It was 680 nautical miles from Shanghai to Tianjin—Doug had long memorized most of the port-to-port distances around the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea—so after a quick calculation in his head he realized they’d be traveling at full speed, about 30 knots.
“We must be in a hurry.”
Rose chewed his meat before answering. “Admiral Yarnell wants us there as soon as possible.”
Doug nodded. He’d read in the brief handed to him this afternoon that the admiral planned to take his flagship, the USS Augusta, along with four destroyers on a circular route around the Japanese home islands, en route to Vladivostok.
Rose continued with their sailing orders, describing in detail what the fleet had tasked them with doing. The part about slipping close to the Korean peninsula, after they’d ascertained the situation in Tianjin and assured the safety of American ships, intrigued Doug the most.
The briefing over, normal dinnertime conversations resumed. Doug looked across Lieutenant Stephenson toward Commander Rose. “I noticed Seaman Bonadio is back. How long did it take to find him?”
Rose smirked, not glancing at the seaman in question. “A few hours. We found him drunk and stumbling around Foochow Road, in the red light district. Mumbling to himself.” The disdain in Rose’s voice and expression were palpable. “We left him to sober up in the brig for a day, and he’s been working non-stop since—KP duty every meal, and swabbing every deck on this ship in between times, from oh-six hundred to twenty-two hundred.”
Doug let out a low whistle, which earned him a nervous sideways glance from Lieutenant Stephenson. That was a stiff penalty for A.W.O.L., though Doug had to admit he had no idea if this was a repeat offense.
“We’ll let that be a warning to the rest of the crew,” Rose said evenly, ignoring Doug’s whistle. “We aim to have the best-run ship in the Fleet, Commander Bainbridge—if not in the entire United States Navy.”
“Hear, hear!” Doug said, raising his tin cup in Rose’s direction.
Commander Rose did not look amused.
Doug took a long drink of his powdered milk, unconcerned. Rose had command of the ship, but he was not Doug’s superior officer.
**
First Dog Watch ended when the crew filed out of the mess hall, and Doug passed Ben Trebinski beside the door being relieved by his Second Dog Watch replacement. He held back a moment.
“How are you, Ben?” Ben stopped to salute, and Doug returned it. “At ease, seaman.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m fine—a little hungry, though.”
Doug lowered his voice and leaned closer. “I hope your punishment for that night at the Majestic hasn’t been too bad.”
A conflicted look crossed Ben’s pale blue eyes. “It was no more than we deserved, sir.”
Doug should have known Ben wouldn’t speak freely, not about that. “How is Bonadio holding up?”
A strange look crossed Ben’s square face for a second. “Don’t worry about him, sir. Nick can talk his way out of trouble as fast as he gets in it.”
Doug wondered what he meant, but Ben asked if he could be excused to get his grub, and Doug waved him on.
**
Doug sat at his desk in his private quarters after dinner, writing a letter to Lucy.
Like every officer on the ship, except Commander Rose in the captain’s quarters, Doug had a small private room with a desk and chair, dresser, small closet, and a bed under the porthole. It was hardly luxurious, but comfortable by shipboard standards, and filled with natural light during daytime hours.
By contrast, the enlisted men lived in smaller interior rooms with four bunks, two per side across a narrow aisle, with storage lockers beneath each bunk, leaving a berth less than three feet high to sleep in. “Coffin racks,” the men affectionately called them.
The ship rocked on the waves, telling Doug that they’d left the Yangtze estuary and were on open sea. The sky outside his porthole was a deep blue twilight. He stared at the handful of words he’d put on the paper in front of him, and then balled it up and tossed it into the waste bin.
His mind tumbled with thoughts from their discussion that afternoon, but he couldn’t make any of them coalesce into a coherent sentence.
At least, not anything he wanted to put into a letter.
He and Lucy almost never talked about marriage—both of them had always maintained they were not the marrying kind—but the longer he stewed about their conversation, the more he wondered why not.
It would make a lot of sense to get married. He’d never cared for anyone the way he did for Lucy. It would make a lot of things easier. Besides, they’d been together for two years; couples routinely got married after knowing each other less than a quarter of that time.
He’d never wanted to end up stuck in a polite but uncaring marriage, like his parents, and the parents of every friend he’d known growing up. But when he looked at Kenny and Abbie, or George and Betty, he saw much different relationships. They were happy, perhaps even blissful. Couldn’t he and Lucy be the same way?
Yes, they definitely could.
But another thought wouldn’t leave him alone—what if she said no?
The little clock beside his bed dinged nine o’clock, and he realized he’d been stewing about this for almost two hours. He put the paper and pen back in the desk drawer and got up.
He opened his door to go to the officers’ bathroom—quaintly referred to as “the head” by the crew—and nearly collided with Nick Bonadio, who had emerged from the captain’s quarters.
“Oh! My apologies, Seaman, I didn’t expect to see you,” Doug said, taking a step back. What was Bonadio doing coming out of the captain’s quarters?
“Sorry, Commander.” Nick snapped a quick salute—which he didn’t wait to be returned—and continued on his way.
“Everything alright, Bonadio?”
“Just fine, Commander, thanks for asking,” Nick said, only half-turning back toward Doug and barely pausing. He had a funny sort of crooked grin, and he brought his hand up in a half-hearted salute as he turned back around and hurried out of the officers’ corridor.
He really needed to start insisting on proper protocol from the enlisted men, Doug thought, too late, after Bonadio had disappeared around the corner.
He paid Nick no further mind, and walked to the restroom. He could hear one of the showers running in the next room, but otherwise the head was empty—one of the advantages of sharing it with only twenty-two other men, rather than two hundred and fifty others, as the enlisted men did.
The shower went silent while Doug stood at the urinal, and a few seconds later he could hear the metallic scrape of a shower curtain opening. The shower room in the officers’ head consisted of six stalls with curtains, lending a welcome sense of privacy; that stood in contrast to the shower room for the enlisted men, which was one big room with a drain in the center, and twenty shower heads along the walls.
Ensign Scott Farnsworth emerged from the shower room when Doug passed on his way to the sink. Farnsworth stopped short, startled. “Oh, excuse me, Commander.” He wore a bathrobe, and both hands held a wet towel draped around his neck. His wavy blond hair was damp and stood up at odd angles. At six-foot three, he was nearly as tall as Kenny, though not quite as slender.
“As you were, Farnsworth.”
“Thank you, sir. Have a good evening, Commander.”
A thought occurred to Doug while the young man passed behind him. “One moment, please, ensign.”
Farnsworth stopped short of the door and turned around. “Yes, sir?”
“Seaman Bonadio reports to you, doesn’t he?”
“He does, sir.”
“I thought so.” Doug’s curiosity got the better of him. “Did Commander Rose ask to meet with Bonadio tonight? Or did Bonadio ask you to arrange it for him?”
Farnsworth looked confused. “I’m not sure what you mean, sir—I have no knowledge of the meeting you’re referring to.”
Interesting. “Pe
rhaps he asked Lieutenant Stephenson, then.” Doug turned off the faucet and reached for a hand towel, but continued to watch the ensign out of the corner of his eye.
Farnsworth looked troubled. It would have been a breach of protocol for Bonadio to request a meeting with the ship’s commander without going through his immediate supervising officer—in this case, Ensign Farnsworth. And Doug couldn’t imagine Commander Rose requesting to meet with a member of the crew without following the downward chain of command.
“I can find out for you, sir,” Farnsworth offered.
Doug held up his hands and waved them to decline. “Don’t worry about it. Have a good evening.”
**
Tuesday, July 13
Doug sat at his desk in the radio room, just off the bridge, reading through the texts handed to him by the Radioman on duty, Petty Officer Third Class Patrick Callahan. The small room, colloquially known as the “Radio Shack,” had two doors, which both remained closed at all times—one to the bridge, which remained unlocked, and one to the “ladder” from Hall number one, which was always locked. This locked door stood next to Doug’s desk.
The lock clicked, and then Ensign Farnsworth opened the door only enough to slip inside, and then quietly closed it behind him. He faced Doug at attention, and saluted.
Doug stood and returned the salute. “At ease, ensign.”
“Thank you, sir. I apologize for the interruption, but I thought you would be interested in the direction I received this morning, concerning the personnel you asked about last night.”
Doug saw Farnsworth’s barely perceptible nod toward the Petty Officer sitting at the radio station, wearing headphones that did not block out one hundred percent of the sound from the room.
“We’ll step into the hall,” Doug said, quietly, and put his hand in his pocket to double-check that his key ring was there before following Farnsworth out.
They stood on the small landing at the top of the metal staircase. Farnsworth resumed the at-ease posture. “I appreciate your discretion, Commander,” Farnsworth began, and stopped.
“You can speak freely, Scott.” Doug hoped his use of the junior officer’s first name would inspire a more casual—and free—exchange.
“Thank you, sir. I was perplexed by your inquiry last night, so I spoke with Lieutenant Stephenson. He was also unaware that Seaman Bonadio met directly with Commander Rose. This vexed us both.”
Doug nodded, not surprised. But Farnsworth had mentioned receiving direction this morning. “Continue.”
“Yes, sir. When our watch began this morning, I was instructed by Lieutenant Stephenson that Seaman Bonadio would be released to free time with the rest of the men when his normal duties were finished. Commander Rose has released him from further KP and janitorial duties."
Interesting that Farnsworth would go out of his way to inform him of this. While it was understandable to be upset at the breach of protocol in Bonadio meeting directly with Rose, it was also a breach of etiquette for Farnsworth to go outside of his chain of command with that information. Unless...
“You questioned the timing, didn’t you?”
Farnsworth didn’t answer, but looked uncomfortable.
Doug tried a different approach. He clicked the sides of his shoes together and stood straighter. Farnsworth took the queue and stood at attention.
“Is it your opinion, Ensign Farnsworth, that Seaman Bonadio did not receive an adequate amount of discipline for going A.W.O.L.? I’d like you to answer me freely, please.”
“That is correct, sir. I believe it would send a stronger message to Seaman Bonadio, and to the rest of the crew, if his extra duties continued for a full week.”
In Doug’s observations that summer, Ensign Scott Farnsworth was no more of a disciplinarian than Commander Rose; it made no sense that Rose would suddenly release Bonadio from his punitive extra duties. The situation was really none of his business, but he knew he’d ponder it for a long time.
“At ease. Thank you, ensign. I appreciate the confidence you’ve placed in me, and I assure you that I will not violate it. Dismissed.”
Farnsworth snapped a salute, which Doug returned, and the young officer hurried down the ladder.
7
Saturday, July 24 – Shanghai
“Thank you for the lovely evening out,” Lucy said to Kenny and Abbie outside of the Metropol cinema on Thibet Road, where they had watched Charlie Chan at the Olympics.
“I hope you enjoyed the movie.” Kenny raised his hand to hail a motor cab.
“I thought it was a little creepy watching Inspector Chan ride across the Atlantic in the Hindenburg,” Abbie said, and shuddered.
“I got a chill when I saw it,” Lucy said, remembering the horrible images from the newsreels a couple of months before, after the Hindenburg had exploded in New Jersey. “But otherwise, I enjoyed the picture. It had a very progressive theme, didn’t it? Besides the mystery, of course. I mean, Inspector Chan’s son competes for the U.S. team in Berlin—the filmmakers had to know the message that sends.”
“It was a bit idealized, don’t you think?” Kenny opened the back door of the cab for Abbie and Lucy.
“I think that was the point,” Lucy replied.
Kenny gave their addresses to the middle-aged Chinese driver in Pidgin, and then turned toward Lucy. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that MGM was making a point to American audiences about racial equality. We all know that Chinese, Japanese, and negroes are treated as second-class citizens in the States—but just as Jesse Owens inspired admiration and patriotism among every group of Americans with his performance at the real Olympics, the film was making the point that a Chinese-American athlete could do the same.”
“People are moved by fictional stories,” Abbie said. “And films reach a larger audience than novels.”
“My point exactly,” Lucy said.
The cab came to a sudden stop just short of reaching Nanking Road. Outside the open windows, Lucy could hear strident conversations.
“I wonder what’s going on?” Kenny said, craning his neck out the window.
A Japanese marine came to the driver’s window, holding a rifle with a bayonet fixed to the end in one hand, and a flashlight in the other.
Startled, Lucy held her breath.
“Wantchee show face,” the Japanese marine said in Pidgin. He flashed his light first at the driver, and then to the three passengers in the back. Lucy squinted and looked down when the bright light passed across her, and she saw spots.
The marine looked back at the driver and waved him forward.
“What do you suppose that was all about?” Kenny asked, looking back through the rear windshield. “He’s stopped the car behind us now.”
“They’re looking for someone,” Lucy said, and flashed back to that night the previous September when Japanese marines had gone from building to building in the Hongkou district, forcibly searching every apartment for the assassins who had attacked four of their sailors.
“You don’t suppose a criminal is on the loose in this area?” Abbie said, sounding frightened.
Lucy put a hand on her knee and shook her head. “No, it would be the police checking vehicles if they were looking for a common criminal.”
“That’s true,” Abbie said, exhaling hard and relaxing back into the seat. Then she stiffened again. “You don’t suppose there’s been another assassination in Japantown, do you? Like all of those others last year?”
“I was wondering the same thing,” Lucy admitted.
“If that’s the case, why are they checking cars downtown, and not in Hongkou?” Kenny asked.
Lucy shrugged. Kenny was right—but perhaps there had been an attack on a Japanese national downtown, rather than in Japantown.
The cab continued up Thibet road until it came to Soochow Creek, and then turned right onto Soochow Road South, stopping several blocks later in front of Kenny and Abbie’s building.
Kenny paid the driver and st
arted to open the door, but then turned back toward Lucy with his hand still on the door handle. “Would you like to stay at our place tonight?” His eyes looked worried. “I hate sending you across into Hongkou, when we don’t know what’s going on with those Japanese troops.”
“Yes, please do,” Abbie said, insistent; she grabbed Lucy’s hand and squeezed it tight. “You can stay in the amah’s bed tonight, and she’ll sleep on the living room couch.”
Lucy smiled at them, but shook her head. “That’s awfully kind of you, but I’ll be fine.” Seeing their doubtful looks and worried eyes, she assured them, “If we run into any more Japanese troops, I’ll have the driver turn around and bring me back here.”
“You promise?” Abbie asked.
Lucy patted her hand. “I promise. Good night.”
She kissed them both on the cheek before they got out, and Kenny waved to her while he held the building door open for his wife. Lucy told the driver in Pidgin to take her to the next address.
She leaned back in the seat and tried to relax. She hoped she’d made the right decision.
She’d feel a lot safer if Doug were here with her, she realized as the driver crossed the Kiangse Road Bridge.
Once she was safely inside her own apartment with the door locked behind her, she finally relaxed.
**
Sunday, July 25
Lucy read in the newspaper the next morning that a Japanese sailor had gone missing from his unit, and his commanding officer feared foul play. That was understandable, given the current political situation. It had triggered the search of rickshaws and motor vehicles downtown last night—until the missing sailor turned up in a brothel on Foochow Road. The newspaper story concluded by saying he was disciplined for going A.W.O.L.
But no official apology to the citizens of Shanghai, I see. Lucy shook her head. She wasn’t surprised.
**
Tuesday, August 10 – Hongqiao Aerodrome
Jonesy peered through the thick darkness—it was truly dark out here, eight miles west of the city—at the three bodies lying on the road in splattered pools of blood in front of a bullet-riddled sedan, illuminated by the headlights of a dozen police vehicles encircling them.
No Accidental Death Page 5
