Spit and Polish

by Carl Muller

  Danny broke free, jack-knifed, swung out wildly. The whaler, being a most self-respectable craft, keeled over.

  The first to break surface was Danny who continued to waggle his arms and yell until Van Heer clipped him severely over the ear.

  ‘Shut up! Do you hear! Shut your fucking mouth! Help to turn the boat—and where’s the bloody mail?’

  Danny dog-paddled into the circle of men. Electrician’s mate Panditha was straining against the whaler, trying to right it. ‘I hope a bloody shark comes now,’ he said nastily, ‘I won’t lift a finger. I’ll watch and clap while it eats you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Van Heer, ‘finger by finger, toe by toe, guts by the yard.’

  Danny worked frenziedly to put the boat on keel. Van Heer swam after the mail that was bobbing away in the general direction of India. The porpoise were delighted. These humans had actually jumped in to play with them!

  When the whaler was on its way again with is salty crew and soggy letters, Danny crouched in the bows, looking most woebegone. The men of the Vijaya would have much to say, he knew. Ink had run on most of the letters and they all were of the consistency of overboiled macaroni.

  The men of the Vijaya said very little. They were dumbstruck.

  ‘What is this?’ First Lieutenant Walid asked.

  ‘Mail, sir.’

  ‘Mail? You call this mail?’

  ‘It fell in the sea, sir.’

  ‘Get off my ship! Now! You—what’s your name?’

  ‘Von Bloss, sir.’

  ‘And what the fuck are you?’

  ‘Signalman, sir.’

  ‘Right. QM, hail Telegraphist Roberts. Get out, all of you. I don’t want to see any of you near this ship again, do you hear? Ah, Roberts, signal to CO Elara. Interrogative is your mail waterlogged. Ours is. Interrogative why do your carriers swim with our mail when boat is provided. Concerned at procedure adopted. Appreciate reply. Yes. Wait a bit. Add, and up yours too. Got that? Good. Get on the buzzer.’

  Getting bogged down with the mail was one thing, but there were other instances of ‘rank naval irresponsibility’ (a phrase Gunasakes liked very much) that made life so glorious for the unrepentant men. There were, to district-wide detriment, excursions to Mannar. When as many as sixteen nautical fiends climb aboard a jeep and scorch the road with accelerator touching gravel, anything could happen—and it usually did.

  Enroute they would wash down the dust with foaming toddy, and in Mannar the Army and the Navy would meet and drink furiously and scrap in the grand manner. Nathali was ever the hero. He once confounded even the hard-drinking fishermen of the coast by downing a pint of arrack and eight bottles of toddy, then weaving uncertainly to the gate of the customs officer’s house to cock an eye at that man’s exceptionally pretty daughter. The girl in question, would make her own history in that sleepy hollow, but that, the chronicler begs, must come later.

  Occasionally Elara would receive word from the police post that a landing of illicit immigrants was expected. The given ETA, the police would grin, was at dead of night. The police got a big kick out of keeping the Navy awake.

  This meant beach patrols and the most demonaic of Elara’s crew were selected. They would stalk the beach, armed with the crudest weapons imaginable.

  A light at sea would determine the possible landing place. The men spread themselves across the sand, waiting for the boat to come in. Carloboy preferred to stay in the water. He hated the sand which seemed to erupf with hermit crabs no sooner someone sat on it. Sometimes the boat they waited for was just an innocent vallan—a fishing craft.

  ‘Here it comes! Go, go! Go!’

  The men would streak out, take to the water with murderous yells and the poor fishermen would scream in fright at the bunch of barebodied men brandishing knives and clubs. The fishermen did the only thing they could think of—they threw out the largest of their catch, believing that the fish would appease these pirates.

  On a particular night, it was a 24-pound bonito. It knocked Sims silly, spreading him in the surf. Streams of Tamil coupled with the rawest invectives ripped and roared as sailors and fishermen established diplomatic relations.

  Sometimes, however, the landing was thought too far away to walk. ‘What? Near Punguditivu? That’s miles away!’

  ‘All right,’ Thomas would groan, ‘so take the jeep.’

  It was a soggy-looking night. The moon was the colour of Spanish rice and the sea like tar. Only one rippling band, where the moon looked down on herself rather despondently, told of the slow swell and the rheumy efforts of the waters. Even the sands were black and specks of phosphorous winked on the crests of the low, lazy waves that wavered and fell to go zizz along the shore.

  At the wheel, Panditha found it particularly exhilarating to go to sea. Rather than bowl along the firm, high sand upshore, he kept ripping back and forth in short diagonal sweeps, into the waves and out, raising long splashes of water and ho-ho-ing like the devil.

  ‘For goodness,’ wailed Daft, ‘oh, for gracious!’ He always ran out of words when alarmed.

  ‘Don’t slow down. Keep your foot down,’ Johns shouted.

  ‘For why?’

  ‘Bloody idiot. If you reduce speed, we’ll get stuck. This sand is like bread pudding!’

  ‘Ho, ho, not to worry. Four-wheel drive, no?’

  The next moment, a large, bothersome wave suddenly rose up out of a hidden shelf and slapped the jeep broad- on. Panditha was startled and the hoots of alarm from the others gave him no comfort. A big wave meant a depression.

  ‘Turn for the beach,’ Nathali yelled.

  They swerved for the high sand mounds but another wave rose up, swamped them. Wheels spun furiously. Soft sand became mud. Bread pudding became rice pudding. Abandon ship!

  Leaping out, many found themselves in a deep trough, the water closing over their heads. Spluttering and cursing, they hauled themselves ashore. Daft stepped out of the jeep with some dignity. He thought he had a foot of water beneath him. He disappeared with a yell and emerged, blowing angrily.

  ‘Bloody six feet!’ he croaked, ‘big-big hole.’ He waddled out. Another wave scattered them higher up the beach.

  They sat and regarded the jeep which was low in the water. The sandstone ledge was crumbling to accommodate it.

  ‘Now what the fuck do we do?’

  ‘It is drowning,’ said Daft. ‘Going into the hole.’

  ‘Pull it out. That’s what we have to do.’

  ‘How?’

  A group of fisherfolk from the coastal huts trotted up. They held a convention. Johns perked up. ‘These are the buggers we want. They’ll pull anything.’

  After a lot of half-baked Tamil, they made the chattering spectators understand. Yes, the Navy needed them. Johns explained, ‘They spend their lives pulling nets. Jeep will be nothing for them.’ He got the fishermen together and gesticulated wildly. They nodded and raced away.

  It was an eerie sight. Thirty black-bodied men, three stout ropes, an apology for a moon, an India ink sea and only the muted hiss of a breaking wave. It took almost one puffing, panting, wheezing hour. The jeep came with much reluctance. It was very wet and very annoyed. Every effort to start it was met with stubborn refusal.

  They hauled the vehicle to the road and left it there, then trudged wearily to camp. Upcoast, a boatload of kallathonis landed, found the coast clear and thought themselves very fortunate.

  On the black waters bobbed a white thing. Daft Fernando’s cap was on its maiden voyage, on its way to India.

  The CO decided to keep his men otherwise occupied. ‘It’s a waste of time and effort,’ he complained, ‘they go, they do something completely unseamanlike, and they come. The local fisherfolk are complaining. The village headman is a bundle of nerves. Is there anything we can do to make this place shipshape?’

  RPO Thomas clucked sympathetically. ‘Sir, maybe we could organize joint patrols.’

  ‘With the Army? Not on your nelly!’

  Anot
her cluck. ‘At least we have a good signals post, sir.’

  Gunsakes sighed. ‘Yes, there is that . . . but there is far too much of this and-a-good-time-was-had-by-all business. This place is the trouble. Brings out the worst in everybody. By the by, I wished to ask you something. The men go night fishing, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes sir. I don’t object. Keeps them out of mischief.’

  ‘Out of mischief! Don’t make me laugh! What about Signalman von Bloss? He and Sims. Fine pair Colombo sent us. Crackers and ginger snaps. For three evenings now I have seen them go to the pier. Carrying a sack.’

  ‘A sack, sir?’

  ‘A sack. You must know what a sack is? Do you know what’s going on?’

  Thomas was mystified. Gunasakes gave an exasperated snort. ‘There are more things in heaven and on earth, eh?’ he intoned, ‘check it out and report, will you?’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Carloboy needed an assistant. Somehow, the thought had never struck him earlier. Too wrapped up in the devilry of all that Elara stood for, and in heaping quantities, he had lost sight of a very obvious fact: the railway. Here he was, the son of a railway engine driver, and the trains that were brought each evening to the Talaimannar pier to take in passengers from the ferry boat from Danushkodi, south India, were driven by railwaymen of Anuradhapura.

  Anuradhapura! How could he have ever forgotten Anuradhapura. He had spent the best years of a roistering boyhood there, fallen in love there, kissed his first girl there. He had ridden ponies and fought and roamed the jungles and fished in the big reservoirs. Delirious days. And one late evening, when going to the pier he heard a shout.

  ‘Oy! Von Bloss! Hey, you’re von Bloss’ son, no? Where’s your bloody father?’

  It was driver Werkmeister, grinning through his beard, the legs of his khaki shorts a span below his knees. Carloboy stopped, stared. Everything in that time-ago world rushed into his head. He went to the engine. ‘Daddy’s in Colombo. Dehiwela.’

  ‘Heard he’s put in his retirement papers.’

  Carloboy shrugged.

  ‘So you’re here, eh? Why did you join the Navy? Wait’ll I tell Doreen. She’ll have a fit. Edema and Vanderwall are in Mount Mary. Others are still around. Ferdy came back. His son also joined the Railway. My God, why don’t you come and see us? You have leave, no?’

  The thought made Carloboy dizzy. Railway town. He had always had such a special love for the place. How could he have forgotten?

  ‘Hey,’ Werkmeister was saying, ‘can you organize some crabs to take back next time? I’m working up again on Friday.’

  More food for thought. ‘That’s a nuisance. Have to box them and bring from Mannar. But if you like I can get you mutton. Any amount. Free.’

  ‘Really?’

  Carloboy nodded. ‘I’ll bring to the pier on Friday.’ He became expansive. ‘You tell the others also. I’ll bring mutton every night. Cut, cleaned, everything.’

  ‘Fine. Saram is working tomorrow. You can bring?’

  ‘No sweat.’

  And so did the goats begin to disappear at a dizzying rate. The men had to range into the palmyra scrub to find them, but there was the satisfaction in knowing that thanks to their endeavours, railway town Anuradhapura, was well-fed.

  RPO Thomas paled. ‘A mutton line! You have started a mutton line? My great godfather! So this is what you’re lugging out every evening. What am I going to tell the CO?’

  ‘What to tell,’ Carloboy growled, ‘This is none of his business.’

  ‘You shut up. Anything you do in this camp is his business.’

  ‘Madness to give free,’ Nathali chimed in, ‘at least one rupee a pound must charge. Sha! Good business this is.’

  ‘You shut up,’ Carloboy snapped, ‘these drivers are my friends. You want to go to Anuradhapura, they’ll take you on the engine. No tickets.’

  ‘So who wants to go to Anuradhapura?’

  Carloboy ignored him. ‘So tell the CO we are taking dried fish. He knows we are drying fish here.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘For what are you taking so much dried fish? That’s what he will ask.’

  ‘Tell him for my friends.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Gunasakes said, ‘His friends, you say? In the railway . . . yes, I know von Bloss is from a railway family. But every night . . . that’s a lot of dried fish, even for the railway. Hmm . . . well, no harm in that, I suppose.’

  ‘No sir,’ said Thomas fervently, but was jarred when at the door he heard the CO say, ‘Most unusual. Dried fish with legs. Must be a species of these parts.’

  Thomas fled.

  28

  History—Midway

  The Americans called it their ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’. This was Midway Atoll, 1100 miles north-west of Honolulu.

  Japanese Fleet Admiral Yamamoto had reason to believe that he could take Midway. The Americans, he knew, were in trouble. They had lost their carrier, Lexington in the Coral Sea and this was a loss the Americans could ill afford.

  Yamamoto was determined that within a month, Midway would be his. It was time to move his pieces across the Pacific chessboard. It would be checkmate with a vengeance when he took Midway.

  But the Americans had to be kept guessing and Yamamoto decided on a fake attack, closer to the American mainland. He despatched a naval force towards the Aleutians, kept a bigger force to home in on Midway. He thought that this would confuse the Americans. They would take the Aleutians threat seriously. They would surely divide their forces. And, at least, there would be hesitation—the sort of hesitation that would prove fatal.

  He did not reckon on US Admiral Chester Nimitz who, as Commander Pacific, understood much about Japanese naval tactics. Nimitz knew that there was a Japanese force heading for the Aleutians, but it seemed too obvious to him. Japan wanted him to know.

  Nimitz did not divide his forces. Also, he had not enough ships to divide. He considered the Aleutians a most unsavoury target. The islands were mostly always shrouded in fog and the weather over them was always vile. Surely the Japanese knew that. What sort of effective air operation could they carry out? No. The real target was Midway, and Nimitz readied his defences and found them very sean indeed.

  All he had were two big aircraft carriers, the Enterprise and the Hornet, The Saratoga had been gashed terribly by Japanese torpedoes and lay in Pearl Harbour under extensive repair. The Yorktown, too, was a sorry sight. When it limped into Pearl Harbour on May 27, workmen and sailors lining the shore could not believe it stayed afloat. The hull was speared by shrapnel, the superstructure in a state of near collapse.

  A fire had swept the great carrier, burning and blackening its paintwork and the flight deck was cratered. There were gaping holes everywhere.

  Nimitz had to have carriers. He was told that even at breakneck speed, repairs on the Yorktown would take ninety days. He demanded that the carrier be made ready for action in three. The US Navy needed a miracle, and Nimitz was determined that the miracle be performed.

  It is said that over 1400 workmen swarmed the stricken carrier. Within 48 hours it left dock to anchor off Ford Island. Air crews were picked at random, men who had never worked together before. Even the captain, Vice Admiral William Halsey was in hospital. A replacement, Rear Admiral Raymond Spruance, was rushed in. New, untried men in a battered ship, hastily patched.

  On May 30, 1942, the Yorktown was ready to sail. With her escort, she nosed towards the battle zone. She was Task Force 16.

  Also heading for Midway was Task Force 17, the Enterprise and the Hornet under Rear Admiral Frank Fletcher. He was to rendezvous with the Yorktown on June 2, about 300 miles from Midway.

  There’s nothing more beautiful than a Pacific atoll. Green-water lagoons, reef embraces, sugar beaches and incredibly blue seas. Long before the war, the China Clippers landed on Midway on their way to the Far East. On June 2, it was aswarm with seabees and US marines and anti-aircraft guns in their sandbagged ne
sts. Nimitz ordered all the fighters to be fully fuelled. He had guessed right. A Catalina pilot had spotted the Japanese task force under Nagumo approaching Midway.

  Chuichi Nagumo was the great Japanese naval hope. True, he had turned tail in the Indian Ocean, but that was a ‘tactical withdrawal’. It was Admiral Nagumo who commanded the force that belted Pearl Harbour. He was now headed for Midway with four carriers, and on approach, launched his planes—fighters, dive bombers, torpedo planes carrying heavy bombs. One hundred and eight in all.

  All the men of Midway could scramble were 26 fighters. They flew out, thirty miles to westward, saw the V-formation of approaching enemy planes and climbed to 17,000 feet. Then levelling off, they dived. It was a desperate attack plan. Some of the old F4F Wild Cats simply ploughed through the Japanese formation and could not recover from the steep bank. The Japanese Zeros were the better machines. These Mitsubishi OO’s were called Zekes by the Americans. They were faster and turned tighter.

  Nagumo was pleased. Only nine US fighters survived, returned to base, and of these, seven were in very bad shape.

  While this battle arrowed in the sky, Nagumo sent his raiders in. They screeched over the two main Midway islands, tearing the installations to pieces. Yet, as the Japanese strike leader observed, the airstrips were still operational. Nagumo was not worrying. He had softened the Midway defences. Now he would take over. He would land his troops on the atoll under the blistering guns of his big ships, and he had the giant battleship Yamota—the largest battleship in the world, a 68,000 ton behemoth. What could withstand the power of its big guns?

  The Americans turned desperately on the source of their torment. Ten US fighters made for Nagumo’s carrier force, Avengers and B26 bombers. They could not know of the firepower they would meet. Of the six Avengers, five were downed in a solid curtain of shrapnel. Two bombers simply tumbled out of the sky. The others spun away for home. Not a single hit was scored.

  Again, sixteen planes went after the Japanese carrier Hirya, and again, half their numbers were shot down. Army B-17 Flying Fortresses from Midway maintained a height of 20,000 feet. They returned unharmed but accomplished nothing. It was a grim picture.