28
The Farnley would be in port for only one night. Tomorrow morning they would refuel and head to rendezvous with a convoy steaming out of Los Angeles headed for New Zealand. O’Toole set the ship’s schedule to allow the port section liberty from noon to 1800 and grant the starboard section Cinderella liberty when the port section returned.
O’Toole’s number-one priority was to get some sleep. He headed for his cabin with Ship Shape trotting beside him and flopped into his bunk.
He woke slowly to the sensation of weight on his stomach and the sound of snoring. He reached for his stomach, and a warm tongue greeted his hand. The clock on his desk said it was after ten; he had slept eleven hours.
He headed for the wardroom for some coffee where he found Paxton sitting at the table. In a rough line across from Paxton were five crewmen standing at what O’Toole guessed was attention. They were drunk, battered, and wearing the remnants of dress white uniforms. They were struggling to maintain a serious military bearing, but they couldn’t hide their insolent smirks. A stern Chief Starret stood at the head of the table.
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Paxton asked the group.
“They started it.”
“Yeah, we was just defending ourselfs.”
“How so?” Paxton asked.
“One of them said the Missouri could smash the Farnley like a bug.”
“And boot camp rejects get sent to destroyers; real sailors get sent to battle wagons.”
“Yeah, and we told them we weren’t afraid of nothing ‘cause we got a grizzly bear for a skipper who sank three Jap cruisers in one day, and we got the best gunnery crews in the fleet.”
“And, shot down forty zekes at the same time.”
“Then, one of them says our skipper couldn’t make steward on the Missouri.”
“That’s when they jumped us.”
Without looking at O’Toole, Paxton said, “I think I understand. I am fining each of you your share of the damages and confining you to the ship for your next five liberty days.”
“We didn’t do nothin’, XO. It was them who started it.”
“Dismissed,” Paxton said.
Chief Starret pushed the men out the door. O’Toole asked, “What happened?”
“The starboard duty section picked a fight with the Missouri’s crew.”
“I gathered as much, but why? They had to be outnumbered three to one.”
Paxton allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. “Yup, and they won.”
“But why the Missouri?”
Paxton cocked his head. “From what I gather, the liberty section went for a bar heavy with battleship crewman. They bypassed several bars with minesweeper, destroyer, and cruiser crews until they found the bar with lots of Missouri crewmen. They were deliberately hunting big game.”
O’Toole’s chest swelled, and he wanted to smile but didn’t. “The crew is coming together.”
“Well it’s better than having them fight each other.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“No, no one is hurt bad, and nothing egregious happened, but from what I hear they demolished the bar. Shore Patrol is still sending men back in groups of five or six, and Navarro is ashore with the bar owner tallying up the damage. The Missouri’s XO and I will figure out how our ships will split the bill for the damages.”
“The Missouri’s crew will want a rematch. I’m glad we’re leaving tomorrow,” O’Toole said.
“All I can do is pray for a better tomorrow,” Paxton said.
“You created a monster, XO. Divine intervention is your only hope.”
§
March 28, 1943
USS Farnley; en route to convoy rendezvous
Strong was enjoying the new comic book. The crewman he borrowed it from bought it ashore in Pearl. While sitting at his desk reading, bangs, thuds, and curses emanated from the passageway outside his quarters. Without knocking, Grubowski and one seaman lugged the welder into his quarters.
“Your coffee pot holder, sir,” Grubowski said.
Strong winced at the sight of Grubowski’s black eye. “Why so late at night?” Strong asked.
“Confined to the ship. Nothing else to do,” Grubowski grumbled as he surveyed the quarters for a place to mount the coffee pot holder.
Strong eyed the conglomeration of bare scrap metal pieces stitched together with a patchwork of black weld seams. One of the odd pieces was over an inch thick.
Without a word, Grubowski found a spot on the bulkhead and welded the contraption in place. “There ya go, sir.” He and the seaman lugged the welder out of Strong’s quarters.
“It’s hideous,” Strong protested.
Grubowski pulled the cigar from the corner of his mouth and used it to punctuate his sentences, “Do you see this face, sir? If you wanted pretty, you should’ve asked someone else.”
“Aren’t you even going to paint it, like the one on the bridge?”
“You ain’t the captain,” Grubowski said over his shoulder, “sir.”
§
After lunch, Navarro assumed the bridge watch and took station next to O’Toole on the bridge wing. Paxton came through the wheelhouse door and handed some papers to O’Toole.
“Fuel reports, sir,” he said to O’Toole.
“Contact off the port bow, three-one-zero relative,” a lookout called out.
O’Toole lifted his binoculars and scanned the horizon. Navarro mirrored O’Toole’s reaction.
“What do you think, Navarro?” O’Toole asked.
“It’s probably our convoy, captain.”
“XO, what do you think?”
Paxton squinted and spotted what appeared to be the tip of a mast from a ship hull down over the horizon. Paxton thought Navarro was right, but why was O’Toole asking obvious questions?
No easy answers.
“I see an unidentified contact.”
“Unidentified contacts are what?” O’Toole asked.
“Potentially hostile,” Paxton said, looking directly at Navarro.
Navarro took the hint. “Battle stations. Surface action to port,” he yelled into the wheelhouse.
As if speaking to no one, O’Toole said, “Good call. Where we’re headed I’ll go to battle stations over an unidentified sea gull.”
“Sir, contact is constant bearing decreasing range.”
“It’s just one ship, and she’s coming right at us,” Navarro said.
“What do you think? Is she being aggressive, stupid, or both?” O’Toole asked.
“She’s probably a convoy escort, and she’s protecting the convoy by coming to us so we meet as far away from the convoy as possible,” Navarro said.
No easy answers.
Paxton assumed the oncoming ship was hostile, and he visualized the ensuing battle. “I disagree,” he said. “She could be rushing to her death. The rendezvous point is twenty miles ahead, and at our current course and speed, we’re in an ideal attack position to cut the convoy off. She doesn’t know what surprises we’ve cooked up for her. With her angle of approach, all our guns are available, with a prefect target angle for a torpedo attack. On the other hand, she only has her forward guns available.”
Navarro’s eyes lit up, and O’Toole smiled at Paxton. O’Toole never smiled at him.
“XO, if you were the screen commander what would you do?”
Paxton rearranged his mental image of the battle in his mind. “I’d shift the convoy screen to put the screen between us and the convoy. Next, I would set a course to intercept us ten miles ahead so things happen slower and all her guns and torpedoes are available if we’re hostile.”
O’Toole’s smile widened. “An adequate plan, XO.”
“I don’t see the point, captain,” Navarro began. “This is a scheduled rendezvous, so it’s no mystery who we are.”
“The screen commander is caught up in West Coast thinking, and that’s not adequate. The assumptions he is making are deadly in the South Pacific,”
O’Toole said.
The contact grew closer and the bridge soon become visible above the horizon. Its flashing light blinked in Morse code, Able-Able, which meant, “Identify yourself.”
“Now what, XO?” O’Toole asked.
No easy answers.
“Challenge first, then reply,” Paxton said, then repeated the order to Navarro.
“Never respond to a flashing light without challenging first,” O’Toole said.
Paxton felt good. No easy answers, he thought.
The Farnley’s flashing light blinked the coded challenge and received the coded response. The three men waited as the convoy ships inched from below the blue horizon.
Paxton continued to gaze at the convoy, and the forest of masts spread across the sea’s blue blanket. “Japs don’t stand a chance if our crew is any measure. We’re on a pressure cooker waiting to blow its gasket. Our guns are in constant motion searching for a target.”
“I’ve had an eye on that,” O’Toole said. “They’re itching for a fight, and here we are with a slow, boring convoy.”
“How do we maintain their edge?” Paxton asked.
“You guys talking about the crew?”
The unmilitary interruption of a ship’s captain and executive officer piqued O’Toole. He turned to see Chief Grubowski. A master chief with three decades of sea duty rated some latitude. “Yes, Chief. What do you think their temperature is?”
Grubowski pulled the cigar from his mouth and said, “We got a problem, Captain.”
“With the crew?” O’Toole asked.
Grubowski continued, “Yes, sir. The crew is in a ditch. They’re pumped up and hoping to get in the fight, and we get a convoy milk run.”
“He has a point, Captain,” Paxton said.
Did I screw up again?
“The situation could be worse,” O’Toole began, “I promised them a fight, and they stuck with the training. They trained and turned this ship into a bone to be chewed, and they know it. I’m worried I let them down or they think I lied to them. In their minds, maybe I’ve violated their trust, and that worries me.”
“No, sir. You didn’t let them down. They don’t think you lied or violated their trust,” Grubowski said.
“Let’s make sure they don’t forget what the training was about,” Paxton said. “We need to tell them the truth and let them know we’re not letting up on our standards.”
“What’s that going to do for them?” Grubowski asked.
O’Toole’s silence was obvious; he was just listening.
No easy answers, just hit the problem head on.
“I’ll get the chiefs and officers to talk to their men,” said Paxton. “Make sure the crew understands how important convoy duty is and tell them why I’m not letting up one inch on the standards. We’ll be ready when the time comes, and that could be at any time. We’ll continue to run our standard drills and keep them sharp whether they like the drills or not.”
“They ain’t gonna like it,” Grubowski said.
“Our job is to get them home alive,” O’Toole said. “We can’t bring them this far and then let them down. Letting them get soft is inadequate and will not happen on this ship. I can accept a grumbling crew because they’re alive to grumble. In this case, it’s necessary.”
Grubowski left, and Paxton asked, “Can we ask for something other than convoy duty after this run?”
“I could, but I’m not going to,” O’Toole said. “I’m not looking for glory. Whatever it takes to end this war is what we’ll do. If that means getting supplies, equipment, and men to where they need to be, so be it.”
“Damn you!” Skittle yelled.
“What’s a matter, Skittle?” O’Toole asked.
“I was standing at the chart table, and the dog chewed my shoelaces off.”
“He’s just trying to square you away, Skittle.”
29
April 13, 1943
USS Enterprise; at anchor, Barawak Atoll
IJN MESSAGE INTERCEPT
1452 26030406
FROM UTL(ADMIRAL TAGAMI)
TO WKC(CINC COMBINED FLEET ADMIRAL YAMAMOTO)
SNAPDRAGON AND PENDRAGON WILL DEPART BTO(TOKYO)WITH FIGHTER ESCORT AT 0800 APRIL 18, AND ARRIVE YZQ(TRUK ISLAND)AT 1930. THEY WILL INSTALL AND DEMONSTRATE DRAGON ABOARD SHO(BATTLESHIP MUSASHI). IF YOU APPROVE, DISTRIBUTION TO FLEET UNITS CAN BEGIN WITHIN TWO WEEKS.
Halsey leaned over his desk in the austere flag quarters and handed the message intercept to Captain Browning, his chief of staff.
“They’re deploying Dragon, whatever it is,” Browning said.
“Yeah, the question of the hour is what is Dragon. The folks at FRUMEL think Dragon is a cipher machine.”
“You think they’re building a cipher machine?”
Halsey tossed his pencil on the desk. “Yes, it’s the only thing we can come up with, and MacArthur, Nimitz, and Roosevelt want me to do anything we can to prevent the Japs from deploying it. We thought about bombing their production facilities, but a sustained bombing campaign requires an airfield within range, which we don’t have.”
“Tokyo to Truk is 2,100 miles. They’ll fly a bomber, probably a betty, along with a half dozen zeros as escorts. They’ll need to refuel,” Browning said, and walked to the small table next to Halsey’s desk. He flipped through the stack of charts. “They’ll refuel at Iwo Jima.”
Halsey left his desk and joined Browning at the chart table. He shuffled through them and found the one he wanted. With his finger, he traced the line from Iwo Jima to the Japanese anchorage at Truk. He caught something, retrieved a long ruler from under the chart, and laid it across the chart to show the Japanese aircraft’s route.
“They’ll fly right over Ubella Atoll.”
“Does that change anything?”
“If we shot the plane down in shallow water and recovered Dragon that would tell us where we stand. The problem is our intercept would tell the Japs we are reading their messages. If we don’t shoot the plane down, we let the Japs go forward with something they say will change the war.”
Halsey pushed his hands deep into his hip pockets and stared at the overhead. He had no good choices and no certainty about any outcome.
“Think about this,” Browning said. “Dragon could be a radio, radar, a message transmission device, a decryption device, a new cipher machine, a hoax. Of those, a cipher machine is the worst. If Dragon is a cipher machine and we can’t break the cipher, MacArthur is operating blind. FRUMEL and their code breakers are vital to our success.”
Halsey bent down over the chart and placed both hands on the table. “If we could shoot down their plane in shallow water around Ubella, we could retrieve it. The question is can we intercept them at Ubella?”
“Yes, but I can’t guarantee we can shoot them down over shallow water. The Ubella lagoon is large, less than 150 feet deep, so we could put divers down to retrieve it. You’ll need salvage equipment and a heavy escort. Ubella is in Jap-controlled waters.”
“Okay. You put together the air intercept. I’ll sortie a salvage ship with divers from Barawak and have Garrett get some ships to Ubella.”
“You’re gambling big on a long shot “
“Any other options? If Dragon is not a cipher machine, we just screwed ourselves. If it is, we still may be screwed, but the only way to know is to get our hands on Dragon.”
§
The charts said southwest would be the convoy’s proper course to New Zealand, but the convoy commander turned the convoy south by southwest to avoid reported Japanese activity along their intended course. They crossed the calm equatorial waters into the warm, refreshing easterly trade winds where the sky was clear and the brilliant blue seas pleasant. Gentle swells driven by the wind caused the Farnley to roll from side to side. Endless days on a rolling ship brought on physical and mental fatigue that fueled the crew’s irritability.
Soon they reached the Horse Latitudes separating the easterly winds and currents from the westerly
winds to the south. The changeful seas gave the crew rest from the incessant broadside swells.
More reports of Japanese subs came in, so instead of turning due west, the convoy commander ordered a west-by-southwesterly course, and they sailed on into the Roaring Forties. The beautiful seas and clear skies of the Easterly Trades gave way to a gray, peevish sea, and the clouds changed from white to gray to a menacing black smear driven by a perpetual, stiff easterly wind.
Ship Shape woke up, rose to a sitting position in O’Toole’s lap, and twisted his head toward the thirty-foot swells bearing down on the Farnley. O’Toole guessed Ship Shape grasped such situations as well as or better than most crewmen. O’Toole smiled and scratched Ship Shape behind the ear.
Satisfied everything was under control, Ship Shape laid back down in O’Toole’s lap and closed his eyes. The foam-covered swells turned the sea white. The sixty-knot winds ripped spindrift from swell peaks, driving spray into the bridge windows. O’Toole pushed his feet into the bridge railing to brace himself as the Farnley’s bow dove into a trough.
Paxton came into the wheelhouse, shaking water from his arms, and slammed the watertight door shut. The entire forward section of the ship buried itself in the base of the swell. A mountain of angry white water rolled over the bow and slammed into the bridge windows, turning them opaque. The Farnley groaned as she struggled to free herself from the weight of the swell. The bow rose slowly at first, then, gaining speed, ripped itself free from the swell, lurching hard to port.
“Captain, your fuel report and bad news,” Paxton said, handing a piece of paper to O’Toole.
O’Toole read the report. “You’re telling me the forward fuel tanks are fouled with salt water, and we’ll run out of fuel in twenty hours?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How the hell did that happen?”
“Don’t know. We’re trying to figure it out now. They tried to siphon off the water, but with the ship moving like this, the oil and water stay mixed. We’re shipping lots of water in this storm.”
Vows to the Fallen: O'Toole (The Marathon Series) Page 24