Spruance sighed. “Radar will give us several hours warning of the approach of their surface fleet.”
Radar towers, like those that lined the English Channel, had been constructed on high ground overlooking the Baja, San Diego, Los Angeles, and other cities. They could spot ships and planes up to two hundred miles out. That would mean a number of hours for battleships, but less than an hour for airplanes.
“There will be chaos when the sirens sound,” Spruance said. “There still aren’t anywhere near enough bomb shelters, and I don’t know what can protect anyone against a fourteen-inch shell. People will literally try to run for the hills and there will be a stampede. People will die. God, I hope this is worth it. We will do everything we can, but we simply cannot let the Japs stop the attack on the decoys. We will not have enough ships and planes to halt them.”
“The Japs will probably focus on attacking military installations, but who knows where the shells will land. I know it’s futile, but I wish we hadn’t sent the Midway survivors, the cruisers and destroyers, to Pearl Harbor instead of here.”
Nimitz looked out a window where he could see the bay. Two heavy cruisers and four light ones, along with a handful of destroyers, were all that the navy possessed at San Diego. There were other ships in San Francisco and Puget Sound, but they would have been inadequate in the first place, and likely would have been sunk if they’d attempted to move them south to San Diego.
“We play the cards we were dealt,” Nimitz said grimly. “But if they actually do hit us here with all the planes that their carriers have, we are in trouble.”
“Then we’d better start shuffling planes down here from up north as soon as possible,” Spruance added.
“Are we ready for that?” Nimitz asked.
“Do we have a choice?”
Down the hall, Merchant asked Tim how it went. “I gave them my frank opinion and said that the Japs were going to hit us with everything, and including the kitchen sink. Only thing, I don’t think they quite believed it. Nimitz asked if I thought he was thinking too much like an American and not like a Jap. He told me not to answer that, so my career’s intact, although, if he’d pushed, that’s exactly what I would have said. Unless we start thinking like Yamamoto, he’s going to keep beating us.”
* * *
Lieutenant Harry Hogg, USAAF, had been called Piggy since the day he was born. Mom said he’d been a chubby baby and the name had stuck, even though Hogg was a slight and slender young man of twenty-three. When he was younger, he thought he’d like to kill dear old mom, but then realized that the nickname was inevitable given his last name.
Hogg stood by his twin-tailed P38 fighter and looked around at the Mexican terrain. The land was barren and rugged, but, somehow, engineers had managed to lay out a number of airfields scratched into the hard surfce of the earth. His landing had been scary as his plane used a lot of runway and this dirt field had all of about six inches leeway. Taking off was going to be a joy as well. He and the other P38 pilots were safe for the moment and damned glad to be down on mother Earth.
Some people he knew went on vacation to Mexico. This, however, was not going to be a vacation. An NCO had directed him to a series of tents where there were cots set up for the pilots and mechanics. There was food, and it was neither plentiful nor good. When asked how long they’d be at this abomination, Piggy and his fellow pilots were told they’d be there as long as the Army Air Force or the United States Navy said they should. That was another thing. Army and navy pilots were intermingled and more and more planes of all types were coming in, including P39, P40, and P47 army fighters and navy Wildcats. Hogg had seen many others fly overhead and on to other fields that were out of sight. Quietly, they were told they shouldn’t be in Mexico for more than a few days. Sure, they all thought. The word “soon” to the military could mean an eternity.
Everyone felt that something big was up, but nobody was quite certain what. There were what appeared to be a couple of carriers out in the bay, but they looked way too small, even misshapen.
Fuel had been brought in, but not all that much of it. To Piggy, this meant that the facility truly was temporary and that suited him just fine. It looked as if there was only enough fuel for two or three full flights of thirteen hundred miles each, which was the P38’s range. He’d only recently completed training and, while anxious to take on either the Germans or the Japanese, knew he was good but had doubts as to whether he was good enough to duel with an experienced enemy pilot. From what he and the others had heard about the Japanese, they flew their Zeros with consummate skill. Piggy loved his twin-tailed fighter and looked forward to using it against the enemy, just not any time real soon. Some of the twin-tailed planes had been stationed in Alaska, but they’d been withdrawn after the Midway debacle.
Senior officers quickly informed all the pilots that there would be no training or orientation flights. They wanted to minimize the chance that the planes would be seen by unfriendly eyes although, obviously, they might have been spotted flying in. Hogg and the other pilots all looked at each other. The need for secrecy meant that the Japs were coming and they were going to try and spring a trap on the dirty yellow bastards.
When asked if they would have some time to go into town, the pilots were informed that there was no town. They were also told not to drink any water that hadn’t been boiled or any food that had been cooked in local water. The same held true for the local booze. Montezuma’s Revenge was spelled out in great detail and Hogg decided he would take no chance on having a case of the raging shits while trapped in the cockpit of his plane. Even if he and the plane made it back, he was told that both would have to be hosed down.
A ragged cheer told him that the tent designated as the mess hall had opened for business. Piggy was a healthy young man and he hadn’t eaten since morning.
He entered the tent and grabbed a metal tray. “What’s today’s main course?” he asked one of his fellow pilots.
“Shit on a shingle. What else?”
* * *
“If I asked you to leave San Diego, would you?” Tim asked.
Amanda smiled tenderly and patted him on the cheek. “No.”
“I didn’t think you would.” They were seated on a park bench and had a view of the bay. It was almost empty of warships.
“And don’t even think of asking. I’m a nurse and I’ll stay here and do my duty just like you will.”
Tim thought there was a big difference between a naval officer and a civilian nurse, but prudently kept his opinion to himself.
She squeezed his hand. “The big battle’s going to come and very soon, isn’t it? And it’s going to take place around here, right?”
“That’s the rumor.”
“Tim, you know more than that.”
“Not really. A lot of people think that there will be fighting around here, and, yes, I’m one of them, which is why I had hoped you would consider leaving.”
“Well, I’m not going. Do you really think the Japs are going to target civilian areas and places like hospitals? I don’t think they did that when they attacked Pearl and Honolulu.”
“Civilians were killed, weren’t they? I seem to recall hiding in a shelter with a beautiful but frightened nurse while everything exploded around us.”
“I wasn’t frightened, I was terrified. But you’ll be here, too, won’t you?”
“No.”
“What?” she said. She was shocked. “Where are they sending you now?”
Tim took a deep breath. He’d hated the thought of telling her and had been putting it off. “Spruance is going to take over from Halsey. It seems that Bull has gotten another attack of his skin infection and, while it’s still mild, Nimitz can’t take the chance of his being incapacitated during the middle of a battle.”
“So let me guess, he’s taking you along with him.”
Tim nodded solemnly. “Yes, and some other personnel, including Merchant. Seems he wants at least some of his regular staff with him,
and that makes sense. Who knows, maybe he’ll want me to translate surrender terms to Yamamoto.”
“That’s not funny and it doesn’t make sense,” she said, wiping away a tear. “Jesus, Tim, how many battles have you been in? Haven’t you done enough?”
“I can think of a lot of guys who’ve done a lot more, so no, I haven’t done enough. I’m not being noble and I’m scared to death for the both of us, but the curse of the military is that you can’t let down your comrades, your buddies.”
Which was why Amanda knew she couldn’t leave San Diego when others remained behind. “When will you be leaving?”
“Two or three days. Why?”
She stood and pulled him to his feet. “Then we’ll have to act quickly, won’t we?”
* * *
“This, Skipper, is a torpedo.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I would never have known.”
Crowley ignored Torelli. “And this is a torpedo without its clothes.”
He lifted off the metal sheath covering the warhead. “And this is the part of the torpedo that we are to never ever touch or change under penalty of death or something worse.”
Torelli looked at the torpedo’s innards. There it was, the mechanism that was supposed to guide the weapon under the hull of an enemy ship and, in response to the enemy ship’s magnetic field, detonate the torpedo, thus breaking the back of a supposedly doomed vessel. Problem was, it frequently didn’t work even though the bastards at BuOrd said it did and that any problems were caused by submariners who were too stupid to follow instructions.
The same problems continued even if the electronic widget was disconnected and the torpedo used as an old-fashioned impact weapon. All too frequently that didn’t work either, as they’d found out in highly unauthorized tests against Japanese merchant shipping. The damned torpedoes just weren’t dependable and couldn’t be counted on. Using the torpedo as originally configured often resulted in the fish disappearing. The consensus was that the torpedo was running low, but why? When used as an impact weapon, they’d literally heard the torpedo clanging against the hull of an enemy ship, but without a resulting explosion.
Crowley pointed to the impact trigger. “Based on my highly unscientific knowledge of engineering I think I see the problem.”
Torelli grunted. Crowley had a degree in engineering. “I know all about problems, young Lieutenant. What’s the solution?”
“I think the trigger mechanism is too weak and needs to be strengthened. I can’t prove it without seeing a torpedo that’s failed after hitting, and there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening out here, but I think the trigger mechanism is too fragile and probably collapses instead of causing a detonation. If we strengthen it, we might correct the problem.”
“We could also get court-martialed,” Torelli said.
Crowley glared at him. “We’d have to survive in order for that to happen, and what do you think our chances of that would be when we’re told to stop staring at Jap ships and begin trying to kill them?”
Torelli eyeballed the offending mechanism, looked up and smiled grimly. “At any rate and assuming our survival, I’ll bet we could arrive back at San Diego without any altered torpedoes left, couldn’t we?”
CHAPTER 21
AMANDA LAY NAKED ON THE BED AND LOOKED UP AT THE ceiling and the bare light bulb that was, mercifully, off. The only light in the room was from a night light in the bathroom. She was covered with sweat and, for the first time in her young life, she was sexually satisfied, at least for the moment.
She was also married.
After their conversation in the park, they’d found a pliant justice of the peace who owed FBI Agent Harris a favor for something or other, and then got a county clerk friend of the JP to ram through a marriage license. They had the feeling that such goings-on weren’t all that rare with so many tens of thousands of servicemen and women in the San Diego area, and many in various stages of shipping out, coming back, or just plain wanting to live in the moment. She wondered if the justice thought she was pregnant and decided she didn’t give a damn what the silly little man thought.
The justice had married them the evening before. Maybe some navy regulations had been bent or broken, but Nimitz said he’d take care of them, and that Tim had little more than a day to get the hell back. Grace and Merchant had been maid of honor and best man. It had been pleasant and swift. As a girl growing up, Amanda, like all her friends, had dreamed of a big church wedding with her starring as a beautiful bride wearing a flowing white dress. A dozen bridesmaids in matching dresses would accompany her, and hundreds of her and her parents’ friends and relatives would dine at an elegantly catered reception that most people couldn’t afford while an expensive band played on. She’d even decided that Lester Lanin’s high society band would be just perfect. She would be appropriately thankful that her father was a well-to-do doctor and then go on a honeymoon to Europe with her Prince Charming.
Funny how war changes perspectives and values, she thought. She recalled a sermon in which the minister said something about “when I was a child I thought as a child, but now I am an adult so I think like an adult.” Fairy-tale weddings might have a time and a place, but now the world was at war and fairy-tale weddings were no longer that important. And who wanted to honeymoon in Europe with Hitler in charge?
Instead, it was far more important for both of them to pledge themselves to each other, and who cared whether it was in a small office in California or in a magnificent European cathedral? And who cared whether the honeymoon was on the French Riviera or one night in a small apartment in San Diego? She and Tim were married.
The apartment was Merchant’s. He was roughing it in Tim’s bachelor officer’s quarters for the duration. Amanda was certain that Grace would find some way to provide him with a level of solace, although probably in a parked car.
She giggled softly and Tim stirred. He’d been a very gentle lover. The first time they’d been tentative and a little awkward, but there had been no pain. The second time was much, much better as they learned so much about each other. The third was an explosion of exuberant passion that left them gasping, shocked and delighted. Neither was concerned about the possibility that she might get pregnant. Without quite saying it, both of them hoped it would happen. If something happened to Tim, at least there would be another Great Dane to carry on.
He was staring at her. “You are so beautiful, my dear Amanda.”
“And so are you, my dear Tim.” She followed up the statement by caressing his chest while his hands moved across her breasts and down to her still-moist thighs. She let her own hands travel downward and found that her new best friend was also awakening.
One more time, she thought a few moments later as he entered her. One more time and he’ll have to go back to the damn war. She wrapped her arms and legs around him and drew him deeper, deeper, deeper. Damn, damn, damn, she thought in tandem to his stroking inside her.
* * *
Steve Farris and Sandy had their meeting. From the beginning it was awkward. Sandy was pleased that Steve had not been maimed, and he said that she looked great, but it became clear that whatever spark there had been before he had gone to Alaska had been extinguished. There was nothing either one had done or said; rather, they simply realized that they had little in common. After a polite conversation, they parted. Sandy went back to work, while a slightly disconsolate Steve wondered what was going on.
Getting onto the naval base early the next morning was fairly easy. A man in uniform, even an army uniform, using a cane and with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star on his chest, opened a lot of doors. He was just about to enter Tim’s office building when a woman’s voice hailed him.
“Lieutenant Farris, how are you?”
He turned in surprise. At first he didn’t recognize the slight young woman with the dark-rimmed glasses. Then he noticed the oriental shape of her eyes and smiled.
“Nancy Sullivan,” he said, quickly recalling th
e daughter of the store owner in Bridger. After Stecher had discovered Nancy and her mother at her father’s store, he had been reluctant to go the store on future occasions, which left Farris with the honors. On several occasions he’d struck up brief conversations with the slight young woman with the glasses. “I am fine, and what are you doing here?”
“Thanks to your uncle, I work here now. Apparently there cannot be enough people fluent in Japanese.”
“Speaking of my uncle, I’d like to see him.”
Her face clouded. “Ah, he’s not here. He and a number of others are, well, away.”
“I’ll bet that’s because there’s a war on, isn’t it?”
Nancy smiled. “Tell you what. Buy me a cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you what’s happened since you went to Alaska. Tim’s very proud of you, by the way.”
They had two cups each. Steve heard that Tim and Amanda were married, which delighted him, while Nancy was saddened by the death of Stecher. “There was so much hate in that man, but it seemed to be coming out.”
“Does it bother you that he died killing Japanese soldiers?”
She looked at him quizzically. “No more than it bothers me that you killed some of the enemy. You keep misunderstanding me and, for that matter, many American people of Japanese descent. I am an American, not Japanese. Japan is a strange and predatory land across a very large ocean, and, like all Americans, I cannot understand this perverse code of behavior called bushido. It is insane. Maybe someday I’ll go visit and look up my ancestors, just like my father would like to see his ancestors in Ireland, but not until my country, the United States, has defeated Japan.”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
“Don’t worry.” She smiled widely, then reached across and patted his arm. He noticed that she had a number of light freckles across her cheeks. Not too many Japanese had freckles, he thought. It made her look very attractive.
Nancy stood. “Even though almost everybody’s gone from the office, I really should get to work.”
Rising Sun Page 35
