In Booth’s hotel room Dr. Silver stripped off the adhesive tape with a gentle touch and removed the dressing. He looked at the suturing Wharton had done with a critical eye.
“For a goy, not bad,” he said. “Now I want you to go downstairs and do something for me.
“When we came in through the hotel garden I saw some very big aloe vera plants. You know what is an aloe vera, dancer? No. You would not know that.
“The aloe vera is a sort of big cactus but it has no spines. It has very wide, very thick leaves filled with a healing gel. Ask the hotel gardener to cut off one large leaf for me and bring it here. Cut it off at the base of the leaf.” Wharton left and the doctor busied himself taking Booth’s pulse. Wharton returned with the thick leaf of the aloe vera plant, holding it away from him so the thick, sticky gel dripping out of the cut area of the leaf wouldn’t soil his uniform.
“This plant is called the medicine plant down in the tropics,” Dr. Silver said. “You can find reference to it in the Bible, Old Testament, of course. You can find reference to this plant in the old Egyptian writings.
“Now, you cut off an inch or so from the bottom of this cut end of the leaf.” He sliced through the fleshy leaf and a thick, sticky, colorless gel oozed out. “You spread this on the wound. It heals. If you burn yourself and spread this on, it will stop the pain almost at once, and the burn will heal without scarring or blistering.” His gentle fingers spread the sticky gel over the entire wounded area.
“You see, how it is absorbed almost at once. Now a little more, so, and a new dressing.” He turned to Wharton.
“I want this done three times a day. Keep the aloe vera leaf in a refrigerator or an icebox here in the hotel. Take his temperature each time you dress the wound. If he runs more than one degree above normal, call me. If he feels nauseous call me.” He went to the sink in the room and washed his hands.
“For you, patient,” he said to Booth, “no alcohol. Lots of rest. No anesthetic like you used yesterday. It could raise your blood pressure, make your other ear drop off.” He left the room followed by the two Chiefs.
“Let’s have a little more of that excellent coffee in your hotel dining room, and then I must go back to the ship and lecture Navy officers on the treatment of sailors who must be considered to be human beings and not enlisted men.” Seated at the table he grinned at Wharton.
“A creditable job of suturing, my friend. What I taught you must have taken hold. But if I have to criticize, and I must, the suturing at the top of the ear is not as neat as at the bottom part of the area. You didn’t have to go as far away from the cut at the top to find tissue strong enough to hold the sutures.”
“That part was done after he had seen Booth, ah, sir, sucking on his girl’s breast,” Flanagan said.
Dr. Silver shook his head. “You have to learn never to let all your emotions show. You can show sympathy, empathy, joy. Never distress or sorrow. It upsets the patients. Worse, it upsets their relatives. Patients should never have relatives. It is unfortunate they do. They get in the way of the healing process. They expect miracles. The patient hopes for a miracle but he’ll settle for less. I’ll come back tomorrow at lunch, my friends.” He left, walking with swift strides on his short legs.
“He’s one hell of a man,” Wharton said. “He fights with the Navy brass all the time. He knows more about medicine than all of the doctors on the tender put together, and he lets them know that every day. Those who listen to him learn. Those who don’t listen don’t get over it for a long while. He works a lot at the Australian military hospital on his off time. Sort of a consultant. Most of the medical people in the hospital think he’s God Himself.”
“Well,” Flanagan said, “he’s the right race, isn’t he?”
CHAPTER 12
The crew of the Eelfish piled their sea bags and ditty bags around the forward deck gun and fell into line for quarters on the afterdeck. Some of them looked refreshed and fit after the two weeks of rest and relaxation. Others looked totally exhausted.
“Looks like the relief crew is running behind schedule,” John LaMark said to Jim Rice. “They ain’t painted the topside yet.”
At quarters John Olsen gave the crew the bad news. They would have to do their own refit because they had to wait for the torpedo-tube outer door. After the groans had died down Olsen pointed out that they’d have at least three more weeks of liberty.
“Thing that pisses me off,” Fred Nelson said to Chief Flanagan two weeks after the crew had returned to the ship, “the thing that really pisses me off is that they keep us outboard of all the submarines alongside. Every damned thing I’ve had to bring aboard I’ve had to carry it over the decks of five other boats. The least the bastards coulda done is to leave us inboard.”
“Two ways to do things,” Flanagan said. “The right way and the Navy way. You know that. When you going to be through painting your room?”
“Tomorrow. We finished scrubbin’ it down today. We’ll be done by fifteen hundred tomorrow. All the rest of the work is done. We reshimmed the rollers in the tubes and on the skids. We worked on damned near everything that could be worked on in that fuckin’ room. People back there been workin’ their asses off. Me too.”
Flanagan took a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and made some notes on a page. “Same thing all over the ship. There ain’t a piece of gear on this ship that hasn’t been taken apart, cleaned, adjusted, and put back together again. Everything is working so good you’d think we just came out of the Navy Yard.”
“It’s workin’ better than it would if we’d been in the Yard,” Nelson growled. “What’s the word on the new door?”
“Last word I get is that it’s in Pearl now and it’ll be here a week from Friday. That’s in ten days. We can’t go in the dry dock on Saturday so we’ll probably go in on the following Monday. Then they got to hang the door. They didn’t send any hinge pins for the door, but the shop on the tender had the machine shop make up some bronze pins from blueprints. I figure they’ll fuck around with them for half a day, honing them to fit.
“The Squadron wanted ship’s company to scrape and wire-brush the bottom and paint it, but the Old Man screamed so loud that the relief crew is going to do that. That will probably take three, four days. Once that’s done we’ll go alongside and take fish aboard and stores and get the hell out of here.”
“I ain’t mindin’ it too much here,” Nelson said. “Found me a woman who likes big noses.”
“She must like the hell out of you!” Flanagan said.
“She even wanted to cut my toenails,” Nelson said with a grin. “How about you, you make out?”
“Chief on the tender wanted to fix me up with his girl’s cousin, but I backed off. Every time I look at a broad I start thinking about the one I was married to once, and it turns me off.”
“Didn’t know you were ever married,” Nelson said.
“Did it when I was second class. Made first class and all she did was bitch about why didn’t I make Chief, why didn’t I try for Warrant. Spent so much money that I was working as a bartender when I had the liberty so I could pay the bills.
“We went out to sea for a month on maneuvers, and when I got back I found that she’d taken about half of the furniture and moved in with some damned civilian. Then she ran up about fifteen hundred clams worth of bills in Sears and Sawbucks. Took me two years to get that paid off.”
“Where was that?” Nelson said.
“Key West,” Flanagan said.
“She marry the civilian?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Flanagan said. “All’s I know is he paid for her divorce.” He studied his notebook and then put it back in his pocket. “Old Man’s due aboard. I got to see him.”
Nelson watched Flanagan’s slope-shouldered figure walk up the length of the deck, thinking that he had learned more about his Chief of the Boat in the last ten minutes than he had known in the two years they had served together.
Eelfish ca
me out of the dry dock and was moved directly to the tender to an inboard position. The torpedo loading hatches were opened, and in the two torpedo rooms the men were preparing to take aboard their torpedoes. On deck Chief Flanagan and two seamen were greasing the loading skids down which the torpedoes would be slid. Captain Brannon walked up and stood watching the preparations.
“We put the finals on the fish ourselves,” Flanagan said to Mike Brannon. “Did that yesterday, up in the shop. I stopped liberty for all hands in both rooms until we get the fish aboard and stowed. Cook told me he’s taking stores aboard tomorrow, and I want all hands available for that.”
Brannon felt a shadow block out the sunshine. He looked upward and saw a torpedo hanging from the crane right over his head. He moved hastily to one side and then went over to the tender and out on the dock where John Olsen was waiting for him with Admiral Christie’s car and driver.
“What’s this meeting about?” Olsen asked.
“The usual thing, I guess,” Brannon said, as he settled himself in the car’s back seat. The driver closed the door and got in behind the wheel, and the car moved away.
“I guess they’re going to talk about our next war patrol area. I hope they give us a good one.”
The two officers walked into the cool foyer of the Bend of the Road. The Marine sentry checked their ID cards and waved them toward the long hallway that led to the conference room. As they walked toward the hallway they saw an officer dressed in khakis that glistened with a starched sheen, the creases in the shirt and trousers standing out like knife edges. The officer wore the silver eagles of a captain on his collar tabs. He stood with his feet slightly spread apart, his hands clasped behind his back. As Brannon and Olsen passed by him he stared at the men with cold, pale blue eyes. His harsh face gave no evidence of welcome.
“Boy, I’ll bet he’s a tough one,” Olsen half whispered to Brannon as they walked down the hall. “That four-striper back there, did you see those eyes? I thought they were going to bore a hole right through me.”
“His face is familiar, damn it,” Brannon said, “but I can’t put a name to him. I should be able to. Not that many four-stripers wear a white mustache.” The sentry at the door of the conference room checked their ID cards and opened the door and closed it behind them.
“Good to see you, Mike, Olsen,” Admiral Christie said from the head of the table. The members of the Admiral’s staff were sitting on both sides of the table, and Brannon noticed an empty chair next to the Admiral. He and Olsen moved toward two empty chairs farther down the table.
“I want to congratulate you, Mike, on the job your people did on Eelfish on that refit. I had a few minutes last evening and went down there with Sam Rivers. You were on the tender having chow, and we didn’t want to bother you. No offense, I take it?”
“Of course not, sir,” Brannon said. “You’re welcome aboard Eelfish any time, you know that.”
“You’re getting your torpedoes today?” Christie asked. Brannon nodded.
“You’ll get stores tomorrow, and you’ll shove off day after tomorrow at zero eight hundred. You’ll be fueled after stores are aboard,” Admiral Christie said. He nodded his head at the empty chair beside him.
“We have a guest with us from Pearl Harbor. And we have a special mission for Eelfish.” He nodded at one of the junior staff officers, who rose and left the room. He came back in a few minutes with the officer Brannon and Olsen had seen in the foyer. The Admiral rose.
“Captain Brannon, Mr. Olsen, this is Captain Arvin Mealey. Arvin, you’ve met my staff. This is Captain Mike Brannon, C.O. of the Eelfish, and his Executive Officer, Lieutenant Commander John Olsen.” The dour-visaged four-striper came around the table and shook hands with Brannon and Olsen, who had risen to their feet. His handshake was brisk and powerful. His pale blue eyes bored into each man, and then he went to the head of the table and sat down beside the Admiral.
“Since this is Captain Mealey’s operation I’m going to let him brief you, Brannon, Olsen. If you will, sir?” Captain Mealey got to his feet and stood, as Brannon and Olsen had seen him earlier, with his feet spread a little apart, his hands clasped behind his back. The cold eyes looked down the table.
“Ever since the war in Europe started,” Mealey began, “the German U-boats have been operating in what they call wolf packs. As few as two submarines or as many as twenty will operate with each other. They ambush convoys. The tactic has been very successful for them. Very successful.
“For some time, quite a long time, some of us have been trying very hard to get approval of the wolf-pack tactic for our own operations. Up until now the powers that be in Washington, the High Command, have not given approval.
“Now we have it.
“I might say at this point that we don’t have any real information on how the Germans carry out their wolf-pack operations. The only information we have comes from the victims, officers and men who have been sunk and then rescued or whose ships managed to get away while others were sinking all around them.
“We know that in some cases the Germans, who seem to have excellent intelligence, form up on each side of the convoy course. They wait, submerged, in a long row. As many as ten ships on each side of the convoy route. When the convoy comes abeam, the submarines on one side will all fire at one time. A broadside of torpedoes. Then they’ll go deep, and the submarines on the other side will fire their broadside. Then both sides will surface and run among the convoy shooting with deck guns. In a large convoy of fifty or sixty ships traveling in lines there is bound to be a great deal of overlap, and most torpedoes seem to find a target.” He paused.
“When they use a smaller number of submarines, down to as few as two, the tactics vary. But always they are bold and very aggressive. The loss of lives and ships in these attacks has been enormous. In many cases the Germans seem to prefer to attack at night. The reason for that is quite obvious. Merchant-ship captains are not used to maneuvering radically at night in company with other ships, and they get confused. The submarines which surface go among them like a pack of wolves among sheep. Hence the term wolf pack.
“One thing we must recognize, and we often fail to do so, and that is that we must recognize the brilliance of the enemy when it is warranted. Admiral Doenitz is a brilliant tactician. We are now going to use his tactics, so far as we are able. I have been sent out here from Pearl to command the first wolf-pack patrol.
“I have chosen to put my flag in the Eelfish, if Captain Brannon has no objection. We will not have a large number of submarines to work with, only two others, the Hatchet Fish and the Sea Chub.” He stopped, his cold eyes looking at Mike Brannon.
“The decision to put my flag aboard Eelfish rests, sir, with you. Your decision will be heard without prejudice, I assure you. I could sail aboard either of the other two ships if you would rather have it that way.”
“I have absolutely no objections, sir,” Brannon said. “If I may, sir, I look forward to the experience, to learning whatever I can from the man who took the Mako, my old ship, under a twelve-destroyer screen to attack a battleship.”
“And who got the living hell depth charged out of him,” Captain Mealey said with a wry smile. “Don’t forget that part, Captain Brannon. Audacity in war always extracts a price. We paid heavily on Mako for that attack.”
“And don’t forget that while the Japs were, as the Captain says, depth charging the hell out of him he came up to periscope depth and blew one of the attackers to pieces with one torpedo,” Admiral Christie said in a booming voice.
“Arvin, you’re going to put your flag in the smartest, cleanest, best-run ship in my command. You and Mike and Olsen can go to lunch if you wish. You’re welcome to eat here. We’ve got so much work to do we’ll eat and work at the same time.”
Captain Mealey and the two Eelfish officers found a table shaded by a huge hibiscus bush on the patio. They ordered from the menu, and when the waiter had left Mike Brannon cleared his throat.
&nb
sp; “Sir, if I may, can I ask a few questions?”
“Go right ahead,” Mealey said.
“First, you’re welcome to my stateroom.”
“I’ll share it with you, if you don’t mind,” Mealey said. “I went aboard last evening with the Admiral, and I noticed that the top bunk wasn’t made up. I like top bunks.”
“Fine,” Brannon said.
“What else?” Mealey asked.
“The only other things I am curious about — I guess John, who’s my navigator, is equally curious, sir — is how the three submarines will travel to the patrol area, wherever that area is — they haven’t told us as yet. And how you’ll deploy your force in the patrol area, how you will attack.”
“Our area is Luzon Strait,” Mealey said. “The Strait is the crossroads for shipping going north and south to and from the Empire of Japan.
“Hatchet Fish and Sea Chub are leaving this afternoon for Exmouth Gulf. They’ll top off with fuel there and wait for us. We have a long way to go to get on station, so we’ll run in line, with the Flag leading the column, and run as economically as we can to the patrol area. I haven’t checked the charts closely, but I estimate it will take us a good thirteen or fourteen days to get on station.
“I don’t plan to try for German efficiency and make each of our pack cruise in a rigid formation in the patrol area. It’s a big area, and what I plan to do is to station the other two ships so as best to cover the sea routes the Japs are using. When one of us sights a target or targets he’ll notify the others. If that sounds loose and haphazard, perhaps it is. At the moment that’s the way I see it.
“Now a word on why I chose Eelfish for my flag. I have studied your patrol reports, sir. I am satisfied that you are an aggressive, efficient Commanding Officer. I am confident that we will work together very well as a team.”
“If I may, sir,” Olsen said. “You must know that we, all of us in submarines, have studied your patrol report on the attack on the battleship at Truk. Those patrol reports were circulated to the whole submarine force, sir. And if I am not out of order, that attack was one of sheer, cold guts!
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