“Well—the Philharmonic is pretty good,” March laughed, “and I think I prefer Bing Crosby.”
“Not me!” Stan exclaimed. “That purr is the sweetest sound there is. And are those beauties! The very latest thing, you know, the very latest!”
“I personally ordered them that way,” Gray smiled. “And I’m glad you’re satisfied. I never liked an engineer that didn’t have a deep and abiding affection for his engines.”
After talking a while, March went to the chartroom and went through the detailed maps idly, picking out one here and there that looked interesting to him.
“Celebes—Pago-Pago—Ceylon—and look at this, Wake Island! Some of those names sound wonderful. Wonder if we’ll hit any of them.”
Later he went up to the bridge again and found that Larry Gray had relieved Corvin.
“I feel sort of useless,” he said. “Nothing to do yet.”
“Nothing much for any of us to do right now,” Gray said. “Plain sailing like this isn’t very hard. Most of the crew are lying down, reading, playing checkers or just shooting the breeze. Why don’t you have a little rest?”
“Not I,” March said. “Not on my first day out. I don’t want to miss anything. Anyway, in another hour we ought to be getting away from land a bit, and a couple of hours after that you’ll be opening your orders. I want to know where we’re going just as soon as I can.”
As the time approached for opening the orders, there was an air of tenseness throughout the boat. The crew members who had been lying down weren’t sleepy or tired any more. They were up, walking back and forth in the narrow passageways, climbing up the forward hatch for a breath of fresh air, climbing down again to get another cup of coffee. Everyone but Larry Gray seemed a little nervous. He still stood calmly on the bridge, looking out over the long rollers in which Kamongo now sailed. The last line of land had finally disappeared behind them.