by Carl Muller
On June 4, Midway was in bad shape. Most of its aircraft had been destroyed and the islands were a smoking ruin. It was then that Nagumo considered the strike leader’s report. It began to bother him. As long as the runways were operational, he could not risk an invasion. A second air attack was necessary. But he also had to be sure that there was no US naval force in the vicinity. He was sure that Yamamoto’s ploy had confused the Americans. Nevertheless, he sent out four float planes to search the seas. He ordered the search planes to be aloft by 4.30 a.m. and was not told that the last of the planes had been launched at five. For Nagumo, this would be a fatal thirty minutes.
With the spotters out, Nagumo waited. He armed his fighters for a second strike on Midway, but he waited. Two-and-a-half hours. No sightings. Another fifteen minutes. Still no report of an US fleet. He was sure now that there was no risk. Another fifteen minutes. His attack force was ready for launch . . . and then came the news from one of the float planes—a report that should have come in half an hour earlier if that plane had been in the air at 4.30 a.m. as he had ordered. The US fleet had been sighted.
Nagumo called for clarification. Another fifteen minutes, and he yet had no real description of the enemy. He was rattled. Were there carriers? He could get no definite answer. He dithered. Should he attack Midway or go after the US fleet?
On the Yorktown, Spruance found himself closest to the Japanese. He thought he had pinpointed the position of the Japanese force, but again, there was an error—an error of about forty miles. Spruance knew that the combat radius of his planes was 175 miles. To launch now was to send his fighters to operate at the limit of their range. Many would never return.
But he disliked waiting, even if waiting meant that he would be closer to the enemy. He signalled Fletcher. The order was to go!
One hundred and fifty-two planes took off from the Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet. The forty-mile error was tragic. Torpedo planes of the Enterprise never saw the Japanese. Some turned back, low on fuel, others limped on to Midway. The fighters, drained of fuel, were less lucky. They crashlanded into the sea.
From the Hornet, Torpedo Squadron 8 swung away when they came to the point where the Japanese were supposed to be. Streaming out on this altered course they sighted the Japanese at 9.20 a.m. just eight miles away. Even as they primed for attack, Japanese Zeros shot up and tore into them out of the sun. Below was the thunder of anti-aircraft guns.
Torpedo Squadron 8 hadn’t a prayer. With fuel tanks near empty, they dived into the enemy fire. Fifteen planes. Thirty men. Only one man survived to grab a seat cushion that floated in the water, cut away his parachute and watch as the Japanese steamed majestically past him. Not a scratch on any of them. His whole squadron had perished, and not one had been able to even touch the enemy’s paintwork!
Came the torpedo squadron of the Enterprise. Fourteen planes. Ten were shot down. Then the planes of the Yorktown. Twelve planes. Ten shot down. But Nagumo knew he was in trouble. His Zero fighters, zooming down from high altitudes, had to climb again to stay manoeuvrable. Their attack pattern demanded this. The waves of US planes did not give them the chance to regain altitude, and many simply tore into the sea. Suddenly, Nagumo had no fighter cover . . . and there, swooping out the blue, were the slower dive bombers of the Enterprise and Yorktown. They had the Japanese in their sights, and there were no fighters to harry them.
Down through the anti-aircraft fire they came. The Hell Divers, and it took less than a minute to release their bombs and pull out, arching upwards. It took less than a minute to change the whole shape of the Pacific war.
The Japanese carriers were ablaze; holed flight decks, elevators twisted, deck plates stoved upwards. Everywhere on the decks planes burned, aviation fuel burst into starry furnaces and torpedoes exploded. The Akagi began to sink, the Kaga and the Soryu were wrapped in columns of oily smoke.
Nagumo transferred his flag to the light cruiser Nagara. He spoke incoherently, a shattered man. He could no longer effectively command.
Another Japanese Admiral, Hiroaki Abe, saw that the carrier Hirya was still operational. He ordered an air strike. The Japanese bombers winged vengefully away, found the Yorktown, its decks cluttered with fighters being refuelled. Many of the Japanese bombers were shot down but six got through and their bombs found the heart of the big carrier. Even as the men abandoned ship, a Japanese submarine closed in and with deadly spite, split the dying vessel. The submarine next torpedoed the destroyer Hammann that had rushed to the Yorktown’s aid.
Night fell. Nagumo steadied himself, considered his options. All his carriers were destroyed. He had no air power. But he could still engage and destroy the American fleet. He had big, hard-hitting battleships and cruisers. Under cover of darkness, he sailed east. He would come upon the Americans and destroy them.
But Spruance anticipated the Japanese move. He did not know how much strike power the Japanese had, but he decided to take avoiding action. At all costs, there must be no night battle.
Dawn came. The Japanese knew they were defeated. They had been unable to engage the enemy fleet. And now, Nagumo had to run, for with daylight, the American bombers would return. He ordered the retreat westward. Operation Midway was ended.
For the imperial Japanese fleet, it was an imperial Japanese cock-up!
29
Of Priests on the Prod and Sentimental Journeys and the Test of the True Signalman
As would be expected, Sundays came and went with their usual hot monotony. No one, for example, thought of church, although the regulating office did have provision for a church parade. This was usually quite an imposing thing, where men who sought the benefits of communing with God (who only deigned to see them on the first day of each week) would spruce themselves and wear clean number tens and form rank before being led to the holy place. There, they would sit and ogle the women and wish that the bloody priest would shut up and get on with whatever he had to do.
The outing was welcomed in Diyatalawa or in Colombo, for it gave them much to do with their hands especially when on their knees and confident that the pretty things next to them had found the answer to their prayers.
Elara was another kettle of fish. Indeed, ‘fish’ seemed to be the operative word, for the priest who circuited the district conducting services and baptizing babies hither and yon, received his coin in fish. So powerful was his hold on the poor blighters who constituted his flock that the first catch of each day went to the priest. His was a fishy business indeed. He dealt in fish. He organized the sale of fish. He could even give his fish cheaper than those who gave him fish.
None of the men of Elara were interested in a church that had its foundations on mackerel and bonito. Furthermore, there were no other attractions. The only thing that looked good in long skirts was the priest himself, and he, naturally, did not count.
In Mannar, quite a different situation had begun to develop. It was the rainy season and still, under a cloud-laden sky, people tended to sit and gasp. The palmyra fronds crackle and the humidity becomes unbearable. The closeness of the atmosphere makes the goats nervous and even the wind does nothing to help.
There, the old parish priest had a junior who would whirr along on his motorcycle to far-flung places where there were palm-thatch churches. He would say a Mass here, a Mass there for the faithful. He was a tall young man with a dashing goatee, smoke-blue eyes and hands which were lean and thin-veined.
He was an Italian, a missionary who had been sent to serve from his monastery below the Dolomite hills. And, being a virile, handsome man, he had considered the customs officer’s daughter (the girl Percy Nathali had raised eyebrows at) and found her far from wanting.
The men of Elara when on their rounds, usually rooting out places where they could imbibe, would sometimes encounter this priest. He would be on his motorcycle, cassock tucked over his knees. Behind him sat the girl, her hands clutching at his hips as he thrummed swiftly by.
The men would whoop and wonder where th
is strange couple were going. As evil-minded as they were, they never thought of the extreme possibility—that the priest and his pillion rider had more things than holy water to keep them together.
Then, Nathali fell ill.
‘It’s the heat,’ Thomas said, ‘and he’s got a skin rash. I told the bugger not to eat so much dried fish.’
As a sick man, Nathali was hopeless. He developed a crackling fever and began to pour iced beer on his head.
Gunasakes sniffed and said, ‘Take him to Mannar hospital. He’ll die of pneumonia and I don’t want to log that.’
‘Sir, is it malaria, sir?’
‘How the devil do I know? Ward him. At least we’ll have some peace around this place.’
Stirring things were happening in the hospital. Hundreds of angry people at the gates and a decidedly anti-Church atmosphere.
‘What the hell?’ Panditha asked.
Inside, Roman Catholic nursing sisters checked out Percy and wheeled him to a ward.
They were tight-lipped and quite pale, and refused to tell Carloboy about what was going on.
In the men’s ward an old priest was seated, glaring at the Italian who lay in traction. The man had apparently broken a leg and injured his spine. The story, in all its blushing beauty was all around, sizzling from bed to bed, ward to ward and had reached epic proportions in the female ward where Customs officer Ganam’s daughter lay, her head swathed in bandages while her furious father had been sedated after expressing a desire to tear the Italian priest limb from limb.
Carloboy saw Nathali to a bed. The man had, a doctor said, either malaria with some curious side effects or had some strange malady with a malarial flavour. He had to be tested and observed and neither task would be one to enthuse over. It could also be liver, but that would depend, the doctor said, on how much liver the man actually had.
Percy sat and leered at the matron. ‘Call this a bloody hospital?’ he complained, ‘Nuns! Who wants nuns? Where are the bloody nurses?’
‘Shut up,’ Carloboy hissed, ‘You heard the doctor? Even he is not sure what is wrong with you. All red and yellow and like a damn bonfire. First they must bring the fever down.’
‘Never mind that. What’s all the row about that priest?’
Carloboy grinned. ‘Pukka priest. Have been taking the girl all over Mannar on his mo’bike. Her father did not know a thing. Mother is in fits now. Sitting at home in the kitchen and hammering her head on the grindstone.’
Percy was never too ill to be interested in such complicated human situations. ‘Don’t know why I joined the Navy,’ he protested, ‘should have been a priest. Any woman will come. Nobody will suspect, no?’
‘Lie down.’
‘So what’s all the bloody fuss? What happened? These sheets are stiff! Dettol smell. These buggers want to make me sick?’
‘You’re already sick. Shut up and lie down.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Went on the motorbike and crashed somewhere. What else? He is injured, she is injured, whole story came out. You remember we saw them once?’
‘Yes, yes . . . sha! must have been taking and screwing her in the bushes. One thing, any girl you take on a motorbike and go, easy to fuck.’
It was never easy to understand Percy’s line of thought.
‘How is that?’
‘Why, men, bumping and going behind. Cunt is getting well rubbed, no? Must be well-oiled by the time she gets down. Must buy a motorbike.’
They took Percy away to Pathology. Carloboy and Panditha roamed the ward. Decent enough for this neck of the woods and the nuns ruled with an iron hand and starch in their eyes. A lot of stuff seemed to swirl around the priest who was visited by a Bishop and all manner of clerics who had come from Jaffna to tell him how hopelessly human he was and therefore, a priestly misfit. At least, he should not have been found out. Quite unpardonable. And what about the good people of the parish? Most reprehensible. Most ungodly. Most un-Mannar-ly.
The Italian priest stared at his accusers with contempt. Yes, he would return to Italy. The women there liked to have their bottoms pinched. He didn’t want to be a priest. It cramped his style. His blasted cassock had got entangled in the wheel. How can any red-blooded man get about in a cassock that waits to trip him up?
Percy spent a week in hospital to the grief of everyone there. It was, they diagnosed, a condition brought about by liquor, fried food of a most doubtful nature, more liquor, the intolerable consumption of dried fish not wholly cured, more liquor and still more liquor. He had sailed close to an allergic shock, and it was fortunate that he had the constitution of a mountain gorilla and cast-iron intestines.
The Italian priest was hobbling around his bed on a crutch. One leg was still in a cast and he had shaved and looked most cocky.
‘So you’re going back,’ Carloboy said.
‘Going I am,’ he chirped, ‘you are Navy man, yes? You like eet here?’
Carloboy shrugged. ‘The girl has gone. I hear her father sent her to Hatton or somewhere.’
His blue eyes clouded, then he gave a short bark. ‘So they come they go poof. Let me say to you, Navy man, you theenk I want to be prist? Look a’me. Well you look a’ me, so! What see you, what-a you theenk?’
‘So why did you become a priest then?’
‘Ah, long story iz mine. Long, long. When I was, how you say, leetle, my mama poot me in San Theodoro. An’ for why? You can say for me why?’
‘So you tell me.’
‘My mama ver’ week she iss. My papa he die and here I am, not stillborn I was.’ He shook his head. ‘Dead iss my papa. Dead and gone and never I saw heem. Only grave to go and rid the name of my papa on stone put there. Sorry me, no?’ He paused and cupped his chin in his hand. ‘Poor pipple we are. Ver’ poor. When I seven my mama say you go to monastery. There you be and become prist. I ask-a why. I not wanteeng to be prist. But go she say I mak-a da vow she say. So I go and there I leeve an’ home I do not go. An’ the friars they say they mek me prist and I cannot say anytheeng anymore.’
‘So you became a priest?’
‘Yes, yes. But the girls, ah molto bello. They come to the chapel and to baptize the bambinos and I am thinkeeng, how you say, hot hot, and when they come to Communion, mama mia . . . ‘ he seemed to drift into a reverie and Carloboy studied him curiously. He thought of a long time ago when he too had wanted to be a priest. That was oh, light years ago, and it all came tumbling back. Here, he thought, but for the wisdom of my father, sit I, broken leg and all!
‘Anyways I weel go. But I telling you Navy man, before I go I weel do something. I weel do to tell this bishop what I theenk . . .’ he leaned forward and his blue eyes took on a new light. ‘Yes. Befo’ I go I weel take my cassock, yes? My cassock will I take an’ hang eet! Yes. Hang eet! Torlest tree in Mannar I weel hang eet. Then go I weel. Ah, the girls een my village. You come I show you.’ His hands moved in demonstration. ‘Beeg, beeg bubbs. Bubbs, no?’
‘Boobs,’ said Carloboy.
‘Right. Bubbs. An’ legs. Ah, long, round, and. . . fuck-a them all I can. Beeg problem this cassock. Many many girls how you say, shy? Yes, shy. Theenking prist not theenkin to fuck them. Now I fuck them. Ev’ry one I fuck. Might and main, no? Yes. Might and main I fuck. But cassock I hang. Torlest tree in Mannar. Torlest tree, what you theenk?’
Carloboy grinned. This was a prist—priest—he liked very much. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘hang your cassock and go. Fuck them silly. Best thing after benediction.’
The man grasped his hand. ‘Man you are before my own heart!’
‘After,’ Carloboy said and gave him an encouraging pat. He wished he could be in Mannar to see the end of the saga. A cassock dangling from the tallest tree in Mannar would give the locals much to talk about. Why, they might even make the tree a shrine!
In camp, he went before a requestman’s parade.
‘Signalman von Bloss requests permission to grow a beard, sir,’ Thomas said.
Gun
asakes squinted. ‘Why?’
Carloboy didn’t know either, but the Navy did give a man a special allowance if he wore a beard. Something to do with naval tradition. Yes, that was the word. Tradition.
‘It’s Navy tradition, sir.’
‘Humph. That’ll be the day. You want the thirty rupee allowance, is that it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Request granted. Another scruffy bugger on board. Full beard, do you hear? No shaping it to your liking.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Railway town received him with mixed feelings. The embryonic beard had a mind of its own. It liked growing out in a number of directions at once. Driver Vanderputt’s daughter adored it while Heather de Jong wrinkled her pretty nose. Carloboy had leaped off the engine at the Anuradhapura station and drawn a deep breath. He wanted to laugh, to cry, to choke, to run along those steamy roads. It was a homecoming of sorts. Eventually, having drunk his fill, he crossed into railway town, walked its old familiar avenues, saw the old iron rail fences, the gaudy curtains in the windows, the potted coleus on the verandas, the gardens with the big banyan trees and rain trees, the hedges of Madras thorn and heard the tinkle of a piano.
A piano . . . and yes, there sat a tall, long-fingered girl at Werkmeister’s piano. She was playing ‘Mona Lisa’ and playing it badly.
‘Your bass chords are wrong,’ he said.
She turned, startled large grey eyes on him. ‘I don’t know the notes. I’m just picking it up by ear.’ She studied him. ‘Who are you?’
Her mother bustled out. ‘Carloboy? My goodness, child, just look at you! So small you were when you were here. Went to see your old house? Tamil guard is there now.’
‘Mummy, who is this?’ the daughter asked.
‘Why, von Bloss, child. You remember them . . . when uncle Meerwald was here. But how can you remember, you were a baby, no? Come, come, you must be tired. Come to the kitchen. Marie, see and take your books from the settee. Your father will come and shout.’