Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  Back in his cabin, Captain McKay stared at the desk drawer where the bottle of Ballantine's Scotch lay. Now you know why you didn't throw me over the side, it whispered.

  Sea Story

  As twilight spilled from the jungled ridges of Espiritu Santo, the humid air above the Jefferson City pullulated with the beat of thousands of wings. Each evening, great swarms of bats flew across the water to feed on insects and fruit on nearby islands. Used to this grisly local color by now, Flanagan, Daley and other new sailors sprawled on the deck outside main forward. Boats Homewood had spent the afternoon teaching them how to tie catspaws, bowlines, sheepshanks and other class-one knots. Now Jack Peterson had joined them and they turned to a more mysterious topic: the meaning of the three torpedoes that had failed to go off "It's the captain," Homewood said. "He makes a ship's luck. McKay's got some kind of special joss goin' for him."

  "Joss?" Flanagan said.

  "The Chinks burn it in their monasteries and shrines," Peterson said. "It's supposed to keep away evil spirits.”

  "What about the albatross?" Flanagan said.

  "He was attracted by the captain's joss," Homewood said. "Well I think he's crazy," Daley said. "Why the hell should we take the Enterprise's torpedoes? The Japs weren't after us." "The kid's got a point," Peterson said.

  "That's the captain's job, to decide that sort of thing," Homewood said, "The minute a ship starts second-guessin' the captain, it's in trouble.”

  "What sort of trouble?" Flanagan asked.

  "The good spirits don't like it. They won't stick around. I remember the time I was on an old four-stacker back in World War One. I was about Flanagan's age, and I thought I was almost as smart as he thinks he is. We had a captain who'd have taken her right into the middle of the whole fuckin' German fleet. Nothin' scared him, not even those seventy- and eighty-foot waves that build up in the North Atlantic in winter.

  "There was an old bosun on board who'd been with Farragut at Mobile Bay and New Orleans. He said the captain was tougher than that son of a bitch. But he had a bad habit of ridin' his officers. He'd pick out one of them and spend the month taken' him apart. One day he went after an ensign just out of Annapolis. It was terrible the way he worked this kid over.

  "One night the ensign didn't report for duty on the mid-watch. The captain went down personally to drag him out of his bunk. He opened the ensign's door, and there he was, swayin' from an overhead in the battle lights. He'd hung himself.

  "That turned the whole ship against the captain. Nothin' went right from there on out. We'd drop depth charges that weren't armed. We lost a torpedo and it drifted into a merchant ship in the convoy and blew the shit out of it. We fired on a sub we caught on the surface and hit a British destroyer! Everybody on board knew we was finished. It was just a question of time. The old bosun started makin' friends with guys he'd been workin' to death, because a man like him needed all the help he could get on the other side. He gave away scrimshaw and souvenirs from China and Turkey.

  "Sure as hell a week later I was on the graveyard watch and I see the torpedo. It came from nowhere. It was a dead calm sea and I'd been on watch at least an hour. I had my night vision okay and I should've spotted that wake at a thousand yards. But it was practically under the ship when I seen it. The thing took out the engine room and busted the keel. The captain ordered abandon ship, and everyone still in one piece — that didn't include anybody in the engine room — went over the side. Naturally the captain was the last guy off. By that time she was startin' to roll over for the dive.

  "We was all swimmin' like hell to get away from her depth charges when they went off underwater. Suddenly we hear a yell. It's the captain. His manrope's gotten fouled in his life jacket. Don't ask me how or why. The old bosun swims back to help him. It's a sight I'll never forget if I live to be a hundred. The ship is on its side and the bosun is tryin' to get up that bottom with about a million barnacles on it that's cuttin' him to pieces and the captain is fightin' that rope that's like a live thing, a goddamn anaconda, refusin' to let him go.

  "'Go back!' he says to the bosun. But the old buzzard don't pay no attention to him. He's climbin' up that slimy bottom somehow with his knife out tryin' to hand it up to the captain.

  "All of a sudden like one of them movie tricks there was a kind of pop like a bubble bustin' and they was gone. Ship, captain, bosun—deep-sixed. It happened as quick as you could blink. Another destroyer picked us up about five minutes later.

  "That's what happens when a ship goes sour and the good spirits leave her."

  Ancient Lore

  "You know what liberty here reminds me of?" Jack Peterson said. "A walk from the exercise yard to the cell block at Portsmouth."

  They were strolling along Espiritu Santo's soggy black sand beach. The water was full of jellyfish with murderous stings. The jungle came down to the edge of the little shanty town behind the wharfs. The heat and humidity remained at the equatorial level. They were getting close to the middle of November, but the calendar had ceased to matter. Already, America with its chilly autumn and freezing winter was beginning to seem unreal, a memory from another life.

  "You've been in Portsmouth?" Flanagan asked. The grisly naval prison with its sadistic Marine guards was a scare word among sailors, new and old.

  "I got friends who were," Jack said.

  "Are we winning or losing this damn war, that's what I'd like to know," Leo Daley said.

  "We ain't winnin'," Peterson said. "Just glom the captain's face when he comes back from those conferences on the flagship."

  "Hey, look," Flanagan said.

  Floating up to the beach was an empty life jacket. It was not made in America. It had Oriental markings on it. "What a souvenir," Flanagan said, splashing into the shallow water to grab it.

  At the dock, waiting for the landing craft to take them back to the ship, Boats Homewood gave them the once-over. They were in pretty good shape, because the word had been passed not to bring any liquor ashore. The island's commanding admiral, Kelly Turner, was a ballbreaker who would hang everyone's ass if he heard the J.C. was a wet ship. The official drinking limit ashore was two beers to a man. The beer was horse piss brewed in Honolulu. Only a few souses had bought extra bottles from teetotalers or from those who found the swill undrinkable. No one was seriously plastered.

  "What the hell is that you've got, Flanagan?" Homewood asked.

  “Jap life jacket."

  "Throw it away."

  "What are you talking about? It's a great souvenir."

  "Throw it away. Don't you know the story? You bring an empty life jacket onto a ship and someone's gonna fill it. I've seen it happen."

  "Boats, give me a break. You expect me to believe that?"

  "I saw it happen on the old Marblehead when we was in the China Sea. Lot of pirates around in those days, with a civil war goin' full blast in China. This buddy of mine pulled a life jacket aboard. Smart ass like you, he thought it was a find. It was from a Siamese ship the pirates had attacked and sunk. We had this old gunner's mate who'd been with Dewey in Manila Bay. He told him to throw it back. Warned him. 'Bullshit,' my buddy says. 'Can't scare me.' So he tucks it in the bottom of his seabag figurin' on sellin' it in Shanghai. He was gonna daub a little blood on it to dress it up. Next night, we hit a squall that built up thirty, forty-foot waves. The captain orders our division out on deck to lash down the boats. We're workin' on the number-one boat when this goddamn wave comes over the bow and takes us off our feet. Christ, I bet I was floatin' over turret one, hangin' on to a line and prayin' it wouldn't part. When the water ran off I see my buddy's over the side, still hangin' on his line. 'Ernie,' he's yellin', 'Ernie.' I wade over there and start haulin' him in.

  "Just then another wave hit. I wrapped my legs around a stanchion and yelled to him to hang on. But he couldn't do it. I felt the rope go slack in my hands. He was gone. We didn't even try to look for him. That life jacket got filled—in a week."

  Flanagan felt the skin
on the back of his neck grow cold. He did not believe in Homewood's good and evil spirits. But he did not want to tangle with them, just in case they existed.

  "What am I supposed to do with it? Just throw it away?"

  "Hey, I'll buy it from you."

  It was Kraus, one of Wilkinson's deck apes.

  "I wouldn't if I were you," Homewood said.

  "What do you think, Jerry?" Kraus said, turning to Wilkinson, who was a few feet away.

  "Sure, buy it. There ain't no fuckin' spirit that can hurt you. I know that much," Wilkinson said.

  "How much?" Flanagan said.

  "Five bucks."

  "Sold."

  Homewood glared at Wilkinson. "If anyone succeeds in fuckin' up this ship permanently, it's goin' to be you."

  Kraus gave Flanagan the money and tied the life jacket around himself. "So solly, Boats. Me not chicken like you," he said.

  "Laugh while you can," Homewood said.

  That night they had an air raid. They went to General Quarters around midnight and blazed away at Japanese planes that seemed more interested in bombing the airfield a few miles away from the harbor. Bombers from Espiritu Santo were giving lap ships a lot of trouble when they tried to supply their troops on Guadalcanal. The Jefferson City's five-inch guns got at least one Jap plane, which disappeared over the horizon gushing flames.

  The next day they went to sea for another round of gunnery and maneuvers with three other cruisers and four destroyers. They were only about an hour out of the harbor when a lookout sighted a raft. As they approached, two Jap airmen became visible, one an officer, the other an enlisted man.

  Commander Parker ordered Wilkinson's sea detail to throw them a line. A dozen sailors lounged nearby as the ship slowed and Kraus whirled a line over his head and threw it down to them. The Jap officer handed the line to the enlisted man and Kraus towed them almost under the bow.

  At that point, the Jap officer stood up and emptied his pistol into Kraus. He fell back against the capstan, blood gushing from his chest. Calmly, while the astonished sailors watched, the Jap reloaded his pistol and prepared to kill a few more Americans. The OOD ordered full ahead and washed the Jap away from the bow. A Marine on a twenty-millimeter mount opened fire, shredding both Japs and the raft.

  Kraus died in sick bay about an hour later. That night, beneath the Pacific stars, Homewood somberly confirmed his dark faith. "I told you guys. I told you that life jacket would be filled."

  Not for the first time, Flanagan felt bewildered by life aboard the Jefferson City, with its strange blend of modern weaponry and primitive taboos and talismans from another time. In this alien sea so far from home, Homewood's voice took on new authority. The boatswain mate's superstitions became outriders of that primary force, history, which was whirling them all in its ominous grip.

  Loyalty

  In his stateroom, Lieutenant Junior Grade Montgomery West was writing a letter to his Uncle Mort, telling him that if he did not get Ina Severn a job with another studio he was going to shell Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with the main battery when the Jefferson City returned to Long Beach Harbor.

  Lieutenant Robert Mullenoe stood in the doorway, a saturnine expression on his usually cheerful face. "Bob," West said, "I'm really sorry about your brother."

  "Thanks," he said.

  The word had just gotten out that Mullenoe's older brother, the engineering officer on the Hornet, had been killed by one of the torpedoes that struck the carrier.

  "Have you heard what's going on?" Mullenoe said.

  West shook his head. He was so tired most of the time, he did not have strength for gossip. When he was not on duty, he slept.

  "Parker's trying to get the officers to sign a round-robin letter to the admiral, claiming that McKay's unfit to command the ship. He's telling everybody McKay's a madman because he took those three torpedoes fired at the Enterprise. They don't plan to mention that, of course. They're going to smear him with all kinds of phony stuff. Accuse him of being a drunk. Apparently he does have a couple of bad spots in his record where he got in trouble for drinking too much. I'm not signing it, and I hope you won't either. McKay isn't the greatest captain in the world, but he's one thousand percent better than Parker. That man makes me puke."

  At breakfast, dinner and supper in the wardroom, Parker had made no secret of his opinion for the past several days. He even admitted he had refused to obey the captain's order to stay on course and take the torpedoes.

  West did not know what to think about it. "Would you have taken those torpedoes if you were captain?" he asked Mullenoe. "Isn't the captain's first duty to preserve his ship?"

  "His first duty is to win the war," Mullenoe said.

  "We've still got a carrier in the game, thanks to him."

  Perhaps West looked surprised to hear these rah-rah sentiments from Mullenoe. He was even more amazed when Mullenoe's voice thickened, fighting tears. "I've never been big on this loyalty to the service stuff I've never taken the Navy very seriously. I let my brother handle that end of it. That happens when you grow up in a Navy family. When I heard Pete was dead, I realized it was up to me now. But you don't know my old man. You don't realize what I'm talking about."

  "Try me."

  "The admiral ran our family like it was a ship. If you screwed up, you got a captain's mast and if it was serious it could go to a summary court-martial with him and my mother sitting as judges and my brother Pete as the prosecuting attorney. I got a few of those.

  "When I went to Annapolis, I figured I'd get thrown out in about six months. I could hardly wait. Then I heard the old man had cancer. For the next three years he hung on, just to see me graduate. I raised some hell, but I stayed in because I couldn't hurt him. He cared about the goddamn Navy. It was a sacred thing to him. He'd been around when his father was fighting to rescue the Navy after the Civil War. The country just forgot about it. Everyone else was building steel ships with steam engines in them and we were still floating around in wooden tubs with sails. They had to educate the public into building a decent Navy, they had to put up with being laughed at by the other navies. Now we've got a Navy. It isn't perfect, but we're going to prove we're the best in the world out here. We can't do it if we start undermining our captains."

  Montgomery West sensed an emotion as real, as meaningful as the one he had felt when Ina Severn told him she loved him. He did not feel this transcendent loyalty to something as abstract and huge as the U.S. Navy. The emotion was almost incomprehensible to him. But he recognized its power, its reality, in Mullenoe's life.

  "Okay, Bob. McKay's got my vote. I like the guy."

  "Good. Spread that around. You've got a lot of influence with the other reserve officers."

  "I do?"

  "Yeah. It's all those movies where you squinted into the sun and waited for the cavalry to show up."

  "I've been hoping the cavalry'd show up around here. In the shape of about six battleships.."

  "You'll go blind long before you see them," Mullenoe said.

  "We're not winning this thing, are we?" West said.

  Mullenoe shook his head. "These guys are a lot tougher than I thought they were. That's another reason why we can't let this ship go haywire."

  Lieutenant Commander Edwin Moss ran his finger down the list of the ship's sixty-five officers. He was pretty sure he had a majority behind the captain. Moss had persuaded the department heads to line up their junior officers. Although all the seniors were Annapolis graduates, only George Tombs, the first lieutenant, was enthusiastic and his motive was loyalty to his classmate. Oz Bradley was particularly dour. He said most of the black gang was in a semi-hysterical state over those three torpedoes. He frankly wondered if the ship's morale might require a change of command. Moss had preached him a veritable sermon about loyalty to the Navy's way and he had capitulated.

  A knock on his door. Parker's Marine orderly, a big beefy Texan, drawled, "Executive officer'd like to see you, sir."

  On the bulkheads
of Parker's small office were at least a dozen pictures of him with admirals, congressmen, diplomats. Parker glowered behind his desk. He did not invite Moss to sit down. "I know exactly what you're doing, Edwin," he said.

  "I beg your pardon, Commander?"

  "You're a fucking idiot, Moss. Trying to defend that drunken bum in the captain's cabin and incidentally smearing me with every officer on the ship. I'm going to ruin your goddamn miserable career, Moss. I'm going to arrange it so you never get a ship to command. You'll be supervising cases of defunct five-inch shells at some ammunition depot for the rest of your life."

  "How do you plan to do that, Mr. Parker?" Moss said, struggling to control his panic. He could hear his wife telling him, I still think you should get off that ship as soon as possible.

  "First of all, I'm going to write a fitness report on you that'll make you sound like a cross between a cretin and a coward. If the captain refuses to approve it I'll go to work on the political side. How do you think I got this job? Do you see any other guys like me, without that ring you've got on your finger, second in command of a cruiser? I'm from Missouri, Moss, and we play politics the hard way. Maybe you've heard of the Dickman-Igoe machine. They run St. Louis. My big brother is Bernie Dickman's right testicle. He can make congressmen jump faster and farther than you can make a second class seaman. I'm gonna make them jump, Moss — on you. They're gonna write letters to the personnel boys in the Bureau of Navigation asking how come they let a queer and a drunk command the gunnery department on a capital ship. We're gonna get affidavits from sailors on this ship about the way you seduced them. Maybe we'll send copies to your wife."

  "Commander Parker," Edwin Moss said, "you can do what you — you damn please. I'm not going to alter my support of Captain McKay. I'm not going to let you blackmail me."

  To Moss's dismay, his voice was trembling. Was it fear or anger? He was terribly afraid Parker could deliver on his threats. He knew how easy it was for a man's career to go sour in the Navy. All he needed was a single scandal, a single bad fitness report —especially if he had no friends in high places, if he simply relied on his determination to do his best.