“Won’t bother me. The only good Jap is a dead Jap.” They all murmured agreement.
“Yeah, did you see the sign Admiral Halsey put at the main base? Says, “Kill Japs. Kill more Japs.”
O’Toole abstained while he tried to imagine what it would be like to see someone’s face before he killed them. Wouldn’t they be like me, a regular guy with a family and a mother? It was just as Hatfield said.
O’Toole crushed his cigarette out on a sandbag and said, “I’ll be glad when this war is over. Gotta go. Thanks for the smoke.”
He turned and headed back to his tent, and as he walked away he heard a marine say, “He wasn’t from the Able, he had no idea what really happened.”
20
O’Toole slept until almost ten the next morning. Worried he had missed some important information or evolution, he dressed and headed for the command tent. Most of the flotilla officers were milling about, and when he entered the tent, several greeted him with smiles and a “Good morning, Pat.”
Their change of attitude puzzled him. One of the squadron commanders handed him a cup of coffee and said, “You were holding out on us.”
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t tell us you were the Terror O’Toole.”
“I’m sorry, but what you’re talking about?”
“You’re in the newspaper. Kendal is from Boston, and his family sent him a week’s worth of Boston Globes. You’re front-page news.”
“What?”
The squadron commander walked to a table, picked up a newspaper, and held it up for O’Toole. Pointing to a small article in the corner, he said, “The article is right here. Read it.”
Gloucester Native Hero of Secret but Decisive Sea Battle
By Charles Sprat
SOUTH PACIFIC, location withheld for wartime security — Last month the US Navy’s newest ship, the USS Able, set out on a secret mission that so concerned the Japanese High Command they did everything they could in an unsuccessful attempt to stop her. The Able withstood three days of relentless air attacks before engaging with a six-ship battle group comprised of two cruisers and four destroyers. The air and sea battles were even more remarkable due to the courage and leadership of a lieutenant the crew calls Terror O’Toole.
According to eyewitness reports, during the relentless air attacks, the Able’s courageous and capable gunners, led by Lieutenant Patrick “Terror” O’Toole, a resident of Gloucester, Massachusetts, downed over forty enemy aircraft while sustaining little damage. At times, the savage air battles resembled hand-to-hand combat with the fiery debris of destroyed Japanese zeros and torpedo bombers raining down on the deck and bridge of the Able. In one such incident, shrapnel critically injured the Able’s captain. Despite being under heavy fire and sustaining injuries himself, Lieutenant O’Toole rendered life-saving medical assistance to his captain. Without regard for his injuries, Lieutenant “Terror” O’Toole assumed command of the Able for his fallen captain, and continued to lead his ship into battle.
Unable to stop the USS Able from the air, the Japanese dispatched a six-ship battle group in a fruitless attempt to thwart the Able’s mission. After completing the mission, Lieutenant “Terror” O’Toole engaged the superior enemy force in a fierce hour-long battle during which the valiant ship and crew single-handedly sank one cruiser and three of the four Japanese destroyers while heavily damaging the other cruiser. After the loss of the third destroyer, the surviving Japanese cruiser fled.
The Navy Department refused to comment on the battle, the Able’s secret mission, or the current whereabouts of Lieutenant O’Toole. Fellow shipmates of Lieutenant O’Toole describe him as a tough, hard-charging military leader of obvious Irish decent.
O’Toole turned to the group surrounding the table, and said, “That’s not what happened. This guy has the story all wrong. We only downed twenty-six planes. We damaged one cruiser and sank two destroyers, and we lost our ship in the process; he didn’t mention that. He made up his information and this ‘Terror’ stuff.”
Durham’s hand fell on O’Toole’s shoulder. “You’re a legend, Pat, don’t be modest; all you will do is destroy morale on the home front.”
“This isn’t just saltwater scuttlebutt. It’s on the front page, and—”
“The more you try to deny the story, the larger the legend will grow. Embrace it. Roll with the waves, Terror.”
§
That night he returned to his tent and found a pile of uniform slacks, shirts, socks, and insignia bars stacked neatly on his bunk. His fellow officers beamed with pride and deflected his attempts to say thank you. Also on his bunk was a package, wrapped in brown paper, from Kate. She had mailed the letter over a month ago. He ripped the package open to find letters from his wife, Kate, and his grandfather. The box also contained a biography of Commodore Barry.
Kate’s letter was light and airy, filling him in on all the latest happenings back home, but her phrasing and choice of words betrayed her deep concern for him. She still wasn’t aware of the Able’s fate. The letter filled him with joy, and he could hear her voice as he read her words, but her words left him lonely and longing.
The book was a gift from his grandfather. Daeg knew O’Toole’s fascination with Commodore Barry bordered on hero worship. His letter was typical Daeg; all five-word, tough-guy declarative sentences. He broke down at one point and said he was proud of O’Toole. That stunned him, and he had to reread that section again. He had waited for those words for years, and even though his grandfather hadn’t delivered the compliment in person, it stirred him. Maybe the wall between them was coming down. It filled him with hope and pride. He wished he could talk with him now.
O’Toole wrote letters home to each one. He didn’t mention the newspaper article to either. He told Kate the Able sank, not that a Japanese cruiser sank it. He carefully folded their letters up and put them with his things. Next, he retrieved a small green notebook from his hip pocket. He spread a folded piece of paper from under the notebook’s cover, and copied from the paper to the notebook.
“What’ya doing?” an officer asked.
“It’s personal, just some stuff I want to remember,” O’Toole said.
§
The next morning O’Toole set himself to work filling out requisitions, in triplicate, for everything from bullets to Band-Aids. Without a specific assignment, he helped where he could, including doing paperwork. He swore he would leave the navy if they ever gave him a desk job, but now he volunteered for it. He hated it and wanted to get back to sea.
Durham came in eyes-forward, taking long, purposeful steps. With short staccato orders he summoned the squadron commanders around one of the makeshift tables. O’Toole joined the group and listened to Durham’s briefing.
“The Japs are marshaling ships at Rabaul,” Durham pointed to the chart. “A battleship, two cruisers, and four destroyers getting ready to ship out.
“Intel thinks they will come down the slot to Guadalcanal. This agrees with what we can see from the air, with lots of activity around Cape Esperance,” Durham tapped the map. “Our flyboys are giving them hell, but the Jap activity is increasing.”
“Their Tokyo Express runs are supported by three to four destroyers. This is much bigger. Either they are mounting a major counterattack, or they’re trying to evacuate the last of their troops off Guadalcanal. Either way, we need to mess up their little party.”
O’Toole’s mind scrambled to absorb what Durham was saying. They were going to take twenty-four wooden PT boats and attack a battleship, two cruisers, and four destroyers. The boat captains around the table were smiling, a wicked delight filling their eyes.
“I think you guys are crazy,” O’Toole said.
Durham grinned at him and said, “You figured us out, but to understand, you gotta stop thinking like a destroyer puke.”
Durham continued his briefing. “We’ve got five boats out for repair. Squadron 1 will stay behind and provide standard security patrol
off Tulagi and Guadalcanal. Squadron 2 will be rear guard and if necessary, loiter until sun-up to bring in survivors. The rest of us will split into two groups: four boats will attack the cruisers and three boats the destroyers.”
“Now I’m sure you guys are crazy,” O’Toole said.
“Maybe so. The weather guessers are calling for rain tonight, but the winds will be light. What more do you want? Smooth seas, a dark rainy night, and a good guess at where the enemy will be? Sounds like a good night for a fight to me,” Durham was still grinning.
“I don’t get it,” O’Toole admitted.
“Stop thinking like a big-ship-brainwashed Annapolis grad, and I’ll show you.”
O’Toole nodded.
“First, forget about how out-gunned we are; we’re the underdog, so rather than run we attack. No one would ever expect it. Well, the Japs didn’t at first, but they’re getting a little smarter. Stop thinking about the problems and find the opportunities.”
Durham handed O’Toole a pencil and a navigation ruler. “You’re the battleship commander heading down the slot. You need to cut between these islands,” Durham said, pointing to the chart. “Plot your course.”
O’Toole moved closer to the table and studied the chart. “First, I’d stay within visual range of the islands to maintain an accurate navigational fix before visibility went to hell.” O’Toole drew a line down the west coast of the islands.
“The night will be pitch black when he approaches their beachhead, so he will be dead reckoning.” O’Toole studied the chart and drew another line. He now knew where the Japs would be, give or take a few hundred yards.
“That tells us where, but what about when?” O’Toole asked.
“Some of our boats are equipped with the newest radars. They don’t have much range, and in this rain it may not be able to pick out individual ships, but we’ll see them when they show up.”
O’Toole shook his head in disbelief.
“With any luck we’ll damage one or two ships and might sink one or two. They’ll be coming south in a column formation with the destroyers in the rear. We’ll hit the destroyers first to get their attention, and I guarantee once we do all hell will break loose.”
“Like a cavalry charge into the enemy’s rear?”
Durham frowned at O’Toole. “Well, yeah, but it’s going to be more like a dogfight.”
“So you’re fighter pilots?”
Durham shook his head as if to clear his mind, “No, like a bunch of junkyard dogs fighting.”
Durham turned to the group and asked, “Any questions?”
No one spoke, so Durham turned to O’Toole and said, “Pat, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go out with us. It’s going to get busy on the boats. The boats are small, and we can’t afford passengers.”
The other PT boat captains left, and Durham continued to study the chart. After a second he said, “To help you understand how we work, here are a few things to consider. We run at the enemy as close and as fast as we can. The bigger the ship, the better the tactic works since the close range handcuffs their big guns. The Japs will be doing at least twenty knots, and we’ll attack at forty knots. With a sixty-knot closing speed, the attack will go quick and make it difficult for the Japs to open fire on us. If they do, they’ll be shooting wild. They won’t be able to see much, and if they try to use their searchlights, all they will do is blind themselves because of the rain.”
O’Toole took a deep breath and exhaled in one loud huff while throwing up his hands. “You guys are insane.” He clapped Durham on the shoulder.
Durham allowed himself a small smile. “And you love it, don’t you?”
“Damned right. This is damned adequate!”
“What I’ve learned out here is the bigger they are, the more overconfident they are. After all, who in hell would attack a cruiser with a plywood rowboat? Sometimes, I swear they’re asleep. Like I said, throw the book away.”
“I like it. Throw the book away and let chaos reign.” O’Toole shook his head; there was so much to learn. He had one lingering question. “Why aren’t you going after the battleship?”
“We may be crazy, but we’re not that nuts.”
21
O’Toole was up early and headed for the pier to await the boats’ return. The rain lifted, and the sun was three fingers above the horizon before the rumble of engines drifted across the small mirror-smooth harbor. The boats glided in, and crewmen jumped to the pier to secure lines. O’Toole was relieved to see none of the boats were damaged and there were no injuries. Crewmen headed down the pier, but Durham mustered the officers at the end of the pier.
O’Toole headed to the group and asked Durham, “How did it go?”
“Better than we expected. We didn’t stay around long enough to see how everything turned out, but I think we sank two ships and damaged one. Not bad for a night’s work, huh?
Durham turned to the group of milling officers and said, “I know you want to get some rack time, but there is one more evolution to complete before we turn in.”
Everyone groaned.
“Destroyer-puke overboard!” Durham yelled.
A dozen hands grabbed O’Toole, rotated him parallel with the deck facedown, and with one big heave launched him off the pier into the Solomon Sea.
Back in his tent after sunset, O’Toole felt upbeat and wrote to Kate about the prank the other officers pulled on him. Finished, he put the letter aside, and decided to read himself to sleep musing over the lore of the famous Commodore. This was at least the tenth biography he had read on Commodore Barry, but each author added a different perspective on the man.
He opened the book, and located references to Commodore Barry’s most audacious battle on March 8, 1778. He knew this story by heart, and soon his eyelids drooped, and the page fell out of focus. He forced his leaden eyelids open, and brought the page back into focus. At the end of the next paragraph, his eyes fell shut.
§
March 8, 1778
The Effingham; Philadelphia Harbor
The moon was high, the sky clear, and the harbor calm. The Effingham, a frigate of thirty guns, rocked gently at the dock. The slow groan of the Effingham’s spring lines crawled upon the stillness of the night. O’Toole’s heart pounded as he ran up the bounding gangplank, leapt from the rail to the breech of a twelve-pounder, then to the deck. He ran to the captain’s cabin and pounded on the heavy oak door.
“Enter.”
O’Toole charged into the cabin, stopping short of the wooden table where Commodore Barry sat. Swinging slowly from the overhead, a whale-oil lamp filled the room with a dim golden glow revealing several papers on the table and a quill in Barry’s hand. Barry set his quill into the well and said, “Collect yourself, lad, you’ve not enough breath in you to speak.”
Barry’s refined Irish accent carried his words on a strong voice of melodic timbre. To O’Toole, the confident cadence of Barry’s voice was poetry; it sucked even more breath from O’Toole’s lungs.
As if honoring O’Toole, Barry rose, placing his hands behind his back, and waited for him to catch his breath. A mere boy of eight, O’Toole withered in the majesty of the naval titan dressed in a blue, golden-buttoned uniform jacket and white silk ascot.
“There now, lad, can you speak?”
O’Toole took a few more deep breaths then blurted, “Sir, five British ships set anchor not a mile from here. A seventy-four-gun ship-of-the-line, two sixteen-gun sloops, a schooner, and a twenty-six-gun frigate.”
“Have they now? Let’s go see,” Barry said, taking his brass long glass in hand.
On the poop deck, Barry peered through his glass. “Well, lad, it seems they have called it a night and will politely ask for our surrender promptly after a proper breakfast in the morn. Under the circumstances, surrender would be the proper thing to do. But that’s not adequate. Instead, I must thank His Majesty the King for giving me such a splendid opportunity.”
O’Toole looked at the silhouet
ted seventy-four-gun man-of-war.
Opportunity?
With a smile on his lips, Barry said, “Go now, lad, wake the crew, lower the longboats, then set fire to our magnificent ship. The British shall not have her or my sword.”
With his bidding done, the crew boarded the longboats. O’Toole pulled at his oar as they rowed away from the Effingham’s flaming hulk. Commodore Barry stood in the stern. “Row toward the first sloop. Row quietly men; the night is still.”
A hundred feet away, the men eased their way into the water and swam silently to the sloop. They scaled the side and quickly dispatched the lookouts. Within minutes, they rounded up the British crew, and Commodore Barry graciously accepted the British captain’s sword of surrender.
“Tie the prisoners up and take them below. We’ve done an adequate night’s work, but men, the night is young; another sloop awaits us.”
O’Toole grabbed some rope and tied the hands of several prisoners, making sure each restraint was painfully tight and properly knotted.
With the prisoners below, the crew gathered at the rail. Commodore Barry bent over and whispered in O’Toole’s ear, “No one attacks a man-of-war with a longboat. Audacity in the face of adversity is opportunity.”
Soon the men were over the rail swimming to the next sloop. The drama unfolded as before. This time, O’Toole tied the knots around the prisoner’s wrists even tighter. When Barry received the second sword of surrender, he took O’Toole aside and whispered, “We were out-manned and out-gunned. They never expected us to attack. Never do what the enemy expects.”
To his crew, he said, “Again, an adequate night’s work men, but adequate is never good enough as long as there is a schooner left for our picking.”
Commodore Barry split his crew into two groups, one for each sloop. They weighed anchor, sailing toward the British schooner. At 100 yards from the schooner, Barry stopped both ships with one off the schooner’s port bow and the other off the schooner’s port quarter. Once the men had loaded their cannons, Barry said, “Lower the longboat and pay a visit to the British captain. Apologize for waking him, then ask him, most politely, if he wishes to surrender.”
Vows to the Fallen: O'Toole (The Marathon Series) Page 17