Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance

by War

  "Rivesaltes?" Natalie choked the word at Rabinovitz.

  "French concentration camp," he said.

  Byron stood up and faced Gaither. "You're trying to frighten her."

  "I'm trying to be honest with her. Are you, young fellow?

  You're carrying classified documents. Once you're detected in this bluff, the Gestapo can take the position that you're an imposter, confiscate that pouch, and slash it open."

  Byron's face was getting pale and drawn. "It's a negligible. risk," he said after a pause. "I'm ready to take it."

  "It's not up to you."

  Byron adopted a quieter, almost pleading manner. "Mr. Gaither, you're raising bugaboos. It'll all go smooth as oil, I assure you. Once we're across and out, all -this will be forgotten.

  You'll laugh at your fears. We're going to chance "You are not.

  I'm the senior American officer in this area, and I have to order you not to do this. I'm very sorry."

  "Byron," Natalie said, in a faltering tone, her eyes wide with alarm, "it'll be a few more days at most. Go.

  Wait for us in Lisbon."

  He whirled on her. "Damn it, Natalie, all hell's about to reak loose in the Med. There's hundreds of planes lined up wing to wing in Gibraltar- At the first sign of trouble they'll close the borders."

  She was looking desperately at him, as though hoping for a convincing word and not yet hearing it.

  "Good God, darling, we went from Cracow to Warsaw with the war blowing up all around us, and you never turned a hair."

  "We've got Louis now."

  Byron faced Avram Rabinovitz. "Don't you think we can make it?"

  , The Palestinian, crouched over a cigarette, turned his head sideways to look up at Bryon. "You're asking me?"

  "I'm afraid."

  "You're afraid?"

  "I've been taken off that train to Barcelona by the Germans."

  Byron stared long at him. "I guess this is why you told me to come here first."

  "Yes, it is."

  Dropping into a chair, Byron said to Gaither, "I'll take that drink, sir."

  "I have to go," Rabinovitz said, and with a last sombre glance in Natalie's eyes and a caress of Louis's cheek, he departed.

  Pouring more whiskey and soda, Gaither thought of a leading article in Le Cahier Jaune, the French anti-Semitic journal that he had glanced through on the train coming back from Vichy. The photographs had been taken at a French government exhibit in Paris called "Jewish Traits and Physiognomies": huge plaster models of hook noses, blubber lips, and protruding ears. Louis Henry didn't fit the specifications; but if French immigration inspectors, or the Gestapo, laid hands on him, he would be just a Jew like his mother.

  Otherwise, of course, Mrs. Henry could bluff her way through any border point, even without the lieutenant; a beautiful woman, a mother, an American; ordinarily no problem! But the Germans had turned routine travel in Europe, for Jews, into a risk like jumping from a burning building. Trivial bits of paper could mean life or death; Gaither knew Jews with valid passports and exit visas who were staying on in France merely for fear of facing the Gestapo at the borders.

  The silence in the room was leaden as Gaither passed the drinks.

  To ease the strain, he talked about how he had gotten British pilots out of France on this train to Barcelona, posing as firemen and engineers. But they were tough men, he explained, trained in the escape art, prepared to confront the Gestapo; and still there had been some bad incidents. When the consulate carved, Gaither became all business again.

  It still lacked an hour of train time, he said. Byron could get to the terminal in twenty minutes. Would he like some time alone with his family? The driver would bring up Mrs. Henry's luggage; now that she was here, she had better remain until the exit visas came. In the morning he would send for Jastrow, too, and keep the three of them under his eye until they left for Lisbon.

  He would himself go with them to the border, or send someone trustworthy in his place.

  He showed Byron and Natalie into a small bedroom, and closed the door. Not looking at Byron, Natalie laid the sleeping baby on the bed, and covered him with her coat.

  Byron said, "You surprised me."

  She faced him. He leaned against the doorway, hands in his pockets, one leg crossed over the other, in the exact pose in which she had first laid eyes on him, when she had called for him on a Siena street in Jastrow's car.

  "You're terribly angry."

  "Well, not really. He frightened you, But I think we could have made it. Cigarette?"

  "I don't smoke any more."

  "I recognize that pin."

  "Warsaw seems a million years ago."

  "I'll wait for you in Lisbon, Natalie. I've got thirty days' leave, and I'll just wait. I'll inquire every day at the consulate."

  His smile was gracious and distant. "I doubt I can book that honeymoon suite in Estoril."

  "Try."

  "All right, I will." That started them on reminiscences. Carter Aster's name came up. Bryon chatted about his orders to the Moray, and about how fine the new fleet-submarines were. Natalie did her best to act interested, to respond, but it was lifeless talk. He made no move to take her in his arms. She was afraid to move first herself. She was afraid of him, ashamed of her cowardice. The wretched suspicion was growing on her that his spectacular feat in finding her was the worst thing that could have happened to them, given the time and the circumstances. Yet what could she have done about this miserable Turn of events? To the Germans and the Vichy French agents, the baby was a Jew. That was a terror impossible for Byron Henry to grasp. On that rock their marriage might split, but there it was.

  "I suppose I ought to think about moving along," he said at last, in a dry cold manner, getting up.

  That triggered a reaction from Natalie. She ran to him, clutched him in her arms, and kissed him wildly on the mouth, again and again.

  "Byron, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't help it. I can't defy Gaither.

  I think he's right. I'll be there in a week or less. Wait for me!

  Forgive me! Love me, for God's sake! I'll love you till I die.

  Do you doubt me?"

  He returned her kisses gently; and he said with his strange melancholy smile, the smile that had intoxicated her from the first, "Why, Natalie, you and I will never die. Don't you know that?"

  Walking over to the bed, he looked down at the flushed slumbering infant. "Good-bye, sprout. I'm glad I got a look at you."

  They went into the living room together, and after a handshake with Gaither, he was gone.

  PART FOUR

  Pug and Rhoda IN helmet AND life jacket, Victor Henry stood on the port wing, watching red tracer shells of his main battery salvo streak off into the sultry night. The shadowy line of enemy ships off Guadalcanal showed up under a drifting luster of green-white star shells, partly obscured by smoke and splashes of straddles from the Northampton's guns.

  "Torpedoes!... Torpedoes one point on the port bow!

  ... Torpedoes to port, Captain, target angle ten!"

  The clamor broke from the lookouts, from the telephone talkers, from officers - and sailors all over the bridge. Though Pug's ears were half-deafened by salvos and his eyes halfblinded by muzzle flame, he heard the cries and saw the approaching wakes. On the instant he barked, "HARD LEFT RUDDER!" (Turn toward the wakes, and hope to comb them; the only chance now.) "Hard left rudder, Captain." The helmsman's voice was loud and firm. "Rudder is hard left, sir."

  "Very well."

  The two phosphorescent lines cut through the glassy black water almost dead ahead, at a slight angle to the ships' course. It would be a close thing! Three other heavy cruisers, already torpedoed, were burning astern in blotches of yellow under dense high smoke columns: the Minneapolis, the Pensacola, and the New Orleans. Torpedoes were shoaling like herrings around the task force. Where in God's name were they all coming from? A pack of submarines? In its first fifteen minutes this action was already a catastrophe, an
d now if his own ship went-!" As the vessel rolled, the two green wakes disappeared, then came in sight sliding past far below, directly under the captain's gaze. Confused shouts -rose all around him. Christ, this was going to be close! He gripped the bulwark. His breath stoppedLIGHT!

  The night exploded into sun glare.

  ...

  The night action on November 30, 1942, in which the Northampton went down has faded from memory. The Japanese navy is extinct, and the United States Navy has no reason to celebrate the Battle of Tassafaronga, a foolish and futile disaster.

  At the time, the United States already dominated Guadalcanal by sea, in the air, and on land. To supply their starved sick garrison, Japanese destroyers were skulking past the cove called Tassafaronga, tossing overboard drums of fuel and food for small craft to come out and retrieve. They were not looking for a fight. But on Halsey's orders an American cruiser flotilla came six hundred miles from the New Hebrides to Guadalcanal, to haft and sink a large new enemy landing force. In fact, there was no such force. It was a phantom of false intelligence.

  The rear admiral commanding the flotilla had taken over only two days before. His force was formed of broken units, remnants of many Guadalcanal sea fights. He was new to the area, and his ships had not trained together. Still, with the advantages of radar, surprise, and superior firepower, his Task Force Sixty-seven should have wiped out the enemy.

  With four heavy cruisers, a light cruiser, and six destroyers, he faced only eight Japanese destroyers.

  But his operation plan assumed that the Japanese destroyer torpedo, like the American weapon, had a range of twelve thousand yards. Actually, the Japanese torpedo could go about twenty thousand yards, and twice as far on slow setting; and its warhead was much more destructive. At the admiral's conference before the run north, Victor Henry had mentioned this; he had written an intelligence memorandum in 1939 on the Japanese torpedo, which had altered his whole career. But the new admiral had coolly repeated, "We will close to twelve thousand yards, and open fire." Pug could argue the point no further.

  So the Japanese destroyer admiral, trapped against the coast without sea room on the night of November 30, heavily outgunned, with eight-inch cruiser shells raining around him, star shells glaring overhead, splashes and smoke enveloping his force, desperately launched all torpedoes toward the distant muzzle flashes. This shotgun blast of warheads caugh all four American heavy cruisers. The Japanese fled victorious and all but unscathed.

  The thundering concussion tore at Pug Henry's ears. He was thrown to his knees."He sprang up, staggering. The whole ship was shudderirrg like attain off its track, and worse than that, worse than the fire shooting up on the port side, was the sudden list. Ten degrees or more, he groggily estimated -in seconds. What holes those torpedoes must have blown!

  Seared into his memory was the story of the Juneau, torpedoed and vanishing in a giant explosion. He darted into the bridge house and seized a microphone. "This is the captain speaking." He heard the grating bellow of his own voice over the deck loudspeaker. "Flood magazines of number three turret and jettison five-inch ready ammo.

  Repeat, flood magazines of number three turret and jettison five-inch ready ammo! Acknowledge!"

  A telephone talker shouted that the orders had been heard and were being carried out. The deck was still quiveringAlmost, the Northampton might be bumping over a reef, but Pug knew that he was out in six hundred fathoms of water.

  When he strode out on the port wing, microphone in hand, the heat hitting his face surprised him. It was like opening a furnace door.

  The fire was roaring all over the stern, casting an orange glow far out on the dark water.

  "Now, all hands, this is the captain speaking. We've taken a torpedo hit, possibly two, on the port quarter. Expedite damage reports. Forward fire-fighting and damage control parties, lay aft to help controlfires and setflooding boundaries.

  Exec, lay up to the bridge-" The orders formed readily in Pug's mind after months of hard drilling. Drills were a hell of a nuisance to the crew, but they would pay off now. In the bridge house the telephone talkers were relaying damage reports in controlled tones.

  The O.O.D and the quartermaster were hunched at the chart table over the ship's diagram, hatching the lower deck compartments with red and black crayons; black for salt water penetration, red for fire. Bad first reports: three propeller shafts stopped, communication and power failing, water and oil flooding on C and Ddecks. As Pug kept issuing orders he was already thinking of a salvage strategy. Holding back fire and flood long enough to make port was the thing to try for.

  Tulagi was eighteen miles away. The three other cripples were already heading there.

  "After fire room, secure ruptured fuel and steam lines. All stations that have power pump fuel port to starboard. Pump overboard all popy side water ballast,. and Another BLAST! jerked the deck under his feet. Far aft behind the boat deck a thick geyser of black oil climbed like a Texas gusher and toppled in the firelight, drenching the mast, the gun director housings, the boat deck, and number three turret in a thick gummy rain. Flames began climbing the oil-soaked mast, making a tower of bright rising fire against the smoky sky. More sheets of oil sprang from below-deck explosions, feeding the flames.

  The ship could not live long at this rate. Despite her formidable length and big guns, she was a vulnerable monster. Her stability and her damage control characteristics were poor. She had been built not to military requirements, but to the stupid limits of a politicians' treaty. Pug had known that all along, hence his zealotry for disaster drills. Alas, the torpedoes had tucked into the heavy cruiser's weakest spot, just aft of the skimpy armor belt, tearing open main fuel-oil bunkers and-almost certainly-the cavernous engine and fire rooms. It would be all uphill to Tulagi. The sea must be cascading in below.

  But the pumping had yet to take hold. This long hull contained some two million cubic feet of air space. That was a lot of buoyancy. if his vessel wasn't about to blow up, if the enemy didn't put more torpedoes in her, if the fires didn't break out of control, he might make port. Even if he had to beach her, the Northampton was of immense salvage value.

  The fire-fighting parties, clumps of moving shadows in the glare, were dragging their handybillies and hoses here and there on the slippery deck, and sparkling streams were raising great clouds of orange-red vapor. Damage reports were pouring up to the. bridge house, and the tones of officers and sailors were becoming businesslike. The forward engine room still had power; one propeller was enough to shove this cripple into Tulagi.

  For all the heartsickness at the torpedoing of his ship, and the defeat in the making, for all the macabre light and sound of a warship stricken at night-the glare, the crackling tumult, the shouts, the alarms, the smell of burning, the eye-stinging smoke, the worsening list, the nightmare glow on the black sea, the cacophony on the bridge of TBS and sailors' voices-for all the acute peril, for all the drastic decisions he had to make fast, Victor Henry was not bewildered or beset; on the contrary, he felt himself coming fully alive for the first time since Midway. Back in the bridge house he spoke, over the TBS, "Griffin, Griffin, this is Hawkeye, over."

  In reply, a formal drawl: "Hawkeye from Griffin, come in, over-" An older voice broke through. "Hold on, son, that's Pug Henry over on the Northampton. I'll talk to him....

  Say, Pug, is that you?" Admirals ignored communication procedure.

  "How are you doing, fella? You look pretty bad from over here."

  "Over here" was the Honolulu, the one unscathed cruiser left ip the task force, a lean long shadow to the northwest, racing with the destroyer screen out of the torpedo water.

  "I've got one engine room and one propeller, Admiral. I'll head for Tulagi too. We're effecting repairs, or trying to, as we go- 11

  "That's one hell of a fire there on your stern."

  "We're fighting it."

  "Do you require assistance?"

  "Not now."

  "Pug, radar shows these band
its retiring westward. I'll sweep around Savo Island to engage them beyond torpedo range. If you need help, holier, and I'll send you a couple of my small boys."

  "Aye aye, sir. Good hunting. Out."

  "Good luck, Pug."

  During this talk the executive officer arrived on the bridge, his moon face under the helmet streaked with soot and sweat, and he took charge of damage control while the captain conned the ship. Through battles, bombardments, long voyages, and a Navy Yard overhaul, Pug had developed confidence in this quiet chubby man from Idaho, though their personal relationship remained by mutual choice a distant one. In Griggs last fitness report, Pug had reported him qualified for command.

  The last Alnav had promoted Grigg to four stripes, and they expected him to get the Northampton any day. Pug already had orders to go back to Washington for reassignment "when relieved." With Grigg handling damage control, Pug had time to reflect. His evil luck was certainly holding! Griggs orders were probably on the way, but the delay had pushed him into this ill-omened night battle as captain. If he lost his ship, he would have to answer to a court of inquiry, and he could not plead that an inept admiral with an ill-conceived op-plan had led him into torpedo water.