She sat on the bed and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing.
“Jane.”
“I heard about the Sandtiger on the radio. I thought you were dead.”
Somehow, he’d known she’d turn up here. Jane never missed the action.
She studied his face. “Look at you.” Her soft fingers probed a scar that ran down the side of his forehead into his cheek. “What did they do to you?”
He said, “I’m glad to see you’re okay.”
But of course, she would be. Her tireless efforts to help save the shattered bodies of American servicemen had earned her more karma than most.
“Okay?” she wondered. “The war’s finally over. I guess I’ll find out soon whether I’m okay or not.”
“You will be,” he said. “You’re the strongest person I know. You remind me of a crewman I lost. You did good in a war that saw a lot of bad. Always remember that.”
“What about you? Are you okay?”
“The doctors tell me I have a long, hard road ahead of me.”
Now that he’d fulfilled his mission to bring Rusty and Percy home, his body had taken that as a sign it was okay to finally collapse.
“You’ll recover,” Jane said. “You’re the strongest person I know too.” She laid her hand on his chest. “But are you okay?”
Charlie had thought his war ended with the rescue of his crewmen, but he suspected he might have been wrong. He worried his war might never be over. He would fight it for the rest of his life unless he found a way finally to put it behind him.
She leaned closer to him. His mind flashed to a tent in Saipan where they’d made love while guns crashed in the jungle.
He worked up a weak smile. “I guess I’ll have to find that out too.”
“Find me when it’s over,” she said. “If you don’t, I’ll find you. We’ll go somewhere. Paris, Cuba, I don’t care. We don’t have to run, Charlie. We can escape. Just walk right out. We could be okay, together.”
The electric moments he’d spent with Jane during the war had been fleeting. In his mind, she represented the present. Live for today because tomorrow may never come. Could they have a tomorrow?
“Nurse Larson.” A grizzled medical officer worked his way down the row of bunks, inspecting charts. “Come here.”
Jane furtively kissed her fingertips and touched his face. “You think about it, Charlie.”
After the doctor left the ward with Jane in tow, Charlie hauled his aching form out of bed. He pulled his bathrobe over his pajamas and tucked his feet into slippers. Then he plodded topside to see the surrender.
The sailors lined the gunwales in pajamas or skivvy shirts and dungarees and hats. Others sat and talked among boxes of gear. Charlie closed his eyes and tilted his head back to feel the sea breeze and the early morning’s warm sunlight on his face. Waves of planes roared overhead to buzz Tokyo with a show of American military might.
Rusty sat cross-legged on a crate. “Over here, Charlie.”
He limped over and lit a cigarette. “You always liked history. We’re about to see it being made.”
“Hell, brother, I’ve been living it for four years.”
“Where’s Percy?”
Rusty slouched. “He’s got a difficult road ahead of him.”
The wards were full of men with mental as well as physical wounds. At first, they couldn’t believe they’d been rescued. They marveled at their new basic comforts. Then the malaise set in. Jubilation bled away to reveal shock, anxiety, despondence, and terror. They squirreled away bits of food in their mattress, screamed in their sleep, and shrank in panic at being touched. Percy kept referring to himself as a ghost. Charlie decided he would visit him again that afternoon.
“What about you? How are you doing?”
“I’m going home,” his friend said. “I’m going home to Lucy and Rusty Junior. I’m going to love my wife and watch my son grow up. I’m going to have as big a family as I can. And brother, I pity the son of a bitch who tries to stop me.”
Charlie smirked. “I pity him too.”
“What about you?”
Home. Home sounded good right now. Tiburon. His mother and sisters. Evie.
Where he’d put the war behind him.
Jane would understand.
“Charlie?”
Before he could answer, a jubilant cheer swept the deck. Word was spreading that the Japanese had signed the instrument of surrender, and General MacArthur and representatives of the Allied powers had accepted it. History being made.
Charlie’s mind was elsewhere.
Home. Yes. That was where he’d meet the man he’d become in peace.
CHAPTER FORTY
Home
In the winter of 1945, Charlie arrived in San Francisco by steamer. He had no sooner crossed the gangplank when Evie threw herself at him.
He dropped his sea bag just in time to catch her in a whirling embrace. Her warm body melted into his, intoxicating him with her soft touch and floral scent.
Then she kissed him hard enough to make him forget everything.
The moment he saw her, he knew he’d made the right call.
“It’s so good to see you,” she breathed into his ear, making him tingle.
“It’s good to be with you. It’s good to be home.”
“Everybody’s waiting for you. Your mom’s gonna flip.”
Charlie couldn’t wait to see his family and Tiburon again, but he also dreaded the prospect. Through his continuing recovery, the man he saw in the mirror every day was a shadow of what he’d been. It would break his mother’s heart because she cared far more about his wellbeing than she did his service and medals.
“I don’t know if I’m ready just yet,” he said. “Let’s take a walk first.”
Evie broke the embrace and peered up at him. “You look good.”
She’d always been able to read his mind. The tears welling in her eyes belied that statement, but he believed, scars and all, he still looked good to her.
“You’re even more beautiful than I remember.”
Evie slipped her arm under his. “We’ll catch a later ferry then. Shall we go, darling?”
Charlie shouldered his sea bag. Together, they strolled away from the piers. Their aimless wandering took them to the fisherman’s wharf district.
Evie’s usual good humor evaporated into a dark cloud. “Things are calm now, but boy, you should have seen it when the war ended. On V-E Day, there was this eerie silence. Nobody could believe the Nazis quit. On V-J Day, the servicemen ran wild in the streets, drinking and rioting. They lost their minds for one long night. Some people got killed.”
“That’s terrible,” Charlie said.
He asked a few questions about the riot, but she didn’t answer. She just kept glowering. Finally, he couldn’t stand it. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“Charlie, I need to get some things straight with you.”
“Like what?”
She stopped walking and withdrew her arm from his.
Then she socked him in the shoulder. “Like that’s for making me worry!”
She leaned bawling against his chest, and stunned, he held her.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Tell me you’re done with war.”
“I’m done. I’m not even in the Navy anymore. ComSubPac gave me a medical discharge just before I left.”
“And no more Navy words I don’t understand,” she wailed.
He smiled. “No more Navy words, I promise.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
Charlie tightened his hug. “I’m going to be okay.”
“Inside and out?”
“Inside and out, though I’ll need your help.”
“You know you got it. And what about us? Where do we stand, Charlie?”
“When you said you wanted to clear the air, you weren’t kidding, were you?”
“Don’t make me punch you again,” she warned.
“If you’ll have me, I�
�m going to marry you. Is that clear enough for you?”
She sobbed again, overcome with emotion. “Very clear.”
“Is that a yes?”
Her crying turned to laughter. “Yes, it’s a yes, you big dope.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Anything else you want to know while we’re clearing the air?”
“We’ll need to invite John Braddock to the wedding.”
Charlie reeled. “What?”
“John Braddock? He said he served with you.”
“Yes, he was a chief on my boat. How do you know him?”
“He found me on the way back to the war after his war bonds tour,” Evie said. “He told me you were alive and that he was trying to get you home. Was he the one who found you?”
Charlie shook his head in wonder. “As a matter of fact, he was.”
“I made him promise he would. He kept it. You’re lucky to have such a good friend.”
Charlie stared at her for a while then burst out laughing.
She couldn’t help but laugh with him. “What’s so funny?”
That son of a bitch. The rescue had been his idea, not Lockwood’s. The machinist had had the last laugh on him, a joke Charlie could laugh at too.
“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”
Evie nestled against him. “It’s good to have you back, Charlie.”
“I think I’m ready to go home.”
Charlie and Evie caught the next ferry to Tiburon. To the next chapter in their lives, wherever their destiny would take them.
POSTSCRIPT
Charlie Harrison
Charlie married Evie Painter in January 1946. With his new wife and his mother, he traveled to the White House in Washington, DC, in March. There, standing alongside submarine ace Richard O’Kane and Marine flying ace Pappy Boyington, he received the Medal of Honor from President Truman for his actions during the Battle of Leyte Gulf. On the way back, he visited Chief McDonough’s wife Florence and told her how Smokey saved his life aboard the Sandtiger and then gave his life to save his comrades on Saipan.
While he eventually recovered from his injuries, his nightmares lasted for many years, his scars a lifetime. As an employee for the Veterans Administration and volunteer for Veterans of Foreign Wars, he dedicated himself to helping veterans find work and adjust to civilian life.
He and Evie had three boys, Rusty, Lester, and Charlie Junior. They in turn grew up to give Charlie and Evie seven grandchildren.
In 1947, he testified at the war crimes trials of Colonel Murata, Sergeant Sano, and Lance Corporal Chiba; Murata and Sano received life sentences, while Chiba was hanged in 1948. Otherwise, to his dying days, Charlie never talked about his experiences during the war, and true to his oath, he never fired a shot or struck a blow in anger again.
Having found and lost himself in adventure and combat during the war, he found himself again in peace and a home with Evie, though neither the war, nor the Sandtiger still on eternal patrol in the Philippine Sea, was ever far from his mind.
In 1999, suffering from dementia on his deathbed, he shouted his final words: “All ahead, emergency! Rig for collision!”
Gerald Percy
After his honorable discharge from the Navy, Percy boarded the first merchant marine that was leaving harbor and spent the next ten years wandering the globe. He returned to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and took a job with Deere & Company selling tractors and machinery to farmers. He married and divorced three times.
In 1959, he achieved a major dream by being named Bowling Magazine’s Amateur Bowler of the Year.
Percy died of heart failure in 1981 while attending the Farm Tech Days convention and was survived by four children.
His funeral was the largest the city had ever seen.
Lester Morrison
On Charlie Harrison’s recommendation, Morrison was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for gallantry in his actions attempting to save the prisoners aboard the hell ship Kyushu Maru in July 1945.
Jonas Cotten
Cotten stayed in the Army for eight more years, serving in the Korean conflict. After leaving the service, he returned to Alabama but suffered from post-traumatic stress, alcoholism, and inability to adjust to civilian life.
In 1956, he moved to Alaska, stating he wanted to live as far from other human beings as possible. In 1959, he walked into the wilderness with his rifle and was never seen or heard from again.
Jane Larson
Jane stayed in Asia the rest of her life, working for various charities providing relief during the tumult of post-colonialism following WW2. In the 1960s, she helped shape the newly created Peace Corps and would continue her work as a field worker for five years before returning to private relief agencies. In 1968, she married a photographer but never had children.
In 1985, she wrote a book about her experiences abroad, which became a bestseller in the United States. In the book, she talks about her romance with a dashing young submarine officer but doesn't mention Charlie by name. When Charlie read it, he was able to briefly remember the bright side of the war.
Jane died in 1994, mourned by all whose lives she touched, including Charlie.
John Braddock
Braddock returned to Detroit and accepted a job as a shop foreman at a General Motors plant, where he also served as a union steward in the United Automobile Workers. A misanthrope who loved humanity but despised most individuals, he worked tirelessly to ensure good working conditions for his men.
Always an agitator who hated war, in the late 1960s, he became an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and married a peace activist twenty years his junior. They had two children together. In 1978, he was elected as a Democrat to the Michigan House of Representatives in District 9, representing Detroit and Dearborn. He retired in 1988 and passed away in 1995.
Russell Grady
Rusty returned to Pittsburgh and earned a doctorate in history thanks to the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, better known as the GI Bill, signed into law by Roosevelt months before his death. The GI Bill was a great success, improving employment prospects and average wages for veterans and eventually producing 14 Nobel laureates, three presidents, and three Supreme Court justices.
In 1952, he joined the RAND Corporation. From 1957–58, he consulted with California National Productions on The Silent Service, a television show dramatizing real submarine patrols during the war, including several episodes depicting Charlie’s adventures on the S-55, Sabertooth, and Sandtiger.
He and Lucy had two more children, Mary and Charles. He kept in regular touch with Charlie until his captain passed away.
In 2018, Rusty turned 100. Many of his memories had become a fog, but he remembered plain as day Captain Harrison standing tall on the bridge, bellowing orders as he charged the Yamato off Samar.
And he thought, Hang loose, brother. I’ll see you topside soon.
THE STORY OF CRASH DIVE
Thank you for reading the Crash Dive series! I hope you enjoyed reading about Charlie Harrison’s adventures through the Pacific War as much as I did writing them. It was a real journey for me as a writer to explore this world, and I have to admit it’s hard to say goodbye to it.
At its heart, Crash Dive is a series of short, simple, and pulpy adventure stories grounded in realism and authentic technical detail to make them come alive. Thematically, however, I aimed to go further than that, exploring numerous ideas related to war in general and World War II in particular, especially in the writing of Over the Hill. This was a war fought by the Greatest Generation, who were all too human. A war fought against an evil enemy, who often were only doing their own duty and saw themselves on the side of right. A “good” war fought for noble ideals, while being the most brutal and horrific in human history.
I owe a great debt to the submariners who told their remarkable stories in numerous books, such as War in the Boats, The War Below, The Silent Service in World War II, Clear the Bridge!, Thunder Below!, Submarine!, among many othe
r documents I researched to inspire and inform this series. Crash Dive is as much an homage to their service as it is a fresh retelling of historical events.
It is also the story of the submarines. When the war started, only about fifty submarines were in service; by the end of the war, some 180. Though hampered by faulty torpedoes, submarines sank more than 1,100 merchant ships with a tonnage of some 4.8 million by its end. They also sank about 200 warships, including eight carriers, a battleship, and eleven cruisers. Strangling Japan’s economy and, by extension, its ability to fight made a major contribution to the American victory—a victory that seems inevitable today but was far from certain when the war began.
Japan’s anti-submarine tactics and equipment were arguably poor compared to the war’s other major combatants. Nonetheless, the Japanese sank more than fifty American submarines during the war, or about one in five boats. Nearly 3,500 submariners died in these actions—a casualty rate six times higher than the rest of the Navy—making submarine service far more dangerous than on a surface ship.
To all of you having served or now serving: Thank you for your service. And to all of my readers, thank you again for joining me on this voyage. Based on how well Crash Dive was received, I’m planning another historical military fiction series, which I hope to launch in 2019. Stay tuned for these and other new books at www.CraigDiLouie.com, and be sure to sign up for my mailing list here to stay up to date on new releases. I also welcome any correspondence about my fiction at [email protected].
—Craig DiLouie, July 2018
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig DiLouie is an author of popular thriller, apocalyptic/horror, and sci-fi/fantasy fiction.
In hundreds of reviews, Craig’s novels have been praised for their strong characters, action, and gritty realism. Each book promises an exciting experience with people you’ll care about in a world that feels real.
These works have been nominated for major literary awards such as the Bram Stoker Award and Audie Award, translated into multiple languages, and optioned for film. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association, International Thriller Writers, and Imaginative Fiction Writers Association.
Over the Hill: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 6) Page 15