“One second, Chief. Lemme get some pants on.” He came to the door and opened it. He was dressed in a pair of dungaree trousers and nothing else. He scratched his massive hairy chest.
“Well, come on in,” he said. “Have a cold beer.” He led the way into the house and Rhodes blinked his eyes at the opulence of the huge room into which they walked. Ginty waved him to one of the three sofas in the room. He sat down and sank in to his hips in the soft cushioning. In front of the sofa there was a long table, low, its legs carved caryatids. The sideboard against one wall was an antique, Rhodes guessed. On it was a collection of polished brass and pewter mugs. A Persian rug was on the floor and its muted colors complemented a shaggy white bearskin that was spread in front of a fireplace. Above the fireplace a shield hung, its face dented. Crossed beneath the shield there were two broadswords.
“Real,” Ginty said pointing at the shield and swords. “Old as hell.” He raised his voice. “Get yourself decent, woman, and come on in. We got company from the ship.”
The Bluey swept into the room a moment later, a tall woman whose red hair was piled on her head in a heavy, regal coil. Her lush figure was barely concealed by a flowing, lacy peignoir that was cut low in the front to reveal the cleavage of her big breasts. She walked with a flowing stride, her long legs moving gracefully. Ginty made the introduction after Rhodes had struggled to his feet from the soft confines of the sofa. The serving girl brought in a silver tray with four bottles of beer and four glasses on it. She put the tray on the table in front of the sofa where Rhodes was sitting and Rhodes saw the lettering on the rim of the tray. It was the name and number of a U.S. destroyer that had been lost in action early in the war. He looked at Ginty.
“Don’t worry, Chief,” Ginty said. “I checked it out the day after I saw it. The Bluey here bought the whole Wardroom silver service off’n that destroyer about four years ago. Some snot-nosed Ensign ran out of money and peddled it to her for twenty pounds. Then he told his Exec that the stuff had been stolen. I called a yeoman I know on the tender, old China hand, and he said the tin can was here four years ago on a good-will cruise. She’s even got a receipt for the damned stuff!”
The red-headed woman had said nothing. She cleared her throat.
“Is Arnold in any sort of trouble, Chief?”
“Arnold? Oh, Ginty. No, ma’am. We’re trying to round up as many of the crew as we can. The people we’re staying with out in Toowoomba are throwing a party this Friday for the crew. They’re very nice people and I wanted to get as many people there as I could.”
“What are the names of your hosts?” she said.
“Mr. and Mrs. Masters, Emil Masters,” Rhodes said.
“I know Emil,” she said, a faint smile crossing her lips. “A very nice man. No children. I understand Mrs. Masters is a very lovely woman.”
“She is,” Barber said. “We don’t like to break in on you like this but we’re having trouble finding the crew.”
“I’m not surprised,” the Bluey said. “There’s a shortage of able-bodied men in Brisbane you know, it’s been a long drought.”
“She picked me up right outside the hotel,” Ginty said. “I was standin’ on the sidewalk and she drove up in a car and ordered me to get in!”
“The usual approach, I am told,” the Bluey said, “is for a lady to ask a sailor how long it’s been since he had a good home-cooked meal. If he responds as he should,” the full, ripe lips curved in a smile, “nature takes its course.
“I wasn’t that subtle with Arnold. When I saw the size of this lovely man I was overcome! I just leaned out the window of my car and told him to get in! He’s a very obedient sailor.” She turned her head and grinned wickedly at Ginty. “He does everything he’s told to do over and over and over and over!”
“I’m sure he is,” Rhodes struggled to his feet. “The party is for nineteen hundred day after tomorrow, Ginty. Be there!” He turned to the red-headed woman.
“We’d like to extend an invitation to you, ma’am.”
“I appreciate your gallantry,” she said, rising from her chair in an easy graceful motion. “But I think all the good and true husbands of that area would run for the Outback if they saw me come in the door! I’ll deliver Arnold to the party and pick him up and I do thank you for being so nice.”
“Hendershot?” Rhodes said. “You seen him around?”
“Yeah,” Ginty said. “He’s with a girl friend of this ugly old woman. I’ll bring him along. I know where all my gang is and I know where DeLucia is. He should know where most of his people are. I can round up maybe thirty guys if this old woman will have her chauffeur drive me around. You ought to see this guy, Chief, both legs off at the knees and only one arm yet he drives like he had everything he was born with.”
“He’s my first cousin,” the Bluey said softly. “He has a wife and two children and there are very few jobs for a man with two artificial legs and one arm. I’ll make sure that we find at least half of your crew, Chief. There’s not much that goes on in Brisbane that I don’t know about. It’s been a pleasure meeting you and if either of you are lonely ...” She let the sentence hang in midair.
Rhodes smiled. “John and I are married. We can wait. We know our wives wait.”
“You are four very lucky people,” she said. “Would you accept an invitation to dine with us Sunday? Fourteen hundred, as your charming Navy puts it? I’ll expect you both.”
The party was held in the gymnasium of the local school. The ladies of the suburb outdid themselves in decorating the gym and provided huge platters of sandwiches and freshly baked cakes. The men of the community made a fruit punch in an enormous cauldron. Ginty, immaculate in his white uniform, tasted the mixture and made a face.
“No stick in this crap,” he growled to Johnny Paul. “You get your ass outside and tell that one-armed dude who drove us over here to take you back to Bluey’s house. I seen a couple of empty cases of Coke bottles out back of the house and I stowed two five-gallon cans of alky in her kitchen. Fill a dozen, fourteen of them Coke bottles with alky and get back here in a hurry.” Paul nodded and ran off to do the errand. When he got back he found Ginty waiting outside.
“I got some pitchers in the place where we stowed our white hats,” Ginty said. “Put them Coke bottles in your belt, as many as you can, and go in and fill a couple of pitchers. Stow the rest of the bottles under the hats.”
Emil Masters was standing nearby when Ginty poured two big pitchers of the 180-proof torpedo alcohol into the punch.
“Have to, sir,” Ginty replied. “You people kinda forget that a submarine sailor doesn’t get any fresh fruit at sea. This stuff is so strong that I’ll break out with pimples or something! Thought I’d weaken it a little. Otherwise the men won’t drink it and your people would feel bad.”
“Never thought of you chaps not having all the fruit you wanted. Yes, what we’re used to would seem a bit rich for you.”
“You take me,” Ginty said, stirring the punch vigorously with a big ladle. “I never eat no salads. Don’t like that green stuff. I’m a meat and potatoes man. But when we got in from this war patrol I found myself buying a whole head of lettuce and I ate it like a big green apple, walking down the street. Lady I met who knows about things like that said it was something I couldn’t help, that my system demanded green stuff.”
“My word,” Masters said. “It’s a very difficult subject, isn’t it, diet? Never thought about such things. But I can see the sense of her words. Yes.”
The high point of the party was a “sing-song” in which the partygoers sat in long semi-circles on the floor of the gymnasium and sang songs, led by two of the women of the suburb.
The curved lines formed, each Mako sailor flanked by two civilians, arms stretched out and embracing their neighbors’ shoulders. As they sang the lines rocked from side to side. Ginty and Johnny Paul kept themselves busy carrying pitchers of the spiked punch to the singers, filling glasses and joking. After a half-hour of vi
gorous singing and drinking the choristers got to their feet to rest bottoms unaccustomed to sitting on hard wooden floors. One matron in a flowing dress of bilious green with a necklace of sea shells resting on the shelf of her bosom took a deep draught from a glass Ginty had filled for her.
“You know,” she confided to Ginty, “I always say you can have ever so much fun without boozing. Don’t you agree?”
Ginty looked at the rivulets that her perspiration had carved through the layer of powder on her neck and bosom and nodded his head in agreement. She belched deeply and smiled, wholly unaware of her social gaffe. Ginty patted her large fanny with a meaty hand and she giggled.
“You make me feel like a young girl!” she lisped, her rouged Cupid’s-bow mouth forming what she thought was an attractive pout.
The party rocked on but no one bothered to get down on the hard floor to sing. They gathered together in small groups, each intent on singing its own songs, breaking the singing for frequent trips to the punch bowl.
At eleven in the evening the school’s janitor began blinking the lights as a warning that the party had to break up. Dusty Rhodes and John Barber, both of whom had correctly assessed the reason for the excessive conviviality of the party, stood to one side, watching, as the guests streamed out. Four of the husbands couldn’t find their wives and Rhodes wondered which of his crew had gone off with the missing women.
Sitting in the Masters’ neat kitchen the next morning, Rhodes waited while John Barber boiled a kettle of water and poured it over the Nescafe crystals he had put in two cups. Barber reached over to the sideboard of the kitchen sink and picked up a Coke bottle with a half-inch of clear alcohol in it. He carefully divided the alcohol between the two cups and filled the bottle with water from the tap and stood it beside another Coke bottle full of alcohol and corked.
Rhodes sipped his coffee gently. “After last night a little stick in the java tastes good,” he said. “Where’d they hide the stuff?”
“Under the white hats in the cloakroom,” Barber said. “One bottle had that little bit in it, the other one is full. Wonder how many bottles they dumped in that punch?”
“Enough to liven up the party,” Rhodes yawned. “Some of those people are going to wake up this morning and wonder what the hell hit them!” He turned as Emil Masters came into the kitchen dressed in a bathrobe, his thin gray hair standing up in a ruff at the back of his head.
“You chaps did something to the punch, didn’t you?” he said, grinning.
“Coffee, sir?” Barber said, his voice innocent of guile. “I went out to the ship yesterday and brought back a case of Nescafe, since you and Mrs. Masters like it. Thought it was the least we could do in return for your hospitality.”
“You’re very generous,” Masters said. His eyes glistened merrily. “But you did do something to the punch, didn’t you? I’ve never seen the pastor’s wife in such a festive mood!” He lowered his voice, nodding his head at the ceiling. “I saw her patting one of your bit bucko sailors on his rear end! Those tight white trousers you chaps wear! I bet she hasn’t patted the Reverend on his bottom in ten years!”
“Well, yes,” Barber said. “We did do a little something to the fruit punch. Spiked it with a little American Indian whiskey.” He raised the Coke bottle he had emptied of alcohol and filled with tap water and took a long swallow. He put the bottle down and reached for the Coke bottle that was full of alcohol and pulled the cork.
“Let me put a drop of this stuff in your coffee, sir,” he said. He poured a scant quarter inch into the coffee and put the bottle down on the table. Masters reached out and picked up the Coke bottle.
“Just a nip to clear the passages,” he said. Rhodes and Barber stared in horror as Masters tipped the Coke bottle and took a mouthful of the pure alcohol.
Rhodes was the first to move, bolting around the end of the table to catch hold of Masters as he staggered, coughing, gasping for air, his eyes wild and frightened. Barber grabbed a dish towel and held it to Masters’ mouth as Rhodes pounded him on the back.
“Spit it out, man!” Rhodes rasped in Masters’ ear. “Get rid of it!”
They sat him down in a chair when he had stopped retching and Barber gave him a glass of water to rinse out his mouth, holding the towel so he could spit out the water. He sank back in the chair, his hands massaging his throat. It was several minutes before he could speak.
“Oh bloody Yanks! Japs will never beat a people who can drink whiskey that strong!”
Ginty was the last of the Mako’s crew to report back for duty. He jumped out of the Bluey’s car as it rolled to a stop on the pier and bolted down the gangway and into his place in the morning quarters line with seconds to spare.
“Glad to see you, Ginty,” Captain Hinman said cheerfully. “Glad to see that you have a driver to help you make quarters.” He looked up and down the line of Mako’s crew.
“Well you all look rested and relaxed. Shows you what going to the zoo and taking daily walks in the park will do for you!” He grinned as a ripple of laughter went down the ranks.
“Fun and games are over,” Hinman said. “We’re going back to sea. Two section liberty from now on, Chief Rhodes. Liberty to be granted only if the Division officers and the Chief Petty Officers of the division agree that you can be spared to go ashore.
“If any of you have contracted a venereal disease tell Doc Whitten at once. No one is going to court-martial you for anything like that but for your own sake, I don’t want to take you to sea with something we can’t treat correctly.
“Division officers will meet with their people right after quarters and with me in the Wardroom in one hour. Now I have some changes and promotions to announce.” He turned to Chief John Maxwell, whose dark eyes were completely rimmed by bruised-looking flesh after nine days with the buxom wife of an Australian Lieutenant who was stationed somewhere in North Africa. Maxwell handed Captain Hinman a sheaf of papers.
“I don’t much like reading this first item,” Hinman said slowly. “Lieut. Comdr. Joseph J. Sirocco, USNR, you are hereby detached from duty aboard the U.S.S. Mako and transferred to Pearl Harbor for further assignment.” He looked at Sirocco.
“I’ll say this in front of all hands, Joe. You are the very best Executive Officer a submarine Captain could ever have! I’ll miss you. Chief Maxwell has your travel orders.
“Lieut. Peter Simms, USN, you are hereby promoted to Lieutenant Commander and will take over as Executive Officer. Pete, my congratulations.” Simms grinned, unable to conceal his joy.
“Lieut. j.g. Nathan Cohen, you are hereby promoted to full Lieutenant. I congratulate you, sir, you earned it.
“Gordon L. Rhodes, Chief Torpedoman’s Mate, USN, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade, by the order of Admiral Chester Nimitz. The rank is temporary for the duration of the war. Mr. Rhodes, Chief Maxwell has your orders. You will report to Captain Mealey’s staff in Pearl for duty.
“John R. Barber, Chief Machinist Mate, USN, you are hereby promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade, by order of Admiral Chester Nimitz. The rank is temporary for the duration of the war. Mr. Barber, Chief Maxwell has your orders. You will report to Captain Mealey’s staff in Pearl Harbor.
“Arnold Samuel Ginty, Torpedoman’s Mate First Class, you are hereby promoted to Chief Torpedoman.
“Michael P. DeLucia, Torpedoman’s Mate First Class, you are hereby promoted to Chief Torpedoman. My congratulations to both of you new Chief Petty Officers.” He went on, noting a number of other promotions for members of the crew.
“That’s it, gentlemen. Carry on the ship’s work. I want to see Mr. Sirocco and Rhodes and Barber in the Wardroom at once. Chiefs Ginty and DeLucia, stand by to see me later this morning.”
Sitting in the Wardroom over coffee Captain Hinman looked at Sirocco, Rhodes and Barber.
“It goes without saying that I hate to see you guys go. I never served with three better men, I mean that. Here’s what happened.
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br /> “Captain Rudd has been detached to work on a project he has been trying to do for a long while — develop a method of using our submarines in groups. The Germans do this. They call their group operations ‘Wolf Packs.’ It should work for us.
“Captain Mealey has taken over Bob Rudd’s job.” Hinman looked at Rhodes and Barber. “It was Captain Mealey who made the recommendations for your promotions. He beat me by about two months, I guess. I wanted to do the same thing and keep you aboard. He wants you on his staff. Dusty, he wants you to take over the torpedo problems and he wants you, John, to take charge of engine room refits.”
“Is there any chance of refusing this, Captain?” Barber asked. “I just don’t see myself as an officer doing shore duty in a war. I don’t think Dusty does either. Although we haven’t had a chance to talk about it, so I’ll let him speak his own piece.”
“I think you could refuse the promotion,” Hinman said. “But if you did it wouldn’t sit well. I might be able to keep you aboard for one more patrol run but once that was over you’d probably find yourself assigned to Alaska or Iceland for the rest of the war.” He leaned back in his chair. “You’ve both got close to twenty years in, haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Rhodes said. “Let me explain something that John didn’t make clear. What John said doesn’t reflect on either of you, you know that. It’s just that we’ve been working stiffs all our lives, white hats and then Chiefs. It’s pretty hard to imagine ourselves as officers.”
“Why don’t you talk it over and come back in half an hour?” Hinman said. “You can do me one more favor, Dusty.” He dropped Rhodes’ nickname casually. “If you decide not to take the jobs I’ve got to get rid of Ginty and DeLucia. Can’t carry even two Chief Torpedomen aboard on a patrol. If you do decide to take the promotions would you give me your thinking on which one I should make the Chief of the Boat? Not that anyone could take your place but someone has to take the job.”
Final Harbor (The Silent War Book 1) Page 35