Voyage to Somewhere by Sloan Wilson Page A

difficulty, and his wife, Betsy, had written that she was going to move in with his mother and help in the store. White told me all this one dark night just before he relieved the wheel. He spoke quietly, and it would have been somehow wrong to give him any blithe reassurances.
    â€œI figure they’ll make out all right,” he concluded. “My Betsy is pretty smart.”
    I could tell that Mr. Warren had received some kind of bad news, because right after the mail came he started spending all his time in his stateroom. On the bridge he indulged in no conversation and even at meals he sat silently. His sharp young face which always had had an intent look appeared more strained than ever.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with Mr. Warren?” Mr. Crane asked me after dinner one night, when Mr. Warren had just excused himself.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said “I guess we better just stay away from him.”
    Not for a week did I learn what was troubling Mr. Warren. Then one night while he had the watch we were sitting alone together on the starboard wing of the bridge. It was a beautiful night; the moon gilded the water and whitened the night sky. Six miles away to our left the coast of New Guinea showed like a low black cloud. Ahead of us the horizon was clear, and the ship moved over the smooth ocean almost without roll or pitch.
    â€œNice night, isn’t it?” I said.
    Mr. Warren leaned on the rail of the bridge and stared moodily ahead. For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer me at all.
    â€œYeah,” he said at last, “it’s all right.”
    I ducked into the chart room and lit my pipe. Coming out on the bridge again with my hand over the bowl to conceal its glow, I sat on the stool in the corner and watched the smoke drift away in the moonlight.
    â€œCaptain,” Mr. Warren said at length, “do you have a wife?”
    â€œYes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”
    â€œHow long have you been married?”
    â€œAbout six years.”
    There was another long silence during which my pipe went out. I held it until I was sure the spark had been extinguished, then I tapped it over the side. Mr. Warren stood with his back toward me.
    â€œTell me,” he said suddenly, “how does your wife act? When you’re away, I mean.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, how does she act?” I asked.
    â€œDoes she go out with other men?”
    I took my pouch from my pocket and filled my pipe slowly enough to give me time to think. “I guess she goes out with old friends,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
    â€œDoes she go to dances and cocktail lounges and places like that?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “I never asked her.”
    There was another long silence. I wanted to go back to the chart room to relight my pipe, but there was something so urgent in Mr. Warren’s voice that I stayed.
    â€œMy wife, Rachel,” he said at last, “she was going back East to live with her family I’ve never met her family, but I guess they’re pretty nice. They live in Philadelphia. Anyway, she was going back there, but I got a letter from her saying she had decided to stay in San Francisco.”
    â€œWell,” I said, “I don’t see anything so wrong in that. She probably wants to be there when you come back.”
    Mr. Warren ignored me. For a moment he was silent, then, still staring straight ahead over the bow, he spoke again.
    â€œI got another letter. It was from a friend of mine, a guy I went to school with. He said that he had met Rachel in a cocktail lounge. She was sitting there alone. He said they had a few drinks together, then some guy came for her, and the two of them went out together. It was an Army lieutenant.”
    â€œI don’t see anything so bad about that,” I said. “There could be all kinds of logical explanations of that.”
    Mr. Warren turned around. In