It was impossible to believe in sin or death this morning. Life was filling his lungs, cascading in his veins. The immense Pacific sea and sky were so incredibly beautiful. A procession of fat white clouds, like a line of galleons, sat on the horizon. The sun burned in a sky so intensely blue it seemed to radiate its own light.
In front of the division, Ensign Herman Kruger was reminding them of various things from the Plan of the Day. There was a gunnery drill scheduled for 1000 hours. He urged everyone to do his best to impress the new captain. "First, however, two of you have some business with the captain. Flanagan and Peterson, report to the master at arms office for Captain's Mast."
Flanagan's exhilaration vanished. How would he ever explain it to his father if he got thrown into the brig? He found himself thinking about how proud his father had been when he joined the Navy. Eighteen-year-olds were not even being drafted yet, and he had volunteered. He had never been very close to his father. Tom Flanagan had had night shifts so often as he rose through the police department ranks, half the time he had been sleeping when his children came home from school. After he became a precinct captain he worked a sixteen-hour day. What would he, a cop, think and feel if he was forced to tell his friends his son was in jail! Flanagan vowed that if he got out of this mess he would never violate another regulation.
Chief Boatswain's Mate Biff Nolan, the master at arms, gave them a hostile leer when they reported to his office. "F Division fuckups," he said. "They gave you guys the right initial all right. Especially you, Peterson."
"How come we're the only guys who got charged? What happened to the other seventy-five who got grabbed by the SP's while we were in Long Beach?" Peterson asked.
"The exec dismissed all the other cases at his mast. But when he saw your name, he said he wished he could triple the charges. I told you to get off this tub before he fixed your ass permanently."
"Can you give us a look at the charges?" Peterson said ignoring Nolan's remarks.
Nolan showed Peterson the report on him and Flanagan. They were lumped together as drunk and disorderly, and accused of causing a riot and resisting arrest.
"Let me do the talkin'," Peterson whispered to Flanagan as they made their way forward to the captain's cabin. The maroon rug on the deck, the red leather couch and chairs against one bulkhead, the gleaming walnut table and drop-lid desk opposite them, looked like luxury to Flanagan. The executive officer, Commander Parker, and Ensign Kruger arrived just ahead of them. Kruger explained to the captain that he was acting as F Division officer because Lieutenant West had the watch on the bridge. The captain stood in the center of the cabin and listened gravely while the executive officer read him the charges.
"Those are pretty serious. Do you have anything to say on behalf of these men?" the captain asked Kruger.
"Only that I feel Third Class Petty Officer Peterson should be disciplined severely, Captain," Kruger said. "He constantly sets a bad example to the younger men."
The captain gave Kruger a puzzled look. "I thought a division officer defended his men at Captain's Mast, Mr. Kruger."
"I'm here to speak for Flanagan. It's his first offense. But take a look at Peterson's record, Captain. He seldom goes ashore without getting into trouble."
"What have you got to say for yourself, Peterson?" the captain asked.
"It's definitely my fault, Captain," Peterson said.
"Seaman Flanagan came to my support after the fight started. He left his girlfriend at a very crucial moment and rushed to my defense. A lot of other guys whose charges have been dismissed by Commander Parker did the same thing. They all saw I was fightin' for the honor of the ship. Those tin-can guys were callin' us yellow. I couldn't let them get away with that."
"Why were they calling us yellow?"
"They say we ran out on the other ships at Savo Island. And in the Java Sea."
The captain flushed. A tinge of red ran up his neck into the smooth olive skin of his cheeks. Flanagan wondered if Peterson had just talked them into a life sentence. "Do you believe that?"
"No, sir," Peterson said. "I wish we could have gotten in a few licks at the other guys at Savo. I had ranges on at least two Jap ships, but we never got the order to fire. I guess it was because that shell knocked out main plot."
Even Flanagan knew enough about fire control to realize Peterson was ignoring the auxiliary computers in main forward and in the range finder itself that could have taken over main plot's job. Even if these were not functioning, the turrets could fire independently on local control. Jack was going out of his way to tell the captain something he wanted him to know.
"What the hell are you talking about, Peterson?" Commander Parker snarled. "It was pitch black that night. You couldn't get a range on anything."
"Sir, on the California, they used to call me Jack the Cat. I've got very good night vision," Peterson said. "I called down ranges on two ships. One was a destroyer, the other a cruiser."
"What's your explanation for why we didn't fire on those ships?" Captain McKay said.
"I have no idea, Captain. Some people believe there's been a jinx on the Jefferson City ever since we took two chaplains out to Manila, just before Pearl Harbor. Two chaplains on a ship is bad luck."
"I've never heard that one before. That's as dumb as the flying fish jumping through a porthole."
"I guess it depends on whether you're superstitious or not, Captain."
"We're going to get plenty of chances to change our luck — and prove we aren't yellow — very soon. In the meantime, I'll dismiss these charges."
"Thank you, Captain," Peterson said.
"But in deference to Ensign Kruger's opinion, you're confined to the ship at Pearl Harbor, Peterson. Does that satisfy you, Mr. Kruger?"
"Not entirely, Captain. I just hope that. Peterson realizes it's a serious warning.
"Consider yourself warned, Peterson," the captain said. "Seriously warned," Commander Parker said.
Parker and Master at Arms Nolan were glaring at Peterson. Flanagan was baffled. He could understand why Kruger was perpetually furious at Jack. Why did the other two dislike him so much?
Gunnery
In the sea outside the Jefferson City's hull, depth charges thudded. One of the escorting destroyers had picked up a submarine contact. Captain McKay had ordered the gunnery exercise to continue. He probably considered it a good chance to simulate battle conditions. For the fire control men in main plot, it was almost too realistic.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Montgomery West watched. Fire Control man First Class Ralph Bourne dial into the Mark VII computer the range he was receiving from Jack Peterson in the main battery director high in the ship. West noticed that Bourne's hand was shaking. He looked at the range and saw 5,000 yards when he could have sworn the talker had just reported 4,000. Elsewhere around the big computer, other fire control men were dialing in wind velocity, the speed of the ship and the target. Their faces were expressionless. Two of them, Bob Edison and Bob Finch, had already requested transfers to another battle station. No one wanted to work where so many shipmates had died.
"Christ," Edison gasped when the depth charges came closer. "I wouldn't put it past those destroyer jerks to blow a hole in us."
"Yeah," muttered Finch. Both blond giants from Minnesota, they were known as the Bobbsey Twins because they perpetually echoed each other's opinions.
West kept asking himself how an officer dealt with this incipient panic. Should he meet it head-on, pour scorn and sarcasm on it? The trouble was, he understood its source. He could not stop remembering the grotesque shapes and postures of the dead when he led the working party into this compartment on that first morning in Long Beach harbor.
"Is that range right, Bourne?" he asked.
Bourne twitched. "Sure it's right," he said. He was a slim balding man with a tattooed heart on the back of his hand. From Connecticut, he had a Yankee's instinct for machinery.
He liked to boast there was nothing on the ship that he co
uld not fix. He could take a computer or a gun director apart and put it back together again in a day. But this gift did not make him a warrior. He had been planning to get out of the Navy when Pearl Harbor froze all enlistments for the duration.
"What was the range you just gave us?" West asked the talker, a pudgy kid from New Jersey, with a projecting underlip that made him look perpetually worried.
"I don't remember," he said.
"Ask it again."
"Plot to main forward. Could you repeat the range?"
A torrent of sound poured into the talker's ears. "Sir, it's the gunnery officer," he said, looking as if he was about to burst into tears. "He wants to talk to you."
"What in God's name are you doing down there, West?" screamed Lieutenant Commander Edwin Moss. "If you don't get the range into your computer the second you hear it, we'll all be at the bottom of the ocean."
"Sorry, sir. What is the range?"
"Four thousand yards."
His face burning, West handed the earphones back to the talker. "It's four thousand yards," he said to Bourne.
"That fucking kid told me five thousand," Bourne shouted. "Forget it. Just get it right," West said.
"I want that fucking kid out of here. I don't like the fucking expression on his face," Bourne raged.
"Dial it in, for Christ's sake!"
"What do you know about Christ, you fucking phony? You're just here for the publicity."
For a moment those vicious words reduced everything in West's soul to junk. The memory of Ina Severn's love, his defiant commitment to Navy, country, manhood, at the risk of his movie career, collapsed. So this is what the enlisted men thought of him? In the ruins, he heard his answer as if it were a stranger's voice.
"I'm going to forget what you just said, Bourne. Let's get the goddamn guns on target."
Bourne glared at him with wild hatred in his eyes. Montgomery West realized the man was hoping he would return hatred for hatred and banish him from main plot. Bourne was that scared. Somehow, seeing and understanding the petty officer's frenzy ignited fresh terror in West's mind and body. It was not only the threat of death, it was revulsion at the thought of dying in such a muddle of rage and frustration. He was an officer. He was supposed to know something about leadership. But how did you lead men when the enemy was invisible, when all you could see were numbers and machines and a sealed hatch and a three quarters of an inch steel bulkhead holding back the sea? When so much of your strength went into concealing your own fear?
On their second day of gunnery exercises, Frank Flanagan ascended to his station in main forward to find Boats Homewood and Jack Peterson having a violent argument.
"It's a shitty assignment, Boats. What ya tryin' to do, get rid of the kid?" Peterson said.
"That's not the goddamn point. I think he'd be good at it. We need some good men on them guns."
"Who'd be good at what?" Flanagan said.
"Nothing'. Forget it," Peterson said.
"I want to give you a shot at the forty-millimeter gun directors," Homewood said. "Jack says it's too dangerous. You don't look like the kind of guy who worries about that sort of thing."
"Tell him how many other guys have volunteered," Peterson said.
"So far I only got six and I don't like any of them. They're just tryn'a get outta main plot," Homewood said.
"How about giving me a look at the deal," Flanagan said. He had been wondering how he could escape the main battery director without hurting Jack Peterson's feelings. He hated the foul air, the impossibility of seeing what was happening inside that overgrown tin can. He had complained about it to Homewood.
Peterson took him down a short ladder to the Mark 51 director that aimed one of the forty-millimeter mounts they had added to the Jefferson City in the dry dock at Long Beach. Four Swedish-made Befors guns were in each mount; they had long menacing barrels and flaring muzzles.
The director was on a small platform beside the mainmast, about twenty feet above the mount. It looked like a half-finished robot. The squarish head was the sight. You stepped inside two bicycle-handle arms that protruded backward. The thing practically embraced him when Flanagan pressed his body against it and looked through the glass head.
"Stop and think about it for a second, kiddo," Jack Peterson said. "This is a hell of a dangerous battle station."
"What difference does that make? If the ship goes down we all go together, right?"
"An awful lot of guys can get killed without the ship goin' down. You'd be surprised how much thought most guys give to where they want to be stationed at General Quarters. You got about as much protection up here from strafin' planes and shrapnel from near misses as the Christians had against the lions in the Collasalum. The director's pretty safe, believe it or not. It's armored against strafers, and most main battery hits on a ship are in the hull."
"I still want to go for it," Flanagan said, deciding not to correct Jack's pronunciation of Colosseum.
"I like the idea of being able to shoot back."
"You barely hear the big guns inside the range finder. Out here they're gonna blow your fuckin' ears off.”
“Stop tryin' to scare him, and give him a lesson, Jack," Homewood said. "I don't want any of Kruger's asskissers to get this job. They'll be so busy wipin' the shit off their legs they won't have time to fire a shot. These guns could save our hides against them Jap torpedo planes."
Peterson shrugged and showed Flanagan how to sight and aim the director. "It's got a gyroscope inside it that measures the rate of turn and elevation of the target so you get the guns at the right angle and with the right lead," he said. "Those Bofors fire a hundred and twenty shells a minute. You don't need to hold the trigger down too long. Steady, that's the key to good gunnery. Steady aim, steady shootin'."
Flanagan did a half dozen dry runs, getting a gull or flying fish in the small oval circle inside the larger sight, holding the target there and pressing the trigger on the handle. "I definitely want to go for it," he said.
Homewood watched, beaming. "You got an Irishman on your hands, Peterson.”
"I don't mind him on my hands," Peterson said. "I just hope he don't get splashed all over the deck."
Jack went off to work on the main battery director. Homewood waited until he was well out of earshot and grabbed Flanagan's arm. "Okay, I done you a favor and talked Jack into doin' one too. Now I want you to do me one. And him too, but he won't know about it."
"Sure," Flanagan said.
"Stick close to Jack till we get to Pearl. That's where we'll find out just what sort of shit's likely to come down for our fuckup at Savo. They told Jack to get the hell off like the rest of the guys who could testify, but he don't take orders from anybody if he can help it. I backed him in this case because I think somebody ought to get his pecker hung out to dry for what happened that night. But these guys are playin' a rough game. They put one man over the side already to show they mean it. You got a knife?"
Flanagan shook his head. He was too astonished by what he was hearing to do anything else.
"Take this one," Homewood said, unbuttoning a bone-handled knife in a leather sheath from his belt. "You musta used one growin' up in the Bronx. Pretty rough place from all I hear."
Flanagan decided not to try to explain to Homewood that there were no gang wars in the sedate middle-class neighborhood off Fordham Road where he had grown up.
"I mean really stick with him. If he heads for the big crap game in one of the handlin' rooms after lights out, or to the card game in the chiefs' quarters, you got to go with him. I'll cover whatever you lose. Especially don't let him go up on deck alone after dark. That's when you want to keep this thing real loose."
Homewood worked the blade half out of the sheath. Flanagan wondered if he was having a bad dream.
Whistling determinedly, Ensign Richard Meade led his men up the ladder into mount one. The hatch was barely big enough to admit his strapping body. He squeezed through the opening and stood to one
side while the rest of the gun crew grunted past him. Meade inhaled the odor of burnt gunpowder inside the box-shaped capsule. He studied the gleaming brass and silver breeches and rammers of the two five-inch guns. It was his third day on the job, and Dick Meade stubbornly told himself that in spite of what had happened yesterday, he loved it.
On their previous voyage, he had been in damage control. He had begged Captain Kemble to let him become a gunnery officer, but he had insisted on keeping him in damage control. Captain McKay had been more amenable.
When Dick Meade was six, he had listened in rapture to his father describe his experience as a turret officer on the cruiser Marblehead. His father had decided to make money instead of war, as he liked to put it; Meade sensed — no, he knew — that his mother regretted this decision. She was part of the reason he had decided to make the Navy his career, in spite of his father's disapproval.
Meade watched while his mount captain, Johnny Chase, a lean aloof man with a livid scar down one side of his face, positioned himself between the guns. Under Chase's cold eye, the shell men and powder men took their positions on opposite sides of the two guns. Meade stuck his head out the slot at the top of the mount, jamming his helmet with its combination headphone and earmuffs onto his head to protect himself against the muzzle blast. Five-inch were the loudest guns in the Navy.
"No snafus today, boys. Everything's going to be on target," Meade said.
"We'll see what the old rabbit's foot can do, sir," Chase said, his hand moving along the edge of his scar. He had gotten his face blown apart in a turret explosion aboard the Minneapolis six years ago. The younger members of the gun crew were in awe of him. There was something spooky about him. Not many people survived explosions in a turret.
Meade thought he heard an edge of contempt in Chase's voice. Yesterday, after an hour of firing, a dented powder case had jammed in number-one gun. The powder can's corked tip became stuck to the bottom of the shell in the white-hot chamber, making it impossible to yank out. There was imminent danger of the shell "cooking off," blowing the gun and the mount apart. Gunnery Officer Moss began asking in his usual strident tones what was wrong in mount one. Panicky, Meade had asked Chase if he should hit the emergency alarm and evacuate the mount and the handling room below it.
Time and Tide Page 19
