Harms way, p.49
Harm's Way, page 49
“They’d better be,” Torrey retorted, just as Rover came back on the air.
Right over the muddy-gray horizon from this second Nip force he’d sighted a third contingent that looked like the granddaddy of the whole bloody tribe!
What’s more, Rover said, they’ve got air cover—a flock of snub-nosed Zeros.
Torrey forgot his spectator role. “Climb back into the clouds, Paul, for Christ’s sake!” he shouted at the useless transmitter.
But Rover’s squeaky voice went on unperturbed, mechanically, as he started counting again. Two more friggin’ battlewagons. Three cruisers. Only this time the order was reversed, because there were two heavies and one light. Plus the usual quota of tincans. One, two, three, four...ten of the little bastards.
Almost conversationally, Rover relayed his belief that the hovering Zeros were land-types, probably from Pelaki Shima, which wasn’t much more than three hundred miles north-northeast of them at this point.
And he still sounded unruffled when he reported they’d spotted him.
“Take cover, Paul!” Torrey yelled.
Although he’d dropped his empty wingtanks, Rover opined calmly, his Wildcat couldn’t cope with these onrushing Zeros, and it looked like the meatballs would be all over him before you could spell sukiyaki. He doubted if he could elude them. Wasn’t it a hell of a note, Rover asked rhetorically, that Uncle Sugar couldn’t provide his aerial Boy Scouts with stuff that matched the Nips’ in speed and maneuverability?
But now he’d have to shut up.
He was too friggin’ busy.
The sons of bitches Japs were on his tail...snapping at him like starved jackals...and those sheltering clouds looked a million miles away...
Rover’s voice seemed to fade away.
Frantically, AirCom ordered his radioman to squeeze the last ounce of juice out of the overworked receiver, but nothing came. Only the undulating waves of static, building up and receding, echoed through their earphones and ricocheted across the low-ceilinged Quonset from the loudspeakers, like the noise of surf against coral.
Rover had gone dead.
It was Averell who broke the silence. He said in a shocked, unbelieving voice, “Eddington’s bought it.”
The Rock nodded dumbly. For what could he say now? Eddington’s last act, like Eddington himself, was blunt and direct and disarmingly simple. Staring at the foolishly crackling shortwave receiver, he speculated whether even Eddington would have admitted its simplicity, however, or imagined that restitution came that easily. Perhaps vengeance itself was a simple thing, and certainly Eddington had been a demonic practitioner of revenge against the imagined Furies that wrecked his life. But after vengeance has been gained—what then? Eddington’s inability to recognize that revenge merely triggered a succession of related events was the fatal flaw. Torrey wondered if Paul had learned this before the Zeros caught him.
His face was expressionless when he finally spoke.
“Prepare an official report on Captain Eddington’s flight when you get time, general. List it as an authorized mission.”
“Yes, sir.” Averell waited a moment then added diffidently, “Eddington rates a Navy Cross for this job, admiral. Maybe even a Medal of Honor. Shouldn’t I include a posthumous recommendation?”
“Eddington wasn’t medal hunting.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Do you?” The Rock snapped. “Do you really understand, general?”
Averell looked uncomfortable, but he said nothing. For a Flag officer whose imperturbability was almost notorious, the Old Man was behaving rather queerly. Yet who could blame him? That goddamn crazy Eddington, whom the admiral had carried like the White Man’s Burden for so long, had finally flipped. This insane adventure proved it. For all his casual disregard for his own safety, even Eddington should have known he couldn’t pull it off.
Yet, Averell supposed, the guy had pulled it off, when you came right down to the heart of the matter, because if it weren’t for his hare-brained stunt, the Japs might have come rampaging down within a day’s steaming range of Levu-Vana before anybody spotted them. Now their surprise quotient was as negative as ADTAC’s. They’d probably mill around while their land-based scout planes fruitlessly scoured the skies beyond Pelaki Shima, and thus grant Skyhook a little more precious leeway.
The general found his voice. “Sir, we’ve already phoned the contacts to Operations. Captain Tuthill says he’ll have ‘em all plotted by the time you get back.”
“Very good, Averell.” Torrey beckoned to his aide. “Come on, Mac.”
For the first time in weeks, Captain Tuthill’s situational chart resembled a finished work rather than the preliminary sketches for some surrealistic coffeehouse mural.
Now, on this mid-afternoon of Saturday, the fifth of December, they knew precisely where the enemy lay, and that great space north of Levu-Vana no longer yawned emptily from the plotting board. Having combined his own sagacity with Eddington’s eyewitness reports, Tuthill was computing where the Nips would be tonight, tomorrow, and even the following Monday. But his prophetic draftsmanship didn’t create a very handsome picture. The extruded lines all aimed straight at Lakola Bay. Beach Red. Skyhook’s target had likewise become the target for these three Japanese surface forces, whose movements he had just marked with crimson crayon, and what they’d suspected for many days had come bleakly true.
The Nips weren’t going to oblige the armchair experts like Blackjack Broderick and hibernate until spring. Nor would they supinely withdraw to some remote defensive position while the Yanks moved unhindered into Levu-Vana.
Tuthill’s chart showed them rendezvousing slightly south of the point from which Eddington had sent his valedictory message, then sweeping southward as a single unit in the grand tradition of Trafalgar and Jutland.
Torrey shook his head.
“Tut, I hate to spoil your masterpiece. But I just don’t think it’ll happen that way.”
The Operations officer, who had been behaving with grave circumspection in the face of The Rock’s bereavement, suddenly bridled.
“And why not, admiral?” he inquired stiffly.
“Because the Japs know damn well what we’ve got on hand to oppose ‘em with—and I doubt if they’re much impressed,” Torrey said. “They’ve certainly discounted our fast carriers as a factor in whatever they’re cooking up. Otherwise they wouldn’t be exposing their battleships so openly.”
Still nettled at the cavalier dismissal of his estimate, Tuthill grumbled, “Then what d’you reckon will happen?”
“I think they’ll split up and come at us from two directions, Tut.”
“Divide their forces?”
Tuthill was shocked by the heretical notion that even the despised Japs might contravene naval dogma in this fashion. You kept your fleet intact. You smashed at the foe with everything you had. That was the Book. If you needed proof, wasn’t every fast carrier in the Pacific Fleet welded into mighty Task Force 48 at this very instant, while he and Torrey were arguing doctrine? And didn’t ComTaskFor 48 refuse—unless the skies literally fell in—to break up this powerful team? You’re bloody well right he did!
The Rock continued dispassionately, “Either half of that Nip armada would be sufficient to neutralize our strength—” adding deliberately “—on paper.”
Tuthill couldn’t curb his skepticism. “So you look for a pincers movement?”
“Exactly. They want us to commit ourselves. Get our forces all neatly laid out. Then they’ll jerk the noose.” Torrey moved closer to the chart. Midway between the Japs’ rendezvous and Levu-Vana lay a smaller island called Marate. It was, he recalled, one of Clayton Canfil’s coastwatching stations. He pointed. “If my theory’s sound, the first crowd—let’s call ‘em Bandit One—will swing close to the west side of Marate here, and head for Lakola Bay through Pala Passage.” He fingered the strait that separated Levu-Vana and its sister island, Toka-Rota. “That’s where we’ve got to stop them.”
“And what will Bandit Two be doing all this time?”
“Still theorizing, Tut, but I figure ‘em for a wide end-run past Toka-Rota, and then a quick dash for our beachhead.”
More candidly than apprehensively, Tuthill observed, “We need help, admiral.”
“We won’t get it,” The Rock said, glowering at the chart. “Task Force 48’s to hell and gone up north. Away out of range. We’re strictly on our own.”
Traced in blue on Tuthill’s situation map, one small spur-line jutted north from Botan, indicating the LSTs that were ferrying MoTorpRon Charlie to the beachhead. Another, curving around the eastern extremity of Gavabutu, depicted the rest of the slow-moving LSTs. In apparent pursuit of this second contingent of LSTs, a third line betokened transports and cargo ships, along with their escorting destroyers.
At midnight Tuesday they’d all converge at that heavily blue-crayoned circle labeled “Point Able” prior to their final drive into Lakola Bay.
A cluster of indigo dots placed considerably south and east of Levu-Vana showed where the three baby flat-tops and their tincans would wait until Torrey flashed their planes the signal to hit Beach Red, along with the old battleships which, as yet, weren’t close enough to show on the chart.
Meanwhile the cruisers—Old Swayback, Moultrie, and Diadem—were still anchored in the roadstead off Atoka. Because of their relatively higher speed, Torrey had been holding them there until the last possible moment, as insurance against certain dire emergencies which he’d only been able to surmise before Eddington’s flight. But now the guesswork was over.
“We’re going into Lakola Bay fast,” he said, “and unload those cargo ships even faster. Then we’ll sucker the Japs away from the beachhead and keep ‘em busy while the troops dig in.”
Tuthill shook his head mournfully. “By Wednesday the Nips will be swarming around us like wasps after their nest’s kicked over.”
“Wednesday, Tut?” Torrey asked innocently.
“D-Day, sir.”
“No, Tut, Wednesday was D-Day. Now it’s Tuesday.” Torrey stood up. “Tell those LSTs I want ‘em assembled at Point Able by midnight Monday even if they have to get out and push!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Inform all the others—the CVEs and the transports—that our schedule’s been advanced twenty-four hours.”
“This could leave the battleships too far behind to do us much good, admiral.”
“Let’s be diplomatic, Tut. Advise the BBs that the LSTs have challenged ‘em to a race. Last one into Lakola Bay has to buy the beer.”
Tuthill’s tired face twitched into an approximation of a smile. “Yes, sir. That might do the trick. Those battlewagon skippers have a hell of a lot of pride.”
“As for ourselves,” Torrey concluded, “we’ll board Old Swayback tonight. I want the cruisers underway before first light tomorrow.”
“Should I notify Toulebonne, sir?”
The Rock’s shaggy eyebrows raised in mock reproof. “Why, Tut, I’m surprised you’d even ask such a question. Naturally we’ll keep Toulebonne posted. I’m sure they’d like to know how we propose to match Japanese rope with American shoestring.”
Within six hours Admiral Broderick reacted sharply—and predictably—to ADTAC’s concise summary of the situation. Torrey was in his quarters, gathering up his personal papers, when Mac brought him the message.
He read it slowly, savoring the classically Blackjackian phraseology: “MOST URGENTLY SUGGEST YOU DELAY MOUNTING SKYHOOK AND AWAIT ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS WHICH I REQUESTED IMMEDIATELY AFTER ENEMY FLEET SIGHTING. PROSPECTS OF ADDITIONAL SURFACE SUPPORT FOR YOUR OPERATION EXCELLENT IN NEAR FUTURE. HAVE ASKED TASK FORCE 48 FOR MINIMUM OF ONE FAST CARRIER GROUP WHICH COULD REACH MESQUITE AREA WITHIN THREE DAYS IF PROMPTLY DETACHED FROM MAIN BODY. APPRECIATE PROBLEM BUT URGE EXTREME CAUTION IN VIEW PREPONDERANT ENEMY STRENGTH. YOU HAVE OUR FULLEST CONFIDENCE.”
Torrey looked quizzically at his aide.
“Do you know what ‘suggest’ means, lieutenant? Or ‘prospects’ and ‘could’ and ‘if’ and ‘caution’?” He crumpled up the dispatch flimsy. “Add ‘em all together, fella, and they still don’t mean a bloody thing except pull in your horns.”
“Yes, sir,” Mac agreed humbly.
“Admiral Broderick knows damned well Task Force 48 is too far away to do us any good. From all indications it’ll be a lot farther away tomorrow, chasing those Nip carriers. Yet he wants us to ‘delay’ until reinforcements reach us. Hell. There aren’t any uncommitted combatant ships south of the Equator.” Torrey dropped the wadded dispatch into his wastebasket. “Our only chance now lies in speed—with a force that includes ten-knot LSTs.”
“What do you want to tell Toulebonne, sir?”
The Rock consulted his watch. “It’s now 2100. Advise Admiral Broderick that I’m hoisting my flag on Old Swayback at midnight, and that we’ll sortie at 0300.”
After the aide left, Torrey stared bleakly around the Quonset, from which his sparse belongings had already been removed, and thought once more about Blackjack’s equivocal message. He was well aware that it represented a way out: a last chance to avoid this perilous game, and creep off to the safety of the sidelines. By obeying Toulebonne’s oblique order, he would be secure, and so would his frail Fleet, until the enemy discovered his reluctance to fight. After that—well, after that, Gavabutu might fall, and Toulebonne itself could be threatened.
But Broderick’s empty promise of aid came too late. Like everything else, it was too goddamn late. He closed his strongbox. The lock clicked shut with a blunt finality, as if he’d barred a door that could never be reopened.
He wondered what Paul Eddington would say now...
19. Joss Sticks Bring Good Luck
SIX CLEAR NOTES, smartly paired, clanged from the brass bell below Old Swayback’s navigation bridge. They signaled 0300. Three hours past midnight. Three more hours till dawn. As they echoed across the dark waters of the roadstead, a 2,100-ton destroyer of the doughty Fletcher class eased silently toward the break in the barrier reef.
Her name was Perigore. She was marked for death.
Spectral in the faint moonlight that rewarded them after two unremitting days of Gottlieb’s rain, the remainder of Admiral Rockwell Torrey’s flotilla followed Perigore: three cruisers and three destroyers. All the other vessels of his command lay scattered like flung coins across twenty thousand miles of South Pacific, from the friendly region above Gavabutu to the dangerous No Man’s Land below Levu-Vana.
One destroyer in particular contributed to the vast distances that separated his surface units. At this moment she was churning up thirty-two knots on a course which by midmorning would place her far to the northeast, alone upon the barren open sea, and out of range of any land-based aircraft. Her mission was simple. She had orders to open up boldly with her shortwave radio and simulate a fast carrier task group racing to support the Skyhook landings. Her name was Crandall. Unlike Perigore, she would live past the week.
From the port wing of his ancient flagship’s signal bridge, The Rock surveyed their deliberate progress through the anti-torpedo nets, past the treacherous shoals, and into the deep waters beyond.
He was in a singular mood. One deck above him, seated in his old canvas-covered chair on the navigating bridge, Captain Bowen ruled Old Swayback, leaving Torrey a mere inhabitant of the cruiser he himself had once commanded. Set apart by his stellar rank, he was forbidden by custom and tradition to issue orders that might conceivably snatch her from disaster—unless such orders involved her as a unit of his entire force rather than as an individual ship. Old Swayback was Bowen’s sole responsibility. For Torrey she was simply a mobile headquarters, now, and his relation with her was no different than with the seven other cogs in the floating apparatus he’d designated as Task Unit zebra because it was the last to quit Mesquite.
Rather morosely, The Rock contemplated the sickle moon which clung to Old Swayback’s starboard quarter, throwing her superstructure into bulky silhouette with its pale incandescence. He should, he supposed, derive some consolation from the knowledge that Bobby Burke, his small thin erstwhile navigator who smoked such small thin cigars, had finally earned his third stripe and been promoted to exec. Burke was a predictable quantity, a link to the familiar past. During the engagement to come, Burke would take his station in secondary controls, a boxlike auxiliary bridge that was perched above the radio shack, the emergency combat information center, the carpenter shop, and the empty hangar. (They’d drained the aviation fuel bunkers and left their scout planes home as extra precaution against the sort of fires that devastated the American cruisers in the hit-run Battle of Savo Island the previous August. If an enemy shell obliterated the navigating bridge, Bobby Burke would guide Old Swayback from here, like a mahout squatting too far back on his elephant’s rump.
In the moonglow, Gavabutu looked strange and unreal as Task Unit zebra shaped course along its southern coast. Only a few hooded lights marked the limits of Yankee military civilization on this savage island. Yet Gavabutu was technically at peace. Its turmoil had ended; and now the war was reaching out toward another remote bit of sand and coral and marshland called Levu-Vana, which nobody in Sedalia, Missouri, or Machias, Maine, or Walla Walla, Washington, had ever heard of—and wouldn’t, either, until late Tuesday morning, West Longitude Time.
Shortly after daybreak they swung north.
Receding aft and to port, Gavabutu appeared a little darker and hardly more substantial than the hot, blue, watery sky, which gave only a vague promise of still more rain to come. A couple of Wildcats fandangoed over the formation as it drove ahead at a steady twenty knots, and a green-mottled Catalina described endless circles above the ships, hunting Jap subs. All three turned tail for home after about an hour. Until its rendezvous with the escort carriers late Monday night, somewhere south of Levu-Vana, Task Unit zebra wouldn’t see any more planes.
