‘Well, there’s nobody left to fight,’ Lew argued. ‘Is there?’
‘Ah, now there is a point. Still, it is our duty to be prepared.’
‘Is that why you’re building those two monsters back in Japan?’ The question slipped out before Lew had intended it, but it had been much on his mind.
Hashimoto gave a quiet smile. ‘Our people deserve the best. As do yours. Are you going to say that the United States is not building any new warships?’
‘I’m sure we are,’ Lew agreed. ‘But there has to be some limit on size, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Heck...because if there isn’t, we could wind up with ships of forty, fifty thousand tons.’
‘Or more. The ships of the future, Lew. Can you imagine what it would be like to command a sixty thousand ton battleship? Twice the size of Yamashiro!’
‘It’s an impossible concept. What would it fight?’
‘Why, presumably if someone were to build a sixty thousand ton battleship, others would follow suit. If they did not...then the navy with the big ship would dominate the rest. It would dominate the world.’
Lew gazed at him. Hashimoto’s eyes were shining; he might be talking about a dream, but it was a dream he thought could be realised.
Then Hashimoto laughed, and clapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Do not look so askance, Lew. You must permit us poor people to take these things more seriously than do you rich ones. America is wealthy, with ample resources, and tremendous strength. We are a small, weak, overcrowded country. We can barely feed ourselves. And we he almost within the embrace of two huge nations, Russia and China. Neither has a battle fleet at this moment, of course, but who can say they will not get one, and soon? And Russia may be in a state of revolution, but revolutions resolve themselves, sooner or later, and no Japanese can afford to forget that Russia has not forgiven us for Port Arthur, much less Tshushima. We can never afford to neglect our fleet.’
‘Point taken,’ Lew agreed, and reflected that it was going to be a very long conference.
*
‘Sixty thousand tons,’ Joe McGann reflected. ‘That would be some design. By God, this conference just has to work.’
‘If such a ship is practical,’ Lew argued. ‘Oh, it’s practical,’ said the third man in the room, Admiral Sims. ‘There is no theoretical limit to the size a battleship can be. However...one wonders if it is practical in terms of being worthwhile. Have you read this new book by this Italian fellow, Douhet?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ Joe confessed. ‘He’s in the Italian air force, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, granted. But it’s worth reading. Rather frightening reading, too. I’ll let you have my copy. Douhet’s theory is that all present forms of warfare, land and sea, are going to be rendered obsolete by the aeroplane.’
‘That’s a bit far-fetched, isn’t it, sir?’ Lew asked.
‘Why should it be? Oh, sure, the planes we have now, and the kind of bombs they can carry, don’t pose much of a threat to a battleship at sea.’
‘A five hundred pound bomb would make a mess of Tennessee,’ Joe growled.
‘Agreed. But I said, at sea. There’s no plane in the world can carry a payload like that very far from base and hope to get back, at this moment, anyway. So there’s no threat right now. But who can tell in a year or two they might not be building really big planes as well as really big ships.’
‘A battleship has to be able to defend itself against aircraft, sir,’ Lew argued.
‘Not if they can get overhead. The point is, Commander, that our ships, and those of most other countries, are conventionally armoured to resist shells fired from other ships. Okay, so there is a curved trajectory, but even so, the armour is nearly all belt armour. There is not one of our ships with as much as five inches of deck armour to protect them from plunging shot, simply because even a plunging shot, fired from another ship, is going to come in at an angle. But you above anybody should know the damage plunging shot can do, after Jutland.’
‘Those battlecruisers had hardly an inch of deck armour,’ Lew agreed.
‘Well, we’re working on increasing that, even in our existing ships, much less any that may be built. But every inch means one hell of an increase in weight. So how do you reconcile that with belt armour, which the diehards still insist is most important, and with fifteen-inch guns, which is what everybody would like to have, and with bigger engines to move the ship faster...and yet keep within thirty-five thousand tons?’
‘There was never a battleship built that wasn’t a compromise between what we would like to have and what we can have,’ Joe asserted. ‘Anyway, that’s a question for the future. The distant future.’
‘I don’t agree, Joe. Because one aircraft overhead, carrying, as you say, a five hundred pound bomb, isn’t just going to be plunging shot. It’s going to come straight down like a falling star.’
‘But as you say, hardly out at sea. And no battleship at sea is going to stand still long enough for any plane to line itself up.’
‘Suppose there were half a dozen aircraft? Or even more?’
‘Now you really are talking about the future?’
‘Shouldn’t it be possible to shoot any attacking aircraft down, sir?’ Lew asked.
‘Now, there is the real answer,’ Joe agreed. ‘Pompoms. You heard about these pompoms, Bill?’
‘Some Scandinavian design, by a chap called Bofors,’ Sims said. ‘Multi-machine guns, right?’
‘Mounted on a swivelling turret. Made for anti-aircraft defence.’
‘Yes. Well, the sooner we are fitting those to our battleships, and reinforcing the deck armour, the happier I’ll be. Now, I’ve a British admiral to take out to lunch. Joe. Commander.’
Lew saluted, and waited for the door to close. ‘You reckon he’s right, Dad?’
‘Sure. In maybe twenty years. After my time.’
‘But not after mine.’
‘Now there’s a point. Maybe it’s something you should study.’
‘Yes,’ Lew agreed, thoughtfully.
Joe McGann pointed with his pencil. ‘And maybe it’d be an idea to find out what your friend Kurita thinks about it, too.’
‘You mean you want me to act the spy, as well as everything else.’
Joe grinned. ‘As you just said, Lew, it’s going to be your problem. Not mine.’
*
‘Oh, good drive,’ Hashimoto said, following the flight of Lew’s ball down the fairway. ‘You will be down in two.’
Lew waited for his friend to drive off; Hashimoto was really far the better golfer, and was already two up — but then, he gathered that expertise at golf was a necessary part of a Japanese naval officer’s training. And Hashimoto’s ball pitched some twenty feet beyond his.
They strolled along the fairway together, their caddies at a respectful distance behind them. ‘Have you heard of this book by Giulio Douhet, the Italian?’ Lew asked calmly.
‘Oh, indeed,’ Hashimoto said. ‘I have a copy in my cabin. What do you think of it?’
‘Ah...’ Lew was momentarily taken aback. ‘I haven’t actually read it yet. But it’s been recommended to me.’
‘And I would certainly study it,’ Hashimoto agreed. ‘It is a frightening picture of the future of warfare, perhaps. Of entire cities laid waste by aerial bombing, armies driven to shelter in holes, and worst of all from our point of view, navies scattered and sunk without ever firing a shot at each other.’
‘Bit far-fetched, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Nothing is far-fetched, Lew. When you think of the changes that have taken place in the last hundred years, screw engines, armour, the submarine, the torpedo, the big gun, the speed...it is difficult to imagine what more changes the next hundred years may bring. But we can be certain of one thing: they will be terrifying.’
‘So where does that leave these super-battleships you are building.’ They had reached the balls, and he was preparing to address himself with
an iron; the tee was still a hundred yards away.
Hashimoto watched his swing. ‘Now, that is a shame,’ he remarked, as the sliced ball veered to the right and they saw a puff of sand. ‘It merely means that battleships will have to be adequately defended.’
‘By additional armour, and anti-aircraft guns,’ Lew suggested.
‘Oh, indeed.’ Hashimoto settled his feet, waggled his hips, and struck a perfect ball, which bounded onto the green and rolled to within three feet of the pin. ‘But also by aircraft carriers.’
‘Carriers?’ Lew led the way towards the bunker. In the American Navy carriers were thought of as platforms for bomb delivery, not defence; they did not actually possess any, in any event, save for the Langley, which had been built as a fleet collier and had only just been converted. He knew that two had recently been laid down, to be called the Lexington and the Saratoga, but the decision had been a controversial one.
‘Of course. Carriers should not only carry bombers,’ Hashimoto said. ‘They should also have several squadrons of fighters, which would be able to meet and beat off an enemy air attack before it could near the fleet.’ He peered at Lew’s ball. ‘That lie is not so bad.’
‘Yes,’ Lew agreed, taking out his mashie, but actually agreeing with what his friend had said. ‘And you already have such a carrier?’
Hashimoto turned away from the cloud of sand. ‘Oh, good shot,’ he said again, for Lewis’s ball was on the green. ‘Well, we have Hosho. She was an oiler, which was converted. Very like your Langley. But like your Langley, she is really a mishmash, a nothing. We must aim for something better.’
Lew watched him sink the putt. But you haven’t laid them down yet, he thought.
Hashimoto picked up his ball. ‘As for our two new ships, which are so much on your mind,’ he said. ‘Do you know that a proposition has been put to us by your father that we scrap them?’
‘Good heavens,’ Lew said, mishitting.
‘Oh, bad luck,’ Hashimoto said.
Lew got the ball into the hole at the second attempt. ‘It’s this thirty-five thousand ton limit that we’re trying to achieve.’
‘An absurdity,’ Hashimoto commented.
‘I think it makes sound common sense,’ Lew argued. ‘For everyone’s sake.’ He glanced at his friend as they walked to the tee. ‘Aren’t you going to go along with it?’
‘Oh, I suppose we shall.’ Hashimoto grinned as he placed his ball. ‘We wish to cooperate with all the world.’ His grin widened as he took out his driver. ‘We shall have to think of something else to do with our new ships.’
*
The Navy band played soft music, and the huge room glittered with light and with medals and gilt and bare shoulders, as the dancers waltzed. It hummed with conversation, too, and tinkled with glasses, even if the strongest drink being served was strawberry punch. But it was a great occasion.
‘Do you know, sir,’ remarked Commander Longbridge, R.N, ‘there were times when I thought we would never reach agreement.’
‘I guess we all felt that way,’ Lew agreed, watching the dancers gyrating in front of him. ‘But we made it.’
‘Hard to believe,’ Hashimoto commented, standing on his other side. ‘May is looking very beautiful tonight.’
For at that moment she whirled past them in the arms of a French captain.
‘May looks very beautiful every night,’ Lew pointed out. Certainly in her dark green gown, her gleaming shoulders and plunging décolletage, her swirling hair, which she wore loose — and which she was the only woman in the room still wearing long as the fashion for bobbing crept across the country, just as she was the only woman in the room to have accentuated rather than attempted to reduce her bust — she was the dominating female figure at the ball. She was not to everyone’s approval, of course, certainly amongst the more elderly female Washingtonians who were regarding her with some hostility. Possibly, he thought, because their husbands so obviously found her irresistibly attractive.
‘Oh, indeed,’ Longbridge agreed. ‘I understand your wife is English, Commander.’
‘Indeed she is,’ Lew said.
‘I should very much like to meet her. Although, I am sure I have met her before, somewhere.’
‘Perhaps you have,’ Lew said, wondering if he had been in the crowd at the club on armistice night in 1918. Or on one of the other occasions. And what he should do if he had been. He had never been jealous of May, at least, since their marriage. May was May. Yet suddenly he was aware of irritation, which he suppressed with an effort. ‘I’ll introduce you when the dancing stops.’
‘I say, that would be awfully good of you.’
‘Hello, Lewis,’ said a quiet voice.
He turned, his heart seeming to come right into his mouth. Brenda Walsh was very much in fashion, her black hair cut short, her white gown worn to the neck; she was utterly elegant, tall and slender and poised. Dan was at her shoulder, and was smiling, where Brenda was serious. So, Lew thought, we still share a secret — it was impossible to suppose Dan would be smiling at him if he knew anything of their courtship.
‘Brenda!’ He squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek, then reached past her to shake Dan’s hand. ‘How very good to see you. I only heard about your wedding a couple of months ago.’
‘Well, it was a long engagement,’ Dan said.
‘Congratulations, anyway. But how long have you been in Washington? I had no idea you were here at all.’
‘Well, we’re down in Norfolk, actually. Returned to duty a month ago. But some of us...’ Dan grinned and looked adoringly at his wife, ‘I guess the ones with the best looking gals, were called up here for this occasion. I hear you guys have sorted out all the problems of the world.’
‘All the naval ones, anyway.’ The music had stopped, and the French officer was escorting May towards him, then giving a little bow before sidling off.
‘That man dances divinely,’ May said.
Lew took a long breath. ‘May, I’d like you to meet Dan Walsh. Dan and I were at Annapolis together.’
‘Well, hello,’ May said, looking Dan up and down.
‘And Brenda, his wife. We knew each other at Annapolis, too.’
This time May’s glance, and greeting, were more perfunctory.
‘And Commander Longbridge, Royal Navy,’ Lew went on.
‘My great pleasure, Mrs McGann. Haven’t we met somewhere before?’
May regarded him for a few moments. ‘I don’t think so, Commander,’ she said at last. ‘You simply have to excuse me for a moment. I’ll be right back.’
Lew sighed. He knew her main reason for going to the toilet was to take a swig from her flask. But as long as nobody else knew that...
‘Lew has told me about you,’ Hashimoto was saying to Dan, and Longbridge was looking after May.
‘She is utterly beautiful,’ Brenda said softly. ‘Perhaps I can understand why you changed your mind.’
‘You read my letter.’
‘Of course, the boy. Then shall I say she must have made it easier for you to change your mind. How is your son?’
‘Growing up. I have a daughter now, too. And you?’
A barely discernible shadow flitted across her face. ‘Dan and I haven’t been married long enough, Commander.’
‘Ah. Would you care to dance?’
Brenda hesitated, glanced at her husband, and then said, ‘I would, yes.’
This was a slow number, and she settled easily against him, as he remembered her doing from the roadhouse outside Annapolis, which was of course only a few miles away. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to revisit it during his months in Washington.
He looked down into her face. ‘Dan knows about us?’
‘He knows we were engaged, of course. Everyone knows that.’
‘I told him myself. I meant, does he know why we broke it off?’
‘Nobody knows that, Lewis.’
‘Come again?’
‘I simply exercised my p
rerogative as a woman, and said I had changed my mind.’ She gazed at him. ‘You did say in your letter that I could say anything I wanted.’
‘Sure I did. But...here I was thinking all of these years that I am regarded as the biggest heel in the United States Navy.’
‘We’ll just keep that our secret, shall we? I guess they all think you’re the hardest done by man in the Navy. Although,’ she added, ‘when they see you with that gorgeous creature on your arm, I suppose they all start envying you.’
He followed the direction of her glance. May had just come back into the room, and was standing there, and to Lew’s consternation he could swear she was swaying. The last time he had seen her do that was their wedding night. But at that moment Commander Longbridge, who had been hovering, went up to her and obviously asked her to dance, because a moment later they were on the floor.
‘I’d still like to know why you did it,’ he said.
Brenda shrugged, in his arms. ‘I told you, I read your letter.’
‘And felt sorry for me.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘I didn’t feel sorry for you. I felt sorry for me. But I did understand there was nothing else you could do.’
‘So you don’t have any wild urge to slap my face.’
‘Oh, I do,’ she said. ‘I would like to kick you where it would most hurt. Was she the girl you spent that week with?’
‘Yes.’
‘You told me she seduced you.’
‘Well, she did. But I was happy to be seduced.’
‘I imagine you were.’
The music stopped, but Lew gave a hasty glance and saw that May and Longbridge were still on the floor, obviously having an animated discussion, and waiting for the next number.
‘Care for a rest?’ he asked.
‘Why not. I assume,’ she said over her shoulder as they went on to the gallery, ‘that nowadays you are actually a gentleman as well as an officer?’
‘Except when pushed.’ It was remarkable how this girl attracted him so much and irritated him so much at the same time.
‘I must remember that.’ She looked through the window at the twinkling lights of the Capitol; it was a very cold February night and there was no question of going outside. ‘What does it feel like to be famous, a hero, married to a beautiful woman, with your feet firmly set on the ladder upwards.’
Raging Sea, Searing Sky Page 21
