Ghostboat

by Neal R. Burger

  Hardy ignored them and swung into the aft engine room. The wolf-whistles picked up. Hardy ran the gauntlet down to the maneuvering cubicle, where the steward turned to see what he was missing. Hardy stopped and stared at the bundle in his arms.

  It was the remains of the skewered globe and all of Ed Frank’s carefully compiled notebooks and charts: his entire arsenal on the Devil’s Triangle. And something else: all the copies of Hardy’s log. Everything they had set out to follow—the very reason for their voyage.

  Hardy stood rooted to the spot as the wolf-whistles became raucous yowls and limp-wristed chortlings of “Whoops, my dear!” and “Oh my Gawd, it’s a naked man!”

  The steward grinned at Hardy and continued into the after torpedo room. Hardy watched from the hatch as the gear was stashed in one of the green bulkhead lockers. Ignoring the hecklers, he padded back to the head.

  So Frank had decided to discard the scientific purpose behind this patrol, to store it away so it wouldn’t be around to remind him, so he could concentrate on... what?

  That elusive what again.

  Hardy wondered if he should keep his mouth shut, let the Candlefish sail into Latitude 30°, and just see what would happen.

  Wasn’t that the scientific approach? And now, wasn’t he the only true scientist left aboard? Frank was no longer interested—it was up to Hardy to pick up the pieces.

  He stepped into the shower and let the water beat on his tense muscles. But as soon as he was dressed, he went back to the control room. He had to have another look at Frank’s face.

  He had to find out for certain just who the man thought he was.

  He stopped to glance over Lang’s shoulder. The quartermaster was checking the ship’s log. He turned with it, and Hardy said, “I’m going up. You want me to have him sign it?”

  “He already has.”

  Lang put the log down on the plotting desk and turned to consult with Scopes. Hardy’s eyes rested on the OCS handbook protruding from Lang’s back pocket, and he felt a shiver of discomfort. Then he turned to look down at the log.

  The second shiver hit without any warning at all.

  It was nothing in the report itself that shocked him. It was the signature at the bottom of the page: that hasty little scrawl, the name...

  He couldn’t look around, afraid of the faces he might see around him. A terror shrieked silently inside him, and he felt thirty years of life slipping out of his grasp, as if they had never occurred, as if he had never parted company with the Candlefish or her crew.

  He shook himself. He had forgotten something again. He had come here with a purpose, and it had dribbled away from him. He felt like a man trying to scoop up a drink of water with open fingers. He was unable to hold on to anything. The Candlefish was all he had—the boat and her crew. It was wartime, and there was nothing he could do about it. There was no way to get off. He had to ride it out with the rest of them and endure the Captain’s unstable ventures.

  And he couldn’t warn anyone—because he simply was not trusted.

  December 7

  There was only one bulb burning in the CPO quarters at 0200. Hardy was stretched out on his bunk, hands clasped over his stomach, somewhere between sleep and consciousness.

  His eyelids fluttered as music wafted in over the speakers and came to him muffled by his drawn curtain. It was Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade.” Soft, sustained notes lulled him into dreams, recollections, summer nights in New Haven, the club near the pier, Elena dancing with him that last night before their departure for San Diego...

  One eye came open, and he gazed up at her picture, attached to the underside of Stanhill’s bunk. Every time Stanhill came in, he would leap up to the bunk; it would sag, the picture would come loose, and he would have to replace it—

  Stanhill? Not Stanhill. Stigwood.

  Somebody turned up the volume, and Hardy felt himself being dragged away from sleep. The big-band sound had always been his favorite. But Stanhill was impossible. Every time he got his hands on the wardroom phonograph, it was Glenn Miller for three hours.

  He became conscious of other sounds interfering with the music: feet tramping, shouts, laughter.

  Hardy sat up slowly and listened. He parted the olive-green curtain shielding his bunk and peered out. The CPO quarters was deserted, but he saw something out in the corridor. Eerie shadows on the bulkheads, flickering lights...

  He rose, pulled on his pants, and struggled into his shoes. There was something going on in the forward torpedo room. He stepped to the door and saw Lieutenant Dorriss appear in the entrance to officers’ quarters, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  Nadel came bounding aft, whizzed past Dorriss, and opened the door to the wardroom. Stigwood was inside, alone with the record player.

  Nadel stood straight and barked, “Sir, Captain requests ‘Anchors Aweigh’ on the phonograph piped into all quarters immediately.”

  “Anchors a-what?” said Stigwood.

  Nadel excused himself. “Permission to enter the wardroom, sir. Thank you, sir. Excuse me.” He ripped Glenn Miller off the player, which brought a howl of indignation from Stigwood. Then he fumbled in the stack for an old seventy-eight. He found it and put it on the machine.

  The march blasted out like a cannon. There was a matching roar from the forward torpedo room. Then a swarm of men tumbled into officers’ country, carrying torches—rags stripped from old bedding, soaked in diesel fuel, and then wound onto sticks.

  They poured into the corridor, led by Clampett and Cassidy, alternating in wild clamoring cheers:

  “Ann Sheridan!”

  “Betty Grable!”

  Hardy and Dorriss had to avoid being crushed. Through the flames and smoke they could see that the crowd included nearly half the crew. A smile broadened Hardy’s face. He remembered.

  Cassidy shouted, “Grable’s the one!”

  Voices joined in support.

  Clampett turned at the control room bulkhead and screeched, “Ann Sheridan!”

  The steward, who was part Filipino, jumped up with a shout: “Carmen Miranda!”

  “Git outta here!” growled Dankworth.

  Dorriss dove into the crush of men and made his way across to Hardy. “What is this?”

  “Submarine sweetheart contest.” Hardy grinned. He swung out and joined the marching throng. Dorriss hustled after him.

  As the crowd marched aft, past the radio room, the galley, the crew’s quarters, they picked up more participants, who were promptly brow-beaten into support of one or the other candidate. Someone handed Clampett the Ann Sheridan poster, which he raised high in the air, turning his torch over to Witzgall. He marched backward and chanted, “Ann Sheridan! Ann Sheridan!”

  The men in the rear started passing pencils and slips of paper forward through the crowd. Choices were marked and ballots were relayed to the front of the line. Some of the ballots disappeared into shirts—whole stacks of them never reached the polls. And Roybell kept pulling pre-marked ballots out of his shirt, shouting, “Here’s one for Grable! Another one for Grable!”

  In the forward engine room, Clampett turned the Ann Sheridan poster over to Lang. Brownhaver threw him the ballot box. It was a small carton with the word vote scrawled on one side. Clampett held it out in front of him and wedged his way back through the crowd, collecting the ballots.

  “Put your votes in here! Right in the box! This ain’t basketball, Googles, just drop it in!”

  The steward held up his ballot, anxiously waved it in Clampett’s direction, and yelled, “Carmen—” He was cut off by a rude shove from Dankworth.

  Clampett was afraid the votes were going against him. When Giroux stepped up and proudly announced, “Grable,” Clampett ducked him, then went on zig-zag-ging, picking up only Sheridan votes, bobbing under the torches until he was all the way back to the control room. He let the last of the men pass by and drop in their ballots—and then he faced Hardy and Dorriss.

  “That’s it?” he said.
He glanced into the box; it was filled to the top with little slips of paper. He held it out to Hardy. “Sir—like to delegate you to tally the votes.”

  Hardy twinkled. “Oh, I’d be delighted, Corky—”

  Clampett winked surreptitiously at Hardy. “Ann Sheridan’s a shoo-in, don’t you think, sir?”

  “Fair chance,” granted Hardy.

  “Yup. Well, here they are.” He handed over the box. “One man—one vote. Democracy.”

  Dorriss peered into the box, and his jaw fell. “Must be five hundred ballots in there.”

  Hardy looked up from the pile of counted ballots on the table in the crew’s mess. “Betty Grable,” he announced.

  Cheers went up. They were as excited over this as they had been over blasting Japanese shipping out of the water. Clampett thrust through the crowd and confronted Hardy, wearing a look of chagrined disbelief.

  Hardy pointed to the ballots. “Four hundred twenty-three to two hundred ninety-six.”

  There were more cheers from the Grable men. Cassidy whistled through his teeth. Cookie stepped forward and gaped bug-eyed at the ballots.

  “How many votes?” he asked.

  “Four-hundred twenty-three to two hundred ninety-six,” Hardy repeated.

  “Shit! You mean I been feeding seven hundred men?”

  He laughed right in Clampett’s ear. Clampett turned red and grabbed the ballots, swirled to another table, and began a recount.

  Hardy stared at him a long moment, a smile widening his scratchy old beard.

  The Grable supporters let Clampett have it—a blast of jeers that only made him count faster.

  Still grinning, Jack Hardy looked up and caught sight of Captain Frank, standing just inside the galley, coldly eyeing the proceedings. Dorriss appeared at his side; they had a short whispered conference. Once the Captain glanced at Hardy.

  He felt another warning shiver.

  The Captain chose his next big moment well. With the exception of Clampett, the crew’s morale was the best it had been since the voyage began, so he decided to take advantage of it, to boost it and aim it in what he felt to be the right direction.

  From the conning tower he switched on the intercom to all compartments. He lifted the battle phone and announced:

  “This is the Captain. In case you have forgotten, today is December seventh.” He was silent for a moment, then continued: “Three years ago our country suffered the most shameful episode of its entire military history. We do not recall this date with pride. There is no dignity in defeat.”

  His voice echoed around the boat. There was no compromise in his tone.

  “We have had our fun tonight... While we all took part in it, we all recognize the insignificance of our brotherly feelings—because this is not a ship of men; it is a. weapon! And by its proper application, we will attend to the destruction of our enemy with strength, dispatch, and skill! In memory of those who were killed at Pearl, we will from this date onward be the most formidable weapon in the Pacific!”

  There was not a sound in the wardroom as Frank’s voice crackled from the overhead speaker. But Hardy was not hearing the voice of Ed Frank; he was hearing Billy G. Basquine, the greatest rabblerouser in the Submarine Force.

  “If those bastards still think that they have an island, a fortress, or a bay that they can call impregnable, then they haven’t met us!” Frank’s voice quavered.

  “If they think they’ve sent us to the bottom of the sea, then let them think it! Let them make all the announcements and send all the condolences the airwaves will carry, but when we reappear—at a time and place they least suspect—we will exact a vengeance from them far beyond anything they have done to us!”

  Hardy thought he was going to be sick. He left his breakfast and started toward the conning tower. What was the Captain talking about?

  “We have a mandate from the Congress of the United States, from the Commander-in-Chief, and from the Almighty. With all those sanctions, whatever methods we use can be justified. The outcome is ordained, set, unalterable! We have only to fulfill it!”

  Hardy stood with his head just above deck level in the hatch well, watching Frank bent over the intercom, the spread shoulders, the determined face and the mad, lunatic eyes.

  December 7th. Four days to go. What was going to happen when they reached the area where they had gone down before? Did Frank know? But he wasn’t Frank; he was Basquine. Did Basquine know?

  “That is all, gentlemen.” Frank finished his speech and closed down the intercom. His gaze fell on Hardy, and they stared at each other a long time, until the tiniest smile of triumph crept over Frank’s face.

  CHAPTER 20

  December 10

  The next three days proved depressingly uneventful to a crew charged up for the kill. The enemy was nowhere in sight. Frank became jumpy; his trigger finger itched. He took his frustrations out on Hardy, deliberately making it tough for him. In wardroom meetings he would drop hints to the other officers about Hardy’s mental unreliability, and they took it as sanction for rumor-spreading.

  Hardy realized what was happening, and took refuge in the forward engine room with Cassidy. He no longer had any confusion over the Chief’s identity. Hardy saw him as he wanted to see him—as the friend Walinsky had been to him in 1944.

  Hardy stood the night watch on December l0th, Officer of the Deck from 2000 to 2400, and stared out at the wallowing troughs, the frothy caps whipped up like cream, enduring the roll and pitch of the boat as she slugged through toughening seas, on course for the north Of Japan, the Kurile Islands.

  He huddled in his jacket and desperately tried to ignore everything except the job at hand. He had decided to divorce his mind from his duties, to perform as an automaton, to let the submarine take him where it wanted to, and to keep his opinions to himself. If he was being rebuffed because they all thought he was insane, then the safest course was to maintain a low profile. He would live this out to its conclusion, however awful that might be, and whenever it came...

  But it turned December 11th, and Jack Hardy knew that the solution to his dilemma was less than a day away.

  Since his log had been forgotten and disregarded for days, he appeared to be the only one aware of what was to come at 2130 the next night. If he wanted to, he could simply remain mute and smug and it would all come to its foregone conclusion. Or, if he truly was out of his mind, then nothing would happen when they reached that deadly spot in Latitude 30°. But if the submarine went to her demise a second time—well, Jack Hardy would be redeemed. He could die vindicated.

  He smiled. It wasn’t the best of all possible solutions.

  He was relieved by Vogel, who took the OOD watch, and Dorriss, who tramped up to the bridge for a little midnight air. Neither said anything to Hardy. He went below in silence, marched straight to the CPO quarters, pulled off his clothes, and dove into the sack.

  He was deep in slumber when something seemed to drift in and move against him, touching his shoulder. He thought he sensed light through the darkness, playing across his eyes, then a shadow covering it—fingers pressing him, more insistent. There was a reddish glow on his eyelids. He grumbled, and suddenly came awake to something shaking his shoulder.

  The curtain was parted a few inches, and he could see the red glow of combat lights in the compartment beyond. Whatever had touched his shoulder was gone, but he heard another sound, a tapping... fingers drumming on the bulkhead outside, moving out of the CPO quarters. He pulled the curtain. He was aware of a shadow fleeing down the corridor toward the control room. He rose, half asleep and puzzled. He slipped on his shoes and, dressed only in his underwear, stumbled out to the corridor.

  The red lights were on throughout the boat. There wasn’t a man to be seen in officers’ country. He was alone, and it was deathly quiet. He moved aft, intending to follow that shadow to the control room.

  He ducked through the hatch and stepped in, suddenly bathed in red light. He could make out the forms of the control-ro
om crew... yet there was something odd. He froze in shock.

  This wasn’t the control-room crew at all...

  He was exchanging stares with the officer contingent from the crew of 1944! They were gathered around the plotting table, white phantoms haloed in red, staring at him.

  Bates stepped forward, and when he spoke his voice echoed as if it were coming from the bowels of the submarine itself.

  “Cold feet again, Jack?”

  Hardy’s knees sagged; he couldn’t stand up straight He had to back against the hatch. Then Basquine stepped forward and, in the same terrifying voice, asked, “Are you going all the way with us, Jack?”

  Hardy’s mouth opened. He wanted to scream a defiant No, but he couldn’t.

  Basquine and Bates and the other apparitions began to fade from sight, blending in with the red illumination until they disappeared. Hardy was left cowering in a corner of the control room in his underwear, facing the regular watch detail under Stigwood and Roybell. They were staring at him in amazement.

  My God! a voice shrieked inside him. It wasn’t real! You imagined it! Terrified, he could hardly choke the words out:

  “The Cap—the Captain—where?”

  “On the bridge,” mumbled Stigwood.

  Hardy climbed the ladder to the conning tower and stood shivering in the cold. He could see legs—the Captain’s. Suddenly the cobwebs cleared from his mind and he could see—the truth. He wasn’t crazy. He had experienced a vision. He had seen the purpose, and it was the purpose that was insane—not him. He whirled on the helmsman and bellowed fiercely: “Stop all engines!”

  The helmsman turned and stared at him.

  “Stop this boat!” Hardy shouted and, shoving the helmsman aside, reached for the MB and rang up ALL STOP. He punched the intercom to the engine rooms and hollered, “All stop! Secure all engines!”

  As soon as his engines were shut down, Cassidy began to wonder why. He hurried forward to the control room.