Better Times Than These (11 page)

No one actually knew who threw the life ring over, except the man who did it, and he wasn’t saying. But if he had been found out he would probably have been torn to pieces by the men themselves, because of the grief it caused.

Patch was on the bridge with the Captain when the signal from the life ring was picked up on the special distress frequency.

“There it is again, Captain,” the radio operator said, poking his head out the door of the radio shack.

The Captain immediately dispatched a man to check all the life-ring stations on the decks to see if any rings were missing. He seemed clearly annoyed.

“We’d have heard by now if somebody went over. But if some idiot threw that thing in for a joke—and I suspect that’s what happened—we’re in for trouble, because it has a radio beacon that broadcasts for two hundred miles.”

“How long does it last?” Patch asked lamely.

“Five days—a week—who knows? Every damned ship that picks up the signal has to stop and search for four hours. It’s the law. We’re going to have to turn back and find the sonofabitch,” the Captain said. He ordered the transport to come about in a wide circle, and sent two men forward to try to spot the life ring with binoculars.

“It has a strobe light on it, so it shouldn’t be too hard to see,” the Captain said glumly.

The man who had been sent to check the life-ring stations reported back that a ring was indeed missing from the Number Seven port station. At the Captain’s suggestion, Patch had already ordered the troops to form by their bunks for a head count.

It was oppressively hot below, and the heaving of the ship and jammed-up sweaty bodies were taking a toll in seasickness. In fifteen minutes, all companies reported back that all men were present or accounted for. The Navy Captain was getting angrier as the minutes passed.

“What a fool thing to do,” he spat. “We’re trying to outrun a typhoon here, and some jackass pulls a stunt like this.” He looked out toward the gray, lowering weather ahead. “I wish I could lay my hands on him,” the Captain said.

Patch knew these comments were for his benefit. Even though they were not said directly to him, they were obviously meant to chastise him for permitting such vandalism to be carried on by people for whom he was responsible.

“Captain,” Patch said, in the awkward silence of the bridge, “I will have the man who did this in less than an hour.” He picked up the microphone and ordered an officers’ call in the dining room—on the double.

“I want,” Patch said somberly, “the bastard who is responsible for the life ring. I want his ass in front of me in fifteen minutes. I don’t care how you find him, but find him. I simply cannot let this kind of behavior pass.” Behind the small, black sunglasses, the colonel’s eyes were dark, fathomless tunnels. “Tell them it will go a lot easier on whoever it is if he just comes forward now. But they’re going to stand by those bunks down there below until someone does—storm or not; I don’t give a damn if it takes all week.” He stalked out of the theater, leaving the junior officers on their own.

“Okay, you heard what the man said,” Kahn said softly to the cluster of platoon leaders gathered around him. He was in charge again, since Captain Thurlo had taken to his bunk with renewed seasickness at the onset of the storm.

Below, the men had become a confused mob. When Kahn and his cadre entered Bravo Company’s sleeping room, they were beseeched for an explanation, because no one had bothered to tell the men that a life ring had been thrown over and what the consequences were. Everyone had been expecting to be told to go back up to the lounges on the boat deck or some place where there was some air, and they were unprepared for the news that they had to remain down here in the heat and pitching.

“I can’t promise you anything,” Kahn told them, “except if one of you did throw that thing over, it will be a hell of a lot better on you and on your buddies if you tell us about it now.”

There was silence, as the men looked at one another and clung to their bunks to keep steady on their feet.

“Did any of you men throw over the life ring?” Kahn asked again. “If you did, say so now.”

Again silence.

Sergeant Trunk, who had been leaning against the bulkhead with his arms folded, surveyed the men. “If one of you shitheads did this and you don’t step your ass up here now, your ass is grass.”

No one stepped forward.

“Well, that’s it,” Kahn said. “They’ll have to stay here until we get back, Sergeant Trunk. You stay too. See if you can find out anything else.”

As he turned to go, a weak voice called out behind Kahn, “Suh . . .” and he turned to the anxious faces.

“Some of us sick; can’t we go up to where there’s some fresh air?” It was Carruthers, the black soldier who had had the seasickness ever since coming aboard.

“The colonel says you’re to stay here until somebody confesses about this. But I think he’ll probably let you go up topside shortly—that’s all I can say,” Kahn said, leaving the men in a state of anger and confusion. Trunk was at his heels.

“Lieutenant,” Trunk said, “any of our people didn’t have nothing to do with this. I know it—there ain’t one of them shitheads got guts enough to throw that thing over. Anyway, I’d know if they did it.”

“Listen, you know it, and I know it, but the goddamned Old Man doesn’t. And he’s in charge. I’ll do the best I can do.”

“Right, sir,” Trunk said.

The officers had been waiting in the dining room for ten minutes when Patch came in again, striding up to the stage in long steps and turning with his hands on his hips; the dark glasses were pushed up on top of his head.

“Well, have you anything to tell me?”

There was silence, the same kind of silence as in the troop quarters. Each of the officers felt slightly guilty himself; there was a kind of collective guilt that had been passed down to them through Patch, then through them to the men, so that even if no one ever stepped forward to admit the transgression, all of the officers and men aboard would have shared in the guilt of it anyway, partially expiating the deed through collective penitence.

“Damn it, I meant what I said,” Patch said firmly. “I
WANT
the bastard who did this. I want that man, and I want him now. I know it’s rough down there, but they’re just going to have to stomach it until somebody steps up. The Navy is furious. Now I want you to go back down there and I want each company commander to personally ask every man in his company—individually—if he was the one, and if not, if he knows anything about it. Somebody threw that thing overboard, and it was somebody in this brigade. Be back here in half an hour.” Once again Patch stalked out of the room.

When Kahn and his entourage returned to the troop quarters, they were not expecting the wretchedness that greeted them.

Vomit was spilling out from beneath the locked compartment doors where some of the men had gone to throw up in the little water fountains near the doors because they couldn’t make it to the head and they didn’t want to throw up on the floor. Other men became ill seeing this, and when Kahn and the rest entered, it was plain in their bewildered faces that Bravo Company did not understand this kind of treatment at all, because if they had understood it, they would have been angry and cursing and resigned to it, no matter how bad. But this was something they had not experienced before, and they were hurt by it and becoming desperate because the storm was heaving the ship about violently now and it was frightening them.

In the corridor outside the troop quarters, Kahn and his officers and Sergeant Trunk formed in a small, tight huddle.

“This is crazy,” Kahn said. “I think . . . I mean, somebody ought to stand up and tell him what’s going on down here.”

“It ain’t going to be me,” Lieutenant Inge said soberly. “He’s mighty pissed off.”

“Well, somebody ought to,” Kahn said, looking at the others.

Sharkey was leaning against the bulkhead looking slightly green. “I don’t know, Billy—maybe Inge is right. It probably wouldn’t do anything but get you in trouble.”

“Shit on it,” Brill said. “They’re no worse off down here than anywhere else. Besides, if they had any sense they’d find the fucker who did it themselves.”

“Oh, hell, Brill,” Donovan said. “You think the guy’s gonna speak up now? They’d kill his ass.” He turned to the others. “Billy’s right. Somebody ought to just stand up and tell the Old Man what’s going on down here. Hell, I’ll do it myself if nobody else will.”

“No,” Kahn said, “I’ll do it. If we all agree. I’ll say that the Company asked me to speak for them, or something like that.”

The transport took a long, sighing list to port, then righted itself while they clung to the bulkhead.

“All right, Sharkey, how about you?” Kahn said.

“Okay—but I think it’s a mistake,” Sharkey said weakly.

“Inge?”

The studious Weapons Platoon leader studied his feet. “I don’t think so. I think it wouldn’t do any good.”

Kahn shrugged.

“Brill?”

“Nah—I say let ’em sweat it out. Why not?”

“Donovan?”

“Yeah—I said it before.”

“Trunk?”

“Yessir, I think so definitely, sir. Them men are hurtin’ in there. Definitely.”

Kahn searched their faces. “Okay, that’s it. I’ll just say it’s what
I
think, so nobody else’ll catch any shit.”

For a third time the officers seated themselves in the dining hall, and a third time they were ordered below to personally interrogate the men.

By this time, even the most hard-bitten among them felt awkward facing his men. Patch had not been in the troop hold himself, but had sent his aide Captain Kennemer down to assess the situation. Kennemer had reported back that while it was uncomfortable, it was probably better than letting the men roam about the ship in this kind of weather.

Patch was beginning to get bad vibrations, yet he was committed and felt he had to see the matter through. He hadn’t wanted to consign the men to those steaming bunk rooms, but they had to understand that when they pulled a dumb stunt like this, all would suffer unless the guilty man was apprehended. Then because of the theory of collective guilt, that man would do the suffering for all of them, rather than the other way around, the way it was now.

Somebody was lying, but Patch knew these were pretty good boys. He loved them, and he wished the one who had done it would come forward so that he could let the rest go.

The Bravo Company staff sat in the back of the room listening to Patch’s stern admonitions. When he paused for a moment, Kahn started to get to his feet, but a thick, meaty hand caught him by the elbow and pulled him back into his seat.

“No, Billy, I changed my mind. Don’t do it,” Sharkey whispered. “I know this bastard. He’ll have your ass for this, and it’s not going to do any good anyway. I know.” Kahn glared at Sharkey. He could see West Point written all over his face. But he did not try to rise.

Most of the men were sitting down when Kahn and his officers and noncoms returned. Sergeant Trunk himself had been heaving into a waste can in his cabin, and not a man in the outfit wasn’t feeling sick to some degree. Kahn looked at the white faces before him, heads turned up, those who were able, searching for a sign of relief. He was still looking at them, saying nothing, for there was nothing for him to say, when the first tremendous sea lifted the transport on her end and smashed her into a hollow of roiling water as if she were a toy. All of them simply stared at each other in disbelief as the whole ship rose up, quivered for a moment, and then whapped down into the chasm as though she had sailed over a waterfall. For an instant, the electrical system wavered, flickering the bunk-room lights. Then the second sea caught them head on with all the unbridled fury of the first, as though the water outside were some savage living thing trying to get at them through the steel hull.

No one said anything during those brief seconds. Everyone, Kahn included, felt panic in his chest, a panic at their utter helplessness before a thing so fierce that for the moment it made every past horror of their lives seem trivial. This was not something that could be dealt with; it was a cataclysmic tumult, as old as time itself, moving against them without reason or mercy.

Gear flew about in the room, and then there was great confusion and swearing. A man who had been trying to vomit behind his bunk threw up on other men. Another, grimacing in pain, had been hit in the shins by a rifle rack that had broken loose.

“Trunk—Trunk, goddamn it,” Kahn cried, “get these men to hell topside to the lounges. Now.” Kahn heard himself talking, but was surprised, even in this, that he had said what he had said.

The other company officers in the room saw men moving, but they weren’t sure what was happening. A lieutenant from Alpha Company cried out across the room, “Do we move them?” and Donovan, showing great ingenuity and foresight, bellowed back, “I think there was something over the loudspeaker. Didn’t you hear something like that?”

“I think I heard it too,” Sharkey yelled loudly.

Now there was no stopping them. Everyone began clambering into the corridors and up the metal staircases into the troop lounges and dining room, where the big windows gave at least a breath of air. But when they saw what was happening outside the ship, it was enough to make some of them wish they had stayed in their hellhole.

The seas were as high as buildings and utterly chaotic. The air was filled with white spume, and the rain was driving against the porthole glass at a crazy sidewise angle. The transport had changed course slightly, so as to take the seas just abeam of her port side, but the wind seemed determined to shove her bow further down. Each time the ship crashed into a hollow, they could hear her big propellers churning out of the water with an unsteady, unsettling throb.

“Hey, Kahn, you want me to get my men together in here?—they’re just sort of all over the boat deck now.” It was Brill, and Kahn, who was holding on to a pipe-line support in the dining room watching the storm through a porthole, had to think for a second because the question Brill asked was a reasonable one.

“Damn, I don’t know . . . yeah, I guess we should, Brill. Why don’t you get them together in here. If you see Inge and Sharkey and Donovan, tell them to get everybody in here over in a corner or something; just keep them together till we find out what’s going to happen next.”