Marmur, Jacland "Captain Ruthless."

This interesting World War 2-related short story about the power (and burden) of command actually opens sometime in the early 1950s aboard the tramp freighter S.S. CARDINIAN, of the fictitious San Francisco-based Cardin Line. The ship is in a port in northwest Luzon, Philippine Islands, where her master has just died. Command is temporarily assumed by 1st Mate David Gorman who learns, much to his consternation, that the ship's owner, Joseph Cardin (a man who himself has an extra master's license and is thus a trained mariner - something that will be of key importance as Marmur's story develops), will be taking passage back to California aboard the vessel. Cardin hates his employee Gorman and has told him in no uncertain terms that he would never get command of a Cardin Line ship because of a horrible incident that had occured back in 1944. Told in flashback, the incident finds Gorman, then a Navy Commander and master of the warship U.S.S. JOHN GRANT. Though ordinarily a "lucky ship," the GRANT, while escorting several damaged ships in stormy South Pacific waters, is hit by a bomb jettisoned out of a single Japanese warplane. The bomb blows up a gunnery station (killing three men) and its concussive force also propels another seaman into the violent waters. Gorman knows full well that the seaman was alive when he hit the waters, but because of the same regulation that convoy ships never stop to rescue comrades adrift, he sadly orders that the GRANT continue on course. The man not rescued was Joseph Cardin's only son; Cardin's hatred for Gorman comes about when he learns the circumstances of his son's death. (Cardin is angered further when his daughter marries Gorman). Fast forward to the CARDINIAN's 1950s Pacific passage. Several days out from the Philippines the ship encounters a terrific typhoon and, during the course of attempting to keep the ship from sinking, the young son of the ship's bos'n is blown (alive) overboard. Gorman demands that his boss make the decision on whether to turn about (and risk capsizing the ship) to make a rescue attempt or leave the man to drown. Cardin reluctantly orders the ship to sail on. The bos'n himself, a man who had long sailed with Gorman, makes it apparent that he understands the cruel law of the sea that the good of the majority must always prevail over that of the individual. His own stoic acceptance of his son's death brings about a reconciliation between the shipowner and his shipmaster.