Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  "Jan, I hear Byron stirring about."

  "Oh dear. Well, the coffee's on. I guess he'll find it."

  He said a shade gruffly, "I love you." She reared up on an elbow to look at him. He dragged on the cigarette, and blew out a gray cloud. "Quite an exercise, this last one. In futility, that is. A two-carrier. task force, roaring thirty-five hundred miles to the Coral Sea and back, and missing the battle by three days. If we'd got there in time we'd have smashed the Japs, instead of losing the Lex.

  The Yorktown's kaput, too.

  Seven thousand miles for nothing. Halsey's lucky he doesn't have to pay his oil bill."

  Janice said, "What's this thing cooking up now? Do you know?"

  "Oh, you hear scuttlebutt. Something big, that's for sure.

  We sortie again in two days."

  "Two days!"

  "Yep- Working parties replenishing ship around the clock."

  Yawning, he put a brown arm around her. "Action will be a novelty.

  All we did on those seven thousand miles was patrol, baby.

  Patrol, patrol! Two hundred miles out, two hundred miles back, grinding along over clouds, water, hours on end, days on end. I never saw anything except whales.

  There was lots of leisure to think. I figured out that time's getting precious, and that I should stop screwing around and hurting you. I've done too much of it. I'm sorry. No more.

  Okay? Guess I'the shower up and talk to Briny. How does he look?"

  "Why, why, sort of haggard and scrawny." Stunned with delight at his contrition, Janice tried to sound just as casual.

  "Thick red beard, like Dad told us." She touched his face. "I wonder how you'd look in a beard."

  "Negative! It comes in half-gray. Balls to that. Well, Dad will sure be glad to see Briny, beard and all. The Northampton was following us in."

  "Byron says the Deviyish got two Jap ships."

  "Hey, won't that give Dad a charge!"

  On the sunny wing of the Northampton's bridge, maneuvering to buoys in a strong ebb tide, Pug Henry could see Spruance pacing the main deck far below. The barge lay to, waiting to take them to the Enterprise, where theadmiral would pay his respects to Halsey. Then they would walk the five miles to Warren's house. That was their routine. As the drenched sailors down on the pitching buoys wrestled with the shackles of the massive anchor chains, Pug and Commander Grigg were talking about urgent yard repairs that they might get done before going back to sea. The magazines were still loaded from the vain Coral Sea dash"but food and fuel were low. Forty-eight hours for turnabout, after seven thousand miles of high-speed steaming! All hell must, be about to break loose in the Pacific; but what it was all about, Pug Henry had no idea.

  The Enterprise was usually bleak and quiet in port; an abandoned nest, the birds having flown off before dawn from a hundred miles out.

  But this time the utter lack of life was eerie: no pipings at the approach of Spruance's barge, no loudspeaker calls for sideboys and ceremonies; the gangway deserted, not even the O.O.D in sight. In the cavernous hangar deck there was a cold, ghost-ship feeling. The flag secretary came toward them on the run, his tread thumping and echoing down the empty steel cavern. Unceremoniously he took Raymond Spruance aside by the elbow, turning a pale unshaven face over his shoulder.

  "Excuse me, Captain Henry. Had coffee with your son at 0300, incidentally, before he took off."

  Pug nodded, showing none of the relief he felt. Ott the New Hebrides he had seen a Dauntless dive-bomber cartwheel from the Enterprise into the sea; probably not Warren, on the odds, but until this moment he had wondered and worried.

  "Okay, Henry. Let's go," said Spruance, after a murmured colloquy.

  The barge rocked and clanged its way to the sub base. Spruance volunteered nothing, Pug asked no questions.

  The admiral's face looked almost wooden in its calm. He broke his silence as they stepped ashore. "Henry, I have a little business at Cincpac. I suppose you want to join your family right away?" Plainly, from his tone, he hated to give up the walk.

  "I'M at Your pleasure, Admiral."

  "Come with me. It shouldn't take too long."

  In a hard chair outside Nimitz's gold-staffed doors, twisting his cap round and round, Pug waited, noting the extraordinary bustle all around him: typewriter clatter, telephones ringing, hurrying foot traffic this way and that of yeomen, Waves, and junior officers. The Cincpac building was as stirred up as the Enterprise was dead.

  Momentous business was in the air, and no mistake. Pug hoped that it was not another Doolittle-type raid. He was a conservative military thinker, and he had been skeptical of that Doolittle show since the task force had first sailed.

  With an irrepressible spine tingle he had read over the Northampton's loudspeakers Halsey's message. "This force is bound for Tokyo." But how could two carriers, he had thought at once, venture within range of the land-based Japanese air force? Through the crew's cheers and rebel yells, he had skeptically shaken his head at Spruance.

  Next day, when the Hornet had joined up, its deckload of Army B-25 bombers had of course solved the mystery. Watching the oncoming carrier, Spruance had remarked, "Well, Captain?"

  "My hat's off to those Army fliers, Admiral."

  "Nine too. They've been training for months. They'll have to go on to China, you reahm. That deck can't take them back aboard."

  "I know. Brave souls."

  "Is this good war-making, Captain?"

  "Sir, my inferior understanding prevents my grasping the unquestionable soundness of the mission."

  For the first time since Pug had met him, Raymond Spruance had laughed heartily. They had not discussed the raid again until a few days ago. At dinner in Spruance's quarters, Spruance had been bemoaning the way they had missed the Coral Sea battle, the first in history in which the.opposed warships had never sighted each other; an all-air duel at ranges of seventy-five miles or more. "That's something new in sea warfare, Henry. A lot of War College thinking goes overboard. Possibly you were right about that Tokyo raid. Maybe we should have been down south all that time, instead of roaring back and forth over the Pacific to make headlines. Still, we don't know to what extent Doolittle upset the Japanese war plans."

  Spruance remained in Cincpac's sanctum for about half an hour. He emerged with a strange look on his face. "We're on our way, Henry."

  When they were out of the Navy Yard, and plugging uphill through weedy dusty sugarcane fields on a tarred road, he abruptly remarked, "Well, I'm leaving the Northampton."

  "Oh? I'm genuinely sorry, sir."

  "I am, too, since I'll be going on the beach. I'm to become Admiral Nimitz's chief of staff."

  "Why, that's splendid. Congratulations, Admiral."

  "Thanks," Spruance said coldly, "but I don't recall your leaping at staff duty when offered."

  That closed the topic. They trudged around a bend. The base came in sight, sprawled out far below, beyond flowering trees and terraced green truck gardens; the wharves, drydocks and anchorages crowded with warships,. the channels full of small craft moving about; on the wrecked battleships, workmen swarming over the temporary repair structures, and - the most striking sight - along the capsized hull of the Oklahoma, the long row of righting cables -stretched to winches on Ford Island.

  "Henry, you've read the Yorktown's damage report dispatches. How long would you say repairs will take?"

  "Three to five months, sir."

  "Captain Harry Warendorf is your classmate, isn't he?

  Captain of the Yard?"

  "Yes, I know Harry well."

  "Can he put her back to sea in seventy-two hours? Because he's going to have to. Admiral Nimitz has ordered it."

  "Harry will do it, if any man can," Pug answered, astounded.

  "It's bound to be a patch job."

  "Yes, but three carriers instead of two is a fifty percent increase in striking power. Which we'll soon need."

  Over steak and eggs on the back porch, Byron was telling Warren ab
out the torpedoes he had salvaged from Cavite.

  The brothers, both barefoot, both in shorts and beach-boy shirts, had been talking at a great rate for an hour.

  "Twenty-six torpedoes!" Warren exclaimed. "No wonder you got your transfer to the Atlantic."

  Byron was enjoying, in fact revelling in, this conversation.

  Eternal months ago in peacetime, Warren had warned him to kowtow to Branch Hoban if he wanted his dolphins. Now Warren knew of Hoban's cave-in, and dolphins were pinned to the sweaty khaki shirt hanging in the guest room. "Warren, Aster's pressuring me to stgiy aboard the Devilfish."

  "Do you have a choice?"

  "I've got my orders, but it could be managed."

  "Rinkydink administration in submarines."

  "Sort of."

  Warren bed no ready ad"ice to give. His self-confidence was solid and deep; he had overwhelmed Byron from boyhood; yet he had always sensed an original streak in Briny that he lacked. Attracting and marrying a brilliant Jewess, the niece of a famous writer, was a deed outside his range; and given the opportunities of wartime, Byron was fast closing the gap as a naval officer.

  "Well, let me tell you a story, Byron. Halsey brought the Doolittle fliers to their takeoff point. I suppose you know that.

  "That's the word at the sub base."

  "It's true. When those Army bombers took off from the Hornet, I stood out on our own flight deck and watched them form up and head west for Tokyo. Tears ran down my face, Byron. I bawled."

  "I believe you."

  "Okay. It was a hell of a brave deed, yet what did it amount to?

  A token bombing to pep up the home front. There's only one service really hurting the enemy in the Pacific right now, and that's the submarines. There won't be another moment like this in your lifetime.

  If you go to SubLant you'll boot it.

  You asked my opinion, and I'm giving it to you. You know Natalie's okay now, and Janice poked her head out of the kitchen.

  "Your dad and Admiral Spruance are rounding the Smiths' terrace, men, going full steam."

  Byron glanced down at his shirt and shorts, and rubbed his beard.

  "Spruance?"

  Warren yawned, scratching a dirty bare foot. "He just drinks a glass of water and goes back down the hill."

  The bell rang. Janice went to answer. The brothers jumped to their feet, as the white-clad admiral, his face streaming sweat, walked out on the porch, followed by their father.

  "Byron!" Pug grasped his son's hand and they embraced.

  "Well, here's my submariner, Admiral. I haven't seen him since Thanksgiving."

  "My submariner's out in the Tambor." Spruance patted his crimson face with a square-folded handkerchief. "How's the hunting been, Lieutenant?"

  "Two confirmed sinkings, Admiral. Eleven thousand tons.

  Victor Henry's eyes brightened. Spruance smiled. "Indeed?

  You're ahead of the Tambor. What about the Mark Fourteen torpedo?"

  "It stinks, Admiral. It's a disgrace. My skipper got his three kills with contact exploders, Against orders, but they worked."

  At the impudent freedom of the response, Pug's pleasure subsided.

  "Briny, when torpedoes miss it's always a temptation to blame the exploders."

  "Sorry, Dad. I know you were involved with that magnetic device."

  In peacetime, Victor Henry had received a letter commendation for his work on it. "It's gone sour in production, that's all I can tell you.

  Even with contact exploders, the Mark Fourteen keeps failing. All of SubPac's skippers are up in arms, but BuOrd won't listen. It's sickening, I tell you, to sail five thousand miles to make a torpedo attack, and then have the fish hit the target with a dun thud."

  Spruance relieved Pug by commenting, "My son says much the same thing. Admiral Nimitz has taken the matter up with BuOrd." He accepted a glass of iced tea from Janice, and turned to Warren.

  "Incidentally, what's the range of the Dauntless, again, Lieutenant?"

  "We tetid to think in hours, Admiral. Three and a half hours airborne, more or less."

  The admiral's expression was abstracted. "Your book range is seven hundred fifty miles."." Warren tartly smiled. "Sir, just forming up burns a lot of gasolene. Then over the -target the fuel disappears like there's a hole in the tank. Most of us wouldn't get back from a target at two hundred miles."

  "And the fighters and torpedo bombers?" Spruance asked as he sipped the tea. "Same speed and range?"

  "Approximately, sir." Warren concealed any puzzlement at the questions, answering briskly. "But the TBD is a lot slower."

  "Well!" Spruance emptied his glass and stood up. "Most refreshing, Janice. I'll be going down the hill now."

  The others were all on their feet. "Admiral, one of the boys can drive you back," Pug said.

  "Why?"

  "If you have pressing business, sir."

  "Not necessary." As he went out, Spruance beckoned to Pug to follow him. Closing the front door he paused, squinting at Victor Henry in the noon sun. He looked much sterner when he put on the big white cap.

  "Those boys of yours are different in character, but they're both cut from the same cloth."

  "Byron should curb his tongue."

  "Submariners are individualists, as I well know. It's good they're both in port. Spend an the time with them you can."

  "There's much to do on my ship, Admiral."

  Spruance's face took on a sudden hard cast. "Henry, this is for your information only. The Japanese are heading east in great force.

  They're already at sea. Their objective is to seize Midway Island. A Japanese base a thousand miles from Hawaii is unacceptable, so Admiral Nimitz is sending everything we've got up there. We're about to fight the biggest battle of the war."

  Pug groped for a response to these stunning words that would not sound defeatist, alarmed, swaggering, or plain stupid. The Hornet, the Enterprise, with possibly the patched leaky Yorktown and their meager train, against that Japanese armada! At least eight carriers, perhaps ten battleships, only God could know how many cruisers, destroyers, submarines! As a fleet problem, it was too lopsided for any peacetime umpire to propose. His hoarse words came unbidden, "Now I know why you don't want to go on the beach."

  "I won't just yet." The calm eyes glowed in a way Victor Henry never forgot. "Admiral Halsey has gone to the Cincpac hospital.

  Unlucky outbreak of a skin disease. He can't fight this battle.

  He has recommended to Admiral Nimitz that I assume command of Task Force Sixteen, so I'll transfer my gear to Halsey's flag quarters this afternoon. My new assignment starts after the battle."

  This was just as stunning as the first disclosure. Spruance, a nonaviator, taking the Enterprise and the Hornet into battle!

  Trying to maintain a level tone, Pug asked, "The intelligence is all that certain, then?"

  "We think so. If all goes well, we may achieve surprise.

  Incidentally, I intend to invite you to the battle conference."

  He held out his hand. "So as I say, spend some time with your boys while you can."

  Returning to the back porch, Pug henry paused in the shadows of the doorway. His sons were talking on the lawn now, folding chairs pulled close, each clasping a beer can. Cut from the same cloth! They looked it. What could they be discussing so earnestly? He was in no hurry'to interrupt them He leaned in the doorway, taking in the picture he might not see again for a long time, trying to digest Spruance's sava news. He was ready himself to sail against those odds in the thin-skinned Northampton. He had been paid through thirty years to prepare for such an encounter. But Warren and Byron, in their twenties, were just starting to taste life. Yet on the Northampton he would be the safest of the three.

  In these two young men in gaudy shirts and tan shorts one lean and red-bearded, the other big and solid, with gray-sprinkled hair-he could still see ghostly shadows of the boys they had been. Byron had smiled just such a smile at five. Warren's emphatic push of both
hands outward had been his main gesture as an Academy debater. Pug remembered Warren's great moment, his graduation from the Academy, a battalion commander with a prize in modern history; and poor Byron's sad Columbia commencement, when he had almost failed to graduate because of an overdue term paper. He remembered the rainy March day in when he had received his orders to Germany, and Warren had come in all sweaty from tennis to say he had applied for flight training, and Byron's first letter from Siena about Natalie Jastrow had arrived. He would break into their talk soon, Pug thought, to ask about her. Not yet. He just wanted to look at them a little longer.