he had ever done anything correctly would—in those later years—recall one thing.
“I want to be in on this,” he told Dane. “I don’t care what you think.”
“You’ll be on the helm,” said Chappel.
“Use Rodgers.”
“You are the best helm after Glass.”
“Glass is going to be on deck,” said Glass, “and if you don’t like it, you can book Glass, later.”
“You will be on the helm,” Chappel told Howard.
Men stood, sweated with compacted closeness, with tension. They jammed together on the bridge—Conally, Dane, Snow, Joyce, Chappel, Brace, Glass, Levere, Howard—shuffled, sweated. Quartermaster designate Rodgers over-corrected on the helm, spun it back, was silent and attentive to the compass as he chewed on Chappel’s estimate of helmsmen. Rodgers began to speak, thought better of it, remained silent. Brace looked toward Howard, and Brace had his back to Dane.
“I suppose,” Brace whispered in a voice of absolute despair, “if you’ve seen one engine room you’ve seen ’em.” The trace of fear was still in his eyes.
Snow, standing across the bridge and with the radio transmitter in one hand, was turned sideways to Brace. He did not see Brace’s eyes, but he heard Brace’s words. He turned to Brace. Snow’s eyes showed contempt, but his voice was level and implied nothing to any other man on the bridge. “Have you something to say?”
Brace flushed, pawed helplessly at the pocket of his dungaree shirt as if he searched for his heart. The flush rose from his neck, made his ears glow as certainly as neon. The flush ran across his cheeks and forehead. He began to speak, stuttered, became silent.
Dane looked at Levere, and Levere was looking forward into the rapidly icing bow. Light spray rose, sparkled, dimmed into white flakes of ice. Sunlight bleached the bow, and the hooded three-inch-fifty gun looked like a schoolteacherly white finger, admonishing the sea.
“There ain’t nothing else we can do.” Dane turned to Conally. “You think of anything, Jim?” He turned to Snow. “Ed?”
“I think,” said Snow, “that we are capable of repairing the clutch. If you can keep it from the beach for two hours, I believe I may promise power on one drive line.”
“They haven’t got any hawser,” said Levere. “You’ll have to rig the yoke.”
If Dane had ever been disconcerted, no man could recall having seen the event. Dane stood, squat, compact as a stump, and like a stump, at least temporarily immobile. Then he shifted his weight, flipped at the underside of his nose with the back of his hand—for the enjoyment. He looked at Brace, and Brace was ablush and silent. Dane’s voice was thick with scorn. “I was on an icebreaker, once. Convoy to Murmansk.”