“I would like a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind, sir,” I said. I was trying to buy some time to process what I just heard.
Knox himself stood and poured me a coffee from the nearby pot.
“Admiral, I assume that you’re not familiar with Norfolk or with the USS Wasp. Am I correct?”
“Actually, I’m familiar with both. My most recent duty station was in Norfolk where I commanded the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. My husband and I still have an apartment there, pending my new orders, my 2016 orders. And I know a bit about the Wasp. She’s an Essex Class carrier, a sister ship to the USS Intrepid, which in 2016 is a floating museum in Manhattan. As I recall from a visit to the Intrepid, the Wasp is about 850 feet long, and doesn’t have an angled flight deck. The Abraham Lincoln is about 1100 feet long.”
“Angled flight deck?”
“A great innovation, Mr. Secretary, but one you won’t see until the mid-1950s.” I sketched it for him on a pad in front of me. “The design enables aircraft to launch and land in simultaneous operations. In a few years the Wasp will be redesigned for an angled deck.”
Knox was going through the normal reactions of a non-time traveler, but instead of sneering skepticism, he just shook his head and laughed in amazement.
“But allow me to be blunt, sir.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else, admiral.”
“The integration of the armed forces was just announced in this morning’s newspapers. You’re asking a woman, a black woman, to assume a senior command. Do you think this will stir racial animosities, whether we like it or not?”
“Yes, it will, to be realistic. But I’ve already thought through that scenario. I will appoint a group of officers to serve in your command who share my convictions, not to mention Hank Stimson’s and President Roosevelt’s views. I will watch your command closely, admiral. If anyone tries to undermine your authority, they will be making a negative career decision. Oh, I should point out that Roosevelt is sticking his neck out for you. Everything we know about you we heard from you, your husband, or that mysterious fellow, Commander Atkins, the guy who calls himself Buster. We’re all convinced that you’re telling us the truth about your background, and frankly that better be so.”
“To make sure I understand you, sir, if I don’t cut the mustard I’ll be fired.”
“That sums it up, admiral.”
“It’s comforting to know that at least that policy hasn’t changed over 75 years.”
“So, Admiral Patterson, do you accept?”
“Where I come from, Mr. Secretary, I take orders.”
“That’s what I expected you to say, admiral.”
“Oh, one last thing, sir. Can my aide, Captain Thurber, be on my staff?”
“You mean your husband, Jack Thurber?”
“Yes, sir.”
“President Roosevelt wants it that way. He sees your husband as a valuable contributor to writing the history of the next few months. Of course, his status as your husband will not be disclosed to anyone. He will just be known as one of your aides. Discretion at sea is essential.”
Chapter 75
My dear wife Reiko worries me. She worries me because it is she who worries. She worries about war, and she is not the only one. As Commander of the Imperial Combined Fleet of the Empire of Japan, I am duty bound by my devotion to Emperor Hirohito and to my homeland, but the militarist fools seem to think that war with the United States is inevitable. They are probably right. Our disgraceful actions in Manchuria have brought shame upon our proud empire. Tojo and his lot seem to think that America will ignore us, and ignore their own interests as well.
The Americans are getting nervous, and who can blame them? After the operations against the Empire State Building and the Capitol Building, they understandably believe they are under attack, and I don’t doubt they may suspect us.
Dear wife Reiko asks me repeatedly if I think we can be victorious in a war against the Americans. I make it my rule never to lie to my wife. I just remain silent when she asks me that question. I try to change the subject.
But if we do have to fight the Americans, we have to do so swiftly, stealthily, and decisively.
***
I sat in my car on the way to the office of my friend, Admiral Matome Ugaki, my chief of staff. He is a good man, a fine sailor, and he is a realist. I have directed him to present to me plans for how we may strike a decisive blow against the Americans.
When I entered his office, Matome bowed respectfully and I returned his bow. He seemed excited, like a child who wanted to display his new toy. He gestured toward a door to an adjoining room, a large room that he uses for planning. Two armed sailors stood at the entrance to the planning room. Matome opened the door and I entered. In front of me was a large table covered by an even larger cloth. Matome and two of his aides took the cloth and carefully lifted it from the table. I drew a breath. In front of me was a scale model of the United States Navy Base at Pearl Harbor. It was amazing in its intricacy. I knew Pearl Harbor well from my memory of photographs, but the scale model conveyed a realistic focus as if I were in the sky looking at it. I could picture myself on a plane flying in toward Battleship Row.
“Matome,” I said to my old friend, “explain to me your thoughts.”
“Sir, we will attack, or should I say, I recommend that we attack, on a Sunday morning. Sunday is a deeply respected day of rest and worship for the Americans. It is also the day after Saturday night, when many a sailor nurses a hangover from the night before. I recommend three waves of air attacks, using both dive bombers and torpedo planes. If we are able to sustain the element of surprise, we can be victorious and deal the United States a blow that it will not easily recover from.”
“But, Matome san, is not Pearl Harbor too shallow for torpedo attacks?”
“As always, Admiral Yamamoto, you are ahead of me. We realized, early in our planning, that shallow depths could negate an effective torpedo attack. One of my aides came up with a brilliant idea. We will attach wooden shafts to the torpedo rudders making them buoyant after they hit the water. We have practiced this for weeks, and it works. The torpedoes will drive true toward their targets.”
“When do you recommend that we attack?”
“Today, sir, is February 10. I recommend that we launch the attack in 10 months. That will give our pilots ample time to practice, because accuracy will be almost as important as surprise.”
“Continue your planning and training, Admiral Ugaki. I shall seek clearance from the Naval High Command. It must then be approved by an Imperial Conference. Do not worry, my friend. I can be quite persuasive. And what is the exact date that you recommend?”
“December 7, 1941.”
“Are you confident about your plan, my friend?”
“The only thing that can interfere with victory would be the Americans having knowledge of the attack in advance. And that, of course, is impossible.”
Chapter 76
After my meeting with Navy Secretary Knox, I walked into our house at 11:45 AM.
Jack was in the library hammering away at a Remington typewriter, still in the throes of Microsoft Word withdrawal.
I walked in, put my arms around his neck, and kissed him on the ear. He looked up at me, his brow furrowed.
“It’s an ongoing mystery to me how people wrote without a word processor. I keep reaching for a mouse to cut and paste things. If I put in a wrong word or make a typo, I can’t just delete it. I can’t do a search, and I sure as hell can’t do a search and replace. But enough about my technology problems, how did your meeting go, and who was there?”
I told Jack all about my meeting with Knox, saving the big announcement until last. I was nervous as hell because I wasn’t sure if Jack would like or hate the idea of us going to sea.
“Well, it’s a good thing that Roosevelt promoted you to captain, honey.”
“Why?” asked Jack. “Didn’t we figure out that it was just a political move?”
&nb
sp; “Because, Captain Thurber, you will soon be my official aide – don’t worry, it’s just a title as far as I’m concerned. I’ll still pour your coffee. Hey, let’s go to the Officer’s Club for lunch. I’ll fill you in on all the details.”
We sat at a table at the far end of the dining room. There were few diners, so we were able to talk in privacy. I had a salad ($.25) and Jack had a hamburger with sliced tomato and onion ($.30).
“Roosevelt, according to Secretary Knox, wants me to take command of Carrier Division Three in Norfolk, Virginia. The USS Wasp will be my flagship. I asked if you could join me, and Knox said that Roosevelt had already ordered it. He wants you to write the definitive history of the next few months. You’ll be known as my aide, and you will get to wear a fancy braided shoulder lanyard. But we’re not to disclose to anyone that we’re married.”
Jack was quiet, something I worried about.
“Talk to me, honey. We never keep anything from each other.”
“Ashley, if it means that we’ll be together, that’s great news. But to be honest, I’m worried how this will affect our main objective, to find the wormhole and get the hell out of here.”
“I won’t take command until four months from now. That’s the first week in June. Between now and then we’ll have plenty of contact with Nigel Blake, to see how his engineers are doing with the Black Box. And just think – I’m relieved of my consulting duty on that crazy F-18 reverse engineering project. I want to go back to 2016 as much as you do, hon.”
“Do you know anything about these older ships and aircraft, Ashley?”
“Only what I’ve seen in movies and read about in novels. I have a lot of studying to do in the next four months.”
Chapter 77
Today, Ashley told me about a new chapter in our crazy time travel journey. She’s going to take command of a Carrier Division, a big responsibility if there ever was one. I feel bad that I didn’t show her more enthusiasm. I guess I’m obsessed with going back to where we belong, to 2016.
But I need to stop this crap. Ashley and I have a unique relationship, one that started on a warship at sea. I love Ashley as much as life itself. She’s correct in her observation that we’ve grown even closer since we flew through the wormhole back in October. Ashley’s message could have been that she would be leaving me to go to sea, and I should be delighted that at least we’ll be together. I’m not concerned about my status as her aide. I don’t mind helping her. And I’ll get to be with her.
I think it’s time to suck it up and focus on this new part of our lives with some enthusiasm.
I’m committed to Ashley, and she’s committed to me. Love without commitment is bullshit; it’s not love, it’s just a word. So I’m going to start showing my commitment and get to work helping to make Ashley’s job easier. She knows hardly anything about the ships, planes, and systems that she’s going to command. Ashley says she’s got a lot of studying to do in the next four months. I’m going to do the same. Ashley jokingly calls me her encyclopedia. I do have a way with remembering things, I’ll admit. So now I’m going to become Admiral Ashley’s 1941 Naval Encyclopedia. I’m going to surprise her.
Chapter 78
On Thursday, May 1, 1941, at 9 AM, Jack and I were on our way to Blake Industries. Last night we got a call from Nigel himself, saying that he had something important to show us. Jack and I always talk non-stop, but we didn’t. We hardly said a word as our driver took us from Brooklyn to Blake Industries on Long Island. We just held hands. Actually we squeezed hands. Could they have achieved a digital breakthrough already? Are we that much closer to deciphering the Flight Data Recorder, the Black Box? Are we that much closer to going back to where we came from?
As we pulled up to the front entrance, we just looked at each other.
Building Nine at Blake Industries is the place where most experimental research gets done. It’s the building where our friend Sylvia Tanner, Ike’s mom and brilliant physicist, worked.
We were taken to Building Nine by golf cart. Everything about Blake Industries, just like everything involving Nigel Blake, was bigger than life. We hopped off the cart and were greeted at the door of the building by Sylvia Tanner herself, wearing her white lab coat.
“Oy, my favorite pretty admiral and her handsome boychik husband. Welcome dahlinks.” Sylvia loves to play the little old lady from Brooklyn character.
She led us into a laboratory that housed a long row of file cabinets, six tables with stainless steel tops, and a seemingly endless array of machines that looked like personal computers, but of course they weren’t. Were they?
She led us through another door that entered into a smaller room. There stood Bill Howell and Jim Agransky, Sylvia’s physicist pals. They were both smiling broadly, apparently proud of something. Howell then waved us over to a large table covered with an object that had a fabric hood over it. A bit dramatic, I thought, but scientists need to have their fun.
“Ashley and Jack,” said Sylvia, “behold a transistor,” as she yanked off the fabric cover. I felt like I was going to faint. I’m no physicist, but I know a transistor when I see one. It was large, an experimental model no doubt, but it was a transistor, silicon wires and all.
“Jack, if it wasn’t for you who remembered that silicon was the material used,” said Agransky “we wouldn’t be anywhere near this far.”
“Does it work?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” all three physicists said. Sylvia then went into a long scientific explanation of how they got the thing to operate.
“The speed is amazing.” said Sylvia, “If we tried what we did with vacuum tubes we would have blown hundreds of them. And the best part is that we’re just weeks away from a fully functioning digital computer.”
“And a way to read the Black Box?” I asked.
“Yes, dahlink, a way to read the Black Box.”
Chapter 79
Time travelers like Jack and I see things differently. For one thing, days seem to fly by fast. I couldn’t believe that it was June 3, 1941, and I would take command of Carrier Division Three in Norfolk on Friday, June 6. The night before, Jack and I had dinner with Ike and Margie Tanner, our two good friends from our new time. Career Navy people like Ike and I are used to seeing friends move on to new duty stations. This is supposed to be a routine “catch you around the fleet sometime,” but it was definitely not routine. Ike and Margie had become our special friends, almost like family. We parted with the usual promises to keep in touch and to plan to get together. But both Jack and I realized that we may never see the Tanners again.
Jack and I took an early morning flight on an Army Air Corps C-47, the military equivalent of the DC-3. We arrived in Norfolk at 10:30 AM and were driven to the USS Wasp, my flagship and our home for the near future.
As we walked up the gangway, we heard the shrill sound of the bosun’s pipe, followed by the announcement, “Carrier Division Three, arriving.” This is the Navy’s traditional way of announcing the arrival of someone in a senior position. I guessed that being the Commander of Carrier Division Three put me in that position. I stopped at the top of the gangplank, turned to the right to salute the American flag on the stern, and then I returned the salute from the officer of the deck. Jack did the same. He wore a gold braided lanyard looped around his right shoulder, indicating that he was my aide. We were escorted to “Flag Country,” the part of the ship where the admiral hangs out. As my aide, Jack’s room was right next to mine. I had been on an Essex Class carrier before, and hoped that the configuration of these two rooms on the Wasp was the same. Yes! There was a doorway between Jack’s room and mine.
Captain Jerome Burton, the commanding officer of the USS Wasp, joined Jack and me for lunch in my office. Burton was friendly, as one would expect, but a few signs reminded me that we were in 1941. Probably the last person he would ever expect to be his boss at sea was a woman, not to mention a “colored” woman. After about a half hour, Captain Burton seemed to relax a bit. He had a good
sense of humor, thank God. In a situation like this, two sailors would normally start a conversation by discussing their former duty stations, inevitably dragging up a few “oh, you must know so and so” stories. But Captain Burton had never been to 2016, and we had never been to 1941, so we missed out on that kind of catching up.
Burton didn’t want to shock me as soon as we met, which I appreciated. As coffee was served, he reached into his briefcase and withdrew a piece of paper.
“I wanted you to relax a bit, admiral, before I shared this news with you.” He handed me the paper.
It was a new set of orders. In five days Carrier Division Three was to set sail for the Panama Canal and then on to Hawaii. Our new home port would be Pearl Harbor. Jack and I glanced at each other. It looks like the wormhole will have to wait, I thought.
“Oh, one other thing, admiral. Your Chief of Staff, Commander Fred Laughlin, has taken ill. It could be serious. I’m sure the Navy will assign a replacement shortly.”
After lunch, Jack and I spent the afternoon meeting the rest of my staff and going over preliminary details.
***
Toward evening only Jack and I remained in my office. We held hands across the table.
“I’m frightened, Jack. I’ve held command before, but this is scaring the hell out of me. I’ve studied everything there is to know about these ships, but I’m feeling uneasy, real uneasy. Thank God you’re here, honey. With everyone else I have to put on my command act. You’re the only one I can share my fears with.”
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