Ice Brothers (76 page)

“You can't do that,” Guns said, holding his wrist against his stomach. “It's mine—”

“Get below,” Paul said.

“You're not going to take my head,” Guns said. “Nobody's going to …”

He ran toward the forecastle. For a moment Paul was too bewildered to understand what was happening. Then he followed him, too tired and disgusted to hurry. When he got to the galley he found Guns standing with three other men staring into a huge pot that was already steaming on the stove.

“Throw that thing overboard,” Paul said.

Instead Guns grabbed the pot and ran toward the door, except it was so hot that he dropped it in the forecastle. Gray water and a cloud of steam spilled out, together with a head, which lay on its right ear. The open eyes, the gaping mouth and the stump of the neck had already been boiled colorless. Guns scooped it up, and holding it under his right arm like a football broke through the encircling men and dashed to the deck. Paul followed in time to see him jump ashore.

“
Boats,
” Paul called. “Take some men and bring him back.”

Boats, followed by a half dozen seamen, went in hot pursuit. Paul went to the wing of the bridge and stood watching them zig-zag through the charred ruins, like men playing football. His sensibilities were still too dulled for him to feel much. The fact that Guns was running with a head under his arm did not seem a great deal more surprising than any other part of what had overwhelmed him here …

Finally Boats tackled Guns and the other men piled on top of them. Slowly they stood up, leaving the head on the ground. Two men were holding Guns's arms, and he was shouting, “Goddamn it, let me go, what's the matter with you bastards—?”

“What do you want us to do with … this?” Boats called to Paul.

For a moment Paul wondered whether he should hold a funeral service for the head. Should he bury it at sea, rolling it off a plank? And how about the rest of the body and all the other corpses in those black ruins? Clouds of scavenger seagulls were already circling around, waiting for the smoke to clear. No doubt he should bury the bodies and read some words from the Bible, but it was more important to care for the wounded and to guard the prisoners. All his men were so exhausted that they hardly had strength even for that. “Leave it there,” Paul said. “Bring Guns back aboard.”

Guns appeared perfectly normal by the time the men let go of his arms. They walked aboard like a group of old friends. Guns came to the bridge.

“You don't understand, skipper,” he said. “I promised Blake's mother. I promised I'd make her a lamp.”

“You wrote her a letter?”

“Oh, I knew you'd censor that. But I promised her in my heart. I was going to take it home to her myself.”

Paul sighed. “I'm sorry, but mutilating corpses is … well, it's against regulations. Lay below. Boats, pipe mooring stations. We're going to get out of here.”

“Can't I handle the bowline like always?” Guns asked.

“Yeah, okay, go to your mooring station. Let's
go.
”

While Paul was automatically giving orders to get the ship under way he wondered what he should do about Guns. If he logged the incident with the olive bottle and the head and brought charges he'd have to keep Guns a prisoner and eventually the man would be sent to a mental hospital in the States, maybe for a very long time. Everyone would be horrified by him, all the more so, perhaps, because he stood for a kind of ferocity that the war made many people feel but damn few wanted to admit. Somewhere Paul had read that soccer was an ancient game that had started when warriors celebrated a victory by kicking around the head of an enemy chief, and that football was a derivative of that. War had not really changed much—except now it involved so many people that it had to be prettied up. Paul wondered whether Guns really was crazy, so crazy that he shouldn't be turned loose except in battle. He'd have to watch him, he decided wearily, he'd just have to watch him. He didn't want to see the poor bastard get locked up in a place that was bound to make him crazier than he already was.…

When they worked their way into clear water Paul set a course for Angmagssalik. It was beginning to snow and he could see almost nothing. Only the dimly lit compass card and the glowing green eye of the radar screen made any sense.

To Paul and everyone else aboard the ship that three-and-a-half hour voyage seemed endless. Shock had the good effect of reducing emotion, but it also had the effect of making time appear to stand still. Paul stood on the bridge, concentrating on the simple task of conning the
Arluk
through widely scattered bergs as she churned north between the mountains and the ice floe. Before the moon came up there were only scattered stars to prick the darkness and he steered mostly by radar. On the well deck he could see dim shapes moving and realized that Boats was piling bodies under a tarpaulin there to make room in the bunks. When the moon climbed above the icy eastern horizon, he could see gulls wheeling all around the ship and wondered whether “those damned flying cats” could smell blood.

Paul's eyes felt heavy, and he concentrated mostly on staying awake. He asked for coffee and once more had to remind himself that Cookie could no longer bring it. Why did the thought of Cookie riddled with oak splinters bother him more than the groans of so many dying men?

As Paul changed course to enter Angmagssalik Fjord he tried to concentrate on the details of moving the wounded up to the Danish houses. If he radioed for a doctor could a PBY bring one in? Probably there was too much small ice in the fjord for a seaplane, but couldn't they parachute someone in? Except why should a doctor risk his life for the Germans? Paul had no answer for that, but God knew they needed a doctor, if only for Cookie. Nathan should get on the radio.

“Captain,” the quartermaster said, “is anyone getting the names of all the prisoners for the log?”

“Forget it.”

“We're supposed to log everyone who comes aboard.”

“Forget it, I said. We'll get the names later. Tell Boats to make some kind of stretchers for carrying the men ashore.”

Paul felt a sense of urgency as he approached the wharf at Angmagssalik. He wanted to moor and get the wounded ashore as fast as possible, but his mind wasn't working right, and he got the ship broadside to the current, backing off just in time to avoid slamming into the wharf. Slowly he circled and came alongside properly. As soon as the ship touched the wharf, a small fur-clad figure jumped aboard and ran to the bridge. It was Brit.

Somehow Paul was very surprised to see her.

“What happened?” she said, out of breath. “I saw the smoke.”

“We wiped out the base,” he said wearily.

“Did you get the ship?”

“Yes.”

She hugged him. “I knew you would.”

He could think of nothing to say.

“Are any of your men hurt? Is Nathan all right?”

“He's all right. Look, I got about fifty wounded prisoners. Burns and exposure. We got to get them up to the houses. Cookie's hurt bad.”

Already wounded men wrapped in blankets were gathering on the well deck. Brit stared at them and suddenly the look of pleasure on her face died. “Fifty!” she said. “Good God. I'll get the Eskimos down here with sleds and try to get ready for them.”

She ran up toward the settlement. Paul went to the wardroom to look for Nathan. He found him helping a boy about eighteen years old to get his burned hands into the sleeves of a dry parka.

“You got to get on the radio,” Paul said. “Have we told anything to GreenPat yet?”

“I haven't had time.”

“He must be going crazy. Tell him what happened. Maybe he can parachute a doctor and medical supplies in here.”

“All right,” Nathan said, and staggered up the companionway. Soot from the burned clothes he had been handling had streaked his gaunt face so that he looked like a walking corpse himself.

Paul went to the pilothouse. He watched Boats and four seamen make stretchers out of strips of tarpaulin and rifles lashed muzzle to muzzle. “Boats, come up here …”

Boats walked quickly to the bridge. Still alert and brisk, he seemed curiously untouched by the confusion around him. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“How many of the prisoners are well enough to make trouble when they get a little rest?”

“I haven't checked them all, sir. They all look pretty beat, those I've seen.”

“There must be some who aren't wounded at all. Find out how many. I want them put out on the island with the other prisoners.”

“It's already pretty crowded out there, sir.”

“There are more prisoners here than there are of us. I don't want them even to think about taking over.”

“I'll see to it, sir.”

“Can I talk to you, captain?” Carl Peterson asked. He was standing on the well deck, wrapped in a blanket.

“All right. Come up here.”

Hoisting his blanket above his knees to avoid tripping, Peterson hurried to the bridge. Apparently he had already recovered from much of his shock.

“Captain, can I go ashore?” he asked. “I know some of the people here. I can help.”

“You're a prisoner. You were working with the Germans.”

“Captain, I had no choice. They just grabbed me in Copenhagen because I'm an ice pilot and marched me aboard their ship.”

“I suppose there will be hearings of some sort to figure all that out. Until then, you're a prisoner.”

“But meanwhile, can't I help? We've got to find a way to feed all these people in there. I at least can set up a field kitchen.”

There was a pause. “All right, go and help,” Paul said wearily.

Peterson jumped ashore, his blanket fluttering, and hurried into the darkness toward the houses. Paul heard the sound of dogs, and a team with a sled surrounded by a crowd of Eskimos arrived on the end of the wharf. Brit was shouting orders at them. The Eskimos began to help the
Arluk
crew put the wounded on stretchers and carry them ashore. Paul saw her pause over one German who was moaning and tuck his blanket around him more tightly. She too had changed instantaneously from victor to rescuer, also probably without being aware of it.

Damn it, they ought to get Cookie ashore first, Paul thought, and hurried to the forecastle. Cookie was lying in his bunk, his eyes open but so opaque that Paul thought he was dead. Still drowsy with morphine, Cookie managed a weak smile.

“We're going to get you ashore,” Paul said.

“No!” Cookie sounded terrified.

“You'll be more comfortable up there.”

“Let me stay here. Mr. Green will take care of me.”

“I'll let him make the decision,” Paul said. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Who's going to cook?”

“We'll find someone.”

“The men have to eat …”

“We can live on K-rations. You go to sleep.”

Nathan was busy in the radio shack. Paul returned to the bridge and sat watching while the crew and the Eskimos moved the wounded ashore. Boats lowered the whaleboat and set off for the island with eight unwounded prisoners.

Nathan suddenly appeared on the bridge. “I got GreenPat,” he said. “The bastard wanted to know every last detail. He finally said he'd try to parachute in a medic and some supplies.”

“Good.”

“He wants us to stand by until things are under control and then take all the wounded who can make it back to Narsarssuak.”

That was too much for Paul to think about at the moment. “Cookie doesn't want to be taken ashore,” he said.

“I can take care of him here. I'm saving the last of the morphine for him. He needs a doctor quick.”

“We got to figure out a place for them to parachute a man in and have Eskimos there to get him. Where's the best flat land?”

“Brit will know. I better get her to arrange it and tell GreenPat.”

“Jesus, you must be dead on your feet.”

Nathan wearily shrugged. “I don't know, skipper. If winning is like this …”

“I guess it's better than getting beat.”

Nathan went ashore. When the last of the prisoners had been carried to the houses the
Arluk
crew returned to the forecastle and sprawled in their bunks. Krater lit off the galley range and began emptying cans of soup into a large pot. Paul came and sat at the big V-shaped table with the others while it warmed. Stevens was gathering up soiled blankets and throwing them in a pile on the well deck. The whole forecastle still smelled of sickness, wounds and scorched flesh. Everyone was too tired to talk as Krater handed out coffee mugs full of lumpy tomato soup and the last of the fresh bread that Cookie had made.

“Cookie, you better get well damn soon,” the quartermaster said, but the old chef did not answer. With a surprisingly delicate, long-fingered hand covering his eyes, he slept in his bunk.

The soup revived Paul a little. He had a compulsion to inspect the ship, to see what damage had been done by the gunfire they had taken, and perhaps to seek reassurance from his men as much as trying to give it. As his mind reached back, trying to reconstruct the events of the past day, he began to realize that the ship would not have been hit at all and Cookie would not have been wounded if he'd had enough sense to keep out of range of the enemy's machine guns. Any sense of victory remaining to him was now wiped out by guilt. He was surprised and grateful when Flags, who had the watch on the bridge, smiled at him and said, “Well, skipper, you must be feeling pretty good.”

“Better than the Krauts do, I guess.”

Better than Fatso did when he died, he thought, and wondered what kind of man the captain of the hunter-killer had been. Had he been killed aboard, or had he been in one of those rubber boats? The image of the men trying to stand as those rubber boats disintegrated under the 20-millimeter gunfire was still sharp in Paul's mind. About that, at least, he felt no guilt at all.