Time and Tide

by Thomas Fleming

  Jesus! Flanagan was finding out that a vivid imagination was not always an asset. When the gunnery drills ended at 1900 hours, he was a dishrag. He wandered down to the main deck and stared out at the empty ocean. Jack was down there. His best friend. The hiss of the sea against the hull, the darkening water began disconnecting his mind from his body.

  The sea seemed to be telling him something. It was sad and terrible. But he did not understand the language. Maybe he was afraid to understand it. Then a voice in his head started to translate the words.

  Come, the sea whispered. Come. Get it over with. You're going to end up in my arms anyway, sailor. Get it over with. Slip quietly over the side. No one will notice.

  Why not? There was something religious about it. Maybe he was offering himself up as a sacrifice for his shipmates. It would be so peaceful down there. No more worries about Teresa Brownlow, Martha Johnson, his father — no more anxieties about being a man, about losing his nerve. Maybe Jack had been glad as the dark water filled his lungs. Flanagan remembered the night Jack went berserk and beat up Sally in Honolulu. It doesn't work any more, he had cried. For Jack it had never really worked. Maybe it never really worked for anybody who figures out that the church, the navy, the government, including President Roosevelt, were all full of shit.

  A huge hand clamped his shoulder. "What the fuck are you doin'?" Homewood growled.

  "Nothing— I was thinking about Jack."

  "You want to do that, go below and lie in your rack. Don't do it here. Not lookin' into that fuckin' ocean."

  "Why not?" Flanagan said, feebly defiant.

  "It talks to you. But it don't have nothin' good to say. You got to talk back to it like a man. It's so goddamn big, that ain't easy. But you got to do it. You don't know how."

  "I'm not scared of dying, if that's what you mean."

  "That's not what I mean," Boats said. "You were thinkin' of takin' a dive. I've seen it happen before. Especially to guys like you with too much goin' on in their heads. It's awful temptin' when you're feelin' sorry for yourself or your nerves is shot from bein' at sea too long. Don't ever do that again, do you hear me?"

  "I hear you," Flanagan said.

  "Come on down to main plot. We're throwin' a little party to welcome your boys into the division."

  About a third of the division was jammed into main plot. Their new division officer, Lieutenant Wilson Selvage MacComber, had contributed some of his family bourbon, and somebody else had purloined some medicinal alcohol from the sick bay. The baker had produced a cake in the shape of a gun director.

  Several hours and numerous drinks later, Flanagan was giving them a demonstration of Irish clog dancing as practiced in Gaelic Park in the Bronx. Boats Homewood beamed at him. "That kid's gonna be an admiral some day. I'm predictin' it here and now. He's gonna go to Annapolis after the war and go right to the top."

  "Annapolis," said Lieutenant MacComber with a hiccup, "is a place to which innocent boys are sentenced for four years and spend the rest of their lives committin' crimes."

  No one paid any attention to him. "Is that true, Flan?" asked one of the mesquiteers. "You goin' to Annapolis?"

  "Sure," Flanagan said.

  Why not keep Homewood happy for a while? Flanagan was never going to Annapolis. He was going to die. They were all going to die. That was what the sea had been saying to him.

  Jack was dead, but his hoodoo was very much alive.

  The Divine Wind

  As the moon waned over Surigao Strait, a narrow passage between the islands of Mindanao and Leyte in the Philippines, sheet lightning flickered across the water. Thunder rumbled from the nearby hills. The Jefferson City was in a column of five cruisers that had been plodding back and forth at the mouth of the strait, using stopwatches and radar to tell them when to turn and countermarch. A few miles behind them a column of six battleships was doing the same thing.

  The Japanese were coming through Surigao Strait to try to smash up the beaches and transports where General Douglas MacArthur's soldiers were landing to make good on his famous promise that he would return to the Philippines. The Jefferson City was now in the Seventh Fleet, which was known as Mac-Arthur's Navy.

  Only a few of the cruisers, such as the Minneapolis and the Columbia, had been with them in the Solomons. How would the others react to a night battle? The pessimists aboard the Jefferson City predicted disaster. The battleships would shell them, not the Japanese. In the main battery director, the three mesquiteers were in a panic. Flanagan calmed them down by telling them the cruisers could handle the Japanese without the battleships. He had no idea whether this was true, of course. But it worked. The Texans stopped whimpering and hunched before their dials while he probed the darkness with his range finder.

  On the bridge, Captain McKay and Commander Tombs listened to radio reports of the Japanese approach. Swarms of American PT boats attacked them at the western end of Surigao Strait. Squadrons of destroyers spewed more torpedoes at them. Some hits were reported, but the Japanese kept coming.

  "It's Tsushima in reverse," McKay said to George Tombs, pointing to the plotting board on which he had been sketching the positions of the two fleets. "They're sailing right into our `T.' Admiral Togo must be spinning in his grave."

  The two lines of American heavy ships formed the top of the "T." The Japanese column was the vulnerable stem. From CIC and main plot came reports of a perfect fire control setup. Almost every ship in the American fleet was now equipped with Mark VIII radar, a vast improvement over the primitive equipment they had had in the Solomons. The Japanese column was a clearly defined line of blips on the green scopes.

  "All ships. Commence firing!"

  The order came blasting over the TBS from the flagship Louisville. One second later, the night exploded with salvo after salvo of eight-inch and fourteen-inch guns. Flames erupted from a half dozen ships in the Japanese column. In the lenses of his range finder, Flanagan saw the pagoda mast of a burning battleship crumble like a sand castle in the tide.

  "On target," he shouted. Jack Peterson could not have been more exultant.

  For the next fourteen minutes the rain of steel continued, the arc of red-hot shells looking like a line of railroad cars going over a hill. The stunned Japanese barely fired a shot in return. The salvos only stopped when another shout came from the flagship: "Cease fire. Cease fire. We're hitting our own destroyers!"

  At dawn, the flagship ordered the Columbia and the Jefferson City to proceed up the strait in search of enemy survivors.

  In the rotating range finder, Flanagan peered wearily into the gray light as the lenses swept back and forth across the narrow funnel of water. They passed an American destroyer under tow, with a twenty-degree list and smoking badly. Suddenly there was a Japanese destroyer at six thousand yards, dead in the water with its bow blown off. The sight stirred memories of the Jefferson City in Ironbottom Sound.

  Flanagan barked the range and bearing to main plot. With defiant courage, the Japanese captain fired a salvo at the oncoming Americans. It did not even come close. The two cruisers' main batteries boomed. The destroyer writhed in a hail of hits and near misses. Like a dying animal, she rolled over on her side. Flanagan could see tiny figures leaping off her as more shells exploded on the hull and in the water around her. Two more salvos and it sank "It's gone," he said. "You can cease firing!"

  "What did you say, Admiral Flanagan?" Lieutenant Commander Mullenoe asked.

  "Sorry, sir. There's a lot of them in the water."

  The Jefferson City groped through the pre-dawn murk in search of the ammunition ship SS Free Enterprise. Captain McKay in his twenty-sixth consecutive hour on the bridge, read the latest reports of the battle raging a few hundred miles north of them, in San Bernardino Strait, at the northern end of Leyte. Another Japanese squadron had burst through this narrow neck of water and was smashing up American escort carriers and destroyers protecting the Army's landing beaches. The ships of the Seventh Fleet had been ordered to
the rescue. But: they had shot off most of their armor-piercing ammunition last night in Surigao Strait.

  "There she is," said Navigator Marse Lee, pointing a few degrees off the port bow.

  "Turn out the working parties," Captain McKay said.

  "Now hear this. Ammunition working parties stand by," boomed the boatswain's mate of the watch over the PA system. Obediently, the exhausted deck apes from the turrets and five-inch mounts formed up along the rail. They were joined by drafts from the black gang and F Division. Speed was all important. If the Japanese battleships broke through to bombard the landing beaches, the war could be set back six months.

  At 0530 there was just enough light to see the SS Free Enterprise in detail as they pulled alongside. There was not a human being in sight. She might have been a ghost ship riding at anchor in Leyte Gulf.

  "Ahoy the Free Enterprise," Captain McKay said over the bullhorn.

  No answer. He repeated it three times and finally blew the ship's whistle. A fat man in khaki pants and undershirt straggled onto the deck beneath the pilothouse. "Didn't you get our radio message? We need ammunition and we need it fast," McKay said.

  "Sorry. You can't do a thing until eight o'clock."

  "Why not?"

  "Union rules. My crew works by union rules."

  "How much do your men get paid, Captain?"

  "Six hundred a month, on the average."

  A growl of outrage swept the deck of the Jefferson. City. "And they won't work more than forty hours a week?"

  "Union rules. I can't do nothing about it."

  Captain McKay picked up the gunnery circuit telephone. "Commander Mullenoe," he said, "train the main battery on that ship."

  "Aye, aye, Captain."

  Slowly, awesomely, the Jefferson City's nine eight-inch guns revolved to port until their muzzles were aimed straight at the Free Enterprise.

  "Tell your crew to get up on deck fast. Or there's going to be a very unfortunate accident that will send them someplace where, as far as I know, there aren't any union rules."

  The captain vanished. In ten minutes the Free Enterprise was swinging ammunition from her booms to the deck of the Jefferson City.

  "It's over. What have they got left?"

  This was the considered opinion of the dean of the wardroom's strategy board, Lieutenant MacComber. There was a lot of evidence to support his argument. While the Seventh Fleet had been annihilating the Japanese thrust through Surigao Strait, Halsey's Third Fleet had been wiping out .the last of their carriers far to the north. Both fleets had rushed to San Bernardino Strait, and the Japanese squadron there fled without bombarding the beaches. Halsey's planes destroyed most of their ships in the pursuit. As a fighting force, the Japanese Combined Fleet had ceased to exist.

  Executive Officer Tombs, at the head of the table, shook his head. "The captain doesn't think it's over."

  "Oh?" MacComber's dislike of Captain McKay had only grown more virulent with the passage of time "Tell us what Father thinks."

  "He thinks the war will last as long as the Japs have a single plane that will fly or a single ship afloat"

  "That doesn't make sense," MacComber said.

  "Who's talking about making sense?" Tombs said. "We're fighting a war."

  "Greetings, Americans," cooed Tokyo Rose. "Especially to my old friends on the Jefferson City, who have been demoted from flagship of the Fifth Fleet to a mere ammunition ship in the Seventh Fleet because of your disgraceful performance off Saipan, where your cowardly captain maneuvered his ship so badly you received fearsome damage from Japanese planes. You will soon receive another visit from the heroic pilots of the Imperial Air Force to mop up what is left of your ships after the beating you received yesterday from the Imperial Fleet."

  "Ain't she somethin'?" Boats Homewood said, chomping on the steak which the captain had ordered for the crew's dinner to celebrate the victory in Surigao. Strait. "What do you think she looks like?"

  "Myrna Loy," Semple said.

  "A hootchy-kootchy dancer I used to fuck in East Chicago," Jablonsky said.

  "The nun who taught me in the eighth grade," Flanagan said.

  "Lieutenant MacComber says the war's over," one of the Bobbsey Twins said.

  "Yeah? Then why did we load all that ammo yesterday?" Homewood asked.

  Tokyo Rose continued to chatter. They were waiting for her to get through the propaganda and play some jazz. She still had the best record collection in the Pacific.

  "Today you will feel the breath of a new weapon, a divine wind that will scorch your fleet and make you welcome death in the cool depths of the sea."

  "A divine wind," Flanagan said. "You think they're going to use poison gas? I lost my gas mask about a year ago."

  "You can't have mine," Jablonsky said.

  The alarm bell rang. The bugle blew. "General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands man your battle stations," yelled the boatswain of the watch.

  "God damn it," Homewood said, sticking the rest of his steak in his pocket.

  In the gun director, Flanagan's heart pounded. It was his first air attack since he had taken Jack's place. Jablonsky had replaced him on the forty-millimeter director for mount one. It was the mount that would do the most work if a crippled plane came at the forward part of the ship. Keep your mind on the sky, George, he thought. Forget about nooky for the next few hours.

  "Give us a rundown, Flan," one of the mesquiteers begged. "Tell us what the hell's happening?'

  "Air battle," Flanagan said, watching American planes from their escort carriers roaring down on a flight of Japanese Vals. To his surprise, the Vals scattered in all directions. They had no interest in making a coordinated attack. One after another, they dove to wave-top level and streaked through the task force. The American ships, including the Jefferson City, fired everything they had at them. The blasts of the five-inch guns shook the director. The blam-blam of the forty-millimeters mixed with the louder sound.

  What was happening? Those Japanese planes were not carrying torpedoes. Ten seconds later Flanagan had his answer. He watched a Val dive straight into the aircraft carrier Santee, triggering an enormous explosion. Another plane hit the battleship New Mexico on the bridge, turning the whole superstructure into a roaring inferno. A third Val smashed into the cruiser Louisville. The ship shuddered under the blow, and smoke and flames leaped high in the air as the bomb the plane was carrying exploded.

  "They're crashing into our ships!" Flanagan shouted. "They're out of their fucking minds!"

  The divine wind was scorching the American Fleet.

  On the bridge, Captain McKay instantly grasped what was happening. This was a new weapon — suicide attacks by Japanese pilots recruited to die for the Emperor.

  "Bob," he said to Gunnery Officer Mullenoe, "if any plane attacks this ship, concentrate every gun on it You're going to have to destroy these things in the air. They're not going to drop any bombs. They're flying them right into us."

  "Roger, Captain."

  "I don't think there's much point in maneuvering the ship to avoid them. I'm going to hold a course to give your guns the best possible aim."

  "I agree with that idea."

  For the next eight hours, the Jefferson City steamed through Leyte Gulf following this battle plan. It required excruciating self-control not to order a turn when one of the suicide bombers hurtled toward them, often with flames gushing 'from his engines, even his cockpit. Again and again, George Tombs looked to McKay, begging him for a right or left full rudder. Each time, McKay shook his head and watched while their five-inch and forty- and twenty-millimeter guns shredded the attacker and sent him plummeting into the sea.

  Other ships that attempted violent evasive maneuvers were hit with horrendous results. On one destroyer, the captain staggered out of the pilothouse, a human torch. Two more light carriers were torn by explosions and fires from their aviation gasoline. At twilight the attacks subsided. But the fleet was ordered to remain at General Quarters. They st
ayed at their battle stations until midnight, growing more and more exhausted.

  "The war isn't over," George Tombs said.

  "Not for a while," Arthur McKay said. He looked out at the night-shrouded coast of Leyte. Flashes of artillery fire lit the sky. "If they're willing to die like this for the Philippines, can you imagine what they'll do when we get to Japan?"

  The Visitors

  "Secure from General Quarters. Set Condition Two."

  Eight bells bonged, 0400. The seamen, firemen, electricians, shipfitters, and boatswain's mates in Repair Three, just aft of the wardroom, put away their breathing apparatus and other equipment and shuffled off to seek some sleep in their humid compartments. Among the more weary shufflers was Jerome Wilkinson. The kamikazes were straining his nerves to the snapping point They seemed to be at General Quarters twenty-four hours a day, slumped against bulkheads at the damage control station, never knowing when a random bomb would hurl fire and steel down the passageway.

  Wilkinson hated the Jefferson City without his friend and protector Commander Parker. Although he eyed the young sailors in his division with wary desire, he was afraid to risk seduction. He could trust no one. In the sleeping compartment of Deck Division One, he flung aside his shoes and dungarees and stripped for a shower.

  "Have those fuckin' shoes shined when I get back," he said to one of the seamen. "Get these duds to the laundry. If they don't come back, it'll be your ass."

  In the hot shower he thought of Prettyboy, of sweaty desire in the handling room. Semple would not even look at him now. He had nothing to offer him. The cooks, the bakers, the gamblers — none of them paid any attention to Wilkinson any more. He had no clout. Homewood's tour as master at arms had left everyone nervous about breaking the rules. Flanagan, the snotty Irish kid who ran the ship's newspaper, was still working as a snoop. He had reporters in every division who were ready to tell him anything and everything that was going on.

  Back in the compartment, Wilkinson slapped the usual quantity of cologne on his big body and crawled into his rack. No go. He could barely breathe. He lay there thinking of his days of glory. He began to hate Captain McKay with a new, fierce intensity. He had ruined Parker, ruined Wilkinson's sweet deal, for only one reason: revenge.