by Herman Wouk
Aster turned to Betmann. “What’s that range, now?”
“Seven thousand, Captain.”
“Okay. We’ll circle, charge our batteries, and get our pictures of this transport.” Aster glanced at his watch and at the sun. “We can overtake those other two monkeys before dusk, easy. Meantime let’s sink these boats and rafts, and send all the floaters to join their honorable ancestors.”
Byron was more sickened than surprised, but what the exec did surprised him. Betmann firmly put his hand on Aster’s forearm as the captain was lifting the bridge microphone to his mouth. “Captain, don’t do it.” It was said sotto voce. Byron, at Aster’s elbow, barely heard it.
“Why not?” Aster was just as quiet.
“It’s butchery.”
“What are we out here for? Those are combat troops. If they’re picked up, they’ll be in action against our guys on New Guinea in a week.”
“It’s like shooting prisoners.”
“Come on, Pete. What about the guys on Bataan? What about the guys still inside the hull of the Arizona?” Aster shook off Betmann’s hand. His voice rang out over the deck. “Now gun crews, hear this. All these boats, barges, and rafts are legitimate targets of war, and so are the men in the water. If we don’t kill them, they’ll live to kill Americans. Fire at will.”
On the instant every gun barrel on the Moray was spitting yellow fire and white smoke.
“All ahead slow,” Aster called down the tube. “Maximum charge on the batteries.” He turned to Byron. “Call away the quartermaster. Let’s get pictures of that tin can while he’s still afloat, and of this fat boy.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Byron passed the order on his telephone.
The Japanese were leaping frantically off the boats and rafts. The four-inch gun was methodically picking off boats, and at this point-blank range they were flying apart one by one. Soon the rafts and launches were empty, the troops were all in the water, and some were shucking their life jackets to dive deep. Machine gun bullets were drilling rows of white spurts in the water. Byron saw heads bursting redly open like dropped melons.
“Captain,” Betmann said, “I am going below.”
“Very well, Pete.” Aster was lighting a fresh cigar. “Go ahead.”
By the time the transport reared its stern up and sank, uncountable lifeless Japanese floated all around the Moray on the bloodstained water. A few still swam here and there like porpoises harried by a shark.
“Well, I guess that’s that,” Carter Aster said. “Time’s a-wasting, Byron. We’d better catch those freighters. Secure the gun crews. Set cruising watch. All ahead full.”
The sun was low when the Moray, overhauling the freighters in an end run at long range, submerged. The unprotected ships were making only eleven knots. Lieutenant Betmann came back on the periscope, good-humored and accurate as though the events of the morning had made no difference to him. But among the crew, they had made a difference. During the daylong chase, whenever Byron had come on a group of sailors, he had been met with silence and odd looks, as though he were interrupting talk not meant for an officer’s ears. They were a new crew, just working in together, and they should have been buoyant and noisy over the victories, but they were not.
Lieutenant Betmann was a hard one for Byron to figure out. He had come to the Moray from BuOrd; he was a Christian Scientist, and he had initiated voluntary (and ill-attended) Sunday services on the submarine. Whatever his scruples about the morning slaughter, he was now all crisp aggressiveness once more.
Aster gambled three of his remaining five torpedoes on an overlapping shot at the two ships steaming close together. Betmann reported one hit flaring up in the night; the explosion rumbled through the Moray’s hull.
“Surface!”
The light in the conning tower was dim and red to protect night vision, but Byron could see the disappointed grimace on Carter Aster’s face. The Moray came up in moonlight on a choppy sea. The undamaged ship was turning away from its stricken companion, dark smoke pouring out of its funnel and obscuring the stars.
“All ahead full!”
Both freighters began firing wildly at the black shape cutting the swells in phosphorescent spray. Judging by the muzzle flames, they were armed not only with machine guns but also with three-inch cannon; a solid hit from one of these could sink a submarine. But Aster bore on through the red tracers and whirring shells as though they were the ticker tape of a hero’s parade, and pulled abreast of the fleeing freighter, which swelled big as an ocean liner and blazed with gunfire.
“Left full rudder. Open the stern tubes.” The submarine swung around under a fusillade of crimson tracers and high-whining bullets. The lookouts were cowering behind their bullet shields. So was Byron. Aster, erect and staring astern, fired one torpedo. The night burst into thundering red day. The freighter flamed up amidships.
“Dive, dive, dive!”
Byron, shaking in his shoes, had to admire this. With both targets hit and halted, Aster was taking no more gunfire.
“Okay, after torpedo room,” Aster said into the microphone, as the submarine slanted down into the sea, “we got him. Now comes our last torpedo. Our last shot of the patrol. It’s the freighter we hit before, and he’s a sitting duck. He needs one more punch. So, no foul-ups. Let’s sink him and head for the barn.”
Aster crept up on the cripple, reversed the submarine, and made his shot at six hundred yards. The Moray rocked in the very close underwater explosion, and the crew cheered.
“Surface! Surface! Surface! And I’m so proud of the whole lot of you, I could damn near cry.” Indeed, Aster’s voice was choking with unabashed emotion. “You’re the greatest submarine crew in the Navy. And let me tell you something, the Moray has only BEGUN to kill Japs.”
Whatever the roiled emotions of the day, the crew was with him again. The cheering and whooping and hugging and handshaking went on and on until the quartermaster cracked the hatch, the diesels coughed and roared, and moonlit seawater dripped down the ladder.
Coming out into the hot night, Byron saw both vessels dead in the water and burning. There was no gunfire. One freighter sank fast, its flame going out like a spent candle. But the other burned on, its broken hulk staying obstinately afloat, until Aster with a yawn told Betmann to finish it off with the four-inch gun. Peppered with blazing hits, it still took a long time to sink. At last the sea went dark, except for the yellow path of a low half-moon.
“Now hear this, gentlemen of the U.S.S. Moray” Aster announced, “we will come to zero six seven, the course for Pearl Harbor. When we pass channel buoy number one, ten days from now, we’ll tie a broom to the periscope. All engines ahead standard, and God bless you all, you marvelous gang of fighting fools.”
Such was the April 19th of Byron Henry.
The broom was up there when they entered Pearl Harbor. On a long streamer behind the broom, four small Japanese flags fluttered. Sirens, foghorns, steam whistles, serenaded the Moray all the way up-channel. On the dock at the sub base, a stunning surprise: Admiral Nimitz, in dress whites, stood amid the entire khaki-clad staff of SubPac. When the gangplank went over, Aster called the men to quarters. Nimitz marched aboard alone. “Captain, I want to shake the hand of every officer and man on this ship.” He did, passing along the forecastle with his wrinkled eyes agleam; then the SubPac staff came crowding on deck. Somebody brought a Honolulu Advertiser. The lead headline was
CLEAN SWEEP ON FIRST PATROL
Sub Wipes Out Convoy and Escort
“One-boat Wolf Pack” — Lockwood
The picture of Aster, grinning in strong sunlight, was recent, but the newspaper had dug up Betmann’s Academy graduation photograph, and he looked decidedly odd with all that hair.
Dry land felt good underfoot. Byron made slow progress to the ComSubPac building. The word was spreading fast about the killing of the Jap troops in the water, and the long walk became a sort of straw poll on Aster’s deed. Officers kept stopping him to talk about i
t, and reactions ranged from nauseated disapproval to bloodthirsty enthusiasm. The vote seemed to go against Aster, though not by much.
Later in the day, Janice flung herself at Byron when he arrived with a wild kiss that dizzied, thrilled, and shot fire through him.
“Holy smoke,” he gasped. “Janice!”
“Oh, hell, I love you, Briny. Don’t you know that? But don’t be afraid of me, I won’t eat you.” She broke loose, eyes glowing, yellow hair tumbled this way and that. Her thin satiny pink dress swished as she darted to a table and brandished the Advertiser. “Seen this?”
“Oh, sure.”
“And did you get my message? Is Carter coming for dinner?”
“He’s coming.”
Aster showed up far from sober, wearing several leis that had been piled on him at the officers’ club. He draped one flowery wreath on Byron and another on Janice, who gave him a decorous kiss. They washed down a feast of shrimps, steak, baked potatoes, and apple pie à la mode, with four bottles of California champagne, joking randomly and laughing themselves helpless. Afterward Janice donned an apron and ordered them to let her clear up herself. “Conquering heroes,” she said a bit thickly, “stay the hell out of my kitchen. Go out on the lanai. No mosquitoes tonight, offshore wind.”
On the dark porch facing the canal, as they sank into wicker chairs with the wine bottle between them, Aster said in a flat sober tone, “Pete Betmann has asked to be transferred.”
After a silence Byron said, “And? What do we do for an exec?”
“I told the admiral I wanted you.”
“Me?” Byron’s head was spinning from the wine. He tried to collect himself. “That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I’m too junior. I’m a reserve. Battle stations, sure, I’d love the periscope, but I’m a zilch administrator.”
“The roster shows you qualified, and you are. The admiral’s considering it. You’d only be the third reserve exec in SubPac, but he’s inclined to give me what I want. The other two guys are senior to you, they’ve been on active duty since ‘39. But you’ve done a lot of combat patrolling.”
“I had all that dead time in the Med.”
“Maintenance at an advance base isn’t dead time.”
Byron poured for both of them. They drank in darkness. Over the clinking and splashing in the kitchen they could hear Janice singing “Lovely Hula Hands.”
After a while Aster said, “Or do you agree with Pete Betmann? Don’t you want to sail with me again? That can be arranged, too.”
In the long voyage back to base there had been very little talk in the wardroom about the slaughter episode. Byron hesitated, then said, “I haven’t asked off.”
“We go out there to kill Japs, don’t we?”
“They didn’t have a fighting chance in the water.”
“Horseshit.” The word had harsh force because Aster tended to avoid obscenities. “We’re in a war. The way to end it, to win it, and to save lives in the long run, is to kill large numbers of the enemy. Right? Or wrong?” No answer from Byron. “Well?”
“Lady, you loved it.”
“I didn’t mind doing a job on the bastards, no. I admit that. The war was their idea.”
Silence in the dark.
“They killed your brother.”
“I said I haven’t asked off. Drop it, Captain.”
Janice sat up talking with Byron long after Aster left, about the patrol, and then about Warren, reminiscing affectionately as they had never done before. He said nothing about Natalie, except that he meant to call the State Department in the morning. When he went off to bed he held out his arms and gave her a passionate kiss. Surprised, moved, she looked into his eyes. “That’s for Natalie, isn’t it?”
“No. ‘Night.”
Before she left she looked into his room and listened to his quiet breathing. The Military Government pass on her car eliminated the curfew problem, and she drove through the blackout to the small hotel Aster now stayed at for their meetings. She slipped back into her house a few hours later, weary, spent, aglow with the transient rapture of unauthorized ass. Again she listened to Byron’s breathing; heavy, regular, no change. Janice went to bed blissful in body and soul, yet with an irrational wisp of guilty feeling, almost as though she had committed adultery.
The controversy over Aster’s killing of the Jap troops went on for a long time within SubPac. It never spilled over to the newspapers, or even to the rest of the Navy. The submariners kept it a family secret. Long after the war, when all patrol reports were declassified, it came out at last. Carter Aster’s report described the killing in candid detail, and ComSubPac’s endorsement was one of unqualified high praise. The draft endorsement by the chief of staff was also declassified. He had written a long paragraph disapproving of the slaughter of helpless swimmers. The admiral had struck it out with an angry scratch of the pen; the ink splatters still stain the page moldering in the Navy’s war files.
“If I had ten more aggressive killers like Aster in this command,” the admiral said to the chief of staff at the time, “the war would end a year sooner. I will not criticize Lieutenant Commander Aster for killing Japs. This was a great patrol, and I will recommend him for his second Navy Cross.”
64
EARLY in July, the minister of the American legation in Bern heard from Leslie Slote after a very long silence. Ordinary mail from the United States had been cut off since the German seizure of southern France, and there were no official pouches anymore. But the pouches of neutral diplomats were an irregular recourse for getting letters and reports back and forth. One of Slote’s old friends in the Swiss Foreign Ministry brought Tuttle the thick envelope — handing it to him, after a meeting on another matter, without a word as he left.
June 3, 1943
Dear Bill,
I’ll start by apologizing for the illegibility of my enclosed memorandum on the Bermuda Conference. I’m writing in bed, nursing a sprained ankle. I’ve resigned from the Foreign Service, so I have no office or secretary.
My sprained ankle is due to a parachute jump. An altered Leslie Slote scrawls these lines! I have always been — to put it charitably — a timid sort. But on quitting the Department I landed in the Office of Strategic Services. I’ve been on the run ever since, with no notion of where I’ll fetch up, but with a novel if somewhat alarmed sense of euphoria, such as a man might have upon falling out of an airplane and finding himself enjoying — however briefly —the panoramic view and cold breeze of the plunge. Images of falling come to me readily, after my parachute jump yesterday: an utter nightmare, yet in a bloodcurdling way quite exhilarating.
Of course you know about the OSS. As I recall, General “Wild Bill” Donovan rather ruffled your feathers when he whirled through Bern last year. It is an improvised intelligence outfit, bizarre in the extreme. Obviously I can tell you very little about what I’m doing. But I am doing something; and that, after the State Department, is a good feeling. I’ve been through a professional catastrophe, but things have been moving too fast for me to give much time to self-pity.
Bill, the State Department is a seraglio from which the beauties have all been kidnapped, leaving behind a drove of squeaking eunuchs with nothing to do. Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Hopkins between them preempt most of foreign policy; General Donovan’s outfit is moving in on the rest; and the castratos at State impotently continue to pass papers around which might as well be toilet tissue.
If all this sounds bitter, remember that I’ve destroyed my career, relinquished ten years of precious seniority, because I think it’s the truth. What the State Department did at the Bermuda Conference finished me off, though it was probably only a question of time before I’d have quit anyway. The Jewish problem had grown for me into a cancerous obsession, and Breckinridge Long was aggravating my condition to dementia. Now I am out, and recovering.
Long drafted me into the Division of European Affairs, as you know, to handle Jewish problems. He was then
under very heavy pressure to break the visa logjam facing refugees from Hitler, and also to do something about the Jews being railroaded to extermination. He’s a beset man who has taken to clutching at straws. I guess he wanted one plausible figure in the division with a “pro-Jewish” reputation, who could speak sympathetically to Jews without having any power to help them. And I guess he counted on me, as a good loyal State Department hack, to follow his policies no matter how they went against my grain. The real question is why I accepted the job. The answer is, I don’t know. I suppose I hoped that Long meant what he said, and that I could be a loosening, liberalizing, moderating voice on Jewish matters.
If so, I was self-deceived. From the first, and until I left the Bermuda Conference in mid-session, I ran into a blank wall. On the whole, I now feel sorry for Breckinridge Long. I don’t even regard him as the villain of the piece. He can’t help being what he is. He sent me to Bermuda to be a sort of Gentile Sol Bloom, a support diplomat with demonstrable pro-Jewish sympathies, to be cited at future congressional investigations, if any. My resignation is not going to look very good on the record, but of course I have no interest now in keeping up the State Department façade.
And what a façade it was! How carefully it was stage-managed by our Department and the British Foreign Office to screen out pressure, challenge, and controversy! Newspapermen couldn’t get there. Labor leaders, Jewish leaders, protest marchers — the broad ocean protected the conference from all that. Bermuda was lovely with spring flowers, and we met in charming hotels far from the new military bases, with plenty of time off to swim in the pools and drink the island’s rum concoctions. In the social evenings amid Bermuda’s smart set one could almost forget there was a war on.
Poor Dr. Harold Dodds — the president of Princeton, dragooned for the chairmanship of our delegation — beseeched me to stay on, but by the third day I had had enough. I told him that I was either going to raise the question of the Jews threatened with extermination (these Jews were a forbidden topic at the conference!) or I was going to fly back to Washington and resign from the Foreign Service. Dodds was helpless. He couldn’t authorize me to go against the policies that bound him. So I left, and at least I brought away a small shred of my self-respect.