by Robb White
Then he saw it. The queen mary that had been stenciled on the back canvas was gone.
Peter went over to the chair and looked again. Where queen mary had been, it now said peter brent, and below that, in smaller letters, was added Private Property.
He sat down in the chair and looked at Archer's back. He knew he couldn't ask Sam to change it—Peter had known all along who had swiped the chair—and he also knew that it was going to cause trouble.
The men were settling down now. Jason curled up below his guns with the brand-new barrels; Goldberg and Britches sat together near their rack talking about their home towns; the Preacher was lying stretched out on his two torpedoes trying to read the Bible in the moonlight.
Sko left the engines to the Professor and Skeeter and came on deck, going aft to join Mitch and Stucky. The three of them sat down on the depth charges and talked, knowing that they could not be heard by people on the bridge.
"We got to do something, Sko," Mitch said seriously, "before Mr. Archer gets us all killed. I can't take much more of him."
"Let's get the boys separated from the men," Sko told him. "Let him ride a few patrols and get all that shine off him. Then we'll know what we've really got."
"What we ought to do," Stucky said, "is for all of us to write a letter—you know, like a petition—and everybody sign it and give it to Peter. He can take it to the squadron commander."
"Yeah!" Mitch agreed. "Just lay it on the line. Like breaking us out in the rain for colors. Like standing us up in ranks all the time. Like these field days and inspections and wearing full uniform. We got a war to fight."
"All those things are in the book," Sko reminded him. "Archer hasn't done a thing that isn't in the book. Anyway, that would get Peter into more trouble than he's already in. No. All we can do is wait and see if Archer doesn't get with it."
"Peter's the one taking the real beating," Stucky said. "I don't see how he keeps from letting Archer have it."
"Where it won't blind him," Mitch said.
Murph came out of the chart house and looked around. Then he went over to the pelorus and took a look. He started to say something to Archer, changed his mind, and went over to Peter in the chair. "Aren't we pretty close to where the 120 hit that coral?" he whispered.
"About five miles."
"I better tell him," Murph said.
"Wait. If he doesn't ease off in a minute or so, I'll tell him."
Archer did not, however, change course. Peter got up out of the chair and went to stand beside Archer on the platform. For a moment he stood in silence watching the dark coast off the port side, picking out the landmarks easily in the moonlight. With rather elaborate concern he took a few bearings. All this had no effect on Archer, who held the boat on course.
Finally Peter decided that he had better forget the regulations about telling the commanding officer what to do. "There's a coral reef dead ahead," he said. "It's not marked on the charts but it's there. The 120 hit it the other night."
"I discussed that with the captain of the 120. It is now marked on my chart. I'm well clear of it."
Peter didn't think so, but as he started to object, Archer said, "Is this the fashion in which you allow the men to behave at general quarters, Mr. Brent?"
"They'll get to those guns quick enough if anything happens, Adrian. The nights get pretty long out here, and it's better to have them rested and ready."
Archer turned and looked at him for a moment; and then he leaned forward and called out, "All hands! Man your battle stations!"
The dark figures of the men jumped instantly to guns and torpedo racks and cannon. Murph came tearing out of the shack, looking wildly around for the enemy. Willie, the radarman, searched the empty scope and then poked his head out of the hatch and looked around.
Goldberg came over below the bridge and said, "What's up, Captain?"
"When this boat is on patrol," Archer said, "all hands will man their battle stations at all times. And, Goldberg, there will be no talking."
Goldberg stared up at him, his face suddenly sullen in the moonlight, then, in silence, he turned away.
"Goldberg," Archer called to him.
Goldberg turned around again.
"That was an order I gave you. How do you acknowledge an order?"
Goldberg looked big and menacing as he walked slowly back to the bridge. He said the right words, but he could have been court-martialed for the way he said them. "Aye, aye … sir," Goldberg said. Then he stood there, looking up at Archer as though daring him to open his mouth again. Finally Goldberg turned away, walked forward, and bawled out, "Okay, you guys, the commanding officer of this 'ship' says for you to stand up on your feet at your battle stations and there will be no talking."
Peter was watching Archer, and now for the first time he saw a small sign of satisfaction in Archer's expression.
And then the satisfaction disappeared as Goldberg added loudly, "And if standing up all night makes you too pooped to pull the trigger, report to me."
Archer turned to Peter. "I think it's time we had an example, Mr. Brent. Have Goldberg report to captain's mast tomorrow afternoon.'
"What's he done?" Peter asked. "What are you going to charge him with?"
"It is part of the duties of the executive officer to prefer charges against the men," Archer said.
Peter looked at him in the moonlight. The time was coming, he thought, and it was coming fast. "Okay," Peter said. "As Executive Officer I find nothing in Goldberg's conduct to warrant bringing him to mast."
Behind them someone snickered … out loud. Peter and Archer turned around to see who it was.
Peter had never seen Murph so busy, so concentrated. The protractor and parallel rulers were flying around on the chart.
"What do you find so funny, Murphy?" Archer asked.
Murph looked up with an innocent Irish face. "I guess I must've been think about when I had a hot rod, Mr. Archer. That thing could travel and this night I had this chick, see, and she said 'Drive slow, darling … so we can talk.' And, you know, I fell for it,"
Archer, apparently satisfied turned back to the wheel, but Peter stood looking sternly at Murph. Suddenly all the innocence vanished as Murph winked at him and grinned.
Peter had to turn away to keep from laughing out loud.
Willie poked his head up then and said, "We're getting in pretty close, Mr. Brent."
"Okay," Peter acknowledged and turned to Archer. "Want to give her a little sea room, Cap'n?"
Archer, without turning his head, said, "The element of surprise can be gained for the PT boat by staying close to the shore and thus confusing the image of the enemy's radar."
Right out of the mouth of the professor in the school at Melville, Rhode Island—a long way from New Guinea in the Pacific Ocean.
"With a full-moon tide you get a pretty strong set toward shore around here," Peter said. "You make more leeway than you figure sometimes." "When Mr. Jones was commanding officer was it your custom to tell him how to handle the ship, Mr. Brent?"
Well, you long drink of water, Peter thought. "No," he said quietly, "it wasn't. Because Jonesy never held the boat on a course that would put a coral head through her hull."
"And you think I am?"
"I don't think so. I know it," Peter told him.
The engines were rolling at 900 rpm, the boat sliding along, bow down, at about 12 knots. If she had been going fast enough to lift the bow it would have taken the bottom out of her when she hit, bows on.
Even at 12 knots Slewfoot hit hard. For a moment her bow crunched through the outer layer of living, soft coral, but then it struck the rock-hard structure of the long-dead coral, which stopped her dead in her wake.
It threw Goldberg back against Britches, and the two of them stumbled in a weird, awkward dance back against the bridge structure. The sudden stop peeled the Preacher off the torpedoes and rolled him aft until he hit the legs of Goldberg and Britches and brought them down on top of him. It bruis
ed Jason against the gun mount and flung Willie almost head on against the radarscope. It tumbled Stucky and Mitch over the depth charges so that when the moving wake struck the stern and climbed over it, they were rolled back against the launcher.
In the engine room, Sko didn't wait for the buzzer but yanked the engines out of gear, while on the bridge, Peter instantly hauled the throttles back.
Then it was very quiet on Slewfoot. Still and quiet, only the low panting of the muffled, idling engines and the wash of water against the coral made noise.
8
Archer was the first to speak, and he said it as though discussing the weather in Des Moines, Iowa. "I must have been misinformed by the captain of 120 boat."
"Something like that," Peter told him.
"We'll back her off," Archer said, reaching for the buzzer and throttles.
"Don't you think we'd better find out if she's hurt first?" Peter asked.
"I should have thought you would already be on your way below," Archer said.
"Okay, so don't back her until I find out."
As he turned to go below, Sam the cook came charging out of the hatch, yelling, "Water's coming in the boat!"
"Okay, Sam," Peter said. "Let's have a look."
As he went down the hatch he could hear Archer snapping out orders. "Stand by the life rafts! All hands check your life jackets!" Then he turned to Murphy and snapped, "Get out all confidential charts and codes. Secure them in the sea disposal pouch. Be sure the lead weights are in it."
Peter dropped down through the hatch, and as he followed Sam forward he marveled at Archer. He was barking orders exactly as it said in the book, in exactly the right words, and if he didn't stop pretty soon he'd get to the place where the book said abandon ship, and they'd all jump overboard before Archer even found out what sort of trouble Slewfoot was in.
She was in plenty of trouble. It made Peter sick to see it and outraged him because it was so unnecessary.
In the port bow, about a foot above the day-room deck, a jagged, half-crushed piece of coral had rammed its way through the thin plywood hull and was sticking into the compartment. Water was pouring in around it and running aft along the slightly up-slanted deck.
Peter was looking at it, figuring what to do about it, when he felt the engines begin to turn up and then felt Slewfoot begin to shiver and then to groan and strain and shake. Peter could hear outside the boat the rush of the water along the hull as the screws backed with all the power of the three Packards. The force of the engines was ripping a larger hole in her, the coral not moving, but the plywood hull steadily tearing away.
Peter snapped at Sam, "Tell him to stop going astern. Tell Mitch to get down here with a sledgehammer and chisel."
As Sam ran for the hatch, Peter went aft to the engine room and told the Professor to start all pumps and keep 'em going. Then he went up the amidships hatch and stuck his head out. As he did, Archer stalked over to him and stood above him. There was still no anger in the man—nothing. "Did you send an enlisted man to give me orders, Mr. Brent?"
Peter said it before he even knew the words were coming out. "Stop backing the boat, you idiot! You're tearing it apart!"
Archer just stood there, looking down at him. "Is that your idea of a damage report, Mr. Brent?"
Peter let his wrath subside a little and said, "A piece of coral has holed her forward and she isn't coming off until we get that coral out of her. She's going to take a lot of water, but I think the pumps can handle it."
"I'll inspect the damage myself," Archer said. Then he turned to Murphy. "See that my orders are carried out, quartermaster."
Murph looked startled. "About the rafts?"
"Exactly," Archer said, and came below with Peter.
They went forward to find Mitch and Sko banging away at the coral with a big ripping chisel and a sledgehammer. "Belay that!" Archer snapped at them. "Who gave you orders to cut that away?"
Sko looked helplessly at Peter. "I did," Peter said.
Archer only glanced at him and then went to the coral. With his hands he measured the hole it had made and then stood for a moment, watching the water flowing in around the coral.
Walking on tiptoe so as not to get his shoes any wetter than necessary, Archer crossed the room and sat down on one of the bunks, his feet up out of the water. Then he took out a notebook and pencil and began some sort of figuring while Sko, Mitch, and Peter watched him. When he got through figuring he said, "If that obstruction is cleared from the breach in the hull, the capacity of the bilge pumps will not be as great as the capacity of the area through which the sea can enter."
"Then we'll bail her with the fire buckets," Peter told him.
Archer got off the bunk and waded aft. At the door he motioned Peter to follow him.
"Get some caulking around that thing," Peter told Mitch. "Keep as much water out as you can." Then he followed Archer into the captain's cabin. Archer carefully closed the door and then sat down at the little desk. After he got through wiping the water off his shoes he looked up at Peter.
"It's very bad for discipline to reprimand a junior officer in front of members of the crew," Archer said calmly. "You realize now, don't you, that if they had carried out your orders and cut away that coral and the boat had been backed off into deep water she would have sunk?"
Peter was so amazed he couldn't say anything. He just stood there looking at the guy.
"Now," Archer went on, still in that perfectly calm way, "we have three alternatives. First, we can build a cofferdam around the breach in the hull, then remove the coral—from the outside, Mr. Brent. Secondly, we can stay where we are—the pumps are now able to handle the water coming in around that coral—until daylight. The Army patrol planes will spot us then and send help. Thirdly, we can abandon ship now and row the rafts southeast along the coast until we reach an area held by the Army."
The wave of anger went all over Peter again but this time he managed to control it and tried to make his own voice sound as flatly calm as that of Archer.
"We have no alternatives, Mr. Archer. By the time we could build a cofferdam with the tools we've got, it would be daylight. If we abandon ship and try to row those rafts, the set of the tide—it's rising, you know—would put us ashore within a mile, and the Army is nowhere near here yet."
It didn't seem to be making any impression on Archer, and suddenly Peter understood why. In the school in Melville, Rhode Island, Peter remembered, there had been a great deal of instruction about how to handle the boats and to keep them running, and how to be a leader of men; a great deal of training with the guns and torpedoes, and a lot of what they called strategy and tactics, station keeping, and navigation. But they hadn't taught much about the way things were in the South Pacific.
"As soon as it's daylight," Peter said, telling him qiuetly about how things really were in the South Pacific, "they'll open up on us. It'll take those shore batteries of theirs about five minutes to cut this boat up into kindling wood.
"Or," Peter went on, "they might wait a little while. They might wait to see what came to help us and then open up."
"You confirm my first decision," Archer said. "We will wait until the tide changes. Then we can row the rafts down the coast to Army territory. The Japanese certainly wouldn't fire on helpless men in life rafts."
Peter stared at him, not believing, and then said quietly, "Adrian, you aren't in the Ivy League now."
Peter started to tell him how personal the war was with the men in PT boats—personal and bitter, with no quarter asked or given—but decided not to. Archer would just have to find that out for himself.
"The only thing is to get this boat away from here," Peter told him. "Now, while it's dark. Once we get her off and under way, I think Sko can get enough out of the engines to keep her going bow high so we'll only ship the tops of waves."
Archer didn't seem to be listening. He looked up at Peter slowly and said, "Would they shoot helpless men in a life raft?"
&n
bsp; "They have," Peter said, "so let's get out of here."
Archer made no move to get up, but he nodded and that was all Peter needed.
He went back into the dayroom and told Mitch and Sko to cut away the coral. Then he went on topside to talk to Goldberg and the Preacher.
"We may have to dump these fish," he told them, "so disarm them. I don't want to get blown off this reef."
"Wow!" Goldberg said. "Fifty thousand dollars worth of the poor taxpayers' money over the side."
"Remember that sign," Peter said. " 'It takes millions to win a war, but all you've got to lose one.' Get the racks flipped over as soon as you disarm, and when I give the word, let 'em go."
He went below again and helped Mitch and Sko with the coral.
They were lucky. As the chisel cut down through it, the coral suddenly broke, the crack running outside the boat and slanting forward so that, if she moved aft, the remaining coral would slide past her.
Water now came in in a solid rushing column.
Peter yelled up the hatch, "Back her down. All hands on the fire buckets."
Then, on the ladder, he looked back a moment at the water, now coming up toward Mitch's knees.
Going on deck, Peter waited for the feel of the engines turning up and the feel of the boat straining. Nothing happened. He ran aft to the bridge.
There was no one there. He looked around for Archer, then, not finding him, buzzed for astern and eased the throttles forward.
Slewfoot groaned, shivered, and finally shook wildly, but she did not move astern.
"Let the fish go," Peter called down and eased the throttles ahead again.
That did it. With the deadweight of the torpedoes off her, Slewfoot broke loose from the bed of coral and slid backward into deeper water.
Forward, the men were passing the fire buckets up through the hatch and dumping them over the side.
As soon as he had room to turn her, Peter buzzed for ahead and eased her around, pointing her toward the open sea.
The fire buckets weren't doing much good. As Peter swung the wheel over, Slewfoot responded like a truck, the water lying heavy in her belly; but she came slowly around and as soon as she was clear, he rammed the throttles all the way to the stops and prayed that she would lift a little—lift enough to get that hole in her bow above the solid water.