Ice Brothers (10 page)

“I don't know what to do with them,” he said in exasperation to Green. “Do you suppose we could send them all back to the brig?”

“The guys ashore know better than to take them,” Green replied morosely. “I keep dreaming of the ship sinking. It used to be a horror dream, but now I've begun to look forward to it. At least the noise would stop.”

Just as Paul was about to go home to his wife and leave the mess to Farmer for a night, two of the newly arrived machinist's mates had a fight in the engine room. This was no prank—they fought with ballpeen hammers. One was knocked out and both were blinded with blood before they were parted. By the time Paul got them on an ambulance and figured out the legal procedures, it was far too late for him to go home and he was too exhausted anyway.

“What happened?” Sylvia wailed when he finally got to a telephone.

“I couldn't begin to tell you. Top secret. I'll be home as soon as I can, dear. I don't know when. I'm beginning to think that fighting the Germans and the Japs will be the easiest part of this war.”

The next day was the first really warm sunny one that spring. After being urged by Mr. Farmer, all hands washed clothes and hung them on the rigging and rails to dry. All the bedding was also hung out to air. The ship looked like a gigantic laundry rack.

Paul had no warning that their new commanding officer was to come aboard that day, and no inkling of what kind of a man he would turn out to be.

Clifford P. Mowrey, who for decades had been known to regular Coast Guard officers as “Mad Mowrey” (a name with which he often introduced himself), arrived at the gate of the shipyard where the
Arluk
lay, in a black Buick convertible driven by a middle-aged grass widow he had met the night before at the Essex House bar. On that surprisingly warm April afternoon he wore his khaki uniform with the two-and-a-half gold stripes of a lieutenant commander on the shoulder boards and four rows of multicolored campaign ribbons on his chest. He was fifty-two years old, with a head that looked sixty and a body that looked thirty. His short gray hair had been dyed an improbable shade of inky black, and what there was of it was carefully combed. He smelled strongly of perfumed hair oil and shaving lotion. He had a big beefy face with the battered red nose of a retired prize-fighter—he had, in fact, once been light heavyweight champion of the navy's China fleet. His false teeth seemed unusually white in his red face and gave him a sharklike, if dazzling, smile. He wore dark glasses. His neck was so short and thick that it hardly existed at all between his massive, high sloping shoulders. He had no pot belly and no waistline—his body was almost a perfect cylinder, but his thighs were still muscular in his tight khaki pants and his legs were unusually long. He wore the cuffs of his trousers tucked into the tops of highly polished brown jackboots. In his right hand he carried a nonregulation overseas cap made of golden sealskin with the Coast Guard insignia attached. He put this on at a rakish angle after kissing his driver good-by. He marched through the gate with the cocky strut of a drill sergeant.

When the sentry saluted and said, “What ship, sir?” he returned the salute with precision, said, “I know where I'm going,” and brushed impatiently by. The sentry had been told always to ask for identification, but he didn't dare.

While all this was going on, Paul was standing on a steel gun deck that had just been installed forward of the bridge of the
Arluk
. Four shipyard workers were welding this to some heavy steel cones about four feet high, the pedestals of 20-millimeter antiaircraft guns. The sparks from their torches were shooting into the blankets and clothes drying on the rail and an unruly group of seamen and machinists' mates was loudly objecting. To reply to their accusations, a stout welder took off her mask, revealing a mass of dark red hair. Realizing for the first time that she was a woman, the crew gathered around, giving loud catcalls and whistles. The woman yelled indignantly at them in a high, piercing voice, and amid much laughter a machinist's mate invited her down to the engineroom for activities which, he said, would be much more helpful to the war effort than welding. The woman started to swear, the men began to laugh, and Paul began to yell, “Quiet, silence!” but no one paid the slightest attention to him.

At this moment Mowrey stepped between two blankets that were hanging from a clothesline over the rail, and like an actor stepping through a curtain, jumped to the well deck, his jackboots making a sharp report on the pine decks which was heard above the pandemonium. Everyone turned toward him and there was instant silence. Mowrey stood almost at attention, the sun gleaming on his dark glasses and gold accoutrements. His haughty gaze traveled from the bow, where underpants flapped on the railings, over the motley crew amidships, to the stern, where more shirts and blankets flapped on every rail and line. He said nothing, and his silence, which became more and more tense as it continued for a full minute, was more effective than any disgust he could have voiced. When he finally spoke his voice astonished everyone because it was deceptively calm, even pleasant, and he gave a strange smile, which was somehow both sweet and ominous.

“Is the executive officer aboard?” he asked.

Snapping out of a kind of trance, Paul hurried to him and saluted. “I'm the exec,” he said. “Paul Schuman.”

Mowrey returned the salute gravely. “I am your new commanding officer. Bring the men to quarters and I shall read my orders.”

“Quarters, quarters!” a coxswain started to yell without being asked, and the cry was repeated throughout the ship. Men poured from hatches. They formed three lines on the well deck and they looked like a bunch of pirates, Paul realized suddenly. Because most of their clothes were drying, many of them wore dirty dungarees and no shirts. The knowledge that they were now assigned to the Greenland Patrol had caused many of them to start beards which were new enough to look thoroughly disreputable. They stood uneasily, scratching their arms and blinking into the bright sunlight.

“Attention,” Paul said.

The men stiffened into uneven lines. Farmer, who stood in the front row, kept rubbing his chin nervously. At this moment Green walked from the wardroom. He had been studying
Knight's Modern Seamanship
most of the night and had been asleep when he heard the men yelling “quarters.” Uncertain of what this meant, he had simply put on his rumpled blue uniform and without bothering to shave, was ambling forward. His tall, stooped, gaunt figure looked the very antithesis of everything military as he leaned against the big winch to watch the strange proceedings. Mowrey stared at him unbelievingly for an instant, but looked away without saying anything. There was another long minute of tense silence.

“At ease!” Mowrey finally barked.

The shoulders of the men slumped a little, but they still looked anything but at ease.

“My name is Clifford P. Mowrey. I shall now read my orders.”

Taking a crisp envelope from his coat pocket, Mowrey extracted a piece of paper and read in a deliberate monotone: “To Clifford P. Mowrey, lieutenant commander, United States Coast Guard. From, Commandant U.S. Coast Guard, Washington, D.C. Subject: Order to active duty. Paragraph one: You are herewith ordered to active duty. Paragraph two: You are herewith assigned as commanding officer of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter
Arluk
. You will proceed immediately to District One Headquarters, U. S. Coast Guard, for transportation to that vessel. Immediately upon arrival aboard, you will assume command.”

He folded the orders with great deliberation, put them back in the envelope and pocketed it. For perhaps thirty seconds he silently looked up at the sky, like the minister hoping for divine inspiration.

“This morning,” he said in his oddly casual, pleasant tone, “I spent about two hours at the district office going over the personnel records of every man aboard this ship. I know everything about every one of you that the Coast Guard knows.”

There was another long silence during which he seemed to stare directly into the face of every man present.

“Now some of you already know and you all will soon find out that I am widely known as ‘Mad Mowrey.' Don't let that scare you. Actually, I am a very reasonable man. You can be sure, at least, that I know my business. I've been at sea steadily since I was twelve years old, when I went as a cabin boy on a fishing schooner. I've put in twenty years with the navy as a chief boatswain's mate and in the First World War the navy made me a lieutenant. Later I went in the Coast Guard. I know the Arctic as well as any man alive except the Eskimos. You'll be safe with me if you do what I tell you.”

There was another long pause.

“If you don't do what I tell you, you won't be safe,” he said mildly, and flashed them his sharklike, but curiously charming smile. No one dared to smile back. Mowrey looked at the sky and then his eyes focused on the new steel gun deck. The workers there hastily retreated.

“Now let me tell you a little about Greenland,” Mowrey continued pleasantly. “It's not the terrible place you've heard—I'd rather be in Greenland than anywhere in the world. It's God's country and it's a
man's
country. Though you don't think it, a sailor can have one hell of a good time there, better than anything you can find here.”

He paused again.

“But the Arctic is also the most dangerous place for ships in the world, even when the Germans aren't there, which they are—don't make any mistake about that. The Arctic is a great place for sailors who know exactly what they're doing, and a great place for everyone else to die.”

This time he paused only a moment before adding, “Now I don't want to die and I don't think you do, not yet anyway. Even old as I am, the thought of dying makes me mad. That's the real reason why they call me ‘Mad Mowrey.' And because the thought of dying makes me mad, inefficiency makes me mad, ignorance makes me mad and a lack of discipline makes me mad. A filthy ship makes me mad, it makes me madder than hell.”

As he said this, his face suddenly turned truly ferocious. His blunt jaw jutted out and his ice-blue eyes seemed to shoot fire.

“If I took this ship to the Arctic the way she and her crew are now,” he continued, “she wouldn't last a month, even if the Germans didn't find her. I don't think you young fellows want to die any more than I do, so don't complain when I whip you into shape. You may think that the Greenland Patrol is the worst thing you can get and that you'll just be transferred if you foul up, but there are worse things I can send you to, like small shore installations in Greenland where even the Eskimos won't go. I'm warning you that I'm looking for an example and I've got just such a shore installation all picked out. The district personnel officer has promised to cooperate with me. If you want a transfer, you'll get it fast. On the other hand, if you cooperate with me, we can make this into a happy ship and a safe one.”

His expression turned pleasant again as he continued. “I want to get up to Greenland as fast as possible. We're needed up there—some of those colonies of Eskimos and Danes haven't had supplies all winter. More than that, the first ships up there this spring will get the best assignments. The last will get weather patrol, steaming in a circle in the middle of Davis Straits for thirty days at a time, drawing the subs with steady radio signals. If you want that, delay me.”

The men looked scared. They shifted their feet uneasily.

“There's no way I can whip this ship and this crew into shape fast by being a nice guy,” Mowrey said quietly, but his face was now stern. “Hate me all you like, but remember that I'm saving your lives. All leaves and liberty are hereby cancelled aboard this ship until further notice. If you work with me, you'll get one, maybe two nights ashore before we sail, if you don't, you'll get none. It's time for learning your jobs, not liberty. That goes for the officers as well as the men, everyone except me. I'm the only one who already knows his business.”

There was one last long pause during which he stared stonily at the men before he finally hissed, “Dismissed!”

Silently the men shuffled toward the forecastle.

“Come with me,” Mowrey said to Paul and led the way to the pilothouse. For a moment he stood by the wheel staring at the new gun deck and the gun pedestals. The yard workers reappeared and began to weld ready boxes for ammunition into place. After watching them a moment, Mowrey strolled out on the new steel deck with Paul following and examined the pedestals.

“Is this welding job finished?” he asked a burly workman.

“Yes, sir.”

Moving with astonishing speed, Mowrey placed his back against a rail and delivered a vicious kick to the midsection of one of the gun mounts. It came loose and toppled over with a loud clatter.

“I don't want no gun mounts I can kick off,” he said mildly.

“Yes, sir. That one hadn't really been inspected yet.”

Without reply Mowrey walked back to the pilothouse with Paul following meekly. Standing moodily by the wheel again, Mowrey took a cigar from his breast pocket and lit it. There was another long minute of silence.

“Mr. Schuman, you're a college boy, not a ship's officer,” he said suddenly in his curiously pleasant voice.

“Yes, sir.”

“I looked at your papers, but I forget. Did you go to Yale or Harvard?”

“Boston University, sir.”

“They're all the same to me. You look like a Yale.”

Paul said nothing. He was not tempted to laugh.

“So what I get for officers here is a Yale, a Sheenie and a fisherman who's never been farther north than Georgia Banks and who's too old to learn.”

Still Paul said nothing.

“After we sail, I can run this ship alone night and day for maybe a month, but I'm not as young as I used to be, and sooner or later I'll tire. By that time you better be able to stand a watch and handle the men.”