Harms way, p.21
Harm's Way, page 21
With that in prospect, Torrey had already been ordered to start drafting the tactics of Operation Skyhook. This would be the really big push, he was solemnly informed, with vastly more dependent upon it than devolved around the preliminary capture of Mesquite.
Skyhook—or Levu-Vana—was nearly four hundred miles north and west of the Japs’ thinly held advance base of Gavabutu. It was a much larger island, encompassing several authentic mountain ranges, a river or two, hundreds of square miles of copra plantations, and plenty of flatland from which the Seabees could hack airfields for future offensives. One of the best natural harbors in the entire southwestern Pacific lay within Levu-Vana’s crablike eastern claws, commodious enough to handle the whole Fleet with plenty of searoom to spare.
As The Rock went about this new task, his pride in being nominated head of Skyhook’s planning section was mingled with a growing restlessness that bordered on despair. Once again he felt passed over, and once again he was merely proposing the elaborate schemes which his luckier confreres would dispose.
To Egan Powell, the Senator was neither unusual as a type nor unfamiliar as a personality. It was a matter of lasting regret to him that he had encouraged Neal Owynn—the aging boy wonder of the ageless Middle Atlantic hill country—during a quasi-political interlude in Hollywood, when the politician was at the height of his reputation as a super-patriot. Although some of Powell’s friends got burned by too-close exposure to the Senator’s noisy hellfires, he himself escaped with only nominal scars on his psyche, and after that he contented himself with watching politics from a safe distance, and eschewing causes like aid for the Spanish Civil War loyalists.
For vastly different reasons than Torrey’s, therefore, Powell was far from enthusiastic when Owynn joined their ménage. But if the Senator recognized him as the near-miss target of his scatter-gun foray into Hollywood, he kept it to himself; and, content for once with anonymity, Powell was happy to leave it that way.
Before Blackjack’s aide took up residence, however, Powell made certain that The Rock was fully aware of Owynn’s background. As a naval officer, he reasoned, Torrey had a hell of a lot more to lose by running afoul of this ruthless man than he himself ever did as a movie scenarist, and it behooved The Rock to recognize the curious rules under which the Senator played, and the wretched things that motivated him.
Now that Neal Owynn was a simulated naval officer, he cut his prematurely ash-gray curls a trifle shorter, got fewer manicures, and strove to retool his senatorial glare into the look-of-eagles that shone from those portraits of David Farragut just before he damned the torpedoes in Mobile Bay. Owynn wore his uniform tight across his generous rump, British-style, and his pants stopped too far above his burnished aviator-type boots. Although he had gone to an undistinguished land grant university, regrettably, instead of to Harvard, he dropped his R’s as he spoke of his dear friend, Blackjack Broderick, and he elided his syllables in describing the tremjuss job of building an “invasion team.”
After the Senator moved in, the times that exasperated Torrey the most were those intervals of calculated intimacy when Owynn decided his Makalapa companions had something worth adding to his store of useful information. Egan Powell first became aware of the Senator’s easy ability to discard his normal superciliousness, briefly, and indulge in a bit of chummy relaxation.
“You know,” he said, “if an octopus were mated to a sponge, the result would have a brain like this bastard’s. Horrible thought. But that’s how he functions. And when you give this octo-sponge the extra advantage of political insight, Rock, all I can say is, get the hell off the beach before it reaches out and grabs you!”
The best way to accept Neal Owynn, they both agreed, was to regard him as one of the more exotic hazards of war.
Three weeks before the Mesquite staff was scheduled to embark for the Free French island of Toulebonne, Admiral Broderick received the final increment to his amphibious invasion team: a squadron of sixteen motor torpedo boats fresh from stateside training. Never one to admit that his own strength equaled that of his adversaries, Blackjack sourly viewed the PTs as final evidence that CinCPAC expected him to do a man’s job with boy’s help.
How do you fight a war with a handful of plywood speedboats crewed by cooky-pushing kids—most of them from Harvard?
That’s what Blackjack wanted to know, even while ignoring the indisputable fact that he already possessed all the support forces that CinCPAC had been able to pry loose from his other vital commitments around the Pacific. Operation Mesquite’s ships included the refurbished battlewagon which Broderick would personally ride to the South Seas, a mixed bag of light and heavy cruisers led by the modernized Old Swayback, several small aircraft carriers that had been converted from merchantmen, and nine destroyers. This wasn’t the greatest armada that ever set sail, Operations told the reluctant admiral, but it would have to suffice.
That same night—their duty-free Thursday—the Senator elected to favor Egan Powell and Torrey with his company at dinner, and even provided a bottle of Chianti to complement the spaghetti and meatballs which Powell had prepared from a recipe given him by an obliging Italian actress. Owynn’s inevitable hidden motive became obvious almost before they finished the wine, and got ready to settle down with their after-dinner coffee and tobacco.
Without any diplomatic feinting, he said abruptly, “You’re our Intelligence wizard, Egan—tell me, what do you think about the Nips’ probable reaction to Mesquite?”
“Light to moderate.”
“We figure it’ll be a lot stiffer.”
Powell flicked an invisible bit of Turkish cigarette ash from his black silk cravat.
“Then why ask me?”
“Because, goddamn it, my boss wants all the facts laid on the line. I’ve heard him talking privately, fella, and he’s not happy. Not happy at all with what the Japs have ready to throw against us.”
Owynn pronounced it agaynst, in his famous mellow baritone, and he spoke as if the two captains were an audience of ten thousand.
Egan Powell seemed unimpressed. “Maybe you don’t need Intelligence. Maybe you’d do better slicing open roosters, and studying the contents of their gizzards.”
“Very amusing, fella,” the Senator said, gravely, “but not what I’d call teamplay. It’s easy for you people back here at Pearl to ‘estimate’ the enemy’s strength. But we’re the ones who’ve got to do the fighting. We’ve got to know!”
“Bucking for a Purple Heart already?”
“Please be serious.” Owynn spread his hands placatively. “If Mesquite falls behind schedule, Skyhook’s in trouble. That’s what is worrying my admiral.”
Torrey glanced up from lighting his pipe, quizzically, and observed in a deceptively mild tone, “That worries us, too.”
“Then why don’t War Plans and Operations give us more support?”
The Rock suddenly lost his patience.
“Look, mister, a damn few months ago we were all in a hell of a lot tougher fix than the one you’re imagining for Blackjack Broderick. I don’t know what you’ve got in mind. But I’d just like to remind you that Halsey ran the Japs ragged with nothing but a couple of flightdecks and a few wings and a loud prayer.”
“He wasn’t mounting an amphibious operation.”
“But he was ready to. Anytime CinCPAC gave The Word. Anywhere from Wake to Makin.”
Owynn reversed course and asked plaintively, “As Plans chief for Skyhook, Rock, don’t you think we should have more leeway between the Gavabutu mop-up and when we hit Levu-Vana?”
“No. Repeat—no!”
“Why?”
“What the hell are you aiming at, Owynn?”
“Nothing.” The Senator flashed a toothy smile he’d inherited from an old photograph of Teddy Roosevelt. “We lawyers call it serving as amicus curiae. Friend of the court. I’d just hate to see your timetable get all fouled up because you fellas misjudged the Nips’ potential. That’s all.”
“That’s plenty.” Torrey snapped. “If Mesquite doesn’t finish right on the goddamn button, Skyhook’s in major trouble. There’s weather. There’s also the fact that the Japs aren’t stupid. Eventually they’re going to tumble to our next move. Maybe sooner, if they happen onto a lucky tealeaf pattern some afternoon. Or later, when our carriers start softening up Levu-Vana. But when they do, they’ll toss in everything they’ve got to save that piece of real estate.”
“So,” Owynn said sarcastically, “CinCPAC gives us a PT squadron instead of a new battleship.”
“The Peter Tares are doing pretty well in the Solomons.”
“Blackjack doesn’t want to wet-nurse a bunch of unweaned brats.”
“It all depends on how they’re used,” Torrey said coldly. “For Skyhook, we’re giving ‘em a hell of an important task that’s out of all proportion to their size. They could make the difference between taking Levu-Vana in a few days, or getting pinned down for a couple of weeks. It’s going to be terribly rough on these ‘brats,’ mister, and some of them won’t be coming home to mama.”
“Interesting,” the Senator said, “also very romantic. But my boss would still rather have some heavy firepower.”
“So would everybody in this man’s ocean. MacArthur’s screaming for Big Boys to beef up the Seventh Fleet. Halsey would like a squadron or two. Both of ‘em make good cases. But we’ve got to share the wealth—what little there is of it.”
Powell, who had remained aloof from their conversation, suddenly yawned and looked at his elegant gold watch. “You gentle-men fight the rest of the war. I’m hitting the sack. It’s almost ten o’clock and I’ve got the morning watch in the goddamn Cave. Buenas noches.”
He left.
Bound by a thin vestige of politeness, Torrey refilled his bulldog briar while the messboy cleared the table, and reluctantly prepared to give Owynn exactly twenty minutes more. To pass the time he asked idly, “What’s Blackjack doing with the PTs while they’re waiting to be loaded for Mesquite?”
“We’ve got ‘em camped in West Loch.” The Senator sniggered. “I went up there this afternoon. It’s practically a swamp. They’ll keep busy enough just swatting mosquitoes.”
“Poor devils.”
“They’re getting indoctrinated into the tropics,” Owynn opined professionally, “weather-wise and condition-wise. They can tinker with their little playthings for a few days, and take a few practice spins outside the harbor.”
A PT armed with torpedoes and depth charges is a hell of a toy.”
The Senator stubbed out a quarter’s worth of Uppmann Fancy Tale and took a fresh cigar from the alligator case he carried in his breast pocket. “Incidentally,” he said, “one of those kids has the same name as yours. Torrey. I saw it on the squadron roster.”
“What’s his first name?”
“I remember that, too, because it had a Biblical ring to it—Jeremiah.” The Senator regarded Torrey through the rich smoke. “Is the lad any kin?”
“Just my son,” The Rock said quietly.
“Well, sir, now isn’t that great? Sounds like we’re about to have a regular family reunion.”
Torrey ignored Owynn’s heavy-handed political jollity. Reunion? He wondered. It had been five months since the arrival of Athalie’s caustic letter, and almost as many years since he’d seen his son. The memory of their last meeting still haunted him. Although Jere hadn’t put the thought into words, he seemed in his reserved and unbending way to have been charging Torrey with failure, somehow, in the shaping of his young life. Jere never spoke these things. During their infrequent sessions he would simply stare at his father, bleakly, and turn aside when The Rock endeavored to talk with him about his future, or whether he’d changed his mind about going to Harvard instead of Annapolis. No. Torrey didn’t understand his strange son.
He didn’t even know him!
The Rock brushed a hand across his forehead. He was sweating. “You’re damned right,” he announced, “there’s going to be a reunion. Tonight. Right now.”
Then he went to the kitchen telephone, dialed the motor pool, and ordered up a station wagon. It was 2215. The PT squadron probably had already gone to bed. But he didn’t care.
9. What Lies Beyond a Thing Called Duty?
ENSIGN JEREMIAH FARR TORREY, USNR, dangled his naked legs over the concave plywood sides of Miss Brimstone, a combatant vessel of the United States Navy listed officially as PT 396, and scratched the swollen place on his left thigh where he had been bitten by a mosquito, a loud-buzzing insect of the genus Culicidae known parochially as a “Waikiki dive bomber.” Bug-repellent didn’t faze them. Nothing did. They vectored in the light of the fulgent moon and then swarmed down like carrier planes, choosing their targets with the same unerring accuracy.
All in all, Jere gloomed, undergoing an attack by Waikiki dive bombers was an appropriate climax to a miserable day.
After only forty-eight hours under Admiral Broderick’s command, the squadron had dropped its original nickname—”Fair Harvard”—and dubbed itself “Blackjack’s Bastards,” in the mordant fashion of men who intend to do the job to which they have been assigned, even if they aren’t wanted by the assigner. They called their reserve commissions “birth certificates,” because as bastards they figured they were damned lucky to have them in the first place.
Jere looked around the bivouac, distastefully, and wondered for the fiftieth time in the past two days why he’d chosen PTs instead of something clean and sensible, like the infantry. A dozen sagging canvas tepees provided half-hearted shelter against the microscopic pink dust that sifted down from the hills by day, the mildew damp that seeped down from those same hills by night, and the showers that fell every morning. Two muddy roads—cow-paths—wandered through the camp, raggedly bordered by chopped sugarcane stalks. Overhead the paraplegic limbs of the algarroba trees made ghastly scraping noises whenever the tradewind blew.
The unredeemed ugliness of their pre-combat base was impervious even to Hawaiian moonlight.
Jere slapped at his right ankle. Got the little bugger! Moodily, he inspected the crimson blotch that had been a mosquito, remembering the B movie he’d seen that night, with Bela Lugosi, in which the vampire quenched his thirst with the blood of a choice young damsel. He shivered. Crummy, ill-smelling, hellish West Loch, home of Blackjack’s Bastards! Then a philosophical thought struck him, and he grinned back at the moon, bolstered by his awareness that he was still a Rational Man, Harvard ‘40, and able to surmount these more nonsensical aspects of modern warfare. When he saw his crew at breakfast, it might help compensate for the meal itself: dehydrated eggs which could be cooked only one way (scrambled into a gray mass), Spam (fried), powdered milk (watered), orange juice (canned), and coffee (laced with chicory until it damned near blew the top of your head off).
He’d tell them, “You know, men, when the Almighty finally gets browned off enough to give the world the enema it’s been needing ever since the Flood, he’ll stick the syringe right here—into West Loch—for obvious reasons!”
Jere was genuinely content only when he was driving Miss Brimstone. She was such a lovely, streamlined creature, responsive as a passionate woman to a man’s touch, and with her trio of twelve-cylinder Packard engines, she could do better than forty knots in flat seas. Of course, if there was a chop running, she’d throw you right out of bed, unless you hung on tight. Miss Brimstone was just a shade under eighty feet long, too small to be called a “ship,” yet too big to be hauled ashore like a “boat.” As a hit-run weapon of opportunity, she displayed four torpedoes mounted fore-and-aft amidships, four .50-caliber machineguns coupled in pairs and fastened abaft her tiny superstructure, and a smoke-pot on her fantail to lay a screen when things got really desperate.
She was lightly clad in half-inch plywood. She carried twelve men. They loved her deeply, confidently, and perhaps requitedly.
The muted blue-slits of headlamps, intermittently visible through the algarroba grove, caught Jere’s attention from the deck of his PT moored a few yards offshore, where he was on-duty for the night. He wondered idly what godforsaken business a visitor could possibly have with the squadron at fifty-five minutes to midnight. It had to be some stranger, for all the Bastards were present, accounted for, and sacked out. Unwillingly, he slid over Miss Brimstone’s sculptured side and into the shallow, muddy-bottomed water as the car braked alongside the makeshift dock, and waded ashore in his cut-down dungarees to find out what the hell cooked.
A four-striper, whose shoulder-boards gleamed dully in the moonlight, but whose face was obscured by his visored cap, was impatiently drumming long bony fingers on the steering gear of a station wagon which had CinCPAC’s unmistakable four-star galaxy painted on its front door.
“Where’s the officer of the deck?” the shadowy captain asked brusquely as Jere approached.
“I’ve got the duty, sir.”
“D’you always stand watch from your boat?”
“Usually, sir.”
“Suppose you got a call from Fleet headquarters?”
“We can’t, sir. We don’t have a phone.”
“I see.”
The captain’s authoritarian voice sounded curiously familiar, Jere thought, and he wished the visitor would step out into the clear moonglow so he could catch a better look. But the four-striper stayed behind the wheel, still drumming.
“Everybody asleep, mister?”
“Well,” Jere said truthfully, “they’ve turned in. But I wouldn’t guarantee they’re sleeping. Our cots were salvaged from Grant’s army, I think, and every night you have to get used to ‘em all over again.”
The stranger clucked in mock sympathy. “Tough war, ensign.”
Astonished, Jere stared down at his ragged shorts, and wondered how the captain knew his rank, for he was hatless as well as shirtless.
“May I ask, sir, what we can do for you here at Blackjack’s Bas—” he began formally, then stopped in midsentence, aghast at his near faux pas. This delegate from Big Brass mightn’t have a sense of humor. It’d be a miracle if he did, since the risibility factor seemed to diminish in exact opposite ratio to the number of stripes which a naval officer wore. Jere knew this for a fact. He’d learned it from his own humorless father.
