“Well, when you go down again get him back in the salon. What’s Hodges doing?”
“He thinks it’s a game.”
“I’m glad somebody’s having a good time.” Evans leaned against the bulkhead. The ship was not pitching quite so much now. The wind, what there was of it, was probably shifting. He remembered his insurance again. He wished he had taken care of it before they left. “Leave nothing undone and nothing begun,” a Warrant Officer in Anchorage had told him. The words had a nice sound to them. They were also true.
“I’ve never been in a williwaw,” remarked Martin.
Evans glanced at him. He did not like to hear a storm described aloud in advance. Evans had a complicated system of beliefs. If some things were mentioned before they happened they would take place exactly as mentioned. He never said much about bad weather before it broke. He would never have said this was going to be a williwaw. That was predicting, not guessing.
“Weren’t you aboard that time we was off Umnak?” asked Bervick.
Martin shook his head. “I was having some teeth fixed. I missed that show.”
“I guess you did at that. You’ll make up for that now.”
“I suppose I will.”
A thirty-foot wave swept them amidships. The wheelhouse creaked as the salt water cascaded over them. Martin stumbled. The stool rolled across the deck. The man at the wheel lost his grip; the wheel spun around. Evans grabbed it quickly. His right arm felt as if it had been ripped off. With a great deal of trouble he got the ship on course again.