"You fucking idiot. Can't you see I'm trying to save all our lives?" Parker shouted. "If we go out there against those Japs again with him at the conn, none of us are coming back."
Edwin Moss heard the fear in Parker's voice. For the first time he realized Parker was afraid of something that he, Moss, did not fear, death. He was afraid of the violent death they had all agreed to risk when they put on a naval officer's uniform. For a moment Moss felt almost light-headed — as if he had triumphed over Parker.
"That's a chance I'm willing to take," Moss said.
"You're a hopeless asshole, Moss."
Back in his cabin, Moss was assailed by alternating surges of fear and rage. Parker could still ruin him. What could he do to protect himself? He went to see the communications officer, Buzz Jamieson, who was a classmate.
"I think you should report the whole thing to the captain immediately. No officer should have to put up with that kind of bullshit," Jamieson said. "It's up to the captain to stop this guy in his tracks. It's time someone told him about the other stuff Parker is trying to pull. The round-robin letter. I think we might get the bastard court-martialed if McKay's willing to prefer charges."
"You're right," Moss said. "I'll go see him now."
He strode to the captain's cabin. His Marine orderly, a beanpole with an Adam's apple that bobbed nervously above his tight collar, said the captain had left word he did not want to be disturbed.
"Ask him, please, if I can see him," Moss said. "Tell him it's urgent."
Moss waited in the humid passageway. Sweat streamed down his neck. The Marine came out with an odd look on his face — as if he had just seen something that frightened him. "Okay, sir," he said, pushing open the door.
In the cabin, Arthur McKay sat at his desk writing a letter, an almost empty bottle of Ballantine's Scotch only inches from his right hand. There was no glass. The cabin smelled like a barroom — not that Lieutenant. Commander Moss had ever been in a barroom. But it smelled like he imagined barrooms smelled —fetid with a sickeningly sweetish odor.
"Wha's wrong, Moss?" Captain McKay said thickly.
"It's Commander Parker, Captain," Moss said. "I just had a very unpleasant interview with him."
"Welcome to the club," McKay said. "S'unpleasant bastard."
"Captain, I think he's doing serious harm to the morale — the good order of this ship."
McKay's head wobbled. Was he nodding agreement?
"Take care of him, Moss. Don' worry. War'll take care of him. Maybe take care of us all."
"Yes, sir."
"Don' worry 'bout him. My worry. Jus' do y'job, Moss. Make sure those ranges — right."
"Yes, sir."
"Gonna need good ranges soon."
"Yes, sir."
Moss was so appalled, he did not know where he was going until he found himself on the stern, staring at the night shrouded jungle of Espiritu Santo. The ghostly gray shapes of the three other cruisers and four destroyers in their task force rode at anchor a few hundred yards away. Get off this ship as soon as possible, his wife Eleanor whispered. It was too late to take that good advice.
"What did he say?"
Moss started so violently he almost went overboard. He steadied himself on the lifeline and faced Buzz Jamieson. "He said not to worry about it for the time being. He was on top of the situation. I think he is. He's still got my support."
Loyalty. The word blinked wildly in Moss's mind, no longer a beacon guiding him on a safe course. It was an incomprehensible eye in the tropic night, speaking to him in a strange code.
Drunk
Dear Wife,
I'm sitting here in my cabin, blotto, billed, squiffed, stinko! Do I make myself clear? I'm as gargoyled as a seaman second class on his first liberty in Shanghai.
How do you like that? How's that for conduct unbecoming a future admiral? I've got some things to tell you about our miserable country and our fucking Navy and I've got to get drunk to do it. If you want to show this letter to Cominch, go ahead, I don't give a damn.
Don't fail to read Carl Hoffer's after-action report of what we're now calling the battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. He blames me for losing the brand new carrier Hornet. That's extremely unfair to the pilots of those Japanese dive bombers and torpedo planes that blew the hell out of her in spite of the most intense anti-aircraft fire I've ever seen.
Brave men, Rita! We're fighting brave men out here. Some of the best damn sailors and fliers who ever put to sea. They're ready to die for their Emperor. What are we ready to die for? The goddamn New York Stock Exchange? The Kansas City Board of Trade? General Motors?
I've been reading a book we took off the body of a dead Jap pilot we found floating off Guadalcanal. Kore lake Yomeba Ware wa Kateru is the title, Read This and the War Is Won. It describes in savage detail how in Malaya, Indo-China, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines and China a few thousand white men are squeezing profits out of five hundred million Asians. I agree with every word of it!
Just as I predicted fifteen years ago in China, we're reaping the whirlwind we sowed out here over the past century. The goddamn British and French and Dutch did most of the sowing, but we stood by and let our businessmen scramble for the crumbs and said nothing. We joined in the despicable sport of flaunting our flag in the faces of people who didn't have the guns or money to fight back. We deserved to get our asses blown off at Pearl Harbor and Savo Island!
That brings me to what I want to tell you. I've found out what happened at Savo Island. I know exactly what happened to Win because it's also happened to me. Win was paralyzed by disgust. He looked into the greasy, sleazy, soul of America and found himself unable to order men to die for it. He discovered that twenty-five years of apostrophes to God and Country were bullshit!
How do you like that? Ask Cominch how he likes it. Ask him what he really thinks. At the bottom of his black heart I'm sure he believes the same thing.
How did I receive this revelation? Allow me to introduce you to my Executive Officer, Commander Daniel Boone Parker. He is the soul of Twentieth-Century America, in all its repulsive venality.
Do you know what venality means, Rita? It means concentrating on the fast buck first, last and always. Parker gets a cut of every crap game, every card game, every racket on this ship. I can't catch him at it. I'm not sure I want to. I'm convinced, although I can't catch him at it either, that he and the supply officer are selling or trading some of the crew's food. He'd sell the guns off the ship if he could get away with it!
Venality and me-first. That's what America's rugged individualism, survival of the fittest in the competitive jungle comes down to — a slimy readiness to ignore everything that could conceivably be called an ideal to make sure you get yours. Of course cover your ass at all costs. Even if other men die, so what? Your precious ass is the only thing that counts.
We always knew this about America, of course. How many times did you hear your father denounce the fucking civilians? Now here's the terrible thing, Rita. The Navy's no better. I knew that twenty years ago too, when I watched Win trying to give a bad fitness report to some son of a bitch with the right connections in Washington. I saw the Navy was just another goddamned bureaucracy. I also saw the absurdity of Win's game — the idealist with connections. Determined to get to be CNO thanks to all the wires Mother could pull without violating the code. Making it with honor untarnished!
That's what is called a contradiction. History is full of them. When you try to live them, the result is disaster.
Better to get tanked, boiled, ossified, incandescent, Rita. Why didn't you let me get out of the goddamn Navy twenty years ago? I wouldn't be a drunk. I might have written a couple of decent history books by now. We might even love each other somewhere, somehow. That's the terrifying part of it. I love the idea of loving you, of somehow appeasing that wild rage and hatred in your soul in the name of some impossible ideal, knowing you don't love me, you've never loved me, you never wanted anyone but Win.
The Navy's no better, Rita. That's what Admiral Hoffer is proving. He lost his carrier, but it wasn't his fault. NOOOOOOO. It was Captain McKay's fault. He's using Captain McKay to cover his big German ass. Admiral Scott covers his ass by sinking ships that never existed. Now we've got a new ringmaster, Uncle Dan Callaghan, Ghormley's ex-chief of staff. They just made him admiral of our combined matchbox fleet with orders to stop a couple of Jap battleships coming down from Truk. There are some who maintain Uncle Dan prayed his way to the top. Others see two years of ass-kissing Roosevelt in the White House as having more to do with it.
Down in Noumea our new Comsopac, "Fighting Bill" Halsey, has issued a directive which consists of the following: "Kill Japs. Kill Japs. And keep on killing Japs." I do not believe this plan has ever been war-gamed at Newport.
Tell Cominch I agree with. Win — we're fighting an idiot's war out here, in the name of Navy public relations or the egotism of Ernest J. King, take your fucking pick. We all know the master plan called for a Europe-first strategy. What in Christ are we doing trying to take the offensive without enough ships or men? A lot of Americans have died and more will die soon (probably including me) trying to prove that the Navy and Marines can fight a war without the Army, so please keep those appropriations coming. When we should be saving our ships and men by staying on the defensive around Australia and New Zealand and waiting for the umpteen dozen new destroyers, cruisers and carriers that are under construction to get to sea next year. By that time we might also have Herr Hitler out of the way and add the Atlantic Fleet to the ready list.
But the bulldogs are in control. Brains are the last thing anyone wants a captain to have. So why not get pie-eyed, plastered, polluted, ploshed?
Your loving husband, Arthur McKay
Captain, USN
Nightmare
"Are you superstitious, Commander Parker?" Arthur McKay asked as they climbed the ladder to the bridge.
"No."
"Good. We've got thirteen ships in this task force. It's Friday the thirteenth. And we're taking on two Japanese battleships."
"Battleships! That's insanity. They can blow us apart before we even get within range."
"The admiral's plan is to get within range before they find us. Let's hope it works."
Once more they were plunging through the moonless Pacific night, following the white wake of a cruiser just ahead of them. Once more, Captain McKay would soon stand on the bridge waiting for his executive officer to come apart.
After mailing that vituperative letter to his wife, McKay had slept soundly and awakened as calm and fatalistic as a Chinese philosopher. He had let his steward remove the empty Ballantine's bottle with no immediate desire for a refill.
He had remained clear-headed and calm for the rest of the day as the orders arrived from Noumea to join Admiral Callaghan's hastily assembled task force. McKay had given a talk to the crew about the importance of the battle confronting them and made decisions to prepare the ship for it. He had remained the captain of the USS Jefferson City, even if in his heart he had resigned from the Navy in disgust or despair or both.
He had decided to keep Parker on the bridge to display the advantage he had over his executive officer. He was not afraid to die and Parker was violently afraid. It was almost cruel to exploit this weakness. But cruelty was a wasted word when you were dealing with a swine. McKay was convinced Parker's cowardice was the key to the mystery of what had happened aboard the Jefferson City at Savo Island. Parker had ruined his best friend. In the name of revenge, in the name of that friendship, which had been at the center of his life for so long, Arthur McKay vowed he would destroy Parker if the war permitted him.
"Do you know Admiral Callaghan?" he asked as they paused on the platform aft of the bridge.
"I met him when he was the President's naval aide."
"I wonder if you got the same impression I got. Stupid."
"No," Parker said.
"He hasn't even bothered to issue a battle plan. We're just imitating Norm Scott's tactics at Cape Esperance. Except now we've got thirteen ships in line ahead. Nelson would approve. But naval tactics have advanced a little since Trafalgar."
"Jesus Christ," Parker said.
McKay found it amusing to watch fear drool down Parker's padded cheeks. What made it doubly amusing was the incongruous fact that he was telling the truth. They were steaming toward a Japanese fleet three times more powerful than they were, using eighteenth-century tactics. Instead of ordering his destroyers to race ahead, discover the enemy and deliver a demoralizing torpedo attack, Admiral Callaghan had leashed his wolfhounds at the head and rear of the column, where they were worse than useless. Thirteen ships in line were twice as unwieldy as Scott's seven at Cape Esperance, where confusion had verged on chaos. They still had not standardized their code words and lookout terminology. For communication they were still relying on the TBS voice radio, which thirteen ships were certain to overload.
He watched Parker relieve Lieutenant Mullenoe, who departed for his GQ station in sky forward. "That was a great talk you gave the crew, Captain," Mullenoe said as he left.
"Thank you."
Acting, was that the key to success as a military leader? McKay wondered. Maybe he could make admiral yet if he took some lessons from Montgomery West. Were the souls of Nelson's captains as full of wormwood as they talked to their crews about honor and duty? He had avoided those abstractions in his talk. Instead he had dwelt on the desperate situation on Guadalcanal. If the Navy lost this battle, America would have the humiliation of seeing her fighting men trapped on another Bataan.
"How are you feeling, son?" Arthur McKay said, putting his hand on the shoulder of the bridge telephone talker.
"A little scared, Captain."
"That's perfectly all right. I feel the same way. So does Commander Parker, right?"
"Right," Parker snapped, his eyes on the dark sea ahead of them.
At his gun director above forty-millimeter mount one, Frank Flanagan listened to one of the gun crew, a Kentucky hillbilly nicknamed the Deacon, reciting from the Bible. "'Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,'" the Deacon declared in his chanting singsong, "'for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'"
Would He? Flanagan wondered. With each battle, he found himself more and more incapable of believing in God's protection. At the same time he found himself curiously aware of Biblical ideas. The idea of being unworthy, for instance. Unworthy of protection or salvation. Frank Flanagan was definitely among the unworthy. He was capable of thinking and feeling and doing all sorts of rotten things. He was still helping Jack Peterson write lying love letters to Martha Johnson. He was still tormented by his visit to the Honolulu whorehouse and what he had done to Teresa Brownlow.
Flanagan had begun to hate his mother for trying to push him into the priesthood and forcing him to join the Navy and come out here to these godforsaken islands to be blown apart by a high explosive shell. He was ready to believe women were the root of all evil — if it weren't for the rottenness that churned in his own soul. He had not written a letter to his mother or father for weeks. She deserved it, but he wished he had a chance to tell his father that he'd shot down a couple of Jap planes before they got him.
He no longer liked the Navy. He hated the endless routine of watches and musters and drills, he loathed the food, he despised snarling Ensign Kruger and had even grown impatient with Jack Peterson's big talk and Boats Homewood's superstitions. What the hell did any of it mean, when they were probably going to be feeding the sharks before the night was over?
As far as Flanagan was concerned, he was already dead. It was only a question of time before it became official, a fact.
"How you doin', kiddo?" Homewood said, about a foot away from him, giving Flanagan's heart a violent twitch. He was always amazed by the catlike way Homewood moved around the ship in the dark.
"Okay," he said.
"Here," Boats said. "
Take a slug of this."
It was whiskey. Flanagan took a hefty swallow.
"Where the hell did you get it?"
"Never mind. These night battles are a bitch. Just remember they can't see us neither. We got a hell of a good admiral up ahead. I knew guys who served under Callaghan. He's a fightin' Irishman like you."
"Is that good or bad?"
"Hey, listen. We come out here to fight, didn't we? Remember what the captain said about them Marines. They're dependin' on us. We can't let them arrogant fuckin' bastards down. After tonight every goddamn Marine in the world's gonna have to kiss our asses and admit they can't win the fuckin' war without the Navy."
"Right," Flanagan said. His heart began to pound. His voice shook. "Jesus, Boats, I don't know what's the matter with me. I wasn't scared before. I'm not scared in the daylight when I can shoot back."
"Take another slug. You're gonna do okay. We're all gonna do okay. The captain's got his joss workin' full blast. I can feel it as sure as I feel them engines down below. Just think of them eight-inch and five-inch guns. Think of how much metal we can throw at them yellow bastards."
Flanagan took another big gulp of whiskey. It burned in his empty belly. He had not eaten any supper. He was afraid he would throw it up. The heads had been full of vomiting sailors all day.
Maybe Homewood was right. Maybe the chaplain was right too. With the help of the powers of darkness, they were about to consecrate some history in the narrow channels of King Solomon's Islands.
"Son. I have had the same feelings you have," Chaplain Emerson Bushnell whispered to a sobbing sailor from Detroit. "I hate war as much as you do. A few years ago I was giving speeches to young men like you, urging them to refuse to serve in another war. My brother Alcott died in France during the last one. He was a true believer—"
The sailor had stopped sobbing. He was staring at the chaplain in astonishment. "You telling me to become a conscientious objector? Is that easier than getting a section eight?"
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