A CALL TO COLORS: A NOVEL OF THE BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  It was a late, warm evening as they gathered on the passenger platform under a sharp cobalt-blue sky. Luigi stood between Carmen and Dominic, his arms around them.

  Luigi reached out and pumped Donovan’s hand once more. “You woulda made a great Italian.”

  Donovan said, “hey, remember me? I’m Irish. Anyway, what about the Spik and the Mik?”

  “... Hokay, hokay.” Luigi waved him off

  “‘board,” yelled the conductor.

  “Thanks for coming, Mike,” said Carmen. “Please write. Let me know how you’re doing.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. Then she stepped back, still twisting her wedding rings, her eyebrows knit.

  “You take care of yourself, Carmen.” Donovan turned to Dominic, grabbed his hand, and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re the man of the house now, Dominic. Take good care of your mom and Rosa and grandpa. Okay?”

  Dominic’s voice squeaked a bit when he said, “You bet, Mike. And you go out there and get some Japs for us, huh?”

  Donovan grinned.

  “Maybe send me a sword or a pistol?” the boy asked.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  The engineer blasted his whistle twice, and the conductor scooped up the little stool beneath the front of the door. “All aboard. Last call.”

  “Gotta run. Good-bye, everybody. Thanks for everything.” He ran for the car just as the train jerked.

  The conductor, a thin, owlish man in his late fifties, helped Donovan aboard the car then closed the door and secured the vestibule, setting the stool on the floor and clipping the window open. “Leave it open for a while, maybe cool the place off,” he muttered.

  Couplings clanked as the engine’s drivers spun on the rails against a consist of eight passenger cars. Gray-white smoke puffed into the sky as the engineer yanked a handle, spilling sand onto the tracks. The big engine’s drivers grabbed hold, and the train pulled out slowly.

  Mike found a seat and looked out to see Carmen walking alongside the car. She raised her hand: open the window.

  With some effort, Donovan got it up.

  “Here, take them.” She reached up to him. She had to walk faster as the train gained speed.

  Donovan extended his hand palm-up, having no idea of what to expect.

  She dropped something in his hand as the train went faster. She was almost running as she called hoarsely, “There’ll be a day when you’ll meet a good woman, Mike. That’ll be the wedding present from Mario and me.” She was puffing and stopped abruptly at the end of the platform.

  Donovan opened his hand to find a gleaming one-carat diamond engagement ring and a white-gold wedding band. He leaned out and called back, “I’m speechless.”

  “God bless you and bless you and bless you, Mike.” She blew a kiss and wiped at her eyes.

  “And you, too,” called Donovan, too flabbergasted to think of anything. Then he waved to Dominic and Pappa Rossi, standing on the platform. “Thank you.”

  Dominic waved and the old man started yelling something, but the engineer blew the whistle, its mournful wail drowning out Pappa Rossi’s voice.

  The train lurched around a bend and suddenly, Rocklin was gone as they rattled over a crossing and into the twilight. Pushing down the window, Donovan sat heavily, feeling tired and strangely devoid of energy. Carmen’s dinner had been wonderful, spaghetti with a tomato sauce flavored by beef, red wine, chopped olives, mushrooms, and spices that had been simmering in a crock all day. They’d started with a Caesar salad, and the meal was attended with a bottle of local Chianti. Everyone ate and drank with vigor, except Donovan, who wasn’t hungry. But he put on a good show of apologizing for having a heavy, gravy-laden pot roast for lunch. Actually, he’d only had half of a dry tuna sandwich at the Sacramento station.

  Fortunately, the car was only half full, the seat next to Donovan unoccupied. He pitched his cap on the seat, undid his blouse, and spread out, wondering why he hadn’t been hungry. Or thirsty. The Chianti was excellent, but he’d had only one glass as Carmen watched curiously. He clinked glasses with them as they finished off the bottle, toasting the liberating armies of the United States of America, a free Italy, the pope, and the president. They poured a glass for Dominic, over Carmen’s protest. The boy gulped and coughed as Luigi and Donovan grinned at each other, the old man silently thanking Donovan for helping to validate the end of the boy’s puberty.

  He studied the engagement ring for a moment -- beautiful -- its emerald-cut facets gleamed. He remembered Mario telling about the fantastic luck he’d had buying it on a trip through Panama.

  He dropped them in his pocket, amazed at Carmen’s sacrifice. She could have sold them, kept them in the family for Rosa when she was ready to be married, given them to friends, dropped them in the collection plate at church, or simply heaved them in the river. But then he remembered the time he’d almost married. She was a southern girl with a cute accent. Nancy Stringer was a nurse whom Donovan had met at San Diego’s Balboa Naval Hospital. The invitations were out. John Sabovik, who was to be the best man, put together a lavish bachelor party at the Hotel del Coronado. Three days before the wedding, Nancy gave back the ring. It turned out she wanted to marry her childhood sweetheart from Memphis. Later, after he’d thrown the ring in San Diego Bay, he discovered this man from Memphis had made it big in soybean futures, a miracle in the midst of the depression.

  Donovan pat the rings in his pocket. Sabovik; Nancy. What would Carmen say if she knew about his tattered relationships?

  The train whistle wailed into the night.

  Stop moping, dammit.

  He felt woozy; his belly ached, and it wasn’t the spaghetti; he hadn’t had that much. This was a different, almost throbbing discomfort. Running his hand over his forehead, he realized he was clammy, and he wondered if he was running a fever. Maybe the flu?

  The conductor entered the car and began taking tickets. He was bending to reach for the ticket of the man opposite Donovan when a shadow crossed his face. The conductor looked up and said, “I’ll be damned. Milo Lattimer, SP’s finest conductor. What brings you aboard?”

  “Hi, Charlie. Just deadheading back to Roseville. You up for a game?” Lattimer’s voice was a resonant baritone. He was tall, six-three at least, Donovan figured, but not heavy. In fact, Donovan judged him to be on the thin side, except that his back and shoulders were broad beneath a blue chambray work shirt, and powerful. His hair was short, curly, and unparted, and as he nodded Donovan noticed he had a bald pate.

  The train was up to speed and rumbled into the dusk, the car rocking gently from side to side.

  Charlie, the conductor, leaned over, took Donovan’s ticket, and punched it, hardly giving him a glance. “Thanks, Navy,” he muttered as he turned back to the big man. “Sorry, Milo,” Charlie said. “You’re too good for me. Besides, I have to work up the manifest.”

  “I’ll give up my queen.” Lattimer grinned through crooked teeth.

  Charlie’s mouth twisted into a guarded smile. “Hogwash. You’d still clean me out. Let me take a rain check. Were due in Roseville in thirty minutes and that wouldn’t’t--hey--”

  “Sorry.” Donovan stood and lurched past the two men. His face felt like it was on fire, and something surged in his belly. He wasn’t sure it we was going to vomit or if he just needed air. When at sea, a blast of air over his face always had a calming effect. That’s where he wanted to go, into the vestibule between cars, where he could open the big window and stick his nose in the wind. “Is the head up there?” he asked.

  “Right at the front of the car,” said the conductor. “Jeepers, Navy guys.” He turned to Lattimer and grinned. “In my lingo, a head is on top of your shoulders and a toilet is where you take a crap. How’d they ever get it so screwed up, anyway?”

  The two laughed as Donovan lurched forward, keeping his feet while the car rocked and bumped into the night. His destroyer legs didn’t’t seem to help as he hand-over-handed his way along. With
difficulty, he opened the door to the vestibule and stumbled inside, standing over the coupling platform. His stomach seemed fairly alive, and a second-place archery trophy came to mind as he tugged open the widow and clipped it in place. The trophy became the image of Dr. Duberman as he stepped on the stool, leaned out the window and retched into the cool night air.

  What the hell is wrong with me? he wondered as he retched again. Just then the train roared over a crossing as an eastbound freight blasted past in the opposite direction. The noise was incredible, the air filled with the pulsing, red-hot energy of the passing locomotive and the odor of burned fuel oil. He had a sensation of falling, that maybe it was all right to let himself go... that everything was okay now. The image of Dr. Duberman became that of Luigi Rossi smiling and nodding, his arm around young Dominic, both wearing baseball caps and gloves. The pain hit again, searing inside his belly. Mercifully, there was blackness...

  * * * * *

  “... there’s no time. I’ll take him.” The voice was deep, resonant, he’d heard it before.

  “What the hell’s wrong with him?”

  Fingers probed around his belly. A fire raged inside.

  “Ahhh.” Donovan’s eyes fluttered open. Several silhouettes stood over him in darkness. A baggage cart. He was lying on a baggage cart.

  “Man, he scared the shit out of me. I never thought I’d see a guy puke so hard. Standing’ on the stool, he almost fell out of the car. Can you believe that? Hell, Milo, you saved him.”

  “Ummm.” The fingers probed. “ ...maybe chronic appendicitis.”

  Donovan remembered now. It was the big man on the train. The chess player who was going to give up his queen.

  “You mean he’s gotta have an operation?” It was the conductor’s voice.

  “Can’t tell. These things are tricky. You don’t know until--”

  “Hey Charlie! We gotta highball, dammit,” a man shouted.

  The conductor said, “We’re pullin’ out.” He leaned close to Donovan and patted him on the shoulder. “You take it easy, fella. You’re lucky Milo’s so damn strong. Saved your life. Then he carried you off the train all by himself.” Charlie looked up. “Gotta go, Milo. Thanks.” The man dashed away just as the engine gave two blasts of its whistle. The couplings clanked and the engine took the strain, pulling the train out.

  “Roseville?” asked Donovan.

  “Just hold on, my friend. Yes, Roseville.”

  It was the way he said Roseville that gave Donovan the impression Lattimer had a European accent, perhaps Dutch.

  “Ah, here we go,” said Lattimer.

  A station wagon crunched in gravel beside the baggage cart. A man stepped out and said, “Here we go, Milo. Best I could do.”

  “It’s just right,” said Lattimer.

  “Backseat is down so you can slide him over the tailgate. Want me to take his feet?”

  Lattimer’s arms slid under Donovan and he said with a grunt, “That’s fine. I have him. There, grab his hat.” Donovan was lifted into the night air. It felt wonderfully cool on his forehead and cheeks and for some reason, he smelled a mixture of burned fuel oil and orange blossom. Lattimer’s booted feet crunched in gravel as he carried Donovan to the station wagon. “That’s okay, step aside, please,” he grunted.

  Apparently someone didn’t move fast enough, for Lattimer said, “I said step back, dammit!”

  Donovan’s feet smacked into the doorpost. Pain ranged in his stomach. “Ahhh.”

  “See what you made me do?” Lattimer said as he eased Donovan onto the station wagon’s floor.

  A voice echoed in the dark, “Sorry, pal.”

  A train rumbled through the station without stopping, its whistle blaring. Then nothing...

  * * * * *

  The light was bright. White-clad figures in surgical masks stood over him. He was still supine, but now all his clothes were off and he was coved by a thin blanket.

  “Hey everybody, he’s up and about,” reported a figure behind his head.

  “How are you feeling, Commander?” asked a white-clad figure.

  It hit Donovan that the man was a surgeon. “Place smells awful,” he said.

  The man chuckled. “You’re right. It does smell awful. That’s ether, and not my wife’s perfume, unfortunately.” Gray-black eyebrows over intense blue eyes stared down at him. “Good evening, I’m Dr. Finnigan.” He nodded to his right. “And this is our team at the Roseville Community Hospital. The disrespectful man behind you is our gas-passer and chief anesthesiologist, Dr. Ross.”

  The voice behind Donovan mimicked a thick Count Dracula accent: “Velcome to my laboratory, Commander.”

  Dr. Finnigan continued, “Very funny. Across from me is Dr. Logan who will be assisting me. Now, right away, I want you to know that you’re going to be just fine.” Dr. Ross, the anesthesiologist behind Donovan was barely a shadow, perched on a stool, ready to flip valves and fill him full of ether.

  Donovan smacked his lips. His mouth was dry as he rasped, “Okay.” Then he realized that the assistant surgeon, Dr. Logan, was a woman.

  She must have caught Donovan’s glance, for she said, “Good evening, Commander. Welcome to Roseville.” She wore thick glasses, but the voice beneath the mask told him she was smiling, something that helped moderate the panicky feeling building in his chest.

  “What’s wrong with me?”

  “We figure chronic appendicitis,” said Dr. Finnigan. “And yes, you do need surgery. The blood type on your dog tags is in good supply here. Now. Do we have your permission to proceed?”

  Donovan gulped, thinking this was his last glance at humanity. “What’s chronic appendicitis?”

  “Your appendix becomes inflamed but is walled off in its own sac, so to speak, becoming abscessed inside. A nasty little infection sets up in there. Hard to detect. Actually, your buddy on the train figured it out.”

  “Lattimer?”

  “That’s right.”

  Ironic. Donovan wondered how a railroad conductor could diagnose his condition while a doctor of medicine at the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital completely flubbed it.

  “So, ah, do you want us to go ahead?” It was the woman, Dr. Logan. Her glasses were thick, so he couldn’t’t see her eyes well. But she had gentle eyebrows and her voice was full, compelling. A voice that he felt he would enjoy over cocktails.

  “Commander Donovan?” she asked. Right now her inflection was clipped and professional.

  “I think so.”

  “Next of kin?” asked Finnigan. At the same time, he nodded to Dr. Ross behind Donovan’s head.

  Donovan gave his mother’s name and phone number in the San Fernando Valley.

  Dr. Logan laid a damp towel over his forehead. It felt wonderful. “Any other next of kin?” she asked gently.

  The rubber mask came down slowly. He saw the light overhead and drew a breath, feeling as if he were rising in a balloon. Only the straps held him from floating to the ceiling. “... Admiral Nimitz,” he stammered. Then he was gone.

  * * * * *

  He gagged and then let it go, spittle dribbling down his chin. And his head ached. “Ahhh.”

  Someone sat beside him cradling his head. “It’s okay... shhh.” It was a woman. That voice. “Dr. Logan?” he rasped.

  “That’s pretty good. Now here.” She cradled his head against her and stuck a straw in his mouth. “Try this. It’ll settle your stomach.”

  Donovan sucked. It was cold 7Up in a glass filled with ice cubes. It tasted wonderful.

  “Easy, not too much at one time, Commander.”

  He spit out the straw. “Do I still have all my arms and legs?”

  “Ummm.” Something scratched. She was writing with her right hand, a clipboard balanced on her thigh, her left arm still cradled around his head. Green ink flowed from her pen. Then he looked into her eyes. They were as green as what flowed on the paper. Her auburn hair was pulled back under a finely sculpted neck. Her cheeks were prominent, and he recognized
the delicate eyebrows. She glanced down, caught him looking, and gave a quick, efficient smile.

  “Dr. Logan?”

  “That’s right, Commander.” Her fountain pen scratched as she resumed writing.

  “Call me Mike.”

  “Ummm.” Her pen scratched.

  “Is that my chart?”

  “Yes it is, Commander.”

  “Well, like I said, are my arms and legs still attached?”

  She eased her arm away and stood. “Yes, they are, and you’re going to be fine.” She wore a lab coat over a skirt and he looked down to see perfectly shaped legs. Ignoring him, she went on, “It was as Dr. Finnigan suspected. Chronic appendicitis. We drained it as best we could and put you back together. You weren’t under for more than an hour.”

  “Did the appendix come out?”

  “Yes, you’re lucky. We got it. Sometimes we have to go back again and redrain the abscess. I think you’ll be okay now. How do you feel, Commander?”

  He looked around, finding he was in a four-bed room. It was hard to focus, but he saw the vague outlines of other men in their beds. A blue sky sparkled outside. “What time is--?”

  “It’s Wednesday, Commander. Welcome back to the world. You’re in Roseville Community Hospital.” She walked over to the window and raised it. “Ummm, pretty warm outside. This okay with you?”

  A dry heat flowed in the room, caressing him. “Feels wonderful. What’is your first name?”

  She walked over and reached for his wrist. Instead she knocked over a paper cup, water splattering on the floor. “Shoot.” She picked up his wrist, taking his pulse while stooping, grabbing the cup, and refilling it. Again she scratched on the chart with green ink. “You needn’t bother, Commander. There’s only one thing that should concern you now.”

  She’d been so friendly last night at the operating table. Why the deep-freeze act now? “What’s that?”

  “Getting well. Now lie back and get some rest. We’ll get you on your feet later this afternoon.” Dr. Logan walked out.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN