They might all be drifting down into a thousand fathoms by tomorrow night. Maybe Jack's reputation was irrelevant. But he could not bear the thought of betraying him.
A huge figure loomed up in the darkness at the fantail, outlined against the phosphorescence of their wake. It was unquestionably Homewood. He was talking to someone. Flanagan hesitated, confused. There was no one else in sight.
"What did y'have to go and do that to me for?" Homewood said. "Why? He was all I had. This other kid Flanagan is ten times smarter but he hates the Navy. Jack didn't, no matter how much shit he threw at it. He was a sailor all the way. Why did y'have to take'm away from me? I know I don't deserve nothin' from you. I'm seven kinds of a bum. But I been tryin' to keep my nose clean for a long time now, tryin' to do my job with these kids."
Was he talking to God? No. Gradually, Flanagan realized Homewood was talking to the sea. To the Pacific's immense blankness. The only god he knew or understood in his sailor's soul.
"Boats?" he said. "It's Flanagan. I ... I've got to talk to you."
"About what?"
"About Jack."
"You feel it too? How goddamned unfair it is? How fuckin' awful?" The huge hand grabbed Flanagan's shoulder and shook it until he thought his brain would tear lose.
"I wish you remembered him the way I did. He was the skinniest smart-aleck kid you ever seen. Trouble was his middle name. The drinkin' we done together, the dames we had, Jesus, you'd never believe it. But then I saw how fucked up he was, how really fucked up. I mean he was on his way to serious brig time, Portsmouth you know. So I got to work on him. That meant I had to get to work on myself first. I finally had to look myself in the fuckin' mirror and say, 'Homewood, you bum, are you goin' through this fuckin' Navy without accomplishin' nothin' but getting busted and goin' up the ladder and gettin' busted again?'”
"So I shaped up and I got to work on him the way I tried to get to work on you 'cept you're too fuckin' smart for me. I worked on him and I got somewhere. He was almost straightened out, I swear to God he was. I guess that dame Martha Johnson had a lot to do with it, but I got him started, don't you see? I could remember where he come from, that skinny fuckin' wise guy who wouldn't salute nobody unless they was pointin' a gun at him!"
The mighty hand was turning Flanagan's shoulder into mush. The sea hissed past them with the stars in its blank face.
"Now he's gone. He's down there, maybe where we're all headin'. I'm glad you feel the same way about it. Ain't that what you wanted to tell me?"
"Yes. That's it. I just ... wanted to let you know. And listen. I don't hate the Navy the way you think I do. I just like to give you a hard time. I like to give everybody a hard time. I've got a big mouth."
"Aw, shit, I know that. You think I'd waste ten seconds on you if you was a fink? Go get yourself some sleep. You got a graveyard watch, don't you?"
Amidships, Flanagan looked carefully around him. There was no one in sight. Over the side went a dozen silver and gold chains and a dozen wallets. It was a rotten thing to do to his shipmates. He would have it on his conscience for the rest of his life — if he had a life. But it was a small price to pay for Boats Homewood's peace of soul.
On the bridge, Captain McKay listened in silence while Officer of the Deck Mullenoe exchanged bitter comments with Navigator Marse Lee about the futility of pursuing the Japanese fleet.
"Don't you agree, Captain?" Mullenoe asked.
"Have you ever heard about the fog of war, Bob?" McKay said.
"No," he said.
"It was a very popular phrase at the War College when I was there."
I'm afraid it includes the prejudices and quarrels of the admirals. He wanted to sneer something like that about the cold-eyed impassive man on the flag bridge below them. But Captain McKay could not do it. He was still part of this Navy. He had been married to its ships, its rituals, its code longer than he had been married to Rita. He was asking Rita to forgive him for his blunders. Could he do less for the Navy?
"It was over, Captain. As good as over if we went after them," Mullenoe said.
"Maybe."
Mullenoe thought he was rebuking him. He retreated before his own sense of the weight, the power of command. "I guess that's all we'll ever be able to say. Maybe. But right now, it stinks."
Mail Call
Dear Frank:
I wish you'd write more often. Your father is so down in the dumps. He just sits in the parlor all day staring at the window. The only thing he's interested in is the war news from the Pacific.
I think it's terrible the way he's taking the blame for a system that was rotten long before he got into it. God how I hate Tammany Hall! I've had to put up with those drunken boozers all my life. Above all, your Uncle Barney. Now I can tell them what I think of them — and I have. At the last New Year's party I got tiddly and told them all off. Barney's wife hasn't spoken to me since. But I don't care.
Father Callow was asking for you. He says he hasn't had a letter from you in a good year. Shame on you, Frank! I'm sure you're still alive only because he's remembered you in his daily Mass ever since you enlisted. I told him the other day I thought the war and the suffering and death you've seen might make you realize how badly the world needs spiritual guidance. It might confirm your vocation. Do you think so?
Your loving, Mother
Dear Frank:
I can barely see this sheet of paper, and it's been a week since I got the news about Jack. Of all the rotten deals life has shuffled my way, this is the worst. I finally met a guy I really loved, who really loved me, and what happens? He said that damn ship had Jonah written all over it since Savo Island, but he wouldn't get off it. That would have been cowardly. God, the way you men think. It isn't with your brains. It's with your gonads. You're all afraid someone's going to impugn your courage. You're ready to get killed to prove how brave you are! When no woman in' her right mind really gives a damn about it.
Oh, hell, that isn't true. I'm not making any sense. I'm just driveling as well as sobbing all over this letter. It was swell of you to write me, Frank, and if you get to Seattle again I'd love to see you. We'll have a drink in memory of Jack.
Fondly, Martha
Dear Joey:
Miracles do happen! Your friend Preston Sturges made some calls per your desperate request and I've gotten a part in a film Universal is making, an imitation of A Yank in the RAF. Except that this time the Yank (Ronald Reagan) is in the U.S. Army Air Force. I'm the snooty English girl who doesn't like Americans, and when he splashes a gallon of muddy water all over me as he whizzes by in his jeep, my opinion of you beastly barbarians sinks even lower. That soon changes, for no particular reason the script writer has been able to come up with so far, and we go on to the usual mush.
War pictures are definitely on the wane in Hollywood. Escape is in, the war is out. The Crosby picture Going My Way, the most sentimental treacle I've ever seen, is the smash of the year. After that comes The Song of Bernadette, about the miracles at Lourdes. Not being a believer in that sort of magic, it left me cold. Ditto National Velvet, starring a precocious brat named Elizabeth Taylor and a horse, who stole the show. You get the feeling the Home Front doesn't want to think very much about you brave boys bobbing around in the western Pacific. Which leaves me outraged and frustrated. My only consolation is the way the Allies are wiping up the Bache in Europe.
Speaking of frustration, is there any hope of you coming back to California soon? I keep reading about these wonderful task forces, complete with oilers and ammunition ships and supply ships which means you can stay at sea indefinitely. Are they also sending you some floating brothels? That seems to me the only thing the Navy hasn't added into the equation for fighting this war for the rest of the century without letting you off that damn ship.
Tell me you're as lonely as I am. Gwen
Dear Robert:
Fairy Hill is blooming, but I hardly look at the place these days. I spend most of the time reading the war news and co
rresponding with real estate agents in your state of Virginia. There seem to be plenty of places available, if we can get a decent price for Fairy Hill.
Your son is sitting up in his cradle, studying the world with your aggressive American eyes. I'm not sure I want him to be the star of the Annapolis football team in 1964, but we can argue about that some other time. My sister Laura says he is going to be one of those hulking ocker types, who consume immense quantities of beer and talk sports from dusk to dawn.
She's just jealous. She's been misbehaving with a lieutenant colonel in your Air Force, but he's not about to marry her. In fact, she's just found out he has a wife and two children at home. You can imagine what my mother is saying about it all.
You've driven the Japs so far from our shores, I have no hope of seeing you until you get to Tokyo. What fun it would be to have tea with you in the Imperial Hotel there — if it's still standing. I fear you are going to have to reduce the whole country to rubble before they surrender.
With much love, Christine
Harold darling:
I'm back in London, but I want you to know I haven't forgotten our happy hours together in Australia. If you ever get to England, and I think you will — someone with your gifts is destined to see a great deal of the world — ring me up.
Fondly,
Charles
Boarding Party
Ensign Herbert J. Brownmiller, Columbia V-12 '43, known to the crew as Ensign Brownnose for his obsequious style with his superior officers, paced the quarterdeck of the Jefferson City off Saipan. The island had been pronounced secured after four weeks of ferocious resistance by the trapped Japanese defenders.
"Oh, Christ."
Brownmiller pointed over the side. Another Japanese body was floating toward them. At the close of the battle, hundreds of civilians had committed suicide by leaping into the sea from the island's cliffs. This body was a woman. She floated on her back, a mass of black hair streaming around her face.
"Call the motor whaleboat to tow her away," Brownmiller said to Homewood, the boatswain's mate of the watch. "I can't stand looking at her."
It was not a chore that the motor whaleboat crew relished. It was the fourth time Brownmiller had required them to perform it since he came on watch. A disgusted Homewood blew the signal on his pipe and called the whaleboat to the accommodation ladder. Brownmiller pointed to the woman. The equally disgusted sailors looped a line around her body and towed her out to sea.
Brownmiller retreated to the OOD shack and contemplated the overdone hamburger and mashed potatoes the crew was being served for lunch. "Christ, I can't eat this slop now," he said.
A Higgins boat churned toward the ship and began discharging passengers at the accommodation ladder. "People coming aboard, sir," Homewood said.
The first face to appear at deck level was the dour visage of Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Cominch himself. After him came Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Cincpac. After him came Admiral Raymond Spruance.
"Bosun," gasped Brownmiller, "get me thirty-six side boys and the ship's band."
"Too late for that, sir," Homewood said. "Just salute your fuckin' arm off."
"Homewood," King said, after performing his ritual salutes to the flag and the petrified OOD. "How the hell are you? I haven't seen you since we were on the Lexington together."
"Got off that flattop a week after you left, Admiral. Never did like them floatin' airports."
"How many hash marks have you got on that sleeve, Homewood?"
"Not as many as you, Admiral. You just don't have to admit it."
King turned to Nimitz. "If we could make carbon copies of this guy, we'd be in Tokyo the day after tomorrow. Then God help the Japs when they all got liberty."
Ensign Brownmiller goggled at Homewood, whom he had heretofore regarded as an ignorant Alabama cracker. "What should I do now, Bosun?" he said in a tone be usually reserved for the executive officer.
"You might notify the captain. He'd like to know he's got the three top admirals in the Navy aboard."
"I've got nothing to say to you professionally, McKay," Admiral King said. "But I've got a message from your wife."
They were in Admiral Spruance's cabin, which King had commandeered for this interview.
"I'm listening, Admiral."
"She doesn't want to hear from you. Not another sniveling hypocritical line. Is that clear?"
"I suppose so, Admiral. Did she tell you why?"
"You know goddamn well why. Everybody in the Navy knows you spent your last layover in Pearl fucking the brains out of Win Kemble's wife. Your sister-in-law. Jesus Christ. Isn't that forbidden in the Bible or something?"
"I don't know, Admiral. I can only tell you it isn't true."
"Don't tell me what isn't true. I had it checked out by Naval Intelligence, for Christ's sake!"
"Those same bright lights who warned us of Pearl Harbor?"
Cominch gripped both arms of the chair he was sitting in. "McKay, I left you on this ship only because you were married to Rita. That's no longer a factor, except in the legal sense. You'd be on the beach tomorrow if you didn't have a son who's probably going to get a DSC for what he did on Saipan. I don't want to burden a kid like that by telling the whole world he's got a crumb for a father."
"You can do anything you damn please to me, Admiral. I never asked to hide behind my wife — or my son."
Cominch growled like a frustrated grizzly. "Nobody wants this fucking ship anyway. It's got Jonah written all over it. I told Spruance he's nuts to use it as a flagship. If he'd been aboard anything else, he'd have deep-sixed the whole goddamn Jap fleet last week and the war'd be over."
King squirmed in his chair like a man sitting on hot coals. "I know what you're thinking, wise guy. He hates my fucking guts so much he'll go on sailing with you until somebody sinks you. I hope it's soon."
That night, Captain McKay sat alone in his cabin writing a letter.
Dear Lucy,
I keep thinking of you and the awful way we parted. I keep thinking of Win and what you told me about him. My mind keeps revolving around and around him and you and the love we shared. That love, as I tried to tell you that night, Lucy, will never die. It should never be regarded as wasted. Nothing you could ever tell me about Win would alter my friendship with him. You can't tear up those kinds of roots.
But I can't change my mind about what Win did at Savo. It was wrong. It was a betrayal of himself, his men, his ship. A spiritual betrayal. Physically, he was their savior. At the risk of sounding very Japanese, the spiritual is more important, Lucy.
There is another dimension here that I am only beginning to enter. How and why the spirit fails, the heart breaks, the lifeline unravels and the sea swallows us. When I see how hard, how uncaring some men feel they have to make themselves in order to command, I understand part of it. When I think of a man burdened with an impossible task, I understand a little more. When I encounter real loneliness for the first time in my life, I understand a little more.
Love,
Art
Volunteers
The big crane lifted the new main battery director high above the Jefferson: City and lowered it into position in the superstructure. Shipfitters and electricians and fire control experts swarmed around it, connecting it to the ship's circuits, restoring eyes to the big guns.
They were back in Pearl Harbor, no longer a flagship. Admiral Spruance had gone ashore, and the command of the fleet had passed to Admiral Halsey. They were to rejoin the armada as soon as the gun director was in place. Every ship afloat in the Pacific was needed for the invasion of the Philippines.
Boats Homewood squinted up at the new director. "Who the hell are we goin' to get to man it?"
“I’ll do it," Flanagan said. "Jack taught me how to operate the range finder."
"I was kind of hopin' you'd say that."
Finding other volunteers was not easy. No one wanted to go anywhere near the rotating coffin. Homewood gave lengthy lectures
on the metaphysics of luck. He argued that this was now the safest assignment on the ship. Lightning never struck twice in the same place. Still no takers. Flanagan finally solved the problem by offering the job to members of his forty-millimeter gun crew. Delighted to get into F Division, where working parties were few and deck swabbing was limited to several small compartments, they were so eager that the winners had to be chosen by pulling high cards from a deck.
The next day they steamed from Pearl, and Flanagan crawled into the director for gunnery practice. The moment he took Jack's seat, sweat oozed from every pore in his body. His heart pounded, his breath was shallow. Was he afraid of dying? Or was he afraid of becoming Jack? He concentrated on explaining the equipment to the newcomers, who were not thrilled to discover they could see nothing but a couple of dials in front of their faces. Flanagan soothed them with tales of his fictitious orgies in Australia. They decided maybe listening to his malarkey was better than staring at the water worrying about torpedoes.
Three were from small towns in Texas. Flanagan christened them the three mesquiteers. The gun director became the Alamo. Flanagan claimed he was a direct descendant of Davy Crockett, who had not died in the battle. He had joined the Mexican Army and later became a Jesuit. Baptists all, his team did not even know what a Jesuit was. "They work for the Pope," Flanagan said. "I used to be one myself. But I got tired of eating spaghetti."
When they began firing at targets towed by an escorting destroyer, Flanagan started sweating again. In the range finder the yellow square of canvas bobbing along on floats seemed too small to hit. What makes you think you can match my stuff, kid? Jack sneered. Flanagan's hand was all thumbs on the dials; he stuttered and sprayed spit all over the lens as he gave the ranges to main plot. Their first salvo was a straddle that brought congratulations from Lieutenant Commander Mullenoe but did not cheer Flanagan in the least. He hated the thought of firing shells into the sea, Jack's resting place. He could see Jack floating inside the old director, fishes nibbling at his sightless cat's eyes. Daley was there too, clutching his rosary. Camutti and the Radical were drifting languidly around them in the cold dark water.
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