We didn't get the letter you wrote to us about not liking your ship. Maybe it got on a ship or plane that got sunk. Anyway, I'm glad you've changed your mind about the boatswain's mate in command of your division. I'm glad you don't have to lift those heavy shells anymore. Damage control sounds a lot safer, underneath the armored deck. Let's hope the ship never gets damaged and you won't have anything to do!
Father is working very hard. He has all the overtime he can handle. Sis is going crazy about this new singer, Frank Sinatra. She thinks he's better than Ray Eberle! Every nickel she makes at the soda fountain goes for records. I've never seen anything like it. We went to the movies last week and saw Orchestra Wives starring Carol Landis. Sis wanted to see it. Father hated it. He said the musicians were all a bunch of drips. I thought it was okay.
Give my regards to your boatswain. Tell him when you get back to California send him one of my chocolate cakes.
Love, Mother
Dear Frank:
How are you? I saw your mother last week at a benefit to raise a scholarship fund for the school.
She said you were a fire controlman, whatever that is, and you were on your way to the Pacific. If you get to Espiritu Santo, be sure to look up the Marine chaplain there. He's a Jesuit named O'Brien, an old friend of mine. I wish I was young enough to get out there with you fellows. I hope you're getting to Mass regularly. I heard some ships don't have chaplains on them. That's a disgrace.
Let me hear from you, Frank. I hope you've been able to deal with the numerous temptations of the military life and have made some good Catholic friends. That's the best way to handle your situation. Stay with those who share your own moral principles, your own faith in the Church that is built on a rock. I'm remembering you in my Mass every morning.
Your old friend, Francis Callow, S.J.
Dear Frank:
I felt so awful when I read your letter. I still feel awful. To think that I made you do a thing like going to that terrible place in Pearl Harbor and sinning with a prostitute. I cried when you claimed there was no difference between doing it with her and with me. I simply don't believe you, Frank. We weren't sinning. You can never sin when you have Jesus in your heart. But you can sin, I believe you can sin terribly, when you act without Him within you. You've done that, Frank, and I can only conclude it is evidence of how deep Satan's grip on you still is. You found Jesus for a little while with me but you lost him again. I should have seen that all those arguments you hurled at me — that "spirit of contradiction," as Daddy calls it — was Satan speaking. I should have prayed over you, for you, as I am now. We will meet again, Frank, of that I am certain, and resolve these painful differences. I have awakened your spirit to a quest that will end in happiness. But Satan may put many obstacles in your path. Trust in the love that's in your heart, Frank. Trust in Jesus, who put it there.
Love, Teresa
Losses
In his cabin, Arthur McKay read and reread the most recent letter from his wife. Again and again his eyes strayed to the desk drawer where the bottle of Ballantine's Scotch awaited his summons.
No, that was all Parker needed to ruin him. In addition to his other shortcomings, Captain McKay is a drunk.
Why hadn't he banned whiskey the day Parker handed him that bottle? Was he toying with the idea of using it as evidence against Win? A wet ship. That would have been all Admiral King needed to hang Captain Kemble from the Washington Monument. Now it was too late to speak, either to Cominch or to the officers of the Jefferson City. Captain McKay had accepted a wet ship when he accepted that bottle.
Unspeakable, the thought of betraying Win to Cominch on such a charge. Rita was corrupting his spirit again. Women who both love and hate their fathers tend to love and hate their husbands too.
True but not worthy of inclusion in the Duc's select ranks. Try again. An ambitious wife makes for a discouraged husband. A little better, and also true.
In defense of said wife, she was not the only reason for the husband's state of mind. Captain McKay's latest confrontation with his executive officer had gone badly. When he asked Parker for an explanation of his conduct on the bridge on the night of the second battle of Savo Island, the commander had curtly replied that he had only been protesting an order that seemed to him more foolhardy than brave. He practically dared the captain to bring him up on charges.
Then there was the matter of Admiral Scott's claim of four cruisers and four destroyers sunk at the second battle of Savo Island. It was a dismaying glimpse of careerism in the upper echelons of the American Navy. No one had contradicted the admiral, although every captain in the task force knew there had never been more than five Japanese ships in the battle! Neither had anyone said a word — nor had Scott sought a comment — about American tactics in the battle. They were, to put it mildly, primitive. They had gotten nothing out of their destroyers, with their high speed and deadly torpedo tubes. By throwing them into the middle of the slugfest between the cruisers, several of them had been horribly mauled.
So far, Win had been right about the kind of war they were fighting out here. Admiral Ghormley sat in Noumea wringing his hands and Admiral Scott scored fantasy victories over an inferior Japanese battle force that had obviously been taken by surprise on their way to bombard Henderson Field. McKay shuddered to think of what would have happened to them if they had encountered the Japanese battleships that had flattened half of Guadalcanal the following night.
As for Cominch, Rita's letter annihilated one of Arthur McKay's pleasanter fantasies — the thought that through his wife he had access to the Navy's leader and could make constructive criticisms that would speed the day of victory. Cominch did not even want to hear the truth about the Japs' losses! Fundamental information for fighting the war, it seemed to Arthur McKay. But Cominch was fighting many wars — one in the Atlantic, another in the Pacific, another in the White House and another in Congress. A final one against his numerous enemies among his fellow admirals.
A knock on his door. The messenger from the bridge stood there. "Captain, it's twelve o'clock. The chronometers have all been wound."
"Ring the bell.”
Somehow this ancient tradition comforted him. He was still captain of this ship. He was still in command. Aboard the Jefferson City, it was not twelve o'clock until he said so.
As the bell bonged through the ship, a voice whispered to Arthur McKay: Now. Take that bottle and pour it down the toilet. Do it now.
A harsher voice whispered: No. You might need it. You might need it very soon.
A half hour later, Captain McKay received a visit from the Jefferson City's two doctors. Both wore expressions that spelled trouble.
"Captain," Dr. Levy said, "I'm afraid we've got a problem only you can solve. I've investigated the results of Dr. Cadwallader's surgery aboard the Boise and I'm sorry to report the mortality was much too high. If a surgeon had those kinds of statistics in a modern hospital, he'd be suspended immediately. From now on, I think I should perform all the surgery aboard this ship.”
Cadwallader struggled to preserve his dignity as an officer and doctor against this onslaught from the voice of modem medicine. "I have tried to point out to Lieutenant Levy that we chose the cases willy nilly aboard the Boise and it was entirely possible that I drew many of the most seriously injured. Therefore his statistics are more insulting than meaningful."
There was a tremor in Cadwallader's voice. His stress on the word Lieutenant made it clear that he expected McKay to support his rank and long years in the Navy. But the captain was thinking about the death of the buoy man and his doubts about Cadwallader, which preceded that tragedy. Even if Levy's statistics were tainted, the decision was inescapable. "From now on, whenever possible, Dr. Levy will perform all the surgery," McKay said.
The shock and reproach on Cadwallader's face were painful. "Aye, aye, Captain," he said. "I'll bone up on my internal medicine, lest I be relieved of that duty too."
He stalked out, leaving McKay with t
he certainty he had created a formidable enemy in the wardroom. "Dr. Levy," Arthur McKay said, "I admire your concern for the men. But I don't admire the way you handled this situation. You may be a good surgeon. But you've got a lot to learn about being a doctor."
"I'm a scientist. I don't worry about feelings," Levy said.
"I'm a captain. I do."
"Jesus. Look at those guys."
Frank Flanagan stood at his gun director sharing the queasy sensations of the gun crew of his forty-millimeter mount as the Jefferson City approached a pod of rafts in the Coral Sea about two hundred miles west of Guadalcanal. Lying on the rafts and clinging to their cork sides were seventy or eighty survivors of the destroyer Jason Swaine. Three weeks had passed since the second battle of Savo Island (later christened the battle of Cape Esperance). Slowly, ruefully, the sailors had realized the Japs were far from beaten. Scarcely a night passed without an air raid on their anchorage at Espiritu Santo. Every day, destroyers and transports began the six-hundred-mile journey from Santo to Guadalcanal ferrying aviation gasoline, ammunition and food to the embattled Marines. Few of them made it without fighting for their lives against swarms of Japanese planes. Quite a few of them met the fate of the Jason Swaine.
"Flanagan."
It was Boats Homewood. He had come from the bridge, where he was boatswain's mate of the watch. "We need a strong swimmer in the motor whaleboat. Peterson tells me you're one. Get down to the main deck. I'll get Jack to take over your director."
The next thing. Flanagan knew, he was seated in the whaleboat while it made a swaying forty-foot descent from the main deck to the water. The coxswain, who looked and sounded like Homewood's first cousin, started the motor while they were in midair and barked confusing orders. "Keep that goddamn manrope in your hand, sailor," he told Flanagan, who did not have the faintest idea what he was talking about. One of the boat crew thrust a rope that was connected to the winch above them into his hand. "In case we go ass over teakettle you climb back up on it," the sailor whispered.
"Stand by to let go the sea painter," the coxswain roared as they hit the water, which was amazingly choppy. From the superstructure of the cruiser the sea had looked calm. For a harrowing sixty seconds they seemed pinned to the immense steel wall of the ship, which was still under way. "Cast off the painter," the coxswain barked, and they pulled free under their own power.
Ordinarily these survivors would have been picked up by their escorting destroyer. But she was busy dropping depth charges on a submarine contact a half mile to starboard. As the motor whaleboat headed for the rafts, a dozen men started swimming toward the J.C. "Stay with the rafts. Stay with the rafts," Captain McKay said over the PA system. "We'll get you all aboard. The motor whaleboat will take off the wounded first." The swimmers ignored him and kept on struggling toward the ship. Their faces and bodies were coated with oil. Two of them stopped, obviously too weak to continue.
"You better get those guys, Flanagan," the coxswain said. "We'll cover you."
Flanagan was startled to see him and two other members of the boat crew pick up rifles and load them. "Cover me against what?" he said.
"What the fuck do you think? Sharks," the coxswain said.
Flanagan pulled off his life jacket, kicked off his shoes and dove into the water. He got to the first man and pulled him back to the whaleboat in a chest carry. The boat crew hauled him in. He turned to go back for the other man, but he was gone. "Jesus," he said, and dove down to find him.
Flanagan saw the man sinking into the darkness, turning slowly like a dying top. He swam down after him using a combination breast stroke and scissor kick and got his hand on the man's collar. It was rotted by water and grease and it ripped off. The man spun away from him and pain pounded in Flanagan's bursting lungs.
Out of the blue-black depths came a lunging gray shape at least ten feet long. It hurtled past the man at an incredible speed and dark fluid swirled up from his body. Flanagan rocketed to the surface, his brain a muddle of terror. "Shark!" he gasped and flailed toward the boat.
"Where is he? Where's the guy?" the coxswain shouted, raising his rifle to his shoulder.
"Down there. I couldn't get him," Flanagan lied, frantically hoisting himself into the boat.
"Air raid. Air raid," boomed the Jefferson City's PA. The other swimmers were being hauled aboard on manropes. They swung like berserk pendulums as smoke gushed from the J.C.'s two funnels and the engines went to full ahead. Up in the sky Flanagan could see at least a dozen Japanese planes. "Vals," he said, recognizing the profile of the Aichi 99-1 dive bombers.
"Bait, these poor bastards were bait," the coxswain said. "And we bit."
"What do we do, Cox?" asked one of the boat crew.
"Not a goddamn thing," the coxswain said, "except get far away from them rafts and hope we're too small to notice."
"Where the hell have you guys been?" croaked the first man Flanagan had rescued. "We've been in the water four days."
"Ask the admiral, pal," the coxswain said.
"We sent an SOS. I know. I sent it," the sailor said.
"What hit you?" the coxswain said.
"We got jumped by about twenty planes. We went down in sixty seconds."
A tremendous explosion five hundred yards away ended all conversation. The first bomb had come down. Six, seven more landed in a pattern around the Jefferson City, which was zigzagging away from them, all her five-inch and smaller-caliber guns firing. Flanagan found it a marvelous sight from the whaleboat. The J.C. looked like a dragon from a nightmarish fairy tale spitting fire from two dozen mouths.
"I tell you, the captain can conn that old girl," the coxswain said.
"They didn't get a single plane," Flanagan said.
"Dive bombers is tough," the coxswain said.
"Oh, Christ," Flanagan said. "Look what they're doing now."
The Japanese planes had pulled out of their dives and streaked toward the horizon, where they went into a V formation and headed back toward the men on the rafts. "I knew it," the coxswain said. "I knew those dirty yellow bastards were gonna do it."
Machine-gun fire churned the water around the rafts. One man tried to throw himself off a raft and was flung in the opposite direction by a burst. A five-inch shell from the Jefferson City exploded above the planes. "Jesus Christ, why can't they hit one of them?" one of the boat crew yelled. "Fuckin' fire controllers ain't worth a shit."
As the Japanese wheeled for another run on the rafts, a second five-inch shell blew the lead plane into pieces. "Hey, I take that back," the critic yelled. But the other Japs swept the rafts with a second murderous blast of bullets. "Those fucking bastards," Flanagan said.
"Watch it!" the coxswain yelled.
One of the Jap planes had peeled off from the formation and came roaring across the water toward them. "Into the drink," the coxswain yelled.
Flanagan rolled over the gunwale. The crew struggled to lift the oil-covered survivor into the water beside him. The coxswain stood at his tiller on the stern, aiming a rifle at the oncoming plane. It was the bravest, dumbest thing Flanagan had ever seen in his life. The man was defending his crew and his boat. The Val's machine guns chattered. The water turned white all around them. Bullets flung the coxswain backward out of the boat. The crew whirled like modern dancers in the firestorm of metal.
It was over. Flanagan was clutching the oil-soaked man in the water. The coxswain floated on his back a few feet away. Sobbing, groaning sailors lay in the boat. With some help from the only unwounded man, Flanagan managed to get the destroyer survivor out of the water again. He was dismayed to discover the man had been hit by a bullet. Blood oozed from a wound in his cheek, coating the oil on his face an incongruous red.
Flanagan sat with the man's head in his lap watching him die as the Jefferson City churned back to the whaleboat and the decimated survivors on the rafts. Coming toward them with her cannon trained forward, her gun directors and radar turning to detect an enemy, she looked invincible,
a murderous queen of the seas. As she drew closer and slowed to gaze down at the carnage in the whaleboat, she became a huge savage mother, mourning over children whom her weaponry had failed to protect.
"This is it. This is the big one," Jack Peterson said as they watched Douglas Dauntless dive bombers take off from the USS Hornet. In his capacity as scuttlebutt admiral, Jack had been predicting a battle that would settle the war. A few days later Captain McKay had made him a prophet by telling the crew they were going to operate with Task Force 17, built around the Hornet, while another task force of about the same size surrounded the carrier Enterprise. Most of the cruisers and destroyers were new to the war zone. The Japanese were certain to accept the challenge of these reinforcements.
Moreover, the Americans had a new South Pacific commander. Admiral Bill Halsey had replaced Ghormley, and that too meant action. "Halsey only knows how to do one thing — fight," Peterson said. "You watch us go after these Nips now."
Flanagan and most of the other members of F Division found it hard to share Jack's cockiness. All they had seen or heard in the anchorage at Espiritu Santo were losses. More destroyers joining the graveyard fleet in Ironbottom Sound — the name some mordant joker had coined for the narrow passage between Guadalcanal and Florida Island. Other destroyers staggered back with bridges smashed, engine rooms flooded, to disgorge another load of burned, maimed men into landing craft. Radio Central, which listened to everything on the air waves, reported growing desperation among the Marines, who faced massive assaults of screaming Japanese by day and murderous bombardments from Japanese cruisers and destroyers by night.
The all too familiar boatswain's whine lanced their eardrums. "All hands man your battle stations," boomed the PA. Flanagan watched his deck apes swarm onto the mount below him. Were they also wondering if it was the Jefferson City's turn this time? Since the episode in the whaleboat, Flanagan had found it harder and harder to believe in God's sheltering hand. Why had that destroyer sailor died from a bullet after surviving four days in the water? What was the meaning of the coxswain's bravery when it cost him his life? Why had Frank Flanagan escaped that storm of machine-gun fire after he had lost his nerve and abandoned the other sailor to the shark?
Time and Tide Page 30