Splinter on the Tide

by Phillip Parotti

  On the second deck, after checking in first at reception where he was cleared to proceed, Ash once more made his way to Commander Gibbons’ office where he again found Petty Officer Reese at her desk.

  “I take it that you never go home?” Ash said, by way of greeting.

  Petty Officer Reese smiled. “That’s just about right,” she said, “but the commander is about to be promoted to captain, so he’ll also be getting a new ship soon, a spanking new light cruiser. I imagine that my whole routine may change here. New man at the desk; new routine in the office.”

  “I’ll hope it goes well for both of you,” Ash said.

  Five minutes later, when Petty Officer Reese gave him the nod, Ash knocked once on the door and walked into Gibbons’ office where, as before, he announced himself and stood at attention.

  “This won’t take long,” the commander said, standing and walking around from behind his desk where he greeted Ash with a smile and a handshake. “You don’t know what this visit is all about, do you?”

  “No, Sir,” Ash said, stiffening slightly.

  “Well, Lieutenant Miller, if you will stand at attention for one more moment, I am going to award you a commendation medal. Normally, we do this sort of thing formally, with a ceremony at a parade of some kind, but there’s a war on, you’re about to go up to Yarmouth for upkeep, and you happen to be in port here at just the right moment. Reese,” he called out, “send in the photographer.”

  Immediately, the door opened, and a squat Navy photographer’s mate stepped through and held up his camera to take a photograph. Commander Gibbons then turned, opened a case on his desk, removed the commendation medal from it, and pinned it to Ash’s breast as the flashbulb went off.

  “Congratulations, Captain Miller. A citation will follow in due time, but the United States Navy is proud of you, proud of your ship, and proud of your accomplishment.”

  Ash felt lost, and as soon as the photographer left, he made his feelings known.

  “Commander,” he said, “I don’t want to seem ungrateful—and I don’t like to think that I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth—but this has to be a mistake. I haven’t done anything that merits this medal. I thought these things were supposed to be for courage under fire.”

  “Apparently you don’t yet realize that is just what you’ve shown when you’ve taken on the U-boats with which you’ve done battle,” Commander Gibbons said. “In the first place, you attacked rather than calling for help.”

  Ash thought he had called for help just as soon as he could.

  “In the second place, if that bastard on the way to San Juan had turned on you, he could have blown you out of the water and into match sticks with that 4-inch gun on his bow, but you got him first, scared him under, and then, not to make too much of it, Captain, you dodged two torpedoes and went in for an attack. While we don’t know that you sunk him, there seems a strong probability that you did. The Commander of the Eastern Sea Frontier seems to think that was downright intrepid of you and believes that you acted in the best traditions of the service, under fire, and regardless of what you might think, I agree with him. Congratulations, Captain, on a job well done.”

  Ash, tongue-tied, finally stammered out a thank you and found himself dismissed with yet another of the commander’s handshakes.

  Outside, standing under the overhang at the building’s entrance, Ash watched the snow come down and tried to fit what had just happened to him into some kind of context. He didn’t feel in the least valorous—never had—and didn’t think he ever would. Instead, he felt numb. At the time, when he’d first seen that blip on the scope, things had developed so fast that he hadn’t had time to think about them—what he’d done, he’d done because it was the only thing he’d been able to think to do. Movies that Ash had seen, radio dramatizations that he had listened to, and books he had read had all presented similar moments, but moments in which their protagonists had struggled with decisions and, then, overcoming one set of odds or another, gone into action on the strength of hard-earned convictions. Ash knew he didn’t fit this profile. He had simply done what he’d been trained to do without thinking very much about it, and it had turned out all right. Try as he might, he couldn’t find courage in it anywhere. Add the fact that he might have killed 40 or more men with what he’d done, and it all seemed a muddle as he stood there in the night, mystified by what had just happened to him, silent, with snow stinging his face. Earlier that evening, he’d imagined that he might step over to the club for a drink before returning to the ship. Instead, bending into the wind, he walked back down the pier, boarded the ship, and went straight to bed without mentioning the medal to anyone.

  22

  Olie Anson met Ash with a sheaf of work orders the minute Chaser 3 tied up at the yard.

  “Soon as I get your signatures on these,” Anson said, “we’ll get started. You won’t be in long enough for us to scrape her down, what with Christmas to contend with and our work on them chasers building on the ways, but we’ll have a go at fittings, interior bulkheads, caulking an’ such, and we got you a small reefer to install. Won’t hold much, but at least it’ll keep eggs and burger meat cold for a week. You wanna send a bunch of your people on leave, it’s OK by me. We don’t need many of ’em for this work, and they’d be best off outta the way. Whydoncha check with me each mornin’, an’ then you can be free yourself?”

  “You’re on,” Ash said. “I’ve had these guys pretty much cooped up since we left here this summer, so I think they’ll be chompin’ at the bit to get somewhere, anywhere, for Christmas.”

  Ash ordered Hill to type up leave papers for the majority of the crew. Learning that Gomez wouldn’t be trying to make the trip to El Paso for the holidays, Ash then signed the crew’s leave papers as soon as Hill could bring them to him, assigned Gomez and three seamen who were also staying aboard to establish a rotating deck watch in case any visitors showed up, and presented Solly and Hamp with leave papers of their own.

  “I understand that New York is a very festive place at Christmas time,” Ash said. “No need for Keren and Chana to thank me or send money, or anything of that sort. Give them my sympathy for dumping the two of you on them for Christmas, if not my love, and I’ll see you back here the night before we’re to get underway.”

  “Called the spinster yet?” Hamp quizzed.

  “Want us to alert her so that she can brew up the tea?” Solly said.

  “I shall make my presence known, all in good time,” Ash said. “I think a phone call might be wise. I shouldn’t like to show up on her doorstep unannounced, without giving her time to pour the drinks and roll out the red carpet and so forth. And I’d advise the two of you to do the same. I shouldn’t like to hear that you have had to fight whatever Marines happen to be hovering around your girls’ front doors.”

  “I can’t speak for Solly, of course, but personally,” Hamp said, “I expect to be greeted by trumpets, if not harps and choirs of angels, harkening from on high.”

  “More like a band of little gypsies, hired to pick your pockets,” Solly said. “You have yet to understand my sister’s mildly crooked ways.”

  “Not a problem,” Hamp said. “I’ve been saving up.”

  They were away then, rushing—if not actually running—up the road in the direction of The Jarvis House and a taxi that might carry them on to the train station. After Ash had watched them go, he made his way to the office in the warehouse and dialed The Jarvis House.

  “I hate to drop in on you without warning,” Ash said, the moment Claire came onto the line, “but we’re here, for eight days, Christmas included. Are you free?”

  Claire shrieked, and then she quietly said, “I’ll meet you halfway, love,” and hung up the telephone before Ash could say a word in response.

  Minutes later, halfway up the street, under a gray sky from which a light snow was already falling, and in front of more than one startled onlooker, Claire ran straight into his arms, planting a kiss on Ash
that warmed him right through to his insides.

  “I take it the rules have changed?” Ash said, when she finally released him so that he could hold her at arm’s length and take in her face.

  “You bet they have,” Claire said, “and I don’t care who knows it. This war’s been putting me through hell, Ash. From one letter to the next, I don’t know where you are, how you are, what you are doing, or if you’re even alive. Three girls I know around here have already lost their men—one in North Africa and two on Guadalcanal. It’s reached the point where I have trouble sleeping at night, not knowing whether you’re safe, or wounded, or killed, so if anyone around here, anyone, intends to try on something prudish with me, I intend to tell them to stick it straight up their collective noses, if I don’t turn around and slap them straight off.”

  Ash laughed and gave her a hug. “I love you,” he said. “You’re the best thing I’ve laid eyes on since we left here in August, and you look magnificent. Sure you didn’t know I was coming?”

  “No one breathed a word,” Claire said. “I’ll bet Olie Anson knew, but what Olie Anson knows, he keeps to himself. I could choke him.”

  “Don’t do that,” Ash said. “He’s just taken nearly our whole upkeep right out of my hands for the time we’re in, and that leaves us free to … to do whatever it is that you might like to do while we’re here.”

  “I have some definite ideas about that,” Claire grinned.

  “I’m glad,” Ash said. “What say we go up and see if we can’t cajole Mrs. Jarvis into renting us adjoining rooms?”

  “No need,” Claire said, as the two turned and began to walk up the street toward The Jarvis House. “Mrs. Jarvis, love, is a wise and sympathetic soul, and I think she likes you. Two weeks ago, without me saying a word to her, she came to me and asked if you would be coming for the holidays. I told her no, I didn’t think so, but she made me an offer, in the event you did come, that I couldn’t refuse. It seems she owns an apartment which she rents out up in South Freeport, that’s about ten minutes on the bus, and at the moment, it’s empty and fully furnished. I think she’s just had it painted. She doesn’t intend to advertise for a renter until January, so before I even knew you were here, she’d asked me to go up and stay there for the next few weeks, just so the place wouldn’t be empty, until she finally puts it up for rent. Possibly, love, she knew you were coming. Possibly, the Navy said something to her, about billeting, in advance. I don’t know, but what she did say was that if you happened to show up by some miraculous chance, she would have no objections as long as we were reasonably discreet.”

  “I suspect that somewhere in her resume, she is marked down as your Fairy Godmother,” Ash said.

  “Oh, it gets even better, love. She’s waived the rent. She says that as long as we keep the heat on, keep the pipes from freezing, and look after the place, we’ll be doing her a favor.”

  “Probably so, with winter setting in,” Ash said, “but I intend to pay her rent regardless.”

  “Then we’ll go halves,” Claire said.

  “No,” Ash said, “we won’t. I still have one or two old-fashioned ideas, so on this one, I’m not going to budge. Her bargain is with you, and I think that’s fine, but if I weren’t moving in, I’d be up at the hotel, and the Navy would be paying her rent, so without quibbling, I want to make it up to her. Otherwise, she’s taking a loss on me.”

  “All right,” Claire said, giving way, “then let’s go on up to the hotel. It will take me about 20 minutes to pack a bag, and then we’ll catch the bus. And once we get up there, if you don’t mind, I’m going to cook you the best meal you’ve ever eaten.”

  “Something like a culinary audition?” Ash teased.

  “Absolutely,” Claire said. “Perhaps I failed to mention that I spent a year at the Boston Cooking School before I decided to switch to elementary education.”

  Ash didn’t know what to say; she’d caught him completely off guard. “No,” he said finally, “I don’t remember a word about the Boston Cooking School. So, what other little secrets might you be hiding away?”

  “I intend to reveal them one at a time,” Claire said, giving his arm a squeeze, “and with feeling.”

  The apartment Mrs. Jarvis lent them was small but compact, located directly above a shop that sold kitchenware, candles, and gifts to South Freeport customers. The cooking utensils that Claire found in the drawers did not turn out to be extensive, but she nevertheless pronounced them adequate to her needs. Before he could even take off his overcoat, she told Ash that she was going out to shop for groceries, alone and uninhibited, while he, she suggested, shop for a Christmas tree: “Something small, love, about 2 or 3 feet, if you don’t mind. And a box of tinsel, if one can be found. I think we can skip the lights and the balls and so forth. Rationing may have put paid to them anyway, and we needn’t go to the expense. But a tinsel-covered tree would look nice.”

  Detecting a degree of both purpose and concentration in Claire’s intentions, Ash made no objections, the two exiting the building by means of the interior staircase that led up to it from beside the shop below and going off to their tasks along separate paths.

  South Freeport struck Ash as being not much more than a village—a pretty one, he had to admit, but small—a sort of coastal resort that no doubt swelled during the summer months, boaters and sports fishermen descending in droves. Two blocks from the apartment, with a light snow still falling, Ash stumbled onto a Boy Scout Christmas tree lot, walked for a few minutes amid the trees, found a small one that he liked—the smallest the lot had to offer—and made the transaction. And then he promptly returned with it to the apartment before going out again to search for tinsel. When the five and dime couldn’t produce a package, Ash wandered into a long but narrow hardware store that struck him as a relic straight out of the previous century, and there, a gray-headed clerk who looked to Ash like he had been born in the same century as the store, finally emerged from a back room with a single box of shredded tin foil.

  “Last one in stock, and ya lucky to get it,” the elderly man said. “Gov’ment cut off production. Usin’ the stuff for the war some ways. Nobody throwin’ tin foil away no more. Everybody savin’ it and turnin’ it in for them scrap drives. Best ya do the same after Christmas. Where’s ya servin?”

  “At sea,” Ash said, paying the man.

  “Destroyer, like?”

  “Subchaser,” Ash said.

  “Roll a mite?”

  “Rolls a lot,” Ash laughed. “We tend to think of ourselves as bronc riders and hope not to get thrown.”

  “Ha,” said the old man. “My grandson’s on one of them jeep carriers. I’ll tell him what ya said.”

  “Do,” Ash said, “it’ll make him feel a whole lot better.”

  Claire came back only minutes after Ash had arrived and taken off his overcoat.

  “I got the tinsel and the tree,” Ash said. “Tinsel seems to be in short supply. Something having to do with the war.”

  “The war,” Claire said, “seems to be leaving just about everything in short supply. You should have seen what I just went through to get butter—real butter I mean. You’d have thought that I’d asked the grocer for his mother’s watch or her wedding rings.”

  “Shortages are apparently the new normal,” Ash said. “So, my love, what have you got there?”

  “Ever had Lobster Thermidor?” Claire asked, starting to unpack her grocery bags.

  “No,” Ash said, “but the swells in Herrin used to talk about having it at The Palmer House in Chicago. They seemed to approve of it.”

  “You’re in for a treat,” Claire said. “It’s one of my specialties.”

  “Thus far,” Ash said, “all of your specialties have been treats, and then some.”

  Drawing out two lobsters from her grocery bag, Claire placed them on the counter and then happened to look up, and when she did, she froze. “What’s the ribbon for, Ash? It’s new. You didn’t have it in August.”

&n
bsp; “Something undeserved,” Ash said.

  “I’ve seen that ribbon; my father had one,” Claire said, coming around the counter to take a closer look. “That’s a commendation of some sort, isn’t it, Ash? Isn’t it? Have you been in action, love?”

  For several seconds, as Claire searched his face, Ash said nothing, and then, finally, he spoke.

  “We depth-charged a U-boat,” Ash said flatly. “We came up on it from behind, while it was stalking a convoy, and took a couple of shots at it with the gun, and when it submerged, we depth-charged it. We might have sunk it, but we can’t be sure.”

  “Seems you’ve kept a few secrets of your own,” Claire said, her eyes flashing.

  “With what the ship does, I’ll probably keep a few more,” Ash said. “Sorry, but that’s the way it has to be.”

  “I worry, Ash.”

  “I know you do, and that’s one of the reasons I didn’t say anything about it in my letters. It’s just the sort of thing that Solly, Hamp, and I have to censor out of the crew’s letters. Just one more thing that has to be chalked up to the war.”

  “We seem to be chalking up a hell of a lot to the war,” Claire said.

  “Yes we do,” Ash said.

  “Your absence has been the worst of it,” Claire said, “but the fact that you’ve seen action out there and been in danger makes me sick to my stomach, Ash.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake,” Ash said, “don’t throw up; it could ruin the lobster!”

  “Not funny, Ash. Not funny at all!” Claire protested, as Ash held her close.

  “I know,” Ash said, “but the funny part is all we’ve got.”

  The Lobster Thermidor, something Ash waited for patiently, wasn’t funny either. It was delicious, so much so that Ash bent over the shell in which Claire had baked it with a degree of pleasure that he thought he could never have imagined.

  “You weren’t kidding about the cooking school,” Ash said. “This is heaven. Why did you stop?”