I couldn't really believe it just yet, but I couldn't disbelieve it either. For the next three days I went about my customary routines with a calm exterior, waiting for the storm to break, but it never did.
Finally, to test it, I deliberately went on a tour of inspection through the ship, until I came to where Resnick was working, along with several others of the crew. As I entered the compartment and saw him look up, I saw the instinctive cringing that he couldn't help. In a flash of inspiration I saw that his sadism was a cover for his own cowardice, a compensation mechanism.
I knew then that I had won. After one long silent moment I turned my back on him and left the compartment.
As I walked by myself to the central tube and pulled myself up to the Captain's deck, for the first time I began to realize what being Captain meant. It means a lot of things, of course, but most of all it means facing up to one's command, being in charge.
I knew that I would never again be afraid—least of all afraid of Oscar Resnick. Nor would I ever again be afraid of fear. In the future I might be faced with the problem of a bully on my crew again, but I would know how to deal with him—with his own weapons, the ones he used because he would be most vulnerable to them himself.
When the Alabama reached North Marsport Resnick quit the ship. I was glad to see him go. The rest of the crew remained with me, and I had no more trouble during the five years I commanded the Alabama.
David Markham remained with me as my orderly until I retired, and he is still with me. A few years after the incidents of this story I had an opportunity to get him a commission but he turned it down and refused to leave me. Sometimes I think he knows what happened in my office that day that I called Resnick in, but he has never given any hint whether he does or not.
You wonder that I am not ashamed to confess publicly to you that I was a coward? You shouldn't wonder. We are all cowards—or fools. I am not ashamed of the fact that once I was a coward. Bravery, in a way, consists in not being afraid of being afraid.
Just one thing remains in my story. When I reached North Marsport on that first leg of my first command, I was a Captain.
I have been one ever since.