Stand BY-Y-Y to Start Engines

by Daniel V Gallery

  "Here's some new gear we just installed," said the supervisor. "Sideband radiophone. Ham operators have been using it for years to talk to friends on the other side of the world. The military services have just got wise to it. We can talk to any Navy radio shore stations with it and they can hook us in to the Bell Telephone System. So now the Admiral can sit up in his cabin, dial us on the ship's phone, and we can put him through to the Pentagon or the White House."

  "Can't ham operators or anyone else listen in?" asked Parker.

  "Wouldn't do 'em any good," said the supervisor. "We put it through a scrambler and all they'd hear would be a squeal. They unscramble at the other end and it comes out plain English again."

  "Could I call my office on that?" asked Parker.

  "Sure, if you got permission from the Captain. We get emergency calls from ashore every now and then too. Last cruise a sailor's house burned down when we were halfway to Honolulu. His wife phoned in and we flew him back to San Diego."

  Next they went down to the armory to meet the Marine Top Sergeant who had six rows of ribbons on his chest, including a purple heart with four stars in it. When they came in the top kick and the chief bandmaster were discussing how the band should sound off while a VIP visitor inspects the guard. "Ten shun!" barked the Marine, snapping to attention as if Ensign Wigglesworth were a four-starred Admiral.

  "Carry on," said Willy. "This is our Marine Top Sergeant, Mr. Parker, and this is our bandmaster... There's an old saying in the Navy that you've got to have three things to make a happy ship - good chow, a good laundry, and a good band. We've got 'em all on this ship."

  The bandmaster beamed in agreement, while the top kick frowned dubiously.

  "Have you ever been in any actual landings, Corporal?" asked Parker of the grizzled Marine.

  "Only at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Inchon," said the Marine, regarding Parker as if he were something the cat had done but neglected to cover up.

  "What kind of a ship is this?" asked Parker. "I mean as a combatant unit."

  "Don't know," said the Marine. "Never seen 'em in a fight. It's a happy enough ship. But that doesn't prove anything. 'I've seen outfits that was just a big happy mutual admiration society but they didn't know how to pour piss out of a boot. Holler 'boo' at 'em and they'd run for home. I've been in other outfits where nobody ever opened his mouth except to curse somebody out. But when the enemy showed up we beat the living hell out of him."

  When they got back to the wardroom that afternoon and sat down for a cup of coffee, Willy and Parker had seen more of the ship that day than many sailors see in a whole enlistment.

  "I've just about run out of ideas now," said Willy. "I hope you've got enough stuff for a story."

  "Frankly, Wigglesworth," said Parker, "all we've seen has been routine stuff that has been pretty well hashed over before. I haven't found anything that's newsworthy yet."

  "Oh," said Willy. "Well... uh... just what kind of stuff are you looking for anyway?"

  "Things with an exclusive angle to them. Unusual things that our readers ought to know about."

  "You mean like an atom bomb being missing from the magazines - or the Admiral smuggling dope aboard and selling it to the sailors?" asked Willy.

  "Nuts," said Parker. "But I haven't interviewed the Admiral and Captain yet. I suppose I might get something out of them."

  "Yeah," said Will. "You might as well see them as long as you're out here anyway. What time would be convenient for you to see the Admiral tomorrow?"

  "Any time at all," said Parker.

  "Okay. I'll have him stand by," said Willy.

  That evening Commander Cue asked Willy, "How are you making out with your TIME man?"

  "Not so good," said Willy. "I've been busting a gut to get a story for him. I've had him in places on this ship that I didn't even know there were. I've let him talk to everybody from the Jack of the Dust and Captain of the Head to the Chief Master-at-Arms and Marine Top Sergeant. But he isn't impressed. He wants an exclusive angle."

  "These TIME reporters are hard to please," observed Curly. "They want to get the TIME slant on everything. If they were covering the burning of Rome they would want to peg the story on the piece of music that Nero was playing on his fiddle instead of on the fire."

  "I'm arranging interviews with the Admiral and the Captain for him tomorrow," said Willy. "If he doesn't get an angle from them, I may have to take drastic action with him."

  "Oh, oh!" said Curly, thinking of the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. "Don't drop him down the forward elevator shaft or get him sucked into a jet intake. The Pentagon public relations people might not like it."

  "I won't," promised Willy. "But I think I know how to fix him good - in a way he won't even be able to squawk about after I do it."

  Later that evening Willy got a pad of the legal paper used for the records of courts-martial and boards of investigation, sat down at a typewriter in his stateroom, and concocted the record of an imaginary investigation on the Guadalcanal. It was a stem-winding, breech-loading dilly that might have won him an Oscar if he had been writing a TV script. It told how two floozies had been smuggled aboard in San Francisco just before sailing for Honolulu, had set up shop in the paint locker, way up in the bow, and had made themselves over two thousand bucks before being discovered and locked up in the isolation ward of the sick bay. It gave the stowaways' names and addresses and the names and rates of the sailors who had sponsored this enterprise, smuggled food up to the gals, and shared in the profits until apprehended.

  There were legal papers signed by all principals saying that they stood on their constitutional rights and refused to say anything until they were properly represented by lawyers. There was a paper purporting to come from the ship's legal officer recommending that the sailors be tried by general court-martial and the women be indicted in the federal courts. There was a recommendation by the Captain to the Admiral disapproving of this and recommending no official action because it might generate undesirable publicity for the Navy: Finally there was an endorsement by the Admiral approving the Captain's recommendation and directing that the gals be turned over to the FBI in Honolulu for shipment back to the mainland on a slow boat and the sailors were to be put aboard the next transport plane that took off for Antarctica. No official papers about this were to leave the ship and the Admiral would inform CNO of it by personal letter.

  When Willy got through manufacturing these documents he stuffed them all in a big manila envelope, stamped secret on it in big red letters and wrote "Admiral's eyes only" under the stamp. Then he put it in his bottom drawer, turned in, and slept soundly till morning.

  Parker's interview with the Admiral next day was not a howling success from the point of view of either party. The Admiral gave Parker a good solid rundown on the importance of sea power in the atomic age. He explained how the great industrial plant of the United States depends on strategic imports to keep going and would come to a grinding halt if our seaborne trade were cut off. He pointed out that the airplane could never replace the ship for hauling bulk cargo and that to bring a shipload of cargo from Australia to the United States in airplanes, you had to send three tanker loads of gas to Australia to fuel the airplanes.

  Parker did not seem to be impressed, so the Admiral took another tack and held forth on the newly blossoming field of oceanography. He pointed out that three quarters of the earth's surface is salt water but what lies under that surface is almost unknown. He said we know a great deal more about outer space, the moon, and Mars than we do about the 75 percent of our own planet that is covered by the oceans.

  He told how scientists were just beginning to realize that the oceans were vast reservoirs of untapped resources: oil reserves that could carry us for years; vast mineral deposits just waiting for us to find out how to get at them; and plenty of food to take care of the exploding populations. He explained how the Navy was getting into oceanography with both feet, had just set up a new office in the Penta
gon to deal with it, and was asking for several hundred million in the next budget for research in this field. But when he got through it was obvious to the Admiral that he had been wasting his time.

  Parker then undertook to see if he couldn't pry something worthwhile out of the Admiral with a few shrewd questions. He asked for his opinion on current U.S. foreign policy. The Admiral said that all he had to do with foreign policy was to help carry it out by doing what he was told. The reporter gave the Admiral a chance to air his feelings on the issues of the coming presidential election but he passed on that one too. Parker then took another tack and tried to quiz the old salt about the new type of A bomb they had on board. The Admiral professed to know nothing about any new type. When Parker persisted along this line, the Admiral informed him rather frostily that even if they had a brand-new type he certainly couldn't be expected to spill all the minor details of it just to make a feature story. At the end of the interview it was obvious to Parker that he had wasted his time, too.

  When they parted, Parker was of the opinion that the Admiral was a stuffed shirt The Admiral's opinion of Parker could not have been printed in any reputable journal.

  Parker's interview with the Captain was equally unsatisfactory. The Captain gave him a good pitch on the educational opportunities that a naval career offers to young sailors and on the number of men on board who were taking special courses that would fit them for jobs in the Navy or out of it. He discussed the ship's athletic programs designed to build up growing boys physically and occupy their spare time. He spoke proudly of the fine conduct of the boys ashore and of the generally high morale of the crew.

  Parker stated that in his experience he had often seen happy outfits that broke and ran when the shooting started, and asked the Captain when the Guadalcanal had last been in action against an enemy. The Captain admitted that this had been several years back, during the Korean War, before he took command. Parker pointed out to him that he therefore really did not know how well his happy, studious sailors who behaved so well ashore might act in battle.

  The Captain seemed to clam up after this interchange, and when Parker tried to quiz him on atom bombs, he got no further than he had with the Admiral.

  That afternoon Curly met Willy in the wardroom coffee lounge and said, "I've just been talking to the Admiral and the Captain about your reporter friend."

  "Oh," said Willy, "I arranged interviews for him this morning. How did they get along with him?"

  "They didn't," said Curly. "They both would like to keelhaul him."

  "As long as they feel that way about it, perhaps something along that line can be arranged," observed Willy.

  "Don't do anything that his heirs can sue the government for," advised. Curly. "We gotta be reasonable, you know."

  "I won't do a thing, Cap'n," said Willy. "I'll just fix it so he can do things himself that he may not want to brag about when they backfire on him.'

  "If I knew what you had in mind, I'm pretty sure I'd probably have to forbid it," said Curly.

  "Matter of fact," observed Willy, "if this turns out the way I think it will, we may wind up with a nice story in the next issue of his magazine."

  The next morning Willy made a date with Parker to meet him in the wardroom coffee lounge ten minutes after flight quarters was sounded. All hands go to their stations when flight quarters sounds, so the lounge was empty when Willy peeked in there a minute after the bugles had blown. Willy popped in, laid a big unsealed manila envelope marked secret on the table and beat it up to the ready room where his squadron mustered.

  Willy hung around the ready room half an hour to give Parker plenty of time to get to the coffee lounge, spot the secret envelope, and get curious about its contents. By the time he came bustling into the lounge apologizing for being late, Parker was scribbling in his notebook and his eyes were as big as golf balls.

  "Sorry I'm late," said Willy.

  "That's all right," said Parker. "Think nothing of it. I've been checking over some of my notes on the things you showed me," he added, stuffing the book in his pocket. "What's the program today?"

  "Chart house, signal bridge, and navigation bridge," said Willy. "We'll get going as soon as I have a cup of coffee."

  When Willy was halfway through his coffee, one of his pals burst into the coffee lounge with a worried look on his face, grabbed the manila envelope, muttered "Boy-oh-boy!" and scurried out with it.

  "I want to send a message to my magazine," said Parker. "How do I do it?"

  "Just write it out, give it to me, and I'll file it for you," said Willy.

  Parker tore a page out of his notebook and scribbled on it "Aboard atomic carrier Guadalcanal. Have big story for you when I get in. Hold space for it. Parker." On the way up to the bridge, Willy handed the message in to the Communications Office for clearance and processing.

  Parker seemed preoccupied while the Chief Quartermaster was explaining to him all about the fathometer, loran, chronometers, and sextants. He didn't seem much interested, either, when the Chief Signalman put on a special signal drill with a nearby destroyer and filled the yardarms with bright-colored flags. On the navigating bridge, he politely declined Willy's offer to let him steer the ship for a while and took only casual interest in the landing operations which they watched over the air officer's shoulder in Fly One, just aft of the Captain's easy chair on the port side of the bridge.

  While they were watching the landings, a messenger came up from Communications with a note suggesting that the words "atomic carrier" be deleted from Parker's message and be replaced by the "USS."

  "Why?" demanded Parker.

  "I should have caught that myself," said Willy. "This isn't an atomic carrier."

  "It's got A bombs, hasn't it?" demanded Parker.

  "Yes. But all the big carriers have. The Enterprise is the only carrier with atomic propulsion that Mr. McNamara has let us build so far."

  "Your censors go over things with a fine-tooth comb, don't they?" observed Parker as he OKed the change.

  When they went below after flight operations, Parker found a note on the desk in his stateroom, "Call Main Radio. Dial 347." This note had been put there by one of Willy's confederates and 347 was not the number of main radio. It was the number of Willy's stateroom.

  After leaving the wardroom, Willy hurried down to his room, where several of his pals were assembled and they settled down to await developments. Soon the phone rang and things began to develop.

  "Parker. TIME Magazine," said the voice on Willy's phone. "I have a note here to call you."

  "Yes, Mr. Parker," said one of Willy's pals. "Navy Radio, San Francisco, is trying to get you on the sideband voice radio circuit. Hold on and I'll put you through... NSSQ calling NSXY... NSSQ calling NSXY... come in please. Over."

  "NSSQ to NSXY. We have Mr. Parker on the phone now. Over."

  "NSXY to NSSQ. Roger. The New York long-distance operator has been trying to get him. Have him hold and we'll put New York through, over."

  "NSSQ to NSXY. Roger. Mr. Parker is holding."

  As Parker listened, there followed a make-believe conversation back and forth between long-distance operators and some buzzing and clicking on the line as Willy's pals went through the rigmarole of putting a call through to New York and then to the switchboard in the Time-Life Building. One of the boys was an expert at imitating female voices and put on quite a convincing act.

  While this was going on, Parker asked the Guadalcanal "operator" if this call would be scrambled and was assured that it would be. He asked would it be monitored, and was told no.

  Finally a man's voice came on the line and said, "Parker, this is the New York office. Can you hear me all right?"

  "Hear you loud and clear," said Parker. "Go ahead, New York."

  "Look, Parker. Newsweek is breaking a big story about the Guadalcanal date-lined Honolulu. Evidently it's a hot one, but we can't find out much about it, except that it's something that happened on their cruise to Honolulu last mon
th and was hushed up. Have you any idea what it could be? Over."

  "I know all about it, New York," came Parker's confident reply. "That's the story I told you to hold space for. Put a stenographer on the line and I'll give it to you now."