“I’ll take my chances,” he said. “They’re starting to pay attention to mortality rates back in Nouméa. If that log is any indication, having a surgeon like you on the team will make a big difference to ours.”
“Okay, Colonel,” I said. “I’m just a lieutenant, so I need to go back to my boat squadron, talk to my skipper. If he’s okay with this, then I’ll be glad to join your team.”
“Yes, that’s the proper way to do it. In the meantime, I will—”
The ship’s interior telephone system rang. Maddox picked it up and then listened. He said thank you and hung up. “That was the bridge watch. The ship’s captain’s reporting a formation of B-17s is coming through the area at high altitude. He and I have an agreement that he’ll notify me of any other ships or aircraft in our vicinity, ours or theirs, so I can alert the medical staff.”
“Is this ship armed?” I asked. “I didn’t see any hospital ship markings.”
“We have a ten-man Marine detachment on board,” he said. “They have small arms, basically; otherwise we have no bigger guns to speak of. We’re not marked because the Japs apparently have been instructed to seek out and sink any hospital ship on sight. I presume you heard about the Aussie ship one of their subs got. Marked, you know, with all the required red crosses and the big green stripe on her sides. Fully lighted, unmistakable hospital ship. Jap bastards torpedoed her anyway.”
“Yes, sir, that was the Centaur,” I replied. “We did hear about that.”
Just then there was a booming explosion some distance from the ship. Then a second. It wasn’t gunfire—I knew what that sounded like. Maddox sprang over to the porthole just as a string of six more thumping blasts reverberated through the ship, each one just a second apart and definitely getting closer. I looked out a second porthole, expecting to see our destroyers blasting away at enemy aircraft, but they were still steaming along, although one began belching smoke and accelerating when those dirty white fountains from underwater explosions erupted a hundred feet into the air. There was a brief pause and then more bombs, because that’s what they had to be, rained down in our vicinity, one exploding close enough to rattle the bulkheads in Maddox’s stateroom. Then we actually got hit.
There was a loud crash aft of where we were standing as a bomb hit amidships. We could actually hear the damned thing smashing through the ship’s unarmored decks. I think both of us closed our eyes and held our breath, waiting for the inevitable big blast. It didn’t happen. Then there were more explosions in the sea, this time on the other side of the ship, and thankfully going in the away direction.
“It’s those B-17s,” Maddox hissed in an angry voice. “They’re bombing one of their own ships! Dumb bastards!”
The bombs stopped coming and then the phone started ringing. Maddox answered the phone with a loud “What!” still furious at the Army Air Force bombers. He listened intently and then his red face went pale. “Oh, God,” he said. “I’ll be right down. Get everybody out of there—patients, staff, every body. And notify the captain.”
He hung up the phone and sat down, shaking his head. “There’s a bomb parked in the OR. Big bastard, too. Definitely one of ours—green, with English words and numbers on the side. The nose went through the OR deck but stopped there. The tail is sticking straight out of the deck, and there’s a little propeller rotating slowly on the tail.”
Oh, shit, I thought. The EOD people back on Tulagi had explained what those little propellers were for. “Call ’em back,” I said immediately. “Tell them to put some surgical tape on that propeller so it can’t move.”
“I don’t see—”
“Now!” I yelled. “That propeller is a counter. When it reaches its count, it fires the bomb!”
His eyes went wide. He made the call and gave them instructions. Then the captain called and said he was returning to Rendova because the Army had some bomb disposal people there. I thought that was a great idea, because then I could get off and find Bluto. I really wanted to ask him what the hell I should do.
NINETEEN
We pulled in just before sunset. There’d been a bombing raid on Rendova two hours before, but a division of destroyers had arrived that morning to refuel from a tanker anchored in the harbor. Their combined gunfire, even while at anchor, had driven off the raid, with three Bettys splashed outside the harbor. One of our MTBs brought two injured sailors over to Montrose, and I quickly thumbed a ride back to our little base on Bau Island. The boats looked a lot worse for wear after their cross-channel operations around New Georgia. The guys taking me back told me that the drive toward the airfield at Munda had bogged down into a bloody slugfest, emphasis on the bloody part. Most of the Army troops over there hadn’t been on Guadalcanal for the big show and were learning the hard way what it was like to fight real Japs, dug-in. I asked the skipper what the boats had been doing.
“Everything,” he said, wearily. “Mostly night ops in support of the Army. Not much in the way of fighting but lots of people-moving and logistics runs with emergency ammo and food supplies. We’ve got a second, sort of emergency base on New Georgia, but it’s pretty basic. We wanted to be indispensable; we’ve succeeded, but with the Army, not the Navy. How do you like them apples?”
Bluto was still out when I got to Bau but Higgins was there to greet me. They’d upgraded the medical station a little, but it was clear that Montrose was carrying the load. We repaired to the command tent as full darkness fell. Higgins hadn’t lost his ability with screamers, so we were pretty relaxed when Bluto came roaring in, turning the air blue about some Army colonel who’d questioned his authority. From what little I could understand, the FUBARmy was the single most screwed-up organization on the planet, in the solar system, in the Goddamned galaxy, which couldn’t, etc., etc. Then he spied me.
“And where the hell have you been, Doc?” he roared, as if I’d been AWOL. I looked over at Higgins, who looked over at Bluto, who deflated. “Right. You went out on that hospital ship. How’d that go?”
“Well, today we got bombed by our own planes,” I offered. “Montrose has a five-hundred-pounder stuck in her OR and a new skylight. Fortunately, it didn’t go off.”
“And lemme guess,” he said. “Those were Army bombers, am I right?”
I nodded. He closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head, then hit the screamer pitcher and ordered me to tell him all about it. I did, and then focused on the colonel’s request for me to join the surgical team on Montrose in return for a doc from the hospital ship for the squadron. He drained his screamer and growled for another, which was quickly provided.
“That makes some sense,” he said. “You’re a surgeon. You can’t do surgery here, but you can on that ship. But still…”
“I’ll miss the boats and evening prayers,” I said. “But I think they could use some help.”
“And it’s not like we’re doing much in the way of combat operations,” he said ruefully. “We’re high-speed taxis most of the time.”
“Well,” I said. “If things are that tough over there on New Georgia, you’re probably the only way they can piss on the fire of the hour. Speed doesn’t seem to be the Army’s strength.”
He laughed at that. “Understatement of the year,” he said. And then he relented. “Actually, they’re trying their hearts out. Sometimes literally. The Japs have gone crazy. Word is they can’t believe we threw them off Cactus and now, here we are, on the next stepping stone to Rabaul. Their officers have ’em hopped up on some kind of drugs and they come out of the dark, screaming like banshees, jump into our trenches with swords and knives, all foaming at the mouth.”
“What’s the Navy doing?”
“They’ve got their hands full, too. Big night fights out at sea. Some we win, some we don’t. It’s not as bad as those first few months around the ’canal, but it seems like they’re getting into those scary torpedo fights every other night.”
“Sounds like MTBs could help with that, if only to throw some shit into their form
ations.”
“They don’t love us anymore,” he grumped. “If they ever did.”
“What happened?” I asked. Then I remembered—the flagship.
“We-e-l-l, one of our new guys torpedoed the amphib commander’s flagship as they were going in on New Georgia. It’s a long story, which ends with a wet admiral. No, if we’re gonna be useful, it’s the Army or nothing. I’m starting to miss the night runs around Savo.”
“You’re all alone there, Boss,” one of the boat skippers muttered, to much laughter. Even Bluto grinned.
“So, you think I should go to the Montrose?”
“I do; so yes, take the offer. Go be a surgeon. From everything I’ve heard, you got the gift for it.”
That was the first time I’d heard anything like that from Bluto. I was suddenly struck by the fact that individuals were being talked about in this sprawling conflagration. That was a little bit scary. The doc on the Montrose said I was famous; notorious might have been closer to the mark. What had Major Bergin said? You’re that guy.
I was back aboard by midnight, seabag in hand. Montrose got under way at 0100 after having received the latest clutch of casualties from New Georgia. An hour later I was scrubbed in and going to town, assisted by one of the original surgeons and three extremely competent army nurses. The bomb was still there in the middle of the OR suite, but some Army bomb disposal guys had removed all the fusing components, which rendered it inert. The holes through the upper decks had had temporary plates welded on, but it would take a crane to get the actual bomb casing out. Some wag had put a white Dixie-cup-style sailor’s hat on the rear fuse assembly stub.
After doing three fairly complex thoracic surgeries, I changed roles and assisted my heretofore assistant as he did the fourth one, coaching as we went along. He was nervous but he did well. He should have—he’d completed the full scope of surgical training. He knew what to do; it was the fact that he’d mostly only seen it done before that had made him hesitate. After that procedure, I floated among the individual tables. By sunrise I thought I had a pretty good sense of who could do what and who would need help. The colonel came down around five in the morning and did his own walk-around, then pulled me aside and asked for a briefing. When I’d finished, he nodded approvingly.
“Perfect,” he said. “Keep doing what you’re doing. I sense a lot more confidence around here.”
I went up to the top deck to see about some coffee and maybe even breakfast. I spied the head nurse, Major Bergin, and asked if I could join her. During the night I had seen her circulating and solving problems. Unlike many of the Hollywood-movie head nurses, Patsy was kind, almost motherly, and it was obvious that the younger nurses loved her. Breakfast on the Montrose wasn’t a whole lot different from breakfast on Guadalcanal, so I’d opted for coffee and the attempt the ship’s baker had made at bread for toast. I wondered where the donuts had come from.
“Well, Doctor,” she said with a tired smile, “what’d you think?”
“It’s all relative, Major,” I said. “I started out on Guadalcanal in a big, wet tent with battle lanterns for light, red mud floors, no ventilation, electricity when and if the generators were running, bloody instruments being boiled in fifty-five-gallon drums, and having to duck when the occasional round whacked through the tent walls. This is medical paradise, in comparison.”
“I suppose it is,” she said. “Nouméa was mostly tents, as well, but no Japs and a pretty good supply chain.”
“We came ashore with the Marines and the Seabees,” I said. “Unfortunately, the supporting fleet bailed out on us a few days later with half of our supplies, food, and ammo still on board. Triage became a very sad procedure.”
“I hate triage more than anything else,” she said. “Especially when you know the guy’s not going to make it, but you can’t tell him that. I cried in my bunk for several nights before I realized that I had to be tougher than that. Still…”
“Yeah,” I said. “Still. And then there are the horrible ones where the only option is a thiopentone spinal.”
She shuddered. “The colonel put out the word that there was no reason to put someone who’d basically been blown in half but was still sort of alive through the agony of a boat ride to the Montrose. Field medics were authorized to do what they had to do, as long as a medical doctor authorized it.”
I sighed. I was suddenly aware that I’d been up all night and needed some sleep. We were well out to sea with our trusty destroyer escorts, which meant that there’d be no new patients for several hours.
“You need to hit the sack, there, Doctor,” she said. “By the way, I’m hearing the nurse anesthetists were quite impressed last night.”
“I’m not the wunderkind that people think I am, Major,” I said. “It’s just the fact that I’ve done so many of these operations that makes people think I’m somebody special. There’s still a hell of a lot I don’t know.”
“Hold that thought, Doctor,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “And, please, call me Patsy.”
TWENTY
Bad weather overtook us that day, going from a relatively calm sea to howling winds, heavy rain, and an ugly chop that made even Montrose bounce and roll a bit. The destroyers, when we could see them, were underwater half the time, their bulky radar antennas looking like periscopes. Perversely, the storm kept us from going back into Rendova for almost thirty-six hours, which meant that everybody, patients, staff, ship’s company could get some real—meaning more than a couple hours—sleep for a change. Colonel Maddox took that stand-down opportunity to do a comprehensive survey of our medical supplies and equipment. He sent out a message to Nouméa describing what we needed, including a recommendation to send one surgeon and two nurses back for failing to make the grade. He let me see the message before sending it out, and I was relieved to see that there was nothing about my joining the medical staff in it. He grinned when he saw my obvious relief.
“No point in waving red flags, now, is there, Doctor,” he said. I was beginning to really like this guy, fat rolls and all. I asked him if he actually thought he’d get those supplies.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “They’ve brought two whole squadrons of those Catalinas into Nouméa, with one rotating up to Cactus and the other staying behind. If the stuff’s there, they can get it here in forty-eight hours.”
We arrived back at Rendova around eight the next evening and found a mess: a destroyer with her bow blown off all the way back to the bridge, courtesy of a torpedo fight near some island called Kolombangara, a heavy cruiser with her forward-most turret in splinters following a turret explosion, and two dozen casualties from my own MTB squadron after they ran into a bunch of Jap barges and their destroyer escorts on the northeast side of New Georgia, where the Japs were landing reinforcements. Fortunately, there’d been an LST, USS Harlan County, in the harbor, so there’d been somewhere safe to put all the wounded.
The transfers began immediately. Montrose also needed fuel, so the Army harbormaster sent a fuel barge to come alongside and fill her empty bunkers while she onloaded casualties from the LST on the other side. It wasn’t long before we had to tell Harlan County to hold whomever they had left. We were out of room in both the triage area and the operating rooms. The Army general in charge of the New Georgia operation heard about that and started raising hell, citing Montrose’s advertised troop capacity for 2,500 men. The problem was that there were that many berths down below, but not all of them were equipped to provide life support for badly wounded men.
At 0200 it was time to clear the harbor. There were still 160 casualties on board Harlan County, so the decision was made to have her go out to sea with us. They had one doctor on board and he could begin immediate first aid. In the meantime, I was back at the operating table, given the sheer quantity of the casualties. There was no time for me to just roam through the operating suite, supervising. The nurses moved some cots into the areas outside the curtained tables so that the surgeons could lie down for a few minutes
between operations while they cleaned the table and got the next case under anesthesia. I found out there were some Marines among the wounded, which surprised me because I thought that New Georgia was strictly an Army show. The Marines told me they’d been sent in to reinforce the Army division. As one of the Marines boasted, the Army guys gave it a good try but now it was time for the first team to end the stalemate. That sounded right to me, but I still admired his bravado, lying there with one and a half arms and a morphine drip going.
We got out to sea in good order. We were down to one destroyer escort, the other having been pulled into the ongoing sea battles to the north of New Georgia. The seas were calm enough for boat transfers the next morning. Harlan County had two bow-ramped amphibious boats on board which could bring us twelve patients at a time. Two of the Montrose’s berthing compartments had been converted into post-op recovery rooms, so we had someplace to put the people we’d treated or operated on. The surgeons got some sleep while the transfers were taking place, and we had a fresh set of nurses by the time we went back to the OR. There was a brief scare at noon when an unidentified plane overflew our little formation at high altitude. We then suspended the transfer operation while the two ships moved thirty miles to the south in case that plane had been a Jap reconnaissance aircraft.
For the next twenty-four hours we slogged through the patient backlog, operating on the most urgent and then the less so. Not all our patients required surgery, but every one of them required care. Colonel Maddox had begun hounding Nouméa for the supplies. He told them we had only two more days’ worth of medical supplies for the operating tables, after which we’d be out of business. He’d exaggerated, of course, but not by much. If we got another load like this last one, he’d have been right. Rendova was already asking when we’d be back in. I asked Maddox why they didn’t set up a hospital on Rendova. I’d thought Montrose was supposed to have been a temporary solution to an unexpected casualty load from New Georgia. He pointed out that any field hospital set up on Rendova would have been subjected to bombing raids. Until we had complete control of the air around that area, we couldn’t do much to change the situation. That would require an airfield, and that, of course, was the whole objective of the New Georgia campaign—that relatively large Jap airfield at Munda, from which we could then stage fighters, bombers, and whatever else we needed to advance toward their big nest at Rabaul.
The Hooligans Page 19
