WHEN DUTY WHISPERS LOW (The Todd Ingram Series Book 3)

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  15 March, 1943

  U.S.S. Hitchcock (DD 357)

  Long Beach Naval Station

  Long Beach, California

  It was a busy Monday morning as lumbering men-of-war, their radar antennae twirling atop their masts, maneuvered to clear the harbor and put to sea. Horns blasted under a slate-gray sky, while tugs and yard service craft darted through heavy traffic.

  Ingram bent to check his watch: 0822. Damn! They were supposed have been underway twenty minutes ago. Instead, the Hitchcock was glued dockside, as yet another ship, an ancient four stack cruiser this time, sounded a mournful prolonged blast to back clear from the slip across the fairway.

  The top of the Hitchcock's pilothouse was the best place from which to conn the ship, but it was the worst place as far as protection from bitter icy winds shooting off snow-capped mountains to the northeast. Her foredeck crew took refuge in the lee of the deckhouse, blowing on their hands, and stomping their feet. But up here, there was no hiding from the thirty-six degree temperature made far harsher by the twenty-five knot wind. Ingram stomped his feet and gripped the rail with his kid-skinned gloves. But he jerked his hands away, as the cold shimmered through the gloves like a messenger of Hades. The ubiquitous wind penetrated Ingram's Navy blue topcoat and he shivered anew with each gust wondering which was better: this or the sweltering, bug-infested heat of the Solomon Islands.

  Roland De Reuter, Hitchcock's Captain, had requested tugs to stand by. But tugs were at a premium for the moment, shoving around the larger ships. Like this new one gliding past. Painted a menacing dark-gray, she was the brand-new U.S.S. Essex, a 33,000 ton aircraft carrier. The lead-ship of her class, she carried a deck-load of TBF Avengers and brand-new F6F Hellcats. The last time Ingram had seen a carrier was six months ago -- in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. The Howell had tried to torpedo the mortally wounded aircraft carrier Hornet as she lay abandoned and dead in the water, the victim of a Japanese aerial attack. But she was tough. U.S. Navy torpedoes couldn't put her down. The Howell fled and later, the destroyers Anderson and Musten pumped more torpedoes into her, along with more than 400 rounds of five-inch ammunition. But still she wouldn't sink. Eventually, Anderson and Musten were forced to run when a Japanese task force hauled over the horizon. Their destroyers easily sank the white-hot steaming wreck with just four of their Type 93 torpedoes.

  The Essex's visage gave Ingram a sense of calm. She was an answer to the Navy's war losses. And Ingram had heard there were twelve more in her class, right behind her. On top of that, there were yet another eleven repeat Essex class carriers ready, to be built.

  Lurking in mid-channel behind the Essex were two new Fletcher class destroyers, also in dark gray paint, patiently waiting their chance to ease through the breakwater and crack open their throttles to assume escort duty. The sailors on the destroyer's foredecks stood braced as the wind whipped their peacoats and bellbottoms. Ingram's eyes darted around Long Beach Harbor, sensing a new vitality in the sailors and ships about him. Like the kid, Blake, at San Pedro High School: Young and untested, they nevertheless lent an aura of determination and were going to the front in larger numbers. Ingram had been locked in this bitter war since the first Japanese bombs fell in the Philippines on December 8, 1941. And now, sixteen months later, it hit him: maybe we do have a chance.

  Ingram peered through a forest of masts, into the San Pedro Channel, where the wind churned the water like a child playing in a bathtub. Thirty, thirty-five knots of wind out in that mess, he thought. Hitchcock was a 381 foot, Porter class twin-stacked destroyer. She was narrow-beamed and rough riding in a seaway. Indeed, she seemed to buck and roll even if you looked at her cross-eyed with six lines doubled to the pier. The pencil-thin Hitchcock's foray into the San Pedro Channel today would be a challenge; like trying to make the Long Beach Pike's roller coaster feel like a ride in a Cadillac. Lots of kids seasick today, probably even me, he thought ruefully.

  He hadn't paid too much attention to the men crowded on the bridge below until a familiar profile stepped into view. Freckled and thin, the sailor wore head phones over his white hat; sown on his pea coat were the chevrons of a second class boatswain's mate. “Leo?”

  Seltzer’s head snapped around. “Mr. Ingram? What are you doing here? I thought you and Mrs.---“

  “---I thought you were on liberty.” Ingram didn’t want to be reminded of Helen. After some hard drinking on Saturday, Ingram had called a friend and was lucky enough to be attached to the Hitchcock now, rather than stand around for two weeks with nothing to do.

  “Swapped with a buddy.”

  “What do they have you doing up here?”

  “Captain’s talker.”

  Seltzer must have pulled strings. He should be on leave, Ingram thought? “But how did you---“

  Roland De Reuter stepped from the pilothouse and shoved his way among bridge watchstanders. He looked up to Ingram and asked in a thick, Dutch accent, “Meester Ingram. Are you aware of our engineering difficulties?”

  “No, Captain.” Ingram wondered if De Reuter knew his crew imitated him behind his back, holding a forefinger below the nose and goostepping.

  “Hokay.” The barrel chested commander checked his watch, then yanked a phone from a bracket and punched a button. Ingram guessed he spoke with the engineering officer in the forward engine room. At breakfast, he heard the two grumbling about a recalcitrant number two generator.

  De Reuter shouted into the phone, then hung up. He cupped a hand to his mouth and called up to Ingram. “Number two generator hast fallen off the line. Ve are not certain if number one generator can carry the load.”

  “Your choice, Captain.”

  “Ja, ja. I let you know.”

  Two tugs pulled in from the main channel, halted and tooted.

  Ingram wondered if De Reuter really wanted to use tugs. Destroyer sailors were a prideful bunch, where flamboyant captains conned their ships like hot-rods. With powerful twin-engines at their command, destroyer skippers took glory in muscling their ships in and out of tight spaces. But this Amsterdam-born man was different. He was a merchant skipper from the old school, who viewed things through the big lumbering ship, single-screw prospective. Rule one: in port, big ships need tugs. Naturalized at the age of eighteen, De Reuter sailed the Holland-America Line for years, while doing naval reserve duty in destroyers. At war’s outbreak, he’d been called up and assigned as executive officer of the Hitchcock, a training and services ship, attached to the Long Beach Naval Station. A year later, they made him commanding officer. A ship without a squadron, the Hitchcock’s only mission was to take student officers and enlisted to sea, giving them practical training in ship handling, gunnery, torpedo tactics and communication. For the next two weeks, Ingram was the senior of fifteen officers, mostly ensigns and jay gees, plus seventy-five new enlisted, headed out for intensive battle drills. As a prospective commanding officer, Ingram would lead the drills and do the ship’s maneuvering, all under De Reuter’s watchful eye.

  A phone buzzed on the bridge. De Reuter picked it up, nodded, then shoved it back into the bracket. “Mister Ingram!”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Number two generator is fixed. Are you prepared to get this ship undervay?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “ Do you wish to use these?” De Reuter’s hand swept toward the tugs lying alongside, their powerful diesel engines calmly thumping.

  “No, Sir.”

  “Hokay.” De Reuter climbed the ladder to the pilot house and stood beside Ingram. “Fery well. Ve go now.” He clamped a hand atop his hat, as a gust nearly blew it away. “How do you supposed to do this?”

  Ingram thought he detected a gleam in De Reuter’s eye. It was almost as if the Dutchman deliberately beat up his English to disarm his listeners. “Hold lines one and three, take in the others. Let the wind blow the stern out until we stick out into the channel. Then, cast off one and three and ring-up a one-third back
ing bell. That should give us proper sternway to back into the main channel.”

  “Anchor?”

  “Port anchor ready for letting go.”

  De Reuter pursed his lips and rubbed his chin. “Worth a try. The tugs can pull us clear before you stick us in shit.”

  Ingram nodded. De Reuter, not Ingram, would be the one in trouble if the Hitchcock crashed into something, like the blazing-white16,000 ton hospital ship moored across the way. He decided to give his first order and turned to Seltzer. “Single up all lines.”

  While Seltzer relayed the order, De Reuter said, “You one of Boom Boom Landa’s boys?”

  “Yes, Sir. I have served with him.” What the hell? How did he know?

  “Boom Boom is a goot man. And I hear you had your own ship at Corregidor.”

  “Just a little mine sweeper, yes, Sir.” De Reuter fell silent, so Ingram bent over to give his next order---”

  “---chust tell me one thing, Mr. Ingram.”

  “Yes, Sir?”

  “Why, you? Why all of this?” De Reuter waved a hand around him. “Navy cross. Philippine Campaign medal with battle stars? The Solomons? Purple Heart? You could have your pick of chuicy shore-side duty.”

  Ingram’s mouth dropped open.

  “You have a wife? Kids?”

  “Uhh. Yes. No.”

  “One wife and no kids?”

  Ingram nodded. “Only one wife.”

  A corner of De Reuter’s mouth turned up for just a moment at the joke.

  He’s sharp as a tack.

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  De Reuter knit his eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “An Army nurse. A captain, now. They tell me she’s enroute to North Africa to join Patton’s Seventh Army in a Field Hospital.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Helen.”

  “A beautiful name. I’ll have you for dinner. Helen too, when she comes back. My Hilda is a good cook. But you haven’t’ answered my question. Why go?”

  Ingram took a deep breath. “I suppose we all have to go at one time or another.”

  “But you. Corregidor. That horrible fighting in the Solomons. Why don’t you chust pack it up and...take a job like mine? I could talk to someone here. Fix something up?”

  “Well, they’re giving me a ship.” Why was De Reuter talking like this, Ingram wondered? It was De Reuter’s job to evaluate Ingram for command, not probe his personal life for the next ten days. But the truth was, Ingram’s stomach didn’t feel fit for command at the moment. More and more, the nightmares came: ships burning and sinking and men screaming from the darkness. Even during the day, feelings of fear and death and being trapped in a burning or flooding compartment gnawed at him. He turned away, pretending to examine the tugs standing by alongside. “It’s...it’s where I belong, Captain.”

  “Hokay. Let’s go.”

  “Seltzer, tell main control to standby to answer all bells.”

  Seltzer punched his talk button and relayed the order.

  “Fantail, take in lines four, five and six. Fo’c’sle, take in two, keep the slack out of one and three.”

  With lines one and three snugged to the pier, the wind easily pushed the Hitchcock’s stern into the fairway.

  Ingram called, “Take in one and three. All engines back one-third.” “As soon as the orders were relayed, Ingram said, “Bo’s’n mate of the watch; sound one long blast and three short blasts.”

  Conversation was impossible as the melancholy, baritone notes of Hitchcock’s foghorn echoed loudly over Long Beach Harbor. Ingram and De Reuter faced aft as her screws bit the water, wind whipping their topcoats as she gained sternway. As soon as Sailors on the pier cast off lines one and three, the fo’c’sle Jack was lowered and the National Ensign quickly hoisted up the mast, where it snapped in the breeze.

  De Reuter waved away the tugs, as they backed toward the main channel.

  Ingram said, “Captain?”

  “Ja.”

  “Okay,” said Ingram.

  “Hokay, what?”

  “Hilda’s cooking sounds mighty nice.”

  “Goot. Now let’s see you make this old girl do a polka.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  25 March, 1943

  U.S.S. Hitchcock (DD 357)

  Ten Miles South of San Clemente Island

  Coast of Southern California

  The moon had yet to rise, but the water was calm, the air balmy with hardly a breath of wind. Under darken ship routine, the Hitchcock steamed at a lazy twelve knots, rolling easily through a star-laden night. It was a far cry from the mini-chubasco day when she had shoved off into rough seas, half the crew becoming seasick. Now, at ten in the evening, seasickness was farthest from their minds. After ten days of continual battle problems, they were dog-tired and had just turned in, the ship’s somnolent motion acting like knockout drops.

  They’d drilled non-stop at surface and anti-air gunfire drills, engineering drills, casualty drills, damage control drills, anti-submarine drills, communication drills, and replenishment at sea drills. De Reuter had driven Ingram hard and Ingram had driven the officers and men hard. Ingram had seen most of it before, but he was being evaluated on his ability to command, not simply do drills. This evening, after a hurried dinner, they plunged into another battle problem, firing their five-inch cannons at San Clemente Island, simulating a night shore bombardment. Promptly at nine thirty, De Reuter called ‘secure,’ left a wake up call for 0630, stepped into his sea cabin and snapped off his lights.

  After two surface gunfire exercises early next morning, the rest of the day was to be given over to clean-up, while running at full power for Long Beach, eighty miles to the north. Scheduled to arrive at 1600, they planned to sound liberty call at 1630, letting the men head into the downtown gin mills.

  Ingram looked forward to a quiet weekend at home, writing to Helen and scratching Fred’s ears. All he wanted was to sit on the porch and watch and listen to the neighborhood. He also wanted to plant a victory garden in the back yard, now overgrown with weeds. Turning the soil would be honest back-breaking work. After that, he would hoe and rake, then put in seed: carrots, radishes and corn sounded good. If there was time, maybe he would try to get to know old Mrs. Peabody a little better.

  The evening watch was set with Ingram’s eyes feeling as if they were propped open with toothpicks. Time to hit the hay.

  “Coffee Skipper?” It was Seltzer waving a steaming mug.

  “Thanks.” Ingram took the mug and wrapped his hands around it, hopping it would ease his nightmares.

  Seltzer moved off, leaving Ingram alone on the starboard bridgewing. He looked around, seeing only the shadowy figure of the starboard lookout up on the pilot house. The pilot house’s interior glowed softly with the red darken-ship lights. He gazed over the side, watching the bow wave churn small pools of plankton to a brilliant turquoise, oval-shaped luminescence. The ship rolled lazily, and Ingram wedged himself against the bulwark, letting her motion carry him back and forth. He felt himself relax, as if he were a child in a cradle, his mother rocking him from side to side. Above, the masthead swept across near-black skies, adorned with thousands of tiny beacons. At darkened ship, the view was unencumbered by running and deck lights, the spectacle brilliant, the stars overhead innumerable.

  Taking a deep breath, he sipped his coffee thinking of Helen: her dark ebony hair; her skin; those eyes, so quick and full of mirth; loving eyes that grabbed you and took you in, only to let you go, feeling fulfilled and worthy. He wondered where she was now. He’d called that gum-clacking Sergeant Thorpe a week ago Saturday, but the man was no help. Each time Ingram tried to pin him down, Thorpe became more evasive. Then Colonel Moore picked up the line. Once again, Ingram slammed the phone down.

  God, he missed her. But how to find her?

  Seltzer materialized from the darkness and asked, “More coffee, Skipper?”

  Ingram looked down, surprised he ha
d downed the whole mug. “No thanks. I better hit the rack.” From his stance, Ingram knew something was on Seltzer’s mind. “What is it, Leo?”

  “Scuttlebutt has it that Captain Landa wants to salvage the Howell.”

  “Yes, he stayed in Tulagi to coordinate the operation.” Ingram took a breath. It felt strange talking about Landa.

  “Skipper, uh...”

  “Yes?”

  “Word has it, Sir, that you decked the skipper.” His inflection said, ‘What the hell did you do that for? Boom Boom Landa is a sailor’s sailor.’

  Actually, Ingram had been surprised that a squad of MPs wasn’t there to arrest him each time the Coronado flying boat landed to refuel on its flight to the forty-eight states. Why hadn’t Landa or Rocko Myszynski had him clapped in irons and pressed charges? What’s Landa doing now? Does he have a black eye? He hit the deck pretty hard. Was anything else injured? “Maybe--”

  “--Sir?” It was Peterson, an acne-faced young ensign standing one of his first officer of the deck watches.

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a strange buzzing.”

  “What?”

  “In the pilot house, Mr. Ingram. We can’t figure out what the heck it means,” said Peterson.

  Seltzer shrugged.

  “Okay.” Ingram walked in the pilot house. Two quartermasters, stood over the chart table, their heads cocked toward the bulkhead, the red lights giving them a satanic aura.

  “What is it?” Ingram demanded.

  One of the quartermasters put a finger to his lips and bent lower. “It’s coming from around here,” he said.

  Zzzzzt. Zzzzzt.

  Now Ingram heard it.

  “I think its underneath,” said Seltzer.

  Ingram stooped and peered under the table but it was too dark. He held out a hand. “Flashlight.”

  One plopped in his hand and he clicked it on finding a mish-mash of bulkhead mounted relays and devices that looked like the back door buzzers found in an average home. He crawled under the table and reached out to touch one.