Red Sky in Morning A Novel of World War II

by Patrick Culhane

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take some men you trust, including anybody left down there that helped us load, and check that cargo. Understood?”

  “Aye, sir. You want us to babysit them bombs?”

  “No. Determine they’re secure, then get on the horn and let me know.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “If the ship turns upside down, we’re dead anyway— burn or drown, take your pick. But short of capsizing, we will make it.”

  “Aye, sir,” Sarge said, and went out into the storm.

  Chapter 9

  AUGUST 28–29, 1944

  Heading down the stairs, fighting the sway of the ship, Seaman Ulysses Grant Washington mentally assembled his team as he made his way forward to the fo’c’sle, fast as the rocking ship would allow. He had about fifty feet of main deck to cross out in that nasty-ass weather, rain lashing him, deck slippery as Chicago sidewalk in an ice storm; he hung on to any secure piece of equipment he could lay hands on as he traveled: the winch behind the number three hatch, then (rain stinging his eyes and blurring his vision) the winch in front of hatch three; next a ventilator, then the winch behind hatch two.

  Finally, the fo’c’sle blocked the wind enough for him to throw open the hatch, hurl himself inside and slam the hatch shut.

  Big Brown was already heading toward him and Sarge met him halfway.

  “Getting a South Seas tan out there, Sarge?” the big man said, working his bass up over the monster banging at their door.

  Sarge said, “Thought I spotted a mermaid—everybody! Gather ’round!”

  Around Sarge now were any not-on-duty crew members, displaying faces that ran the gamut from nervous to terrified. Somebody threw him a towel and he wiped his face—they didn’t need to know the moisture was as much cold sweat as rain.

  “Just come from the bridge,” he told them, loud and casual yet confident. “Skipper’s got everything squared away. Storm is a motherfucker, but they good sailors up there.”

  This elicited some nods, but also a good deal of uncertain frowns.

  “And they’s good sailors down here, too. I talked to Mr. Maxwell and he say no need to worry.”

  “You believe him?” somebody yelped, maybe Orville Monroe.

  “I do,” Sarge said, willing confidence into his voice.

  Relief washed most faces now, though skepticism and fear painted the rest.

  “Yeah,” that same voice said, definitely Orville, “but does you trust him?”

  “For a white boy.”

  That drew general laughter, easing the tension.

  “But got to do our share,” Sarge said. He explained to them the need to check the cargo in these conditions. “They’s twenty of us. They’s five holds. Mean four men a team. Willie, Clancy, Big Brown, Hazel, and me will head ’em up.”

  Immediate nods came from Wilson, Clancy Mullins, Hazel Ricketts, and Big Brown.

  Gesturing with the appropriate fingers, Sarge said, “Hazel, hold one; Clancy, number two; Willie, number three; Big Brown, number four.” He jerked a thumb to his chest. “Last one’s mine.”

  The Mississippi farm kid, Ricketts, was the least experienced, so Sarge wanted him in the nearest hold. Most dangerous would be the final hold, farthest from the safety of the fo’c’sle. Before they dispersed, he sent six sailors to the forward stores to get each man a flashlight—no lights on in the holds. When the men returned, the teams made their way to their particular areas.

  Sarge assembled his team: John Kelley, a handsome, slender Negro from western Illinois who’d been a steam-fitter before the war; Mason Gray, a coal-black Negro from South Carolina who’d taught at an all-Negro school; and Leon Boudreaux, Omaha truck driver.

  Sarge and his men took different staircases, weaving down the decks until they were at the bottom and just outside the forward end of the hold. Even here, five decks below the bridge, the storm battering the ship kept up a constant reminder of the danger they faced.

  Sarge opened the hatch, switched on his flashlight, and entered the hold, dark but for a slant of light coming in the open hatch from the passageway.

  Sarge sent a beam of light to his right: wooden boxes, twenty inches high by thirty inches long by twenty inches wide, chock full of small arms ammo, were stacked five high and ten wide, covered with cargo netting secured to the bulkheads, each net around eight feet high and sixteen feet wide, with six netted bundles on the port and starboard sides. The cargo netting allowed for loads to shift slightly with the motion of the ship, yet stay secured.

  “Mason,” Sarge said, “you and Leon take the port side, John and me’ll take the starboard. Make sure everything’s secure, sing out if it ain’t. When you get to the other end, wait for us, then we move up to the next deck.”

  “You bet, Sarge,” Mason Gray said.

  Sarge and Kelley moved slowly down their side, casting their lights over the netted cargo, tugging on the nets to test they were secure, then moving on to the next bundle. They finished before Gray and Boudreaux and waited while the others checked their last bundle.

  “Everything okay?” Sarge asked.

  “Tight as a tick,” Gray said.

  They climbed to the next deck, where at the far end were pallets like the one that had damn near been dropped during loading, stacked two high, four shells in a rack, four racks to a pallet, with heavy chains running over them, front and back, attached to the deck on either side.

  Sarge hoped the other teams were running as smooth as his men were. He and Kelley kept moving, Gray and Boudreaux ahead on the other side. Then the ship lurched to port with sudden force and Sarge almost went ass-over-teakettle. He heard scraping to his right and, as he steadied himself, swung his light around—one big shell, top row of a pallet, was sliding toward him. . . .

  “Mother-fucker!”

  The other three swung their flashlights toward the startled Sarge, then followed the beam of his flash to where the shell was still sliding, until it tipped precariously toward the deck.

  As it did, however, the ass end of the shell rose to catch against the chain with enough pressure to keep the shell from dropping out of its cradle as Sarge, dumping his flashlight to the deck, leapt toward the teetering shell and got his hands under it.

  “John!” he yelled.

  But Kelley had already moved to the side of the pallet and was training his beam on the back chain-puller through which the shell had slipped, and was loosening it. A few seconds later, Kelley aimed the flash at the front chain-puller, which kept the links taut, and was the only thing keeping this shell from dropping in Sarge’s lap.

  Kelley called, “You got it, Sarge?”

  The shell felt heavy as a Buick, but Sarge had the thing cradled in both hands, knees bent, and knew he could hold it, since the alternative was to let it blow itself to bits.

  “Yeah, John,” he said, voice betraying no fear, “loosen that son-of-a-bitch come-along, and slide the shell back, and then we tighten her down, right.”

  Kelley loosened the chain-puller, and the extra weight overwhelmed Sarge, the strain more than anticipated, as the shell tried to tip off; but he lifted with his legs, and—with a manful grunt that echoed in the hold—managed to get the shell back up in the rack. As he slid the shell home, Sarge could only marvel at Big Brown’s strength—on the dock, the sailor had lifted one of these things like a damn toy.

  They got the chains in order, and Kelley cranked the front come-along down nice and tight. Then, they tightened

  the back one again, just to be sure.

  “Let’s see that bastard move now,” Kelley said.

  “Let’s not,” Sarge said.

  Gray and Boudreaux came rushing over.

  “Jesus,” Gray said. “You okay, Sarge?”

  Sarge shrugged aching shoulders. “No big deal.”

  Boudreaux began, “If that damned thing hit the deck—”

  “Well it didn’t,” Sarge said. “And probably won’t go off, anyhow. Ain’t armed till the deton
ators go in.”

  “Tell the boys at Port Chicago,” Kelley said.

  The rest of Sarge’s check went without incident, and all five teams gathered in the mess to compare notes. Each team leader agreed the cargo was secure, which Sarge reported to Mr. Maxwell via the squawk box.

  “Thanks,” Maxwell said. “Skipper wants you guys to patrol the holds until the storm passes, just to be sure.”

  Babysitters, after all, Sarge thought. But he said, “Aye, sir,” and turned to the others, who had already heard their orders.

  Truth be told, Sarge was a little uneasy after playing catch with that shell in hold five; just the same, he felt better knowing somebody had their eye on their volatile cargo while they rode out the storm, even if the eye had to be his.

  n the bridge, Lieutenant Driscoll was saying, “Maybe we should radio the others, sir.” Egan’s eyes burned into his exec. “Our orders are radio silence, mister, and we will obey our orders.” “Aye, sir,” Driscoll said meekly.

  “Radar,” Egan said. “Where’s the convoy?”

  “All ahead of us now, sir,” Frye said. “Moving southwest— heading into the storm.”

  Pete knew at once that every captain in the convoy was likely doing the same thing as Egan—the storm was coming out of the southwest, the convoy’s original course had been northwest, and by turning, even slightly, they presented a thinner target to the oncoming waves.

  The last thing they wanted was to get hit broadside by a pounding sea.

  The other captains had turned even further than Egan, trying to take the storm head on, presenting the narrowest profile possible to swells now up to twenty-five feet. Out the porthole, Pete could see waves crashing over the port side and the bow.

  Egan saw the same problem. “Helmsman, course 225.”

  “Aye, sir, bearing left to course 225.”

  Pete watched helplessly as the helmsman fought the wheel, but nothing seemed to be happening.

  “She’s not answering,” the helmsman said, a note of panic in his voice.

  Egan stepped to the intercom and pushed the button again. “Engine room.”

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Full speed ahead.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Pete knew that speeding up the ship would actually increase her maneuverability, but the waves were growing steadily higher and—if Egan didn’t find a way to turn the Liberty Hill—sooner or later, they would founder.

  “She’s turning, sir,” the helmsman said.

  The ship suddenly lurched to port so sharply Pete wondered if something important in her workings had busted. But she settled onto her new course, and though they still struggled against the high seas, they were aimed into the storm, the bow cutting the waves rather than those waves crashing broadside into the ship.

  Egan moved to the intercom. “Engine room, slow to two-thirds.” Then, he turned to Driscoll and Pete. “We’ll ride the storm out. We should be fine now.”

  They waited for a reply from the engine room, got nothing.

  “Engine room!” Egan bellowed into the intercom.

  Finally, Rosetti came on the intercom. “We’ve got a problem, sir.”

  “What is it?” Egan demanded.

  “We’re not sure, sir.”

  “That’s no answer, sailor.”

  “When we went to full power,” Rosetti said, “the bearings started over-heating. It’s a hitch we noticed on the trip to Pearl, but it hasn’t reared up again, until now. Thing is, we can’t go over half-power . . . and probably shouldn’t be pushing it that hard, till we isolate the trouble.”

  “All ahead half,” Egan said, then—without any note of exaggeration in his voice—added, “And work fast, Mr. Rosetti, we’re fighting for our lives up here.”

  Egan had succeeded in steering directly into the storm and they were safer, yes, most definitely; but with the engine problem, whatever it might be, they were falling farther and farther behind the convoy . . . and Egan refused to break radio silence.

  Driscoll looked sick, Connor scared, and the two Negroes in the pilothouse shared an uneasy aspect; but Egan stoically faced the storm, occasionally giving an order to keep the ship heading into the wind. It wasn’t “Damn the torpedoes” exactly, but (Pete had to admit to himself) their bigoted bastard of a captain looked pretty impressive, moving the injured ship forward.

  The next morning, when the storm finally broke, the sea gave up the fight and went calm, though the Liberty Hill still steamed under a threatening gunmetal sky of low-hanging clouds.

  No question about it: by steering into the storm, Egan had saved the ship. Despite a crippled engine, they had fought the storm all night and had, per Egan’s orders, maintained radio silence. The only problem now was that the engine was still limping along and the convoy was nowhere on the horizon.

  Whether the other ships had all steamed off, leaving the Liberty Hill Victory behind, or whether every other vessel had foundered and sunk in the storm, no one knew. Either way, they were well beyond radar distance, and—under radio silence—had no way to contact the others to see where they were and if they were okay.

  Meanwhile, the lube oil temperature of the forward HP (high pressure) journal bearing had climbed to a dangerous level. This should have been repaired when they were at Pearl Harbor, but time had not allowed and, anyway, the problem had seemed minor . . . until the storm.

  Rosetti had recognized what was happening and—by forcing the captain to slow the rpms of the engine—gave them some power to maneuver, rather than blowing the engine completely. The calm-for-now weather gave them time to investigate the situation.

  Finally, Rosetti reported that the oil flow to the bearing wasn’t the problem, as the sight glass showed plenty of flow. Still, the temperature rose when the engine was pushed above one-third.

  “I tried to shift the lube oil strainer,” he told the captain. “But it wouldn’t budge.”

  “How long to repair?” Egan wanted to know.

  “A day.”

  “A day?”

  “Maybe longer. I’ll get back at it . . .”

  Good news was they knew where the convoy was heading and, most likely, were just a few hours behind, though the Liberty Hill was losing more distance with each passing moment. Bad news was they had been blown an indeterminate distance off course, and couldn’t absolutely pinpoint their new position. The Pacific was, after all, a big ocean and—with no sun, stars, or islands in sight—they would have to count on Egan’s dead reckoning, at least for now.

  The day passed quietly, with Rosetti and Connor staying down in the engine room, until—just before supper—the pair discovered that the engines were supplying only partial power. Maybe they could get the monster fixed at Eniwetok atoll, assuming they could ever find the Marshall Islands; but for now, half-speed was full speed—and then only for a short time.

  They had all been up all night. Egan stayed on the bridge while Driscoll and Pete slept during the day. When they got up to take over the evening watch, Rosetti and Connor finally hit the rack after spending over twelve hours straight in the engine room.

  The ship steamed northwest again, back on its original heading of 290. The shift went by as quietly as the day had, Pete on the bridge now, Driscoll taking another round of the ship.

  Just after midnight, Ben Connor came in to relieve Pete.

  “You look surprisingly good to me,” Pete said.

  “You do nothing at all for me,” Connor said, handing him a steaming cup of coffee.

  Pete grinned. “Thanks.” He took a long drink. “It’s good.”

  “Have you always had this way with words?” Connor asked, rhetorically. Then a real question: “Where the hell is everybody?”

  “Skipper’s asleep. Driscoll’s . . .” Pete looked at his watch. “I guess I don’t know where Driscoll is. Haven’t seen him for over an hour.”

  Connor smirked. “Maybe he’s off writing the captain a note of apology for all the terrible things he’s said a
bout him.”

  Pete looked meaningfully at the helmsman and radar man, and Connor got the hint: his sarcasm might be lost on the colored boys, so stow it.

  “I’ll be in the officers’ mess,” Pete said. “Doing shift reports. You see Dick, send him down.”

  “Will do,” Connor said.

  An hour later, the call came over the intercom. Hunched at the table where he’d fallen asleep, Pete woke slowly, lifting his head from folded arms that had served as his pillow, report forms plastered underneath. He pushed the button on the intercom. “Say again?”

  “Captain wants you in the engine room, Pete,” Connor said. “Right away!” Connor’s voice had gone from bass to a higher pitch, indicating excitement and, maybe, alarm.

  “What now?” Pete moaned.

  “Something’s happened to Dick.”

  Wondering if he was being set up for a practical joke, Pete said, “What, did one of the colored boys ask him out for a date, after that Andrews Sisters routine?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Ben, what the hell is going on?”

  Connor said, “Pete . . . Dick is dead.”

  The words hit Pete like a punch.

  “You there, Pete?”

  It took a moment, but Pete pushed the button on the intercom. “What in God’s name happened?”

  “You just get down to the engine room on the double . . . and not a word to anybody on the way.”

  “Aye,” he said numbly.

  He went through a boat-deck door down a short flight of stairs and came out in the engine room. With the ship reduced to half-power, the engine room ran slightly quieter than usual—in other words like being inside an explosion. When the phone down here rang, that “ring” was more a foghorn going off—the only way it could be heard by the engine man.

  Albert Blake, chief petty officer in charge of the overnight shift, stood near the intercom cubicle, his skin a ghostly white. Over by the boiler, John Smith kept his eyes on the

  temperature and refused to look up.

  “At the bottom,” Blake yelled, pointing toward the floor.

  Pete nodded and descended four more flights of stairs to get to the bowels of the ship, just outside shaft alley. The overnight oiler, Orville Monroe, sat on the deck, a towel covering his face—was he weeping?