Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  Your devoted war bride, Christine

  Dear Frank:

  I have written you four letters without an answer. I hope it's because your ship is in some remote place in the Pacific, where mail seldom arrives. I don't like to think you have stopped writing to me, Frank. Although we knew each other only a little while, we exchanged a part of our souls. We had a meaning for each other that went beyond the time in which we met.

  Oh, Frank, it grows harder and harder to feel Jesus's love in my soul. I go to other churches, but none of their preachers can awaken the smallest stirring. I have tried to find it in the gift of myself to sailors like you, but that has turned out to be as barren as any road through the Oklahoma dust bowl. None of them understand or care about what I am trying to do. They treat me like a whore, Frank. They offer me money. Sometimes I take it because I need it. I haven't been able to hold a steady job. I keep looking for someone I can respect, who has proof of the Lord's grace in his soul. But they are not very visible in Los Angeles.

  Do you ever pray any more, Frank? I still pray for you. It's the only sincere prayer I can make, these days. I can't pray for my worthless sinful self.

  Teresa

  Dear Frank:

  What a bastard you are. Five letters and not a word from you. I thought I meant a little something to you while we were together. You've made me feel as cheap as a tart in Woolloomooloo. I won't even wear a green willow around my hat for you, Flanagan!

  I think all you Americans are going to have to pay a price for the way you've debauched half the girls in Australia. See what a little neglect can do to someone with a strong dose of Irish puritanism in her blood? I mean it, tho. It's gotten so any girl who's even seen with an American serviceman is presumed to be a tart or a sheila, at best.

  Still I'm too Irish not to admire a fighting man. I hope you've gotten that book of Yeats's last poems I sent you. There's a good motto in it that he wrote for his tombstone. "Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by!"

  Love (in spite of your neglect), Annie

  Dearest Joey:

  I'm still in the Colonies fending off advances from countless slavering American officers. If I went into business I could match my Hollywood salary here! But I've been excruciatingly true to you, darling.

  The news about your executive officer seems to have swirled around Sydney. That newspaperman who was on the ship for a while has been telling everyone about it. I don't understand why your captain didn't just sack the bastard. But take it from a sailor's daughter, the Navy is a very complicated world. There are feuds and alliances that stretch across oceans and continents. I think it has something to do with feeling so lonely at sea. The people you sail around with become almost too meaningful. Maybe when you get down to it, you're all mentally unbalanced!

  But then, how does that explain your falling in love with someone as rational as me?

  To get serious for a moment, I am thinking of going back to England. I am just a little discouraged by the chill that's descended on my career in your country. Charlie Benbow thinks I should go back and regroup. I know you detest Charlie and I almost think you don't quite believe me when I tell you he's as queer as Chinese currency and that story about us having an affair was the brainstorm of his publicity agent. But he is an old friend and awfully shrewd about show business. What do you think?

  As ever, Gwen

  Dearest Jacko :

  One more letter like the one I just got and I will swim out to wherever you are with a gold wedding band in my teeth. I've got to strike while your heart and head are in this state of romantic mush! It can't last, although of course I hope it will.

  Forgive me for sounding cynical, but I have known you for a while. Everyone at the Navy Yard in Seattle (the Navy officers, I mean) is talking about how your ex-Captain Kemble blew out his brains. (I haven't been dating officers, I've been listening at nearby tables in the cafeteria.) Nobody seems to be shedding any tears for him. But I suppose his wife loved the guy. That's an awful thing to do to a woman. Deep down I think he must have hated her.

  I bought myself an Easter hat. The first money I've splurged since I started saving for my trousseau. Tell me I'm not being unrealistic. I need to hear it as often as possible.

  Love, Martha

  A Hell Of A Way To Fight A War

  Captain Arthur McKay sensed something was wrong as he mounted the steps of the tin-roofed Officer's Club on the shore of Purvis Bay to confer with Rear Admiral A. Stanton "Tip" Merrill and the three other captains of Cruiser Division 12. Bill Heard, the big jovial Texan who commanded the Columbia, barely said hello. Leighton Wood, the shy, introspective captain of the Montpelier, avoided his eyes. The captain of the Akron, erect, always correct Ed Bowers, an ex-submariner who had acquired that service's tradition of silence, seemed to be glaring at him.

  But Admiral Merrill's expression was the real storm warning. Normally, Tip greeted his senior officers with a broad Georgia smile and a glass in his hand. Admiral Merrill preferred this somewhat unorthodox site for a council of war because it guaranteed them a steady supply of bourbon. He was one of the club's better customers. If you made the mistake of meeting him in the bar after supper, you might not get back to your ship until dawn. Like Bull Halsey, Tip believed a man should drink as hard as he fought and vice versa.

  What could be wrong? McKay wondered. Last night they had had a successful run up the Slot, even though they had lost the destroyer Casey to Jap batteries concealed around Munda Airfield. The Jefferson City had done a nice job of silencing the batteries after they had surprised the Casey. The admiral had flashed them a Well Done, which considerably expanded the confidence of their new gunnery officer, Robert Mullenoe.

  McKay thought he had found the answer to the mystery when Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner emerged from the head to join them at the table. Turner would destroy the conviviality of any meeting. He had the same intense glower on his beetle-browed face he had worn the last time McKay had seen him in Noumea. There was something else in his expression that made McKay uneasy. The hint of an unpleasant smile played across Turner's lips. From his pocket he took a newspaper clipping and spread it on the table in front of them, like a poker player throwing down an ace.

  McKay could read the headline on the story without his glasses: A HELL OF A WAY TO FIGHT A WAR.

  "As I've explained to the other fellows, Admiral Turner's here to discuss the landing on Munda scheduled for the end of next month."

  Triumph glittered in Turner's eyes. He had apparently done sufficient penance for Savo to win a second chance from Cominch King.

  "But before we get to that," Merrill continued, "we've got somethin' a lot less pleasant to discuss. Have you seen this, Art?" He pointed to the newspaper clipping.

  McKay shook his head. It was a wire story by Desmond O'Reilly for the International News Service. That probably meant it had appeared in a lot of newspapers,

  "Admiral Turner brought it up from Noumea this morning." McKay put on his glasses to read the text.

  As I have reported earlier in this series, thanks to my tours aboard a half dozen American ships, I can tell the American people that the U.S. Navy has the situation very well in hand in the Pacific. We are beating the pants off the treacherous little yellow monkeys, sinking their ships, shooting down their planes, blowing their airfields apart with bombs from the air and salvos from the sea.

  But that does not mean all is perfect in the U.S. Navy. There is a tradition of snobbery, of privilege that runs deep into the Navy's system and is in sharp contradiction to the goals of universal democracy and equality enunciated by America's leaders in this global war. Sometimes it manifests itself in the most pernicious way.

  I saw an example of it aboard one of our cruisers in the Solomons. The Captain, an Annapolis graduate, decided to get rid of his Executive Officer, who was not an Annapolis graduate. The man had apparently risen too high for the Navy, who has never had an admiral who was not an Academy graduate, to tolerate. The Capt
ain began a campaign of harassment, of insult and humiliation, to destroy this officer....

  The story went on for another six paragraphs, depicting in largely imaginary detail how the sadistic captain drove the brave, loyal executive officer over the edge of sanity.

  "Is any of that true?" Admiral Merrill asked.

  "No," Captain McKay said.

  "But that reporter was on your ship?"

  "Yes."

  "How do you explain it?"

  "I don't think I have to explain it, Admiral. It's an internal matter —a matter that concerned the discipline and good order of my ship. It's a captain's responsibility."

  "The hell you say," Merrill snapped. "This happened under my command. In Cruiser Division Twelve. It's my responsibility as much as yours."

  Kelly Turner sat there, his arms crossed on his chest, saying nothing. But his eyes were full of savage delight.

  Merrill was right, of course. In the Navy, responsibility always traveled up on a curve that eventually landed on the desk of the Chief of Naval Operations. That was why everyone wanted and needed to find out who was at fault when something went wrong. If someone could not be found, the responsibility kept rising like the temperature in a runaway boiler until the explosion threatened everyone.

  "The story is wrong. The guy doesn't know what he's talking about."

  "But Parker — your executive officer — did have a breakdown. He was transferred off last month?”

  “Yes.”

  "Did any of the harassment he described take place?"

  "If by harassment you mean correcting his gross mistakes as officer of the deck and noting in the ship's log what I considered cowardly conduct, the answer is yes. I had decided to get rid of the man."

  "Why didn't you? Why didn't you just tell me you wanted a replacement? I would have found one for you in twenty-four hours."

  "The man threatened me — he threatened all of us — with political retaliation. He has powerful friends in Congress. I felt we needed evidence to make a case for his incompetence."

  "Why the fuck didn't you talk to me about that?" Merrill said. "Maybe I would have gone along. Maybe I would have advised you to get rid of him and let the whole fucking Congress scream their heads off. As long as we keep winning this war, they can't touch us."

  McKay faced Kelly Turner's mocking eyes. Oblivion, he thought. That was the only answer to this mess. Why hadn't one of those Japanese shore batteries planted a five-inch shell on the bridge last night? Why didn't his body revolt against days and nights of sleeplessness, words from Rita's letter and Win's letter marching and countermarching through his mind? Why did he still have a ship, a reputation to defend?

  McKay looked into the stony faces of his fellow captains. They could not help him. They had all dealt with delicate problems on their ships. Ed Bowers, in a moment of candor late one night at the bar, had admitted he was tolerating rampant homosexuality aboard the Akron. The ship was a giant daisy chain. "As long as they fight, I don't give a damn what they do off watch," he said. But the moment a problem got off their ships, it became the admiral's, the Navy's headache.

  "Maybe I should have done that, Admiral. But you've been captain of a ship. You know how a captain wants to solve his problems on board."

  "Sure. And I made damn sure they didn't get off my ship and turn into a fucking Frankenstein's monster that smears the whole U.S. Navy.”

  Arthur McKay saw Win Kemble turning his back on Lucy, on new ships transiting the Panama Canal to come out to the war, turning his back on the Pacific and the Atlantic, and mounting the stairs to his study. He saw him placing the black barrel of the .45 service revolver in his mouth. Why did he know he placed the barrel in his mouth? No one had told him that. Across the table he could see Kelly Turner smiling, even though his face remained contemptuously somber.

  Maybe the Navy deserves to get smeared. Maybe I'm glad I did it, even if the smear is a lie. Maybe I'm glad I've made Cominch squirm.

  Say it, whispered a voice in McKay's head. Say it and end your career here and now. Say it and you will be off that ship and on your way to a kind of oblivion tomorrow.

  But he did not say it. That ship out there in the harbor and the men aboard her were still his responsibility. He belonged to them now. Not to the Navy, to his career, to Rita. Only to them. He had wounded them in the name of a false ideal. He had allowed his personal life, his loyalty to a friend, to interfere with his loyalty to them. He would try to atone for that sin by becoming their captain, nothing but their captain.

  "I'm sorry if that's happened, Admiral. I didn't foresee it- any more than you foresaw those Jap shore batteries that sank the Casey last night. War, life, is unpredictable as hell."

  That did it. He was telling the admiral he might have made the same mistake. McKay could see pain in Leighton Wood's eyes; he was trying to say, No, no, Art. Eat a little shit. They'll take your ship away from you. McKay felt closest to Wood among the captains in Crudiv 12. He was another shy bitch, a reader and a thinker.

  "Well I want to make a prediction now that I think will be on target," Admiral Merrill said. "You and your goddamned ship will no longer be under my command, one week from today."

  "I concur wholeheartedly with Admiral Merrill's decision," Kelly Turner said. "I hope I never see the Jefferson City in any operation I command."

  Gambles And Gambols

  Hands on his hips, Jack Peterson squinted disgustedly down tawdry River Street in Honolulu. With thousands of additional sailors swelling the uniformed population, the place had become impossible. Long lines snaked along the sidewalk outside the government-run whorehouses. The bars were so crowded you had to fight to get a drink.

  "This is for the birds, Flan. We got to get ourselves an apartment," Jack said.

  "Apartments are going for about three hundred bucks a week. Are you planning to rob a bank?"

  "How much dough you got?"

  "Fifty bucks."

  "I got a hundred. Homewood's good for another hundred, if we get him before he goes on liberty again. So we need maybe another three hundred to have a good time."

  Flanagan was unimpressed. To someone getting paid seventy-eight dollars a month, three hundred dollars was as remote as three million. Unless Jack got lucky with the dice—lately his luck had been terrible — they were not likely to get their hands on more money.

  "What do you think of my chances of gettin' to see Admiral Nimitz?" Jack said.

  "About as good as your chances of getting his job."

  "I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of guys would lay ten to one against me gettin' in to see him."

  "I'd lay a hundred to one."

  "It's a good thing you're a buddy. I'd own you for life."

  Back aboard ship the next day, Jack strolled up to Jerome Wilkinson while he supervised a scrubdown of the main deck. "Hey, Wilkie," he said. "Tomorrow I'm goin' over to CINCPAC to pay my respects to Admiral Nimitz. Anything you want me to tell him?"

  Wilkinson's ugly face broke into a leer. "What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

  "The Navy's always puffin' out this jive about how we're all a band of brothers, and officers and crew are one big team. I thought he might like to hear how the guys in the white hats think he's doin'."

  "You've finally popped your cork. I always knew sittin' in that fuckin' range finder with them fuckin' radar waves all around you was goin' to affect your fuckin' brain."

  "You don't think I can do it? If you're so goddamn sure of that, what kinda odds will you give me?"

  "Ten to one. What are you bettin'?"

  "I'll lay you twenty bucks. My buddy Flanagan here's holdin' the money."

  Wilkinson grabbed his hand. "That's the easiest twenty I ever made," he chortled.

  The word swept the ship like a gasoline fire. At dinner a half dozen of Jack's dice-playing foes stopped to place bets at varying odds. By this time several people began to wonder if he had some sort of inside track that he was concealing. But no one, try as he might
, could figure out what it was. They were reassured by Boats Homewood, who insisted. Jack had definitely slipped his cable.

  After supper, Homewood dragged Jack and Flanagan up to the fantail and threatened them with dismemberment if they did not let him in on the game. "What's the angle?" he asked. "I smell a fuckin' general court-martial in this thing. You plannin' to crawl in a window at CINCPAC and claim you seen the admiral? Then ten Marines drag you off to the base brig and we sail without you?"

  "What the fuck do you mean by that?" Jack demanded.

  "I mean I think I smell shit runnin' down your legs," Homewood said. "That bull you've been throwin' about never seem' home again. As if you had any fuckin' use for home or mother. Are you just tryin' to get off this ship before we sail again?"

  "Jesus Christ," Jack said. "If you weren't an old man, I'd kick you in the nuts and never speak to you again. Who the fuck are you to tell me what I should feel? If you wanta know the fuckin' truth, I don't have a clue to how I'm gonna get in to see Nimitz. What I'm tryin' to find out is just how good my luck still is. So I dreamt this up to put it to the test."

  "You gonna take this kid with you? If you wanta act like a goddamn screwball, that's your business. But don't mess this kid up too."

  "He's holdin' the money, that's all," Jack said.

  "Okay, go ahead. I never could figure out what the fuck went on in your head."

  "I never asked you to figure it out! If you'd stop screamin' for ten seconds, you might see I got a better chance than you think. When Nimitz hears I'm from the Jefferson City, he might want to ask me a few questions about what the hell's been happenin' aboard this tub."

  Homewood seized Jack by the throat. "You mean you're gonna talk down the captain?"

  "Hell no. I'll tell him everything's great. I just want to win the fuckin' bet. Can't you get that much straight?"

  "You're the one who'd better be straight on this thing," Homewood said. "If you ain't on this ship when we sail for the next operation, I'll find you when we come back and beat the shit out of you, if I got to bribe twenty-two Marines to let me into your cell to do it!"