Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  He handed McKay a diagram of his battle plan. Three destroyers would lead the column, two would bring up the rear. The cruisers would be in the center. "We're going to maneuver as a group, fight as a group, under my orders. That's what we've been rehearsing. We'll go out tonight and give you a chance to dance with us at least once. Tell your crew to expect to be at General Quarters until dawn. If they complain, tell them the other ships have been doing it every night for the past three weeks. We're never going to beat these guys until we get a lot tougher. Did you read those after-action reports of Savo Island, where everyone bleated about staying at General Quarters for thirty-six hours? They disgusted me."

  McKay decided he liked Admiral Scott. Not that Scott gave a damn. He was here to win a war, not a popularity contest. Maybe there was something to be said for the admiral-as-son-of-a bitch after all.

  Back aboard the Jefferson City, McKay summoned Parker to his cabin. "Get copies of this battle plan to all the department heads," he said. "Pass the word for the crew to get some sleep, if they can manage it below decks. We'll be at General Quarters all night."

  "Jesus Christ. What does he expect to accomplish by wearing us out before we fight? It's exactly the same sort of idiocy that left us punch-drunk at Savo Island."

  "Commander, I'm getting a little tired of listening to you snipe at the Navy's admirals. I'm even less inclined to get advice from you over the telephone in the middle of a battle. I think from now on you had better change your battle station to the bridge. If you want to suggest anything to me, you can do it there face to face without the whole ship wondering who's in command.”

  "The whole ship is still wondering why you let those Bettys bomb us without firing a shot at them, I can tell you that. They're wondering if you would have thrown that rudder over if I hadn't told you."

  "I was about to give the order," McKay said.

  "I've got five kids, Captain. I want to get out of this thing in one piece. So I reserve the right to make sure you don't repeat a performance you once gave in China. When you froze on the bridge and let the Chinese shell the shit out of your gunboat without firing back."

  "I did not freeze on the bridge. I made a decision — a decision I've never regretted," McKay said. "A decision that was eventually upheld by the highest authorities."

  "You can get the highest authorities to uphold a lot of things when you've got that ring on your finger and an admiral's daughter in your bed. But I know what the men on the ship — the men in the fleet —thought of it."

  Parker leaned toward McKay, chin outthrust, his whole body emanating aggression, dislike. He had apparently learned nothing from the captain's decision not to conduct an investigation of Savo Island. He was still determined to rule or ruin the commander of the Jefferson City.

  Should he put him in hack? No, that was out of the question on the eve of a battle. Parker had a following among the men. They liked his Uncle Dan act, his habit of dismissing minor offenses at the exec's mast.

  What was Parker trying to hide behind this farrago of bluster and accusation? That was another reason to pay out some more rope and watch what he did with it.

  "I see no point in continuing this conversation," McKay said. "When General Quarters sounds, Commander, I'll expect you on the bridge."

  "I'll be there," Daniel Boone Parker said.

  "Guadalcanal?" Flanagan said, joining him and Jack Peterson.

  "No. Savo," Homewood said.

  "Do you see what I see?" Peterson asked.

  Twilight was falling on the Coral Sea. Flanagan peered at the island on the horizon ahead of them. A clump of cumulus clouds hovered over it. Gradually, the shape penetrated Flanagan's weary brain. Like everyone else, he was groggy from lack of sleep.

  "It looks like a man lying on his back," he said.

  "Yeah," Jack Peterson said. "A fuckin' corpse on a bier."

  "Jesus, Mary and Joseph," Leo Daley said, crossing himself.

  "You're all seein' things," Homewood said. "It's an island. Nothin' but a fuckin' island."

  A boatswain's pipe shrilled. "Now hear this," boomed the PA system. "General Quarters. General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations."

  On the bridge, Captain McKay stared in fascination at the shrouded bulk of Savo Island. Everything he had read about the August battle stormed through his mind. It was uncanny — and somehow marvelous — that he had brought the Jefferson City back to the same waters where she had failed two months ago. Would they redeem themselves tonight? Or fail again? Could Arthur McKay, the follower, succeed where Win Kemble, the leader, had faltered?

  "Bridge! Gunnery manned and ready."

  "Bridge! Engineering manned and ready. Boilers one, two, three, four on line."

  "Bridge! Damage Control manned and ready. Condition Zed set throughout the ship."

  A half hour later, the Jefferson City charged through the tropical darkness at twenty-five knots. Sailors who had spent the previous night at General Quarters peered blearily at dials and gauges in the engine rooms and fire rooms, stared numbly at the dark sea on the open mounts and gun directors.

  Less than six hundred yards ahead loomed the light cruiser Boise, commanded by Captain "Iron Mike" Moran, a professional Irishman famed for his pugnacity. Ahead of the Boise was the light cruiser Helena and the heavy cruisers Salt Lake City and San Francisco and three destroyers. Behind the Jefferson City two more destroyers brought up the rear. A dozen miles away in the darkness was the night-shrouded coast of Guadalcanal, where men were frantically unloading the transports that had arrived earlier in the day.

  Admiral Scott's tense voice came over the TBS. "All ships, launch scout planes."

  The Jefferson City ignored this order. Lieutenant Jackson had left the ship two days ago for carrier duty. No replacements had as yet arrived for him or Schnable.

  "Captain! What the hell is that?" cried Commander Daniel Parker. Ahead of them, one of the cruisers was afire! Flames leaped on her stern, then fell into the sea. "I think it's their scout plane," McKay said. "I bet one of her flares went off ahead of schedule."

  "Jesus Christ. We might as well send Yamamoto an announcement of where we are."

  A minute later the burning plane drifted past them. Then, a strange sight, another scout plane, apparently undamaged, bobbed past. "What the hell is going on?" Parker asked.

  "Someone didn't get the message to launch and decided to get rid of their plane," McKay said. "After Savo, Cincpac issued a warning they were fire hazards."

  "I bet he graduated first in his class at Annapolis," Parker said.

  Beside Parker stood his scowling expert on shiphandling, Jerome Wilkinson, as boatswain's mate of the watch. He had given the executive officer advice as he coped with two changes of course, a nerve-twisting task while traveling at high speed in the darkness.

  At 2228, Navigator Marse Lee rushed to the bridge to warn McKay they were getting dangerously close to the shore of Guadalcanal. According to his antiquated charts, a ship had run aground on a reef here in 1873.

  "We'll have to let the admiral worry about that," McKay said.

  "Captain!" said the talker. "Radar reports at least three ships bearing three one five degrees, range two seven zero zero zero yards."

  Over the TBS came Admiral Scott's voice: "Left to course 230 degrees."

  "Jesus Christ," Commander Parker said. "Doesn't he see them too?"

  "They don't have our new search radar in the San Francisco," McKay said.

  If the radar was in fact picking up an enemy fleet, this was the worst possible time to reverse course, a complicated maneuver even in daylight. Each ship had to swing left in the wake of the one behind it while the lead destroyers made a separate turn that dropped them back to a parallel course with the rest of the column. It would put the destroyers between the Japanese and the rest of the American squadron.

  There was no time to inform Scott of the radar sighting and try to change his mind. His flagship, the San Francisco, was already executing th
e wide left turn to begin the maneuver. They could only hold their breath and follow the Boise's phosphorescent track as she turned behind the Salt Lake City.

  The radar reports grew more and more hair-raising.

  "Range now one five zero zero zero yards."

  "They're coming straight at us!" Parker said.

  "Tell main plot to go to work on them," McKay said.

  He pondered the vectored radar screen in the corner of the bridge, with the sword of green light sweeping around and around it. Each time it passed, bearing 65 degrees relative, 285 true, a cluster of green blips appeared. Did they mean what the radar officer said they meant? Or were the electromagnetic waves spewing from the antenna on the Jefferson City's mainmast bouncing off low clouds or the coast of Guadalcanal?

  Above the bridge in main forward, Gunnery Officer Moss and the fire control officer, Ensign Kruger, saw the same blips on their radar screen. Moss had no doubt of their meaning "Captain! Why don't we get permission to open fire?" Moss cried.

  "I'll try to find out," McKay said, wishing his gunnery officer would show a little more grace under pressure.

  While he was talking to Moss, the TBS was squawking. Parker told him what it had said. "Boise just reported five bogeys at bearing zero six five!"

  Bogeys were enemy planes. Were the Japs about to do their flare-dropping routine to light them up like dummies in a department store window? Or did the Boise mean they had spotted ships? The TBS cleared its throat. "This is Helena. Enemy confirmed bearing two eight five true."

  "What the hell's going on?" Parker said. "They can't be off the port quarter and the starboard bow at the same time."

  Poor Scott, McKay thought. Did Nelson have to deal with this kind of confusion at Trafalgar? He listened to the admiral as he tried to locate his destroyers. He obviously thought they were the blips on the radar. Why in God's name hadn't Scott transferred his flag to the Jefferson City or the Helena, where he would have been able to see the radar sightings with his own eyes? Obviously he did not trust this newfangled gadget. Like many men who relied on iron discipline to lead, Scott was not only tough, he was rigid.

  "Captain, target is visible with the naked eye," reported the talker. "Main battery range finder reports range as four zero zero zero yards, bearing the same as radar."

  It was Fire Controlman Peterson with his cat's eyes. Captain McKay decided to get an answer to Gunnery Officer Moss's question. He pressed the button of the TBS and said, "Interrogatory Roger!"

  That was code for permission to open fire. "Roger," replied Admiral Scott.

  "Moss, pick out a target and commence firing," Captain McKay said.

  Down in main plot, Montgomery West and his team had been feeding ranges, bearings, ship speed and wind speed into the Mark VII computer. He had barely had time to have the talk with Fire Controlman Bourne that Captain McKay recommended, but it had produced a remarkable change.

  Bourne had become the leader of the team, making sure everyone had the right data on his dials while for a harrowing ten minutes they had watched the green blips advancing toward them on their radar screen. Instead of cursing the admiral and the captain, the fire controlman talked confidently about waiting until they were close enough to guarantee their hits. West did not have to say a word. Was this leadership Arthur McKay style?

  At his forty-millimeter gun director, Frank Flanagan and the men on the mount below him were mostly ignorant spectators at this drama. He picked up a few exchanges between the gunnery officer and the captain on his earphones, but for most of the night — it was now approaching 2400 hours — he stood there watching the dark water slide past. His mind wandered through his life. He thought about Teresa Brownlow and Martha Johnson reading the letters he had written them. He went over his interminable conferences with Father Callow about his vocation. He grappled with the stunning conclusions in Albert. Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus.

  If the German scholar was right, the Savior was only one of a long series of Jewish prophets who saw themselves as the promised redeemer of the Jewish people. Like Teresa Brownlow's father, Jesus had been convinced the world was coming to an end very soon. He had been prey to the illusions and delusions of his own time. Did that mean there was no one in the starry heavens watching over the human race? Was prayer a waste of time?

  Suddenly the five-inch guns just forward of his forty-millimeter mount crashed. Two star shells exploded in the night sky. Simultaneously the main battery's three turrets fired all nine of their eight-inch guns to starboard. The ship heeled to port under the impact. The star shells revealed the latticework foremast and white-banded smokestack of a Japanese destroyer and two bigger ships, long sleek creatures with low freeboard and two fat smokestacks. Furataka-class heavy cruisers, Flanagan's photographic memory informed him, from the recognition drills in the crew's mess.

  A moment later, one of the cruisers staggered under the impact of a half dozen direct hits from American guns. Flames leaped as high as her mainmast. Up and down the American battle line guns belched orange flame, illuminating the ships as vividly as a star shell. Rapid fire poured armor-piercing explosives at the Japanese.

  "Incredible," Captain McKay said on the bridge. "We're crossing their T."

  His executive officer seemed unimpressed by this unique naval achievement, which enabled the crossing ships to pound an enemy with broadsides while only his forward guns could fire back. No admiral had managed it since Admiral Togo annihilated the Russian Fleet in the Tsushima Strait in 1905 and catapulted Japan into world power.

  "Cease firing!" shouted Admiral Scott over the TBS. "Repeat—cease firing! I did not give the order to fire."

  "Is he out of his goddamn mind?" Commander Parker shouted.

  "Ignore the order. Keep firing," McKay said.

  When Admiral Scott had replied, "Roger," to McKay's question, he had only meant he had received the message. Everyone thought he was giving them permission to fire. Roger unfortunately meant both things. Americans had a lot to learn about battle communications.

  The confusion silenced at least half the American guns. Ahead of them the Boise had ceased firing and so had the San Francisco. Over the TBS Scott was asking the captain of the destroyer squadron if they were firing on them. "I don't know who you're firing at," was the enigmatic answer. In desperation, the confused Scott ordered the destroyers to turn on their running lights. When he saw these green and white lights flicker to starboard, he ordered, "Resume firing."

  Just ahead of them, the Boise snapped on her searchlights to search for a new target. She was not equipped with radar. "Look what that crazy Irish bastard Moran is doing," Parker said.

  Boise's searchlights picked up a Japanese cruiser and opened fire on her. But the break in the American bombardment had given the surprised Japanese a chance to regain their balance. Their fire controlmen and gunners were thirsting for a target, and Boise gave it to them.

  In three terrifying minutes, the light cruiser was straddled by a half dozen salvos. A tremendous explosion sent flames boiling through the ripped decks around her two forward turrets.

  "Christ," gasped Jerome Wilkinson. "Nobody in them turrets will get out alive."

  The Boise zigzagged, desperately trying to evade the rain of Japanese shells. It did not work. Explosion after explosion gashed her superstructure. Flames gushed from her ravaged bow. "She's finished," Parker said.

  "Lay us between her and those Japs," Captain McKay said. "Are you crazy? Let her take her punishment. She asked for it," Parker said.

  "That's an order!" Captain McKay shouted. He whirled to the telephone talker. "Tell the main battery to take those two ships under fire as we come up."

  "We're supposed to stay in formation!" Parker screamed. "Engine telegrapher, signal for flank speed. Helmsman, change course to one two zero," Captain McKay ordered. "Course one two zero," the helmsman repeated.

  The thunder of the Jefferson City's guns shook the bridge. The muzzle flashes illuminated the faces of
the terrified younger sailors, the aghast Wilkinson and the frantic executive officer. Arthur McKay wondered if he was finding out what had happened at the first battle of Savo Island. There was no time to ask questions now The Jefferson City's turbines drove every erg of power in their systems into her four propellers and she surged between the battered, burning Boise and the Japanese.

  Shells screamed overhead. A half dozen raised huge multicolored fountains off the bow and stern. "I hope to hell Homewood was right about that albatross," McKay shouted.

  He knew that an eight-inch shell was liable to launch them all into eternity at any moment. He was delighted to discover he did not find that a terrifying idea. This was battle at its wildest, what he had thought and read about for twenty-five years. This was what he had apparently been born to do, in spite of the unlikelihood of a sailor emerging from landlocked Kansas.

  "On target," crowed the talker. "We're layin' it into them!"

  To port, the Boise reeled into the darkness, flames leaping high above her number-two turret. To starboard, a salvo from the Jefferson City scored a direct hit on one of the Japanese cruisers. Gushing flames, she staggered in the opposite direction. The other cruiser followed her, guns still booming but most of the shots going wild. Behind her a Japanese destroyer was hit by fire from another American ship.

  "Moss, shift to that tin can," McKay said.

  Within sixty seconds, a salvo bracketed the destroyer. Other ships hit her with a waterfall of six- and eight-inch shells. Flaming oil leaped a hundred feet into the air. She rolled over and vanished with a series of explosions under the water as her depth charges went off.

  Other American ships continued to fire at the fleeing Japanese cruisers. But Admiral Scott decided the battle was over. "Cease firing, regain formation, course two two five," Scott ordered.