Voyage to Somewhere: A Novel

By Sloan Wilson

From the bestselling author of The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a World War II novel that is as thrilling as it is true to life 

Hoping to draw a nice, lengthy shore duty after two years at sea, Lieutenant Barton is instead told that he is being sent right back out, this time as captain of a supply ship sailing from California to New Guinea and stopping at every small island in between. Homesick for his wife, he has no choice but to accept the assignment and a crew of twenty-six landlubbers whose last names all begin with W. Their first load of cargo? Pineapples destined for Hawaii.

Life aboard the one-hundred-eighty-foot SV-126 is never dull. When Barton isn’t battling gale-force winds and monstrous waves, he is coping with seasick sailors and budding rivalries that threaten to turn mutinous. Hanging over the ship like a storm cloud is the knowledge that the world is at war and the enemy is never far away.

Whether Lieutenant Barton and his crew are fighting torpedoes and typhoons or writing letters to loved ones, Voyage to Somewhere offers a unique and page-turning perspective on what the Second World War was really like.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Dec 23, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497689602

Sloan Wilson

Sloan Wilson (1920–2003) was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, and graduated from Harvard University. An avid sailor, he joined the US Coast Guard shortly after Pearl Harbor and, during World War II, commanded a naval trawler on the Greenland Patrol and an army supply ship in the South Pacific. Wilson earned a battle star for his role in an attack by Japanese aircraft and based his first novel, Voyage to Somewhere, and two of his later books, Ice Brothers and Pacific Interlude, on his wartime experiences. In 1955 he published The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a classic portrait of suburban ennui heralded by the Atlantic as “one of the great artifacts of popular culture in the 50’s.” It was adapted into a successful film, as was its bestselling follow-up, A Summer Place. The author of fifteen books, Wilson was living with his wife of forty years, Betty, on a boat in Colonial Beach, Virginia, at the time of his death.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

DO YOU want command of a ship?" the personnel officer asked.

Well, I said, I hadn’t thought of it.

The personnel officer leaned forward and flicked through the pages of a small card index in a green metal box.

Let me see, Lieutenant, he said. Barton is your name. I think I have you down for command of a ship.

If you don’t mind, I interjected, there are other things I’d rather do. I just came back from two years’ sea duty, you know. I’d been hoping for a job somewhere in the States.

If I could only find your name here. I had it somewhere.

I stood uneasily before the personnel officer’s desk and watched him look through one card index after the other. He was red-faced and fat. I envied him his job. It must be fun to rifle through card indexes to see whom you were going to send out.

I’d been hoping, I said again, that for a while I could be stationed in the States. Some kind of a teaching job, perhaps, or captain of the port.

Well, he said, I don’t know where your name is. What were you saying?

I was saying that I wanted a job here in the States. I’ve just come back from two years overseas.

He sat back in his chair and placed one of his fat little hands over the other in a gesture of childish dismay.

Oh, he said, that is impossible. We have to man over a hundred ships going out to New Guinea, and we need men of experience. You have had two years’ sea duty, but that’s just what makes you so valuable.

How about letting someone else get valuable? I asked.

He grinned at me as though I had made a wonderful joke and suddenly leaned forward and produced a notebook from a drawer. I know where your name is, he said. That reminds me!

I watched while he carefully turned the pages.

Barton, he said. Let me see. I know it’s here somewhere.

The pages made a dry sound.

Barton, he said again. Begins with a B. That would be toward the beginning of the alphabet. Here it is! I knew I had you down somewhere!

What, I asked, have you got me down for?

A wonderful assignment!

What assignment?

You’re to be commanding officer of a ship.

I know, I said, and the ship is going to New Guinea. Not just there and back, but there and on. Don’t tell me about it.

He flipped his notebook shut. It’s a wonderful assignment, he said. I thought I was doing you a favor. It’s a brand-new ship.

How long?

What?

How long is the ship? How big is she?

A hundred and eighty feet.

No, thanks.

What?

I don’t want that assignment. Do I have to take it? Tell me now and it will save talk.

The personnel officer took his glasses off and polished them with his handkerchief. I’m afraid the Commander is already having your orders written up. If you don’t want the job you might see him, but I’m afraid it won’t do much good. We don’t have many men with enough experience to be commanding officers. You know, to tell you the truth, I can’t understand your attitude.

I felt tired and pulled up a chair from another desk. Before speaking I lit my pipe. My attitude, I said finally, is easily understood. For the past two years I have been bobbing around in small ships. I’d like a rest. I’ve never been able to understand why it’s necessary to be shoved out the moment I get in. You and I are both lieutenants; why don’t you go to sea for a while and let me have your desk? Let’s divide these honors equally.

The personnel officer put his glasses on carefully. There’s nothing I’d like better, he said, but I haven’t had the experience. To tell you the truth I’ve never been to sea since my cadet cruise. I couldn’t command a ship now any more than you could really do my job. As a matter of fact, I have twice asked the Commander for a ship, but you know how it is.

Yes, I said, I know how it is.

He looked up at me and for a moment I almost felt sorry for him. He looked so small, and so fat, and so sedentary. Perhaps he really did want to go to sea.

Let me tell you about this assignment, he said. The ship is a supply vessel. You’ll run out of convoy to all the small bases. In the Pacific you will call at every small island—the Hawaiians, the Ellice Islands, the Solomons, and maybe more. Once you get to New Guinea you’ll stay away from the big bases almost entirely. It’ll be more an exploring expedition than a war. As captain of the ship you’ll be your own boss; there’ll be no detachment commanders anywhere within miles. It’s a damn rare assignment.

What kind of a crew will you give me?

Not much, I’m afraid. You know how few experienced hands there are around these days, and the destroyer escorts are getting most of them. I’ll do the best I can for you, though; don’t worry about that.

Tell me more about the ship, I said. How fast is she? What does she look like?

Well, I don’t really know. These are new ships, and I haven’t seen any of them. I understand they’re pretty good, though.

He opened his notebook again and ran his finger down the line. Your ship is the SV-126.

Thanks, I said. That helps a lot. Now I know all about her.

I got up and started buttoning my coat. How long have I got in the States? I asked. How long before I’ll get my orders?

It’s hard to tell. It might be tomorrow, it might be next month.

Look, I said, I’d like to know. I have to decide whether or not to wire my wife to come out. There’s no use her coming across the continent if I’m only going to be here a few days.

You better not have her come out. Your ship will probably be ready sometime this week.

Well, I said, thanks.

I turned and walked off. When I had almost reached the door he called after me. I wouldn’t get too downhearted, he said. I hear a rumor that we’re going into the Marianas pretty soon. They say the war’s almost over.

CHAPTER TWO

NOT HAVING anything else to do, I decided to go down to the shipyard to inspect the SV-126. A yeoman in the office told me that she was building at the Pacific Ship Works. I took a taxi there, and soon stood before the watchman’s gate. Over the fence I could see the towering decks of a battleship on the ways, and moored in a slip was an aircraft carrier. The watchman came out of his box and looked at me as though he wanted to place his hand over my eyes.

I want to go aboard a ship that’s building here, I said. The SV-126.

The watchman went to a notebook which, by coincidence, had a similar binding to the one in which the personnel officer had found my name.

SV-126, he said. I don’t have no such number here.

Look again, I said. It must be here. I’m sure the ship is being built in this yard.

What kind of a ship is it? he asked.

A supply ship. A very small one.

He looked again. Nope, he said, it’s not here. Must be at some other yard.

Will you let me go in and look? I asked.

The watchman looked at me suspiciously a moment, then bade me go in.

The shipyard was a big place. On the ways along the water more than a dozen big ships were being built or repaired. Men on scaffolds by the sides of a battleship were welding, and the bright sparks of their torches sprayed out like a Fourth of July celebration. Beside the battleship was a destroyer with her bow removed. As I passed her I could look into her hull and see that the bunks in her forecastle had been twisted by fire. Past this row of ships I saw an office building. I stopped there and asked for the SV-126.

Never heard of it, a bespectacled civilian told me.

Are you building any small ships here at all? I asked.

He thought a moment and consulted a framed map of the yard on the wall.

Over here, he said, pointing with his finger, they’re building some small hulls. I thought they were tugboats, but you can look and see.

He showed me how I could get to the point designated, and I set out. I walked past the half-completed hull of a Liberty ship and the knifelike bow of a cruiser. Over the top of a building I could see the upper deck of the carrier I had seen from without the wall. When I had passed the building I could see a group of tin workshops by the water, but no more ships. Discouraged, I turned to go back, and saw a workman carrying a welder’s mask behind me.

I said, You don’t know where they’re building a small ship around here, do you? The SV-126?

He said, They’ve got something down by the blacksmith shop. Just threw it in the water yesterday.

He pointed to the blacksmith shop, the farthest of the tin sheds I had seen before, and I walked toward it.

When I rounded the corner of the blacksmith shop I saw the SV-126. I had not seen her before because the top of her mast did not come above the roof of the building. She was indeed a small ship—so small that she might best have been called a boat. The white numbers on her plumb bow seemed disproportionately large. The bow, almost before it got started, broke away into a well deck that was not more than a foot and a half above the water. Abaft the well deck the stern was built up like the stern of a Spanish galleon. The ship’s lines, taken together with the fact that she was painted a bright green, made her appear ridiculous. Fascinated, I walked down to the dock and stood beside her. Even in the imperceptible swell of the slip she was bobbing lightly against the dock. Frantically, as a man tries to find good points in a person he feels he should love, I tried to find something consoling about the ship. The high bow was good—she would not take much water forward, or aft, for that matter, with that high stem. But amidships she would be awash half the time! And the looks of the thing! A man would be ashamed to be seen aboard her. I stepped backward to see the full sweep of her lines better. As I did so I noticed an officer seated on a pile of lumber a few feet away. He was a very fat man about forty years of age, a lieutenant. He was looking at me with an air of amusement.

Well, he said, what do you think of her?

Not much, I admitted.

He got up and walked over toward me. Going to be stationed aboard her? he asked.

I’m afraid so.

So am I.

I looked at him with new interest. He was fat, but he neither talked nor walked like a fat man. Something in his manner suggested that his corpulence was merely a disguise that could be dropped at a moment’s notice. I realized that I had been staring at him, and quickly shoved out my hand.

My name’s Barton, I said. I understand I’m supposed to command the thing.

Rudd’s my name, he said. I’m the engineering officer.

We stood together and silently surveyed the ship. She was such a remarkable-looking vessel, so like a huge green wooden shoe, that she was hard to get used to.

What an awful thing, Mr. Rudd said. Who do you supposed designed her?

Walt Disney, I replied."

He laughed, and I saw he was looking at me.

Do you know where we’re going? he asked.

New Guinea, I said. I believe it’s supposed to be a secret.

I know, he said. What an awful thing.

He took a cigar from his pocket and lit it. Without a word we began pacing up and down on the dock beside the ship.

Do you know how to navigate? he asked. He said it so quietly that for a moment I mistrusted my ear.

Yes, I said in a normal voice, and then, a little nettled, Why do you ask?

I just wondered, he said. Nowadays you never can tell. You’re a Reserve, aren’t you?

Yes, I said. Do you know anything about engines?

I’m a Regular. Been in fifteen years.

He sensed my resentment at his questions, and continued. You mustn’t mind if I ask you a few things. A man gets curious about his commanding officer—so much depends on him. It’s a little like getting married, you know, only you can pick your own wife. How long have you been going to sea?

Something over two years in the service, I said. About five years before that.

Well, that’s good, he said. My last skipper kept asking me questions like which was the bow, and which was the stem. He kept getting mixed up.

I made no reply. It occured to me that I should be disapproving, but it was impossible.

You mind your engines, I said finally, and I’ll take care of the rest of it.

The remark made me feel absurd. I cleared my throat. As we paced up and down, a troop of women in overalls marched down to the ship and went aboard. Three of them carried welding helmets, and the others carried the hoses and the tanks. Mr. Rudd watched them fascinatedly as they set up their gear on deck and began to weld.

What an awful thing, he said, and continued his pacing. I walked beside him. A ship built by women, he said, and manned by Reserves.

Not entirely, I said. You’ll be aboard.

That is not a comfort, he said.

We continued our pacing. In spite of Mr Rudd’s manner, there was something about him I found vastly reassuring. I was glad that I had met Mr Rudd before I had had time to become too discouraged about the ship.

Do you have any idea of what we’re in for? he asked.

Before I had time to say I did know what we were in for, he said very quietly, We have to go aboard that ship—that ship there. We will have to go over it from bow to stern to see what parts those women have forgotten to finish. Then we will get a crew of seventeen-year-old kids who think that going to sea is a great adventure and going to war an even greater adventure. We have to use those kids for a crew and sail that ship clear across the Pacifiic Ocean to New Guinea. There we’ll haul ammunition and gasoline and every other infernal cargo, and if we’re lucky we’ll get to go on all the invasions that are coming up. Do you see what we have for armament?

I looked and saw two fifty-calibre machine guns on the stern of the ship. No other gun emplacements were in evidence.

Those, Mr Rudd said, are to shoot planes down with. If we meet a submarine maybe we can sink that, if we’re good at this stuff they call psychological warfare.

You don’t paint a very pretty picture, I said.

Well, don’t worry about the Japs, he replied. We’ll probably never be able to sail that ship far enough to get anywhere near them.

Oh, I wouldn’t get discouraged, I answered. I’ve sailed much smaller ships than that.

He stopped and looked at me, and I felt that I was being examined in about the same way that I had examined the ship.

Look, Captain, he said, I’ll tell you something. I asked for this job. I don’t mind it. I think we will probably get through. But don’t forget how ridiculous the whole project is, and don’t try to cheer me up. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I figure the quicker we understand each other the better.

All right, I said, I won’t try to cheer you up. But why in hell did you ask for this job?

Because I got bored and because I don’t give a damn. He turned and resumed his pacing. And because I like to keep my convictions, he added, and if I got on a nice, big smooth-running ship I might think that some of the brass hats knew what they were doing.

The women welders on the deck of the ship finished their job. One of them threw off her welder’s helmet and revealed a thick mass of dirty blond hair. Reaching into her trouser pocket, she pulled out a lipstick and applied it without a mirror. Then, shouldering her mask, she marched off the ship.

Seeing Mr. Rudd, she waved at him. Hello, dearie! she called. How’s tricks?

CHAPTER THREE

THREE DAYS LATER I received word that we were to put the ship into commission. There was to be no ceremony: a truck would bring the ship’s complement down to the shipyard, we would go aboard, and make everything ready to sail. I went down to the ship early, to be there when the crew arrived. The SV-126 lay deserted; not even a security watch had been left aboard her. I walked over the gangway and stood alone on her deck. Slowly I made my way aft and walked through a passageway past the galley to a door which had Commanding Officer in white letters over it. Inside this cabin I found a bunk and a desk. I sat down and looked around me. Not a sound was heard anywhere. I hope it’s always this quiet, I thought, and caught myself envisaging all the different noises that can take place on a ship: the sustained shriek of a gale, the mechanical hysteria of the general quarters alarm, the jolt of gunfire, and the steady hum of men’s voices that pervades a fully manned ship, voices which continue day and night and which by their tone express the corporate emotions of the crew. My reverie was disturbed by the sound of a truck stopping beside the ship and the first clamor of those very voices of which I had been thinking. I went on deck and saw a six-wheeled truck with about twenty-five men in the back of it. Already the men were jumping out of the truck and throwing their seabags on the dock. Mr. Rudd was lumbering out of the front seat of the truck, and two other officers, a j.g. and an ensign, were supervising the unloading of the truck. There was a constant babble of voices. Right here now, make it lively, the j.g. was shouting, and the men were saying, Aye aye, sir, Hey, Bill, get off my bag, and Give me a hand here, Mac, will you? Won’t anybody give me a hand with this thing?

When all the seabags were piled on the dock the men formed a line and started swinging them aboard. One bag almost fell in the water, and there were loud cries of alarm.

Lose that and I go naked for the rest of the war, a tall, thin seaman said.

When all the bags were piled in a forward corner of the well deck, the men filed aboard over the gangway. The steel decks of the ship trembled under their feet and the air resounded with their voices. It’s like blood seeping into a dead body and giving it life, I thought. She’ll never be quiet again—till she sinks or is left, after the war, to rot in some quiet creek. I wonder when she will be quiet again.

Mr. Rudd came aboard last of all and we greeted each other like old friends. The j.g. came up and introduced himself as Mr. Crane, the executive officer. I told him to tell one of the chiefs to have the men stow their gear in the forecastle, then come with the other officers into my cabin for a conference.

Five minutes later we met in my cabin. I sat in my desk chair, Mr. Rudd and Mr. Crane sat on the bunk beside me, and Mr. Warren, the ensign, stood. I took a good look at all of them. Mr. Rudd was as grossly fat, yet as strong-looking as I remembered him. Mr. Crane was a medium sized, white-skinned man of about twenty-eight; he looked like an office worker. Mr. Warren, the ensign, was not older than twenty-one or two; he was tall and slender, and there was something about his face which made him look as though he were always thinking intensely about something. For a moment the four of us said nothing. This meeting was so obviously the beginning of something, it was so obviously a time of importance for all of us, that no one knew quite how to begin.

It is a time-honored custom, I said at length, for commanding officers to say some choice words at a time like this, but we have so much to do and there are so many questions on my mind that I think we better start right in on business. The four of us have to get this ship and crew organized into a working unit as soon as possible. To do this properly I want to find out what each of us is best qualified to do. Mr. Crane, what sea experience have you had?

I’ve never been to sea, he said. I was stationed in the district office.

How about you, Mr. Warren?

I’ve never been to sea either, except for my cadet cruise. I was just commissioned.

I glanced at Mr Rudd. His face was expressionless.

Well, I said, Mr. Rudd here is a Regular, and has been to sea fifteen years, and I have had enough experience, I think, so we’ll probably make out all right until you learn. To begin with, however, you, Mr. Crane, take care of all the administrative duties; make up a watch and quarter bill, make up watch lists, divide the crew into the proper departments—in short, get the whole thing figured out on paper and show it to me. Mr. Rudd, of course, will organize the whole black gang. We won’t have to worry about that. Mr. Warren, you will be the supply officer. Get together a list of all the equipment that is actually aboard, show it to me, and I’ll tell you what you’ll have to get.

I paused. I was thinking of all the things that had to be checked—sextants, charts, food supplies, spare parts.

Reviews for Voyage to Somewhere

[ecw0647 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not for the non-nautical afficionado, but if you like ships and realistic sea stories, you will enjoy this book. It's based on Sloan's WW II experiences at sea.Lt. Barton is assigned to a new small supply ship bound for the New Guinea theater in the South Pacific. They are soon hauling such innocuous cargos as pineapples to Hawaii and then candy bars to assorted islands then "burial supplies" and thousands of crosses to an island called Okinawa.Wilson nicely conveys the tedium of the war as well as the viciousness of being in a small ship during a typhoon.

[clue_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sloan Wilson wrote three novels about his personal experiences in the Coast Guard during WWII. In this first book Lieutenant Barton thought he was heading for a cushy office job after spending two years at sea during WWII. Instead, without even seeing his family, he was immediately assigned to command a small supply vessel. This new but untried ship would sail from California to New Guinea and stop at various islands along the way picking up and delivering assorted supplies. Anxious to get his first orders, he was chagrined when he learned they would be sailing to Hawaii...to deliver canned pineapple.Learning about the first cargo may have been better than meeting his crew. Of the twenty-six sailors aboard, only five had been to sea. As soon as they left port, training commenced and so did an alarming amount of seasickness. During the next year his crew would experience a lot of monotony as they waited to be loaded, to be unloaded, and to receive orders. But it wasn't all monotony, the sailors also experienced torpedoes, typhoons, heroism and burial at sea.