At the Midway Read online

  Nor did broken English prove a hindrance to laughter--a universal language Garrett was growing thoroughly sick of as the marines hooted at him from above.

  The only precaution the ensign had taken was to use a strip from a haversack to bind the rod to his wrist and forearm. When the dolphin suddenly became convinced of the legitimacy of the bait and snapped at the simple white rag, he very nearly flew off the quarterdeck. The marines whooped louder than ever as the sailor grabbed the high rail with his free hand to keep from going over.

  "Beck!" he shouted.

  For an instant, Midshipman Beck considered letting the sea have its due. The stink of paint on his skin was a strong reminder that he owed nothing whatsoever to the ensign from hell.

  "Beck!"

  Sighing, the middy grabbed hold of the thick rod and together they battled the hooked animal.

  "Let's keep the marbles rolling," Garrett hummed thickly as they shifted along the weather rail. "The niggers'll cook us fish steaks for dinner. That's what we'll have. We'll--this way, Shit-shank! Keep it away from the propellers! There... there.... By Godfrey, you stink. I've got her now. Back off."

  Gladly, you bastard, Beck thought. This voyage was teaching him rough language, if nothing else. Certainly, he'd learned some harsh words that morning.

  The Atlantic Fleet contained more men who'd never seen the Southern Cross than any fleet before it. When they entered the Southern Hemisphere, thousands of sailors were introduced to Latitude 00-00 in spectacular fashion.

  The night before, they had been summoned to the wide foredeck, where they were introduced to a scene of disorienting light displays and fireworks. Water was pumped in wide arcs around the ship, cutting the searchlight beams into an erratic code against low-lying clouds. Captain Oates, resplendent in full uniform, joined the officer of the deck at the bow. After delivering a resoundingly pompous speech, he peered out over the sea as though waiting for something to fly out of the darkness. A moment later the fireworks stopped, whoever was yanking on the whistle cord eased off, and anticipation came down like a muffled clap.

  Suddenly, a bright flash. An apparition appeared.

  "Welcome, Davy Jones!" Oates exclaimed.

  "Where did he come from?" Davis whispered.

  "Climbed up the hawser."

  "Looked like he came from nowhere."

  "No," Beck insisted, "the hawser."

  "Well, then, the hawser."

  Davy Jones presented a ghastly face to the gathering. Made up to look like a man who'd spent centuries at the bottom of the sea, wearing rags and skeletal slashes of paint, he wobbled forward as though walking on bones.

  "Shiver me timbers, this is a scurvy lot."

  They would have laughed, except that the enormous snake wrapped around his neck--intended, they presumed, to be a moray--looked impressively dangerous.

  "Well, Captain... if this is what you've got, it's what you've got to work with." He turned to the OOD. "Respectfully request that the King and his Queen be allowed on board."

  "Permission is most respectfully granted."

  Another flurry of fireworks ensued. Beck could just discern the clank of chains under the racket. Two figures appeared over the bow--one regal, one gorgeous. Floating up on a gun hoist, they lifted their arms in a condescending salute.

  "Where'd they get the stunner?" David wondered aloud.

  Beck almost doubled over with laughter. "That's Mr. Edwards."

  "Naaaww... is it? Great God Almighty."

  The royal pair landed on the deck. The King wore an enormous silver wig precariously topped with a crown. When some of the bluejackets exploded with mirth, he tilted his trident meaningfully in their direction.

  "Captain Oates," Davy Jones announced, "may I introduce you to Neptunus Rex and Her Highness Amphitrite. The Lord of the Seven Seas and his wife."

  With a solemn nod, Oates held out his hand in the direction of the boots. "My ship's company, Your Majesty."

  "Mmmm..." was the portentous response. With his queen at his arm, he reviewed the sailors, promenading down the deck with hard strikes from his trident, like a yeoman of doom. And truth be told, there was as much apprehension as humor in the ranks. The boots knew the Rites of Neptune could turn rough on occasion. There was no telling what would happen to them when they officially crossed the Equator.

  "Why aren't the jugheads here?" someone said. There were no marines in sight.

  "This is for humans only," was Beck's sincere answer.

  Close up, Davis could see that Queen Amphitrite was indeed Ensign Edwards. In spite of his seaweed wig, however, he appeared remarkably feminine at the side of the burly king. His sashay was unsettlingly convincing. The midshipman experienced the deep loin thrill that he felt whenever he saw a pretty girl, and blushed. His embarrassment was compounded when Her Majesty batted her eyes at him as she passed.

  "Why... that... that…."

  "Hey, I think she likes you," Beck smirked when the royal pair moved on.

  The Review done, Neptunus Rex straddled the anchor chain and nodded at Davy Jones. There was a brief fanfare.

  "'By command of his Most Noble Majesty Neptunus Rex--you are ordered to appear before me and my Court on the morrow to be initiated in the mysteries of my Special Domain. The penalty for non‑appearance is as follows: you shall be given as food for sharks, whales, sea turtles, pollywogs, salt water frogs, serpents, and all other living things, known and unknown, that dwell in the sea. Your head, body and soul they will devour, as a warning to landlubbers entering my domain without warrant."

  A summons that could not be denied.

  The next morning, after being ambushed by shellbacks wielding high pressure hoses, the pollywog boots were confronted by King Neptune's court, the most prominent of whom was the Chief Bear. It was his job to chase down the boots no matter what nook or cranny they ran to.

  And run they did. The Chief Bear would never have succeeded without his numerous assistants. Jesters and mermaids, devils and cutthroat barbers. The earlier dousing proved mild next to the tortures the shellbacks (those already initiated) dished out for them. They were plunged, pulled, yanked and dunked. Their hair was shaved in bizarre patterns. Davy Jones now had a trident of his own--attached to a battery. He took particular pleasure in supplying the boots with electric jolts that stood what was left of their hair on end. Through it all sat the Royal Baby: Chief Petty Officer Ryan, the fattest man on the ship. He wore only a diaper, and when he laughed‑‑which was often‑‑his jelly rolls flapped to either side of him. Perhaps most mortifying to the initiates was the fact that photographers from McCullen's and Harpers were aboard. Their cameras ate up the sights like sportsmen netting bass, each exposure a trophy.

  But for Midshipmen Davis and Beck a particularly onerous rite was reserved. Summoned to the forward turret, they were inundated with blue and green paint appropriated from the ship's main supply locker. While laughing sailors gathered round, the two middies bit their lips to keep silent. Stoicism was the order of the day for the pollywog boots. One peep other than laughter would have branded them as milksops for the rest of the voyage. Ensign Garrett clattered down from the gun derrick with another commissioned officer and looked innocently at the empty paint cans in his hand. Then he ordered the midshipmen to recite passages from the arms manual. They mumbled like men swimming in a solution of arsenic.

  A photographer from McCullen's captured the moment. The folks at home would see.

  Later, as superheated water diverted from the boilers exploded through the forecastle showerheads, Davis interrupted his howls of pain with curses directed at Garrett... and Beck. He now knew when it was his luck on the Florida had suddenly gone sour: the day Garrett tossed Beck a rope and told him to make a sheep-shank knot. Basic, like asking a ten-year old to tie his shoes. Yet Beck was so nervous with Garrett breathing down his neck that he had created a snarling, mutated cat's cradle instead. Resting a hand on the midshipman's head, Garrett dubbed him with a vulgar nickname that r
aised eyebrows on the young men around him. For fear of earning a similar title, no one protested. But the ensign caught Davis' transitory frown of disgust.

  "Hey Shit-shank, you got a prick for a plank? You two were married at the Academy, weren't you?" Garrett nodded. The mere fact that they had shared a room cemented the two of them in Garrett's mind.

  Any chum of Beck's was Garrett's chump. Thereafter, their misfortunes were tandem. If Beck detected grotesque sea snails in his dinner, Davis discovered tiny eels. If Beck found himself sewed into his hammock one morning, Davis was chagrined to wake up naked abovedecks.

  Friendship was being tested to the limit. The more so, because Davis had had his fill of hazing at the Naval Academy, while Beck had floated through Annapolis untouched by upperclassmen. A miraculous migration, to be sure, and one observed and deeply envied by other candidates, Davis among them. He suspected would‑be hazers stood in awe of Beck's pugilistic ability, so he had asked Beck to become his wife. In Academy jargon, a wife was a roommate, someone who shared everything you had‑‑usually within reason, but not always. Razors, shaving cream, lotions and notions were all handed out freely by Davis, as well as money. True, the loans had been small. But they had never been repaid.

  Still, Davis considered it an equitable exchange, because he believed he had discovered the mother lode of all luck. The upperclassmen stopped hazing him. Choice duties seemed to come his way. Even his grades improved.

  Now, none of it seemed worth the grief Garrett doled out. Davis never fully realized the consequences of his sympathetic frown until they crossed the Equator and he found himself blue.

  "To hell with classmates--ow!--to hell with messmates--oh!--to hell with shipmates--ough! They must think we're lobsters!"

  Beck suffered the boiling water in glum silence. There was no blunting the fact that Davis was really telling him: "To hell with you!" He could hardly believe it. His pal, the chum with whom he'd crammed for exams, shared graduation honors with, boxed, opened his heart to‑‑sobbing in Davis' arms when he found his sweetheart was unfaithful‑‑denying him! He recalled an incident on the training ship Constellation. They had just finished a race with the Dale, also on a practice cruise. In the rush to stow the running gear, Davis had let drop a belaying pin. One of the instructors, not minding his way, slipped on the pin, which then rolled against the mizzen. With a shout, the instructor leaped up and searched the deck. All he had to do was match the loose item against current assignments, and he would know who to blame.

  But he could not lay his hand on the item. It could have been anything: a batten, a bitt, a camel... or a belaying pin. Anything but nothing--but nothing was found. Spotting the pin, Beck had knocked it behind some chafing gear. Then, when the instructor's back was turned, he scooped it up and slipped it into the pin rail. For this, Beck could have gone on the Report of the Day, earning punishment and possibly expulsion. Seeing this act of naval insubordination and personal charity, Davis had vowed eternal friendship to his fellow cadet.

  And now it was proving as fragile as a ginger snap. It created an angry hollow in Beck that stayed with him as tenaciously as the green-blue tint on his skin. He had barely stepped out of the shower stall when Garrett approached him.

  "Still a little green under the gills, Midshipman Beck?" He whistled, then dragged him aft for a bit of fishing.

  He desperately wanted to join in the marines' laughter when they mocked the ensign. Even better would have been to let Garrett go over the rail. Unfortunately, the former wasn't prudent and the latter wasn't feasible. If his gunnery apprenticeship was interrupted by Garrett's demise, he would have to go through it all again. And he might end up with some crazed commissioned officer who would fire his gun no matter how many rotten powder bags lay broken in the turret.

  "Hi-yup!" Garrett chanted nonsensically as the dolphin on his line began to tire.

  "Snaring the White Whale?" Dr. Singleton remarked as he ambled up, the brim of his straw hat giving a snappy salute as the wind gusted.

  "Just a big fish, Doctor," Garrett responded.

  Leaning over the rail just far enough to make it seem daring, Singleton announced, "Fish? You have no fish, sir. That's a coryphene. A member of the family Delphinidae. A dolphin. A mammal, as warm-blooded as you or I." He nodded at his silent escort, Midshipman Davis.

  Davis and Beck exchanged quick visual darts, then looked away. A ship this size was a floating city. But it was a small city, for all that. Midshipmen might see the black crews infrequently and the captain might never stick his head into the common mess, but those who shared the same military strata could not avoid each other for long.

  Davis posed respectfully for the doctor. Or as respectfully as he could, looking blue as a corpse--and with the doctor smelling like a rum ball at a fete.

  The dolphin made one last bolt before succumbing to Garrett. He braced against the rail, hauled back, prayed the line would not break--and won.

  "Give me a hand with this."

  Reaching down with grappling hooks, the midshipmen helped bring the animal on board. With so little freeboard it was not very hard to do. They dragged the dolphin across the smooth teakwood and laid it on some chafing gear. It made little moaning sounds, like a boy trapped in a deep well.

  "Fish steak!" Garrett pronounced proudly, glaring up at the marines. The tunic of his regulation whites was unbuttoned to his navel, exposing the red collar the sun had printed at his neck. Yet he sweated heavily as he stood over the dying animal.

  Shaking his head and clucking his tongue, Singleton stepped over the wet drag marks and pointed out the dolphin's blowhole. "An air breather... see?"

  "Like a whale, I know."

  "And like all mammals, the females suckle their young. Every bit the way you suckled your mother's breast when a babe."

  "Well... now..." Garrett stuttered.

  As the doctor prodded the animal with the ferrule of his cane, Beck caught a whiff of what Davis had been smelling the last several days. Jesus, a rummy! On a ship this stone sober, you could spot him a mile away.

  The onlookers had been stunned by the animal's spectacular marine-gold coloring when it was hauled on board. The hue changed soon after, yet the impression remained that they had struck a golden gusher of life. None of them had any intention of capping it. The life energy spewed out like wasted oil. After a time, the dolphin went ultramarine. Its wide dorsal fin turned violet. Its dark throbbing eye pierced them with accusations. The animal contracted and straightened in imaginary leaps, making as much progress as a hanged man walking on air. Then it turned green, almost the same color as the sea around them. A return to origins. Decay.

  When Garrett caught Davis glancing at him, a guilty blush shot up. The dolphin was not dying boisterously, like a sail fish or bass, thrashing about and distracting observers from the fact that it was dying. It was expiring with the grim grace of an old aunt, the variety of tones the intimate faience of her boudoir.

  "Can't it die faster?" Davis asked.

  "How so?" Singleton said. "It's not going to suffocate. Not quickly. Its lungs will collapse under its own weight, eventually. But the elements will kill it before that. To stay alive, its skin must stay wet. And its eyes... it'll probably go blind before it dies. Not that we contributed to its death in any way...."

  A few bemused expressions were cast in his direction.

  "Fish steak," the ensign reiterated.

  Outside of its plaintive cries, the most wrenching thing was the dolphin's fixed, placid smile. So much agony should be able to grimace. This was like a mask on a dying actor. All that vitality could not collapse upon itself. It had to be a sham. Theater.

  "Fish steak...."

  Neither midshipman was convinced. Their eyes met accidentally. Here was agreement, if not friendship. Garrett had not captured a meal. He was murdering a soul. Both of the young men had grown up on farms. Both had seen farmers deal death in the barnyard like accountants ticking off figures in a ledger. Yet they sensed a
terrible emotion in the death of the dolphin--caused by sheer duration, if nothing else. And the feeling that they were accomplices in crime.

  Even the marines twisted in a kind of fidgety agony. The drawn out process smacked of torture. Why didn't someone deliver the coup de grace? How exactly did one do that with a dolphin?

  "Couldn't we cover up its breathing hole?" one of them suggested.

  Davis felt a hand on his shoulder. Upon turning, he discovered Singleton wobbling uncertainly. Was he seasick? Or just--

  "Get that thing off my ship!"

  Had the dolphin exploded their reaction couldn't have been greater. One of the marines, holding himself up on a gun hoist, lost his grip and fell with a loud smack on deck. The others jumped away from the catch, then jumped away from each other, then jumped away from Captain Oates, who bellied towards them like an angry bear.

  "Doesn't anyone here know how to stand at attention?"

  Everyone froze.

  "Doesn't anyone here know how to salute?"

  A pitiful chorus of, "Yes, sir," accompanied a ragged exchange of salutes.

  Walking around the dolphin, Oates seemed to raise an invisible wall between the sailors and Garrett's catch. "Has this anything to do with one of your experiments, Dr. Singleton?" he asked suddenly.

  "Why, uh... no--"

  "How--" Oates stopped himself. He wanted to ask Singleton how much he'd had to drink for breakfast. A second glance convinced him the doctor was not only drunk, but on the verge of being sick. Perhaps he had stumbled across this little scene in all innocence. Oates would have to give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, if a story was made of this, the doctor would be the one writing it.