Ice Brothers (6 page)

Sylvia did not want to go with him to Chris's apartment. She was uneasy there partly because the Coast Guard lieutenant's manners seemed abrupt to her and partly because Katherine, Chris's Swedish wife, nonchalantly nursed her baby in the livingroom even while guests were there. Without even bothering to keep a blanket draped completely over her huge bosom, Katie just sat there and chatted with the men while her baby sucked and fondled her breasts. Sylvia had never seen anything like this. She was angry at Paul when he said that he thought the sight of Katie nursing her child was beautiful and that he admired her for her lack of prudery. They had had a big fight about that, and about what was good taste and what wasn't. After that Sylvia never wanted to go to Chris's apartment again.

So precisely at seven o'clock Paul presented himself at Chris's door alone. Looking a little strained, Chris gave Paul and Katie a drink of scotch. Then he said, “You better go into the bedroom, Katie. We've got top secret stuff to discuss.”

Katie withdrew, carrying her baby.

“I don't know whether this is going to come as good news to you or bad news,” Chris said. “The
Arluk
is a brand new Boston beam trawler we've just taken over. She's being fitted out for the Greenland Patrol.”

“Do they really want me to be executive officer without any training at all?”

Chris shrugged. “Once you've qualified for the stripe, you're not supposed to need training. That's crazy of course, but we just are getting more ships than we are qualified officers. The skipper will break you in.”

“Greenland,” Paul said. “I have no idea what that's like except that it's supposed to be cold.”

“You can say that again,” Chris said with a grin. “In the interior, it goes to a hundred and ten degrees below zero. You're lucky. On the coast it's rarely worse than fifty below.”

“I guess I better take my tropical whites.”

“Hell, in the summer it often gets to sixty or more above there, and you may not be there in the winter. They may bring the trawlers back to Boston before the worst weather really sets in.”

“That's a comforting possibility.”

“I haven't told you the worst part yet,” Chris said, refilling his glass. “These trawlers aren't really Coast Guard cutters—they're just fish boats. And the captains they're getting for them are nothing like regular Coast Guard officers, because what they have to be is ice pilots, and we don't have enough of them to put aboard small ships.”

“Who are they getting?” Paul asked.

“Gloucester fishermen, even some Norwegians, Danes, and Icelanders we've made into American citizens. Old explorers, sea hunters, anyone who's been on an Arctic expedition, old Greenland hands—there are a few around who love the place, believe it or not—the idea is to grab anyone we can who can get a ship through Arctic ice, and who understands the weather conditions up there.”

“What's so bad about that?”

“Some of these guys are wild men. We're getting drunks, queers, and Captain Blighs who still want to flog a man they don't like. Of course we're weeding out the worst as soon as we can and there are a few really great officers in that crazy gang, but I have no idea what kind of a skipper you're going to get. The
Arluk
hasn't been assigned a commanding officer yet. She won't be ready to sail for another month, and there's nothing but a warrant boatswain and a skeleton crew aboard her. And now an ensign—you. You'll be in charge until we find a skipper for her.”

“Are you serious?”

“Don't worry—you'll just be tied up in the yard. The personnel officer doesn't pay much attention to me, but I'll do my best to see that you at least get a skipper who can speak English.”

“That would help.”

There was a brief silence while they both drank.

“At least no one will be shooting at me in Greenland,” Paul said. “Compared to the assignments a lot of guys will be getting, Greenland may not be so bad.”

“I wouldn't be too sure about that,” Chris said. “There may be German submarines up there. During some times of the year, at least, those fjords, especially on the east coast, would be an ideal place for tankers and subs to rendezvous. Ever since the Germans took Norway and Denmark, they've had plenty of ice pilots who know that region like their own backyard. Greenland is Danish territory, you know—the Danes have been up there forever.”

“What else?” Paul asked drily.

“Plenty else! The Germans have long-range planes which can patrol the east coast of Greenland. And they're always sending weather ships up there—they need to know Greenland weather just as much as we do, to make forecasts for the bombers in Europe. It's only a matter of time before they try to establish weather bases in Greenland, just the way we have. It takes maybe five men to man a weather base, instead of at least thirty for a weather ship. I bet that we're going to have a big job stamping out their weather bases.”

“Anything more?” Paul asked.

“Plenty more. You've got a lot of floating mines in Greenland, some maybe left by subs, and more that have been brought by the currents from Europe. And at least one big German battleship has come within sight of Cape Farewell, the southern tip of Greenland. Don't get the idea that you're going into some backwater, far away from any possibility of action. You're going to have to keep your eyes peeled up there all the time.”

“I'll remember that.”

“Let me be honest with you,” Chris said. “Greenland is a fascinating place—I've been there. The worst part of your assignment is that you've got a trawler. Those ships can't carry any real armament and they couldn't get out of their own way in any kind of action. The only reason that we're sending them up there is that they're about all we've got, except for a few icebreakers, that can handle ice.”

“Well, I asked for a small ship.”

“You've got one—there are plenty of tugs bigger than those trawlers. And you're going to have a nonregulation skipper of some kind, probably a good ice pilot, but those guys don't often turn out to be what you'd call an officer and a gentleman. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't blame you if you tried to have your orders changed. That can sometimes be done.”

“How?”

“Get the skipper of some other ship to ask the personnel officer for you. I have a friend who's got a hundred-and-sixty-footer down in the Caribbean. She's a real Coast Guard cutter and he's a real Coast Guard officer. At least you won't freeze to death down there. Want me to see what I can do?”

“No,” Paul said. “Thanks a lot, but I wouldn't really feel right about that. Anyway, you've got me all curious about Greenland.”

“Good,” Chris said with a booming laugh. “I doubt if I could have swung it anyway, but I wanted to see if you'd go for it. I think you have the makings of a real Coastie. Katie, come out here and rustle up some chow. Let's give the condemned man the best meal we can!”

“I have to get home,” Paul said. “Sylvia is waiting for me.”

“Well, you hurry right on along then,” Chris said. “And my advice to you is, get all the screwing in you can before you head north, because you won't get much in Greenland unless you learn to catch an Eskimo, and that ain't as easy as you've probably heard tell.”

CHAPTER 6

At the district office early the next morning Paul was told that the
Arluk
was being outfitted in a small yard in East Boston. He took a taxi there. It was a windy day and though the April sunshine was bright, there was no warmth in it. Paul was wearing his brand new blue greatcoat with shoulder boards emblazoned with his proud single gold stripes. It seemed a rather theatrical getup and he fought a feeling that he was all dressed up to go to a costume ball of some kind. As the taxi drove along the waterfront, he saw that the many shipyards which ringed the harbor were crowded with great gray aircraft carriers, sleek destroyers, freighters, vessels of every kind. So many acetylene torches were being used that each yard appeared to be celebrating the Fourth of July.

Finally the taxi turned down an alley and stopped at a wire gate. As Paul got out of the car a petty officer in a pea coat with the collar turned up to protect his ears stepped out of a sentry box and saluted him smartly.

“What ship, sir?”

This was the first time anyone had saluted Paul and also the first time in his twenty-two years that anyone had called him “sir.” The petty officer was at least twenty years older than he, a heavyset man who slightly resembled his father. Paul felt ridiculous and the thought crossed his mind that the man might be mocking him, but his expression was dead serious.

Sort of brushing the visor of his cap in a casual return of salute, Paul said, “The
Arluk
, thank you.”

“Identification, sir?”

Paul had not yet been issued a card, but his orders sufficed.

“She's lying right at the end of the south pier, outboard of the
Nanmak.
”

The fact that nonsense syllables had apparently been used to name these vessels somehow seemed an appropriate part of this Alice-in-Wonderland adventure. The taxi man dragged Paul's footlocker and his sword in its leather case from the trunk of the car. Dissatisfied with the quarter tip Paul gave him, he gave a burlesque of a salute, said, “Thanks a lot,
sir,
” and roared off. His contempt somehow struck Paul as more reasonable than the respect shown by the petty officer.

“I'll have your gear put aboard for you, sir,” the petty officer said.

“Thank you.”

Paul strode through the gate in the wire fence, feeling that now he was really entering the service. Eager to see his ship, he walked fast. This yard was building sub chasers and a row of the sleek craft stood on the ways. An old four-stack destroyer obscured his view of the south pier. The bright lights of welding and cutting torches made him blink and the sound of riveting guns and air hammers made it difficult to think. The smell of the harbor at low tide filled his mind with memories of the
Valkyrie
, and he half expected to see the old yawl, but by now she existed nowhere at all, and she didn't belong in this time and place anyway. When he passed the high bow of the destroyer, he saw two beam trawlers moored at the end of the pier. Because Chris had told him they were no bigger than a tug, they looked much larger than he had expected. They were, perhaps, no more than twice the length of the
Valkyrie
, but were so much beamier and higher that they probably had more than ten times the tonnage. There was no real comparison between them and the old yawl. The trawlers looked like huge bulldogs, while the yacht had been a toy poodle.

The trawlers were also much more handsome than Paul had expected with the beauty of strength instead of grace. Their high, flared bows looked as though they could punch into the highest seas without danger. Their well deck amidships was only about four feet above the surface of the water, but the sterns were high and handsomely rounded. The only things streamlined about the ships were their short oval smokestacks, which were tilted aft at a rakish angle. They had short stubby masts and heavy freight booms. The ships had been freshly painted with irregular patterns of light blue and white, ice camouflage. There was an air of excitement about them which stemmed from the fact that these little vessels had the ability to live in Arctic seas and ice which would sink thin-skinned destroyers and most of the other ships which towered over them.

The two trawlers were so alike that one resembled a mirror image of the other, but as he walked closer, Paul saw that the inboard vessel already had a stubby cannon on her foredeck, a steel platform for antiaircraft guns amidships and racks of depth charges on the stern which workmen were in the process of adding to the
Arluk
. Before a wooden gangway that led from the pier to the
Nanmak
Paul hesitated. There was a whole rigamarole about boarding a Coast Guard or navy ship which he had read about in a copy of the
Watch Officers' Guide
, which Chris had given to him and he supposed that he better try it. As he reached the rail of the ship he paused, saluted the quarterdeck (although why he should salute a deck he had no idea), and said to a young seaman who was lounging by the rail, “Request permission to come aboard.”

The seaman looked at him oddly and said, “Come ahead. You want someone aboard here or the
Arluk?
”

“The
Arluk.
” The decks of the ships were of bright new pine—apparently these vessels had just been built. Picking his way through a tangle of hoses, lines and piles of stores which had not yet been stowed, Paul climbed over the rail to the
Arluk
. He didn't bother with saluting the quarterdeck this time, but seeing a short, stout old man in a knitted blue watchcap and a khaki parka, he said, “Permission to come aboard?”

“Why come right ahead,” the man said with a pronounced Maine accent, and his ruddy face broke into a surprisingly sunny, almost childlike smile. “You ain't our new skipper, be you?”

“I guess I'm supposed to be the executive officer,” Paul said, sounding pompous to himself, and added his name.

“I'm the boatswain—Seth Farmer. We don't have what you'd call real officers' quarters aboard here, but I'll show you your bunk.”

He led the way down a steep companionway near the stern to a dimly lit compartment, all white wood with two bunks on each side and a table in the middle. As they entered, an ensign in his mid-twenties who was lying in the forward, starboard bunk looked up from the book he had been reading. He had a thin, melancholy face, thick glasses and a hooked nose, which gave him an owlish, scholarly appearance.

“This is Mr. Green, our communications officer—he just came aboard about an hour ago,” Farmer said. “Mr. Green, this is Mr. Schuman, our new exec.”