Ship’s Company

By Lonnie Coleman

This is the story of some of the men and women who won our war. Cowards and heroes, gunners and cooks, officers and enlisted men, GI’s, gobs, and nurses, they had one thing in common. That was the U.S.S. Nellie Crocker.
The men and women were all different, and the stories about them have the spice and variety of life itself. They are funny, tragic, bawdy, reverent—but whether the scene is a landing assault or a North African brothel, the characters are living people. And beneath the broad comedy, beyond the shocking tragedy, is the deeply moral judgement of the author toward men and women.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Classica Libris
• Release date: Apr 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835807605

Book preview

COMPANY

Dedication

To

GLENN ALLEN

JOHN COLONIES

ROBERT KELLY

WILLIAM KIRSCH

WILLIAM MALCOLM

1

KING’S PARADE

The U.S.S. Nellie Crocker was not the ugliest ship in the world, mainly by virtue of the fact that there was nothing unique about her whatever. She was shaped like a ship, with a sharp bow and a fat stern and a middling midships. The bow made too straight and steep a line for true singing grace; the midships was characterized mainly by a vague, and if appearance speak true, spontaneous excess; and the stern had about it a certain disarming roundness, like a plump child backing up to be buttoned after using the toilet. The effect overall was indeed something comic, something raffish. Even fresh from overhaul, the paint did not seem to match as it should, and when the old ship had for some months been dependent on her crew for repainting, she displayed more shades of gray than are dreamt of in our philosophies.

She goes and she gets there, it used to be said, and that is about all anyone could say objectively in her favor. She was not comfortable enough to make one feel lucky to have a berth on her, nor was she cruel enough to allow of perverse boasting. She had no exaggerated roll and pitch in high seas, and there was very little danger of her breaking in two although some thought so on a particularly rough trip from Clyde to New York when she got a seventeen-foot crack in her deck along number three hatch.

She did vibrate heavily when put at a certain speed, but what ship does not? And if her normal vibration was more insistent than one need normally expect, why there were those who professed to find it comforting, like the purr of a cat.

She responded truly and eagerly in emergencies, as if she knew precisely what was what and when there should be no nonsense. Yet her crew lived to see pilots the world over make a merry hash of bringing her into port and alongside a dock. She had that in her to alarm pilots from Naples to Sasebo. If she was docked astern another ship, she was sure to ram it; docked ahead, she tried to ease her stern under its bow in a sly, inviting way. Fenders availed nothing. She never learned that, in spite of her size and comical bluff, she was bound to be the loser in any rough encounter with a dock.

It will be said, indeed has been, that a ship is only as good or as bad as the men aboard her, and as her command. Yet who would deny the personality of a ship? None, certainly, who have known one. If landsmen, safe and superior, become patronizing about a sailor’s superstition, let them ask themselves if houses have personality, if animals are different, each species from the other and each dog from each other dog, and if all men are the same. There is something beyond the steel and paint and machinery, a soul. The Nellie Crocker had a soul. These remarks are based mainly on her later behavior. At this time no one knew really what she was like, for she had been in commission as a Navy ship less than a year, although before the war she had been engaged in trade with certain South American cities.

Such then was one of the ships in the harbor at Algiers in June of 1943 when word got about that the King of England himself would pay a visit and make an inspection. Nellie had never seen a king, and no king had ever seen her. Soon after news of the royal visit (it was supposed to be secret, but nothing ever is), two members of Nellie’s crew stood on deck in their dungarees and frayed white caps. They stood with fists on hips. One looked forward, and one looked aft. One had an almost gentle scowl as he let his eyes follow the line of the ship, the work clutter of her deck—mute evidence that she was a drudge mule and not a race horse.

Claude Myer spoke. Now what in the name of hell would King George the Sixth of England and the Dominions beyond the Seas want to come aboard this old rust bucket for?

John Silver, whose real name was John Zilba, said, Boy, has he ever got the experience of a lifetime ahead of him.

Kings are obsolete, Claude said.

Absolute.

Kings are out of fashion and no use any more.

Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will slurp the wine.

Claude looked at his friend lazily, not really anxious to play their game of words. They were both good at it, and often amused each other, though no one else laughed at them, and many found them silly or puzzling. Claude was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and John was from Paragould, Arkansas. They had each finished high school; beyond that Claude was self-educated, and John was self-uneducated, as he boasted. Yet they were as alike and as unlike as two men anywhere, only inexplicably willing when together to enjoy their similarities and their differences. There was between them some respect, a little understanding, no curiosity, and tremendous liking.

Claude said, John, one of these days God’s going to look down at you and say, ‘What hath man wrought? I didn’t make that ape.’

John smiled vaguely. You reckon God did make me?

With one hand, while He was drunk.

Hell of a make. Look how ugly and sad I am. If I couldn’t do better as a maker, I’d go out of business, wouldn’t you?

Claude shrugged. Fellow gets used to his trade, don’t like to give it up, even when business goes bad.

John slipped his plate out and held it in his hand looking at it. God didn’t make these, and I wish I had my hands on the son of a bitch that did.

What you expect from an Arkansas dentist? Probably used corn kernels and glued them together with sorghum. John studied the teeth in his hand. If the King stops and says, ‘Let me see your teeth, son,’ I’ll just snap ’em out and hold ’em like this in my hand.

The King wouldn’t ask you nothing like that. He ain’t like these chicken-shit officers we got on board.

If chicken shit was gold, wouldn’t this ship be Morgan’s treasure!

The King ain’t coming aboard.

Then what, John said, are we worrying about?

He’s coming, Claude said. But look— He made an arc with his hand to include the other ships in the harbor. "Look at that Limey battle wagon. Look at them cruisers. Look at them snappy tin cans. He’s going to be walking fast, to let as many people see him as he can—you don’t think he’s inspecting anything, do you?"

Well, if he ain’t, why’d Lieutenant Mayton say we had to be tidy as a nun’s scowl?

"Because if he’s coming, they think he might. He has to be one of these democratic kings, or they wouldn’t let him be king at all, and to be a democratic king he has to pretend he’s more interested in looking at an old wreck like us than a pretty battle wagon."

Don’t make sense.

Well, John, don’t let it bother you. It probably don’t make sense to him neither. But he likes a trip the same as the rest of us, I guess, and if it means doing silly things he don’t understand, I don’t suppose he’ll balk any.

After a pause John said, Claude, you know what I like about you?

What’s that, John?

I like your way with words. I like the way you take a thought and shake it out like a sheet till every inch of it’s clear as day to the dumbest fool a mile around. I like the way you don’t just read books, but by God, you carry over what you learn into ordinary life. That’s what I like about you, Claude. To say nothing of that nice fat ass you got. Just keep your voice down, John, Claude said, before one of these college-boy officers hears you and hauls you before the captain for sodomy.

Hell, I wouldn’t do that to the captain, he’s a nice fellow.

Claude laughed.

Why aren’t you men working? Lieutenant Mayton demanded, charging toward them.

John frowned earnestly. I don’t know, Lieutenant. I got a kind of reluctance about it all, seeing as how the good old U.S.A. seceded from England many long years ago.

Don’t be smart with me, Zilba. You and Myer get busy. This whole side of the deck’s got to be chipped and scraped and painted before the inspection.

Claude sighed. Yes, sir. It sure looks like the devil, doesn’t it?

John said, And it’s gonna look worse too after the king leaves and we haul us a good load of soldiers off to Sicily or Italy or some place. When’s that invasion going to be, Lieutenant?

I don’t know.

John laughed confidentially. Lordy, Lieutenant, you trying to fool an old country boy like me? Big man like you and don’t know when the invasion’s going to be! Expect me to believe that?

Zilba, the Lieutenant said, there’s three things I want you to believe in: chip, scrape, and paint.

Sounds like a Limey law firm, Lieutenant, Claude said.

The lieutenant did not smile, because he did not understand what Claude meant. Get to work.

Yes sir, John said, we’ll have this ship clean as a queen’s teddies.

The lieutenant, who had been about to walk away, turned and stared at the two men. Reacting more from a whim of mockery than fear, the two men dropped to their knees and started to work. The officer left them. They worked quietly for a few minutes until sweat appeared on their faces and began to stain their faded blue shirts. Finally John said, Sing me a song, Claude.

Can’t sing, John Silver.

Say me a piece then, Claude.

Don’t feel like it, John Silver.

Whistle me a tune then, Claude.

My mouth’s too dry from sweating.

Well, god damn it, make some kind of noise besides the noise you’re making chipping that god damn deck—

They worked and sweated more before Claude said, I used to know a fellow who could fart in Morse code. Ain’t that some talent?

Was he much in demand? John said.

Naw. Not that many people know Morse code.

They worked again in silence. The sun dug into them, lay heavy on their wet shirts, pickled their legs and behinds, bleached their hair, discolored their skins, and weaker their heads.

If this was the chain gang, John Silver said, I could write me a book about it and be famous up North.

No, you couldn’t, Claude said gently. Great men have to die before people honor them.

Death before dishonor, John said. And thank you, Claude, thank you kindly—

—is as kindly—

—take you hands off my, quit, you fool!

—part of the people part of the time—

—waits for no man.

Nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Say so? Say so what? I wouldn’t say that about my drunk uncle with the crabs.

Nay, nuncle, not so.

Say so: not so!

John Silver, who’s your favorite officer?

Why, the King of England, Claude.

He’s a nice king, John. Though I wouldn’t expect you to know that, coming from the sorghum country you come from.

Claude, don’t say nothing about the country I come from. Ain’t nothing wrong with that land a little fertilizer won’t cure.

Liza’s in the cold, cold ground.

"Well, bless her hide. I’d let them bury me if I thought it’d get me cooled off some."

You don’t know about heat, John Silver. You ever stood on the corner of Market and Ninth on a July the twenty-fifth?

Five months to Christmas, Claude. Shop early.

What we need is to put the mass back in Christmas, John.

Don’t joke about them things, man. You ought to know by now there ain’t no fox holes in atheists.

That poor damn king, Claude said. We got to do it, and he’s got to come look at it. John Silver, you suppose this was a ship one time?

Still a ship, Claude. But it’s got a little case of the mange, and we got the cure. I’m sweatin’ creosote, and that’s the cure.

That’s the cure, for sure. God damn this heat.

It wouldn’t be so hot, Claude, if you sang me a song or said me a piece or whistled me a tune.

What you want this time, John Silver? Once upon a time there were three bears—

Let’s have some of that man with the puckered lips and the cold tongue.

‘This is the way the world ends—’ That who you mean?

That’s the one, Claude, but start at the beginning and let me think along with you and come in on the refrain when it suits me.

All right, John Silver. ‘We are the hollow men—’

Glory, hollow-lujar!

You come in too soon. Let me get a good start. ‘We are the hollow men—’

Go on, Claude boy. Say it nice and cool and puckered, so I can feel wet leaves on the back of my neck, and the little white stones you have to dive down deep to the bottom of the pool to find, and when you put them and hold them in your armpit and rise up through the water to daylight, it’s like angels singing in your blood—

‘We are the stuffed men—’

The rust flaked up as they pounded the hot deck, and the clean metal beneath shone bright as fool’s gold in the dead forenoon.

The Nellie got her cleaning. Even the engineers and the hospital corpsmen worked. Every bit of gear was stowed in its proper place. The galleys and hospital spaces shone with such cleanliness their personnel were loath to use them until after the inspection. The bunk bottoms (there were two thousand one hundred and thirty-eight soldiers’ bunks and five hundred for the ship’s crew) were scrubbed with brick and sand and salty sea water. Stages were put over the ship’s sides and paint of various carefully mixed shades splashed generously to the water line. Booms not in use were secured. The gunners worked feverishly in the gun tubs to make every gun bright and right. Even the chaplain’s folding altar was freshly done up, such was the fervor of industry that seized everyone aboard this democratic ship preparing for its royal inspection.

Lordy, John Silver said to Claude Myer, wait’ll I tell Grandma Sukie about seeing a real king. She’ll run me off the place, bless her black heart. I can see her now settin’ in front of the fire spittin’ snuff at the flames and sayin’: ‘Sounds like the sizzle of the flesh of the damned.’ She missed her calling not being a witch, though there’s some says she is.

The last lick of work was done an hour after the morning muster at quarters on the day of the inspection. Though none of her tired crew and officers was aware of it, the U.S.S. Nellie Crocker looked a great deal worse than she had before her cleaning. Disarray and rust became her, were her natural state, indicated that she did her work and no nonsense about it. She looked now like a dead ox in a silk dress. Her air of refinement was exquisitely vulgar. There was even a certain hangdog daintiness in the way her crew assembled for inspection: no shouting and slouching that day.

Every shoe was shined. Every hat was spotless. Every neckerchief was properly knotted. Every officer wore clean gloves, and some had even replaced tarnished gold with fresh and shining braid, though the tarnished gold was much in favor, showing as it did its wearer to have been long at sea and no novice. A kind of funereal politeness was the keynote of the first hour of the formation.

The day was a fine one, king’s weather for certain. The entire harbor was brilliant with the shining metal and paint of the ships and the piercing color of their signal flags, aloft in proud display. The captain, the executive officer, the chief engineer, the senior surgeon, the chaplain, and the first lieutenant waited on the flying bridge for sign of the king’s arrival. The radar officer, who doubled as ship’s photographer, had already taken too many pictures and was ready to take more. The first lieutenant wore and used binoculars, though there was nothing much to see except a few thousand men lined up on the other ships and on the dock.

The crew finally became restless, less awed at the prospect of being looked at by a king, and finally they grumbled busily, undeterred by their officers, who left their divisions and drifted together in