Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  The navigator, Marse Lee, relieved Air Defense Officer Mullenoe as officer of the deck. Commander Parker reported that Batt II, his armored conning tower aft, was manned and ready. Damage Control informed the bridge that Condition Zed was set throughout the ship. That meant all hatches and watertight doors were sealed.

  “Torpedo planes to starboard, bearing one three five,” said the talker.

  McKay rushed to the starboard wing of the bridge. Again the Japanese Nakajirni 97-2’s, called Kates, looked like insects on the horizon. But there was menace in their narrow green fuselages and their headlong approach, only a few dozen feet off the water. These were a more serious threat than the Bettys overhead.

  “Moss,” McKay said to his gunnery officer at his post in main forward. “Concentrate on the torpedo planes. I think those Bettys are too high to do us any damage, unless they get very lucky.”

  Over the telephone circuit came Parker’s voice, urgent and shrill. “Captain, I disagree! You’ve got to put a few shells up there to rattle those guys. We can’t let them make a practice run on us.

  McKay took a deep breath. Don’t lose your temper, he told himself. The man who loses his temper is only a step away from losing his nerve.

  “Commander Moss, this is the captain. Acknowledge my order. Concentrate on the torpedo planes.”

  “Roger, Captain,” Moss said.

  Down in main plot, Montgomery West listened to his thumping heart. “Now it’s a torpedo attack,” the telephone talker said. His jutting underlip trembled. He looked as if he might burst into tears.

  Panic flickered across a half dozen other faces. “Why in hell are they keeping us down here?” Fire Controlman First Class Bourne asked. “We got nothing to shoot at.”

  “Would you rather be topside with shrapnel spraying all over the place?” Bob Edison asked.

  “Yeah,” muttered Bob Finch halfheartedly. For once the Bobbsey Twins did not seem to agree.

  “I’d rather be anywhere than on this fucking ship!” Bourne cried. “You assholes can afford not to give a shit. I got a wife and three kids.”

  “Bourne, shut up. That’s an order,” Montgomery West said. Bourne leered at him. “You look like you feel the same way, Lieutenant.”

  West struggled for courage, calm. “I haven’t got a wife and three kids, if that’s what you mean. But I’ve got a few people who might be a little upset if I got killed. We all do. There’s no point in thinking that way. This is our job. Let’s do it and hope for the best.”

  In the forward fire room, they were too busy to think about what was happening in the sky far above them. Watertender First Class Cartwright warned Marty Roth to feed that hot oil to the boilers “like you’re puttin’ a nipple into a baby’s mouth.” Amos abjured the firemen watching the boiler gauges to keep them balanced precisely in the middle of the range. “We get water in turbine now, and we gonna be up to our necks in water about two minutes later. Glug glug glug,” he bellowed. The men on the air gauges got similar lectures about the importance of keeping smoke to a minimum. “Them guys at the range-finders gotta see what the fuck they’re shootin’ at!”

  With all the hatches shut and the ventilators off, the heat in the engine room rose exponentially. “God damn it,” Roth gasped. “It’s gotta be a hundred fifty degrees down here.”

  “Hell’s a lot hotter,” Cartwright said. “Watch that damn valve.”

  In sky forward, another armored but aft of main forward, Air Defense Officer Robert Mullenoe asked for ranges and bearings from his range-finder operator and from his radar operator. They disagreed by several hundred yards. Lieutenant Commander Edwin Moss, monitoring the conversation from his post in main forward, went wild. “Get together, you stupid bastards,” he screamed.

  “Three thousand yards and closing,” insisted the rangefinder operator. “Twenty-five hundred,” said the radar man.

  “Take the range finder,” shouted Commander Moss. “No one knows whether that goddamn radar works.”

  Commander Parker’s voice came over the line. “Mullenoe, you son of a bitch, start shooting or I’ll come up there and take charge!”

  “Mullenoe, take your time. Get it right,” Captain McKay said.

  “Mount one, take the leader, bearing one zero five, range two thousand yards,” Mullenoe said. He assigned planes to the other five-inch turrets in the same smooth reassuring way.

  On the bridge, the talker drawled, “Cap’n, bombs comin’ down.”

  “Right full rudder,” McKay said. “Flank speed.”

  The Jefferson City tilted wildly to starboard as she went into the turn at thirty-two knots. In the distance, the two destroyers were taking similar evasive action. One of them had heeled over almost forty degrees, so sharp was her turn.

  The first bombs hit a good five hundred yards astern. Huge fountains of water leaped from the sea, remarkably beautiful for a fleeting moment, like giant flowers rising from the dark blue depths. The stunning crash was followed almost instantly by the equally numbing blast of the Jefferson City’s five-inch guns hurling metal at the torpedo planes. There were six Kates, and the cruiser was definitely their target. They were paying no attention to the destroyers, who were banging away at them too.

  “Forty-millimeter mount one, concentrate on the lead plane, bearing one zero five,” Mullenoe said.

  Frank Flanagan hunched against his range finder. His mouth, his tongue felt as if someone had stuffed a 375trafe375 towel down his throat. There was a man in that plane, hurtling toward him with a big tin fish that would kill him and everyone else aboard his ship. He had to kill him first.

  The five-inch guns were all firing too high. The bursts were exploding far above the Japs. Flanagan waited for the lead plane to steady in the small circle in the middle of his director’s sight. From the corner of his eye he could see his gun crew with the snub-nosed shells piled high in the loaders. He pressed the trigger and a stream of shells spewed across the water. Preferring to fire low rather than high, he was short with the first rounds. The Jap kept coming, even though five-inch shells seemed to be bursting all around him now. The yellow bastard had nerve!

  Get him this time. Get him before he lets the fish go. Now!

  Another miss. The Kate had begun weaving and dipping. Finking, they called it. Flanagan almost despaired. He could hear Lieutenant Mullenoe telling the five-inch guns to shorten their fuses. If they stopped to do it, there was no noticeable decrease in the slamming blasts from their muzzles. How could anyone keep a steady hand or eye in the chaos erupting around him?

  “Get him, Flan, you can do it!” It was Jack Peterson on the platform outside main forward. The main battery had nothing to do in air attack. He had left his GQ station, a court-martial offense, to help him out — and incidentally see the show.

  How were the other guns doing? A glance told Flanagan no one had scored a hit yet. The Japs were still coming. An enormous crash to port informed him the bombers overhead were getting closer too. Pieces of shrapnel clanged off metal all around him. The blasts of the Jefferson City’s eight five-inch guns threatened to split his head and cave in his chest. Now! He had the Kate again. He really had him!

  A stream of two-pound forty-millimeter shells struck the Japanese plane. The pilot veered drunkenly to the left and right as if he had run into a huge invisible spider web out there. Flanagan kept the trigger down and poured shells into him. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Peterson was yelling. Suddenly the Jap was no longer a plane; he was a hurtling fireball. A moment later plane and torpedo exploded. The deck apes on the forty-millimeter mount burst into cheers and gave Flanagan a V-for-victory salute. Jack Peterson vaulted to the catwalk to pound him on the back.

  “Good shooting, Forty-Mill One,” Lieutenant Mullenoe said. “Take the next one down the line.”

  Before Flanagan could obey the order, a five-inch shell hit that Kate on the nose and blew it into a million pieces. A third, hit by forty-millimeter shells from another mount, nosed into the water, cartwheel
ed and exploded. But the others kept coming. He saw one, two, three of them release their torpedoes and pull up. Was it going to end so soon? He thought, fear sinking into his stomach like a gulp of cold oatmeal.

  “Torpedoes bearing two one five, two two zero, two two five,” Flanagan shouted into the mouthpiece strapped to his chest.

  On the bridge, the talker reported what Flanagan and a half dozen lookouts and gun captains had told him.

  “Left full rudder,” Captain McKay said.

  The Jefferson City swung to port like an overloaded truck on a high-speed curve. Now the churning torpedoes no longer had the length of her long slim hull to hit. Only her trim fantail was exposed to their murderous noses.

  “More bombs comin’ down,” the talker said.

  “Say a prayer,” McKay muttered.

  “Sorry, Captain, I didn’t hear you,” the talker said. He was a tall serious kid with loving-cup ears.

  “Never mind. I was talking to myself,” McKay said.

  Uncanny. It was so much like that moment on the Monocacy seventeen years ago. He had made a decision on the Yangtze that risked his ship then, and he remained convinced it was the right decision. He was doing the same thing now

  He had to concentrate on evading those torpedoes and hope the Mitsubishis’ aim was as bad as MacArthur’s B-17s’. He stepped out on the starboard wing of the bridge in time to see the torpedoes churning past, the closest one a good hundred yards away. Simultaneously, a stack of bombs began exploding off the port bow. One after another, they walked toward the ship, each one heaving up its deadly fountain of water, like the footsteps of an invisible giant.

  “Captain, for Christ’s sake do something. The next one’s gonna hit,” Parker shouted over the telephone circuit.

  “Right rudder fifteen degrees,” McKay said.

  They sheared drunkenly to starboard as a near miss flung shrapnel and water all over the forward part of the ship. McKay saw a Marine manning a twin twenty-millimeter mount above turret two clutch his chest and topple to the deck. In the same moment one of the Kates came roaring down the length of the ship from the stern, machine guns blazing. Bullets struck sparks off metal everywhere. McKay’s Marine orderly leaped out on the wing yelling, “Watch it, Captain!” He flung McKay up against the bulkhead and covered him with his body. A bullet clanged off the metal shield where he had been standing and dropped to the deck.

  “Thanks, son,” McKay said.

  It was over. The Jefferson City was still afloat, cutting through the greenish-blue water. The Japanese planes dwindled to dots in the sky. Arthur McKay walked to the PA microphone, wondering if he looked as dazed as he felt. “This is your captain speaking. Well done,” he said.

  “I think we got ourselves a real skipper,” Boats Homewood said as they waited in the chow line.

  “Shit. He was just lucky. That last stack of bombs fell short by about ten feet,” Jack Peterson said.

  “We got that ten feet by the captain’s orders,” Homewood said. “I was on the bridge. I heard him give the order to put the rudder over.”

  “Some guys say he only did it because the exec told him to.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Homewood said.

  “Wilkinson says he damn near got court-martialed once in China for freezin’ under fire. His wife’s pull saved his ass.”

  Flanagan said nothing. He was just beginning to return to some semblance of normal thinking and feeling. He was also beginning to realize he had killed a man. What was the Jap like? He wondered. Was he one of those grinning bucktoothed sadists in the Hollywood movies who screamed, “Die, American!” Or did he resemble the Japanese who used to vacation at a big house on the beach near Asbury Park. None of them had buck teeth. They were small, serious men, who nodded and smiled shyly if you met them fishing in the surf early in the morning.

  “Did we have any casualties?” he asked.

  “A Marine took some shrapnel in his chest. That 375trafe didn’t hit nobody,” Homewood said. “I told you our luck’s changed.”

  “I’m gonna try and prove that in the crap game tonight,” Peterson said.

  “Where’n hell did you get any more money?” Homewood said.

  “I got friends besides you,” Peterson said.

  “Jack,” Homewood said, “one of these days I’m gonna give up on you.”

  “Now hear this. Seaman Second Class Flanagan report to the bridge.”

  “They’re gonna court-martial you for shootin’ down that Jap without I’ permission from Kruger,” Peterson said.

  “They are like hell,” Homewood said.

  Flanagan abandoned his tin chow tray and hurried to the bridge, straightening his hat and hastily trying to increase the shine on his shoes en route. Ensign Kruger, on duty as the junior officer of the deck, greeted him with his usual scowl. “Flanagan? The captain wants to see you.”

  Captain McKay stepped into the pilothouse from the wing. Flanagan came to attention. “At ease,” the captain said. “I just wanted to let you know how much I liked your shooting this morning.” He studied Flanagan for a moment. “Haven’t I seen you before?”

  “At Mast, Captain.”

  “Oh, yes. And looking for your Abandon Ship station. Did you forget it again and decide you had to get that guy or else?”

  “No, Captain. I remembered it,” Flanagan said. “After today I’ll never forget it.”

  “Good. How long have you been in the Navy?”

  “Four and a half months, Captain.”

  “Well, it’s a little early, but you deserve it. From now on you’re a seaman first class.

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  The captain nodded to the senior officer of the deck, Lieutenant MacComber. “Call me if you see anything that looks alarming.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” MacComber said.

  Kruger waited until the captain left the bridge. He glared at Flanagan. “You know how long it took me to make seaman first class?”

  “No sir.”

  “Five years!”

  “I don’t get your point, Mr. Kruger,” MacComber said.

  “My point is, we’re spoiling these brats. They’re never gonna make real sailors.”

  “Mr. Kruger, that’s the best news I’ve heard since I made the mistake of going to Annapolis,” MacComber said.

  “Captain,” Montgomery West said, “I think — for the good of the ship — I should be relieved of command of the Fire Control Division.”

  “Give me a better reason than that, Mr. West,” Arthur McKay said. “From everything I’ve seen and heard, you’ve got one of the best divisions on the ship.”

  “Captain, I just can’t handle the situation down in main plot.”

  McKay studied him for a moment. West braced himself for the return of the grim-eyed man he had glimpsed when he told him about Schnable and Jackson.

  “You mean you’re scared shitless down there. And so is everybody else. You don’t know how to handle that.”

  “I’m afraid there’ll be a panic when we need the main battery guns, Captain.”

  “I understand. I remember the first time I crawled into a turret, back in 1919. I felt the same way. A lot of people can’t handle a turret — or a main plotting room. Some people need a handy exit. Then they’re as brave as the next man. They won’t use the exit. They just like knowing it’s there.”

  “I guess I’m one of those people.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. The fact that you can walk in here and tell me about the problem makes, me think not. Who’s the most jittery guy down there?”

  “Fire Controlman First Class Bourne.”

  “Have a talk with him. Tell him you’re depending on him to set an example to the younger men. Lay it on thick. How much you need his help. Have the talk in the plotting room. Start spending time down there with him. Work on some of the equipment with him. Get some of the other men down there too when they’re off watch. Maybe bring some ice cream down from the wardroom after supper. Get them used
to the damn place.”

  West nodded. Would it work? He had no idea. But it was a lot more appealing than the humiliation he had chosen as a first alternative.

  “In the end we may have to get tough. If necessary put a Marine down there with instructions to shoot the first man who doesn’t obey an order.”

  West could only nod dazedly. Arthur McKay had mentioned this last resort in the same calm almost offhand voice he had used to give him advice laced with kindness and guile. West began to wonder if he — or anyone else aboard USS Jefferson City —understood their captain.

  Main Event

  The equatorial sun beat down on the Jefferson City, turning the ship into a giant oven. She was anchored in Segund Channel, off the island of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides. Four other cruisers and five destroyers swung on their hooks a few hundred yards away. Nothing moved on the flat glassy water or on the shore, where two stores, a Catholic hospital and a few tin-roofed houses constituted a town, crowded on all sides by dense green jungle. The steel ships seemed absurdly misplaced in this primitive world. They should have been tall-masted square-riggers from the previous century. Time itself seemed immobilized, prostrate in the hot humid air.

  "You're late for the party, McKay. But we won't hold that against you. We're going to need every gun we can find tomorrow night."

  Rear Admiral Norman Scott sat at attention in his broiling stateroom aboard the heavy cruiser San Francisco. There were no personal mementos on the bulkheads. The room was as sparsely furnished as decency permitted. Comfort and ease were not big in Scott's vocabulary. He wore a permanent scowl on his handsome face. People who had served under him during the previous year, when he was on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, still went pale at the mention of his name.

  Scott told McKay they were expecting a convoy with major American reinforcements for Guadalcanal to arrive from Noumea tomorrow night. There was every reason to suppose the Japs would try to intercept it. For the past three weeks, Scott had been in these waters with the four cruisers and five destroyers, rehearsing tactics. "We're not going to repeat Savo Island and steam around in circles like a lot of ducks while they come and get us. We're going to get them first."