Splinter on the Tide

by Phillip Parotti

  After that, the harbor master made no protests and assigned Ash a berth immediately adjacent to the pier. As soon as they’d tied up, ONI boarded the ship with a team of specialists, two of whom were commissioned Navy lawyers who began deposing every man in the ship’s company, holding back on Solly, Hamp, and Ash until last.

  “What will you do with this?” Ash asked, signing his deposition before witnesses, Ash, Solly, and Hamp drinking coffee with one of the lawyers in the wardroom shortly before midnight.

  “Yours is not the first case like this that we’ve seen,” the lawyer said. “We had another instance of merchant sailors being machine-gunned in November. We’ll send the photographs and the depositions up to the Navy Department in Washington, and our assumption is that the information is being compiled and stored for a case or cases to be brought after the war’s end. The word we have is that the Nazis are not going to be let off. If any of these shitheads survive, they’re to be prosecuted for war crimes. But,” he concluded, showing Ash a smirk of disgust, “don’t hold your breath waiting for it.”

  “Best then to catch them and kill them,” Ash said,

  “Yes,” the lawyer said. “That’s the best I can suggest.”

  Four times in the weeks that followed, Chaser 3 convoyed ships from Charleston to Norfolk and back, taking up a few freighters here and bringing back empty tankers there. Once, joining some DEs, a new destroyer, and an attack transport filled with troops, Ash also screened two of the sub-hunting jeep carriers south, both going to Charleston where, from some unknown navy air field, air squadrons would be flown on board for eventual transit to North Africa. And near the end of March, joining a screen made up from heavily damaged destroyers and a few PCs, Ash again screened a badly shot-up cruiser and six battle-damaged LSTs toward the repair yards in Philadelphia. COMDESLANT then afforded the ship two days’ upkeep in Norfolk, and when the mail arrived, in addition to disgorging long-awaited letters from Claire, Chana, and Keren, it also spit up a set of immediate orders for Samarango, transferring him to an OCS course to begin three days hence at Northwestern University in Chicago.

  Half an hour after Hill had processed Samarango’s orders, the bosun appeared on the quarterdeck, his working uniform changed for winter blues and a buttoned overcoat, his sea bag packed and standing by his side.

  “Request permission to leave the ship, Sir,” Samarango said, after he had shaken hands with Ash, Solly, Hamp, and the entire crew who had assembled to see him off.

  “Granted,” Ash said, returning the man’s salute. “And best of luck, Chief.”

  And lifting his sea bag by its canvas strap, Samarango saluted Ash and departed, heading into a whole new life that, Ash thought, the man couldn’t possibly have imagined when the war started.

  “Whatever are we going to do without him?” Solly said to Ash. “I don’t suppose they’ll send us another guy that experienced if we stay in commission for another 20 years.”

  “You’re probably right,” Ash said. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get a BM2, but more probably, they’ll send us a BM3 and expect us to train him up to Chaser 3 standards.”

  “Does that mean bridge watches as well?” Hamp asked.

  “That remains to be seen,” Ash said. “Samarango had plenty of experience in the pilot house of a tug before he came to us. I doubt if our next bosun will have had the same advantages. If he hasn’t, Bell is the likely candidate. He can already navigate, and he’s smart, so I don’t think it will tax us much to bring him up with us.”

  “Good choice,” Solly said. “Bell’s had a head on his shoulders since the day he came aboard, and he’s dependable. And with Samarango gone, aside from Stobb, Bell will be the senior enlisted man on board.”

  The new man, Deitz BM3, came aboard not long after the liberty party had gone ashore. After looking over the man’s service record, once Hill had checked him in and finished the required paperwork, Ash had him up to the chart room for an interview.

  “So,” Solly said, later that evening after he and Hamp had come back from the telephone exchange, “what’s the verdict on our new bosun?”

  “Samarango, he is not,” Ash said. “His name is Deitz, and he’s a BM3 as I expected he might be. Grew up on a Wisconsin dairy farm. I wouldn’t call him slow, but I can’t say that he’s very swift either. For the past year, he’s been running small boats out of the pool here in Norfolk, so he knows a thing or two about small craft, and I’m satisfied that he can rig for refueling all right. He seems to know all the basics about knots, anchoring, mooring, and so forth, but I don’t think he’s bridge material. I’ve talked to Bell and given him the nod, and since he’s the only first class petty officer aboard, I’m giving him the nod as assistant master at arms as well.”

  “Eager, is he?” Hamp asked.

  “He’s eager about coming up on the bridge,” Ash said, “but less eager about being made MAA. But then again, who would be? No one that I’ve ever met likes to police their own, and Samarango wasn’t thrilled about that job either. Bell will do fine, and I’ll make sure that I’m up there on the bridge with him until I’m convinced that we can give him the watch on his own.”

  The crew seemed to prefer Charleston to Norfolk as a liberty port because Norfolk seemed to be so filled with sailors and Marines that finding feminine companionship proved difficult, much more so than elsewhere. Nevertheless, both liberty parties went over and returned without incident, and on the morning they pulled out, Chaser 3 quickly discovered herself again bound for Charleston.

  Halfway through the trip, Watts, as an April fool ploy, announced that he was going to feed the crew a fricassee of fresh possum, newly minced, and Deitz, fully taken in by the joke, went straight to Solly and lodged a protest before, to his chagrin, he discovered that he’d been made the butt. The actual meat served on April 1 turned out to be a pretty good cut of beef, something that Watts had stored up in the reefer after a trip to the commissary, but the implied joke hadn’t set well with Deitz who only warmed up to Watts after the cook gave him a double helping of pie in order to make amends and break the ice with the new bosun.

  “We gots us a happy ship here,” Watts said to Deitz, “an’ we’s gots to keep her dat way. My jokes is for everybody, not just bosuns. Y’all get me Wisconsin?”

  “I gets ya,” Deitz said. “Your possum’s pretty good eatin’, after all, I guess.”

  “Finest kind,” Watts said.

  On the following morning, Ash once more found himself detached from the screen and sent to destroy mines that yet another Catalina had spotted some 30 miles east of the convoy, floaters, five of them, riding up over the swells in a State 3 sea. The Catalina had dropped depth charges on two of them, exploding them without difficulty, and one of her machine gunners had destroyed another, but with her depth charges expended and her gunners unable to hit the other two mines, Ash was called out to finish the job, the Catalina guiding him onto his target with uncommon skill. The actual destruction of the mines turned out to be something that Ash directed Teague to try with the 3"/23 using frag ammunition. And in both cases, at 400 yards, the exploding anti-aircraft rounds so peppered both mines that they sank at once, without exploding and without damaging Chaser 3 from concussion.

  “How the hell explosions like those could fail to set off a mine is beyond me,” Hamp said, once Ash had ordered Teague to cease fire.

  “I wonder if there’s a mathematical formula to cover the probability, or the improbability?” Ash mused.

  “Probably,” Solly said, “but what it might be is a mystery to me. I would have thought we’d have blown the damn things sky high.”

  “One thing’s for sure,” Ash said. “Whatever else he may be up to, Dönitz is still keeping a few of his little bastards out here along the coast. Torpedo attack risks detection, but if they lay a few mines in the shipping lanes here and there, they can slip away undetected and unseen. They can go deep during the day, launch mines underwater, and then come up for air and surface running
after dark in order to charge their batteries. We can still catch them on radar or with sonar, but without them making direct attacks, they’ll be harder to find.”

  April saw Chaser 3 plodding back and forth between Norfolk, Charleston, and Jacksonville, escorting what seemed like endless, non-eventful convoys back and forth between ports in a never-ending cycle that threatened to go on without a break. But near the end of the month, a cargo vessel, the Santa Catalina, was torpedoed and sunk nearly 400 miles east of Cape Hatteras, and both Ash and a second chaser were dispatched to hunt for survivors. In the end, the trip proved fruitless because a Swedish ship reached the victims six hours before Ash could get near them and rescued 55 of the stricken seamen from their lifeboats without losing a single man. The attempted rescue nevertheless cost Ash an additional four days’ steaming, tossed the crew to the point where the mid-Atlantic made more than half of them seasick, and returned them to the coast utterly worn out and dispirited. Once tied up to the piers at Cape May, however, the crew’s morale instantly transformed when Ash received a message directing them to proceed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for five days’ upkeep while their engines were briefly overhauled.

  26

  Leaving Solly and Hamp to oversee the upkeep, Ash called South Freeport, told Claire to expect him that afternoon, and caught an express for Boston out of Grand Central. With the train so crowded that passengers found it difficult to move, Ash had to stand all the way to Boston, a plethora of soldiers, sailors, and Marines standing with him, clogging up the aisles, shooting the breeze, occasionally playing cards across the backs of seats or the surfaces of luggage. When he reached Boston and switched to a train for Portland, he found it less crowded and managed, for two hours, to sleep where he sat, waking bleary eyed but feeling better for the respite he had enjoyed. And then, finally, he boarded a bus for Yarmouth and South Freeport and noticed, for the first time, that the leaves were beginning to unfold from their buds. That is when Ash realized that it was May Day and wondered what the Russians might be doing to celebrate the event. Driving the Germans hard and harder, he hoped, pulverizing their Panzers and fertilizing their soil with miles of German blood. As he contemplated that thought, the bus arrived in South Freeport where, in the moment that Ash alighted, Claire ran toward him and threw her arms around him with a passion so strong that Ash thought he would melt.

  “I have to be back on Tuesday night,” Ash said, as they rushed up the street toward their apartment over the shop, “but that gives us the weekend, and Monday, and part of Tuesday, depending on what you can do about a substitute, and I don’t want to waste a moment.”

  “I called Mrs. Trilling,” Claire said, squeezing his arm. “She’s a dear, so she’s going to cover my classes for both work days that you’ll still be here.”

  “Bright girl,” Ash said.

  “Selfish,” Claire said, “because I want you all to myself while you’re here. Can’t have you loitering and lurking around Yarmouth while I work. One of the babes around there might try to pick you up, and then I would have to take steps.”

  Ash laughed. “I’m sure the girls in Yarmouth are very nice, love, but you’re the only ‘babe’ anyone has ever seen around there, and I have a crew of 27 who will attest to it.”

  “Let’s go up and spend an hour or five in bed,” Claire said, unlocking their door, “so that I can show you how much of a ‘babe’ you’ve come home to.”

  “Just lead the way,” Ash said.

  “Oh, I intend to,” Claire said, giving him a peck before turning and rushing up the stairs with Ash, taking two steps at a time behind her.

  Much later, sitting late at table after the more than scrumptious supper that Claire had got up and cooked, a bottle of American brandy appeared.

  “I’m afraid that our supply of Calvados has dried up,” Claire said.

  “One of the hardships of war,” Ash said.

  “Isn’t that the truth,” she said. “So, what might Solly and Hamp be up to?”

  “I think I can guess,” Ash laughed, “but a description is not for your ears.”

  “Nonsense,” Claire said. “I’ve talked to Keren and Chana, twice. They’ve been counting the days. Chana has been fit to be tied waiting for him to get back; she’s that anxious, but don’t you dare let on to Hamp.”

  “You should see Hamp,” Ash said. “They’re a couple in heat, or something like. What about Keren?”

  “Still waters run deep,” Claire said, “not to snatch yet another cliché, but I’d say she’s in love, no two ways about it.”

  “Shall I begin making a list,” Ash said, “of your cliches, I mean?”

  “As long as you find wisdom in them,” Claire said. “So, what about Solly?”

  “Still waters run deep,” Ash said. “And the wisdom to say so is all mine.”

  Claire smiled.

  “Careful,” Ash said, “too much satisfaction, and you’ll risk laying an egg. What is it about you women that you can’t stand to see a loose male anywhere?”

  “Women are gifted with a deep intuitive understanding, dear. They know when a male is best off. See how much happier you’ve been since you married me?”

  “I defer to your wisdom,” Ash said. “Would you like to go back to bed?”

  “Oh, how very intuitive of you,” Claire said.

  “Not at all,” Ash said, “I merely like to surprise you.”

  On Saturday, they lunched with Mrs. Jarvis and then went to see the film Mrs. Miniver.

  “Rather understated, don’t you think?” Claire said as they walked back out into the sunlight.

  “Yes,” Ash said, “but it works. Greer Garson seem to have had exactly the right personality for it.”

  “We’re lucky,” Claire said, “that we don’t have to live with the same degree of threat they face in England. I shouldn’t like having to worry about where the next bomb might be coming from or when it might be falling.”

  Ash thought briefly about mines and torpedoes and 4-inch naval guns but kept his mouth shut about them.

  “We’ve been spared that,” he said finally, “and I expect we’re damn happy about it, those of us who take notice. I’ve seen some of the ships that have come back from Guadalcanal, and they aren’t a pretty sight at all.”

  After a coffee at the Queen Bee’s, Claire and Ash boarded a bus and returned to the apartment, where Claire, having latched onto a couple of Cornish game hens, put together a supper that Ash thought fit for a king—something which she topped off with orange slices, dipped in a batter before being deep fried and glazed with cinnamon.

  “Where under the sun did you ever come up with this combination?” Ash asked her as he popped down the last of the orange slices.

  “Think of it as a gift from England,” Claire said. “Actually, you might like to think of it as a gift from Henry VIII.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Henry VIII, the big fat guy, six wives, King of England, and all that. Apparently, if you’ll think back, he liked to eat, so one of those good souls in his kitchen seems to have written down a recipe or two just so his modern descendants could enjoy the same things.”

  “Trying to fatten me up on medieval cooking, are you?”

  “Good food is often a prelude to good sex,” Claire said.

  “Randy little thing, aren’t you,” Ash said, giving her a mild pinch.

  “Where you’re concerned, always,” Claire said, leaning down and blowing lightly in his ear.

  On Sunday, given a clear sky, a warm day, and a promise of only light breezes, they packed sandwiches, fruit, two paper cups, and a bottle of white wine into a bag and set out for the shore overlooking the Harraseeket River. Neither wanted to walk along a beach. Instead, what they looked for and found turned out to be a reasonably secluded spot overlooking the river, one of the upper reaches of Casco Bay really, where they could watch whatever sailboats happened to be out and look across a stretch of water toward Wolfes Neck Woods on the opposite shore.<
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  “On a good day, it looks like you could swim the distance,” Ash speculated.

  “Cold,” Claire said. “I’m not sure we catch all that much of the Gulf Stream up here. I went wading once, not far from here, and that was enough.”

  “That’s something Chaser 3 has been spared,” Ash said. “It’s been cold enough between here and Cape May in the winter, but we’ve never had to do the far North Atlantic. I think they’re afraid that the snow and ice might swamp us. Halifax, I’ve been told, can be worse than awful. On the other hand, that run down to San Juan can just about boil water, and I cannot say one good thing for extended heat rash or saltwater laundry.”

  “Perfectly gross?”

  “Perfectly,” Ash said, “like some more of the wine?”

  “Yes,” Claire said.

  For two hours, happy merely to be together, Ash and Claire remained where they were, watching the boats and the gulls and the occasional clouds that drifted by in the distance. Finally, repacking the cups and the empty wine bottle in their bag, they strolled along the shore for a ways until they’d had enough exercise, and then they returned home.

  “Suppose I cook for you tonight,” Ash said. “You can loll, possibly obscenely, on the couch and eat bon bons while I whip up something light like pasta.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Claire said.

  “No, no I’m not,” Ash said. “Couple of diced tomatoes, a diced onion, some sliced mushrooms, a little Italian spice, and all of it thrown into three tablespoons of olive oil after I’ve sweated the garlic, and then everything is simmered for an hour. None of that tomato paste to crap up the flavor, and all of it mixed together with the pasta once the pasta is ready. Most Americans think Italian food is 98 percent tomato sauce; I don’t, and neither do real Italians who use it very sparingly. Want me to give it a go?”