A solitary sailor clapped. A lone flier said, “That’s nice.”
“He’s leaving out a few details,” said Wade McClusky’s por-trayer, joining the three atheists at the bar. “He’s afraid to mention we lost Lexington in that particular battle.”
“Truth: the first casualty of war,” said Winston.
“Attention!” continued Spruance. “Attention! All men attached to Task Force Sixteen will report to the ship immediately! This is not a drill! All men from Scout Bombing Six, Torpedo Six, and Enterprise will report immediately!” Spruance suddenly shifted to a jovial, folksy tone. “Strawberry Ten’s just spotted the enemy, boys! That Jap golem’s in Arctic waters, and now we’re gonna bushwhack the sucker!”
“Hey, comrades — you hear that?” squealed Winston.
“We’ve done it, guys!” shouted Barclay. “We’ve got irrationality by the balls!”
Oliver hugged his sketch pad, kissing his caricature of Myron Kovitsky. The Valparaíso was afloat! Cassandra was alive! He pictured her standing on one of the tanker’s bridge wings, scanning the sky for the promised squadrons. I’m on my way, darling, he thought. Here comes Oliver to save your Weltanschauung.
McClusky strode to Pembroke’s Victrola and, detaching the huge conical speaker, held it to his mouth like a megaphone. “Well, boys, you heard the admiral! Let’s get off our duffs and show them Nips they got no right to mess with the natural economic order of things!”
So now it was here, that bittersweet juncture each man had awaited with supreme patience, the moment when he must seek out his favorite hostess and bid her au revoir. Choking back tears half-crocodile and half-genuine, the sailor nearest Oliver clasped the hand of his best girl — a chubby woman with pigtails and dimples — and solemnly vowed to write her every day. The hostess, in turn, gave the sailor Oliver’s money’s worth, assuring him she would carry their brief encounter in her heart forever. Throughout the Midnight Sun Canteen, phone numbers were exchanged, along with fleeting kisses and sentimental tokens (brooches and locks of hair from the women, tie clips and aviation badges from the men). Even Arnold Kovitsky got into the mood, striding up to the mike and transforming himself into Marlene Dietrich singing “Lili Marlene.”
The servicemen trembled and wept, stunned by the sheer hypnotic beauty of it all: the song, the farewells, the call to arms.
A blond, apple-cheeked flier whose name badge read BEESON turned to McClusky and raised his hand.
“Yes, Lieutenant Beeson?”
“Commander McClusky, sir, is there time for one last foxtrot?”
“Sorry, sailor, Uncle Sam needs us right now. Battle stations, men!”
September 14.
Latitude: 66°50'N. Longitude: 2°45'W. Course: 044. Speed: 7 knots. Sea temperature: 23° Fahrenheit. Air temperature: 12° and falling.
At 0745 two momentous events occurred. The Valparaíso crossed the Arctic Circle, and I shaved off my beard. A major operation. I had to borrow a pair of butcher’s shears from Follingsbee, and after that I went through a half dozen of Ockham’s disposable razors.
Ice enshrouds our cargo, a smooth crust running head to toe like the casing on a sausage. By the time we reach Kvitoya, His meat will be solid as marble.
“See, the putrefaction’s stopped, just like our angels predicted,” I said, striding up to Ockham. “We don’t need the Vatican’s damn formaldehyde.”
The padre was standing on the afterdeck, watching the pump-room gang glide around on His sternum. Ice-skating has become the crew’s principal recreation of late, eclipsing both stud poker and Ping-Pong. Their gear is jerry-built — cutlery affixed to hiking boots — but it works fine. For extra protection against the cold, they coat their hands, feet, and faces with glory grease.
Ockham looked me in the eye and smiled, obviously relieved that I’d just placed us back on speaking terms. “Someone should contact Rome and tell them He’s finally stable,” he said as Bud Ramsey fell squarely on his ass. “Surely you’d prefer not to have Di Luca out chasing us in the Maracaibo.”
I couldn’t argue with the man’s logic, and I even allowed him to compose the message. (He did this in his cabin. They’ll be selling earmuffs in hell before I let Ockham on the bridge again.) At 1530 Sparks faxed the good news to Rome, and at 1538 a second communique went out, this one to sunny Spain. It was only a dozen words long. “Expect me in Valladolid next month whether you want me or not,” I told my father.
We’re getting very near the end, Popeye.
After tonight’s dinner, Follingsbee’s best batch of stroganoff yet, the steward said he wanted me to see the results of a “scientific experiment” he’d been working on ever since our stop in Ireland. He led me outside — what a wonderland our weather deck has become, ice hanging from the catwalks in great crystalline webs, frost shimmering on the pipes and valves — and into the depths of number 4 ballast tank, chattering all the way about the joys of home agronomy. We hadn’t gone 20 feet before my nostrils were quivering with pleasure. Lord, such a marvelous scent: utter ripeness, Popeye, sheer fecundity. I switched on my flashlight.
At the bottom of the tank lay a brightly colored garden, its vegetables grown bulbous beyond the wildest fantasies of Hieronymus Bosch, its fruits so fat they practically screamed aloud to be plucked. Gnarled trees lurched out of the darkness, their branches bent by apples the size of volleyballs. Asparagus spears reared up from the floor like some bizarre species of cactus. Broccoli flourished beside the keelson, each stalk as tall and thick as a mimosa tree. Vines drooped from the ladders, their dark purple grapes clustered together like Godzilla’s lymph nodes. “Sam, you’re a genius.”
The steward doffed his cream-puff hat and took a modest bow. “Seeds all came from them groceries we bought in Galway. Soil’s a mixture of skin and plasma. What gets me is how fast everything grew, in subfreezing temperatures yet, and without a single ray of sunshine. You sow an orange pip, and ten hours later — bingo!”
“So half the credit belongs to…”
“More than half. He makes great compost, sir.”
When this voyage is finally over, Popeye, there’s only one thing I’m going to miss, and that’s the food.
Cassie’s parka, borrowed from Bud Ramsey, was stuffed with grade-A goose down; her socks, from Juanita Torres, were 100 percent virgin wool; her gloves, from Sister Miriam, contained pure rabbit fur. But the cold still penetrated, eating through each protective layer like some voracious Arctic moth. The thermometer on the starboard wing stood at negative eight degrees, and that didn’t include the windchill factor.
Lifting her field glasses, she focused on the glistery, snowcapped nose. Far beyond, a steady stream of charged solar particles spilled forth, countless electrons and neutrons entering the earth’s magnetic field and colliding with rarefied atmospheric gases. The resulting aurora filled the entire northern sky: a luminous blue-and-green banner flapping in eerie silence above the rolling waves and the wandering pack ice.
What she most admired about Anthony Van Horne, the fact that made him always there these days, always flitting about in her brain, was his obsessiveness. At last she’d met someone as stubborn as she. Snapshots from a sea odyssey: Anthony killing a tiger shark with a bazooka, quelling a mutiny with fast food, persuading his sailors to move a mountain. Just as Cassie would stop at nothing to destroy God, so the captain would stop at nothing to protect Him. It was truly intense, erotic almost, this strange, unspoken bond between them.
The question, of course, was whether Oliver’s admirable project still existed. Pure logic said the slender threads binding the interests of the Central Park West Enlightenment League to those of the World War Two Reenactment Society had been completely severed during the Valparaíso’s long imprisonment on Van Horne Island. Yet Cassie knew Oliver. She understood his utter, passionate, tedious devotion to her. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that he’d found some way to keep the alliance alive. Any day now, any hour now, the Age of Reason would be visited upon the Corpus Dei.