A CODE FOR TOMORROW: A Ingram Novel (The Todd Ingram Series Book 2)

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

Noumea, New Caledonia

  DeWitt held out his cup and saucer.

  Ingram poured.

  “For Navy coffee, this stuff isn’t bad.” DeWitt stirred in sugar, condensed milk, and slurped. They had just returned to the Howell’s wardroom after a tour, where Ingram had shown DeWitt the nearly repaired mount fifty-three, and its quilt of welding patches over fragment holes.

  Ingram peeked out the porthole. “Looks like the overcast has burned off. Let’s go outside and grab some fresh air. We can watch for your boss.” General Sutherland was once again aboard the Argonne, conferring with Admiral Ghormley. He was due any moment to pick up DeWitt, then go on to meet Rear Admiral Kelly Turner aboard his flagship, the McCawley, anchored just two hundred yards away.

  Ingram opened the hatch and they walked out onto the main deck to find the wind had shifted from southwest to northwest. Sipping their coffee in the shadow of mount fifty-two, they watched the myriad of cruisers, destroyers, attack transports, ammunition ships, cargo ships, tankers, repair ships; all swinging at anchor in the overstuffed harbor. The Howell was jammed among anchored ammunition ships, the McCawley and a long waterway lined with buoys used for seaplane take offs and landings. As they watched, a matte-black PBY lunged into her take off run, engines growling, white vaporous mist spewing under her wing and horizontal tail. She bounced as she climbed on the step, poised for the moment when she could work herself free, once again cheating the specs which stated a plane so overloaded with fuel couldn’t claw her way into the air.

  The PBY rose off the water and shrunk to a dot.

  DeWitt pulled out one of his Lucky Strikes, lit it, and took a long puff. “There’s news.” He squinted in the distance, bracing a foot on a bit, ever the crag-faced Texas Ranger, the Lucky hanging from the corner of his mouth.

  Ingram was still tracking the PBY. “Um.”

  “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but Helen’s coming home.”

  “Damn!” Ingram jiggled his cup and saucer. He quickly stepped back just before two drops splattered where his shoes had been.

  DeWitt offered an uncharacteristic grin. “We ordered in a submarine, the Needlefish, to pick her next week. They’re also bringing out a party of Fill-American women and children.”

  Ingram looked at DeWitt for a long moment. Then he ran a hand over his face. God! If he could only call Helen’s folks. No matter. But won’t they be surprised? To make sure, he looked at the deck. No, he wasn’t floating two feet above.

  “Todd?”

  “When do they arrive?”

  DeWitt shrugged, “If all goes well, Brisbane around the end of the month.”

  Ingram turned away. “How is Amador? Did he say anything else?”

  “No. It sounded like he was in a hurry. The Japs have a D/F truck running around, so his transmissions are sparse.”

  Amador, the old man with his mane of silver hair and his legends of Corregidor. He wished he could see him and thank him for taking care of Helen.

  “Todd? Todd? How do you feel?”

  Like I’m alive, you stupid jackass. Like a block of cement has been lifted from my chest. Like I’m home. Like I have something to live for.

  “Todd?”

  “I’m fine, Otis.”

  DeWitt took another drag and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re one lucky sonofabitch. You know that?”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “Not a word to anybody.”

  “Okay.”

  “If General Sutherland knew I told you, he’d crucify me.”

  “Not a word.”

  “And remember. Some of these rendezvous’ don’t go as scheduled. There’s changes, so keep that in mind.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I wanted you to know.”

  “Okay.”

  They watched the harbor in silence for a few moments until DeWitt nodded toward an admiral’s barge. It ducked around a tanker and headed right at them. Unlike a ‘barge or a scow,’ this forty foot launch had handsome lines, a square transom, and two gleaming brass stars mounted at her bow . Her freeboard was a dark blue and she had two white deckhouses, a large one forward and a smaller, more intimate one aft. Freshly shined brass, chrome and stainless steel glittered throughout. Two crew stood at parade rest behind the cox’n, all three wearing freshly starched whites. “Here comes my boss.”

  They stepped into the wardroom, put down their coffee cups and grabbed their hats. Returning to the main deck, they walked aft, then to the quarterdeck. Just then, a PB2Y Coronado flew over at 100 feet on a downwind leg. With a wing up, she turned onto her final approach. Moments later, she glided past, her four R-1830 engines softly backfiring, as her pilot cut the throttles and eased her to the water. At first, her wake spewed delicately when she touched, almost as if a feather had glazed the water. Soon she settled, spray and foam announcing her arrival. The giant seaplane slowed, then turned and taxied to a buoy 200 yards abeam of the Howell.

  DeWitt said, “Do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” Ingram nodded.

  “I want you to clam up. Don’t say anything more about the torpedoes just now.”

  “Otis, the damn things are at the bottom of Tulagi harbor for anyone to see.”

  “Consider it a favor to me.”

  The admiral’s barge swooped in, her coxswain backing down with a flourish, and stopping precisely beneath a metal ladder hanging over the Howell’s side. Sutherland stepped out of the little cabin and looked up to Ingram, his hands on his hips. “Could you join us for a moment, Lieutenant?”

  What the hell did I do? “Yes, Sir.” He turned to Jack Wilson, OOD on the afternoon watch. “I’ll be off the ship for a few minutes.” After salutes, he turned and climbed down to the barge with DeWitt following. Ingram saluted again, “Good afternoon, General.”

  “So nice to see you again, Lieutenant.” Sutherland shook Ingram’s hand, then waved to a padded velvet seat. At the same time he nodded to the coxswain. The engine roared and the barge shoved off. Sutherland gave a bit of a smile. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’m just borrowing you for a moment. Besides, you’ll have a moment to say hello to your mentor.”

  Ingram looked at a shrugging DeWitt, then back to Sutherland.

  Sutherland said, “Admiral Spruance is aboard that plane. This is Kelly Turner’s barge and we’re taking him over to the McCawley. I need a moment alone with him before we get there.

  “I see,” said Ingram, who didn’t understand anything at all.

  The Coronado’s engines wheezed to a stop as her crew snagged a buoy from the forward hatch and rigged a dip rope. Just then, another brightly adorned admiral’s barge, this one with three stars at her bow, roared up and fell in behind, bouncing in their stern wake.

  “Looks like a parade.” Sutherland grunted then sat back and folded his arms. “Tell us again, Lieutenant, what you saw on Tulagi.”

  DeWitt sat beside Ingram to hear better over the engine’s growl.

  Taking a deep breath, Ingram described the sunken Japanese destroyer, the torpedoes on the bottom, and his visit with Toliver aboard the Zeilin.

  As he spoke, Sutherland and DeWitt exchanged glances. When Ingram finished, Sutherland sat back and stroked his chin. “Lieutenant. Do you realize that this is very sensitive information.”

  “Well, Sir, Otis...Colonel DeWitt just told me not to say anything to anyone about it.”

  At DeWitt’s nod, Sutherland said, “Good. Very good. Now. Otis, is Lieutenant Ingram aware of what the commie told you?”

  What?

  DeWitt turned to Ingram, “Todd. Have your ever been with that Soviet Naval Attaché, Eduard Dezhnev, at any time when I wasn’t there?”

  The staccato manner in which DeWitt phrased the question meant he once again suffered from his brown-nose syndrome. But he wasn’t going call him Sir after dragging him two thousand miles though the Philippine Archipelago. “No.”

  “Did Ollie have any contact?” DeWitt asked.

  “Not that I know of.�
�

  Once again Sutherland and DeWitt exchanged glances. DeWitt said, “What about--”

  Suddenly, the admiral’s barge following them, swung out to port and, with a roar of its engine, passed by, leaving Sutherland’s barge to bounce in a choppy wake and exhaust fumes.

  “What the--” Sutherland sputtered as they hit a wavelet, water spraying over the boat. “Just a damned ensign in there. I am going to have his ass.” He stood and bellowed, “Driver. Pull in alongside that boat.”

  But the other barge got to the Coronado first and had stopped under the flying boat’s aft hatch by the time Sutherland’s boat caught up.

  Sutherland, Ingram and DeWitt stood as the cox’n slowed down to ease alongside the other barge. Mooring lines were secured and the engine was turned off. The only sound was of thumping inside the Coronado, and little wavelets slapping the amphibian’s hull.

  “Ensign,” Sutherland called.

  The ensign turned to Sutherland, his voice plaintive. “One moment Sir, please. I’m under orders.” It was the same young officer that kept delivering messages to Ghormley last Friday at the conference. The .45 was jammed in a holster. Under his arm was a small leather briefcase. Then he turned his back on Sutherland and hailed someone in the Coronado.

  “Ensign, look at me goddamnit!” sputtered Sutherland. “Get away from there before I throw you in the stockade.”

  The ensign gave Sutherland a nervous look. “Sorry, Sir. I’m under orders from Vice Admiral Ghormley.”

  “What?” yelled Sutherland. “Get that--”

  Just then, a large, olive drab B4 bag flew out of the hatch and fell into the boat. Then another; each bag had three gold stars stenciled on both sides. Quickly following was a short stocky admiral who had one of the most familiar faces in the Pacific Fleet. “Bill,” exclaimed Sutherland, “What the hell are you doing out here?”

  Several other men jumped in the boat. Ingram recognized Admiral Spruance and Captain Falkenberg among them. In fact, Spruance caught his eye and gave a quick nod.

  Halsey looked to Sutherland and held up a hand, “Hi, Dick, be right with you.” He turned to the ensign. “Okay, son. What’s so important that I have to read right here?”

  The ensign reached in his leather briefcase and drew an envelope. “My orders are to deliver this personally to you, Sir.”

  “All right. Thank you.” Halsey took the envelope, then with a look at the officers around him, ripped it open and sat against the gunwale to read.

  For a moment it was quiet as the boats bucked gently together, in the mid-afternoon wind waves. Halsey’s eyes popped wide open. His jaw fell, and he braced a hand on the boat. “Jesus Christ and General Jackson. This is the hottest potato they ever handed me.” Halsey paced for a moment then put palm to his forehead. “Ray?”

  Spruance moved close.

  Halsey handed Spruance the message.

  “You know anything about this?

  Spruance handed it back. “I’m in the dark, Bill.”

  “Okay.” Halsey turned, There were no little gullies around Halsey’s eyes as he called across to Sutherland in the other boat. “Dick, is that Kelly’s Turner’s barge?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Ingram didn’t miss the Sir.

  “Very well. Ray, you and Bill and Maynard head over to the Wacky Mac and get settled with Kelly. I better head over to the Argonne to see Bob and get all this straightened out. My God. Can you believe it?”

  Spruance extended a hand. “Congratulations.” They shook.

  “Here.” Halsey passed the message around. After reading it, Browning and Brown broke into broad smiles. “Congratulations, Admiral.”

  Spruance, Calhoun and Falkenberg’s gear was tossed in Sutherland’s barge, and all three stepped aboard. Sutherland stepped up and shook Spruance’s hand. Good to see you again, Ray. What the hell happened?”

  “I’m not sure if I can--”

  Halsey shouted from his boat, “You might as well see this too, Dick.” He handed the message across to Sutherland.

  Like Halsey, Sutherland leaned against the gunwale to read. “My God.” He read it again then handed it to DeWitt.

  Ingram leaned over DeWitt’s shoulder to see a radio flimsy marked:

  TOP SECRET:

  IMMEDIATELY UPON YOUR ARRIVAL AT NOUMEA, YOU WILL RELIEVE VICE ADMIRAL ROBERT L. GHORMLEY FOR THE DUTIES OF COMMANDER SOUTH PACIFIC AND SOUTH PACIFIC FORCE.

  NIMITZ

  Sutherland shook his head for a moment, then sighed, “I guess he’s as good at running a withdrawal as anybody else.”

  “Dick, Bill’s middle initial is ‘F,’“ Spruance said. That means full speed ahead.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  20 October, 1942

  U.S.S. Howell (DD 482)

  Noumea, New Caledonia

  “Uh.” Ingram sat up in bed, startled at his own voice. For a moment his mind whirled with images of explosions and torn bodies fading in and out. Fumbling, he clicked on his reading light. The little wind-up alarm-clock read: two-thirty-five. It was hot, humid and, in spite of the fan’s buzzing, he sweated, his top sheet in a rumpled heap on the deck. He ran a hand through his hair, finding his scalp drenched in sweat as well as his tee-shirt and shorts. Leaning back for a moment, he was thankful that, as executive officer, he rated his own stateroom where no roommate would hear his moans.

  He needed sleep, yet here he was, staring at the deck. They were getting underway tomorrow to join Task Force 61 under Rear Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid. No more convoy duty. No more chasing the Japanese up the Slot. This time they would be screening the carrier Enterprise. It would be hard steaming, day and night, dashing amongst other destroyers at thirty knots, where sometimes the relative speeds achieved sixty knots, the tactical situation changing with mind-numbing rapidity.

  “Damn.” Ingram stood and walked to the small stainless basin, drew water and rinsed his face and scalp. Now he remembered what had made him awaken. Before the explosions, he’d been dreaming of avocados and...Helen. Yes. She seemed so vivid, he even heard her voice , or was it her mother’s voice? No. It was Helen. He could almost touch her smooth, fine, ebony hair; look into those quick brown eyes that missed nothing; see her she smile when she laughed at everything, with everyone.

  He wished he’d had a picture, he’d almost asked her parents when he’d visited last August. On the living-room bookcase, he’d seen a picture of Helen and another of her brother, a B-17 jockey outfitted in Army Aircorps uniform, his peaked hat with the “fifty mission crush.” Helen looked as beautiful as he looked proud. Yet there was something more in her photograph; confidence, her lovely face looking to the future, smiling.

  All he had to do was close his eyes and there she was, the same as the picture, looking as good as she did that last night in Nasipit. He’d held her in his arms; he’d kissed her for the first time, an enormous release after the horror of Corregidor where they’d been too afraid, too hungry, too tired to reach for one another. But that last night, the night they blew up Amador’s lumber mill, they’d held one another giving themselves all they had.

  Avocados, hell. They were pineapples; he’d been dreaming of the Philippines. Helen in the Philippines. Helen, Damnit. He’d been so afraid to think of her. Until now. My God, safe in Brisbane. He looked at his desk calendar; she’d be there by a week from Saturday. How the hell can I get to Brisbane? No. No. She won’t be there long. Like me, they’ll feed her, clothe her and send her Stateside. Damnit. Have to wait until they send us home for a refit, then head for Ramona. He closed his eyes and opened them again, but they were moist and he blinked it away. Helen.

  “Okay.” He stood, slipped on a pair of trousers and sandals, walked out of his stateroom and took the companionway ladder up to the main deck and the wardroom. The red, darken ship lights glowed, giving everything a ghostly cast. But the stewards had left coffee on the burner. Yawning, he reached for a cup and saucer and poured.

  “Todd.”

  He
turned, finding Landa sitting alone at the table’s head, the place where the ship’s Captain always sat. Like himself, Landa wore a tee shirt, khaki trousers and sandals.

  “Evening, Skipper.” Ingram took his cup and sat to Landa’s right, where the executive officer sat during meals. When worried or scared, he realized, we reach for the familiar, the accepted. We rub our rabbit’s feet or hang our lucky charm around our neck or take our assigned places at the table. If not, the chain will be broken, decorum interrupted, causing that sonofabitch in the black robe to swing his scythe and send you into blackness.

  “Couldn’t sleep, huh?” said Landa.

  “No.” Landa’s breath nearly knocked Ingram over. They’d been ashore at the officer’s club, the old Hotel Pacifique, with Landa slugging down beers after dinner with Rocko and two other destroyer skippers. He'd had a snoot-full and looked, strange in the red darken-ship lights. His eyes were black pencil points, his white teeth, crimson-washed and large and straight, looking as if he’d just ripped the living flesh off a fallen zebra.

  A shadow appeared at the doorway and knocked twice.

  Landa’s eyes crossed for a moment. “Come.”

  It was Monaghan, the dark, curly haired pharmacist’s mate. He walked in and pulled off his hat. “You called, Sir?”

  Landa sat straight up. “What do you have to make a man sleep around here?”

  Monaghan stared at Landa’s coffee cup. “Uh, well Sir, I could recommend--”

  “How ‘bout something for a straight hangover?”

  “I’d say you’re doing fine, Sir.” Monaghan ran the rim of his hat through his hands.

  “On second thought, I need something for sleep.”

  “Yes, Sir. Well, we have--”

  “Never mind. Just go get it.” Landa waved the back of his hand.

  “Yes, Sir.” Monaghan turned and walked out.

  Ingram sat back and stared.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’d ask the same of you. Why did you jump on him?” Asked Ingram.

  “Have you looked at his record?”