Tony and I went out into the brilliant sunlight to watch the miracle below us. From the unbroken shoreline of Tulagi bits of green shrubbery pulled into the channel. Then camouflage was discarded. The PT's roared around the north end of the island. Off toward Savo. The PT's were out again.
"I've been trying to find out something about the man," Tony continued. "Just a man named Anderson. Nobody knows much about him. He came out here from England. Does a little trading for Burns Philp. Went into hiding when the Japs took Tulagi. Came over to Guadal and volunteered for whatever duty was available. Medium-sized chap. You've heard his voice."
At 1100 the first Jap plane came into view. It was a Zero spinning wildly somewhere near the Russells. It flamed and lurched into the sea. The battle was on!
For an hour and ten minutes the sky above Guadal and Tulagi was a beautiful misery of streaming fire, retching planes, and pyres flaming out of the sea. The Japanese broke through. Nothing could stop them. We heard loud thunder from Purvis Bay. Saw high fires on Guadal. Eight times Jap fighters roared low over Tulagi. Killed two mechanics at the garage. But still we watched the breathless spectacle overhead.
Yes, the Japs broke through that day. Some of them broke through, that is. And if they had unlimited planes and courage, they could break through whenever they wished. But we grinned! God, we even laughed out loud. Because we didn't think the Japs had planes to waste! Or pilots either. And mark this! When Jap pilots plunged into the sea, The Slot captured them and they were seen no more. But when ours went down, PT Boats sped here and there to pick them up.
So, we were happy that night. Not silly happy, you understand, because we lost a PT Boat to strafers. And we could count. We knew how many Yank planes crashed and blew up and dove into the sea. But nevertheless we were happy. Even when Tony Fry came in slightly drunk and said, "That guy up there in the jungles. How long can he keep going? You radio men. How long would it take American equipment to track down a broadcasting station?"
There was no reply. "How long?" Fry demanded.
"Two days. At the most."
"That's what I thought," he said.
Next morning at seven the Remittance Man was happy, too. "The Japanese Armada limped home," he reported in subdued exultation as if he knew that he had shared in the victory. "I myself saw seven Planes go into the sea near here. I honestly believe that not more than forty got back. And now good news for one squadron. My little book tells me the plane with that funny nose is the P-40. One P-40 followed two crippled Jap bombers right into New Georgia waters. They were flying very low. He destroyed each one. Then the Nips jumped him and he went into the water himself. But I believe I saw him climb out of his plane and swim to an island. I think he made it safely."
The distant speaker cleared his throat and apparently took a drink of water. "Thank you, Basil," he said. "There will be something in The Slot tonight, I think. Four destroyers have been steaming about near Vella Lavella. Something's on! You can expect another landing attempt tonight. If you chappies only had more bombers you could do some pretty work up here today. Cheerio, Americans! Good hunting!"
Charlesworth was more excited than I had ever seen him before. Jap DD's on the move! His eyes flashed as he spread maps about the baking quonset. At 1500 Fry came down the winding path, dragging a carbine and a raincoat along the trail. "Might as well see if you trade-school boys can run this thing," he said as he climbed aboard.
At 2300 that night they made contact. But it was disappointing. The big stuff was missing. Only some Jap barges and picket boats. There was a long confused fight. Most of the Japs got through to Guadal. The PT's stayed out two more nights. On the last night they got in among some empty barges heading back to Munda. Got five of them. Fry shot up one with a Thompson when the torpedoes were used up. But the kill, the crushing blow from which the Japs would shudder back, that eluded them.
On the dreary trip home Fry asked Charlesworth if he thought the Remittance Man moved from one island to another in a canoe. "Oh, damn it all," Charlesworth said. "Stop talking about the man. He's just a fellow doing a job."
Tony started to reply but thought better of it. He went forward to watch the spray and the flying fish. As the boats straggled into Tulagi he noticed great activity along the shore.
A PT blinkered to Charlesworth: "The coastwatcher says tonight's the night. Big stuff coming down!"
"What's he say?" Fry asked.
"We're going right out again," Charlesworth said, his nostrils quivering.
Tony barely had time to rush up to the cave. He dragged me in after him. It was my first trip inside since he had taken charge. I was surprised. It looked much better than any of the quonsets. Spring mattresses, too. "I told the men to fix it up," Fry said, waving a tired hand about the place. "Commander," he asked quietly. "What did the..." He nodded his head toward Bougainvillea.
"He was off the air yesterday," I said. "This morning just a sentence. 'Destroyers definitely heading south.' That was all."
Tony leaned forward. He was sleepy. The phone rang. "Holy cow!" Fry protested. "You been out three nights runnin', skipper. You're takin' this war too hard." There was a long pause. Then Fry added, "Well, if you think you can't run it without me, OK. But those Jap destroyers have guns, damn it. Holy cow, those guys'd shoot at you in a minute!"
They left in mid-morning sunlight, with great shafts of gold dancing across the waters of Tulagi bay. They slipped north of Savo in the night. They found nothing. The Japs had slipped through again. Halsey would be splitting a gut. But shortly after dawn there was violent firing over the horizon toward the Russells. Charlesworth raced over. He was too late. His exec had sighted a Jap destroyer! Full morning light. Didn't wait a second. Threw the PT around and blazed right at the DD. On the second salvo the Jap blew him to pieces. Little pieces all over The Slot. The exec was a dumb guy, as naval officers go. A big Slav from Montana.
Charlesworth was a madman. Wanted to sail right into Banika channel and slug it out. He turned back finally. Kept his teeth clenched all the way home. When Fry monkeyed with the radio, trying to intercept the Remittance Man, Charlesworth wanted to scream at him. He kept his teeth clenched. A big thing was in his heart. His lips moved over his very white teeth. "Some day," he muttered to himself, "we'll get us a DD. That big Slav. He was all right. He was a good exec. My God, the fools can't handle these boats. They haven't had the training. Damn it, if that fool would only stop monkeying with that radio!"
Tony couldn't make contact. That was not his fault, because the Remittance Man didn't broadcast. Fry clicked the radio off and went forward to lie in the sun. When the PT hove to at its mooring he started to speak to Charlesworth, but the skipper suddenly was overwhelmed with that burning, impotent rage that sneaks upon the living when the dead were loved. "By God, Fry. Strike me dead on this spot, but I'll get those Japs. You wait!"
Fry grinned. "I ain't gonna be around, skipper. Not for stuff like that No need for me to wait!" The tension snapped. Charlesworth blinked his eyes. The sun was high overhead. The day was glorious, and hot, and bright against the jungle. But against the shore another PT was missing.
Back in the quonset Tony studied his maps, half sleeping, half drunk. In the morning the cool voice of the Remittance Man reported the weather and the diminishing number of Jap aircraft visible these days. Fry strained for any hint that would tell him what the man was doing, where he was, what his own estimates of success were. Charlesworth sat morosely silent. There was no news of surface movements. It was a dull day for him, and he gruffly left to catch some extra sleep.
Tony, of course, stayed behind in the hot quonset, talking about the Remittance Man. "This Basil he mentioned the other day? Who is he?" We leaned forward. For by this time Tony's preoccupation with the Englishman affected all of us. We saw in that lonely watcher something of the complexity of man, something of the contradictory character of ourselves. We had followed Tony's inquiries with interest. We were convinced that Anderson was an ordinary
nobody. Like ourselves. We became utterly convinced that under similar circumstances we ordinary people would have to act in the same way.
Fry might ask, "What makes him do that?" but we knew there was a deeper question haunting each of us. And we would look at one another. At Charlesworth, for example, who went out night after night in the PT's and never raised his voice or showed fear. We would ask ourselves: "What makes him do it? We know all about him. Married a society girl. Has two kids. Very stuffy, but one of the best men ever to come from Annapolis. We know that. But what we don't know is how he can go out night after night."
Tony might ask, in the morning, "Where do you suppose he is now?" And we would ponder, not that question, but another: "Last night. We knew Jap DD's were on the loose. But young Clipperton broke out of infirmary so he could take his PT against them. Why?" And Clipperton, whose torpedo man was killed, would think, not of the Remittance Man, but of Fry himself: "Why does a character like that come down to the pier each night, dragging that fool carbine in the coral?"
And so, arguing about the Remittance Man we studied ourselves and found no answers. The coastwatcher did nothing to help us, either. Each morning, in a high-pitched, cheerful voice he gave us the weather, told us what the Japs were going to do, and ended, "Cheerio, Americans! Good hunting!"
I noticed that Charlesworth was becoming irritated at Fry's constant speculation about the coastwatcher. Even Anderson's high voice began to grate upon the skipper's ears. We were all sick at the time. Malaria. Running sores from heavy sweating. Arm pits gouged with little blisters that broke and left small holes. Some had open sores on their wrists. The jungle rot. Most of us scratched all the time. It was no wonder that Charlesworth was becoming touchy.
"Damn it all, Fry," he snapped one day. "Knock off this chatter about the Remittance Man. You're getting the whole gang agitated."
"Is that an order?" Fry said very quietly, his feet on the table.
"Yes, it is. You're bad for morale."
"You don't know what morale is," Fry grunted, reaching for the whiskey bottle and getting to his feet. Charlesworth pushed a chair aside and rushed up to Tony, who ignored him and slumped lazily toward the door of the quonset.
"You're under quarters arrest, Fry! You think you can get away with murder around here. Well, you're in the Navy now." The skipper didn't shout. His voice quivered. Sweat was on his forehead.
Fry turned and laughed at him. "If I didn't know I was in the Navy, you'd remind me." He chuckled and shuffled off toward the cave. We didn't see him in the quonset ever again.
But it was strange. As the tenseness on Tulagi grew, as word seeped down the line that the Japs were going to have one last mighty effort at driving us out of the Solomons, more and more of the PT skippers started to slip quietly into the cave. They went to talk with Tony. Behind Charlesworth's back. They would sit with their feet on an old soap box. And they would talk and talk.
"Tony," one of them said, "that damn fool Charlesworth is going to kill us all. Eight PT's blown up since he took over."
"He's a good man," Tony said.
"The enlisted men wish you'd come along tonight, Tony. They say you're good luck."
"OK. Wait for me at the Chinaman's wharf." And at dusk Fry would slip out of the cave, grab a revolver, and shuffle off as if he were going to war. Next morning the gang would quietly meet in the cave. As an officer accredited directly to Charlesworth I felt it my duty to remain loyal to him, but even I found solace of rare quality in slipping away for a chat with Tony. He was the only man I knew in the Pacific who spoke always as if the destiny of the human soul were a matter of great moment. We were all deeply concerned with why we voyagers ended our travels in a cave on Tulagi. Only Fry had the courage to explore that question.
As the great year ended he said, "The Remittance Man is right. The Japs have got to make one more effort. You heard what he said this morning. Ships and aircraft massing."
What you think's gonna happen, Tony?" a young ensign asked.
"They'll throw everything they have at us one of these days."
"How you bettin'?"
"Five nights later they'll withdraw from Guadal!" The men in the cave whistled. "You mean..."
"It's in the bag, fellows. In the bag."
You know what happened! The Remittance Man tipped us off one boiling morning. "Planes seem to be massing for some kind of action. It seems incredible, but I count more than two hundred."
It was incredible. It was sickening. Warned in advance, our fighters were aloft and swept into the Jap formations like sharks among a school of lazy fish. Our Negro cook alone counted forty Zeros taking the big drink. I remember one glance up The Slot. Three planes plunging in the sea. Two Japs exploding madly over Guadal.
This was the high tide! This was to be the knockout blow at Purvis Bay and Guadal. This was to be the Jap revenge against Tulagi. But from Guadal wave after wave of American fighters tore and slashed and crucified the Japs. From Purvis our heavy ships threw up a wall of steel into which the heavy bombers stumbled and beat their brains out in the bay.
In the waters around Savo our PT's picked up twenty American pilots. Charlesworth would have saved a couple of Japs, too, but they fired at him from their sinking bomber. So he blasted it and them to pieces.
He came in at dusk that night. His face was lined with dirt, as if the ocean had been dusty. I met him at the wharf. "Was it what it seemed like?" he asked. "Out there it looked as if we..."
"Skipper," I began. But one of the airmen Charlesworth had picked up had broken both legs in landing. The fact that he had been rescued at all was a miracle. Charlesworth had given him some morphine. The silly galoot was so happy to see land he kept singing the Marine song: Oh we asked for the Army at Guadalcanal But Douglas Mac Arthur said, "No!"
He gave as his reason,
"It's now the hot season, Besides there is no USO."
"Take him up to sickbay," Charlesworth said, wiping his face. The injured pilot grinned at us. "That's a mighty nice little rowboat you got there, skipper!" he shouted. He sang all the way to sickbay. At dinner Charlesworth was as jumpy as an embezzler about to take a vacation during the check-up season. He tried to piece together what had happened, how many Japs had gone down. We got a secret dispatch that said a hundred and twelve. "Pilots always lie," he said gruffly. "They're worse than young PT men." He walked up and down his hut for a few minutes and then motioned me to follow him.
We walked out into the warm night. Lights were flashing over Guadal. "The Japs have got to pull out of that island," Charlesworth insisted as we walked up the hill behind his hut. When we were on the plateau he stopped to study the grim and silent Slot. "They'll be coming down some night." To my surprise he led me to the cave. At the entrance we could hear excited voices of young PT skippers. They were telling Tony of the air battles they had watched.
We stepped into the cave. The PT men were embarrassed and stood at attention. Tony didn't move, but with his foot he shoved a whiskey bottle our way. "It's cool in here," Charlesworth said. "Carry on, fellows." The men sat down uneasily. "Fry," the commander blurted out, "I heard the most astonishing thing this morning."
"What was it?" Tony asked.
"This Remittance Man," Charlesworth said. "I met an old English trader down along the water front. He told me Anderson was married to a native girl. The girl broke her leg and Anderson fixed it for her. Then he married her, priest and all. A real marriage. And the girl is as black... as black as that wall."
"Well, I'll be damned!" Fry said, bending forward. "Where'd you meet this fellow? What was he like? Holy cow! We ought to look him up!"
"He said a funny thing. I asked him what Anderson was like and he said, 'Oh, Andy? He was born to marry the landlady's daughter!' I asked him what this meant and he said, 'Some fellows are born just to slip into things. When it comes time to take a wife, they marry the landlady's daughter. She happens to be there. That's all.'"
The cave grew silent. We did not
think of Jap planes crashing into The Slot, but of the Remittance Man, married to a savage, slipping at night from island to island, from village to hillside to treetop.
At 0700 next morning all of us but Fry were in the steaming quonset listening to the Remittance Man. We heard his quavering voice sending us good cheer. "Good morning, Americans!" he began. "I don't have to tell you the news. Where did they go? So many went south and so few came back! During the last hour I have tried and tried to avoid optimism. But I can't hide the news. I sincerely believe the Nips are planning to pull out! Yes. I have watched a considerable piling up of surface craft. And observe this. I don't think they have troops up here to fill those craft. It can mean only one thing. I can't tell if there will be moves tonight. My guess, for what it is worth, is this: Numerous surface craft will attempt to evacuate troops from Guadalcanal tonight. Some time after 0200." There was a pause. Our men looked at one another. By means of various facial expressions they telegraphed a combined: "Oh boy!" Then the voice continued: "You may not hear from me for several days. I find a little trip is necessary. Planes are overhead. Not the hundreds that used to fly your way. Two only. They are looking for me, I think."
From that time on the Remittance Man never again broadcast at 0700. He did, however, broadcast to us once more. One very hot afternoon. But by then he had nothing of importance to tell us. The Japanese on Guadal were knocked out by then. They were licking their wounds in Munda. They didn't know it at the time, but they were getting ready to be knocked out of Munda, too.
The Remittance Man guessed wrong as to when the Japs would evacuate Guadal. It came much later than he thought. When the attempt was made, we were waiting for them with everything we had. This time the PT boats were fortified by airplanes and heavy ships. We weren't fighting on a shoestring this time.
Tales of the South Pacific Page 9
