In counterpoint to these bitter feelings was the memory of the sacrifice young Dick Meade had made for his men. It did not make sense to have officers like that in the brainless bureaucracy known as the U.S. Navy. Maybe nothing made sense. Swinish Daniel Boone Parker was still alive, cowering in Batt II. Why go on looking for any deeper answer?
The purplish mountains of Guadalcanal slowly took shape. Nine ships were now in sight, five of them afire, crippled or both. The shattered Atlanta drifted off the enemy-held shore of Guadalcanal, her decks awash. Another cruiser, the Portland, her rudder smashed by a torpedo, steamed slowly in circles. The American destroyer Aaron Ward was dead in the water, her fire rooms flooded by torpedoes. Two other American destroyers were aflame and slowly sinking. Ditto for two Japanese destroyers. On the horizon toward Salvo Island, a burning Japanese battleship retreated at no more than five knots.
The Portland seemed able to take care of herself. As soon as she spotted one of the Japanese destroyers, she sank her with a salvo from her main battery. The Japanese battleship promptly returned the compliment with a salvo that straddled the Aaron Ward. Minutes later, a squadron of dive bombers from Henderson Field went after the dying leviathan and those were the last shots she fired.
Captain McKay decided the Jefferson City could do the Atlanta the most good. She looked as if she might sink at any moment. The J.C.'s guns could hold off the Japanese Army until boats arrived to rescue the survivors. The captain of the Atlanta welcomed his offer of assistance. "Have issued small arms to the crew. Could use some big guns," he replied in answer to McKay's signals.
Around Lunga Point came a Navy tug — a welcome sight to both ships. But the tug, instead of heading toward the Atlanta, veered out to sea. Across the water came the chatter of machine guns. "What in Christ are they doing?" McKay said.
"I think they're firing at Japanese in the water, Captain," the port bridge lookout said.
"Signal them to stop immediately," McKay said.
A signalman blinked the message to the tug. The machine guns continued to chatter. Through his field glasses, McKay could see the bullets churning the water, which was dotted with black heads.
"How do they know they're all Japanese?" he said.
"Tell them to stop or I'll fire on them.”
This time the machine guns stopped. A blinker replied. Captain McKay read it. "Are ... you ... in ... Halsey's ... Navy?"
"Tell them we're in the American Navy," McKay said.
They guarded the tug while it towed the Atlanta down to an American held part of the shore. Shortly after they got there and the Atlanta unloaded her dead and wounded, she settled deeper in the water and sank stern-first.
A flimsy from Radio Central arrived on the Jefferson City's bridge. It was from Gil Hoover, the captain of the Helena: WHAT IS YOUR CONDITION? IF SEAWORTHY, RENDEZVOUS WITH ME NORTH OF SAVO ISLAND AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
With Admirals Scott and Callaghan dead, Hoover was the senior officer still afloat, hence the OTC—officer in tactical command. "Tell him we'll be there," McKay said.
Off Savo they found the Helena shepherding two crippled cruisers, the Juneau, which had taken a torpedo that had broken her keel, and the battered San Francisco, which looked as if she had been stamped on by a giant wearing steel-soled shoes. The bridge was a mass of crushed, blackened, twisted metal. The rest of the superstructure had gigantic holes torn in it. With three destroyers, two of them also crippled, they formed a column and began limping back to Espiritu Santo at fifteen knots.
Captain McKay set Condition Two, which would permit half the crew to be relieved from General Quarters to get some rest. A sullen Commander Parker rejoined him on the bridge. McKay let icy silence communicate his contempt for his executive officer. Last night, in those five wild minutes of outguessing the battleship's salvos, he felt he had established an unchallengeable superiority over this despicable coward. Now he would have to decide what to do with him.
"Captain! San Francisco is turning to avoid torpedoes!" cried the lookout on the port wing of the bridge.
McKay got out on the wing in time to see the battered cruiser slewing to starboard. A moment later four white wakes rushed past her stern—straight at the Juneau, which was a thousand yards away on her starboard beam. "Sound the siren," McKay shouted. The San Francisco had no way to warn anyone.
The Jefferson City's klaxon howled, but it was too late. At least two of the torpedoes bored straight into the belly of the Juneau. There was an enormous flash, a stupendous explosion — and the Juneau vanished. Instead of a cruiser there was only a huge dome of smoke on the sea. Out of this black mass rose an intact five-inch twin gun mount, which hung in the air for a moment and fell back into the blackness.
"Down on the deck," McKay shouted. Everyone went flat. An instant later, a piece of steel plating the size of a barn door smashed into the bridge and bounced off into the water. Up and down the length of the Jefferson City other pieces of the Juneau tore through the superstructure. Reports of at least a dozen wounded flowed to the bridge from various parts of the ship.
The column continued to plow toward Espiritu Santo. Were there any Juneau survivors? It seemed inconceivable anyone could have gotten off that ship. Still, if even one man had survived, they owed him some help. McKay waited for Captain Hoover to send a destroyer back for a search. But they continued to plod away from the black pyre.
McKay understood what Gil Hoover was thinking. Two of his destroyers were cripples, easy pickings for the Japanese sub. If he detached his one intact destroyer, he stripped his surviving cruisers of their only protection. McKay suspected he would keep going too if he was in command. But there was something craven, sickening about the way they were fleeing like routed fugitives.
Two days later they stood into Noumea, and Captain McKay watched while Dick Meade's body was removed from blackened turret one. "He never left his seat," Lieutenant Commander Moss said. "His finger was still on the firing button." Moss was looking green, but he had gone into the turret to bring out the charred corpse and estimate the damage to the guns.
McKay went back to his cabin to write a letter to Dick Meade's parents. He was sitting at his desk staring at the blank piece of paper when the officer of the deck informed him that Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner wanted to see him.
In a moment he was facing the dour face, the violent eyes. Turner had been in a command limbo on the COMSOPAC staff since Savo Island. Looking for something to do, he had apparently persuaded Halsey to make him his Lord High Executioner. "We want a straight answer to one question, Captain," he said.
"Why didn't you go back and search for survivors of the Juneau?"
"Captain Hoover was the OTC and he evidently decided it was too risky."
"Do you think there were any survivors?"
"I don't know. I doubt it."
"Why didn't you exercise some judgment on that point? You were closer to the scene than the Helena."
"It wasn't my decision."
"Admiral Halsey's relieving Hoover of command of his ship. I'm going to recommend the same thing for you."
"That's the most outrageous goddamn thing I've ever heard in my life! I want to see the admiral. Now."
"He doesn't have time to listen to your excuses," Turner snapped.
"Someone must have listened to yours for Savo Island. Otherwise you'd be on the beach with your friend George Tomlinson."
"You say one more insubordinate word to me, McKay, and you'll lose more than your ship!" Turner shouted.
"One more?" McKay said. "I'll say ten thousand more to you, Admiral. I think you fucked up at Savo Island and you know it, and you're trying to cover your ass and Ernie King's ass by crucifying Win Kemble. You're trying to shut me up with the phoniest accusation I ever heard in the history of naval warfare. How's that for insubordination? Want to bring me up on those charges? I'll be delighted to argue them with you before a court-martial board anytime, anyplace."
"You're backing the wrong horse, McKay
," Turner said.
"I'm not going to waste my breath talking to you. I'm going ashore now and I'm going to sit outside Halsey's goddamn office until he sees me."
Admiral Halsey had long since moved his staff from the supply ship Argonne to comfortable quarters on a windswept hill on the island of Noumea. He had told the French officials who protested to tell their troubles to General de Gaulle. McKay sat outside Halsey's office for most of the day. Finally his chief of staff, whose disposition was on a par with Kelly Turner's, glowered in the doorway. "You can go in now."
There sat the Bull with his outsize head and underslung jaw. McKay had been one of his captains when he commanded Destroyer Division 12. He and Rita and everyone else in the division had gotten drunk with him, celebrating the success of their famous night attack on the Battleship Force during maneuvers in 1937. Halsey had adored Rita. He shared her blind brainless worship of the U.S. Navy.
"I'm here to tell you what kind of a war you're running, Admiral," McKay said. "It would have been magnificent in 1812, but today it's the closest thing to idiocy I've ever encountered. You send cruisers against battleships and you act like destroyer tactics have never been developed and lose eleven out of thirteen ships and when a man like Gil Hoover makes a mistake in judgment after fighting a battle that he knows in his guts was stupidity from beginning to end you disgrace him. I gather you're going to let Kelly Turner give me the business too, so he can start pretending Savo Island never happened. If that's the way we're playing the game, so be it. But I've got a right to tell you how much it disgusts me to see that son of a bitch shit all over men who've been risking their lives and their ships."
The glaring eyes beneath the bushy eyebrows never blinked. "Is that all, Captain McKay?" Halsey asked.
"In spite of relieving me, I hope you'll take seriously my recommendation of one of my ensigns for the Medal of Honor." He began describing what Dick Meade had done in his turret. In the middle of it, McKay began to weep.
Halsey's face remained expressionless. "Go back to your ship and get some sleep_. If you can't get to sleep try some of this."
He took a bottle of bourbon out of his desk and handed it to him.
McKay walked to the door. The hard voice spun him around. "Captain McKay."
"Yes, Admiral?"
"I read the after-action reports of the battle of Santa Cruz. The captain of the Enterprise says you saved his ship by taking those three torpedoes that didn't explode. Don't worry about Admiral Hoffer's complaints. I'm ignoring them. I'm ignoring Admiral Turner's comments on you in regard to the Juneau, too. But I have to relieve Gil Hoover. There were survivors. Left for shark bait. I can't excuse that."
McKay reached for the doorknob and the commanding voice spun him around again. "One more thing. If you can tell me how to win a war without losing ships, I'll sign over my salary and pension rights to you tomorrow."
A half hour later, a dazed Arthur McKay was back in his cabin. He sat down and began the letter he had been unable to write a few hours ago.
Dear Milly and Clinch:
I want to tell you how Dick died. I think it will make you proud to be his parents. It made me proud to be in the same Navy with him....
Mail Call
Husband Dear:
I got your letter. I was tempted to show it to Cominch. It would be what you deserve. But I decided to file it with the rest of your explosions of despair about the Navy and the United States of America. It's rather a thick file by now. This one is not the worst. If I had to pick one, I'd choose the cri de coeur you wrote me from the Monocacy. Such bleating about ethical standards and American foreign policy! Almost as bad was your whine from Shanghai in 1935, after Nimitz left you aboard the Augusta without a nice kindly papa to pat you on the head every twenty minutes. And you wonder why I worry that you're not tough enough to make it to the top! I don't know what the hell went wrong with you pioneers out there on the Great Plains. Psychology never did interest me. But something turned you into world champion crybabies. Maybe it was boredom, after you ran out of Indians to kill.
Anyway, I've got delicious news. Win Kemble returned to duty and promptly got reassigned to the Canal Zone. Can you imagine? I wouldn't be surprised if he spends the war down there watching new ships and captains transit to the Pacific Fleet. You and your pals can take a lot of the credit for it, with those victories you won for old Bulldog Bill Halsey. Cominch is strutting around Washington looking ten feet tall. FDR can't do enough for him.
I got my hands on Hoffer's after-action report and I can't find a word in it about you. Instead there's a commendation from the Bull for risking your ship to save the Enterprise. If I catch Cominch in the right mood, I think I can get you a Navy Cross for it.
What would you do without me? Don't answer that question. I might not be able to forgive you.
Your loving wife, Rita
Dear Art:
Win has just suffered the cruellest blow I have ever seen the Navy inflict on anyone. He's been deported — there's no other word for it — to Panama. Can you imagine? Sending the keenest, besteducated mind in the officer corps to that godforsaken place, where he'll command nothing but misfits and drunks no captain will let aboard his ship.
Win's too proud to write you a pleading letter, Art. But you're his only hope now. Clinch Meade has turned into the coward I always suspected he was. This loathsome investigation Ernie King has launched into Savo Island can be turned to Win's advantage with your help. By now I'm sure you've found out what really happened at Savo. How little responsibility Win had for the disaster — and exactly what happened aboard the Jefferson City. I don't know myself — Win's never shared his shipboard life with me — but from hints he's dropped I'm sure his crew betrayed him. If you can bring the men responsible to justice, you can clear Win's name.
Ever since I married Win, I've had a terrible premonition something like this would happen. He's always excited so much envy and malicious opposition by refusing "to hide his light under a bushel," as he put it. I know just how cruel men can be to one another. I remember once, when I was a little girl in Shanghai, one of the sailors on Father's ship fell in love with a Chinese woman and married her. The other men tormented him so unmercifully about his Chink wife, he jumped ship and ran off to the interior with her. He was caught and returned in irons, of course, and sentenced to ten years in Portsmouth Prison.
The officer corps torment each other in more subtle ways. I think there's something about being incarcerated in those awful steel ships that makes men want to hurt each other.
Please help Win, Art. I know your loyalty to him remains unchanged, in spite of Rita's awful hatred of him.
Love, Lucy
Dear Nephew:
I got your intemperate letter about your benighted British bitch. You always had lousy judgment when it came to women, but this time I think you've really rung the bell. Don't you know she's referred to around town as The British Open? She didn't get fired for cockteasing you into the Navy. She got fired because she has no talent and her lubricity (look that one up) could get us all in a lot of trouble. The last thing we want around here is a scandal. With all the breaks Hollywood and M-G-M in particular are getting from the government (breaks we thoroughly deserve for the movies we're making for them) we can't afford to have some tabloid writing about a certain M-G-M British comedienne who enjoys gangbanging the extras in her dressing room at the end of the day. That's the truth about your beloved, and if you want affidavits from the guys who've been there, I'll be glad to supply them.
If you ever get to Australia, look up an actor named Charles Benbow. He was her lover in London for a couple of years but he couldn't stand the way she two-timed him. She grew up in Plymouth, you know, where her old man was a sailor. Every woman in that town is a part-time whore from birth.
Have you done anything that might with a little nudging get you a decoration? Or has the ship done anything in those big victories the Navy is suddenly announcing? (Presuming they really hap
pened.) Believe it or not, I'm still determined to make you a star for your mother's sake, even though she isn't with us any more. Unless I hear a retraction of certain sentiments in your letter, I'm going to change my mind.
Your ever loving Uncle, Mort
Dear Edwin:
I don't want to say I told you so, but everything you wrote in your last letter about Captain McKay confirms what I've been hearing about him. When he was in China, he got drunk on a gunboat he was commanding on the Yangtze and sailed the ship right into an artillery barrage without letting the crew fire back. Only his wife's connections saved his neck that time. As for his wife, the stories I hear about her are too embarrassing to spell out in detail. Right now, it's almost certain that she's Admiral King's mistress. He won't be the first admiral to get into bed with her. You better burn this as soon as you read it.
Edwin Jr. is getting wonderful marks in school. I hope you can find time to write him a letter telling him how proud you are. Linda and Joanne are doing beautifully too. So we're coping without you. I'm feeling all right, except for the morning sickness and the constant worry.
Love, Eleanor
Dear Frank:
I had a terrible dream about you last night. You were being burned alive in some fiery furnace. I prayed for an angel to rescue you, the way the Lord had rescued Daniel. But nothing happened. My prayers went up into the sky like so much smoke. I hope it was just a dream and not an omen. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with what's been happening to us in San Pedro. Shanghai Red's making so much money he's decided to expand his restaurant. He's bought our building — we only rented the first two floors — and he's throwing us out on the street.
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