The Lonely War by Alan Chin Read Free Book Online Page B

balancing a tray crammed with bowls, a soup tureen, and a breadbasket. The fragrance of turtle soup suffused the cabin. Each man leaned forward to stare as Grady placed the tray on the serving table, filled five bowls, and served each officer. He sat a basket of warm baguettes in the center of the table and exited the cabin.
    “Excellent,” the captain said. “Now that the old girl is fit, we can spend time at sea doing battle drills.”
    Mitchell lifted his spoon and dug in. Thick and meaty, the soup’s richness permeated his mouth and warmed his stomach. The baguettes were crusty on the outside and soft and fragrant on the inside. A hush settled over the table as he sampled a spoonful.
    He lifted his head. “I do believe this is the tastiest soup I’ve ever eaten. It’s remarkable.”
    Heads nodded.
    Ten minutes later, Grady served the main course of roasted duck in a red curry sauce resting beside sautéed vegetables, with a side dish of stir-fried noodles topped with chunks of fresh lobster, cooked sweet and gingery.
    Each man gawked at his plate while Grady slipped from the cabin.
    “Nathan,” Bitton said, “I think it’s safe to say we should give our Mr. Waters a promotion to seaman first class and make him the permanent officers’ mess cook.”
    “Amen,” Moyer said, grabbing his fork and digging into his noodles.
    Above the whir of the electric fan over the vent hole, the only sounds were silver scraping china and the occasional slurp from Ensign Moyer. The absence of conversation lasted for the several minutes it took the officers to devour their food.
    The curry ignited a delicious fire in Mitchell’s mouth and broke a sweat across his forehead, but he couldn’t stop eating the blistering dish as fast as decorum allowed.
    Bitton swallowed the last bit of succulent duck and wiped his forehead with a napkin. He turned to Moyer. “Otis, what’s the latest poop from the crew?”
    Mitchell knew that Moyer held a fascination with what continually happened in enlisted country. He once explained that he saw the officers as the ship’s brain and the enlisted men as the nervous system—officers made decisions and issued orders, enlisted men carried those orders to the affected part of the ship and made things happen. He was tenaciously interested in the crew’s behavior and studied them as if he were comparing different specimens of insects under a magnifying glass. To Moyer, the sailors were not so much individual men who drank and fought and complained and held opinions, but rather, collectively formed that mysterious component that was the Pilgrim ’s soul. He loved hearing gossip concerning the crew and always had some interesting story to tell. It was unclear where he got his information, whether in the confessional or from spies who informed on their shipmates, because he never revealed his sources.
    Grady entered the room, and the officers fell silent while he removed the plates and brought in dessert. He placed a plate with a wedge of Bavarian cream pie and two scoops of coconut ice cream in front of each officer. The pie had slivers of toasted almonds on top and trembled next to the ice cream. He also set a cheese plate, with flakes of sharp cheddar and warm baguette slices, in the center of the table, and served each officer a cup of green tea before leaving the cabin.
    The captain shook his head. “Gentlemen, we’ve hit pay dirt.” Laughter filled the room as he nodded at Moyer. “Well, Otis. You were about to say?”
    Moyer swallowed a mouthful of pie. “Well, Skipper, as you can imagine, these new men have caused quite a stir among the crew. They don’t like fraternizing with Waters or Washington. They call them ‘The Dirty Ws’. The good news is that these new men are bringing the crew together, bound by a common hatred.”
    Mitchell felt heat gathering about his scalp and knew it was not caused by the curry.
    Bitton frowned. “And the bad news?”
    “The crew has organized a