Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  The residue of the strange frail wartime relationship-a little more than a flirtation, pathetically less than an affair-had been a better understanding of what had happened to Rhoda, and a long start on forgiving her. He only wanted his wife back. He had already written her that in strong terms- There was no conceivable future with this young woman, twenty-nine or thirty, drifting in her celebrated father's wake.

  Best snuffed out; yet his mind raced through calculations of where they might be now. Could they have made it to SingaPore before December 7th? Tudsbury was a harddriving traveller, a human bulldozer.

  If he could hitch rides on warships or bombers, he would keep going.

  Supposing-by a freak the Tudsburys did show up in Honolulu?, What a rich irony Pam's unwitting defense of Rhoda was! Pug tore up the letter.

  Eating lunch on the back'porch, Warren and Janice looked at each other as Pug came out humming in his blue service uniform.

  "We're mighty formal," said Janice.

  "Crease the uniform less if I walk it aboard."

  "Mighty cheerful!" remarked Warren.

  "Prospect of sea pay." Pug dropped in a chair at the iron-and-glass table. He consumed a large plateful of the very savory stew, asking for more onions and potatoes; more food than they had seen him put away at midday since his arrival in Pearl Harbor.

  "Mighty good appetite," observed Warren, watching his father eat.

  He and Janice knew nothing of Rhoda's divorce letter; they had ascribed Pug's boozing and his depression, which now seemed to be lifting, to his loss of the California.

  "Admiral Spruance hustled me five miles uphill."

  "Dad, Jan has an idea about Natalie."

  "Yes, why don't you just call or cable my father?" Pug shot a sharp glance at his daughter-in-law. "He'll get some quick action from the State Department, if anyone can."

  "Hell! What time is it in Washington? Is he there now?"

  "There's five hours' difference. He's probably just leaving his Senate office. Try him at home a little later."

  "That's a good notion, Janice."

  When Warren helped Pug carry out the footlockers, Janice was bathing the baby. Little Victor was gurgling and splashing at her; she was a flushed, happy, sexy young wife, unabashed at the show of her breasts through the soaked halter.

  Recollection flashed upon Pug of Rhoda bathing Warren in just this way, in their bungalow on the San -Diego base. A quarter of a century and more, gone like a breath! And an infant the image of this one had metamorlihosed into the tall hard-faced young -man in the flying suit, smiling down at his own baby son. Pug shook off an awed sad sense of passing time, made a joke about having drunk all of Janice's ll4 and kissed her wet smooth cheek.

  "Come back whenever you're in port, Dad. Your room will be ready, and the bar will be stocked."

  He held up a flat palm. "I'm back on the wagon while I've got a sea command."

  Warren drove the pool jeep downhill with one hand.

  Cigarette bobbing in his mouth, he said after a silence, "Is the Enterprise going all the way to Wake Island, Dad?"

  "What makes you think so?"

  "You're in a big hurry to take over the screen flagship."

  "And you're spoiling for a fight, are you?"

  "I didn't say that." Warren looked sidelong at him through cigarette smoke. "I have my doubts about barrelling off with our last flattop. I don't trust the Army Air Corps all that much to protect this base, and my wife and kid. Well? Not talking?"

  "I just don't know, Warren."

  "It's all over the Enterprise that Halsey's screaming bloody murder up at Cincpac so we can get to go."

  "Could be. How are your new pilots checking out?"

  "Dad, they're green. Green. They haven't put in the hours.

  The squadron needs them, so they'll break their necks on the harriers, or drown, or learn. While we're in port, I'll drill the ass off them."

  "You're an instructor now? That happened fast."

  "My C.O gave me the detail. I didn't argue. He's recommended me for instructor duty in the States, too, but I'm yelling plenty about that. This is no time to leave the Pacific."

  Warren dropped his father at the telephone exchange, saying he would take the footlockers to the fleet landing.

  Their parting was almost as casual as if they expected to dine together, but they shook hands, which they seldom did, and stared for a moment in each other's eyes, smiling.

  The small smoky telephone exchange was crowded with waiting sailors and officers. The chief operator, a buxom lady of forty or so with a heavy Southern accent, brightened when Pug mentioned Lacouture.

  "Now thah's a great man! If he'd been President, we wouldn't be in this mess, would we, Captain? Ah'Il do mali best to put you through."

  Within a half hour Senator Lacouture was on the line, in his Georgetown home. Astounded to hear from Pug, quickly grasping the situation, he put a few terse questions. "Right.

  Right. Okay. Got it. I remember her from the wedding party.

  Maiden name again? Right. Jastrow, like that famous unable of hers.

  Natalie Jastrow Henry. Dark girl, very pretty, quick tongue.

  Being Jewish may create problems. Still, Italy isn't bad in that regard, and travelling with a famous writer ought to be a help. Why, even I've heard of Aaron Jastrow! " Lacouture hoarsely chuckled.

  "She's probably all right, but it's best to be sure. How do I get back to you?"

  "Just call Captain Dudley Brown at Bupers, Senator. He'll put the word on a Navy circuit. Make Byron an addressee on the Devilfish."

  "Got that. And you're commanding the California, right?"

  "The Northampton, CA-26, Senator."

  A pause. "What happened-to the California?"

  Pug paused too. "I'm commanding the Northampton.

  The senator, low'and grave: "Pug, can we handle them out there?"

  "It'n be a long pull."

  "Say, I may resign from the Senate and go into uniform.

  What do you think? The Army's getting gouged on lumber and paper.

  I can save. the war effort several million a year.

  They've offered me colonel, but I'm holding out for brigadier general."

  "I certainly hope you get it."

  "Well, give my love to the kids. You'll hear from me about the Jewish girl."

  After twenty-four hours, Victor Henry felt as though he had been aboard the Northampton a week. He had visited the ship's spaces from the bilges to the _gun directors, met the officers, watched the crew at work, inspected the engine rooms, fire rooms, magazines, and turrets, and talked at length with the executive officer, Jim Grigg; a laconi( bullet-headed commander from Idaho, with the dark-ringed( eyes, weary pallor, and faint air of desperation appropriate to a perfectionist exec. Pug saw no reason not to relieve Mckman straight off. Grigg was running the ship. Any fool could take it over; his incompetence would be shielded. Pug didn't.consider himself a fool, only rusty and nervous.

  He relieved the next day, in a ceremony pared of peacetime pomp and flourish. The officers and crew, their white sunlit uniforms flapping in a warm breeze, lined up in facing ranks aft of the number three turret. Standing apart with Hickman and Grigg, Victor Henry read at a microphone his orders to assume command. As his eyes lifted from the fluttering dispatch, he could see beyond the ranks of the crew the oil-streaked crimson bottom of the Utah.

  Turning to Hickman, he saluted. "I relieve you, sir."

  "Very well, sir."

  That was all. Victor -Henry was captain. "Commander Grigg, all ship's standing orders remain in force. Dismiss the crew from quarters."

  "Aye aye, sir." Grigg saluted like a marine sergeant, wheeled, and gave the order. The ranks broke. Pug saw his predecessor piped over the side. Hickman was acting as though it were his birthday. A new letter from his wife, hinting that all might not be lost, had made him impatient as a boy to get back to her. He ran down the ladder to the gig without a backward glance.

  Al
l afternoon Pug read dispatches and ship's documents piled on his desk by Commander Grigg. Alemon served him in lone majesty a dinner of turtle soup, filet mignon, salad, and ice cream. A marine messenger brought him a handwritten note as he was drinking coffee in an armchair. The envelope and the sheet inside were stamped with two blue stars. The handwriting was upright, clear, and plain: Dec. 19, Captain Henry, Glad you've taken over. We sortie tomorrow.

  You'll have the operation order by midnight. The new Cincpac will be Nimitz. The relief of Wake is looking more dubious. Good luck and good huntingR. A. Spruance Next morning, in calm sunny weather, the cruiser got under way. The deck force unmoored with veteran ease.

  On the swing of the tide the bow was pointed down-channel. With assumed calm that seemed to deceive the bridge personnel, Victor Henry said, "All ahead one third." The quartermaster rang up the order on the engine room telegraph. The deck vibrated-an inexpressibly heartwarming sensation for Pug-and the Northampton moved out to war under its new' captain. He had not yet heard from Senator Lacouture about Natalie Jastrow Henry.

  SHE WAS embarked in a very different vessel, a rusty, patch-painted, roach-ridden Turkish coastal tramp called the Redeemer, undergoing repairs alongside a pier in Naples harbor; supposedly bound for Turkey, actually for Palestine.

  In the stormy week since she had come aboard, the old tub had yet to move. It listed by the stone wharf, straining at its lines with the rise and fall of the tide, wallowing when waves rolled in past the mole.

  On the narrow afterdeck, under a flapping crimson flag with badly soiled yellow star and crescent, Natalie sat with her baby. For once the sky had cleared, and she had brought him out into the afternoon sunshine. Bearded men and shawled women gathered around, admiring.

  There were some thin, sad-eyed children aboard the Redeemer, but Louis. was the only babe in arms. Perched on her lap, he looked about with lively blue eyes that blinked in the chilly wind.

  "Why it's the Adoration," said Aaron Jastiow, his breath smoking.

  "The Adoration to the LIFE. And Louis makes an enchanting Christ child."

  Natalie muttered, "I'm one hell of a miscast Madonna."

  "Miscast? Hardly, my dear." Wrapped in his dark blue traveleng cloak, gray hat pulled low on his head, Jastrow calmly stroked his neat beard. "Typecast, I'd say, for face, figure, and racial origin."

  Elsewhere on the slanting deck, Jews crowded the walkways, swarming out of the fetid holds to stroll in the sun.

  They squeezed past lifeboats, crates, barrels, and deck structures, or they gathered on hatches, talking in a babel of tongues, with Yiddish predominating. Only Jastrow and Natalie sat blanketed in deck chairs. The Palestinian organizer of the voyage, Avram Rabinovitz, had dug the chairs out of the bilges, mildewy and rat-chewed but serviceable. The baby worshippers thinned away, leaving a respectful patch of vacant rusty iron plate around the Americans, though the strollers kept glancing at them. Since arriving aboard, Jastrow, known as der groiser Amerikaner shriftshteller, "the great American author," had scarcely spoken to anyone, which had only magnified his stature.

  Natalie waved a hand at the blue double hump of mountain, far across the bay. "Will you look at Vesuvius! So sharp and clear, for the first time!"

  "A fine day for visiting Pompeii," Jastrow said."

  "Pompeii!"

  Natalie pointed at the fat policeman in a green greatcoat patrolling the wharf. "We'd be scooped up as we stepped off the gangplank."

  "I'm acutely aware of that."

  "Anyway, Pompeiis so depressing! Don't you think so? A thousand roofless haunted houses. A city of sudden mass death. Ugh! I can do without Pompeii, obscene frescoes and all.

  Herbert Rose came shouldering along the deck, a head taller than most of the crowd, his California sports jacket bright as a neon sign in the shabby mass. Natalie and Jastrow had been seeing little of him, though it was he who had arranged their flight from Rome and their coming aboard the Redeemer. He was berthing below with the refugees.

  The smart-aleck film distributor, who had booked most American movies in Italy until the declaration of war, was uncovering, a Zionist streak, declining to share the organizer's cabin because - so he said he was now just one more Jew on the run. Also, he wanted to practice speaking Hebrew.

  "Natalie, Avram Rabinovitz wants to talk to you."

  "Just Natalie?" asked Jastrow.

  "Just Natalie."

  She tucked Louis into his basket under the thick brown blanket.

  Rabinovitz had obtained the basket in Naples, together with other baby supplies, and a few things for Natalie and her uncle, who, with Rose, had fled Rome in the clothes in which they stood. The Palestinian had also brought aboard the tinned milk on which Louis was living. In Rome, even at the United States embassy, canned milk had long since run out.

  To her amazed inquiry, "Where on earth did you get it?"

  Rabinovitz had winked and changed the subject.

  "Aaron, will you watch him? If he cries, shove the pacifier in his face."

  "Is it about our departure?" Jastrow asked Rose as she left.

  Dropping into the vacant deck chair, Rose'put up his lean longlegs. "He'll tell her what it's about." He was smoothshaven, bald, lean, with a cartoonlike Semitic nose. His air and manner were wholly American, assured, easy, unselfconsciously on top of the world, "Solid comfort," he said, snuggling in the chair. "You Yankee-Doodles know how to live."

  "Any second thoughts at thispoint, Herb?"

  "About what?"

  "About sailin in this wretched scow." g "I don't think it's a wretched scow."

  "It's not the Queen Mary."

  "The Queen Mary isn't runnir!g Jews to Palestine. Tough!

  It could run twenty thousand at a crack, and clear a million bucks on every run "Why have we been idle for a week?"

  "It took two days to install the armature. Then came this three-da gale. We'll leave, don't worry."

  A cold gust flapped the blanket off Louis. Rose tucked it back in.

  "Herb, didn't we simply panic in Rome, the three of us?

  -That mob around the American embassy was just a lot of loafers, I'm sure, hoping for a little excitement after the declaration of war."

  "Look" the police were arresting people who tried to go in, right and left. We both saw that. God knows what happened to them. And at that, they probably weren't Jews."

  "I'll bet," said Jastrow, "that if their passports were in order, Jews or not, they're now quartered in some pleasant hotel, awaiting exchange for Italians caught in the States. :, Rose snapped, "I wouldn't go back to Rome if I could. I am happy."

  Jastrow said in perfect Hebrew, "And how are you progressing with your new language?"

  "Jesus Christ!" Rose stared at him. "You could teach it, couldn't you?"

  "There's no substitute," Jastrow smiled, stroking his beard and resuming his Bostonian English, "for a Polish yeshiva education."

  "Why the devil did you ever drop it? I wasn't even bar mitzvahed.

  I can't forgive my parents."

  "Ah, the greener grass," said Jastrow. "I couldn't wait to escape from the yeshiva. It was like a jail."

  Natalie meantime made her way to Rabinovitz's cabin under the bridge.

  She had not visited it before. He offered her his chair at a desk piled with papers, dirty clothes and oily tools, and sat on an unmade bunk, hunching against the bulkhead adorned with sepia nudes torn from magazines. The single electric bulb was so dim, and the tobacco smoke so thick, that Natalie could just make these out. At her embarrassed grin, Rabinovitz shrugged. He wore bulky grease-streaked coveralls, and his round face was mud-gray with fatigue.

  "It's the chief engineer's art collection. I took his room.

  Mrs. Henry, I need three hundred American dollars. Can you and your uncle help out?" Taken aback, she said nothing. He went on, "Herb Rose offered the whole amount, but he's already shelled out too much. We wouldn't have gotten this far if not for him. I'm hoping you and your uncle will g
ive a hundred each. That would be fairer. Old men tend to be pikers, so I thought I'd put it to you." Rabinovitz's English was clear but heavily accented, and his slang was dated, as though it came from reading old novels.

  "What's the money for?"

  "Fetchi-metchi, " He slid a thick thumb back and forth over two fingers, and wearily smiled. "Bribery. The harbor master won't clear us to depart. I don't know why. He started friendly, but he changed."

  "You think you can bribe him?"

  "Oh, not him. Our captain. You've seen him, that drunken bearded old scalawag in the blue'jacket. If we leave illegally, he forfeits his ship's papers. The harbor master's office is holding them. I'm sure he's done it often, he's a smuggler by trade. But it's an extra."