At the Midway (12 page)

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.

"Midshipman Davis."

"Yes, sir?"

"You're all blue."

"Yes, sir."

"Isn't there any way you can remove it?"

"I think it'll just have to wear off, Captain.  I've tried everything else." 
Except jumping into a vat of turpentine,
Davis thought
,
terrified the captain would suggest just that.

"All right.  Would you please escort Dr. Singleton forward?  And ask him to tell you about lead poisoning while at it."

"Aye aye, sir."

Singleton did not look at the dolphin again, but turned slowly and followed the midshipman away.

"Mr. Garrett."

"Yes, sir?"  The ensign licked his chapped lips.  Sitting out in the wind and sun all afternoon had dried him out.  Beck stood awkwardly to the side, like some green fairy attendant out of
A
Midsummer's
Night
Dream
.

"Am I speaking to the same Garrett who had a questionable relationship in Portsmouth?  I believe you almost got married there, only the father rescued the girl at the last moment."

"Sir
-
-
"

"And weren't you brought before the mast for swimming naked in Trinidad?"

"I was in the water, sir.  No one could see
-
-
"

"The water was exceptionally clear, is my understanding. And the ladies on that yacht could see every inch."

"I didn't know
-
-
"

"Yes... and you're the one who stopped the loading in Number One Turret when that schooner cut through our division.  What if it had been an enemy cruiser?  Would you have done the same?"

His question sounded like a reprimand and he realized how foolish it was.  Garrett had acted properly that spooky night, for more humiliating than being sunk by an enemy was sinking yourself.  The whole idea of firing--no matter how obvious the danger--was repugnant to the captain.  Still, he was not here to praise Garrett, but to bury him.

"I thought it best--"

"Yes, yes.  You thought it best, even though you could see nothing from where you stood and had no idea what we were up against.  Very prudent, Ensign."  He glanced at the marines.  Were they involved in all this?  Hard to tell with them.  Midshipman Beck, on the other hand, was obviously an unwilling party.  By all rights, Oates should dismiss the marines and the midshipman before raking Garrett over the coals, but he wanted his words to get out.  For that to happen, he needed an audience.  "Where are we, Mr. Garrett?"

"Sir?  I believe we'll soon be rounding Cape São Roque."

"No.  Look around, mister.  What I mean is:
where
are
we
?"

Glancing fore and aft, Garrett noted Fourth Division four hundred yards behind and First Division an equal distance ahead.  To starboard was Second Division.  The rest of Third Division had separated itself from the
Florida
and had moved off to port.

"We're in the middle, sir."

"And what does that mean?"

"It... uh... means we're in the Observation Ward, sir."

"And why are we in the Observation Ward with five admirals and the entire Atlantic Squadron looking down on us?"

"My understanding is that it's punishment for being out of position when we reached Port of Spain, sir."

"We fell thirty yards behind, Mr. Garrett.  We squeezed every ounce of power we could out of this dear old ship and we fell behind."

Garrett found it difficult to stay at attention.  A breeze kept blowing his loose tunic collar against his cheek.  To his chagrin, a wayward thread floated up and came perilously near his right eye like some tantalizing cabaret dancer intent on blinding him.

"What ship were you on before the
Florida
?"

"I was stationed on the
Oregon
, sir.  I was a watch and division officer."

"And where is the
Oregon
now?"

"She's restricted to home waters, sir."

"And why is that?"

"She... couldn't keep up, sir."

"She was one of the most honored ships in the Navy, Mr. Garrett.  During the war with Spain she sailed from the Pacific to Santiago and decided the fight when she got there.  But when the Fleet reorganized she was relegated to the backwaters as if she was nothing more than a rust bucket."  Oates glanced around to make certain Singleton had not sneaked back.  "Mr. Garrett, I'm sure your presence on my ship is due to the lack of manpower on the East Coast.  But rest assured, if a grand old wagon like the
Oregon
can be cut, there's nothing to putting you swabbing decks on a collier."

Captain Oates took a long look at the dolphin.  It had changed color again.  Its faded green tint was like a distress signal from the soul.

"Get this thing over the side.  Admiral Sperry is on the
Alabama
abaft."  He nodded in the direction of the Fourth Division.  "If you think
I'm
a sundowner, I could correct that impression by introducing you to him."

Ah, is that it
? Garrett thought.  True, the rear admiral was a notoriously strict disciplinarian.  If Sperry was witnessing Oates' angry arm-waving, he would understand the
Florida's
skipper was disciplining the sailor who took their predicament so lightly.

"Sir, if you'd like some fish steak--"

Not much of what Oates had said had made an impact, but the look he now gave Garrett was deadly as a gun.  He bit his tongue as the captain seemed to twist inward on himself, then stomped past a six-inch sponson out of sight.

"All right, Shit-shank, you heard him.  Over the side with our dinner."

Beck was angry.  And stunned.  With a tongue-lashing like this, the ensign should have been cowed into abject silence.  As it was, Garrett's command reflected nothing more than what he felt: disappointment at losing a meal.  No concern at all that the captain might carry out his threat and banish him to a collier.  While Beck, who'd not been the target of the reprimand, felt his legs wilt like daisy stalks.