In Danger's Path

by W. E. B Griffin

  “Talker to the bridge,” he ordered.

  The talker appeared so quickly that it was evident he had been waiting at the foot of the ladder to the conning tower bridge.

  “You and Mr. Lewis are going to climb down, meet that rubber boat,” Buchanan ordered, pointing toward the Catalina, “which will have some hose on it, and tie the end of the hose to one of the conning tower ladder steps.”

  The talker looked at the Catalina, which was parallel to the Sunfish. As he did, the Plexiglas bubble on the portside of the fuselage rolled upward on its tracks. A black package was tossed through it. The package quickly unfolded and expanded into a small rubber boat, held to the airplane with a line.

  An officer climbed into the boat, and then the half-inch hose was fed into the boat and coiled on the bottom. Finally, an Airedale joined the officer in the boat and paddles were handed to them from the airplane.

  The talker waited until they had started paddling, then started down the ladder. Lewis handed his bullhorn to Buchanan and followed the talker down the steps—steel rods welded to the side of the conning tower.

  “We’ll have the hose, as well as the boat, boats, aboard the Sunfish, right?” Captain Houser asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Jake Dillon replied.

  It took what seemed like a very long time for the two men in the small rubber boat to paddle to the side of the Sunfish. Once there, it bobbed beside the curved hull of the submarine.

  After three tries, a thin line was thrown and caught by the talker, who, with Lieutenant Lewis holding him by his waist belt, leaned as far down toward the rubber boat as he could.

  A more substantial line was then hauled aboard, followed by the end of the half-inch hose.

  “One of the questions when we actually do this,” Jake said, “is whether it will be wiser to load all the hose aboard the rubber boat and then pay it out from the boat as it returns to the plane, or whether just the end should go with the boat, and the hose paid out from the submarine.”

  Captain Houser grunted.

  “Right now, because the hose is already in the boat, we’re going to try paying it out from the boat,” Jake added.

  “How are you going to pump the fuel?” Captain Houser asked.

  “That’s another of the questions,” Dillon said.

  The Catalina’s pilot started one of the engines and moved the airplane back to where its nose was again pointed at the Sunfish. He then shut the engine down again. And the Catalina immediately began to move from the force of the wind. By the time the rubber boat was halfway to the Catalina, the Catalina was again parallel to the Sunfish. And the pilot again started an engine, maneuvered back into position, and shut down the engine. He did this a third time when the rubber boat was fifty feet away.

  The rubber boat’s return trip to the Catalina took an even longer time than the trip to the Sunfish. And there was a lever effect. That is to say, the weight of the hose in the water raised the bow of the rubber boat. By the time they reached the Catalina, the two men paddling it were both perched precariously on the bow.

  “That’s going to be fun in, say, six-foot swells,” Captain Houser observed.

  “Well, maybe we can do it with just a light line and pull the hose from the airplane,” Jake said, without much conviction. “This—what do I call it?—dry run is to see what the problems are.”

  One of the other problems became immediately apparent: With enormous effort, the end of the half-inch hose was taken to the wing of the Catalina where the fuel fill ports were located.

  The first Airedale who tried this was dragged off the wing and into the water, together with the hose, when the weight of the line and the stress of a small swell stretching the hose proved too much for him.

  Some of the hose was still in the bottom of the rubber boat. When the Airedale was hauled from the water, he tried dragging the hose onto the wing again, this time with an assist from another Airedale. It took their combined strength to keep the hose from being pulled away again.

  “That’s not going to work in heavy seas, Dillon,” Captain Houser pronounced.

  “Like I said, this little exercise was intended to find the problems,” Dillon said.

  He leaned over the side of the conning tower.

  “That hose is about to be lost at sea,” he called to Lieutenant Lewis. “Unless you want to try to haul it back aboard.”

  Lewis cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “You sign the Certificate of Loss, right?”

  “Cut it loose,” Dillon ordered. He turned to the Catalina. “If you can’t get that boat back through the hatch,” he called over the bullhorn, “slash it with a knife.”

  “Pilot wants to know: ‘Are we through?’” an Airedale called back from the forward gun position.

  “We’re through,” Dillon called. “Tell the guy who took a swim he has his choice of a case of beer or a bottle of booze. See you at Pearl.”

  The half-inch hose immediately disappeared from the wing of the Catalina. It was partially buoyant. From the bridge of the conning tower, it could be seen snaking four or five feet below the surface. Its weight was so great, however, that it had pulled the simple knot that Lieutenant Lewis had tied to one of the steps on the conning tower too tight to untie. It was necessary to send for a fire ax from the submarine, then carefully lower it to the deck in order to cut the hose free.

  By the time that was done, the Catalina had taken off and vanished from sight in the direction of Pearl Harbor.

  Lewis and Dillon climbed back onto the bridge.

  “I’m at your orders, Major Dillon,” Captain Houser said.

  “Take us home, please,” Dillon said.

  “Set course for Pearl Harbor, make turns for fifteen knots,” Captain Houser ordered.

  “Set course for Pearl Harbor, make turns for fifteen knots, aye,” Chief Buchanan ordered, then took the talker’s microphone off and gave it back to the talker.

  After a moment, the Sunfish’s diesels revved and water boiled at her stern.

  “I’m sorry, Jake,” Houser said, “but I think you’re trying the impossible.”

  “If at first you don’t succeed, fuck it, right?” Dillon replied.

  “What now, Jake?” Lewis asked.

  “I think I know a guy who could solve this problem,” Dillon said thoughtfully. “Lewis, how hard would it be (a) to find a guy in the Seabees somewhere in the Pacific, and (b) get him here?”

  “It could be done, Jake,” Lewis replied. “Who is this guy?”

  “A Best Boy I know,” Dillon said.

  “A what?”

  “Did you see Culligan’s Raid?” Dillon asked.

  “The movie?” Lewis asked, obviously confused. “Yeah, sure, didn’t everybody?”

  “You remember the scene where the train tries to make it across the burning bridge, and doesn’t? Where the bridge collapses? The train goes into the gorge?”

  “Sure.”

  “The first time they shot that, something happened to the stock—the film. They had to shoot it again. It took this guy five days to clean the location, rebuild the bridge, and get another train.”

  “And you think he would know how to refuel a Catalina on the high seas?”

  “Yeah, now that I think about it, I think he could figure out a way to do it.”

  XV

  [ONE]

  Naval Air Station

  Pensacola, Florida

  0830 21 March 1943

  Without intending to, Major Avery R. Williamson, USMC, watched Mrs. Martha Sayre Culhane enthusiastically kissing Captain James B. Weston, USMC, good-bye. Without really thinking about it, he immediately decided not to bring the subject up to Weston. An officer and a gentleman does not discuss the romantic affairs of a fellow officer and gentleman, especially when the lady involved is the daughter of a senior officer and gentleman and the widow of a fellow Marine and Naval Aviator.

  But he approved this particular romantic involvement.

  Since he had fir
st met Weston, he had learned from Brigadier General D. G. McInerney much more about Weston’s service in the Philippines than Weston himself had provided. The conclusions he had drawn—obviously shared by General McInerney and by Charley Galloway—was that Jim Weston possessed very desirable characteristics for a Marine officer. He was not at all averse to sailing in harm’s way. And once there, he had proved he had the balls to do whatever was necessary, despite the risk posed to his life. And finally, he was extraordinarily modest about his exploits.

  That entitled him to a little extra consideration. The unfortunate truth was that officers like Jim Weston were not as common in the Marine Corps as the public-relations people would have people believe.

  With that in mind, and not without difficulty, Major Williamson had arranged for a Douglas R4—D aircraft to return Weston to West Virginia, in place of the PBY-5A Catalina scheduled. Weston had already proved himself to be a skilled PBY-5A Catalina pilot. It would be a waste of time for him to shoot any more touch-and-goes in a Catalina.

  Getting the Gooney Bird had required spending several very large favors that Major Williamson had been saving for a good cause. This was a good cause. Unless he was very sorely mistaken, he could return from Asshole, West Virginia, able to certify in good conscience that Captain James B. Weston, USMC, was fully qualified to serve as pilot-in-command of R4-D-Series Aircraft.

  Being current in the Cat and the Gooney Bird might not be important in the immediate future (Weston seemed determined to go into the cockpit of an F4U Corsair and General McInerney seemed determined to put him there), but it would be a consideration, say, six months down the line when they were selecting captains to be squadron commanders.

  Captain Williamson had not had the privilege of knowing the late Lieutenant Gregory Culhane, USMC, but everything he had heard about him was favorable. Proof of that seemed to come from Weston, who had been the best man at his wedding to Admiral Sayre’s daughter, Martha. Major Williamson believed it to be absolutely true that birds of a feather flocked together.

  In the highest traditions of the Marine Corps, Lieutenant Culhane had died fighting in the valiant—if hopeless—defense of Wake Island. Likewise in the highest traditions of the Marine Corps, then Lieutenant Weston had fought in the valiant—if hopeless—defense of Luzon and Corregidor. And when he had not died, he’d gone on fighting as a guerrilla.

  It was not surprising to Major Williamson that Admiral Sayre’s daughter was strongly attracted to Captain Weston. And, clearly, Admiral Sayre was not at all displeased that Weston had become a suitor of his daughter.

  Forty-five minutes after Captain James B. Weston had waved good-bye to Mrs. Martha S. Culhane from the left seat of the R4-D, he had proved to Major Williamson that his previous, though admittedly limited, experience in the Gooney Bird, plus all of his PBY-5A time, plus his natural ability as a pilot, had combined to turn him into a pilot capable of performing any maneuver within the envelope of the R4-D’s capabilities.

  An hour after that, after eight touch-and-go landings at the U.S. Army Air Corps field near Midland City, Alabama, Major Williamson was convinced that Weston could fly the Gooney Bird at least as well as most Gooney Bird drivers he knew, and far better than a lot of them. He based this professional judgment not only on the fact that all of Weston’s touchdowns, including the first one, had been greasers, but also on the fact that both times he had without warning shut down one of the Gooney Bird’s engines on takeoff—a maneuver that caused the aircraft to want to turn abruptly in the direction of the shut-down engine—Weston’s response had been immediate, calm, and skillful.

  And neither was he worried about Weston’s ability to navigate. It was more than reasonable to presume that anyone who had acquired 1,200 hours in a PBY-5A, most of it in the left seat flying over the Pacific Ocean, knew how to navigate.

  On his eighth landing at the Midland City Army Air Corps field—again a greaser—Weston touched down within ten yards of the end of the runway. When the speed of the landing roll had decreased enough to put the tail wheel on the ground—the end of the “touch”—meaning, he could either slow further and turn off the runway or apply throttle and take off again—“go”—he looked at Major Williamson for orders.

  “Ascend again into the heavens, Mr. Weston,” Major Williamson ordered, “and set course for Asshole, West By God Virginia.”

  “Asshole, West Virginia, aye, aye, sir,” Weston replied.

  With a skilled hand he advanced both throttles. The Gooney Bird accelerated and the tail came off the ground. A few seconds later, the R4-D was airborne again.

  “Wheels up,” Weston ordered. “Dump the flaps.”

  And then he remembered he was a student pilot.

  “Wheels up, please, sir,” he said. “Reduce flap angle to zero, please, sir.”

  Williamson didn’t reply until the green WHEELS UP AND LOCKED light came on, and the arrow on the FLAPS control was pointing to zero.

  “Wheels up, flaps dumped,” he said.

  “Midland, Navy Six Niner Niner,” Weston said to the microphone, as he simultaneously set up his rate of climb and turned the Gooney Bird onto a course that would take them just to the east of Atlanta.

  “Six Niner Niner.”

  “Thank you for the use of your facility, Midland. We are now going to try—desperately—to find first Fort Benning and then Atlanta. Would you be so kind as to ask them to keep an eye out for us? ETA Benning thirty-five minutes, ETA Atlanta unknown. I can’t count that high on available fingers.”

  “You’re welcome, Navy. We will advise Benning to keep an eye out for you.”

  “Thank you again, Midland, and a very good day to you.”

  Major Williamson was not surprised to note how skillfully Weston trimmed up the Gooney Bird. Weston was obviously a skilled and experienced pilot.

  Birds of a feather, et cetera.

  Twenty minutes later, making 170 knots at 7,000 feet over Eufala, Alabama, Major Williamson spoke again. “She’s really a nice girl, Weston,” he said.

  “Sir?”

  “Oh, come on, Jim. I saw you two say good-bye.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s a really nice girl,” Williamson repeated.

  “Yes, sir, she is.”

  “And a stunning female!”

  Weston looked over at him.

  “When you get married, you don’t take a solemn vow not to look,” Williamson said.

  “Stunning is an understatement,” Weston said.

  “In fact, if she wasn’t an admiral’s daughter and a Marine Aviator’s widow, one might go so far as to say she’s built like a brick shithouse,” Williamson said.

  “Oddly enough,” Weston said, with a clear mental picture of Martha standing naked in the cabin of her father’s sailboat, “a somewhat similar thought passed through my head.”

  “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, Jim—you’re not undersupplied with ego—but you’re the first guy she’s shown any serious interest in as long as I’ve known her.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Pensacola is a buyer’s market for a girl like Martha. One hell of a lot of eligible young officers have taken their best shots at her. And gotten Maggie’s Drawers.” When a marksman—and every Marine is trained to be a rifleman—completely misses his target on a knowndistance range, a red flag, “Maggie’s Drawers,” is waved in front of the target. “You’re the first one to even come close to getting the brass ring.”

  “With all respect, sir, is your real name John Alden?”

  “Not the last time I looked.”

  “You sound as if you’re trying to match me up with the lady.”

  “It seems to me that Mother Nature has already done that,” Williamson said. “I’m just letting you know Mother Nature rarely makes a mistake.”

  Weston didn’t reply.

  “‘Lieutenants should not marry; captains may marry; majors should.’ You ever hear that, Jim? Or am I putting my nose in where it doesn’t belong?�
�

  “As a matter of fact…”

  “Don’t be impertinent, Captain. You are a very young captain; I am a senior major. It therefore behooves me to counsel you on a matter of importance to your career.”

  “With all due respect, Major, sir, go fuck yourself.”

  “I was a lieutenant when Margie and I got married,” Williamson said. “I didn’t want to get married either. October ’41. I was on orders to VMF-219. I thought, Christ, we’re going to war. The last thing I wanted to do to Margie was make her a widow. But I couldn’t tell her no.”

  Weston looked at him.

  “We had a seven-day honeymoon,” Williamson went on. “Then I reported to ’Diego, went aboard the Lexington—change of orders—and wound up on Midway. I was lucky there. I was determined to go home to Margie. I got six Japs, and that got me railroad tracks, and then I went to VMF-229 on Henderson Field on the ’Canal. Charley Galloway was the skipper. Colonel Dawkins—you know this—was the MAG commander, and he asked Charley which of his pilots should get a squadron, and Charley said me. And I got lucky there, too. I was determined to go home to Margie. And I did, with major’s leaves on my collar. I went home to Margie and our brand-new son. Marrying her was the best and smartest thing I have ever done.”

  “You think you’re going to be as lucky the next time?” Weston asked.

  “Who knows? On one hand, the statistics suggest that if you live through the first thirty days, you have a good chance of finishing the tour. On the other hand, everybody dies sooner or later. But in the meantime, Jim, I’ve had Margie and the boy. That’s what it’s all about.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “End of speech,” Williamson said. “Except to say, when you’re on the merry-go-round and a brass ring like Martha’s is within reach, grab it.”

  Weston shrugged.

  Then he pointed ahead, out the window. A flight of perhaps twenty Army Air Corps C-47s—essentially identical to the Navy R4-D they were flying—was 2,000 feet below them, making a wide turn toward Fort Benning.

  “What they’re going to do,” Williamson explained, “is go down to about thirty-five hundred feet and drop their parachutists. There’s drop zones all over this area.”