The Last Ship (34 page)

W
e had reached, after more exchange visits, his coming to the
James,
my going to
Pushkin,
an agreement that cleverly—on both our parts, I felt, each captain precisely aware of what the other was up to, the object of each being identical, never saying so—postponed the question of whether we should join forces, go together, with an immediate plan of operations that seemed to both of us prudent in itself. He would explore the west coast of Africa. We would reconnoiter the north coast (as we had intended, in any case). Keeping in communication on an arranged frequency; if either found a habitable place, he would so inform the other; though no commitments as to merging forces made even so, this topmost matter deliberately left in suspension, unresolved. And during the exchanges, one great gift he had brought me. Suez was open. It was a stunning piece of news. I pressed him.

“There must be no mistake about this,” I said. “We are low on fuel. It could greatly affect our course.”

“We went ourselves to its mouth.” He shrugged, utterly nonchalant. “Obviously for some reason our side wanted to spare it. Your side wanted to spare it.” I thought: “Sides.” He shrugged again. “More likely, just that there was no particular reason to take it out.” He gave a sardonic grin. “Of course, they could just have overlooked it on the list—it was a pretty long list.”

Whatever the reason, it was an incandescently precious bit of knowledge I hoarded in my innermost heart.

Otherwise: I was satisfied with this arrangement. It felt right. So were my officers when I presented it to them—even Lieutenant Commander Chatham. Nothing could be lost by it. It would give us time to decide as to the larger matter. One was nagged by amorphous feelings, making for irresolution. As if we were missing some element, so far elusive, needed to make the final decision. The interlude, besides allowing time to appraise and reflect, seemed also to offer an opportunity to test the Russian’s bona fides: constituted somehow in his mission to West Africa. Surely on his part for him to test ours as well; none of this voiced, the negotiations being conducted on both sides with a subtlety, an obliqueness, that would have done honor to the Jesuit; but unmistakably understood by both of us. Chatham, while concurring, had by no means sanctified the Russians: “Captain, he may follow us clandestinely. We know the Russians had got pretty far up the road to perfecting a silent propulsion system.” He had a point. Still, I had sighed. “We’ll see, Mr. Chatham. We’ll see. I have great faith in our sonar gear—I always felt we stayed a step ahead of their progress in that respect.” Thurlow, at the mention of this at the officers’ meeting, had suggested lightly that as a protection against such deception, Chatham be assigned liaison duty in the submarine. The combat systems officer was not amused. At all events it was a decision that seemed right, as I have said, so felt by all; leaving as it did all options as to any kind of conjunction open as could be.

Then, on my last visit, meant as a courtesy call more than anything, we reached, almost fortuitously, it seemed at the time, almost by a chance remark of his which he might very well not have made, another arrangement which embodied commitment, however dependent on an eventuality which I felt remote, certainly more remote than did he; which contained, in fact, the seed for changing everything and which I chose to keep secret from all of my officers save two; in part because of the long odds as I saw them; more important, because I felt even its possibility might weigh too heavily in our decision of where to go; distort, perhaps even lead to the wrong decision. Fortuitously, I said. Later I was to think there was nothing of chance to it, that he had shrewdly planned it, perhaps from the beginning, or more likely from the first moment of learning the distinct nature of the ship’s company of the
Nathan James;
the very fact of saving it until the last, springing it, seeming to validate this notion.

Before that I had had something of my own to get out of the way and came right to it. We were alone in his cabin, having a farewell cup of that excellent tea of theirs. I looked very carefully at him. Then sprang it myself, watching his eyes as I did.

“Captain, what was your antenna doing being raised at twenty-three hundred two nights ago?”

There was no change at all in his expression. “We were running a drill,” he said.

“Oh, I see. Good to keep the crew on their toes, isn’t it?”

“I find it so.”

He refilled teacups from a pot on the small table. I started to . . . then thought no. Give him any benefit of doubt on this one. It was not the time to question his word. Certainly not on such scant evidence, little more than suspicion; don’t back him into a corner. We came away from it, relaxing a bit. Matters then suddenly quiet, the bond of the sea seeming to bring us together; beyond that, that special and peculiar affinity between ship’s captains, of whatever nationality, all beset by the loneliness of command, none able to talk with unfettered fullness to anyone on his own ship; infinitely rewarding, a treasure often sought out when available, ships in port, to speak freely with one in the identical circumstance, under the identical burden; and now many other unvoiced things as well binding us, the chief of these being: how many of us remained, anywhere? We both spoke quietly, without constraint.

“Where is your home, Captain?”

“Insofar as I have one—Charleston, South Carolina.”

He smiled softly. “I’ve seen it—through a periscope.”

“Yours?”

“A place called Orel. You probably never heard of it.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“Wasn’t it Turgenev’s home?”

“Why, yes,” he said, the note of surprise, not, patently, that I had read Turgenev but that I knew of these origins.

For a moment I thought I might. I was too cowardly. I sipped my tea.

“In addition to Turgenev I believe you had a few SS-18 silos there.”

“True. Until last November. They were moved.”

Perhaps—who can say as to these things? . . . perhaps even that . . . surprise . . . was to lead in some way not immediately apparent to what followed; who can ever know what will be a catalytic agent to the unexpected, trigger the otherwise not-to-be? For the moment I was concerned only with, yes, personal control of myself. I looked at my hand on the teacup. I was afraid to lift the cup; afraid fingers would tremble. An actual dizziness seized me. I knew only that I must get away from it. Maybe that realization leading to the next thought and it leading in turn in its mysterious and circuitous way to his proposal. I cannot say. In any event, almost desperate to remove myself from the trap that had suddenly reached out for me, mind said: Why not that? Why not say to him, a fellow captain, what I could not say to a soul aboard my own ship; unburdening itself can clear the undecided mind for action, and a rare opportunity for that luxury sat before me.

“If Africa fails us . . .” I hesitated “. . . I haven’t decided whether to take the ship to America.”

“America?” He looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses; sipped his tea before speaking. “Captain, you will forgive me—that is madness. As it would be for me to make a course for my own country. In either case: It would be like stepping into a furnace.”

I looked at him, searching his eyes. I thought I had never seen eyes so blue, honest eyes, if I could judge men. The more I had come to know him, the more I thought it just possible that we could run together. By now, the matter postponed, as noted, we had an unspoken pact not to refer again to that possibility; everything we said as though the idea of joining forces had not been discussed, was not among the available choices; inside, each never forgetting it was. For that reason alone, I think we never ceased that other and perhaps more critical matter going on below the surface of our conversation, of estimating, appraising, each the other.

I sipped tea also. “The men may demand it.”

The quick nod from him. Both absolutely understanding two things difficult to convey to landsmen: a captain’s vast powers; yet the extreme risks. The latter especially applying now.

He would not ask, though it would have been obvious. But I decided, in this new burst of confession, to say it anyhow.

“If not that, it’ll be the Pacific. By the most direct course. We have enough for that one thing. Just barely.”

“Fuel,” he repeated, and waited. I thought for a moment the word was almost a cruel taunt, his having so much, ourselves so little. If so, the word as said seemed more than that as well; one sensed a door opening a crack. He waited, some moments now, again filled our teacups; sat back and regarded me thoughtfully.

“Captain, have you ever heard of a place called Karsavina?”

I knew with great intimacy the names, purposes, and resources of their bases, as well as he knew ours, particularly their bases on the northern tier, the Barents and the Siberian seas, anywhere in the region of what had been our stalking ground, in reach of the
James
’s own missiles. This one I did not know. I shook my head.

“It may have been the one secret place, I mean absolutely secret.” He gave a small laugh. “Not just from you. Even from us, for whom it was meant as the last lifeline. Listen to this. . . .”

I could hear his voice going on, something hypnotic about it, as though the words were casting a spell over me, something also nostalgic in them . . . a sailor’s tone . . .

“I was a dozen miles off it once, not knowing then. In the Laptev Sea, making the run in summertime from Murmansk to Kamchatka. You know what was officially there? A research station for polar bears. I remembered later how you couldn’t see a thing, only a couple of small buildings on frozen tundra, summer ice. A couple of thousand miles from anything. It must have been quite an engineering feat, building that thing underground through the permafrost. Oh, yes, we didn’t steal everything, Captain,” he said slyly. “We had a few brains of our own. Then after this . . .” His hand made an odd sweeping gesture. “. . . after the missiles . . . when the pulse hit, the EMP, all contact lost . . . a sealed envelope in my cabin safe to open if that happened. Its name—its purpose. That we could replenish there.” He leaned forward on his elbows on the table so that his face was a couple of feet from mine. “A storage place for rods of highly enriched uranium fuel, Captain. It may be the only such remaining anywhere.”

He stopped and we found ourselves looking quietly at each other in the great silence of the cabin; looking into each other’s souls. One knew without words. Some kind of underlayer of unspoken language and knowledge that had been operating between two ship’s captains, each able to see ahead to the other’s purpose, intent. Then the words themselves, but confirmatory, heard like a siren song through the tumult of thoughts welling up in me, the unspeakable implications. The words going on . . . He had a remarkably soft voice, never raised, its effect now being to make it the more insinuating, persuasive without seeming to be . . .

“After West Africa—frankly, Captain, I don’t really expect anything there—that’s where I’m setting course. I’d be very surprised if your side ever had the idea of hitting Karsavina.” He laughed mirthlessly. “After all, your country and mine, we were able to reach an agreement to save the polar bears, if not anyone else. If it’s intact—and the odds ought to be at least even—I will pick up rods for the
Pushkin
to recore my reactors . . .” He was talking rapidly now, even a bit feverishly, as if on to ideas so transcendent in nature that all must give way before them . . . “I could pick up some for you. For the
Nathan James.
”

He stopped again, this time with an abruptness that seemed intentional, as if to let the idea hit in as hard as possible; sipped his tea and spoke more deliberately—did I detect a certain slyness in his voice as well? “Well, now, Captain. There is no reason I could not then proceed through the Bering Strait, around Vladivostok and Kamchatka—that is to say, where they were—straight down the longitude. I’ve checked positions on the charts.” So he had prepared, none of this was impromptu as I had so naïvely judged, I thought, as what seemed like a barrage, myself all vulnerable, kept coming at me . . . “Should bring us out just about where you would be. We could . . .” He paused again, said the two words: “. . . join you. Bringing our little present for you. Some more tea?”

That was all. I was suddenly aware as not before of the personality with which I was dealing and it seemed at once more admirable and more frightening; more complex, certainly ever so much more formidable. And yet I had no feeling that it was an overreaching personality, concerned only with greed, exclusively with self-interest. Nothing more said from across the table. No more was needed. No vulgar quid pro quo, no crass bargain. Bargain there would be if I but said the word. The thoughts, the implications once again, all of them, in all their turbulence, fled through my mind in an instant as on some fast-forward time machine, implications at once dreadful and glorious, simultaneously all-enticing and flashing the most insistent danger signal. The deal, the exchange. Participation in the settlement—including surely, in the women. I sat there stunned, trying to grasp the meaning of it.

“That is quite an offer, Captain.” He said nothing, a man not interested in axioms, waiting in all patience for my true reply.

During all of our passage I had not found myself full of particularly noble thoughts. My one thought rather had been to bring my ship’s company through. Nor will I attach that encomium to the thought I had then. Rather I believe it was a natural process of reasoning, of logic, of natural sequitur almost, that this thought should follow that other overwhelming idea of their actually coming in with us to make together a single community—yes, though he had said not a word as to that, nothing could have been more clear. That “responsibility” he had earlier spoken of: I wish I could say that the decision I presently reached was based on such elevated perceptions, dealing as they did with something so trans-mundane, speaking as they did of some infinite and supreme duty; that a loftier man than I might have judged as overriding even that supposedly utmost allegiance to men whose fate he had so absolutely in his hands. It was not. Oh, perhaps there was something of this: It was but natural that the only known ones left should cling to one another. Otherwise: To speak of self-interest: I was thinking only of my ship’s company, and of nuclear fuel—how it would free us from the prison, even the tomb, the death ship, that the
Nathan James
was soon certain to be, come forever dead in waters unknown; permit us to check out home, come back to some island then if we wished or were forced to; enable us to explore just about everywhere. There seemed no price too excessive to pay for that. Indeed it would be accurate to say that, save for that brief ferment, I was oblivious, even blinded, to what the price would be; refused to think about it in the face of such unassessable bounty. The price will lay over. Get the fuel; then deal with whatever there may be to deal with. I could think no other way.