Final Harbor (The Silent War Book 1)

by Harry Homewood

  The words poured out of him. He told her about Marie, about his courtship of the tall, angular girl-woman, about their marriage and about her death and the terrible emptiness it had left in him. She listened, speaking only enough to keep his narrative going, filling his coffee cup, lighting a cigaret for him. And then he had stopped, his face stricken. She reached forward and touched his hand.

  “Don’t! It was something you had to do sooner or later. I’m glad you did it, I’m glad you told it to me!”

  “I don’t know what got into me,” he mumbled.

  “You’ve got it backwards,” she said gently. “It was something that was in you already and had to come out. You can’t keep something like that inside you and bottled up forever. It has to come out, one way or another it has to come out and it came out as it was, as something fine and decent and good. You were a very lucky man. She was a lucky woman. You were lucky to have each other.”

  “The reminiscing of an old man!” he said in a low voice.

  “Old? Thirty-seven is old? You’re young! You’ve got a lifetime ahead of you and it will be a better life now, for you, for those around you who care about you.”

  “How do you know?” he stared at her.

  “Because I’m a woman, that’s all. Because I think I know how Marie felt about you. And because I think I know that it makes me happy that she was happy and that you were happy.

  “Because I know that if you had not found someone to talk to, to tell about the two of you, that what you kept inside of you would eventually change and corrode and when that happened you would begin to change and dry up inside. I don’t want you to change, not a little bit.”

  He looked at her, his eyes veiled. “The Chaplain at Pearl is a wise man. He said almost the same thing but he used some different words. You are a wise woman, Joan Richards.”

  She smiled and her face was gentle. “If you say so. Me, I think I’m wise enough to leave you now.” She picked up her clipboard and her handbag.

  “I’ll put in a call for seven tomorrow morning,” she said. “For both of us. We’ll have an early breakfast and hit the bricks again. Another day, another dollar. We hit two factories tomorrow morning and then a luncheon speech. Do you know that as of the last accounting you’ve raised more money for War Bonds than anyone except Marlene Dietrich? How does that grab you?”

  He smiled at her and she left his room, her head high. She did not, he noticed, swing her hips.

  The evening talks in his hotel suite became a regular event. Hinman told Joan of his boyhood, his life at the Naval Academy and his fondness for practical jokes and how that fondness had stunted his career until his marriage to Marie, an Admiral’s daughter. He told her about submarines and the men who sailed in them. And he spoke freely about Captain Severn’s scathing denunciation of himself and Mike Brannon. He told her how Ben Butler’s idea about the War Bond tour had saved his career and that of Mike Brannon as well

  Joan said little, only enough to keep him talking. When he asked, she told him about Ben Butler, the respect he was given by his peers in the newspaper business for his honesty and his ability. Once, when he asked, she talked briefly about her own brief marriage and why, although her husband was handsome and on his way to success in the advertising field, she had decided that it was better to be out of the marriage and happy than married and unhappy.

  The lid blew off in Los Angeles. The day’s schedule had been crowded; a breakfast for a group of businessmen and a short speech, a tour of a war plant and a short speech and then a luncheon in front of a Rotary group, two afternoon appearances before women’s groups and a formal dinner hosted by the Mayor in the evening.

  Joan nudged Hinman on the arm as they walked across the hotel lobby to the ballroom where the dinner was to be held.

  “You’re edgy, boss,” she said quietly. “It’s been a heavy day, too heavy. Calm down and take it very easy.” He nodded.

  The press hadn’t been around during the daytime appearances but they were out in force for the Mayor’s dinner, which the City Council was co-hosting. By this time, three weeks into the War Bond tour, every newspaper had a fat envelope on Lieut. Comdr. Arthur Hinman, U.S.N. and what he had said in a score of speeches and press conferences. Now the task that faced the press was to get Hinman to say something new or at worst, say what he had been saying in a different form so it would read like news, to come up with new questions that would draw answers that would make good copy.

  Hinman, carefully briefed by Joan Richards, tried to cooperate, to vary his answers to the stock questions and to parry the pointed questions of those reporters whose publishers were strongly opposed to President Roosevelt’s international policies and the entry of the United States into the war.

  One of those reporters, a lean man with a sharp nose and an irritating voice, went after Hinman in the question-and-answer section that had become a feature of his luncheon and dinner appearances. The reporter’s nagging questions and his caustic references to the low intelligence level of anyone who would be “deceived” about President Roosevelt’s “real reasons” for the American entry into the war had finally broken through Hinman’s composure.

  Hinman gripped the edge of the lectern with his hard hands and looked out over the dinner audience for a long moment, his face grim. Then he looked straight at the reporter.

  “Sir,” he began in a quiet voice. “I am getting damned sick and tired of you people who keep saying that I am a fool for fighting President Roosevelt’s war! I am damned sick and tired of it! And I am damned sick of you and everyone like you!

  “If you think the other side is so great why in the hell aren’t you over there on that side? I happen to believe that if the other side wins we will lose every freedom we have and I am not going to let that happen as long as I am alive, not to me and by God, not to you!”

  The man waved his pencil and started to reply but Hinman cut him off with a raised hand and the harsh ring of command in his voice.

  “No, I will not let you speak, sir! I did you the courtesy of hearing you out and you do me the same courtesy!” He pointed his finger at the reporter.

  “If you really think that this war we are in is not our war then, damn you, go out to Pearl Harbor and look at the remains of the United States Navy! There are more than two thousand dead men under the water of that harbor! Men who died without a decent chance to defend themselves! Men who were killed in a sneak attack that was timed,” his voice rose, “a sneak attack timed to catch those men as they were on their way to church service!” He leaned over the lectern, his eyes boring into the reporter’s eyes.

  “My wife, God rest her soul, was on her way to church, to the chapel at Hickam Air Base in Pearl Harbor.

  “She was in a car with the wives of two other officers. A Japanese pilot with a wealth of military targets in the harbor and on the Base machine-gunned that car with three women in it! He caught them fifty yards from the church!

  “I don’t want your wife or anyone here to die like that! And I won’t let it happen as long as there is blood in my body, as long as the citizens — I said citizens, mister — as long as the citizens of this country give us the weapons we need to fight this ‘someone else’s war’ you talk about! And if you don’t like my attitude or what I say, mister, I’ll go out in the alley with you right now and you can do your damndest to change it!”

  For a long moment there was a dead silence in the hall and then the diners surged to their feet applauding, stamping their feet. A reporter for The New York Times sighed and looked at a reporter for the Chicago Daily News.

  “I think The New York Times is entitled to make an editorial comment for all of us,” he said. In full view of the diners and the speaker’s table he walked over to the reporter Hinman had blasted and politely turned him half-way around and then kicked him as hard as he could. The audience began to laugh and applaud and Joan Richards nudged Hinman.

  “Make your regrets to the Mayor and let’s get the hell out of here
,” she whispered. He nodded and said a few words to the Mayor, who clapped him on the back and started for the door. A radio reporter with a microphone stopped Hinman and Joan Richards.

  “I have Captain Hinman right here, folks. You just heard him on this network. Captain, will you say a few words?”

  Joan pulled on his arm but he stopped and bent to the microphone the man held up to his face.

  “I would be happy to do that, sir,” he said slowly. “If I offended any of your audience with my sea-going language, I apologize. I do not apologize for what I said. I think it’s time someone stood up and said it. We are in a terrible, a bitter, vicious war with an implacable and determined enemy. We are going to win this war come what may and when we do I hope it will be the start of peace for generations to come. Thank you.”

  “That was an exclusive statement from Captain Hinman, the submarine hero of the Navy, ladies and gentlemen, an exclusive report on this network ....” the radio reporter was still babbling into his microphone as Hinman and Joan left by a side door.

  An hour later, sitting in his hotel suite with his tie off and his shirt undone at the neck, Hinman looked at Joan.

  “Well, lady, I guess I blew it! You might have to cancel the whole last week of this tour.”

  “You don’t know very much about public relations, do you?” she said. “By noon tomorrow I’ll have at least a hundred requests for a speech by you!

  “You were great! Absolutely great! And for your information, by tomorrow morning there will be pictures and a front-page story in every newspaper in the country! No, don’t get angry at me, I don’t mean that what you did was good because the story will get a big play.

  “I mean that what you did was good because it was time someone told off those creeps! And about two thousand people sitting there listening and watching you do it approved. Didn’t you see them stand up, didn’t you hear them applaud? Didn’t you see Joe Edson of The New York Times walk over and kick that bastard square in his ass?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. You may be right. But I think now that I should have kept my head. I should have kept my answer impersonal, not dragged in that stuff about Marie and the other two women and the church.”

  “Who has a better right?” she said softly. He nodded and stood up.

  “Joan, lady, I think I’ll hit the sack. I want to think about tonight, about a better way to handle those bastards.”

  She rose. “May I use your bathroom?” Without waiting for his assent she went in the bathroom and closed the door. She came out five minutes later dressed in a sheer nightgown that ended half-way between her hips and her knees.

  Hinman’s eyes widened as he saw the roseate nipples of her full breasts through the sheer material, the bold triangle of black pubic hair, the slim legs and bare feet. He drew a long, shaky breath.

  “Do you always carry your nightgown in your handbag?”

  “It’s a habit I started four days ago,” she said calmly. “Nightgown and toothbrush. I told you and Ben Butler in Washington that I thought a woman had the right to ask to be loved by a man. This is how I choose to ask. Now give me your answer.”

  “I don’t have the words,” he said simply. He held out his arms and she moved into them with a fluid motion, pressing herself against him, holding him tighter as she sensed and then felt his arousal. They clung together, his face in her crisp black curls, nuzzling her ear and neck, feeling the heat of her body, smelling the womanly aroma of her arousal. He slid his hand down her smooth back and she gently separated herself from him and walked over to the bed and got in and smiled at him.

  Chapter 21

  Hinman was standing at the half-opened window in the hotel room in San Francisco, listening to the muted rumble of traffic down in the street when he heard the bathroom door open. He turned as Joan came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her that covered her breasts and barely covered her thighs. He poured coffee for both of them.

  “Now that’s what I call class, lady,” he said with a grin. “The girl comes out of the shower covered up. Any other woman as beautiful as you are would be sitting here drinking coffee in the raw.”

  “My mother brought me up to be a lady,” she said with a wicked grin. “And one of the things she taught me was to never take my clothes off in front of a sailor. All sailors are sex maniacs, thank God for that!” He drained his coffee cup and stood up and she let out a small shriek.

  “My God, man, you were sitting there starkers! Talk about class! You have no class at all, you darlin’ man! Get your fanny into that shower while I get dressed and then we’ll go down and have some breakfast.”

  “Well, it’s over,” she said as she mopped up the last of the syrup on her plate with a forkful of wheat cake. “Today is a free day and tomorrow we go back to Washington. You are scheduled to see the President and the Secretary of the Navy the day after, at ten in the morning.” She looked up as the hotel manager walked up to their table.

  “You’ll pardon me, Captain, Lieutenant,” the man said. “This telegram, priority delivery, came for you sir.”

  “Thank you,” Hinman said. “Won’t you have a cup of coffee with us? I want to tell you what a fine hotel you have here.”

  “Well, that’s very nice of you,” the hotel manager said. “If you’ll excuse me while I take care of one small matter. Be right back.”

  Hinman ripped open the telegram envelope and read the page swiftly. Then he read it again, slowly. He looked at Joan, his face beaming.

  “It’s from Bob Rudd, Commander Rudd in Pearl Harbor. No, by God, he signs himself Captain Rudd! Must have got his fourth stripe! He says orders have been cut for me and I’ll pick them up in Washington. I’m to return to Pearl as soon as possible! That means I’m going to get a ship, Joan! I’ll have another submarine!”

  “But you won’t have the thirty days’ leave they promised you,” she said. “Is that what that means?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Well,” she said with a small shrug. “That’s the way of a sailor with a girl. It’s off to sea again while the shy maiden sits at home and wonders about all the other women the sailor is romancing in all the other ports.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t wonder about things like that if you were Mrs. Arthur Hinman,” he said. She looked at him, her eyes widening.

  “Oh, damn it! I bungled it!” he blurted. “I wanted to do it the right way, get down on one knee and ask for your hand in marriage and now I’ve ruined it!” He hung his head.

  She sat without moving, her eyes closed.

  “You left something out,” she said in a half whisper. “You left out something you’ve been saying the last few nights in such a low voice that a girl strains her eardrums to hear you. Now say it out loud!”

  “I love you,” he said. “Yes! I love you!”

  “That’s better! I’ll marry you! But when? We’d have to get a license, maybe, blood tests. Those things take time.”

  “I’ve learned a few things from you,” he said. He stood up as the hotel manager approached.

  “Sit down, sir,” Hinman said. “I apologize, I don’t know your name, sir.”

  “No reason you should, Captain. A good hotel manager is never heard and seldom seen. I’m Steve Lewis and we’re honored to have you with us.”

  “Well, Mr. Lewis, it’s been wonderful for us. You run a very efficient hotel. Your people have made us very comfortable.” He poured coffee from the carafe.

  “I hate to impose on you for anything more but we need some information. I just hate to ask you for any more favors.”

  Lewis looked at him and smiled. “I was in Los Angeles the other night, Captain. I was invited to that dinner and I accepted because I was tied up here and wouldn’t be able to hear you when you were speaking this week. I don’t think you can ask me for any favor that would be too large.”

  “I’m ordered back to sea,” Hinman said, “and Joan, Lieutenant Richards here, and I want to get married. Time is
so crucial, sir, I thought, hoped, that maybe you could give us a suggestion as to how we could get around the formalities of license, the waiting period I mean. Is there any way around that?”

  The hotel manager smiled. “If I may suggest it, sir, the Mayor has the power to perform marriages and if you don’t object, our hotel lobby would be a rather nice setting for your marriage. I personally extend my invitation to you to accept the hotel’s offer to be your host at your wedding supper this evening.”

  “I wouldn’t put you to that trouble,” Hinman said slowly. The manager rose.

  “Trouble, Captain? No trouble at all. Please check with me after lunch. By then I will have everything arranged.” He was almost trotting when he left their table.

  “You’ve learned a few things about public relations, haven’t you?” Joan said with a wide grin. “You wouldn’t know that an event like this will put this hotel on the front page of every newspaper in the country or at worst, on page three. You wouldn’t know that the Mayor of San Francisco loves good publicity. You wouldn’t know anything about things like that, would you!”

  “Oh, I’ve learned a few things about public relations from you,” he said airily. “Learned a few things about pubic relations, as well.”

  “Not half of what you’re going to learn,” she said. “Now let’s get out of here and go and do whatever soon-to-be-married couples do while they’re waiting for the knot to be tied.”

  “Go to bed?” he asked innocently.

  “Save it! I’m a hellion on a wedding night!”

  The scheduled half-hour with President Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, a Chicago newspaper publisher, lengthened into an hour. Knox, a big, bluff, jovial man shook his thick forefinger at Joan.

  “When I knew you in Chicago, young lady, you never gave any sign of having this much sense! When this war is over you bring this man of yours to me and we’ll find some work for him to do so he can support you in a style you’d like to get used to.”