Torpedo Run

by Robb White

  "Yeah," Peter said, not paying much attention. He was trying to figure out when was the last time he'd had any sleep—thirty hours ago, forty?

  "Then we could just go on like we're going. You could be skipper, and Murph can act like exec, unless he gets out of line."

  "Yeah," Peter said.

  "What do we need with a new captain?" Mitch asked.

  Peter finally paid attention to him. "The boat doesn't need any captain at all, Mitch."

  Mitch said slowly, "It needs a captain. But not a new one."

  "Here comes the rain," Peter said, and they moved aft to find a little shelter. Later, Peter wondered if the rain hadn't had a lot to do with what happened. The rain and a sort of delayed reaction after the fight with the destroyers and the no sleep.

  Anyway, it happened. It was, of course, raining hard when they got back to the river and nosed up the dripping green tunnel. It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, but it seemed almost night with the jungle and the rain cutting off the sunlight.

  Mitch saw it first, and for a moment he couldn't believe it. He sat there in a puddle of rain and stared at Slewfoot. "Look," he said.

  Peter raised his head against the rain and looked.

  Slewfoot was tied up to her rickety dock and some repairs had been made, but she still looked a little old, a little tired, and pretty beat-up as she floated there in the rain.

  On her foredeck was the crew. Lined up. In ranks.

  For Peter the anger started right then. It went all over him like a wave and got stronger and stronger until he couldn't handle it.

  There they were: Sko, the Preacher, the Professor, Britches, Sam, Goldberg hulking up in the rain, Murphy shrinking against it, Skeeter and Stucky and Jason and Willie. Lined up. In two stiff ranks. Not dressed in the dungarees torn off above the knees, not in the ragged-sleeved and faded blue shirts, not barefoot.

  They were—all of them—standing there in dress whites—white jumpers with the black neckerchiefs bedraggled in the rain; white, bell-bottom trousers; black shoes. And every one of them had his white hat on.

  Peter could feel all the training and the discipline and the indoctrination that had turned him into a naval officer holding him back, but it wasn't enough. He knew as he got up and ran forward on the 119 boat and jumped over the Slewfoot that he was losing his temper like a little boy, but he couldn't help it.

  An officer he had never seen before was standing in front of the men—an officer dressed in creased pants (now the crease was soaking out in the rain) and a creased shirt with the sleeves rolled down, and a black necktie knotted and two-blocked at his throat, and a cap with rain running off the shiny black visor and the gold braid glowing with newness even in the dim light. Standing there reading something from a piece of paper.

  Peter took him by the shoulder and swung him around and said, his voice shaking with anger, "What's going on around here? What are you doing to my men?" Then he turned the officer loose and faced the crew. Through his rage he saw Murph and Sko and Goldberg shaking their heads in a silent warning, but he couldn't stop. "You guys … get out of the rain and get out of those clothes." But they just stood there, at attention, in ranks.

  Peter turned back to the officer, knowing now who he was. Suddenly all the anger went away, just dribbling out of him and leaving him weak. "Those guys are tired," he said.

  "Just who are you?" the officer, a lieutenant junior grade, asked.

  Peter looked at him now for the first time. He was a tall, thin man with a thin face and a long thin nose. His eyes were bright, hard blue—to Peter they looked about as sympathetic as a bird's eyes—and he had a tightly set, stubborn mouth and a stubborn, lean chin. He was blond with a fresh washed skin and sandy-colored hair.

  "I'm the Exec," Peter said wearily. "Peter Brent."

  "Well, Mr. Brent, I have just assumed command of this ship. My name is Archer, Lieutenant Junior Grade Adrian Archer."

  All Peter could think of was the old Navy rule: any vessel that can be lifted out of the water and put aboard a ship is a boat, not a ship.

  "I'm sorry," Peter said.

  Archer turned to the men and said, "Secure from quarters." And then he started a saluting movement with his right hand; but none of the men remembered to salute, and Archer stood there, his hand half raised.

  They started leaving the boat in silence, the white uniforms clinging to them, or slapping wetly around as they walked.

  "Hey," Peter called after them, "get changed as soon as you can. We've got this 119 to unload."

  Archer stepped in front of him. "Go below, please. There are some things I want to discuss with you."

  "Okay," Peter said, "but let's get this stuff unloaded first. We're holding up the 119 boat."

  "One of the crew is absent without leave," Archer told him. "Did you know that, Mr. Brent?"

  The first thing that came into Peter's mind was mutiny. But they had all been there, lined up, all of them. "Who?" he asked.

  "The boatswain's mate, Mitchell."

  Peter sighed wearily. "He's over there." He pointed to Mitch who was still aboard the 119 helping tie her up alongside Slewfoot. "Nobody goes AWOL out here. Where could they go? It's all nothing but jungle."

  Mitch, over on the other boat, turned to the 119 bosun and whispered, "I'll swap boats with you, Mac. Over there, no work, lots of sack time, good pay. Best chow in the Navy. Plenty of travel to exotic foreign lands."

  "Let me tell you something, Mac," the other bosun said, "I don't even want to be in the same ocean with your boat, much less serve on her." Then he put an arm around Mitch's shoulders. "I feel for you, Mac, but I just can't reach you."

  On his way to the captain's cabin Peter found an old rag and wiped the rain off his face and head. He went in first, into Jonesy's cabin, and the first thing he saw was the silver frame with Jonesy's parents smiling so proudly. He laid it face down on the desk and turned to Archer. Peter was determined now to hold his temper. It was important to the boat that he did, because this man had a lot to learn and not much time to learn it in.

  "I'm sorry, Adrian," he said. "Really. It was a little rough out the other night."

  "I had a rough night, too," Archer told him. "Eighteen hours in the bucket seat of a DC-6, but that hasn't brought me to the point of insubordination."

  Peter could feel it burning inside him like a slow fire. Eighteen hours in a plane. Well … think of that. All the way from the States. So he kept his mouth shut.

  "This is the most undisciplined group of men I ever saw," Archer went on. "As Executive Officer, I want your help in making a taut ship. A taut ship is a happy ship."

  Peter wondered whether any of the flames of his anger were shooting out of his ears. A taut ship is a happy ship. For the love of Mike, get off it!

  "They've been out here a long time," Peter said slowly. "A lot of patrols, a lot of fights. They're way past caring whether the ship is taut or whether it's happy. All they want is to fight Slewfoot so well they'll stay alive."

  "Fight what?" Archer asked.

  "That's her name. Slewfoot."

  "I think from now on we'll call her by her number, Mr. Brent,"

  Don't get mad, Peter told himself. Just … don't … get … mad. "Call her what you like," he said. "I've got a few names for her myself when those engines won't run and you need 'em."

  "Coming back to this matter of discipline. I understand you don't hold quarters every morning."

  "Most mornings we've just come back from an all-night patrol."

  "It only takes a few minutes to hold quarters, and the backbone of discipline is routine."

  Peter opened his fists by rubbing his palms together. Then he said, slowly and keeping his voice low, "This is the only boat in this squadron that has ever made a torpedo run all by herself on three enemy destroyers and sank one of them and got home. That's what I call discipline, not lining up a bunch of men who've been fighting all night just to make an entry in the log that you held quarters."


  "I see that you and I have got some problems to work out," Archer said. "I hope we can do it, Mr. Brent."

  "I hope so, too," Peter said. "Because if we don't somebody's going to get hurt."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  Now, Peter thought, if I can just say it quietly and without belting this jerk it might do some good. But he didn't start out very well: "Listen, fella, until your orders are signed by the squadron commander you're not commanding officer of this—boat. So let me tell you something before he makes it official.

  "Slewfoot is the best boat in this war and those are the best men in the Navy and you have been sent out here to replace a man named Jones who had more guts than you and I will ever have. Now I went to the same school you did and learned all about the Navy, but I've been out here awhile and have found out that this isn't the Navy—this is Slewfoot, a beat-up mess of plywood which takes all the crew's got just to get her where she's supposed to go, then fight her, and bring her back. With nothing left over, Mr. Archer, for quarters and white dress uniforms and discipline. So if you'll excuse me I'll get our spare parts aboard."

  Archer handed him a piece of paper, saying, "As you can see, the squadron commander has already signed my orders and I am commanding officer of this ship.

  "I also understand," Archer went on, "that the rest of the Navy, going by regulations with disciplined crews, is doing quite well in other parts of the world. I think it would be a good idea if this ship joined the rest of the Navy."

  This man, Peter thought, is hopeless. At least, right now he is. Maybe after a few patrols … a few of those long, long nights.

  Peter held out his hand. "Welcome aboard, Adrian."

  Archer shook hands briefly and said, "Thank you, Mr. Brent."

  Up on Snob Hill, Murph, now back in his tattered dungaree shorts and a ruined T-shirt with Vassar printed across the front, tramped through the mud from his tent to the one Sko and Mitch lived in. They were wandering around, wondering where they could hang up their whites so they would dry.

  "So what are we going to do?" Murph demanded.

  "Well, there'll come this big wave, see?" Mitch said. "And somebody will be swept overboard. The night will be real dark, see. So we hunt around but we can't find him."

  Sko turned around and looked at them. "And you two swabbies will spend the rest of your lives pounding rocks in the Portsmouth Naval Prison. The guy's new—all he knows is the book. Peter'll get him squared away after a couple of patrols."

  Goldberg came in yelling, "At-tenshun!"

  They turned and looked at him is disgust. Goldberg drew himself up until his head was against the wet tent top. "I want some discipline around here. Hup —two—three—four."

  "Hup! Your ditty box," Murph said, then turned back to Sko. "I'm not riding a boat with him."

  "Oh, get off it, Murph," Sko said. "Let the guy parade around if he wants to. At sea, Peter'll run the boat and dear Adrian can sit in the Skipper's Chair and look at the pretty stars."

  Sam, who had come in behind Goldberg, said, "He don't sit in that chair."

  "You talk like you own it," Murph said.

  Sam looked at them one by one and decided that it was time they knew. "I do," he said.

  "So you're the one," Goldberg said.

  "That's right. I stole that chair from the Australian Navy. I whipped six of them Aussies for that chair, and so nobody sits in it unless I give 'em permission."

  "Well … " Goldberg said, "you light-fingered rascal." He went over to Sam and put his arm around him. "Listen, Sam, boy," he whispered, "I know a place stacked with beer. With my influence and your talents we can clean it out."

  "Come on, you guys," Sko said, "we're holding up the 119."

  They trooped out into the mud, to be joined by the rest of the crew coming out of their tents. Together they griped all the way to the boat, but as soon as they saw Peter and Archer on the deck they went silent and marched aboard, not looking at their new commanding officer. Sam went directly to the bridge and picked up the chair, which was still lying where it had been thrown by the sweeping water. He folded it carefully and took it below.

  7

  After a week Slewfoot had been patched up and made lethal and was ready for sea again, but, Peter thought, the crew was not.

  Sometimes Peter thought that Adrian Archer was not human, that he was some sort of machine. He even talked like a machine, the words coming out as though being typed on a piece of paper. That was bad enough, but he treated the men as though they were machines too—things without feelings, objects to be used regardless of their comfort or welfare.

  He didn't "ride" the men, or hard-nose them with personal attacks; he never raised his voice or showed any signs of … anything. No anger, no pleasure, no praise, no sympathy, no concern. For the first time the thick, dull book of Regulations Governing the United States Navy was broken out and constantly quoted to the laboring men.

  Take the matter of the rubber boat.

  In the middle of that mean week, the Army had come and asked Peter to pilot their assault boat up to Vadang Island. The Army was as sure as he was that there were no enemy troops on Vading; but, to play it safe, they wanted to put a twelve-man reconnaissance party ashore.

  They were so sure, in fact, that there would be no resistance that they sailed up there in the broad daylight—and got pasted.

  Vadang was loaded. As the landing craft nosed in toward a little area of beach and they were on the point of letting the ramp down, they were suddenly bombarded with big and little machine guns, mortar shells splashed all around them and, in a moment, three or four concealed shore battery guns opened up on them.

  As the slow and awkward boat maneuvered its way out of there, Peter yearned for the speed and handling of a PT boat. On the other hand, the side armor of the landing craft protected the men crouching behind it, and they got away without any injuries.

  "Holy smoke!" the Army captain said. "It's a good thing you had a hole in that rubber boat that night. If you hadn't, you'd have been massacred."

  Peter got back to Slewfoot late that afternoon and found Mr. Archer on the foredeck. Unfolded in front of him was the rubber boat with the shell holes in it.

  "I understand that this boat has been in this condition for some time," he said.

  "Thank the Lord," Peter said. "If it hadn't, Murph and I would have been dead pigeons." He turned to Murphy. "Vadang is lousy with guns. We almost got our ears knocked off."

  "Yeah?" Murph looked a little scared. "Ambush, eh?"

  "You know it," Peter told him. "Just sitting there in the jungle, waiting. Remember to swing wide of Vadang from now on, Murph. They've got some big stuff in there."

  "I was speaking of the condition of this rubber boat," Archer said. "I don't understand how an officer with any concern for his men could go to sea with a lifeboat in this condition."

  "That's just an extra, Adrian," Peter told him. "The balsa raft is okay and big enough to float us all if she goes down. Anyway, Mitch and I talked the man out of a new one when we were down in Milne."

  "Who?" Archer asked.

  "Mitch."

  "Mitchell, the bosun?"

  Peter suddenly got the message, but there was more to come. That night Archer came to his tent and after some discussion about the lack of emergency rations aboard Slewfoot, Archer said, "This matter of first names, Brent. I don't object to your calling me Adrian unofficially, but I prefer that you don't do it in front of the men. I also prefer that you do not call the men by their first names at any time. It breaks down the disciplinary relationship between officer and man."

  "Oh, for the love of Mike, Adrian," Peter said.

  "That stuff is for big ships where you hardly know the men. These guys are like my brothers. Sko wouldn't know who I was talking to if I called him Skowalskilatovich or whatever it is."

  "You can do as you wish informally, but it is my preference that you call the men only by their last names aboard ship."

 
; Peter picked his feet up out of the mud and rested them on a log. Then he looked at Archer. The hard, white light of the Coleman gas lamp was full on Archer's face, and Peter searched it for some sign of humanness and found none.

  There's going to come a time, Peter thought. A time when this man and I are going to have to tangle. And maybe right now is the time. Then he decided against it. A few patrols … a few rough nights.

  So when finally Sletufoot put to sea again it turned out to be a very rough night.

  The first thing that happened was the Skipper's Chair. Unlike Jonesy and most of the other skippers on the PTs, Archer took the wheel instead of letting the exec or the quartermaster handle it. Peter stood on the bridge with him as they left the Morobe and headed northwest for the Vitiaz Strait.

  It was a bad night for PT boats, with a full, warm, close moon, no rain, no clouds. But no wind either, so the sea was calm and Slewfoot could, if she needed to, use all the speed she had.

  Peter pointed out the landmarks as they went along: Salamaua, Lae, Finschafen, Walingai, and then Umboi Island dark off the starboard side with Long Island ahead. In the dark jungle of New Guinea they could see the occasional flashes of gunfire as the Army moved steadily against the enemy; and, on the beaches, they could see the wrecked hulks of ships which had washed ashore there after an encounter with a PT boat at sea.

  They gave Vadang Island a wide berth, going to windward of it, and then nosed in again toward the coast.

  "Don't put too much faith in the charts," Peter warned him as Archer kept nosing the boat in toward shore. "They're pretty sketchy."

  "I've handled boats before," Archer told him.

  Peter started to say, "Yeah, but never in these waters," but he stopped himself and just stood there.

  After a while Sam came over and tapped Peter on the shoulder. "Your chair's ready, Peter," Sam said.

  Peter turned and looked aft. The chair was in its accustomed place but, as he looked at it in the moonlight, something seemed different about it and, for a while, he couldn't tell what it was.