The Last Ship
Encyclopedia
The Last Ship is a 1988 post-apocalyptic fiction novel written by William Brinkley
.
guided missile destroyer
, the USS Nathan James (DDG-80), on patrol in the Barents Sea
during a brief, full-scale nuclear war
between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the ship's ensuing search for a new home for her crew.
point of view by the ship's commanding officer, whose full name is never revealed, although it is later revealed that his first name is Thomas. The Captain is writing this history several months after the war in order to describe the USS Nathan Jamess odyssey during the conflict's aftermath.
The Captain begins by describing his ship, which is nuclear powered and armed with nuclear cruise missiles. He discusses the ethics of command, both of a warship and of nuclear strike forces; life aboard a United States Navy
ship in the Arctic Circle
; and the nature of his vessel's mission. He then recounts how, without warning, he one day received orders to carry out a nuclear strike on the Soviet
city of Orel
and its nearby ICBM silos. He then explains that after carrying out the mission and reporting the fact to his superiors, a reply from the U.S. Navy became hopelessly garbled halfway through the message. With one exception later in the book, this was the last official communication from the United States Navy that the Nathan James ever received.
The Captain then decides to head southward into the North Sea
, and thence to England
, in order to re-establish contact with friendly forces. Upon steaming up the Thames
to London
, the ship encounters dense clouds of radioactive smoke, through which can be seen the ruins of London. The Captain then reverses course and heads for the open sea in order to escape the radiation. In the following months, the ship's crew discovers that the radioactive cloud hovers around all land masses that the Nathan James approaches, rendering them uninhabitable.
The ship soon encounters a Soviet Navy
ballistic missile submarine
, the Pushkin, off a destroyed Gibraltar
, and by common agreement the two ships rapidly establish a truce; thereafter the two commanding officers agree to a joint operation. The Pushkin, fully fueled but low on food, will attempt to reach a secret Soviet supply base in the Arctic and retrieve supplies and nuclear fuel for the Nathan James, while the U.S. Navy destroyer, relatively well-stocked with food but low on nuclear fuel, will make her way to the Pacific Ocean
in search of habitable land for the two crews. The ships then part ways.
As the USS Nathan James steams through the Mediterranean Sea
, it encounters lifeless derelicts, inhospitable lands, and ill, wounded survivors who have made their way to the coasts, though the ship lacks the resources to offer any aid to the stricken civilians. At one point, weeks after the war, the ship does receive a message from the United States National Command Authority
ordering all recipients to reply. The USS Nathan James does so, but the mysterious message simply repeats again and again, leading the Captain to believe it is an automated transmission. Based on his knowledge of the Soviet Union's targeting of North America as well as what he has seen of Europe, he, along with most of the ship's officers, concludes that the United States
has simply ceased to exist and that what remains of North America
is uninhabitable. He thus resolves to proceed to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Suez
.
At this point however, the ship's Combat Systems Officer challenges the Captain's authority. Believing that parts of North America may be habitable, he demands that the ship return to the east coast so that they can see for themselves. He further charges that the Captain is no longer in lawful command, since the U.S. Navy and the United States, by whose authority he commands the USS Nathan James, themselves no longer exist. The Combat Systems Officer thus demands a vote on the correct course of action. The Captain, angered at this mutiny, allows a vote, believing that the Combat Systems Officer has little support, and he is shocked when nearly a third of the crew side with the Combat Systems Officer. In the end, this minority demands rafts and the Captain's gig in order to sail across thousands of miles of open ocean to the United States. With a mixture of sadness and outrage, the Captain agrees, and as the mutineers depart, the USS Nathan James steams through Suez.
In the following weeks, the ship travels through the East Indies
, during which she experiences nuclear winter
, including sub-freezing temperatures, black snow
at the equator
and exposure to high levels of radiation. Afterwards, the USS Nathan James reaches the remote South Pacific and, with her fuel levels down to just a few thousand miles of steaming, discovers a small, uncontaminated island.
The ship's crew then establishes a community on the island, and the captain and his officers begin to wrestle with the issue of how to go about the business of beginning families. Ultimately the female sailors establish an arrangement, to which the men accede, which consists of a type of polyandry
together with a prohibition on monogamy
. Ultimately, most of the male sailors mate with most of the female sailors, but no pregnancies occur. Due to this, the crew begins to worry that the radiation of the nuclear winter may have rendered everyone sterile.
Some time later, the Pushkin, which had lost contact with the USS Nathan James months earlier, arrives, its crew on the verge of starvation, but bearing an abundance of nuclear fuel. Now, at last, the USS Nathan James is free to explore as much of the world its crew wishes, keeping the island as its home base, without needing to economize on fuel. But at the very moment when the Captain is preparing the ship for such a voyage, a new disaster strikes; a group of sailors led by the Captain's senior officer, abhorring the remaining nuclear missiles aboard the ship, launches them without his permission. But one of the missiles accidentally detonates while in flight, triggering a chain reaction among all of the missiles, destroying the USS Nathan James and contaminating the island. The Captain, his remaining crew, and the Soviet crew immediately embark aboard the Pushkin to escape, beginning a new search for another sanctuary, eventually reaching the United States research facility McMurdo Station
, in Antarctica, which contains years' worth of food and supplies.
By this time, the Pushkins ballistic missiles have been jettisoned, and the resulting space rebuilt into expanded crew quarters, recreational area, and a nursery. The introduction of the Soviet crew (who were much less affected by radioactive fallout due to the superior protection offered by the submarine) into the predesigned breeding program has resulted in at least three pregnancies by the novel's end. The Pushkin has the fuel to conduct long, thorough explorations of the world. Thus it is the Soviet submarine, and not the USS Nathan James that is the "Last Ship."
The novel ends on a hopeful note, as the well-provisioned survivors now prepare to rediscover the world.
William Brinkley
William Clark "Bill" Brinkley was an American writer and journalist.Brinkley is perhaps best known for his 1988 novel, The Last Ship, and his 1956 novel, Don't Go Near the Water, which was later adapted to film in 1957 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as Don't Go Near the Water.-Early life and...
.
Background
The Last Ship tells the wordy story of a fictional United States NavyUnited States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
guided missile destroyer
Guided missile destroyer
A guided missile destroyer is a destroyer designed to launch guided missiles. Many are also equipped to carry out anti-submarine, anti-air, and anti-surface operations. In the U.S...
, the USS Nathan James (DDG-80), on patrol in the Barents Sea
Barents Sea
The Barents Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of Norway and Russia. Known in the Middle Ages as the Murman Sea, the sea takes its current name from the Dutch navigator Willem Barents...
during a brief, full-scale nuclear war
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
between the United States and the Soviet Union, and the ship's ensuing search for a new home for her crew.
Plot
The story is told in a first-personFirst-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
point of view by the ship's commanding officer, whose full name is never revealed, although it is later revealed that his first name is Thomas. The Captain is writing this history several months after the war in order to describe the USS Nathan Jamess odyssey during the conflict's aftermath.
The Captain begins by describing his ship, which is nuclear powered and armed with nuclear cruise missiles. He discusses the ethics of command, both of a warship and of nuclear strike forces; life aboard a United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
ship in the Arctic Circle
Arctic Circle
The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....
; and the nature of his vessel's mission. He then recounts how, without warning, he one day received orders to carry out a nuclear strike on the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
city of Orel
Oryol
Oryol or Orel is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, located on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow...
and its nearby ICBM silos. He then explains that after carrying out the mission and reporting the fact to his superiors, a reply from the U.S. Navy became hopelessly garbled halfway through the message. With one exception later in the book, this was the last official communication from the United States Navy that the Nathan James ever received.
The Captain then decides to head southward into the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, and thence to England
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, in order to re-establish contact with friendly forces. Upon steaming up the Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the ship encounters dense clouds of radioactive smoke, through which can be seen the ruins of London. The Captain then reverses course and heads for the open sea in order to escape the radiation. In the following months, the ship's crew discovers that the radioactive cloud hovers around all land masses that the Nathan James approaches, rendering them uninhabitable.
The ship soon encounters a Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
ballistic missile submarine
Ballistic missile submarine
A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine equipped to launch ballistic missiles .-Description:Ballistic missile submarines are larger than any other type of submarine, in order to accommodate SLBMs such as the Russian R-29 or the American Trident...
, the Pushkin, off a destroyed Gibraltar
Rock of Gibraltar
The Rock of Gibraltar is a monolithic limestone promontory located in Gibraltar, off the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. It is high...
, and by common agreement the two ships rapidly establish a truce; thereafter the two commanding officers agree to a joint operation. The Pushkin, fully fueled but low on food, will attempt to reach a secret Soviet supply base in the Arctic and retrieve supplies and nuclear fuel for the Nathan James, while the U.S. Navy destroyer, relatively well-stocked with food but low on nuclear fuel, will make her way to the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
in search of habitable land for the two crews. The ships then part ways.
As the USS Nathan James steams through the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, it encounters lifeless derelicts, inhospitable lands, and ill, wounded survivors who have made their way to the coasts, though the ship lacks the resources to offer any aid to the stricken civilians. At one point, weeks after the war, the ship does receive a message from the United States National Command Authority
National Command Authority
National Command Authority is a term used by the Department of Defense of the United States of America to refer to the ultimate lawful source of military orders. The NCA comprises the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense jointly, or their duly deputized successors, i.e...
ordering all recipients to reply. The USS Nathan James does so, but the mysterious message simply repeats again and again, leading the Captain to believe it is an automated transmission. Based on his knowledge of the Soviet Union's targeting of North America as well as what he has seen of Europe, he, along with most of the ship's officers, concludes that the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
has simply ceased to exist and that what remains of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
is uninhabitable. He thus resolves to proceed to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Suez
Suez
Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...
.
At this point however, the ship's Combat Systems Officer challenges the Captain's authority. Believing that parts of North America may be habitable, he demands that the ship return to the east coast so that they can see for themselves. He further charges that the Captain is no longer in lawful command, since the U.S. Navy and the United States, by whose authority he commands the USS Nathan James, themselves no longer exist. The Combat Systems Officer thus demands a vote on the correct course of action. The Captain, angered at this mutiny, allows a vote, believing that the Combat Systems Officer has little support, and he is shocked when nearly a third of the crew side with the Combat Systems Officer. In the end, this minority demands rafts and the Captain's gig in order to sail across thousands of miles of open ocean to the United States. With a mixture of sadness and outrage, the Captain agrees, and as the mutineers depart, the USS Nathan James steams through Suez.
In the following weeks, the ship travels through the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
, during which she experiences nuclear winter
Nuclear winter
Nuclear winter is a predicted climatic effect of nuclear war. It has been theorized that severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years could be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large...
, including sub-freezing temperatures, black snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
at the equator
Equator
An equator is the intersection of a sphere's surface with the plane perpendicular to the sphere's axis of rotation and containing the sphere's center of mass....
and exposure to high levels of radiation. Afterwards, the USS Nathan James reaches the remote South Pacific and, with her fuel levels down to just a few thousand miles of steaming, discovers a small, uncontaminated island.
The ship's crew then establishes a community on the island, and the captain and his officers begin to wrestle with the issue of how to go about the business of beginning families. Ultimately the female sailors establish an arrangement, to which the men accede, which consists of a type of polyandry
Polyandry
Polyandry refers to a form of marriage in which a woman has two or more husbands at the same time. The form of polyandry in which a woman is married to two or more brothers is known as "fraternal polyandry", and it is believed by many anthropologists to be the most frequently encountered...
together with a prohibition on monogamy
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
. Ultimately, most of the male sailors mate with most of the female sailors, but no pregnancies occur. Due to this, the crew begins to worry that the radiation of the nuclear winter may have rendered everyone sterile.
Some time later, the Pushkin, which had lost contact with the USS Nathan James months earlier, arrives, its crew on the verge of starvation, but bearing an abundance of nuclear fuel. Now, at last, the USS Nathan James is free to explore as much of the world its crew wishes, keeping the island as its home base, without needing to economize on fuel. But at the very moment when the Captain is preparing the ship for such a voyage, a new disaster strikes; a group of sailors led by the Captain's senior officer, abhorring the remaining nuclear missiles aboard the ship, launches them without his permission. But one of the missiles accidentally detonates while in flight, triggering a chain reaction among all of the missiles, destroying the USS Nathan James and contaminating the island. The Captain, his remaining crew, and the Soviet crew immediately embark aboard the Pushkin to escape, beginning a new search for another sanctuary, eventually reaching the United States research facility McMurdo Station
McMurdo Station
McMurdo Station is a U.S. Antarctic research center located on the southern tip of Ross Island, which is in the New Zealand-claimed Ross Dependency on the shore of McMurdo Sound in Antarctica. It is operated by the United States through the United States Antarctic Program, a branch of the National...
, in Antarctica, which contains years' worth of food and supplies.
By this time, the Pushkins ballistic missiles have been jettisoned, and the resulting space rebuilt into expanded crew quarters, recreational area, and a nursery. The introduction of the Soviet crew (who were much less affected by radioactive fallout due to the superior protection offered by the submarine) into the predesigned breeding program has resulted in at least three pregnancies by the novel's end. The Pushkin has the fuel to conduct long, thorough explorations of the world. Thus it is the Soviet submarine, and not the USS Nathan James that is the "Last Ship."
The novel ends on a hopeful note, as the well-provisioned survivors now prepare to rediscover the world.