Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  "Where are you from?" he said.

  "Seattle. You just want to do it or you want some extras? Jack went for the extras. He's a handsome son of a bitch. I went down on him for nothing more than once. But no more. I got to save enough money to get out of this business before my looks go.”

  "I'll just do it," Flanagan said. "I can't afford anything else."

  This was unquestionably sin, Flanagan thought as he put his hands on Sally's big hard breasts. She grabbed his penis and it leaped to attention. In a moment he was inside. On top he studied her face. Her eyes were rolled back. She was not really there. Her mind, her soul, was someplace else. Only her body was doing this thing with him in the bed. It was like the Navy; her body was trained to respond no matter what was happening in her soul. She thrust her belly against him and bucked hard, pressing down on the bed with her elbows. Now her expression reminded him of one of his kid sisters struggling to get her bike up the front steps of their house. The whole thing did not last more than a minute and a half. Those bucking movements pulled an ejaculation out of him. Flanagan closed his eyes. The pleasure was so intense, he had to be with Teresa for it. He could not let this grisly parody of love destroy that part of it.

  "How was it?" Sally asked.

  "Great," Flanagan said.

  "That's two bucks," Sally said, pulling her dress around her. "Just leave it on the night table."

  "Okay."

  "Say hello to Jack. Tell him I'm still around."

  By the time Flanagan buttoned his pants and returned to the lounge area, Sally was dancing with another sailor. She waved to him. The front door swung open and four grim-eyed members of the Hawaiian Area Shore Patrol, known to all sailors as HASPs, strode into the room. They demanded to see everyone's liberty card, and went down the hall knocking on doors, interrupting sailors in the middle of their brief pleasure until they had checked every man in the place. Flanagan thought he saw disgust on the face of the big Hawaiian as he watched the American government at work.

  Walking down River Street in the twilight, Flanagan savored the dark satisfaction in his soul. He could hardly wait to get back to the ship and write Teresa Brownlow a letter.

  A commotion on Hotel Street distracted him. A mostly civilian crowd was laughing and hooting at something or someone.

  Flanagan elbowed through them and found the object of their derision was Leo Daley. He was so drunk he was crawling along the pavement. Two Marines, equally drunk, had found a collar and leash somewhere and fastened it around his neck. They were walking him as if he were a dog.

  Tears were streaming down Daley's face. Flanagan remembered the story Daley had told him about his father, the drunken mailman. For a moment Flanagan glimpsed the nightmare he had ignited in Daley's soul.

  He shoved aside a half dozen civilians and tore the leash out of the Marine's hand. Grabbing him by the tie, he flung him into his buddy and they both went thrashing into the gutter. They struggled to their feet, ready to fight, until they looked around and saw how many sailors were coming down River Street. Unbuckling the collar, Flanagan flung the leash in their faces and hoisted Daley to his feet.

  "Frank," Daley sobbed. "Why'd you leave me there? Make'm stop laughing, Frank."

  Flanagan whirled on the crowd. "Shut up," he shouted. "Shut up and beat it. This guy's my shipmate. You laugh at him, you laugh at me too."

  The crowd melted away. Flanagan pulled Daley's arm around his shoulder. "It's okay, buddy," he said. "It's okay now. We'll walk it off on the way back to the ship.”

  Mail Call

  Dear Jacko:

  Here I am back in Seattle, pushing the baked ham special on Monday and the corned beef and cabbage on Tuesday. The customers aren't any nicer and the tips are still lousy. The pay is a lot better out at the Navy Yard. So I'm taking lessons in how to use an acetylene torch. At the very least it'll be a great defense against sailors.

  You'll get this in Pearl and read it while you're heading for Honolulu and one of your favorite ladies, no doubt. One of those marvelous females who, in the words of the great Peterson, "know what to expect from a sailor and they're glad to get it."

  Your old friend Vinnie St. Clair from the Pennsylvania took me out the other night. They've towed the old tub to Bremerton and are putting her back together there. Vinnie's such a gentleman, he wouldn't even hold my hand because he thought you and I were engaged. He was delighted to hear that for you, that word is synonymous with cholera.

  He's going East to drill boots at the Great Lakes Training Camp. He's a CPO and couldn't believe you weren't one. He had plenty of money to spend and he didn't win it at craps. In case you missed it, that's what's known as a dig.

  I had a terrific time in California, even if it was only for two weeks. Let's do it again some one of these years.

  Love (unfortunately), Martha

  Dearest Frank:

  How are you? I think about you all the time. I keep remembering those awful arguments we had the last times we went out but now I'm not angry, my heart is full of sorrow and regret that I didn't just kiss you and tell you to be quiet. We would have a beautiful memory between us instead of this awful sense of failure.

  I can't explain myself to you because your head is all full of arguments put there by Satan to stop you from enjoying love as Jesus intended us to enjoy it. All those people who think it is a sin have lost touch with Jesus. I am so much luckier than almost everyone because I'm in touch with Him almost every night in Daddy's church. Even if he can't get a single person to respond, I do. That's why my heart is so full of love. It overflows from the love he brings down from heaven.

  But he's failing, Frank. He's failing day by day. The church is failing and he's failing too. There were some sailors the other night who were from New York, like you. But they were cruel. They were drunk and they laughed at him. It was terrible. I didn't find Jesus that night. No one did.

  But the next night, one of my old friends from Oklahoma, who was on the battleship Oklahoma and was saved from the Japanese bombs at Pearl Harbor came by to see us. He told us he gave Daddy all the credit for being alive. He took me to a hotel in Los Angeles and we made the most beautiful love that night.

  It proved to me you were wrong, Frank, in your argument that I shouldn't let anyone else touch me. Should I have sent away that old friend loveless? Don't you see how cruel that would have been? Would Jesus have wanted me to do a thing like that?

  But I don't want to argue with you anymore. I refuse to do it! I'm just going to love you and I hope I can prove it to you when you come back to San Pedro.

  With all my heart, Teresa

  Dear Husband:

  I'm back in the Capital of the Universe and full of the usual rumors, unverified facts and absolutely straight scoop, all of which will no doubt prove erroneous about two hours after I mail this.

  First the bad news. As far as reinforcements for the Marines or for you fine fellows afloat are concerned, forget it. Everything that isn't absolutely essential to the defense of the realm is getting shipped to North Africa for the big invasion they're cooking up there. What's left over is going to the Russians via Murmansk, which is like inviting the Germans to a night in a shooting gallery. About one out of every five ships gets through. So far the U-boats are winning the battle of the Atlantic. They practically wiped out an entire convoy off Iceland the other day, Cominch told me.

  I've never seen him gloomier. Some nights, lying awake, I wonder if my diabolical brother-in-law hasn't played a winning card with that letter to SECNAV. I told the Admiral about it and he just grunted and said he was sure there were a lot of other letters on the President's desk saying the same thing. If Guadalcanal got any worse, he added, he might write one himself, with his resignation enclosed.

  As for Savo, no one's getting the gallows for the time being. You could change that overnight if you pry the right kind of information out of your crew. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that old W. S. S. Kemble is guilty of something —
be it panic, gutlessness, dereliction of duty or stupidity I will wait breathlessly to find out from you, husband dear.

  Thinking even harder about it, I begin to suspect your career depends on coming up with something that would enable Cominch to order a court-martial. He's not going to do this unless the evidence guarantees a guilty verdict. An acquittal would make him look even worse than he does already. Win and Mother would have their favorite congressmen demanding an investigation the next day. Another parade of Navy officers appearing before Congress to explain what went wrong in another debacle would finish Cominch. Roosevelt would throw him to the sharks and find himself another admiral.

  I hope by now you've brought the tightest, smartest ship in the into Pearl and parked it in the ten ten dock like the hottest destroyer jockey this side of Rabaul, with Cincpac himself standing there watching.

  I was down to see our son the other day. He's fuming to get into action, which is only natural, I suppose. But he's threatening to join the Marines! Write him a letter and tell him he absolutely has to apply for flight training. That will keep him out of harm's way for another year, at least.

  Ever yours, Rita

  Dearest Joey:

  How do I love thee? Let me count the ways . . .

  Do you see what you've done to me? I sit around reciting Elizabeth Barrett Browning instead of learning my lines.

  Actually, when I can get a slight grip on myself, I prefer John Donne

  If yet I have not all thy love

  Deare, I shall never have it all

  I cannot breath one other sigh, to move,

  Nor can intreat one other teare to fall.

  Since I don't have a grip on myself most of the time, and I can't really stand Browning, I stare mutely into space for hours. Several friends have suggested I see a psychiatrist. I just laugh and then burst into tears, thereby convincing them that I have to see one.

  Oh, those ten days, my love, my love, those ten days we had together were a world nothing can ever change. I know that isn't true, I know you may find some brawny Australian maiden in knickers with a voice that can be heard across a thousand miles of Outback, drilling a regiment of the home guard. She may awe you into submission with her hockey stick and blot out all recollection of your puny English mistress, with her smoker's cough and tubercular torso.

  Or some dark-skinned Samoan beauty may reveal to you the magic of love without inhibitions and a tendency to get violently chilled with no clothes on. You may decide that going native with a native is a lot more fun than going crazy over me.

  If you expect me to forgive you — you're out of your mind. I will punt across the Pacific, if necessary, to demolish that Australian with a barrage of sarcasm that will leave her small colonial brain in a permanent stab of shock. I will finish off the Samoan with a withering glance en passant.

  Does being in love make you write drivel like this too? If so, just send me envelopes with nothing in them but kisses. I'll understand.

  Madly, Gwen

  Dear Harold:

  Happy birthday! By the time you get this you'll be eighteen. I wish you hadn't been in such a hurry to join up. So many of the boys your age are still walking around Dearborn. They say they won't draft no eighteen-year-olds until January, now. They got so many men in the Army and Navy now they don't know what to do with half of them. You didn't have to worry about getting drafted into the Army, after all.

  I hope your father's right when he says the Navy will be good for you. He's in such a cheerful mood since he went back to work you can't believe it. We went up to Port Huron over Labor Day and stayed in a hotel on the Lake. It was so beautiful. Your sisters all had a wonderful time. Dad paid for everything like he had money to bum. He does too; he's working overtime every week. They're making motors for a tank called the General Sherman. What do you want for Christmas? Pick out something good and we'll try to send it to you. I sent you a cake the other day. I hope it gets there and you can share it with your shipmates.

  Love, Mother

  Dear Edwin:

  I almost hate to write this to you. I know it will upset you. But I'm pregnant again!

  It could be from that time we lost our heads in Los Angeles, after that wild party. But the doctor says it could have happened even if we stuck to the damn chart. I'm absolutely miserable. I don't know what to think or do or say. I try to pray about it but nothing comes. I just feel dead inside. I honestly don't know how I can cope with another child and worry about you out there in the Pacific.

  But I will. I'll cope, somehow. I'm not asking you to worry about me. I just have to tell someone the bad news. I'm afraid to tell your parents. I know they think I'm crazy already. My devout Catholic mother isn't much better. I think she just kicked my father out of bed one day and that's how she stopped having them. She keeps hinting in the most awful way that I have to put my foot down." I never thought becoming an adult would turn you against your own mother. But it has. I think mine's a monster.

  I hope the Jefferson City is wowing them in the Gunnery Department. The champion of the Pacific Fleet! I can say a prayer for that, with no trouble. It was so wonderful to see you in Los Angeles. If you can keep on loving me — in spite of the burden I've put on you — you're a saint. You really are, in a way. But don't let the Navy give you any ideas about martyrdom! I want you back in one piece. Make that very clear to Captain McKay.

  I've been asking around Norfolk about him. A lot of people say he never had an idea in his life that he didn't get from Captain Kemble. So be careful what you say to him about his beloved roommate.

  Love, Eleanor

  Memories

  The telephone buzzed in Arthur McKay's cabin. "Captain! Admiral Nimitz's car is on the pier!"

  The voice belonged to Ensign Richard Meade, who was the junior officer of the deck. Dick Meade was on the ball. He would go far in the U.S. Navy.

  Yesterday morning, the Commander in Chief of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific had greeted Captain McKay with the cordiality he always displayed to any officer who had served under him aboard the cruiser Augusta in 1935. Nimitz regarded that tour as a turning point in his career. He had been a success not only as a captain but as a diplomat in a China on the brink of war. Cincpac's offices were only a few hundred yards from Berth Seventeen. When he saw the Jefferson City standing in, he decided to give her new captain a personal welcome.

  The admiral had dismissed the fiasco at the dock with "It could happen to anyone." After some pleasantries, Nimitz gave McKay a quizzical look. "Why don't we go for a little hike tomorrow afternoon? We'll have a chance to talk."

  Even in Shanghai, Nimitz had been famous for his walks. In Hawaii, although he was seven years older, the walks had gotten longer. According to rumor, the less vigorous members of his staff hid under desks and in closets to avoid an invitation. As a farm boy, Arthur McKay had thought nothing of walking five miles to visit a friend. He had no problem accepting the admiral's invitation. He descended the gangplank and found Nimitz's flag lieutenant waiting for him at the wheel of the nondescript Ford that Meade had had the wits to recognize. They drove to CINCPAC, and the admiral gave him a brief tour of his office. As a former lecturer at the Naval War College, McKay was naturally eager to see what the admiral had on his desk and walls. He was not disappointed.

  Above the outer door was the maxim "Nations, like men, should grasp time by the forelock instead of the fetlock." Anyone who grew up on a Kansas farm knew what that meant. The admiral noticed McKay's interest in the quote as they shook hands in the doorway and remarked that he had had to explain to at least half his staff what a fetlock was.

  On the desk, McKay was amazed to see a framed photograph of General MacArthur. When Nimitz noticed him staring at it, he grinned and said, "I keep that there to remind myself not to make Jovian pronouncements complete with thunderbolts."

  That was typical Nimitz, and a good example of why he and Arthur McKay had hit it off on the Augusta. The admiral preferred understatement to overstatement an
ytime. If Arthur McKay had a hero, it was this quiet Texan with the furrowed brow.

  With the flag lieutenant at the wheel and no insignia to indicate Cincpac's rank, they drove to the windward coast of Oahu and started hiking along the beach. "I can't tell you how pleased I was to see the Jefferson City in Pearl, Arthur," Nimitz said. "We're in desperate need of cruisers in the Solomons. Instead, Washington sends us battleships! You can't keep those oil hogs at sea long enough to do anything with them."

  "How do you see the situation out there now, Admiral?" McKay asked.

  "Grim," Nimitz said, planting one foot after the other in the loose sand. "One more Savo Island and we'll have to get out of there the best — or the worst — way we can. The Japs are pouring men onto Guadalcanal. We don't seem able to stop them."

  "Did we learn anything from Savo, Admiral?"

  "A few things. I'll lend you a top-secret memorandum on, it to read at sea. It will give you and your crew a lot of sleepless nights. That inside paint job you got in Long Beach has to come off. All that comfortable furniture in the wardroom has to go. You've got to get rid of anything that burns. We lost at least one of the cruisers at Savo because they couldn't douse the fires. But that's all trivial stuff. We still don't really know what went wrong. Have you found out anything from talking to your officers and crew?"

  Now Arthur McKay knew why he had been taken on this solitary stroll. He looked out at the surf. On this side of Oahu the combers built to gigantic size. One of them mounted about three hundred yards out. He suddenly remembered the way Win Kemble used to ride these things, poised on a surfboard like a native Hawaiian. McKay had never been able to master the art. Maybe it had something to do with the primitive fear of the ocean he had inherited from his land-locked Kansas ancestors.