Splinter on the Tide

by Phillip Parotti

  “We go out again day after tomorrow,” Ash said, “but I don’t know yet who we’ll be with.”

  “Well, enjoy your time in port,” Blake said, standing up and offering Ash his hand. “Looks like the corvette and I will be joining a screen going east. I’m guessing North Africa. You’re aware of the invasion by now?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Ash said.

  “I haven’t had advance notice,” Blake said, “but I have to suppose that you’ll be here a little longer than two days. I’m betting that you’ll wait here for some empties coming back from the invasion and then see them through to the States.”

  “Thank you, Sir, and good hunting,” Ash said.

  21

  For the two days that Chaser 3 remained in port, San Juan acted like a tonic for the crew. Faces that had grown sallow brightened, liberty men who trudged ashore like old men from the sea returned with a spring in their step, and on the beach, Ash noticed, the unmarried men who made up most of the crew seemed to have found enough female company to keep them occupied for the entire time they remained ashore. But even as Ash considered this change in his crew, he knew that at bottom, something else entirely had come into play. After months at sea, his band of one-time novices had truly bonded. They were no longer so many individual sailors from diverse backgrounds; serving together, they had welded themselves into a family. After their battles with the U-boats, they were veterans, full-fledged, and no doubt about it. Regardless of whatever any of them had imagined when they’d signed their papers and enlisted, they had now, finally, met an enemy that they could see and put something of a dent in his war machine. Beyond the one dead German naval officer, whether the dent was large or small, Ash couldn’t say, but forever after, no one would be able to charge them with having sat out the war on the sidelines.

  From time to time across those two days in port, Ash found himself also reflecting on the action just completed. Had they really sunk the U-boat? Ash thought they had, and in thinking so, he wondered how many Germans had gone down with it. When such thoughts occurred, he found that whether he liked it or not, he had to pause and consider his responsibility for killing 35, 40, possibly 45 men in a particularly horrible way. Had he not done so, he knew absolutely that the German skipper would have been only too pleased to have killed him, sunk Chaser 3, and put paid to every man aboard before charging straight ahead to sink and kill more amid the convoy. So, Ash knew very well that what he had done had been necessary; nevertheless, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking of the men in the boat. Germans or not, Nazis or not, they were men, with lives and families, and if they’d gone down to the deep six, he was the man who had snuffed them out and put them there. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, that one, but to restore the balance of his own mind, Ash reflected on the corpses he’d seen at sea, the men he’d found burned, the men he’d seen leaping from the stern of the sinking freighter, the men who’d never had the chance to escape from the ships the U-boats had sunk. Killing Germans was in no way a course of action in which he would ever take pleasure, but if it were the only way to get rid of Hitler and his crazed regime, Ash knew that he would do it, and keep doing it, and live with it until the job was finished.

  On the day Chaser 3 was supposed to have returned to sea, COMDESLANT extended their period in port for an additional two days, the crew whooping with unrestrained joy when Ash passed the word. Then, finally, with hangovers aplenty and exhaustion showing on every face, they made their exit from San Juan, picked up two empty tankers on their way out, and escorted them to Caracas, where they anchored in the bay while the tankers took on their loads of oil. After that, all three ships turned right around and headed back to San Juan where yet another convoy was collecting before steaming for North Africa. All told, the trip used up a week, and by the time they returned to Puerto Rico, the first empty ships were returning from Morocco, riding high, anxious to get back to the States before loading up with new supplies and returning to the war.

  “What have you got there?” Ash said to Solly, as he dropped down into the wardroom after securing the sea and anchor detail. Until the following morning when they were to start for the States as escort for the 20 returning ships, they were anchored out, 500 yards off the piers of Old San Juan, riding comfortably in the tranquil bay.

  “New York Times,” Solly said. “The bum boat that tried to sell us fresh vegetables also brought the paper; it’s only three days old.”

  “What’s the war news?” Ash asked.

  “My guess,” Solly said, “is that the naval battles around Guadalcanal are still fierce, but it looks to me like we’ve got ’em beat on the island. Eighth Army’s recaptured Tobruk. But the biggest thing here is from Russia. Looks to me like the Russians have surrounded the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad. If that’s true, it’s huge. An entire German army, surrounded? Hitler must be shitting a brick!”

  “I hope it’s the size of a cinder block,” Ash said. “How many men is that?”

  “Well,” Solly said, “far as I know, two or more divisions make up a corps, and two or more corps make up an army, or at least, I think—that’s the way we do it, so I’m guessing—but I’d say that the Ruskies have put above 200,000 Germans in the bag.”

  Ash shook his head with something near disbelief. “Hard as this thing is for everyone,” Ash said, “if you stop to consider mere numbers, the Russians seem to be carrying most of the load at the moment. They must have a couple of million men deployed along their front, all the way down from Leningrad to the Black Sea. Stalin keeps pushing for a second front; I wonder if he’ll be satisfied with the fact that we’re having a go at Rommel? I can’t imagine that he will even notice what we’re doing in the Pacific.”

  “I know he’s got a knife at his throat,” Solly said, “but it’s a little much to expect us to invade Europe after we’ve only been in this thing for 11 months. I’m sure no expert, but if the Russians succeed in annihilating an entire German army, I’ll bet we’ll remember it as some kind of turning point in the war. Don’t you think?”

  “Could be,” Ash said. “I wonder where they’re getting the troops for an effort like that? According to Goebbels, the krauts captured over a million men on their initial thrust into Russia and almost took Moscow into the bargain.”

  “No telling what the Russians have had parked in Siberia,” Solly said, “and with the Japs leaving them alone, and the Russians leaving the Japs alone, I’ll bet Stalin’s been running more trains from east to west than the Trans-Siberian Railway can handle.”

  “Genghis Khan revisited?” Ash said.

  “Genghis Khan revisiting, and with tanks,” Solly said.

  They went out again the following morning, bound for Charleston by way of Grand Turk and Nassau so that the chasers could refuel, the high-riding tankers they were escorting already running empty after having discharged their loads in Oran. All told, steaming at 10 knots, the voyage took six days, and when Chaser 3 dropped off the convoy in Charleston, November had given way to December, and the weather had started to turn bitter. Replenishing in the outer harbor, Ash then picked up a convoy of nine, all of them bound for Cape May.

  The transit from Charleston to Cape May turned out to be rough, a State 5 sea buffeting the chaser all the way, the ship pitching and rolling like a twig caught in a rapid, the men becoming variously sick around every bulkhead and stanchion. Wrapped in thick winter clothing and heavy foul weather gear, the deck watches found themselves sprayed continuously from the bow, the salt stinging their eyes, the wind burning their cheeks, the taste of sea water always on their lips. In the midst of the voyage southeast of Ocean City, Gomez picked up a solid sonar contact which forced Ash to peel away from his charges and rush to the attack, Chaser 3 expending three depth-charge patterns before the contact broke up with no results, not even so much as a dead fish.

  “Well?” Ash said to Gomez as he maneuvered to rejoin his convoy.

  “Dunno, Cap’n. Could have been a school of shrimp, a bed of kelp. Migh
t even have been a whale. After the fact, I don’t think it was a sub. I was on it strong, and then, suddenly, it wasn’t there, and it ain’t the set; this rascal’s workin’ perfectly.”

  “I’m guessing kelp,” Ash said. “Good thing the Navy’s not charging me for the depth charges expended. I’d have gone broke by now.”

  Gomez laughed. “All in a day’s work?”

  “Unfortunately,” Ash said.

  They did tie up at Cape May for the night, making up to a pier at the Coast Guard Station where they took on fuel, water, and a supply of fresh baked bread. Watts, having run over and conned the Coast Guard out of a supply of fresh sirloin, managed to feed them steaks late in the evening, and upon those the crew slept like logs until 0400 when Samarango piped reveille so that they could make their exit in time to pick up a convoy coming down from Wilmington.

  Given the North African venture, Ash had fully expected to guide the convoy south, but when the DESLANT message reached him around midnight, he was surprised to find that he would be guiding an empty troopship and four fully loaded freighters up to Raritan Bay.

  “That’s news,” Hamp said, rising straight up in his bunk. “Think we’ll get a night off, or two?”

  “Chana and Keren seem to be in for a treat,” Ash said. “We get up there on the 13th and don’t go out again until the morning of the 16th, but let’s have no phone calls to alert them; this info is marked Secret, so you and Solly will have to bide your time until we get there and hope that your birds haven’t already flown off with a couple Marines. I understand that Marines are very popular in Brooklyn right now. Free drinks and all that, particularly after Guadalcanal.”

  “I thought the naval battles were the really big thing out there,” Solly said, lying in his bunk.

  “Oh, they are—or were,” Ash said, “according to all of the intelligence reports that have come my way, but don’t expect the civilians to know about those because they aren’t being publicized. Too many ships sunk, too many sailors dead. The Marines had a hell of a fight of their own along with plenty of press to prove it, so that’s what the folks are going to know.”

  “Sounds like we’re being short changed,” Hamp said.

  “Sounds like business as usual,” Ash laughed. “Imagine the press trying to make a story out of our little bout with the U-boat, or for that matter, imagine a war correspondent lasting more than three minutes on this wood chip as we brought her up from Charleston. We’d be lucky if he didn’t throw himself overboard in an attempt to escape.”

  “Mundane is mundane,” Solly said, turning on his side.

  “We also serve who only pitch and roll?” Hamp said.

  “Clearly,” Ash said, “you’ve almost learned enough to command.”

  “Will you be taking tea with the spinster while we’re in?” Hamp said to Ash.

  “I don’t see how,” Ash said. “She’s teaching, and given the distance, I don’t see how she could get down in time for more than a handshake before she’d have to go back.”

  “Pity,” Solly said, “we’ll be thinking about you as we savor the fruits of our labors.”

  “Pity,” Hamp said, “so near, and yet, so far.”

  “Careful,” Ash said, “or I might find the two of you some watch duties that you’ll need to perform. Overseeing the operation of Pump No. 3, counting the links in our anchor chain, itemizing the pages in our registered pubs, that sort of thing. Important work and such.”

  “You’re a prince,” Solly laughed.

  “But if you are staying aboard,” Hamp said, “I’m told that watching Pump No. 3 can be really absorbing, and idle hands can’t be good for anyone.”

  Dispatching the empty troop transport into The Narrows on the 13th, Chaser 3 made up to the Coast Guard piers on Staten Island, and Ash sent the crew on port and starboard liberty. With Ash’s permission, Hamp and Solly went over as soon as the brow had cleared, Ash telling them that they could take shore leave for the full time that the ship remained in port, but urging them to be back by the Cinderella hour on December 15.

  With Solly and Hamp gone, Ash went over onto the beach, found the telephone exchange on the Coast Guard station, and, armed with a fist full of change, put through a call to The Jarvis House. Mrs. Jarvis, registering what sounded to Ash like genuine pleasure, put him straight through to Claire.

  “Ash!” Claire exclaimed upon hearing his voice. “Oh, love, I miss you so much. Where are you?”

  “Staten Island,” Ash said, “and I miss you just as much, but it’s too far to come. You have to teach tomorrow, the trains are packed for the holidays, and you’d no more than get here before we’d be gone and you’d have to turn around and go right back. I’m sorry as hell because I miss you more than I can say, but there it is.”

  Claire protested but admitted that he was right and damned the war that was keeping them apart.

  “Any hope at all of getting back up here?” she asked.

  “Honestly,” Ash said, “I have no idea. We hardly know where we’ll be sent from one day to the next. We’ve barely had six days in port since we left Yarmouth, and our putting into New York like this came as a total surprise. I’d expected us to be sent straight back south with convoys bound for North Africa.”

  They talked on, the two of them, until Ash finally said, “I’m on my last nickel, love. I’ve got to say goodbye.” After Claire blew him a kiss over the line, and Ash said “I love you,” the operator finally cut them off.

  On the night of December 15, minutes before the coach turned back into a pumpkin, Solly and Hamp returned from Brooklyn, both of them herding the last of the ship’s inebriated liberty party down the pier and onto the brow without the loss of a single man into the slip. Michelson, Grubber, and Krupp, each a little more under the weather than their fellows, were helped or dropped down the ladders into their compartments, but otherwise, Ash thought the crew would be ready in the morning

  “Girls treat you to a big night on the town?” Ash asked as he followed Solly and Hamp down to the wardroom where they started throwing off their coats.

  “We took the girls to the Met,” Hamp said. “Solly should have warned me.

  They seem to do a lot of singing at these operas, and all the time, I thought we were going to a girly show, but the girls seemed to like it, particularly the soprano who died a tragic death.”

  “Very cultured, isn’t he?” Solly said. “Wanted to know if that left the tenor free to date other girls afterward. I thought Chana was going to slap him.”

  “Chana should have,” Ash said. “The poor soprano.”

  “What about the poor tenor?” Hamp asked. “Left without a main squeeze, and all that?”

  “Why don’t you ask him about the haute cuisine he suggested for after the opera?” Solly said.

  “What are you talking about?” Hamp protested. “The hot dogs that Puerto Rican was selling looked really good.”

  “But you dined elsewhere?” Ash said.

  “Chana knew of a place,” Hamp said.

  “I’ll bet,” Ash said.

  “Cost us a couple of arms and a leg,” Solly said. “Waiters in tuxedos, an obtrusive sommelier, the whole nine yards. I could have choked her.”

  “Nonsense,” Hamp said. “It was perfectly enchanting, the whole evening, even if we did miss out on the hotdogs.”

  “Keren, bless her,” Solly said, “has offered to cook us dinner at her house the next time we are in, and if she does, that might just give us a chance to become solvent once more.”

  “He’s exaggerating,” Hamp said. “The girls ordered salads.”

  “Piled high with gold leaf, or something close,” Solly said. “This guy must think his grandmother’s still footing the bills, and Chana has no shame about cleaning us both out. I’ll be lucky if I can afford so much as a candy bar before March.”

  On the following morning, 40 minutes after the COMDESLANT dispatch came through, Ash backed away from the pier, headed into The Narrows, and picked
up a convoy bound for Portland, this one including the fully loaded troopship that he had brought up from the south only days before. Expecting that Chaser 3 would be once more heading south, Ash felt stunned, even astonished, at what promised a possible night in port and a chance to see Claire.

  “Things seem to be looking up for you,” Hamp said. “Patience is obviously a virtue.”

  “Possibly,” Ash said. “We’ll have to see if COMDESLANT can now deliver something more substantial than a quick run up and back.”

  “Perhaps the tea-sipping spinster knows someone,” Hamp said.

  “Perhaps the fleet is still sending as many convoys to England as it is sending south,” Solly said, speaking practically.

  “That appears to be the case,” said Ash. “My spinster, Mr. Hampton, has a great deal of pull with me, but I don’t think she knows a soul at DESLANT, and considering the wolves that man their desks, I hope that they never catch sight of her.”

  “Protective, isn’t he?” Hamp said to Solly as they moved out ahead of the convoy and took station in the screen.

  “And wisely so,” Solly said.

  Half an hour later when Polaski came to the bridge, grinning from ear to ear, in order to bring Ash a message, things looked up even more.

  “Well, will wonders never cease,” Ash said. “Just listen to this. From: COMDESLANT To: CO, CHASER 3. Proceed Portland Navy Yard. Upon arrival 2100 19 December 1942, moor port side Pier 4. Proceed COMDESLANT Operations Office. Offload ammunition and pyrotechnics. 0600 20 December 1942, proceed Anson’s Boatyard, Yarmouth for eight (8) days’ upkeep. 0600 29 December 1942, proceed Portland for convoy assignment.

  Two nights later, when released from convoy escort in Casco Bay, Ash took Chaser 3 into Portland, tied up alongside Pier 4, and left Solly and Hamp to see to offloading depth charges and ammunition. Muffled in his overcoat and wearing rather than carrying his gray gloves, he stepped ashore to find snow on the pier, some ice, and a cold wind blowing down from Canada. Without stopping to tarry along the way, Ash made for COMDESLANT Headquarters.