Red Sky in Morning A Novel of World War II

by Patrick Culhane

  Slowly, just a few couples at first, the audience began to dance. Nobody applauded after Pete’s solo, but nobody threw a tomato, either. Then Willie took a solo, after which there was a little dueling bit between Sarge and Pete, piano player taking over for the clarinet solo on the original recording. By the time the song wound down, the dance floor was full; and when they ended, admittedly a little ragged but together, the audience responded with applause . . . on the grudging side, but applause.

  Keeping it going, Sarge said, “You know ‘I’m Not Rough,’ kid?”

  Pete nodded. “Louie.”

  “Mr. Armstrong indeed.” Turning to the drummer, Sarge said, “Count it off, Marvin.”

  The little man behind the drums said, “And a one . . .”

  Sarge nailed the piano opening, then Pete joined in and they were flying again, this time Willie using the upper register of the sax to supplant the original clarinet. Pete was really having fun now—man, these guys knew how to wail. The song allowed plenty of room for Pete and Willie to trade choruses, then Sarge played the guitar solo on his piano, and when they got to the vocal part, Willie leaned over to a microphone next to him, like a lover whispering in his girl’s shell-like ear.

  “Now, I ain’t rough and I don’t fight, but the woman that get me got to treat me right. ‘Cause I’m crazy ’bout my lovin’ and I must have it all the time. It takes a brown-skin woman to satisfy my mind . . . to satisfy my mind.”

  That got some whoops out of the crowd, as the band careened toward the end of the song.

  As applause rolled over him, Pete’s eyes went to the bar where the bartender who’d overcharged him was trying to get the band’s attention, holding up one finger.

  Willie nodded to the guy, then said to the band, “Hey, fellas, whadaya know, we get an encore.”

  They were all grinning at Pete now, Roscoe included.

  “What should we play?” Marvin asked.

  Willie said, “How ’bout that new Louis Jordan song?”

  Sarge said, “What about it, White Boy? ‘Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby’?”

  “That’s a loaded question,” Pete said, and shrugged. “Never played it, but heard it a few times. Why not?”

  Before anybody could say anything else, Marvin counted it off. The drums, piano, and bass started, then Pete joined in and Willie took the vocal.

  “I got a gal who’s always late, any time we have a date . . .”

  The steward’s mate sang pretty well, Pete thought. Too bad he couldn’t get Willie into the base choir—could always use another good tenor. Willie certainly was getting the audience’s vote of confidence—they were boogying their behinds off, and Pete was digging every second of it.

  “Is you is or is you ain’t my baby,” Willie sang, Marvin the drummer doing the harmonies. The drummer wasn’t as good a singer as Willie, but he was on key.

  When the last note from Pete’s cornet died away, the crowd went Section 8—Willie and Pete shaking hands at the front of the stage as the crowd cheered.

  As Pete removed the mouthpiece from his horn and started to pack the axe back into its case, Sarge ambled over with his hand outstretched.

  “Damn, son!” he said. “Guess we can’t beat the shit out of you, after all. You know, you don’t play half bad for a white boy.”

  Rising, Pete took the proffered hand. “Pete Maxwell,” he said, returning the firm handshake.

  “What, tired of ‘White Boy’ already?”

  “That kinda thing does get old fast.”

  “That right?”

  Pete, caught, could only grin, and the piano player chuckled dryly. Now that they were closer and the light better, Pete got a real look at those scars. Knife scars, by the look of them. Nasty.

  Sarge gestured vaguely toward the club and said, “Let’s go take a load off. Buy you a beer and we all get to know each other.”

  “Fine by me.”

  They packed up. The piano and drums belonged to the house, so Marvin and Sarge already had a table when Pete trailed Willie over. Roscoe sat behind Pete, the stand-up bass unwieldy between the crowded tables. Even though the band had been well-received, Pete could again feel eyes burrowing into his back.

  Each Negro took one side of the small, square table, with Pete’s chair at the corner between Willie and Sarge. Pete passed his Chesterfields around and everybody smoked. The piano player set a beer—a full, frosty glass—in front of Pete and shot Willie a look.

  “Our drummer boy,” Willie said, with an open-hand gesture, “Mr. Marvin Hannah.”

  The young man nodded to Pete. In the dim light over here, he seemed even younger.

  “Our bass player, and head of our welcoming committee, is Roscoe Gregg.”

  The big man, vaguely embarrassed, managed a small nod toward Pete.

  “What about Sarge?” Pete asked. “Does he have any more name than that?”

  “You are in the presence of Seaman Ulysses Grant Washington,” Willie said.

  “Seaman?” Pete asked.

  Sarge hiked an eyebrow. “Why, you think we all steward’s mates, son?”

  Pete held up a hand. “Whoa, no. I just thought with a name like Sarge . . . had you pegged for a soldier, maybe a marine.”

  Everybody laughed, including Roscoe.

  Willie said, “No, no, Sarge was a copper. A real-life detective, back in Chicago. Puts the spade in Sam Spade.”

  “Chicago, huh?” Pete said.

  “Bridgeport neighborhood,” Sarge said. “Thirty-fourth Street. Been there?”

  “No. Like to, though—lot of great music comes out of that town.”

  A small smile tickled the corners of Sarge’s mouth. “Ever hear of Comiskey Park?”

  “White Sox? Sure.”

  “Two blocks west of there, my stompin’ grounds.”

  Pete looked around at them. “What about the rest of you fellas?”

  “Right here in San Diego,” Roscoe said.

  “You in the service, Roscoe?”

  The bass player shook his head glumly.

  “Bum ticker, man,” Willie piped in.

  “Goddamn motherfucker,” Roscoe said, tapping his broad chest. “I mean, man, I was ready. Kick me some Heinie heinie. Slap me some Jap. But the docs caught it in the physical. I begged the bastards, but they wouldn’t let me pass.”

  Sarge nudged Pete. “Marvin ain’t in either, on account of he’s only seventeen, and they don’t let guys in service who ain’t busted their cherries yet.”

  “Aw, come on!” Marvin said.

  Sarge went on: “Boy ain’t even supposed to be in here, but . . .”

  “But,” Pete said, “he sure can play.”

  Marvin beamed. “Thanks, man.”

  With a flourish, Willie said to his friends, “And this is my buddy, Ensign Peter Maxwell.”

  “Ensign!” Sarge said. “What, we got an officer slummin’ tonight?”

  Feeling the beer a little now, Pete said, “Can’t all be steward’s mates.”

  Sarge just stared at him, but the other three cracked up.

  Turning his attention to Wilson, Pete said, “Willie, what would you think about joining the base choir? You’ve got a good voice, and—”

  “Ain’t for us,” Sarge said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know all about ol’ FDR integratin’ the services,” Willie said sarcastically. “But how many of us colored boys you seen on your side of the base?”

  Pete sighed. “Maybe you’re right, least for now.”

  Shaking his head, Willie said, “I appreciate your interest, Mr. Maxwell, but I ain’t holdin’ my breath waitin’ for things to change, neither. And if you did recruit me, you know you’d be courtin’ a world of shit from the brass, right?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Right? And half your white boys would quit.”

  “. . . Right.” After a final gulp of beer, Pete said, “This has been great, fellas. But I better hit the road. I got a wife at
home.” He started to get up, but stopped midway when Sarge caught his elbow.

  “Wait, Pete,” Sarge said. “I mean, it is okay to call you ‘Pete’ when we’re in civvies?”

  “Hell yes.” He must have been drinking, to use language like that.

  Sarge was saying, “Pete, we best all leave here together. You play a mean horn, but some of the hardasses around here won’t give two shits about that, when you walk out that door.”

  “Oh. Well. Yeah.”

  Suddenly Sarge grinned at Pete; the guy didn’t do much grinning, and it carried weight when he did. “Man, we sounded damn good tonight, and you know it. Wanna come back next week?”

  “I’d love it,” Pete said, then added, “If I’m still here.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Me and some buddies put in for a ship. I don’t know when or if I’ll get my orders, but . . . if I’m still here next Tuesday, hell yeah, I’d like to play again.”

  Sarge’s expression turned serious. “Then you better meet up with Willie and me before you get to this neighborhood. You got lucky tonight, son—you don’t wanna have to learn how to walk with that coronet stuck in your white ass, do you?”

  “Not really. Know a diner called Loretto’s?”

  “I know it,” Sarge said, his voice cool. “They don’t serve us there, but I walked by.”

  “Okay, somewhere else, then. Where can we grab a bite together?”

  Willie’s laugh had a bitter edge. “Mr. Maxwell, we can’t eat together in the mess hall at the damn base. Where’n the hell you think they gonna let us eat together out here in Little Georgia?”

  The fellas were nodding all around. And Pete knew they were right.

  But he didn’t have to like it.

  Chapter 3

  JUNE 20, 1944

  The orders had come through yesterday: the Fantail Four had all been assigned to the USS Liberty Hill Victory.

  And yet here it was, eleven on Tuesday morning, and Pete Maxwell had yet to tell his wife Kay that on Friday he’d be transferred to Treasure Island, a Naval base in San Francisco Bay that had nothing to do with Long John Silver or Robert Louis Stevenson. From there, Pete and his three buddies would be deployed to their ship, currently being built across the bay in Richmond.

  He needed to tell Kay, he wanted to tell her; but last night something had stopped him. He just hadn’t been able to get the words out, and he’d felt lousy about it ever since.

  This morning’s rehearsal, his last as choir director, had gone well—they’d be fine at service Sunday morning; he’d told his men about his transfer and was given a resounding cheer and even an impromptu round of “Auld Lang Syne” that made Pete tear up, just a little.

  This afternoon, he would pack up his gear and clear out his office at the chapel. Tomorrow he would show his replacement around, then Thursday he’d have a day off to spend with Kay. Time had slowed and become slightly unreal as he spent these final days at the base, drifting in the knowledge that he and the rest of the Fantail Four were about to get a lot closer to the real war.

  Knowing Kay, however, he figured his first major battle might start here at home. . . .

  At lunch, Pete had taken some ribbing from the rest of the guys about “chickening out” and not telling his wife about his new orders.

  “How can you expect to be a leader of men, Maxie,” Driscoll said, eyelids at half-mast, “when you’re still under the thumb of the little woman?”

  Rosetti pointed with his spoon and said, “Who wears the pants, Pete? Do you wear the pants or don’t you?”

  “Oh, Maxie wears the pants, all right,” Driscoll said, not giving Pete a chance to get a word in edgewise. “Cute little lace pants, right, Maxie?”

  “Screw you, Dick,” Pete said good-naturedly.

  “You are getting salty,” Driscoll said. “Speaking of which, pass it—the salt, I mean. If this macaroni and cheese had any less flavor, I’d write the President.”

  Pete, who was suffering through chipped beef on toast for the umpteenth time, said, “She’ll back me up, push comes to shove. I just know it’s gonna hit her hard, is all.”

  Connor fell into his sandpaper-voiced Rochester impression: “If you afraid of your wife, Mr. Benny, I’ll give you my razor—only it’s a Gillette, and I’m outa blades!”

  That made everybody laugh, then Pete said, “Go ahead and razz, you guys—you’re bachelors. Your time will come.”

  Square-shouldered Rosetti said, “Maybe we should cut Pete a little slack, here. I worked the toughest streets in L.A., and the roughest customers I ever run across were wives who caught hubby cheating.”

  Languidly forking macaroni, Driscoll drawled, “Few sights are more frightening than a woman in a house robe and hair curlers with a frying pan at the ready . . . and I don’t mean to cook anything, except maybe her husband’s goose.”

  “That’s why Dick and me stick with the bachelor life,” the curly-haired, hawk-nosed comedy writer said. “Even though my Gable-like countenance attracts all the real honey.”

  Handsome Driscoll merely smiled. “Maybe I just have higher standards, Connie. I prefer them with all their limbs and most of their teeth.”

  Connor shrugged. “Don’t know what you’re missing.”

  Pete and Rosetti were just grinning and shaking their heads; neither could keep up when these two got going.

  Typically of Tuesday, Kay was working late at the Western Union office. Pete had dinner at Loretto’s again, then went to the corner where he and Sarge Washington and his boys had agreed to meet before returning to the Silver Slipper for an encore performance. Roscoe and Marvin were already in the spotlight of a streetlamp, though the former lacked his bass and the latter his drumsticks.

  “Where are Willie and Sarge?” Pete asked.

  “Shipped out,” Roscoe said with a fatalistic shrug.

  “Where to?”

  “I ain’t Navy, man. How the hell would I know?”

  “Sorry. Dumb question.”

  “S’okay. Anyways, Marvin and me just showed up to tell you, probably ain’t safe for you over at the Slipper without Sarge to back you up.”

  Marvin asked, “No horn?”

  Pete shook his head. “No, I just came around to say ’bye to you fellas—I’m shipping out this week, too.” He shifted on his feet, tried to find the words. Then he said, “Listen, thanks for the chance, last week. I thought we really swung.”

  Roscoe stuck out a big mitt for Pete to shake. “Man, we blew the roof off that dump. You all right, Mr. Maxwell. Try not to take no shrapnel in that lip of yours, ’cause you can blow up a storm.”

  “Thanks, Roscoe.”

  Marvin stepped forward and shook hands with Pete, too. “You know, I turn eighteen next week, Mr. Maxwell. Keep an eye peeled, ’cause I’ll be right behind you. ’Fore you know it, I’ll be mowin’ down some damn Nips.”

  Clapping the young man on the shoulder, Pete said, “We’ll hold down the fort till you bring up the rear, Marvin. Meantime, just keep beating on those skins. One of these days, Buddy Rich’ll be sweating.”

  They said their goodbyes and went in opposite directions, Pete wondering if he’d been, in his own way, as naive about the war as that kid Marvin. Would Kay see him as just another gung ho numbskull, trading in easy, safe duty for an assignment so dangerous nobody but Pete and his Fantail pals even signed up for it?

  Just a block from home now, Pete felt a wave of fear go through him like nausea at the sight of a tub of chipped beef. But his fear was not out of what lay ahead, nor the duty in the Pacific, not even the indignant tears that Kay would surely unleash on him.

  What made him afraid was Kay’s fear—the pain and mental torture he’d be visiting on the person he cared most about in this world; the days and nights she’d face, where every knock on the door, every ring of the phone, could mean tragedy was calling. He knew damn good and well that she would be more scared waiting at home for him than he’d ever be in combat.

  Com
bat moved fast, tragedies happened in a hurry, and her war would be, in its way, much harder than his.

  Framed by the picture window on a sea orange with sunset, Kay was sitting primly on the side of the lowered Murphy bed, hands in her lap, waiting for him when he unlocked the door and came in; she had on a cute little two-piece outfit called a Sailor Made—white blouse and skirt with nautical touches in blue, and open-toed sandals with her toenails bright red.

  His expression must have given it all away, because he never got a chance to say anything. Like a condemned man walking the last mile, he went over to her and stood before her; he squinted a little, sun reflecting off water through the window.

  Kay gazed up at him, her big blue eyes moist but her voice strong as she said, “When are you going?”

  “You know?”

  “I know. I know you. I know what you want. When?”

  “Friday.”

  She swallowed and patted the bed for him to sit beside her. He did. She took his hands in hers and looked at him searchingly. “I should hate you for this.”

  “I know.”

  “Not for doing it. But for not talking to me about it. For knowing since yesterday and not saying anything, for not making this decision something I was in on.”

  “I know. I’m a dope.”

  “Well, you’re my dope.”

  “I always will be, baby. And, anyway, you know this is the right thing for me to do.”

  She didn’t raise her voice, but she did squeeze his hands just a bit harder. “You think I care about that? You really think I want anything but you and me and our family?”

  “We . . . we don’t have a family yet.”

  “Yes we do. We have you and me and our folks and, maybe, if we get lucky before you go away Friday, we can add to it.”

  He’d been wondering why the Murphy bed was down.

  “You’re going to take me to bed right now,” she said. “You’re going to drop your drawers and pull up my skirt and have your way with me, Pete Maxwell.”