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hole, hoping she would catch a rung on the way down but prepared to pay the penalty and patch the
damage if she did not. He turned in time to pull Nelson while Morton pushed: the Old Old Man was
feeling it. His lips were blue, even in this heat, and his eyes seemed to have a tendency to roll
upwards out of sight. He heaved the gasping Admiral over the coaming and down, and saw a pair of
hands from below Gleason's, probably reaching up to assist. Emery sprang up, over, and down;
the grizzled old squirrel was barely breathing hard. And at last the captain vaulted over the coaming,
bawling to shut the hatch. The guards were running forward; two were already on the deck ladder.
One of the others fired into the air, and almost instantly pegged one which whanged and whined off
the inside of the hatch-cover as it came down. Crane did not wait for such comforts as rungs, but slid
to the bottom and hit the deck as the cover above made seal.
It seemed very quiet in the control room. It was like the instant's dreadful quiet which on
occasion follows an automobile accident, before the people begin screaming.
"Take her down," whispered the Admiral.
"There's six guards on deck and the gangplank's gone," gasped the Captain.
"Take her down." The Old Old Man closed his eyes and let himself go limp for a moment against
the bulkhead. Then he stiffened, shook himself hard, and rounded on Crane. "Take her down, mister,
and that's now."
Crane nodded to O'Brien, which was all that was necessary. "Maybe," he said, "some of 'em can't
swim."
"They have to take their chances then," said the Admiral, his face like a rock.
Crane shook his head bleakly and turned to Cathy Connors. "Come on," he said, bending over
her. She sat on the deck with her back against the bulkhead, her knees drawn up and her skirt tucked
over them. He put a hand under her arm but she shook her head.
"What's the matter?"
She looked up at him, very calm now, very pale, her eyes very wide. "I'm afraid to move just
now," she said in a cool voice. And suddenly from her wide eyes, tears burst and coursed down her
cheeks. She seemed unaware of them. "I think," she said in that same cool careful voice, "that I've
hurt my ankle rather badly." He then realized that under the skirt, she was holding her ankle with both
hands, so hard her arms were trembling.
"Cathy, why didn't you say so!" He scooped her up in his arms. He said to O'Brien, "The story is
that the channel's dredged to a hundred feet from here to the seaward side of the Narrows. Steer as if
that could be so but you don't really believe it." '
"Aye, sir." Periscope depth for the Seaview was ninety feet, so he was asking the Diving Officer
to chop it rather fine. But one got used to asking matter-of-course miracles from O'Brien. "Gleason,
put two men in the nose as lookouts. Rig the cable remote to the big searchlight and give it to
whichever one has the most good eyes and good sense. And use your floods as well. This is one time
when it wouldn't pay at all to run aground."
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r r
"Aye, sir."
"Be right back, sir," he told Nelson, who nodded.
Crane carried the girl aft as far as the mess, where a man in pressed dress whites, shoes shined to
a blaze, a snow-white seabag on his shoulder, ran past him weeping.
"What the " Crane recoiled out of his way, banging the point of his ankle against the high sill
of the mess. He glared after the man, and caught the black stencil on the seabag: BERKOWITZ.
Crane retraced his steps a few paces, for the man, skidding to a stop in the control room, had begun to
scream.
"You got to let me off, you got to! I have a furlough coming and Mr. Morton signed my pass and
I don't even know if he's born yet, she could be dead for all I know, why couldn't I phone at least."
"Sir," suggested the Admiral.
Berkowitz craned wildly up at the dark pocket of the sealed conning tower. "Nobody told me, oh
my God, you'll go all the way to the Marianas, me not knowing is she alive or dead with the radio
out."
"Sir," suggested the Admiral again, even more quietly.
"Sir!" spat Berkowitz furiously. He glared at Nelson, who stood silently, still leaning against the
bulkhead, but lightly. The color was beginning to return to the old man's lips. Berkowitz's eyes
wavered. "S-sir...?" he whimpered faintly.
"That's better.... If it makes any difference to you, Berkowitz, nobody knew we were going to jet
out like that until it happened."
"What am I going to do, sir?"
"You're going to drop that duffel right here and go aft to the sick bay and ask Dr. Jamieson to
quiet you down."
Anyone who knew the Admiral at all would know that this was the time to aye-sir and off.
Berkowitz may have known him well enough, but he was also more than a little hysterical, so he said,
"But what about "
Nelson's voice became gentle as a lover's, and every man there knew how big the trouble was
that Berkowitz was getting himself into. "Berkowitz," he crooned, "you know we'll do what we can
for you. We'll get you off. We'll "
"Th-thank you sir " Berkowitz began to weep again.
"We'll get you off if we have to dig a hole in the cellar and drop you out, mister. Because we
can't run a ship with the likes of you aboard. Now get aft and see the doctor."
Berkowitz, stricken, dropped his duffel bag and turned blindly aft. Nelson watched him go and
then fetched a sudden kick on the bag. "I hate a weeper," he said quietly to no one in particular, but
Berkowitz heard. Crane, pacing slowly behind him carrying Cathy Connors, watched the stride of a
man who needed a tail to tuck between his hind legs.
"Oh man," the Captain murmured, "I wouldn't slam an outhouse door that hard.... Sorry, Cathy."
"That's all right," she whispered. "I wasn't listening... Oh Lee, I know that seemed terribly cruel,
but can't you see why he did it?"
"He said why he did it. He usually... picks on someone his size, though."
"You slap hysterical people. That's all it is. He'll let Berky off some way you'll see. If Sue
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r r
Hiller was here she'd explain the whole thing to you. The one thing he couldn't do was to be nice
to the kid. Berky'd have gone all to bits."
Lee Crane chuckled. "The O.O.M. can do no wrong, hey, Cats? By golly, if he batted a ball and
ran to third you'd change the rules to make him right."
"Now that's just silly and you "
"And I know it. Sorry, honey. I just hated to stand here and see that happen. Also I'm jealous,
because I can be wrong you've told me so and he never is, which you've also told me. Are you
sure which one of us you want to marry? Choose, hussy."
She bit his ear. "I choose thee now and forever," she whispered and then was crying again.
"Damn," she said, "Oh, damn, damn."
"Ankle hurting again?"
"Sure it is," she said furiously, "but that's not worth crying over. It's this whole... thing, Lee. It's
the ranch and the curtains I'd put up waiting for you to come home. It's getting married yesterday
which we didn't do. It's all this, this mess."
"Shh. Shh.... I hate a weeper," he said. She smacked him, but it wasn't meant to hurt. The sick
bay was empty when they entered, except for Berkowitz, who sat close to the inboard bulkhead with
his head in his hands. The Captain put the girl down on the examining table and turned to face [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]