We continued north all that next week, the second week of February, skirting pack ice as we traversed the Labrador Sea. It was a strange time for me. The boat seemed haunted by all those missing boys-not literally, but in the sense that their absence created a merciless silence, a void I peopled with unforgiving spirits. I felt personally responsible for what had happened. Perhaps if I had not bombarded Coombs with all those memos about hunger and horrid conditions, he wouldn't have found it necessary to drop anyone off. He didn't seem to blame me, though; none of the adults did. They and I wandered the decks like ghosts ourselves, keepers of that awful secret. It was so hard-the boys talked of nothing but what a good time their friends must be having ashore.
The submarine had become a different place, more like a gloomy undersea boarding school than a naval vessel. There was much to do, more to learn, and not nearly enough time in the day to do it all. It was too much, really. I knew because I wasn't the only one who couldn't keep up: Trainees followed their tutors around like befuddled apostles trying to understand obscure teachings, and critical members of the crew slept at their duty stations so the guys who were supposed to be their reliefs couldn't flub up too badly.
Otherwise, living conditions had improved, it pained me to admit. With only 186 people aboard, there were plenty of berths for those who wanted them, as well as enough space to satisfy those who thought berths too confining. In either case, I had discretion over youth sleeping arrangements (Coombs had granted it to me so that I could ensure my own safety), which made me instantly popular-everyone had his own wish list of cozy nooks he wanted first dibs on. I assigned myself and the boys I trusted most to one whole enlisted cabin, which for me was like living in a boys' locker room. To their chagrin, it became known as 'the henhouse.'
And the civilian meal ration was doubled. This surprising concession by the senior staff made more work for me and Mr. Monte, but it was the answer to my prayers. Those boys needed it so badly, and I think some of them were getting suspicious about my peach-cheeked vigor. I glowed among them like a disgustingly chubby nymph. It didn't look good.
Apart from galley work and my daily pep talk, I was also training on how to use the 'Bridge Suitcase'-the portable command console used by the officer of the watch during surface maneuvers. It required technical knowledge of the boat itself, as well as all kinds of navigational expertise, including astronomy, meteorology, and whole volumes of nautical ar cana passed down from the days of sailing ships. For what was the bridge of a submarine but a modern-day crow's nest?
Since the officers were secretive about their charts, giving only the barest details about our position or heading, I became very interested in the maps I had to study. Using a little deductive reasoning and the compass Cowper had given me, I found I could extrapolate our course with some reliability… to a point. Of course everyone else was doing this, too, making for lots of lively discussion at night about where we were going.
We never surfaced, but on occasion we would come up to periscope depth, and the commander would broadcast the bleak view over TV monitors in the enlisted mess: rows of giant molars jutting from a lead-colored sea; forbidding plains of drift ice. There was nothing to use for perspective, and I found the lonely vistas depressing. Everything depressed me. It wasn't until February 13 that something finally happened to brighten my spirits:
I found Mr. Cowper.
It began with me having my usual midmorning snack in the wardroom pantry. Even in my worst moments of depression, I still had the energy to stuff my face, having consoled myself with food for years. I rationalized it by telling myself it was the only thing keeping me sane.
The wardroom was a small, fancy dining room for the ship's officers, situated just forward of the cafeteria- like enlisted mess where the boys took their meals. Mr. Monte and I always had it to ourselves, and I believe it was declared off-limits to all others while we were in there. I chalked this up to secrecy, but also to the same nutty chivalry that I credited for getting me extra food in the first place.
Monte was sitting having a cigarette while I fixed us a couple of green-chile omelets on the hot plate. After a few of his bland meals, I had made the mistake of mentioning that I loved to cook, and he said, 'Knock yaself out.' He no longer even offered to help. Actually I was glad-this way I could make the spicy things I craved, and he got a break from being a 'galley slave.' But I could tell he was grooming me to run the galley alone (he wanted to work in the far-aft engineering spaces where he'd be left alone), and I wasn't crazy about that idea.
'Come on,' he encouraged me. 'All them punks are your friends. Why should I be the one taking their abuse? Try some of your yuppie nouvelle cuisine on 'em and see what happens.'
Emilio Monte was a leathery, cruel-looking man with deep acne scars and a ridged skull like an upturned dinghy. The fringe of white hair over his ears and around the back of his head made me think of a cartoon buzzard. I had been frightened of him at first but came to find him charmingly crusty, if not lovable. I wouldn't care to know what he thought of me. He was not at all talkative, though as days went by I gathered that in antiquity he had served on submarines, until some incident forced him out of the Navy and he got a job as a lathe operator in the submarine factory. This job he had done for sixteen years, right up until our big escape. Many of the civilian men had similar stories.
When I asked Monte if he had any family aboard, he had replied, 'Nah. Thank the good Lord for that. Wouldn't want 'em, the way things are.'
I had been beating around the bush for days, hoping to get word of Cowper, but nobody would talk. Working up my nerve, I set Monte's omelet before him and asked point-blank, 'Sir, do you know where my father is?'
He made a show of stubbing out his cigarette and scrutinizing the food. Digging in, he said, 'If I was to tell you that, they might send me to the goat locker.'
'Sorry. I just… I'm getting really worried. How do I know he's even still on board?'
He barked a sharp little laugh, said, 'Where else would he be?'
'I don't know… do you?'
He kept eating as if he hadn't heard me. I poured myself half a glass of the heinously sweet red drink the sailors called 'bug juice,' topping it off with water. That was one thing about the boat-there was always plenty of water: The distillation plant made ten thousand gallons a day.
Acting nonchalant, eating my omelet out of the pan, I said, 'It's not like they'd throw him overboard or anything… right?'
Emilio grunted, mouth full.
We ate in silence for a few minutes. Even with canned green chiles and reconstituted milk and eggs, the food tasted good: fluffy, cheesy, and spicy. My nervous stomach wasn't handling it well, though. Changing tack, I asked, 'How much longer are the provisions going to last?'
'You've seen what we got. Ya must have some idea.'
I knew that the boat was normally provisioned with seventy-five thousand pounds of food for a three-month voyage, and that we had started with about five thousand. There was a lot less now. 'Well, there are fewer people, even if they're eating twice as much. I don't know,' I said. 'Two more weeks?'
Intently mopping his oily plate with a slice of bread, he said, 'One. Maybe less.'
'What is a goat locker, anyway?'
'It's the lounge where the chiefs hang out, if there were any chiefs.' He put his dishes in the sink, and said, 'That about does it. Adios, muchacha.'
I finished my meal and cleaned up, drying and stowing the dishes the way Mr. Monte had shown me. The sub was like a stainless-steel Shaker house-everything fit together with elegant precision and economy of space. Sometimes this was carried too far, as with the cramped shower/toilets, but in general it was one aspect of submarine living that appealed to me.
I loitered a bit before heading back to the galley, examining the plaques, portraits, and trophy cases in the wardroom. It was all dull Navy bric-a-brac. The only interesting thing was a small framed drawing of Homer Simpson in a flooded room, dreamily saying, 'Mmmm-chicken switch.' I knew the 'chicken switches' were emergency levers for surfacing the boat.
Pausing at the forward door, I peeked down the narrow passageway, lined like a train's with sleeper compartments. I had been through this area just once-when I and the boys had hunted corpses in the company of Mr. Noteiro. After that it had been one of the many places declared off-limits to civilians. I knew there was a sitting room with comfy couches and chairs at the far end, and I supposed that had to be the 'goat locker.' The aluminum
