The Golden Vanity

By Lonnie Coleman

The world of the U.S.S. Nellie Crocker was a world of men, both brothers and antagonists. The nominal cargo aboard the ship was the goods of war being transported to battle, but Lonnie Coleman, a master of the taut narrative, shows us this vessel burdened also with the freight of human vanity.
This is the story of two men fighting for control of the ship in order to prove their authority. Captain Winters’ vanity is that he insists on being the martinet ruler of his ship in order to be shown a respect he knows he is unable to earn. Far subtler is Wesley Mason’s vanity: as first lieutenant, he runs the ship with a loving competence that celebrates the virtue of his accomplishment rather than the job he accomplishes. The captain and his first lieutenant’s contest for power is personal, bitter, and one-sided. The captain holds all the cards but one.
Captain Winters cannot run his ship without Mason, but with Mason daily demonstrating his ability, Winters feels his own egotistical stature diminished. The captain is incapable of learning; Mason isn’t.
He learns through his intimacy with the crew, particularly young Busby with a chip on his shoulder against the world and a pawn of the captain’s to use against Mason, that if Winters forfeited love in order to be respected, he, Mason, has forfeited respect in order to be loved by his men. Mason’s growing awareness of his mistake is the philosophical theme worked out under the exciting surface of fast naval action.
Lonnie Coleman has developed a fast and smooth narrative pace for his wonderfully tight novels of men more at war with themselves than with any declared enemy. But this pace is deceptively simple. In The Golden Vanity and the ship, the U.S.S. Nellie Crocker, he has devised a complex metaphor to express the vanities of wonderfully portrayed voyagers on a long sea journey to war and discovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Classica Libris
• Release date: Jun 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835852353

Book preview

VANITY

Dedication

To

Barbara Blakemore

PART ONE

As much by chance and habit as by mutual inclination, Lieutenant (j.g.) Crow was Lieutenant (j.g.) Mason’s particular friend aboard the U.S.S. Nellie Crocker. But after the invasion of southern France in August of 1944, something happened to Crow. Although Mason’s junior by only a few months in both rank and age, he acted as Mason’s assistant division officer, because there was no more responsible job unfilled on the ship at the time. Mason did not understand what had happened. Compared to other invasions they had made together, the landings at Saint-Tropez had been easy. They took their troops and cargo in, unloaded in less than a day, and were on the way back to Naples almost before there was time for fear to register, at least fear to the degree provoked by the fatigue of those other landings.

Crow avoided breakfast, although Mason always called him when he finished shaving in the mornings. He did not come to the division muster at quarters, which Mason chose to ignore. For a day or two Mason pretended that nothing was wrong. He asked no question, made no accusation, thinking at first that his casualness would help dispel Crow’s dark mood. Crow spent most of the time in the cabin they shared: not reading, with no light on, simply sitting in the dimness, or when Mason was there, getting into his upper bunk and pretending to go to sleep.

However, when they got to Naples and it came their day for liberty, which they usually spent together, Crow still sat as Mason dressed to go ashore. When Mason had put on a fresh shirt and trousers, shined his shoes, and bent close to the basin mirror to tie his tie, he said with false surprise, Aren’t you coming?

Crow did not answer.

You take somebody’s watch? Mason asked. It happened sometimes that one officer took another’s duty aboard if there were any special reason for such accommodation, and sometimes when there was not.

Crow untied his shoes, slipped his feet out of them, and climbed into the top bunk.

Hey, Mason said, impatience sharpening his voice. I was talking to you; I wasn’t talking to myself. Crow’s face was turned to the bulkhead, and he did not answer. What the hell’s the matter with you? Mason demanded finally.

Crow swung up and around, facing him. Nothing’s the matter I can’t handle. Now go and leave me alone. I’m not one of your welfare cases.

What do you mean by that?

Like everybody else. The jailbird you won over to the Navy way by kindness. What’s the matter with you? He was in Portsmouth for striking an officer.

What kind of wet-diaper kid are you? Mason asked, rage equaling a surprise that was no longer assumed.

Just don’t do me any good, Crow said. It’s only your vanity working anyway.

All right, Mason said. Lie there and mourn over whatever it is, you stupid ox. Mason slapped on his cap, stepped out of the cabin, and slammed the door behind him.

As he sat alone at a table on the terrace of the Giardino del Arancio, he wished he hadn’t slammed the door. Slamming the door revealed his anger, his—Crow’s word came to him, and he tried it reluctantly on his lips, vanity. Maybe it was true. At what point did concern become vanity? He thought of Busby, the tough, chip-on-shoulder seaman who had been assigned to his division when he came aboard after serving a year in the Navy prison at Portsmouth for, as Crow had said, striking an officer. Mason treated him like the others; Busby bided his time. There came a moment when Busby ignored, indeed started to refuse to obey, an order from Mason. Mason repeated the order. The other men were there. Mason wondered what he’d have done if they had not been. They turned to stare at Busby until he was compelled by the very force of their collective wills to obey.

After that, Busby was almost too tame. The new idea that an officer need not necessarily be a son of a bitch simply because he was an officer took possession of Busby, and Mason became his god.

Mason frowned. Until the time Busby and Corey had beaten that poor mewling Turner because Mason had let them know he despised him, as they and the whole division despised him. From this he’d learned a little about the vanities of command. He tried to make himself more casual with and aloof from the men of his division.

But he was not able to hide the fact that he liked them, that he was gratified by their approval of him, and that they entertained him. After all, he had little else to think about. They were his men. And surely it was better for Busby to make peace with the system he lived under than remain the hating rebel he’d been when he came aboard.

Without his being aware as it happened, the sky darkened and grew black. The club was perched about midway on the slope of the city. Only a few lights came on above and below him. He looked toward Vesuvius, but there was no glow there as there had been nearly a year ago when they were part of the first convoy of Allied forces to enter Naples and the volcano belched a greeting of fire and ash.

Inside the club an orchestra began to play. Mason shifted in his chair. His glass was empty; his legs were stiff from sitting so long and from the damp of evening. The waiters had forgotten him. He was still sober enough to know he was a little drunk, drunker than he would have been had he shared the drinks with a companion and burned up some of the alcohol in conversation.

He went inside to bright light, blinking at the dancers and the drinkers. There were nurses and Red Cross girls off duty, and officers. Many too many officers, and none he recognized as being from his ship. Discouraged, he went over to the bar and continued to drink. He ate a sandwich finally, but it was not enough to clear his head.

Damn Crow.

He hadn’t got over his anger, and maybe it wasn’t at Crow, but rather a running off of the tension gathered in him before the recent invasion, and not consumed by anticipated fears and tiredness. The drinks increased his sense of loneliness and resentment, heightened his trigger-nerved anger.

When he decided to leave the club, it was raining. He caught a ride in an open jeep with three Army officers who took him near the landing the liberty boats used to ferry sailors back to their moored ships. Not hurrying, letting himself get wet through because there was no shelter to hurry to, he made his way into the crowd of men waiting for their boats. The rain and their drunkenness and the fact that this was their first liberty since the recent invasion had put them into bad temper. Some were quarreling. A few were singing dully and sullenly with wet, dirty-uniformed arms over each other’s shoulders. Mason was attracted toward a group making a livelier noise and saw that a fight had started between a sailor and a soldier.

When he saw that the sailor was Busby, he was filled with a brutal exultance and pressed nearer, shouting, Go it, Buz!

Busby was going it, all right. His white uniform was filthy. He’d lost his cap. His forehead was oil-streaked, and there was a gash open on his cheek and bleeding. He was smiling like a king.

At that point another soldier tried to stop the fight. Busby hit him, and then both soldiers hit Busby, and Busby staggered backward. Mason spun one of the soldiers around and smashed a fist into his belly, knocking the wind out of him. The other soldier came toward Mason, but Busby tripped him, both of them rolling over oily cement.

Hooee! somebody called. Look at that goddamn officer fight!

Another sailor moved up, clenching his fists. Got no right fighting enlisted men; I don’t care if they are Army. I got a brother in the Army.

The man from Mason’s division named Corey caught his arm. Keep your hands to yourself. That’s my fighting fucking officer, you hear?

The sailor heard and aimed a fist at Corey’s jaw. The fight did not spread; it exploded. Sailors were fighting sailors and soldiers; and the soldiers, although outnumbered, hit anything that stood. Shirts and jumpers were ripped; shoes were lost.

Suddenly Mason caught a hard fist on the jaw that sent him to his knees. The man who’d hit him went down on his knees too, and as Mason tried to fight back, he found himself held. It was Busby, laughing wildly. Sorry, Uncle Wes! It was me—

Mason laughed too. Son of a bitch! He kicked him away, got to his feet, and rushed him. Again Busby, who was stronger and soberer than he, caught and held him.

I was helping you! Mason cried.

I know! Busby crowed. Then I lost you, I didn’t see who I was hitting—

Let’s get ’em, Mason said.

Busby shoved Mason roughly through the crowd of fighters, both of them getting stray licks and kicks, but Busby not letting Mason stop. MP’s are coming— He slammed him into a liberty boat, where he was caught by Corey. The boat was half full of men from the Nellie Crocker, and now Mason could hear the whistles of the military police and see the swinging of their sticks.

Driver, drive on! Mason shouted. The boat cast off and sidled away from the pier. As it gained speed, leaving land and trouble, the men crowded around Mason, laughing and bragging about him and about themselves, and Mason was happy. The laughing and bragging subsided finally into satisfied Jesus Christ’s! And Mason and Busby drooped over the side of the boat panting and giggling.

That was a fight, Uncle Wes!

That was a fight! Mason agreed.

Je-zus! Buddies again, Uncle Wes?

What the hell’s this ‘Uncle Wes’?

I can’t call you ‘Wes,’ and I like you too much to call you ‘Lieutenant.’ Busby spat over the side.

Okay, Mason said.

You called me ‘Buz’ back there. You come to help me. I saw you!

Okay, okay! Just don’t let the others—

Fuck the others, Busby said. Just so you’re my buddy. He held out a dirty, bleeding hand in challenge.

Mason met the hand with his own which was dirty and bleeding. Buddy.

You know, Uncle Wes, life ain’t so awful fucking bad, is it?

So the friendship between Mason and Busby was resumed.

The next morning when the division mustered at quarters, Mason and those men who’d had liberty the day before were clean but scarred. Chief Kelly looked at Mason with scowling disapproval, and the men laughed when they first saw him, for everyone had heard about the fight, but when the chief called them to attention, they were quick to respond. It wasn’t because they liked Mason, although most of them did, but they were grateful for his providing them with an event. Life on board would not be so dull for a day. They would have something to talk about. With five hundred men and fifty officers, there were still not many events of interest, and even the men who disapproved of Mason were glad to have something to talk about.

The other officers never mentioned what had happened, but all of them heard of it, second or third hand. What they did not understand and what they could not explain to themselves was the fact that for all his ignoring the conventional relationship between officers and men, Mason’s division was disciplined and efficient. Crow was not entertained. Crow was hardly even aware of what had happened. He stood his watches. He ate one or two meals in the wardroom each day. He attended no showings of films. When they met in the cabin, he and Mason were polite and impersonal.

On his next liberty there was a boat party going to Capri which Mason joined. He had been many times, so there was nothing in the experience to quicken anticipation. But he didn’t want to go to Naples again and get drunk alone at the Giardino del Arancio. Busby went too, and Corey. Neither assumed intimacy from their last liberty’s experience. They did not, however, go off with the other enlisted men when they landed at the Marina Grande, and Mason did not go off with the other officers, a doctor he did not like and a supply officer he did not trust.

So Mason and Busby and Corey found themselves together in the little square when they got off the funicular, and without spoken agreement sat down at an outdoor table and began to drink wine. Mason called Busby by his last name, and Busby called Mason nothing. Corey called him Lieutenant.

I wish I had me a boat, I know what I’d do, Busby said a little later.

What would you do if you had you a boat? Mason asked cautiously.

Get off this island. I get in trouble on land. I’d get in that boat and go all around this island. He looked at Corey, and from the way they smiled at each other, Mason knew they’d discussed it before coming on liberty and had waited purposely to join him.

Well, he said, and let a pause grow before he went on. There’s a boat down there. He lit a cigarette. There’s a boat down there that’ll take us anywhere we want to go, if only one of us knew how to run it. Can’t ask the boat crew. Couldn’t find them anyway. He drew on his cigarette and tapped ash over the arm of his chair.

Hell, Corey said, it ain’t hard. I know how. I can drive anything that’s got a motor, and some things that ain’t. He winked at Busby. If only we had us an officer to give us permission.

Mason straightened his cap to show that he was that officer, smiled, and gave a permission not his to give. But he knew there would be no work for the boat until it took the liberty party back to the ship; and anyway, the boat was from his division.

It took them about three hours to go around the island, but they dawdled luxuriously. They took off their clothes and sunned themselves, and after a while the sight of Corey steering the boat naked did not seem funny, only natural. They did not talk much. They stopped the boat twice and swam. The first time, Busby minded the boat, and Mason and Corey swam. The second time, when they were almost around the island, Mason and Busby swam. Even at such a relaxed time, the officer’s privilege of not assuming menial duty was honored. After all, he had given permission.

Mason and Busby still had hard scabs from the fight, but as they swam, the sun and salt water eased their discomfort. They swam closer to the rock cliff and discovered a sucking, swirling turbulence that told them it was an opening to a grotto. They looked at each other.

I’m game, Mason said, and spat an arc of cool water into the air.

Busby swam carefully toward the turbulence, saw at the ebb an opening, and disappeared. Mason waited, saw the opening too, dived.

When he surfaced inside the cave, Busby was there, shallowly treading water. They laughed to each other to celebrate the adventure and their own daring. When their eyes grew accustomed to the dimness—it was darker than the Blue Grotto—Busby again led the way. He groped down tentatively with his toes, found sand, stood on it, fell, and dragged his body lazily up to the sandbar. Mason followed, and they lay side by side in mindless content for a few moments. By then Mason’s eyes had grown so accustomed to the dimness he could see another opening.

I’m going in there, he said.

Better not, Busby said, sitting up, hugging his knees.

Without another word Mason crawled over the sand and through the opening into a smaller cave. There was another opening. He could hardly get his body through, but when he managed it, found himself in a yet smaller space. He crouched there for a time, and then he found another opening, small. Too small. He tried it, but it wasn’t true that where the head could squeeze the body could follow. His head went through only with a scraping of rock on flesh, and he let it rest there as his eyes tried to accommodate themselves to the darkness and find another opening. The womb and the tomb, he thought, the beginning and the end; nothing known or given, all to find. Chilled and frightened he backed away, scraping flesh again, scrambling like a crab until he was with Busby again.

Busby was cross at his adventurousness, and silent. He still sat clutching his knees. Mason dropped down beside him.

I wish I had a cigarette, Busby said. Mason did not answer, and after a pause to indicate disinterest Busby said, What did you find?

Nothing, Mason said. Caves. One leading into another. To mollify him Mason sat the way Busby sat, arms around knees, staring at the water swirling through from daylight into the grotto, which must have been there in the time of Tiberius, and ages before.

Busby said: You shouldn’t do that kind of damn thing. It might have fallen in.

Mason waited and said, not as an answer to Busby’s reprimand but cheerfully, to release them both from any liability for what had been thought between them, Oh, shit, Busby.

Busby said: Wouldn’t it be good if we could stay? Nobody. You don’t bother me, crazy bastard that you are. The sand. Out there the sea.

Shit, Mason said, laughing.

You know what you need? Busby said.

What do I need?

I know a real good whorehouse in Pozzuoli, and next liberty you and me ought to go there.

That what I need?

Why you think you got in that fight the other night?

Couldn’t tell you.

You come with me. Busby stood up and scratched wet sand off his body. Next time. He half turned, modestly, and urinated onto the side of the grotto.

I don’t think that far. Mason stood up too. Corey must wonder if we’re dead. Mason waded into the water and began to swim toward the opening.

Busby, still on the sandbar, called, Wait for me, Uncle Wes!

Mason went underwater and came out through the turbulence to blazing sunshine. He waited until he saw Busby’s head appear, and together they swam toward the boat.

In those days habit could be formed by doing something twice. So it seemed natural to Mason to find Busby waiting for him at the liberty landing in Naples the next time he went ashore, even though the Crocker had made a trip to southern France with troops and cargo since the day at Capri.

Crow’s mood had lightened somewhat, but he still did not want to go ashore for liberty. Mason took the second liberty boat because he had some paper work to finish for Lindsay, the first lieutenant. Busby was waiting for him when he hopped onto the landing.

Hello, Officer, Busby greeted him.

Hello, Enlisted Man, Mason said.

I waited like I said.

When did you say?

Busby jerked his head toward Capri. Out there in the grotto we found. When Mason looked puzzled, Busby frowned. Maybe you’re meeting some officers.

No, Buddy-Buz.

Busby smiled relief. Hell, come on, let’s go get our knobs polished. Mason followed Busby away from the landing into the town.