At dusk, even though distant lighthouses on the beach allowed them to fix their position by careful piloting, Ash nevertheless ordered Bell to bring up his sextant; together, the two of them shot three stars, after which, leaving Hamp alone with the lookouts, they dropped down to the chart house to work out their calculations, both men doing the math jointly but on separate check sheets. Bell, Ash discovered, worked fast and accurately, a little faster than Ash, but when the job was complete, their calculations jibed. The fix was not pinpoint, but the tiny triangle that resulted was close enough to confirm Bell’s piloting, and for Ash, that was what mattered.
“Well,” Ash said with a slightly disappointed grimace, “it isn’t perfect, but it’ll have to do. Responsibility for the gap has to be mine. I’ll need to rock the sextant with a sharper eye.”
“This is already a lot better than the last navigator I worked with,” Bell said flatly. “His triangles were half an inch on a side, Captain.”
“Thanks,” Ash said, “but I’ll try to do better in the morning. Who’s the bearing taker up here tonight?”
“Rollo,” Bell said. “He’s the boot from Kenosha, Cap’n, the kid with the red hair. I gave him some training on the beach, before we commissioned, and I went over the chart with him this afternoon. He’s sick like the rest of ’em, but if he can keep his stomach down, he ought to be fine. He’s a sharp kid, only about 19, but he understands how to time the period of the lighthouses so’s to identify ’em correctly. I think he’ll do fine and make us a good striker. Rest of the time, of course, Samarango will have him on the deck force.”
“Good enough,” Ash said. “I’ll check on him and let you know how he does when you come up to shoot morning stars.”
To Ash, the lights on the beach, lighthouses as well as business and street lighting both, seemed criminal. Everything, he knew, from the tip of Maine to the last Florida key should have been blacked out totally. Instead, so as not to induce panic among the coastal communities, the United States of America remained fully lit, the bright glow ashore throwing any ship at sea into perfect silhouette for whatever U-boat that might be stalking it. It was another of those things over which Ash had absolutely no control, and he regretted it. With the Nazis virtually at their throats, with ships burning and men dying right at their front doors, the Americans on the beach were sitting in perfect comfort, probably with their feet propped up, drinking tea, coffee, or something stronger, listening to their favorite radio programs, living fat, dumb, and happy, in perfect ignorance of the snakes that were waiting to strike them. Would they panic if they knew the truth? Would they turn tail and run if they could see the dead body that Ash was bringing in? Ash didn’t think so, but the decision to inform them of the danger, he knew, had never been his to make.
During the night, the sea settled to something Ash judged to be approaching a State 4. Gradually, their roll subsided slightly to a more comfortable 15 degrees, and the ship seemed to pitch less. Solly stood the second dog watch followed by Samarango for the evening watch, and then Hamp once more came up to stand the deck for the mid-watch before Solly came back again for the 0400-0800, and thus, the ship fell into a pattern.
It was the early watch that Ash had always disliked the most because it was the watch that most tested his ability to stay awake. During those last dark hours of the morning, his system, for whatever reason, most wanted to shut down and sleep. That first morning at sea proved to be no different, so with Solly on the deck and Hamp already turned in, Ash took himself in hand. He’d been on the bridge for most of the preceding 24 hours, long enough to grow fatigued and know it.
“You’ve read and signed my night orders,” Ash said to Solly, “so carry them out, keep a sharp eye, and call me at once should anything develop. I’m going to sack out until Bell wakes me to shoot stars.” And with that, he went down to the chart house, climbed into his hammock, and managed to sleep for more than an hour before Bell woke him for morning stars.
The star fix Ash and Bell shot that morning turned out to be far more precise than the one Ash had shot the night before.
“Good one,” Bell said. “Looks to me, Cap’n, like Nathaniel Bowditch would have been proud to have shot this one.”
Ash laughed. “Don’t I wish,’ he said. “How do you come to know about Bowditch?”
“Quartermaster’s school,’ Bell said. “One of our instructors knew all about him. That chief had pretty much memorized The American Practical Navigator. According to him, Bowditch once had nothin’ more than a two-minute break in the clouds to shoot a fix going into Boston or New York—I can’t remember for sure—and he not only shot three stars that quick but worked out a perfect three-point fix in a matter of minutes. To hear that chief tell it, he’d pulled off about the greatest feat of navigation anyone had ever seen”
Ash knew that Bell’s story about Nathaniel Bowditch might or might not have been a myth, but there could be no question about Bowditch’s competence. The man had been a legend for more than half a century.
“I think,” Ash said, “that if we can navigate with this degree of success, I’ll be perfectly willing to leave the glory to the man. I’m going to stay happy if we can merely keep from running aground.”
This time it was Bell’s turn to laugh.
During the night, the small freighter on the after, inland corner of their square formation had fallen behind to the point where she was out of position and behind by more than half a mile. Ash had already sent up a flag hoist in order to urge her to rejoin, but by the beginning of the morning watch, the freighter had not responded. Ash waited until Samarango had relieved Solly, and then, having expended his patience with the merchant ship, he turned and spoke the order.
“Boats, come around, crank on turns, and let’s go herd this oblivious sheep back into the fold.”
Immediately, Samarango called for left full rudder and 12 knots, and within less time than Ash had imagined, they’d reversed course and started to pitch as they scudded north into an oncoming sea.
“She’s more maneuverable than I thought she’d be,” Samarango said to Ash without taking his eyes from the waves now breaking over the bow and throwing green water down the sides.
“She is,” Ash said, “and far more maneuverable than a destroyer. That’s bound to make life easier for us”
Minutes later, once more reversing course and taking off turns, Samarango slid in alongside the lagging merchantman’s beam where Ash lifted his megaphone and asked to speak to the captain of the vessel. The captain of the freighter, a tall, thin man wearing steel-rimmed glasses and an old derby, was none too swift in coming to the wing of his bridge. When he arrived, finally, and looked down at Ash with a tight-lipped expression that clearly conveyed his contempt for Chaser 3, Ash anticipated a stubborn, uncooperative response.
“Good morning, Captain,” Ash called up to the man. “You need to put on turns and rejoin, or I won’t be able to give you my best protection”
The captain of the Orion Light, for that was the ship’s name, looked down at Ash and smirked. “Oy, sonny,” the man shouted back in what sounded to Ash like a Newcastle accent, “ol the pertection tha’ puppy o your can give ain’t worth spit.”
“Oy,” Ash called back, mocking the man’s tone but without heat, “you put on turns and catch up with the convoy, Captain, or this puppy is going to leave you to steam independently. There’s a U-boat in the area; it sank a freighter about your size two nights back, and we picked up the corpse on our fantail from that vessel yesterday. That ship went down in seven minutes and took five men with her. You think about it, Captain, and make your choice.” And with that, Ash turned to Samarango. “Twelve knots, Boats, and take us straight back up abeam of the rest of the convoy.”
Looking astern a few minutes later after Chaser 3 slid into position and resumed her zig-zag on the beam of an empty oiler, Ash saw two or three puffs of black smoke emerge from the stack of the lagging freighter. Within an hour, the merchantman was back i
n position, and that was where she remained for the rest of the transit.
Later in the morning, after he had seen to a thorough scrub down below decks, checked the spaces to make certain that nothing had broken loose and gone adrift, and finished the paperwork that Ash had asked him to complete, Solly climbed to the bridge.
“Radio patched a shore station into the mess decks while the crew was eating breakfast,” he said. “I guess this battle for the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines is becoming fierce, and it doesn’t look like we can do much for them other than offer encouragement.”
“First Pearl, then Wake, now Bataan,” Ash said, shaking his head. “It doesn’t look good.”
“No,” Solly said, “it doesn’t”.
“Anything else in the news?”
“Not much. I think Gable issued a statement about Carole Lombard. I gather he’s pretty broken up.”
“I don’t know who wouldn’t be,” Ash said. “I saw her in My Man Godfrey, and she was stunning. I’d guess she was one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood. How long had they been married?”
“I think she was married to William Powell first’, Solly said. “Shed only been married to Gable for a couple of years”.
“Pity’ Ash said.
“Tragic”.
“Change of subject,” Ash said. “How did breakfast go down with the crew?
“Watts fed ’em oatmeal. Watts said it would stick to their ribs and settle their stomachs, but only about half the crew showed up. The rest of them are still sick, still throwing up, and sticking to their bunks except when they have to go on watch”.
“My guess,” Ash said, “is that they’ll begin coming out of it about the time we make the Lower Bay and start up into The Narrows. I expect a few more to be sick the next time we sortie, but after that, I think most of them will find their sea legs. What about you?”
“I won’t say that I’m in the pink,” Solly joked, “but I’ve got it under control.”
“And Hamp?”
“I think he tossed his supper last night, but he’s doing fine this morning. Said his last watch cured him. He’s down in the wardroom at the moment, clutching the table with one hand and writing out an expenditure report for the ammo we test fired yesterday.”
Throughout the remainder of that day, save for the sighting of some floating garbage in the water, a pair of porpoises, and an empty oil drum which Teague sank by means of five rounds from the .50-caliber, the lookouts spotted nothing of consequence. Sonar remained equally tranquil so that the biggest problem Gomez faced came with keeping his watch standers awake and alert. In radio, the only messages that Polaski had to handle came as weather alerts for seas so distant that Ash barely gave them a thought. Nevertheless, it remained cold on the bridge, the bite coming off the beach west of Nantucket clawing at Ash’s face with such force that he put his pipe into his pocket and pulled his woolen scarf up over the bridge of his nose.
During the afternoon, with Hamp on the bridge and once more feeling fit, Ash went to the chart room, pulled off his heavy weather gear, threw himself into his hammock, and slept for three hours straight, Hamp only waking him once to report a fishing trawler crossing port to starboard, 5 miles distant, heading apparently for New London. At 1530, as directed, Hamp had sent the messenger to wake Ash, and after once more tugging on his foul weather gear, feeling only slightly more rested than before he’d gone down, Ash climbed back onto the bridge.
“Can’t say for sure, Captain,” Hamp said, “but it looks to me like the sea is calming down to something between States 3 and 4. We’re still rolling but only about 12 degrees either side of center line.”
“The boys below will be thrilled,” Ash said.
“I’m thrilled, no question about it,” Hamp laughed. “Didn’t like being sick. Think I’ll skip it from now on.”
“Wise of you,” Ash said. “Very wise. Anything else going on?”
“Nothing. We’ve had nothing but quiet up here since you turned in, nothing but this frigid wind that’s been blowing over us the whole time. I can’t for the life of me see how we can have fierce wind and a calmer sea at the same time.”
“I’d guess it might have something to do with the Gulf Stream,” Ash said. “That wind feels like it’s coming down straight from Canada, but the currents might be coming up from Florida, and that might account for the difference.”
“Another question, if you don’t mind, Sir.”
“Shoot,” Ash said.
“Does this convoy have such a thing as a commodore riding one of those merchant ships? And I thought too that they were supposed to be putting Navy gun crews on merchants, but not a one of these carries a gun of any kind.”
“At the moment,” Ash said, “I doubt that the Navy has enough guns to go around. From what Mr. Anson told me, I think we were lucky to get the old 3”/23 that they’ve given us. I’m guessing that the last one built probably came out of the factory in 1918. In time, ships like the ones we’re herding will probably get at least one gun each for self-defense and a crew to serve it, but I’ll bet the crews are only starting to train now and will probably only emerge from their schools about the same time as guns for them begin to emerge from whatever new factories are building them. And in answer to your other question, for better or worse, for a convoy this small, I’m about as close to a commodore as the Navy can find. For those 30, 40, and 50 ship convoys going to England, the Navy pulls retired commanders and captains off the shelf, puts them aboard one of the merchantmen, and gives them some degree of control over the formation, but a screen commander apparently controls the escorts.”
“How long do you think it will take us to catch up with our needs?” Hamp asked.
“If I had to guess,” Ash said, “I’d say a year. We’ve got a huge industrial plant in this country, but it will take more than a snap of the fingers for the powers that be to bring us up to speed.”
They talked on for a few more minutes, and then the watch relieved.
Solly, when he relieved for the first dog watch, reported that the crew’s general health seemed to be showing improvement, something he deduced from the fact that more than a few were actually complaining about being hungry.
“Growing boys,” Ash said. “They’ve been running on empty now for more than 24 hours, and they need to be filled up. As the saying goes, I’d say that they are nearly out of the woods. What is Watts serving tonight?”
“Sausage stew,” Solly said. “The sausages are canned, and so are the vegetables that he’s putting in with them. I checked before I came up. Believe it or not, I’m hungry myself.”
At 1730, for the first time, Ash went down and took his evening meal with the crew on the mess decks. The men, the petty officers, and those boots who were able to find a seat at the table for the first sitting conversed quietly in Ash’s presence. His proximity was a new thing to them. Once or twice, in response to questions that he put to them, they answered forthrightly, but none of them asked Ash a question, which was pretty much what Ash had expected. With regard to the sausage stew—something which blended the canned sausages, sauerkraut, carrots, potatoes, and cauliflower—Ash found it restaurant quality. Watts, he realized, was going to prove a treasure. As he glanced around him, he could see that the men at the table had adopted the same opinion.
Ash didn’t linger, and when he rose finally, motioning the sailors at the table to keep their seats and continue eating, he made a point of stepping to the galley entrance and speaking to Watts.
“Excellent stew, Watts. I’ll look forward to having it again when the time comes.”
“Sho now, Suh?” Watts said, glancing up from the range with a broad smile.
“Sure,” Ash said, and then, stepping smartly, he climbed back on deck and made his way to the bridge.
Around 0630 the next morning, after timing their arrival to coincide with sunrise and after a trying voyage that had, of necessity, served as their genuine shakedown, Ash signaled the ships in his conv
oy to arrange themselves in a line astern of the oiler and led them past Breezy Point into Raritan Bay. There, with the job safely concluded, he released the convoy, leaving them to pursue their individual ways. The captains of the oiler and the two large freighters sent signals to thank him; the Orion Light, as Ash expected, passed him without dropping so much as a word. Finally, with all chicks secure in the coop and with radio silence no longer necessary, Ash communicated with Harbor Control, received permission to enter port, proceeded into the Lower Bay, passed through The Narrows, and made his landing at the Coast Guard piers on Staten Island. Much to his relief, he found his full consignment of 3”/23 ammunition waiting for him, under guard, on the pier and a Navy mortuary detail waiting to take off the grisly cargo that Chaser 3 had carried in from the sea.
10
With Chaser 3 tied up to the pier and stable, the crew recovered from their seasickness. Although the men remained fatigued from their ordeal, they nevertheless struck the 3-inch ammunition below and into the magazine efficiently and without mishap, completing the job in a little over an hour. Hamp and Solly then descended to the wardroom to prepare the required inventories and radio messages that would report what they had taken aboard, and Ash, knowing the condition of his men, gave Samarango and Chief Stobb the word that after a thorough clean up, those men not needed to stand the In Port watch, could turn in and sleep if they wished. After dismissing both petty officers, Ash glanced up the bay toward the glistening towers of Manhattan and spotted a motor whale boat half a mile distant, aimed straight for the slip, coming from the general direction of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. That is when he anticipated that he was about to receive another set of orders. Minutes later, he did.
“Here’s the scoop,” he said to Solly and Hamp, 30 minutes later, after he had taken the packet to the chart room and studied it thoroughly. “We’re in port for the remainder of today and tomorrow, and we go out again the day after, at sunrise, as escort for an ore carrier, a grain ship, an oiler carrying aviation gasoline, and some kind of refrigerator ship headed for Central America, all of them American bottoms. We’re to pick up a fifth ship coming out of Wilmington near the entrance to Delaware Bay, another freighter, and deliver all five into the Chesapeake. Half the crew can go on liberty today; half can go tomorrow, and because I intend to stay aboard and catch up on my sleep, you two can take both days off. Enjoy yourselves, but don’t wear yourselves out, because we are once more the lone escort for this run, and we’ll have to be sharp. Solly, this ought to give you a chance to visit your family, and Hamp, you’re free to do whatever you do on your own.”
Splinter on the Tide Page 10