"So Long Mr. Roberts"

by THOMAS HEGGEN

ENSIGN PULVER spent a lot of time in his bunk, asleep and awake. On an average day he probably spent eighteen hours in bed. He was an engineering officer. Although few of the officers on the Navy cargo ship Reluctant had anything, really, to do, Pulver had less than most. It would be neither unfair nor very inaccurate to say that, professionally, he didn’t do a thing. So he had a lot of time on his hands — and this, with his native ingenuity, he converted to time on his back. His bunk became to him a sort of shrine, and but for meals and other undeniable functions, he was seldom out of it.

It was an unusually well-equipped bunk. At the foot Pulver had rigged a small fan that wafted cool breezes over him on the hottest nights. At the side were attached a coffee-can ash tray, a container for cigarettes, and another for a lighter. Pulver liked to smoke in bed while he was reading. Books were stowed in the space between the springs and the bulkhead. Beer was kept there too, and it was possible to open a bottle on the reading light on the bulkhead.

He read a great deal: he was embarked upon an ambitious program of self-improvement. By education Pulver was a metallurgical engineer, and now he read books that had widely and willingly eluded him during his college days. He read these books because they were the books that Lieutenant Roberts read; for, consciously or not, Ensign Pulver had set out to make himself over in Roberts’s image. With regard to most objects, people, ideas, Pulver was languidly cynical; with a few he was languidly approving; and with almost none was he overtly enthusiastic. His admiration for Roberts was utterly unabashed. He thought that Roberts was the greatest guy he had ever known.

Without ever inviting or desiring one, Roberts had acquired, in a quite literal sense, a disciple. Pulver prodded him with questions on every conceivable subject, memorized the answers, and went back to his bunk and assiduously absorbed them into his own conversation. He watched the careless, easy dignity with which Roberts met the crew, and he studied the way that Roberts got the crew to work for him; and then he tried to apply this dignity and this control to his own small authority. He was honest with himself, and he couldn’t notice any increased devotion in the eyes of his men; or indeed, anything more than the usual tolerance.

It is not very likely that Ensign Pulver would ever have read Santayana, or the English philosophers, or Jean Christophe, or The Magic Mountain, if he had not seen Roberts reading them. Before this self-imposed apprenticeship, he had been content to stay within the philosophical implications of God’s Little Acre. He had read Gods Little Acre twelve times, and there were certain passages he could recite flawlessly.

His reading program didn’t leave much time for anything else, but what leisure he could manage he devoted to planning characteristically ingenious actions against the Captain. He didn’t really have cause for hard feeling against the Captain, because, being an engineer, he was quite remote from him. In truth, the Captain hardly knew Pulver was aboard. But because Roberts hated the Captain, Pulver felt duty-bound to do the same; and scarcely a day went by that he didn’t present to Roberts the completed planning for a new offensive. To be sure, these offensives seldom went beyond the planning stage, because commonly their structure was so satisfying to Ensign Pulver that he felt fulfilled just in regarding it.

Once he figured out a way to plug, far down in the sanitary system, the line of the Captain’s head, so that the Captain would one day be deluged by a considerable backwash. He never did anything about it. He figured out a Rube Goldberg device that would punch the Captain in the face with a gloved fist when he entered his cabin. He never did anything about this either.

About the only plan he ever executed was one involving no personal risk. He did, one day while the Captain was ashore, actually insert shavings from an electric razor into his bed, on the theory that they would serve as satisfactorily as any good itch powder. If they did, the evidences were disappointing, for although Pulver watched closely, the Captain never appeared better rested, and indeed better-natured, than in the succeeding days.

2

IT WAS about ten in the morning when Thompson, the radioman, went around and awakened Mr. Margrave, the communication officer. There was a message to the U.S.S. Reluctant for Mr. Margrave to break. Margrave mumbled and groaned and finally got up. This was an occupational hazard: about once a month the ship would receive a message and he would have to get out of bed to break it. He always did get up though, because he always got excited at the possibility that the message might be his orders.

He was excited now, and when he went up to the radio shack and saw that the message was from the Bureau he got more excited. That meant definitely it was some officer’s orders. Feverishly he started breaking the message and got as far as “Lieut.” Then he stopped to catch his breath. If the next group was “jg” it might be his orders. He went on. The next word was “Douglas,” and the orders were for Roberts. Back to the States for reassignment.

After his first disappointment had passed, Margrave decided he was very glad for Roberts. If any officer deserved orders, it was Roberts. Margrave typed up the message and ran down to show it to him. He found Roberts at number two hatch, watching while some dunnage was removed from the bottom. “Your orders!” Margrave shouted, and showed him the message. Roberts read it and then looked up and studied Margrave. “Are you kidding?” he said flatly.

“No, I ain’t kidding,” Margrave said. “This is on the level, Doug!” Roberts studied him for a moment longer, then he read the orders again, and then all of a sudden he grinned. He just stood and grinned the widest and most foolish grin Margrave had ever seen. Then, still grinning, he grabbed Margrave’s overseas cap and flung it over the side. He pounded Margrave on the back and started pushing him toward the house. “Come on!” he said. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee!”

You had to give the Captain credit, he was unpredictable. As Roberts explained to Margrave, he fully expected Stupid to hold him a month or two, just out of spite, before detaching him. Although the orders read that he was to be immediately detached, Roberts had cause to know that the old man was not impressed by Bureau directives. The orders of the last officer to get off, Ensign Soucek, had read the same way, and the Captain had kept him for a full month. Roberts expected at least equal treatment.

But the Captain fooled him. Fooled him wonderfully. When Margrave finally took him the message, he read it and sniffed and grunted. He delivered to Margrave a brief, ordinary harangue on the subject of Roberts. Then he said with sudden decisiveness, “All right, that’s fine! We’ll get rid of that guy fast. You tell the executive officer to write up his orders and get him off of here tomorrow. Yessir, by God, we’ll get rid of that guy in a hurry!” Then the Captain smiled. He didn’t know it, but he could scarcely have done anything nicer for Roberts if he had wanted to — which certainly he didn’t.

It was a wonderful day for Roberts. Everything followed with miraculous precision. Margrave had been over on the beach the day before, and coming back he had given a ride to an armed guard officer from a merchant tanker. The officer had mentioned that his ship was sailing straight to San Francisco day after tomorrow. Margrave, remarkably, even remembered the name of the ship; and with Roberts’s enthusiastic consent, and without consulting the Captain, he had this message signaled over: “Can you take one officer passenger back to the States?”

In a very few minutes the answer came back: “Affirmative. Have him aboard by noon tomorrow.” Straight to the States on a fast merchant ship, the most comfortable transportation possible! It was a wonderful day for Roberts. Before the Captain could change his mind, he signed the orders, and Mr. LeSueur, the executive officer, promised Roberts a boat any time he wanted it.

He spent the afternoon packing. He had a fine time throwing the accumulated nonessentials and undesirables of two and one-half years’ living into a mounting pile in the corner. He was aided by, or at rate he had for company, Ensign Pulver. Pulver was considerably depressed by the news, and he lay in Roberts’s bunk, propped on one elbow, and made lugubrious conversation. Finally the combination of a soft bunk and a horizontal position was too much and he fell asleep.

Dinner that evening was an exciting meal for all the officers. It was a genuine event when any officer got orders, but when that officer was Roberts it was really so. It was a noisy dinner. Every officer in the wardroom shouted bawdy admonitions at Roberts. If he was asked once, he was asked twenty times: “What’s going to be the second thing you do when you hit Frisco?” Then Jake Bailey, the steward, brought out a huge chocolate cake. He had laboriously lettered in white frosting, “So long Mr. Roberts.” He was grinning sadly as he brought it over for Roberts to cut.

After dinner the Doc came over and said offhandedly to Roberts, “Drop around after a while.” It was the Doc’s way of announcing that alcohol would be available in his room that night.

3

WHEN he got around to the Doc s room, Roberts found Ensign Pulver and Lt. (jg) Pauley already there. Pulver was lying in the Doc’s bunk with a drink balanced on his stomach. The Doc poured a half inch of grain alcohol in a water glass, filled it halfway from a can of orange juice, and handed the drink to Roberts. “Sit down,” he said.

This was not the first time that the four had gathered thus, and it was not the thirty-first. In a period of one year this group had consumed an impressive portion of the Doctor’s supply of medicinal grain alcohol. These sessions in the Doc’s room were always pleasant. The Doc always presided and he did most of the talking, but that was all right because the Doc was a wonderful talker and he had wonderful stories to tell. The roles of Roberts and Pauley were those of appreciative listeners and contributing philosophers. Ensign Pulver performed adequately as the foil.

These social nights passed easily in thoughtful talk. Sex was perhaps the favorite and certainly the inevitable subject. Ship’s gossip and personalities, notably the Captain, were others. The great parent organization, the Navy, was frequently examined. These were the staples, but derivative or even extraneous subjects were permitted. Pauley was a fine, droll storyteller. When the conversation had not to do with sex, Ensign Pulver didn’t contribute much.

The evening started out according to plan, and if Dowdy, the boatswain’s mate, had not appeared, it would perhaps have gone on like that, deep in its routine, and ended in comparative tranquillity. If Dowdy had not appeared, perhaps the Doctor would have remained merely pensively philosophical. Perhaps — for these things are by no means certain. It could be persuasively argued that the imminent departure of Lieutenant Roberts was too shocking a mutation for the ship to absorb without a brief, compensatory period of chaos. Or it could be more baldly argued that certain factions of the ship’s company were simply ripe for a good bender. At any rate, Dowdy did appear, and the Doctor did, to a certain extent, go berserk.

As a drunk the Doc was of the unpredictable sort. Up to a certain point he was disciplined if loquacious. Beyond that point the Doc got pretty primitive. There was the time at an officers’ club at one of the islands when he tried to do battle with a four-striper. “Silly-looking, pothellied oaf” he had called the four-striper, who was not only twice his rank but twice his size as well. If he had not been also twice as drunk, the Doctor would undoubtedly have been a candidate for Portsmouth Naval Prison. That was one time, and there had been several others.

It was after ten o’clock when Dowdy knocked on the door. He stood sober and purposeful in the doorway. “Hear you’re leaving us?” he addressed Roberts. When this was confirmed he went on: “Well, a few of us are having a little party in the armory and they said for me to ask you down to have a drink with us. That’s all of you, naturally.”

Roberts questioned the Doc with a look. “Sure thing,” said the Doc expansively. “Hell, yes, we’ll have a drink. But first you have one with us.”

Dowdy did that, and he did better than that: he had two. Then the Doc said, “We might as well take this with us.” He picked up the quart of alcohol, now reduced to less than a pint, stuck it under his shirt, and then in a single file, the Doc leading, Pulver trailing, the group repaired to the armory.

They met a noisy reception. The new party was already in an advanced state. The armory was not a large room and now it was crowded. There was Olson, the first-class gunner’s mate, and there was Stefanowski, the machinist’s mate. Kalinka, the ship-fitter, and Vanessi, the storekeeper, were sitting on the workbench. The two gunner’s mates Wiley and Schaffer were leaning on the rifle rack. Denowsky, a hulking, amiable seaman, was wandering up and down. A ten-gallon crock sat on the deck in the geometrical center of the room.

Right away the Doc made a perfect gesture. He pulled out the bottle of alcohol, flourished it, and emptied its contents into the crock. The cheers were almost deafening. Dowdy was equal to his duties as host and he poured drinks of the amalgamated alcohol and jungle juice for the newcomers.

“This here is a brand-new batch,” he explained to them. “It turned out pretty good. The last batch we made, there was something the matter with it. I guess we let it set too long — it had kind of a green crust on top. Anyhow, I give that last batch away to the engineers. It didn’t look good to me, and you can’t hurt an engineer.”

Then the toasts began. Stefanowski made the first; and considering the occasion, it was just about perfect. Although he stood a little unsteadily, his words were firm and brave: “Now by God this drink is for the best damn officer I know and that’s Mister Roberts. And that ain’t saying nothing against the rest of you officers because I think we got a good bunch of officers on this ship —” Stefanowski paused and qualified, “ — except for that bastard of a Captain and I think we got the best of the lot here tonight. But by God I say and I bet you other officers agree with me that Mister Roberts is absolutely the tops and I’m sure sorry to see him go, and by God I think we ought to drink to him!” It is hard to see how it could have been more nicely put, and Stefanowski’s toast was promptly and noisily executed.

There were many others. The toast idea caught the fancy of the party, and the level of the improved jungle juice went down markedly in the crock. The party grew in size and in volume. It was reduced by one when Vanessi passed out quietly and was removed to the passageway, but then it soon acquired Dolan, the quartermaster, and Evans, the signalman, and Ringgold and two other firstdivision men.

It was no longer possible to move from one end of the armory to the other. The party divided into several autonomous groups. One, with Wiley and Schaffer, sat on the deck in a corner and sang a new set of lyrics to “On, Wisconsin.” Kalinka was the center of a little group in the opposite corner. Kalinka had been demonstrating the process of placing one’s leg behind one’s head; now his leg was locked behind his head and he couldn’t get it down. It didn’t seem to bother him though; and in truth he didn’t seem aware of it. He just sat on the deck and talked with a drink in his hand. A third group gathered around the Doctor and tried to convince him that they were deserving cases for medical discharge.

4

IT WAS about two o’clock when it came to Ensign Pulver that he could walk on water. He announced his discovery to the party, and some believed him and some didn’t. It was decided that he should demonstrate. The whole parly surged up to the quarter-deck. They stood at the rail while Pulver walked down to the foot of the gangway and stepped off as casually as from a curb. There was a strong current running, and although Pulver threshed energetically he was slipping rapidly astern. Dcnowsky decided that Pulver was drowning, and he climbed over the rail and jumped twenty feet into the water to save him.

Both of them would probably have been swept out to sea if Stevens, the gangway watch, had not also been a qualified boat coxswain and an alert boy. Stevens scurried down the Jacob’s-ladder into the LCVP tied alongside, started it up, and went after the two. He had quite a time rounding them up. Although Pulver lay sprawled across the stern sheets, Denowsky for a long time insisted that Pulver had drowned, and wouldn’t get out of the water.

When the two swimmers were finally laid out on the quarter-deck, Lieutenant Roberts left the party. Pie left it in heated discussion as to whether artificial respiration should be applied to Pulver and Denowsky, who lay on their backs and participated in the debate. Roberts slipped up the ladder and made it safely to his room. Although he was far from sober, he did two very wise and practical things: he locked the door and he set his alarm clock for six-thirty.

The wisdom of the first item was demonstrated a few minutes later when there came loud voices and vigorous pounding at his door. Roberts kept quiet and eventually the visitors went away.

He had set the alarm early because, although he was not at his most acute, it was clear to him that there would be unpleasant repercussions from the party. Roberts thought it entirely possible that the Captain might seek to identify him with the night’s doings, and might detain him for a few days or a few months. Roberts was going to get away before the Captain got up.

The wisdom of this decision was emphasized not very much later. Roberts had just fallen asleep when he was awakened by a crashing noise. At the time, he thought it the report of a five-inch gun, although he supposed it could be a bomb. He was not disposed to be curious, and he went back to sleep, very grateful that he was in bed with the door locked.

At six-thirty the clatter of the alarm was horrible. Roberts heard it and awoke and it seemed to him inconceivable that he could ever move again. His head was one great pounding agony and his stomach was so raw he thought it exposed. But as he lay in bed he recalled what was at stake; and finally, slowly and with an awful dragging care, he got up. Slowly he dressed and slowly he walked down to the wardroom. There he drank a glass of orange juice and asked Jackson, the steward’s mate, to bring down his gear. It was seven-fifteen when he went out to the officer of the deck to request a boat.

Ensign Moulton had the deck and he clarified the matter of the explosion. It seemed that the party, at the Doc’s suggestion, had decided to hold loading drill on the five-inch gun. There were dummy shells back there, and the drill had gone along uneventfully until some loader with a passion for realism introduced a live shell from the ready box. Some other realist pulled the lanyard on the firing pin. The shell had grazed the top of the mast of a ship half a mile astern and had dropped, it was hoped, safely out to sea. Moulton added that there would probably be all kinds of hell raised by the Captain and by the island commander.

Roberts thought so too and he was glad when the boat came around. He shook hands with Moulton, asked him to say good-bye to everyone, and got aboard. It was a fifteen-minute boat ride over to the tanker, and all the way Roberts sat in the stern sheets with his head in his hands and tried desperately not to be sick. It occurred to him that he should feel some emotion at leaving the Reluctant, but beyond his own physical misery there wasn’t a thing. He didn’t even look back. When he got to the tanker and stood at the head of the gangway, he did turn around to look for the ship which had been his existence and his despair for two and onehalf years. But in the forest of distant masts he couldn’t even be certain which one it was.

5

IN a very real sense, Lieutenant Roberts had held the ship together. Awakening to the prospect of each toneless and reiterated day, every man on the ship had taken some degree of sustenance from the simple awareness that Roberts was aboard. He was friendly, but not aggressively so, and he worked hard and was often tired, and when he was tired he could be very sharp and sarcastic. The crew members imposed on him outrageously with their demands for his talk, his time, his counsel. He held the ship together as a magnet holds filings, and when he left, the filings fell into clustered and undirected confusion.

Everything seemed to go wrong. Lieutenant Carney took over the job of First Lieutenant, and everything went wrong out on deck. Under his direction the loading or unloading took hours and sometimes days longer than it should. The ship got some bad water at one of the islands, and there was an epidemic of diarrhea. Martin, a second-division man, fell from the ‘tween-deck level to the bottom of number three hatch, fracturing his pelvis and breaking both legs.

Everyone was in an ugly humor. The Captain ordered that any man caught in his bunk after reveille should go on report. Moreover, he saw to it that Mr. LeSueur, the executive officer, enforced the order. The first morning nine tenths of the crew were on report. Mr. LeSueur himself became nasty and treacherous. There were any number of quarrels and fights.

But the biggest change of all was in Ensign Pulver. From a remarkably genial young man he became overnight a remarkably disagreeable one. He had been slow and almost unknown to wrath. Now, he was in his best mood merely surly; and in his worst, which predominated, he was insufferable. He picked quarrels with the other officers over trifles. He shouted at and abused the steward’s mates. One night at dinner he almost came to blows with Pauley over the issue of a napkin. After that he wasn’t on speaking terms with Pauley. The Doc was about the only one who would have anything to do with him these days. He was very lost.

He heard twice from Roberts after he left the ship. After the farewell party, Pulver wrote ahead to Roberts’s home in Chicago. Roberts wrote back about three weeks later. He was at home then on a twenty-five-day leave. He said he’d write again when he got his new orders.

Pulver received the second letter from Roberts on the same day that he got the news of his death. That was on August 1, a few days before the first atomic bomb was dropped. The Reluctant had been under way for a week, and when she finally anchored in Ennui Bay, Steuben, the yeoman and mail clerk, was sent over to pick up the mail.

Ensign Pulver got four letters. He took them to his room, lay down in his bunk, and opened them in the order in which they lay. The first was from his mother, who advised him to stay away from Japan. The second was from a girl in San Francisco with whom he was trying to maintain friendly relations against his possible return to the States. The tone of her letter assured him that prospects were still good. The third letter was from Lieutenant Roberts. The date mark was three weeks old. It said that he was now on a destroyer, and that he’d been flown out all the way from the States to catch it. He was replacement for the First Lieutenant, who had gone off his nut and had been transferred to a hospital ship.

Roberts sounded very pleased with the duty, and mentioned that there was on board a fellow named Fornell who had gone through the University of Alabama with Pulver. Roberts wrote: “Fornell says that you and he used to load up your car with liquor in Birmingham and then sell it at indecent profit to the fraternity boys at Alabama. How about that?” Pulver smiled happily when he read the news. So Roberts and Fornell were on the same ship!

The last letter was from Fornell. It said that the can was now on its way to Pearl after taking a Kamikaze while running up and down off Kyushu. It said that the plane had got in just after they had secured from a four-hour general quarters, in the course of which six planes had come around and two had been shot down. This suicide must have been waiting very high, Fornell said, and it dropped straight down and hit on the port side of the bridge structure. It had killed everyone in a twin-forty battery, and it had gone on through and killed Roberts and another officer drinking coffee in the wardroom. All told, four officers and seven men had been killed. Fornell added that Roberts hadn’t been aboard three weeks, but that he seemed like one hell of a nice guy.

Pulver read the letter through to the end and then he folded it carefully into the envelope and placed it and the other letters in the space behind his mattress where he kept all his mail. He had now the knowledge that Roberts was dead, but, as often happens, there was a lag between the fact and the implication, the wound and the pain. Pulver didn’t feel much of anything. In his life he had never had anything very unpleasant or extraordinary happen to him, and now he didn’t know quite what to do. He smoked a cigarette and decided that it was his responsibility to tell somebody.

He couldn’t think right away whom to tell. It shouldn’t be just anybody. It should be one of the people whom Roberts had liked best. The Doctor, he must surely tell the Doctor; and Dowdy, Dowdy must know too. These two came immediately to Pulver’s mind, and right now there weren’t any others. He went to find the Doc.

But the Doc wasn’t in his room and Pulver set out to find Dowdy. He went out on the quarter-deck and he found him right away. Lights had been rigged on the mast-table, and he could see Dowdy out on deck supervising removal of the hatch beams from number three. Pulver called to him. Dowdy nodded, and when the winch operator laid the beam safely on deck he came over.

Dowdy stood before him, passive and incurious. He had been working with wire cable, and he kept his leather gloves on.

Pulver said, “Mr. Roberts is dead. I just got the word in a letter.”

Dowdy didn’t say anything. He looked up quickly at Pulver and then he looked at him steadily. Pulver felt that every muscle in his face, every nerve, every pore, was under that gaze.

Pulver went on: “He got orders to a can and the can got hit by a suicide plane off Kyushu. There were eleven of them killed altogether.” He didn’t know anything else to say.

Dowdy held his gaze for a moment longer. Then, abruptly, he broke it off. “Thanks,” he said. He turned then and walked away. Pulver saw that while he stood there Dowdy had removed his gloves.

He was beginning now to feel the pain. It was dull and desolate and smothering. He went back into the house and found the Doc. The Doc was undressing for a shower.

“Hi, Doc,” Pulver said. He leaned back wearily against the opened door.

“Hi,” said the Doc. He looked curiously at Pulver.

“Roberts is dead,” Pulver said in a flat voice. “He was on a can and the can took a suicide plane off Kyushu.”

The Doc let out a soft whistle and sat down slowly on the edge of his desk. He studied Pulver with the same fixity as Dowdy.

“How did you find out?” he said finally.

“I got a letter from a guy I know who was on the same ship. A guy I used to know in college.”

The Doctor nodded slowly. He twisted his mustache and looked down at the deck.

Pulver spoke with sudden anguish: “Isn’t that rough, Doc? You know how he batted his head to get off of here? You know how he wanted to get in the war? And then as soon as he gets out there he gets killed.” His voice was almost pleading.

The Doc nodded and chewed his lip. “That’s funny,” he said thoughtfully.

“Funny?”

The Doc looked up. “I don’t mean funny, Frank,” he said softly. He paused for a moment. “I mean that I think that’s what he wanted.”

Ensign Pulver was startled. What did the Doc mean? He was about to ask, but now the pain was getting bad, and suddenly he didn’t want to talk any longer. He stood away from the door. “Well,” he said vaguely, “I just thought I’d tell you.”

The Doc didn’t seem to hear right away. He was staring at the deck again. Then he said quietly, “I’m glad you did.” And as Pulver started haltingly out the door he called after him, “I’m awfully sorry, Frank.”

Pulver turned around and nodded acknowledgment; then he went on down the passageway. He came to the wardroom and he thought of telling the people in there. But the moment he looked in he saw it was impossible. Carney and Margrave were playing acey-deucey. Kieth was sitting at one table writing letters, and Pauley was drinking coffee. Moulton was over at the turntable playing records. It was all just the same. It was just as every night, days without end. Nothing had happened; and now Pulver saw that, in plain truth, nothing ever could happen to these men. The higher centers where action was absorbed, where thought impinged and desires spoke, had been determinedly shut off and allowed to atrophy, and all that remained was an irritable surface with an insatiable hunger for triviality.

Ensign Pulver had lived this life for over a year without objection and often with enjoyment. Now it seemed to him horrible. He winced that he had thought to tell these officers of Roberts’s death, and let them make of it a moment’s diversion.

Abruptly he withdrew and plunged down the passageway. He went outside and walked along the rail of the house. On the starboard side, in the dark of the house, he found a place at the rail with no one about. He stood there a long time, staring at the dark plane of water, pierced here and there by shafts of yellow light. He studied the high, coldly remote red light atop the radio tower on the island. Roberts was dead. He felt a need to cry, and he looked around him furtively and then, furtively, he tried it. Self-consciously, he whimpered aloud, but the sound was so strange to him that he stopped. Crying wouldn’t help. Nothing would help, but there was still something to do.

He went up the starboard ladder to the wing of the boat deck. He went over to the Captain’s palm trees, standing in their five-gallon Foamite cans, and one by one he picked them up and threw them over the side. When he finished he was panting more than could be accounted for by the exertion. He brushed his hands together carefully and went inside on the boat deck.

The Captain was sitting, reading, in the large chair of his cabin. In the cone of harsh light from the floor lamp he looked old, and not evil, but merely foolish. He glanced up when Pulver knocked on the opened door. “Yeah,” he said gruffly, “what is it?”

Ensign Pulver leaned a casual hand on the door jamb. “Captain,” he said easily, “I just threw your damn palm trees over the side.”