Raging Sea, Searing Sky

by Christopher Nicole

  He held her shoulders and brought her back to him, and looked into her eyes. Shallow green eyes. Only...they weren’t all that shallow, any more. He wondered if they ever had been. You don’t know, he thought, and I can’t tell you, how much of a fool I have been, my dearest May. How much more you have to forgive me for than I you. I can only make it up to you.

  He kissed her. ‘I deal in presents and futures, not pasts. But May...you mean you never touch the stuff, now?’

  She shrugged. ‘I have a drink now and then. But I can take it or leave it. Maybe...maybe I’ve at last got over the Lusitania. Nearly nine years. Does that make me some kind of a moron?’

  He remembered once thinking there was something wrong with her. Then he had found out it was simply that she could not control her promiscuity. So maybe drink had been a means of doing that. But now she had, indeed, grown up. ‘I don’t think I’ve gotten over the Lusitania yet myself,’ he told her. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

  *

  Suddenly life had taken on a new dimension. Because he was married to a new woman. Or, as he reflected so often, to a woman rather than a girl. When he was given another seagoing posting he was afraid she might be upset, but she just seemed happy for him. When he suggested that she should move down to Norfolk, however, she declined. He pointed out that the incident of 1922 was long forgotten, but she insisted that she just could not contemplate the life of a navy wife, at least when surrounded by other navy wives, and having seen a good deal of the pecking that went on in the pecking orders at navy bases he couldn’t altogether argue with that. Their relationship was a peculiar one, in that her allowance from Lord Gerrard, which in fact came from her father’s estate, seemed to have been increased, and her income was now considerably more than the salary of a lieutenant-commander, so there was no question of forcing her to do something she didn’t want to. Somewhat to his own surprise he felt no resentment at this, rather a sense of relief that they at least had none of the financial worries which beset so many of his brother officers. While she had definitely made her own circle of friends in New York, and she had clearly found the ambience that she liked in the city; he reminded himself that she had lived here for two years before 1915 — and then realised that it would have been here she had become pregnant the first time. He didn’t know whether that should concern him or not. She made no attempt to involve him in her society, but when she had supper parties during his furloughs the guests were usually professional people, quiet and well mannered, and if he sometimes felt that he was the stranger in his wife’s home it was a treat to see May so sophisticated and efficient a hostess. She did employ a maid, but as a maid rather than a nanny, and looked after the children entirely herself, driving both Joan and Clive to school. She raised the subject of Clive’s future education, and wanted him to go to an English public school when he was thirteen. Lew could hardly argue with that, either, as it had been Mom’s intention for him, and he was very conscious of the fact that his own education had come to such a sudden full stop at so early an age — he owed it to the war that he had got so far so fast.

  And the war was now an increasingly distant memory, so that lieutenant-commanders were inclined to remain lieutenant-commanders for considerable periods. It was in fact a frustrating period for serving officers, for while everyone knew that the United States Navy needed a great deal of overhauling and indeed expansion, this was limited both by the Washington Agreement and by the economic blight after 1929. By the terms of the Treaty no new battleships could be laid down at all until the nineteen already in commission reached the end of their serviceable lives, and even the oldest ships, such as Florida and Utah, were not retired before the end of the decade, but it was galling to watch the British — allowed to replace their wartime losses — produce the two newest and most powerful battle-waggons in the world, Nelson and Rodney, both within the thirty-five thousand ton limit standard displacement to be sure — but both well over forty thousand tons when fully loaded. They were of a revolutionary design, in that their superstructure was all aft, their guns all forward — when it was pointed out that this prohibited firing astern the rejoinder was that the Royal Navy did not steam away from an enemy. Certainly if their appearance was unusual, no one could argue with the power of their nine sixteen-inch guns — no American ship carried anything larger than fourteen-inch. The British concept was clearly intended to match the Japanese Nagato class, which were also armed with sixteen-inch guns, but the British ships were more heavily armoured, and no one could doubt that the Royal Navy was again the most powerful in the world.

  At least the Japanese were also prohibited by the Treaty from laying down any new capital ships; the Americans were more worried about their serious deficiency, compared with other navies, in cruisers, particularly heavy cruisers. Several of these were ordered during the twenties, but again it was a stop start business as there were peace conferences and armaments limitations conferences which increasingly made the politicians reluctant to spend money on national defence. And even cruisers were limited at the second Naval Conference, in 1930.

  In addition to these uncertainties, the navy, and indeed the army, were bedevilled by the airplane controversy, which was compounded by profound differences of opinion between the experts not only as to how dangerous the airplane and the bomb could be, but on the correct method of using such new weapons. Matters came to a head when General Billy Mitchell was actually courtmartialled for expressing his outspoken views that the army was following a dangerously mistaken path in not taking the menace from the air seriously enough.

  The navy did complete its two aircraft carriers, however. Lexington and Saratoga were big ships, both well over the Treaty limits — but the Treaty had not taken aircraft carriers into consideration at all. Displacing some forty-three thousand tons when fully laden, nearly nine hundred feet long overall, capable of making more than thirty knots at full speed, and carrying sixty-three planes as well as eight eight-inch guns, these were clearly the new queens of the sea. A fact that was not lost on the other major naval powers. Great Britain did not build any new carriers during the twenties, but converted three ships to launch planes, although none was half as powerful as the two giant Americans, but the Japanese went ahead with Akagi, sister of the ill-fated Amagi, and she came out only fractionally smaller than the US ships, while another cancelled battleship was rebuilt as the Kaga, even larger and more powerful.

  Lew actually served a term on Lexington soon after she was commissioned, but much as he enjoyed it, he was made to feel very much an old fashioned sailor by the new-fangled concepts which were in vogue, and he longed for a command of his own. But it was not until the spring of 1931, just before Clive was due to leave for England, and school, that he achieved his ambition.

  ‘I know it’s frustrating,’ Joe McGann remarked as he and Lew and May and the children dined at a New York restaurant that evening. May was in fact taking all the children, Joan and Wally having never met their great uncle or seen England at all. ‘Navies in peacetime are a bore. But it has to be better than being at war.’ He grinned at them. ‘And at least you’re employed, which is more than can be said for a lot of other guys. And there’ll be a place at Annapolis for you, young man, when you come home.’

  ‘I wish I was staying here, with Mom and Pop,’ Clive grumbled.

  ‘Well, with Mom anyway,’ Lew reminded him.

  ‘What a shame you can’t come with us,’ May said. ‘Crossing the Atlantic still gives me the willies.’

  ‘I’d be a fifth wheel to a coach,’ Lew pointed out. ‘Especially at your uncle’s place. I don’t think the butler likes me.’

  Joe watched them with contented eyes, and when they returned to the apartment and May was putting the children to bed he remarked, ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am the way things have worked out.’

  ‘Snap,’ Lew said. ‘Sometimes I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Yeah. So, when do you get a new posting?’

  Lew grinned at him.
‘Today. Pearl. And a destroyer.’

  ‘But say, that’s great. Your first proper command. Why the heck didn’t you tell me at dinner, and we could have celebrated. May must be over the moon.’

  ‘Um.’

  Joe frowned. ‘Doesn’t she go for golden sands and waving palms?’

  ‘Well...I haven’t actually told her yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well...she’s so settled in here. She’s made a whole special niche for herself, and frankly, I think that’s what’s keeping her on the straight and narrow, as much as anything.’

  ‘But you don’t intend to leave her here while you’re based in Honolulu?’

  ‘No, I don’t want to do that...but she’s going to England tomorrow, and making the break herself, as it were. I think I’ll talk about it when she gets back.’

  ‘I would do it now,’ Joe recommended.

  Lew thought about that, and realised his father was right. He raised the subject the following morning, as they breakfasted by themselves; May and the children were not due to board until that evening. ‘I’ve been given a command,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Lewis!’ she cried. ‘How splendid.’

  ‘Is it a battleship, Pop?’ Clive asked.

  Lew grinned. ‘Lieutenant-Commanders do not command battleships. But she’s a destroyer, and a good one.’

  ‘What’s her name?’ Joan asked. At nine she had her mother’s golden hair and was already starting to have her facial beauty as well.

  ‘Hestor.’

  ‘Yippee,’ Clive said. ‘When can I see her?’

  ‘Well,’ Lew said carefully. ‘Next time you’re on vacation.’ He drew a long breath. ‘She’s assigned to Pearl Harbour.’

  ‘Oh? Where’s that?’ May asked, buttering toast.

  ‘Pearl is in Honolulu, Mom,’ Clive explained.

  ‘Honolulu?’

  ‘Hawaii,’ Joan told her mother.

  ‘Ho-no-lulu,’ Wally chanted.

  ‘That sounds rather a long way away,’ May commented.

  ‘Oh, I wish I were coming with you, Pop, instead of going to some crummy English school,’ Clive said.

  ‘You’ll love England. You were born there,’ May pointed out.

  ‘And you will be coming to Honolulu,’ Lew said, still carefully. ‘On your summer vacations, anyway.’

  ‘Will I? You mean we’re going to live there?’

  ‘Well, as your mother has just pointed out, it’s rather a long way from New York.’

  May was gazing at him. ‘You want us to leave New York and go to live on some desert island?’

  ‘My darling girl, Hawaii is hardly a desert island. It’s one of the most beautiful places on earth.’

  ‘It has volcanoes,’ Joan confided.

  ‘Volcanoes?’ May’s voice rose an octave.

  ‘Oh, yes, Mom. They explode. It’s lovely.’

  ‘There are no active volcanoes on Oahu,’ Lew said firmly, and prayed he was right.

  ‘I would like each of you to go to your room and check very thoroughly that you have forgotten nothing that should have been packed,’ May said. ‘I am going to do the same. Perhaps you could help me, Lewis.’

  He followed her into the bedroom, and closed the door. ‘How long have you known about this posting?’ she asked.

  ‘I found out just before coming up here.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Well, there was so much to be done about your trip...I really didn’t intend to tell you until after you came back. But it’s better this way.’

  ‘Oh, it is,’ she said. ‘Definitely, Lewis, I do not wish to go to this place...Honolulu?’

  ‘May...’

  ‘I do not wish to be shut away on a naval base. You know that, Lewis. I just cannot contemplate it. Nor can I believe it’s the best place for the children. They regard New York as their home. I want them to go on doing that.’

  ‘And you regard New York as your home, too.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I have always liked New York. And I have lived here now, if you include the two years before the war, longer than anywhere else in my life.’

  ‘Okay, so New York is your adopted home. You’ll be coming back here, in time. But that doesn’t mean you can’t leave it for a while. The posting won’t be for more than three years.’

  ‘Three years?’

  ‘I reckon.’

  ‘Lewis,’ she said. ‘I do not want to leave New York. I do not want to go to Hawaii. I do not want to be stuck in Pearl Harbour.’

  ‘May,’ he replied. ‘I do not want to be separated from you for three years.’

  ‘You’re going to get no furloughs in that time?’

  ‘Sure I’ll get furloughs. But only a couple of them will give me the time to come all the way back here.’

  ‘We’ve been separated before. We were separated for eighteen months while you went round the world.’

  ‘And I didn’t enjoy it. Did you?’

  She made a moue. ‘I accept that it’s part of being a navy wife. You made me accept that.’

  ‘Okay. But sometimes it’s avoidable. Look, you don’t have to live in Pearl. We’ll find you a house outside. Outside of Honolulu, even.’

  ‘On the slopes of a volcano.’

  ‘You don’t want to start believing everything your children tell you.’

  ‘I don’t want to go, Lewis.’

  He gazed at her. But he knew that he had to be as firm with her now as he had been in Washington, or their marriage was simply going to drift apart. ‘But you are going to have to, May. In Honolulu I should be able to be home just about every weekend. I want us to try to be a family. I want you in Honolulu.’

  Her face had become a mask. She was such a stranger to him nowadays he could never tell what she was really thinking. ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘I will have to assume you wish to end our marriage.’

  ‘And you don’t want that.’

  ‘For God’s sake, May, I love you.’

  She did not make the expected reply, continued to gaze at him. He knew what she was doing now: trying to estimate just how determined he was.

  ‘But if you do end it,’ he said, ‘over a refusal to accompany your husband to a perfectly reasonable posting, I don’t see any court in the country awarding you custody of the children.’

  ‘You seem to have done a lot of thinking about it,’ she remarked.

  ‘May,’ he took her in his arms. ‘I didn’t want to quarrel about it. You are going to love Hawaii. Believe me. And Hawaii is going to love you.’ He kissed her. ‘Now come along, you’re not setting off for England without a proper goodbye.’ He carried her to the bed, laid her on it.

  It was the first time he had ever made love to May, and felt unwanted.

  *

  But he had gained the victory, the very necessary victory, he told himself. Of course there was a chance that May might decide not to return from England, which would involve a great deal of trouble, but he doubted she would do that; he doubted the children would let her. And as was usual with May, she got over her pique very quickly, and was her normal self when he accompanied them on board the Mauretania that evening. The Mauretania was now a very elderly lady indeed, as she was the only survivor of the great pre-war liners, but she was still one of the most comfortable and fastest ships on the North Atlantic run, and being so similar to the Lusitania, just to stand on her deck brought back a whole host of memories. ‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked May as they climbed to the boat deck; unlike that first day out on the Lusitania, it was crowded.

  ‘Remembering,’ she said.

  ‘Me too.’

  They looked at each other while the children ran up and down in a state of high excitement.

  ‘Was it all worth it, May,’ he asked.

  She made a moue. ‘I have never regretted it, Lewis.’

  ‘Not even now?’

  ‘Not even now,’ she said.

  He held her close to say
goodbye. ‘You’ll love Hawaii,’ he told her again. ‘I’ll have a house ready by the time you arrive.’

  *

  He made that a high priority, and found a place which he had no doubt would suit her; a bungalow perched on a slope looking down at the sea. It came complete with a Hawaiian maid and gardener, was delightfully light and airy, and was only half a mile from the beach. The trouble with May, he thought, was that she possessed to the full the innate conservatism of the English. It would just be a matter of getting used to her new surroundings. As for the children, he reckoned they were going to think they were in paradise.

  But so was he, when he took command of USS Hestor. She was not, of course, a new ship, for no destroyers had been laid down since the Treaty either, but she was one of the most recent, for she had only been completed in 1921. Three hundred and fourteen feet overall length, she was thirty-seven feet in the beam and when fully loaded drew twelve feet, which made her an altogether larger ship than the old Carlton; in fact she displaced nearly eighteen hundred tons when ready for sea — yet her crew was considerably less: thanks to modern technology she could be handled by just one hundred and one officers and men.

  She had two boilers to power her twin-shaft turbines, which could develop thirteen thousand horsepower and move her at speeds of up to twenty-four knots. She had been designed for several knots higher speed, but had never accomplished it. Her four hundred and twenty-nine tons of fuel oil, however, gave her an extensive range. She was armed with three three-inch guns, an anti-aircraft battery, and four depth charge projectors; unlike Carlton, she was a hunter rather than an attacker and carried no torpedoes.

  Lew’s executive officer was Lieutenant Harry Pimm, and the other officers were Ensigns Cooley and Jonssen, Midshipman Sousa, Engineer-Lieutenant Abrahams, and Surgeon-Lieutenant Schmidt. All had heard of their famous new commanding officer, as had the crew, and were eager to welcome him aboard. So was the flotilla leader, Captain Burns. ‘We don’t do a lot, McGann,’ he said. ‘You’re gonna have few opportunities to add to those medals out of Pearl. But we have a lot of fun.’