Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  All this was undoubtedly true. She knew it; she could see the gulf between them as clearly as he saw it. Yet she put her arms around him and murmured, "Then let's get married tomorrow."

  "We're sailing the, next day."

  "I know that."

  "Would it make any difference if we waited?"

  "It would to me."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know exactly. Maybe I just want to stop feeling grandfather's disapproving eyes on me for allowing this hulking American to desecrate me — and Fairy Hill."

  "Do you really feel desecrated?"

  "You know how I really feel."

  "If I get through the war—which I doubt—I've told you that—could you leave Fairy Hill and live in America?"

  "We'll build a house just like it in one of your Southern states—Virginia or Maryland."

  Still he could not say yes. It was the last stand of Robert Mullenoe, bachelor. He was ready to become engaged, to pledge on his honor his love for all time. But he wanted the war to stand between him and ultimate surrender.

  Sapping this resistance was the desire his brother's death had awakened in his soul, a desire to which this woman gave flesh and substance — to become a husband, a father, to raise sons.

  Her voice came out of the darkness again, seriously trying to explain why she wanted to marry him.

  "I suppose I would also like to feel absolutely certain."

  "You don't now?"

  "You're a handsome man, Leftenant. Remember, I've already married one sailor."

  And look where he is, whispered the warning voice. "But if you choose to wait, I'll try to understand."

  Her sadness decimated his resistance. It threatened the most amazing part of Mullenoe's love for this woman — the astonishing pride he took in the thought that he was going back to the Solomons, back to night battles and jinking torpedo planes — to protect her.

  Mullenoe had always been disdainful of the Navy's supposed role as protector of homes and hearths. Protector of the goddamn civilians' right to guzzle and gorge and drive expensive cars and haul down high salaries while the underpaid sailors sweated or froze on the uncaring ocean. That was what Mullenoe had concluded was the real story, from some of his father's diatribes in retirement.

  But Christine Wallace, Fairy Hill, this whole magnificent country, prostrate before the oncoming Japanese. This justified a man's devotion, his courage, if necessary, his death.

  Now he was denying or at least implying there was a limit to that devotion — when there was no limit, when this woman had made the word supremely meaningful in his warrior's soul.

  "We'll get married tomorrow. Assuming such things can be done in Australia."

  She kissed him. He was shocked to discover her face was wet with tears. "It seems to me you've already discovered how much can be done in Australia, Leftenant," she said.

  "He wants me to elope with him," Harold Semple said, adjusting the straps of his gown. "He has a house in Queensland, where no one will ever find us. It's two thousand miles away. He'll bring me dresses and diamonds. We'll live there for the rest of our lives."

  "Queensland is in the north, Clara dear," Edna McKenzie said as he put on his lipstick.

  "Anyone who goes up there is cuckoo. That's where the Japs will land, if they get here. They'd love a little target practice on an American sailor. If they don't make it, you'd die of boredom. You're not monogamous, darling."

  "What's that?"

  "A one-man woman."

  Harold ran his hands through his hair and studied the effect in the mirror. It was a Jean Harlow trick. He pursed his lips and wrinkled his nose. "That's true."

  In three weeks he had fallen in love eight times. But the real thrill was the number of people who had fallen in love with him. He had been deluged with gifts, money, adoration. There were times when the situation grew scary. Charles Benbow had burst into tears and threatened to kill himself when Clara told him she had found another. His threat revived the violent terror Semple had felt when Klein hanged himself. But Edna advised Clara to be ruthless. It was a sailor's style. They all accepted it, even though their landlubbers' hearts broke into teeny tiny pieces.

  It had all been so wonderful. The thought of going to sea again, trapped inside that floating sweatbox, unable to wear perfume, lipstick, a dress. Even silk panties would be impossible. "Oh, Edna, I can't do it. I can't go back to that abominable compartment! I can't bear the thought of that vile food, the guns.

  "Crack hardy, darling," Edna said. That was Australian slang for grin and bear it.

  Semple was shocked. "It doesn't bother you?"

  "You have to learn to use your imagination. Pick out someone in the mess compartment as your trick for the night. Go through the whole thing, step by step. You in your red toque. Him undressing you."

  "What about getting killed?"

  Edna grabbed him by the arms and spun him around. "Listen," she said, in a voice that belonged to Yeoman First Class Edward McKenzie. "Just because we're different doesn't mean we shouldn't take the same chances as the rest of them. They're our shipmates. I'll never forget the way those fire controlmen risked their lives to drag me out of that burning sick bay when the torpedo hit."

  Semple could only nod, wide-eyed. Edna kissed him on the cheek. "Now let's go downstairs and have the time of our lives. Think of it as your farewell performance, darling. Think of the loot!"

  Dawn was breaking across the immense swath of the Pacific visible from Maroubra Beach. Annie Flood strummed her guitar one last time and sang the eerie final verse of "Waltzing Matilda."

  Up jumped the swagman, sprang into the billabong. "You'll never catch me alive," said he.

  And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong, "You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me."

  "That really isn't a very happy song, is it?" Frank Flanagan said.

  "It's a tale of mystery, imagination and horror," Annie said. "The sort of things that make life worth living if you're Irish."

  "A swagman — he's a sort of sailor, ain't he?" Jack Peterson said. "Except he does his wanderin' on dry land."

  "Yeah. He's got his Matilda. We've got our seabags," the Radical said.

  Annie Flood had explained the slang. A Matilda was the pack the swagman carried on his back. In the song, the swagman kills a sheep who wanders down to the waterhole. The owner tries to arrest him and the swagman drowns himself rather than go to jail.

  "Hey, listen. I'd rather go waltzin' in Ironbottom Sound than go to jail," Jack Peterson said.

  Annie rubbed tears from her eyes. "You're a heartless bastard, Peterson."

  "Whatya mean? You gotta have a heart to get in the U.S. Navy. Your can't pass the physical without one."

  "Yours is made of rock salt."

  They stared out at the Pacific. "It's a big ocean," Jack said.

  "Hey, we're gonna come back," Marty Roth said. "I can't wait to come back to Australia."

  Anna Elias put her head on Marty's shoulder and started to sob. Anna gave them all a bad case of the creeps. She had told them what the Germans were doing to the Jews. It made them feel the world had gone berserk. The worst could happen to anyone. Even Daley, who was convinced that prayer would get him through, somehow, was shaken.

  Sally Lundin was sobbing now. She clung to Jack Peterson. Hilary, the Radical's girl, was trying not to imitate her. Good revolutionists never cried. Daley's girl, Stella, wept tears by the gallon. She and the pious prude had decided her vocation was more important than consummation. She was still a virgin.

  "Jesus Christ, I knew this was a lousy idea," Jack said.

  He had wanted to dump the girls and spend their last night with Homewood in Woolloomooloo, but Flanagan and Roth had insisted on this farewell party. Annie had been close to tears all night. She had always vowed she would never become a sheila. She regretted her lost virtue. Her love for Flanagan remained entangled with a sense of sin.

  "You keep this up," Jack said as the chorus of sobs
grew violent, "and we're gonna come back here and marry you and ruin your lives. I'd be the lousiest husband in the universe. I'd always have my eye peeled for some sixteen-year-old. Flanagan here would come in second, because he's got an opinion on everything from Jesus Christ to naval strategy and he's convinced he's always right. He and Annie would be so busy arguin’ they'd never go to bed. Roth here would stick Anna in an apartment in the Bronx with five kids, and she'd never rewrite Freud and those other birds who specialize in tellin' us what we already know, that guys like girls and vice versa. Instead of cryin' you should be celebratin'. You're gettin' rid of us before we do any real damage."

  "By God," Annie Flood said, "you've convinced me."

  She threw her aims around Frank Flanagan and gave him one last angry kiss.

  Back in Paddington, Flanagan helped Annie carry blankets and suitcases into her house. The small fieldstone Catholic Church was visible at the end of the block. Upstairs in Annie's tiny bedroom, she suddenly began crying again. "Frank," she said, "come down to the church with me now. We can both go to confession feel so much better."

  Flanagan thought of the love this woman had given him on the edge of the empty ocean. He thought of Chaplain Bushnell telling him that American faith was not a set of rules or dogmas but a voyage of exploration. He thought of Teresa Brownlow and her father, daring God to fail them. "I can't do it," he said. "I wish I could, for your sake. But I don't believe it any more."

  Mail Call

  Dear Frank:

  It's wonderful to hear that you have come through all those battles safely and are in Australia. It makes me feel better to know some of my prayers have been answered.

  But so many prayers haven't been answered, Frank. Daddy died two weeks ago. He had a stroke while he was preaching on a street corner in San Pedro. We couldn't find the money for another church. It was so awful, the way drunken sailors used to laugh at him and heckle him, I was almost glad when it happened.

  That makes me feel terrible now. It makes me wonder if that's why he died so broken and lost. I could see his faith dwindling away day by day. I only hope there was enough left to raise him to the glory he deserved and would have surely had, if it weren't for his sinful daughter.

  Pray for me Frank. There are times when I fear I'll wind up like Momma, seeing people who aren't there.

  Your friend, Teresa

  Dearest Jack:

  I'm so glad to hear you're in Australia, which means no one is shooting at you for a while. You can't believe how scared I am to turn on the radio or pick up a newspaper for fear of reading something about the Japs claiming they just sank six cruisers and four battleships. I know they make those claims all the time and we don't even bother to deny them any more. But I also know we never admit our real losses either.

  I find it hard to believe you and your friend Flanagan are spending so much time at the beach, surfing until you're too tired to even look at the girls. But I'm almost willing to swallow it from the detailed descriptions you wrote of those waves. I never knew you were that much of a swimmer — or so good with a pen. I've never gotten more than a postcard from you on previous cruises — and when we've gone to the beach, we didn't spend much time in the water. I guess — hope — it's all proof of how much you've changed.

  I've gotten a job as an arc-welder at the Bremerton Yards. The pay is fantastic — I'm making over $200 a week. I'm saving most of it for a trousseau. That's something a woman buys when she's beginning to think she might get married. Look it up, darling, or ask your brainy friend Flanagan what it means.

  Just between us, it means I'm seriously crazy about you.

  Love, Martha

  Dear Edwin,

  I'm sorry to hear you had a such a dismal time in Australia. The conduct of the sailors as you describe it is just appalling. The Australian women don't sound much better. I'm sure that Presbyterian minister you met had the right explanation — that they're mostly descended from convicts and their moral standards have never been very high.

  Captain McKay's conduct, on the other hand, is pretty close to unforgivable. Parading around Syndey with his ex-mistress from Manila on his arm! The man has no moral standards, obviously. He's as bad as his wife. It's dismaying to think someone like that can rise to his rank in the U.S. Navy.

  Maybe now you'll agree I'm right — you should get off that ship as soon as possible. There's plenty of new construction coming off the ways that you can apply for. Gunnery officers are high on the list of candidates for destroyer commands, I've been told. If I were you I'd get your request for a transfer off to BuNav today.

  I'm feeling much better. The doctor says I'm the biggest he's ever seen in the sixth month. That's a sign it's a boy. The other kids are fine. I'll send you more details in my next letter. I want to mail this tonight.

  Love, Eleanor

  Husband dear:

  From certain hints in a recent letter from Lucy, I gather she thinks you will come to her heroic husband Winfield Scott Schley Kemble's rescue, somehow. Where she gets this faith in you I have no idea and don't really want to find out. If I wasn't absolutely certain she was incapable of infidelity I would suspect the worst.

  Failing that, I will try to head it off by abjuring you to do nothing. Do I make myself clear? NOTHING. From comments by Cominch I gather Admiral Hepburn is telling him Savo is the worst goddamn mess ever perpetrated by so-called commanders in any uniform, let along U.S. khakis. At least two admirals, one British, the other American, should be court-martialed for gross carelessness and criminal incompetence.

  Fortunately, the victories you heroes are racking up will soon make the whole catastrophe more or less irrelevant, except for a chance to settle a few personal scores. For the family's sake, I will try to protect Win in this final stage of the proceedings. I can't guarantee that I'll succeed. I'm only a bystander, after all, of the wrong gender. But I will try, I promise you.

  Any games you might try to play now, especially with your executive officer and his circle of crooks, will only complicate a lot of things. Parker's friend on the Naval Affairs Committee is trying to gut the Navy's battleship program. Cominch and company are fighting for the big wagons with all the guile and grease they can find. I'll send you a copy of a recent article in the Saturday Evening Post which gives the South Dakota credit for shooting down half the Jap air force and saving the Enterprise off Santa Cruz Islands in November. Absolute bullshit of course, but it shows how desperate they are.

  I know how loath you are to take advice from me these days. But this is vital. Don't try to outsmart Cominch for Win's sake. It can't be done. Write the old bastard insulting letters — that one from Tulagi was a beaut —call him a thick-skulled hard-hearted, son of a bitch if it makes you feel better — he actually likes that sort of thing. He was just as insubordinate when he was your age. But don't mess him up with those pinheads in Congress. That would be disloyal to the Navy, and that — I should not have to remind you —is the sin against the Holy Ghost.

  Have you written to Sammy? The last I heard from him, he was about an inch from joining the Marines.

  Your loving wife, Rita

  Port Admiral Be Damned!

  When the Jefferson City's chief engineer learned they were sailing in two days, he went roaring up to see Arthur McKay, clutching the work orders issued by the Cockatoo Island Navy Yard in his fist. Oz Bradley's burly frame almost vibrated as he informed the captain that departure was out of the question. "We're supposed to spend the next week getting a complete overhaul of our boilers and turbines. The admiral himself told me he never saw—"

  At this point Bradley realized there was another officer in the captain's cabin. He was a young dark-haired commander with a cocky smile on his handsome face. "I'm afraid the overhaul will have to wait, Oz," McKay said. "Commander Pearce here will tell you why."

  Commander Duke Pearce was from the Naval Ordnance Bureau. Bradley disliked him instantly. His arrogant manner was a kind of summary of the lifetime of a deck-officer
condescension Bradley had endured. "My orders supersede all others, Commander. We have a new weapon that the Bureau wants tested with all possible speed. It's been routed to Australia because we didn't want to risk losing it by bringing it into the Solomons on a freighter. I have the authority to commandeer the first available cruiser and this boat is it."

  Boat. That was typical of how these SOB's talked to engineering officers. The word implied they did not even know the Navy's basic terminology. Bradley turned to the captain to see if he had a glimmer of support. But McKay seemed to be thinking about something else.

  "Art, this is serious. We're risking lives, maybe even the ship," Bradley said.

  "You'll have to figure something out, Oz," McKay said.

  He wasn't interested, Bradley thought. He welcomed this opportunity to get himself and the ship mentioned in a report that would go to the top of the Navy. He was going to spend his time kissing the ass of this young hotshot Pearce to make sure the mention was as favorable as possible.

  Bradley discarded his tentative opinion that McKay was not just another butt-sucking, eye-gouging climber up the deck promotion ladder.

  He trudged back to the land of Oz and told his chief boiler tender to give him a two-day emergency patchwork program for number one and number two boilers. His chief machinist mate was ordered to do the same thing for the engine rooms. That meant their last liberty in Australia was canceled. They both looked as if they might take out their frustrations on the machinery with sledgehammers.

  When Amos Cartwright returned from liberty and heard the news, he shook his head. He was as worried about the condition of their aging boilers as everyone else. He could not understand Captain McKay's indifference. "That ain't his style," he said. "You heard him when he come down and give us that talk. He wouldn't let no orders from Washington maybe get us parboiled down here."

  "Maybe it's time you stopped thinkin' of this guy as a fuckin' hero," said the thick-necked machinist's mate Amos called Throttleman. He and his cohorts in the forward engine room never missed a chance to needle Amos — and sneer at his Jew-boy striker. "Maybe it's gonna turn out he didn't do you no favor, promotin' you up from mess steward. Maybe it's gonna take a low-water casualty to change your mind."