Bluto winced. “May I go talk to them?” he asked.
I gave him a be-my-guest gesture, and he lumbered over to where the nurses were sitting at a makeshift operating table. Five minutes later we were embarked on one of the PT boats and headed for Bau Island, along with Higgins, the nurses, and the three Montrose docs. Higgins brought along a little black bag reminiscent of the country doctor in his horse and buggy arriving at a farmhouse on the prairie. Bau hadn’t changed much since I’d left. A few more pontoons and some better tents for the crews on the hillside. There was now a larger, square tent that had become the squadron’s comms center and Bluto’s headquarters. Long HF antennas radiated out from a pole next to the tent in a web of wire anchored in nearby trees. The sporadic bombing raids from Rabaul had been aiming at the Army encampments and those big eight-inch guns that had been pounding Jap positions around Munda, and, of course, any shipping in the harbor. One Betty had circled back one morning to strafe the nest of PT boats. There’d been four boats in that day and their combined firepower put him into the harbor in a satisfying ball of fire.
The six of us congregated up in the square tent. Higgins disappeared while the rest of us sat around a long, split-log table on ammo boxes. The comms shack was separated from the main area of the tent by a canvas wall because of the crypto codes. The inside walls of the tent were covered with charts, maps, patrol assignments, and boat-availability listings. There was a single cot in one corner, next to which was a submachine gun and a steel helmet, which I assumed was for our skipper. Higgins came back with cans of grapefruit juice and his black bag. Soon we had screamers.
It was a pretty subdued prayer session. The presence of four American women on the island had not gone unnoticed, of course, and soon we had a procession of boat skippers and crewmen coming to the tent to deliver an “important” message, or an “update” on boat so-and-so’s engineering problems, all with serious faces as they tried not to stare at the women. The nurses rose to the occasion, smiling at the obvious fakery and causing not a few red faces. They were sad smiles, but they knew what was going on and played their part like the troupers they were.
I’m sure everyone assumed I’d been having the time of my life on a converted passenger liner with all those nurses aboard. The truth was that we’d all been too tired to even learn their names, much less engage in any romantic shenanigans. These women were tough as nails, but I knew they’d had their maternal instincts stomped on every time we lost a guy on the table or had to do the final-spinal, as we called it among ourselves. Still, it was a treat to shut off the hospital drama, sit down with uninjured fleet people instead of shattered soldiers, enjoy some vintage 1942 torpedo fuel, and not have to think about anything. At midnight, we were all taken back to the Rendova encampment. The ladies retired to their special tent, and I found a cot and slept for twelve hours. The next day we learned what we were going to be doing next.
TWENTY-TWO
A major from the general’s staff came to find me at noon as I tried to fully wake up after being almost unconscious for so long. He had news.
“We’re moving the whole circus over to the Munda airfield,” he announced. “Command, logistics support, and medical. That airfield will become the launch point for the next phase of the campaign, because now it’s long enough to support transports. Somebody important in Nouméa wants to combine the survivors of the Montrose with the field-medical-aid assets we have here, and then the Cactus docs are gonna move up to Munda and set up a real field hospital. Nouméa is just too far away. The Navy Medical Corps is gonna be in charge.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to digest all this after only one cup of coffee. I wasn’t exactly operating at peak performance.
“The next objective is Bougainville Island, and we anticipate another tough campaign. But if we can take it and its airfields, our heavy bombers will be in range of Rabaul, and close enough to have fighter escorts at least for some of the way.”
“What’s going to happen with the PT boats?” I asked.
He blinked. Apparently, the PT boats were not terribly significant on the grand scale of planning for the Solomon Islands campaign. He had to consult his notebook. “Right,” he said. “The PT boats are going to set up shop on Puruata Island, as soon as Bougainville is reasonably secure.”
“Well, look,” I said, “sounds like you’re gonna have a fully staffed hospital in these parts soon. I got shanghaied from my MTB squadron by the colonel in charge of the Montrose hospital facilities. That left the boats with a temporary doc. I want to go back to them. Montrose didn’t have any really experienced surgeons, so I filled a temporary need. This new outfit certainly will. Can you make a case for my going back to the boats?”
He sighed. “I don’t make decisions like that, Doc,” he said. “That sort of stuff’s way up my tape.” He paused and looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “You wanna go back to the PT boats?” he said. “Just do it. By the time the Medical Corps gets organized and stands up this new hospital? If you aren’t there I’ll bet they’ll never miss you. Get it?”
“Got it,” I said. “Thanks for the advice.”
He paused for a moment. “On the other hand, people know about you, Doc. Colonel Maddox told the big boss that you did wonders for the Montrose staff. We had a Navy captain come up from Cactus to brief us on the medical plan, and he asked if you were in the area. Suddenly nobody at HQ knew.”
“So, if I’m going to do a bunk, today might be a nice day for it.”
He grinned. “I never told you that.”
“Absolutely, Major,” I said. “And thanks, again.”
I wanted no part of being swallowed up by the oncoming Guadalcanal medical armada. Someone would inevitably question my credentials again, logs or no logs, and this time there’d be a squad of Medical Service Corps admin types itching to look into such matters. The MTBs rated a squadron doctor. I’d been transferred, loaned out, and cross-decked so many times that I doubted the Navy even knew where I was right now. My last formal orders had been to the squadron. If someone came looking, I could just say: what’s the problem? I’m the squadron doctor unless you can show me written orders to the contrary. And as to Bluto’s remark, go be a surgeon—I was pretty sure that the Army’s grand plans to set up a big-deal hospital at Munda would encounter a hiccup or ten before they ever missed me. Besides, as always, the Japs would get a vote on how this all shaped up.
I needed to find Higgins and make sure he came with me and then get my ass in gear and out of here. My first mission back on Bau would be to find Bluto. There’d be mass confusion at the Army encampment on Rendova as they packed out the headquarters and much of the logistic train for the move to Munda. Perfect time for Alibaba and his midnight minions to slip over from Bau for some discreet banditry.
The squadron was a little bit larger than when I’d left it, with six more boats and a whole new crop of skippers. The boats themselves were also different—most of them had had all their torpedo tubes removed in favor of more and bigger rapid-firing guns. A better radar and improved radios filled out the new kit, especially now that they had the new portable FM-band Army radios, the so-called “walkie-talkies,” for close-in communications. Some genius had finally realized that if the PT boats were going to support Army and Marine infantry operations, it would be good for us to be able to talk to them.
Bluto was the same blustering, loud, profane, and nonstop boss he’d been when I left, although about twenty pounds lighter, which is when I realized I hadn’t been gone for that long. It just seemed like it, especially after the Montrose sinking. It still didn’t take much for images of the men and women I’d worked so hard with on that ship to appear in my mind, especially when I hit the sack. They appeared as spectral faces in a fog until I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and firmly banished them. Until the next time. Bluto was delighted to have me back, if only for someone to talk to. As the commanding officer of the squadron, he had to maintain a formal separatio
n from everyone in his command. The squadron doctor wasn’t part of the line organization, so he and I could talk about things without breaching that formal chain of command.
I asked him how relations were with the “regular” Navy. He just shook his head. “At this moment we’re much more valuable to the Army and Marines than the Navy. Sinking the McCawley set us back, way back, in the big-ship Navy’s opinion.”
“And she just had to be the amphibious commander’s flagship, didn’t she,” I said. “Who could blame them?”
“Well,” he said, sheepishly, “if you’re gonna screw up, go big, I guess.”
The McCawley had been under tow after being hit by a Jap air-dropped torpedo. One of our boats had mistaken it for a Jap ship especially after the towing ship fired on them.
“It was an honest mistake,” Bluto continued, “and Navy intel kinda set us up for that one with all the warnings about Jap ships operating in that area.”
“But the Army loves you?”
“Much more than the Navy,” he replied. “We can move people and stuff—fast. We can be a picket station with a radar and a radio when the Navy can’t provide a destroyer. When the Japs started using those barges again to reinforce, we were the first ones who could do something about that.”
“So, this new operation will be more of the same, then?”
“Yeah, I think so. There’s Bougainville, then the Shortlands, then Choiseul, and finally New Britain, which is where Rabaul lives. Although, I heard a rumor over at the Army HQ that maybe they’re gonna bypass Rabaul.”
“Bypass?”
“Yeah, conduct some carrier strikes, wreck the place, and sink as many Japs ships as happen to be in Simpson Harbor. But don’t try to actually take Rabaul, ’cause it would be one tough nut. They’ve got over a hundred thousand troops there, four big airfields, lots a’ caves and underground bunkers for fuel and ammo, big guns, mines, three Goddamned active volcanoes, the whole shebang. So: Destroy as many aircraft and warships as we can, and then we’ll go around Rabaul and invade the Gilberts. Then use subs to keep any supplies, mainly food, from getting through to the garrison. Gotta admit, that’s an interesting concept.”
“Then why not go around Bougainville?” I asked.
“We need the airfields on Bougainville to reach all of New Britain, with both bombers and fighters.”
“And are there any useful facilities on this Puruata Island?”
He grinned. “Of course,” he said. “There’s a million palm trees, a beach protected by uncharted coral reefs, no fresh water, mosquitos, malaria, and probably cannibals inland.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. Then I saw Alibaba approaching. “Here comes trouble. I’ll leave you and him to discuss the important stuff.”
TWENTY-THREE
The next month became a blur of activity from dawn to dusk as two divisions, one Army, one Marines, prepared to go ashore on Bougainville. I’d heard somewhere that the armies with the best logistics would win every time, and now I was a believer. There was little active fighting going on over there on New Georgia, but a trickle of casualties continued to come in from straggler patrols, both there and even here on Rendova. The Japanese simply did not surrender, which meant that, when they were overwhelmed, the survivors redeployed into the jungle, recovered as best they could, and then continued the fight in small guerilla groups or even as individual snipers. They had not endeared themselves to the local tribes, so when the Army sent out hunting parties, tattered figures would emerge from the jungle trails and point silently. There was no effort to take prisoners. They would have presented a logistics burden, and besides, they’d usually kill themselves before allowing the Americans to take them. That fact left everyone, Japanese and American, satisfied.
Nine weeks after New Georgia was declared “secured,” Bougainville was invaded. We medics had no picture as to the deployment of forces, where and when they landed, or with how many troops. We caught glimpses of Navy ships out in the channel, including some of the new cruisers that were coming out of the shipyards in increasing numbers to replace our losses at Guadalcanal. The PT boat squadron was ordered to stand by for a movement to Puruata Island. I told my medical crew that we were going to just lay low as the Guadalcanal hospital staff moved into Rendova prior to staging over to Munda airfield. The Japanese did not seem to want to interfere with any of this. All the mess-tent strategists were convinced that they’d decided to withdraw into their bastions on New Britain Island to await the inevitable invasion of Rabaul.
PART III
TWENTY-FOUR
Puruata Island was even smaller than Bau. It was basically a knob of jungle greenery covering a rocky mound about seventy feet tall and sitting four hundred yards off the main island of Bougainville. The squadron made the transit from Rendova at night in one large gaggle, as always keeping our speed down so as not to attract lurking Kawanishis. We got a surprise when we arrived at dawn: a ship was anchored in the narrow channel between Puruata and the main island. She was the USS Tutuila (ARG-4). We later learned she was an internal combustion engine repair ship, new to the Pacific theater. She looked like a small, converted cargo ship, small being a relative description. She actually displaced 4,000 tons, small for a cargo ship but twice the displacement of one of our current generation of destroyers. Even better, she was going to be the mobile home base for the squadron, a luxury we’d never had before.
I went aboard with Bluto when we first arrived. The captain was a salty-looking lieutenant who, by his age, was probably ex-enlisted. He met us at the top of the accommodation ladder and introduced himself as Sam Crawford. He welcomed us aboard and then we went aft to his cabin at the back of the ship. It looked a lot like the captain’s cabins I’d seen in movies at the back of the big sailing warships, with fake wood paneling, windows instead of portholes, a large wardroom table, its own head, and even a closed-off area for his sleeping quarters. The only jarring note were two black steel columns coming down from the next level on either side of the main cabin. The captain told us they supported two of his twelve 20 mm mounts.
“I’ve got a single five-inch gun and four 40 mm AA mounts as well,” he said proudly.
“And you can support my boats?” Bluto asked.
“That’s what we’re here for,” he replied. “We have machine shops for gasoline and diesel engines. We can take any engine down to its bare block and completely rebuild it. We also carry spare parts, fuel, ammo, and a dozen torpedoes. There’s a radar and radio shop, a gun shop for up to 40 mm, and electrical, hydraulic, and structural shops. We can even hoist your boats on board and cradle ’em for whatever work they need. I can also berth up to sixty enlisted and fifteen officers.”
“Sick bay?” I asked.
“You bet, Doc. A ten-bed ward right next to sick bay, and the basics for doing surgery. All I don’t got is an actual doctor, but my HM chief is first class.”
“You do now,” Bluto said, inclining his head at me. “And he’s a surgeon.”
The captain beamed. “So,” he said. “Tell me what you need.”
“Where do I start?” Bluto said.
“Well, look,” Crawford said. “Chief Maloney is the repair officer. Take a day, get everything written down, and prioritized. Second thing: the Army is sending up a battery of the new M2 90 mm AA guns from Rendova. They’re gonna set up shop over on the main island. Until then, can I ask that you keep a boat ready for AA work whenever they’re alongside?”
“Absolutely,” Bluto said. “We’ve got 20 mm and 50-cal. I can have one boat on ready-alert, and another on five-minute standby.”
“Great,” the captain said. “The Marines told me that this end of B-ville is relatively secure but that they’re still flushing Japs up north. They also said to expect an air attack from Rabaul once the Japs discover that we’re here.”
Bluto leaned forward. “I’m not sure exactly what the bosses want us to do here, but if you get any indication of Jap bombers coming, be sure to let us know. Any
boat that can get under way will, and we’ll surround you and throw up a curtain of AA fire. We’ve done it before.”
“Good to hear,” Crawford said, standing. “Let’s meet again at sundown, see where we are. In the meantime, my guys are rigging boat booms. The Marines say the Seabees are coming, and they’ll provide some pontoon piers and the emplacements for those Army AA guns.”
“It’s standard procedure for my boats to refuel and rearm immediately when they come in from patrol. Can we set that up?”
“You bet,” the captain said. “Like I said, that’s what we’re here for, Skipper.”
The rest of our day was spent merging the two organizations. I went forward to meet the chief hospitalman, whose name was Jimmy Whittaker, and his assistant, HM3 Beamer. Together we surveyed the medical spaces. They were about the same size as the LST sick bays, but more modern. Tutuila was a brand-new ship, not a conversion as we had assumed, and there was medical equipment in there I hadn’t seen before. Nor had Chief Whittaker, as it turned out, so we took off the wraps and set to scanning the instruction manuals. They had an autoclave, which brought a smile to my face. I told the chief about boiling instruments in a fifty-five-gallon drum on Guadalcanal right after the invasion. He just shook his head, and then he stopped and looked at me in recognition.
“You’re the third-year resident who’s been doing major surgery out here in the Solomons ever since the invasion?”
“Guilty,” I said. “Although, technically, I was about to start my fourth year when I signed up.”
He laughed and extended his hand. “Honor to meet you, Doctor,” he said. “I was stationed in Nouméa before getting this assignment. There were stories going around about you doing some amazing things at the Cactus hospital. The older docs were all highly indignant. The younger docs were grinning and saying that was fantastic, as in, why can’t we do some of that. And you were aboard Montrose when she went down?”
The Hooligans Page 21