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

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  “Nothing, thanks. Right now, I’m supposed to be on leave. And off the ship, the name is Mike. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Yes, Mike.”

  “Mike.”

  “Now tell me, uh, do you go by Dick?”asked Donovan.

  “Richard, sir.”

  “Okay, Richard. Admiral Nimitz sends his best, “ said Donovan.

  “So I heard.” Kruger glanced at Vicky. “I’m quite surprised, actually. He busted me once.”

  “What?” said Donovan.

  “You’ll see it in my jacket. It was for--”

  “He was very specific with me and spoke highly of you. Said you ran rings around the Augusta’s chief engineer.”

  “Well... “

  “As far as the other stuff, that was long ago and you were enlisted then. Now you’re a lieutenant commander.”

  Kruger nodded. “That’s true.”

  “How’s our ship?” asked Donovan.

  Kruger twirled his combination cap on a short, powerful finger and said, “She’s in good material shape. It’s the crew I’m worried about.”

  “In what way?” prodded Donovan.

  “She needs to get under way and stretch her legs. We’ve got a lot of green kids who are getting bored with nothing to do.”

  Morgan said, “I’m out.” His cards hit the bed.

  “Beats me,” said Soda Whiskers.

  “Keen,” said Mumford.

  Soda Whiskers yelped, “All you had was a pair of sevens? Sheeyat!”

  The radio concert ended. In cool, soft tones, the announcer said, “You’ve just heard Joseph Haydn’s One Hundredth Symphony, the Military, part of his London Symphonies, played by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra.”

  “You were right, Commodore,” called Soda Whiskers to Kruger. “At least there’s something the kid can’t do.”

  Vicky shot Donovan another glance.

  There was a scuffle across the room. “What the hell?” roared Soda Whiskers.

  Morgan dropped to his knees, a hand clutching his throat; he spun in a half circle, gasping. A pile of books fell off the bedside table and crashed to the floor.

  “Call the doc,” yelled Soda Whiskers. “He’s having a heart attack!”

  Kruger dashed out the door.

  Morgan gave a loud gasp and sank to his haunches. Horribly blue in the face, he fell forward, his body twitching.

  “Dammit.” Donovan dashed over and kneeled by Morgan. “He’s not breathing. Ben, help me flip him over.”

  Soda Whiskers came around the bed and dropped to his knees. Mumford eased out of bed and kneeled beside them.

  “Here we go, guys. Easy now,” said Donovan. They rolled Morgan to his back. His face was blue. His eyes were wide open. So was his mouth. “I wonder... “ Donovan stuck a finger in Morgan’s mouth.

  “What the hell you doin’?” said Soda Whiskers, eyeing Donovan with a glistening light blue eye.

  “Hold on,” said Donovan. “Yeah.” He reached farther down Morgan’s throat.

  “Leave him be. Wait for the doc,” said Soda Whiskers.

  “Not for long,” said Donovan. “Just a little further. Here, fellas, roll him to his side a little.”

  “What the hell for?” yelled Soda Whiskers. Then he called over his shoulder, “Where’s the Doc?”

  Donovan barked, “Do it! Now!”

  Mumford reached under Morgan. Soda Whiskers helped and they got Morgan to his side.

  Donovan said, “Okay, that might work. Ah!” With a jerk, he pulled a false-tooth stay plate out of Morgan’s mouth. “Stuck in his throat, must have gone down the windpipe.”

  “Geez,” said Mumford. “He took a big puff on that cigar and started hacking. That must be when it happened.”

  Donovan said, “Roll him all the way over. See if we can get him going again.”

  They rolled Morgan onto his stomach, and Donovan slapped his back. Then he straddled the prostrate man and began pushing on his lungs, giving artificial respiration. “Come on, come on, old man.”

  Morgan wheezed.

  “That’s better, Roland. Come on, you can do it,” urged Donovan.

  Morgan gave a prolonged gurgling gasp.

  “Atta boy,” said Donovan. He sat back, and they watched as Morgan’s chest heaved time and again.

  “Shit. Lookit that. His color is coming back,” said Soda Whiskers. He looked up to Donovan. “How’d you know?”

  “Just a guess. I knew he had a flipper,” said Donovan. He picked it up off the floor and tossed it onto Morgan’s bed. “Let’s get him back into--”

  “Excuse me.” Dr. Logan kneeled beside Donovan. “Let’s sit him up and let me listen to him.”

  They moved Morgan to a sitting position. “Who... “, he gasped.

  Donovan patted the man’s hand. “Easy, Roland. You’re fine now.”

  Diane moved her stethoscope around. “Sounds fine. Pulse is a little weak, but he sounds okay.” She looked up to two nurses. “Let’s get him into bed.” She reached up to his bedside table, fumbled her grip, and knocked over a large glass vase full of flowers. “Damn,” she said softly. “I’ll, I’ll go out and get... “

  Morgan lay a hand on her sleeve. “It’s only the tenth time today,” he gasped. The others chuckled. Dr. Logan was notorious for knocking things over. “Now can I finish my poker game? I’m down fifteen bucks.”

  “No, I mean really... “They laughed.

  “Forget It. The damn things were nearly wilted anyway.”

  With the help of two nurses, Morgan shuffled over and flopped onto his back. He pointed a bony finger at Mumford. “Guy’s a ringer, I tell you. Soda Whiskers. Don’t you know when you’ve been taken?”

  “Sheyyatt,” grumped Soda Whiskers.

  Diane Logan bent over and picked Morgan’s burning cigar off the floor. Jamming a hand on her hip, she asked, “Whom, may I ask, does this belong to?” She walked to the sink and turned on the water.

  “Hold it,” Mumford said. “It’s mine, actually, Dr. Logan. Hope you don’t mind.”

  Diane Logan stopped, looking from Morgan to Mumford. “Fine.” She gave the cigar to Mumford. “Here, smoke it.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” Mumford took the cigar and puffed mightily.

  Diane Logan went over to Morgan and took his pulse. Then she ran a hand over his hair, smoothing it. “Poor Roland. That was not fun. But you’re okay now. You be careful with that stay plate. It’s getting too loose. Better have a dentist fit you for a new one.” She leaned close, sniffed at his face, and gave a churlish smile. “You’re a good man, Roland except you have awful taste in tobacco.”

  “Huh?” said Morgan.

  Diane leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “If you’re going to smoke, smoke a good cigar. Not cheap stuff like that one. That way, you won’t gag so much. And only one a day.”

  “Awwww,” went Morgan.

  “Wheeeouw!” whooped Soda Whiskers.

  “Hubba-hubba,” said Mumford.

  “Okay, Doc. Thanks,” grinned Morgan.

  “Don’t thank me, Roland. Thank Commander Donovan. He’s the one who saved you,” said Diane.

  “He did?” asked Morgan.

  “That’s right. Okay, see you later, fellas. Lights-out in fifteen minutes.” She gave Donovan a quick smile and said, “Your blood work looks good. You can go home tomorrow.” She started to walk out.

  “Doc?” said Donovan.

  “Yes?”

  He caught her at the doorway and said quietly, “Can you give me some of those pills to take with me?”

  “Are you still having nightmares?”

  “Not really.” The “Tiny” nightmare had been recurring about twice a week before his surgery. Then three nights after it, when the anesthetic wore off, the dream returned in vivid horror, Tiny’s screams echoing in his head. Morgan and Mumford awoke white-faced as Donovan sat up in bed, shouting, “Clear the mount! Clear the mount!” Sodawski snored through it all as t
he night nurse calmed Donovan. The next day, Diane prescribed had something that helped him sleep.

  Kruger looked at him curiously, and Donovan turned his back, saying, “But they help sort of, you know, smooth things out.”

  Diane said, “I can give you a few, but you should really take it up with your own doctors. That’s something you don’t fool with.”

  “What shouldn’t I fool with?”

  “Well, they call it a number of things. Around here it’s--”

  He didn’t want hear her say battle fatigue so he said, “Come on, Doc, I’m not that far gone.”

  Diane and Donovan looked over to see everyone watching. In almost a whisper, she said, “Well, have them take a look at you. Okay?”

  “Doc,” he protested.

  She grabbed his elbow. “Come on now. Promise.”

  “All right.”

  “Okay. I’ll give you some stuff to tide you over. Sleep well.” She tapped a finger on his nose and walked out.

  Donovan walked back in the room rubbing his nose absently, not realizing that the corners of his mouth were turned up.

  “Wow wheee,” said Soda Whiskers. “You have a date?”

  “No,” muttered Donovan.

  “So it’s still not too late. What do you think I have to do to get a date with her?”

  “Jump out the window and break a leg, sucker. Now deal,” said Mumford.

  Vicky slapped her hands over her face, covered her eyes, and began laughing.

  Kruger asked, “Would you like to see the personnel records, Captain?”

  Donovan sat on his bed. “Just the officers for now, Richard.” He picked up a small hand mirror and looked at his face. What the hell is it about her?

  “Sir?” asked Kruger.

  Vicky’s grin spread from ear to ear.

  Ignoring her, Donovan said, “You see, Richard, Admiral Nimitz told me to take it easy and not do anything strenuous. So just the officer’s records.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mike.”

  “Mike, sir. Yes, Mike.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  11 August, 1944

  Ugaki suite, flag officer’s quarters

  Yokosuka Naval Shipyard

  Yokosuka, Japan

  Commander Yuzura Noyama limped to the blackout curtain, lifted a corner, and peeked out. The sky was clear, the moon overhead full. Even under a complete blackout, the massive Yokosuka naval base with its insect-like cranes, the city beyond, the surrounding hills, and the glistening waters of Tokyo Bay, stood out in stark detail.

  “Arrrrgh!” A painful cry drifted from the bedroom where Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki sat in a chair while Captain Saguaro Mishima, the fleet dentist, filled a cavity. Earlier, Mishima had filed into Ugaki’s suite followed by a rat-faced assistant lugging two heavy suitcases. Together they had set up a mobile lab in the bedroom and gone to work on Ugaki. The only reason Ugaki permitted Dr. Mishima to work on his mouth in the first place was that he was also being fitted for a new set of false teeth.

  “Careful with the curtain, Yuzura. The air raid wardens would love nothing more than to throw a bunch of flag officers in the pen. I hear they work on a point system these days.” It was Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita, Noyama’s boss and mentor. Along with Vice Admiral Ugaki, a renowned battleship sailor, Kurita was one of five top seagoing admirals gathered in the suite. The other three were Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa, Vice Admiral Shoji Nishimura, and Vice Admiral Kiyohide Shima. Four of them sat around a low table playing a game of mah-jongg, while Dr. Mishima ground away on Ugaki in the next room.

  Ugaki’s outburst made it difficult to keep third-class petty officer Minoru Onishi, one of two valets, from kicking in the door and going to his aid. Onishi was well over six feet, weighed 340 pounds, and had no neck. A brute of a man, his eyes were so close together they often looked as if they were fused into one. And he had a thick lower lip that often hung open, exposing a jagged lower row of tobacco stained teeth. Onishi was a gunner’s mate who’d been demoted to seaman first class several times and was known more for eloquent grunts than for words of two or more syllables, which he distributed with great effort. But Onishi was strong, determined, and very loyal. And he always got his task doneB that was why Ugaki liked him and selected him for a valet. There were occasions too, when Onishi’s great strength came in handy, the most recent a barroom brawl in Singapore when Ugaki sent him looking for girls.

  Today only the constant sharp commands from one of the admirals in the room kept Onishi from charging through the door.

  The admirals had been called to Tokyo ten days ago for a strategy meeting on Operation SHO-GO by the plan’s innovator, Admiral Soemu Toyoda, commander in chief of the Combined Fleet and overall commander of the Imperial Japanese Navy. There was no doubt the meeting was needed, but politics were rampant. Last June, the Americans had taken the Marianas with its three large islands Guam, Tinian, and Saipan. This caused the downfall of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and his cabinet on 18 July, with civilian and military officials scrambling to save themselves. Absent that, some committed seppuku. Senior flag officers in the army and navy knew what was to come. Using Tinian and Saipan’s three-thousand-meter, American B-29s could now strike major cities in Japan at will, including Tokyo. It was only a matter of time. That was why Noyama was looking out the windowBchecking firebreaks. Using everything from bulldozers to donkey carts, civilian defense workers frantically cut large open swaths throughout the Tokyo-Yokohama-Yokosuka complex.

  For the past four days, Toyoda and his admirals had been war-gaming in Meguro, a Tokyo suburb near the Navy Ministry and Imperial Palace. Intelligence reports had been gathered. The mutual conclusion was that MacArthur would go for the Philippines instead of Formosa, Okinawa, or possibly the Home Islands. Hence, they concentrated their efforts on the Philippines, and the plan was formally designated Operation SHO-1, as Kurita had in mind. But they’d lost so much of the fleet -- in particular, seasoned carrier pilotsB in the disastrous Marianas campaign. Without saying it, all present sensed Japan had her back to the wall, that a brilliant stroke was required to throw MacArthur back.

  On the first two days, Admiral Toyoda, more a politician than a seafarer, went through the motions of running the gaming sessions, but he was oftentimes shouted down by Navy Minister Mitsumasa Yonai and Admiral Kantaro Suzuki, head of the privy council and close adviser to Emperor Hirohito. Worse, Ugaki, one of the referees, cheated when the red team (America) sank two blue-team (Japan) aircraft carriers. Instead of nine hits and two carriers sunk, he arbitrarily recalculated the score to three hits and only one carrier damaged. Even at that, the red team went on to win both days’ matches, with General Yoshijiro Umezu, the army’s chief of staff, scowling at Admiral Yonai, the privy council officials scowling at those two, and the Jushin scowling at the privy Council.

  They had concurred on two things: First, MacArthur would strike in Leyte Gulf, a large natural anchorage on Leyte’s east side that yawned invitingly to attackers from the east. Second, nothing short of the total commitment of all of Japan’s remaining ships could stop him. One blue-team innovation on the SHO-1 gaming board was a pincer movement. Nishimura and Shima would lead battle groups through the Surigao Strait and attack MacArthur from the south, thrusting up into Leyte Gulf. Simultaneously, Kurita would lead another battle group through the San Bernardino Strait and drive down along the eastern shore of Samar, rendezvousing with the Nishimura/Shima force off Leyte Gulf, and together wipe out MacArthur’s troopships. But the blue-team lost each time because they had no air cover. While the hapless Toyoda sat back, watching others vent their rage, Ugaki rushed around, changing rules, mitigating blue-team losses.

  Today they adjourned to their quarters at six o’clock with two major questions unanswered: how to stop Halsey and his carriers, and how to gain air superiority.

  Noyama mused over the admirals and generals he’d watched the past few days: grown men yelling at one another. For the most part, Kurita, Nis
himura, Shima, and Ozawa, battle veterans, kept cool and remained detached, working with their staffs. But even the veterans couldn’t answer the two key questions, the latter perhaps more important, since it was the lack of air cover and nearly four hundred irreplaceable planes and pilots that had lost them the Marianas.

  “... it’s only a matter of time,” Noyama muttered, thinking of the air raids that were sure to come. If only the people knew. He wondered what would happen then. He let the blackout curtain drop.

  “Uhhhh!” It was Ugaki again, growling in pain.

  Onishi tensed but forced himself to relax under a withering glance from Vice Admiral Ozawa.

  Nishimura pushed a tile across the mah-jongg board and said, “Better send in a bottle of Johnnie Walker.”

  “Uhhh, Johnnie Walker?” grunted Onishi. Providing a square fifth of Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch was one of Onishi’s standard tasks. He began to head for a bar set up on a side table.

  “I don’t think so,” said Kurita. “We need him sober.” He snapped his fingers at Onishi and said, “Asahi. Frosted glass for the admiral.”

  “Uhhh.” Onishi walked out.

  “Ummm.” Nishimura sat back to take another bite of katsuboshi, a salami-shaped stick of a dried bonito fish.”This stuff is delicious, Noyama. Where in the world did you get it?”

  “Well, sir--” Noyama began.

  “On the base or off?” prodded Nishimura.

  “Off, sir.”

  “Excellent. Where?” demanded Nishimura.

  Kurita raised a hand, “Yuzura, I don’t want you to answer any more of Nishimura’s questions. He may buy the place and ruin it for the rest of us.” The others chuckled. Nishimura’s family was well off. He could have afforded to buy anything.

  “Owwww!” screeched Ugaki. “Kono BaDianearo.”13 Something crashed.

  Ozawa leaned forward, “First it’s false teeth, now he’s having a... root canal?” He looked up to Kurita.

  Kurita shrugged. “A filling, I thought.”

  The door was wrenched open and Ugaki strutted out bare-chested, his trousers held up by suspenders. He massaged his jaw, wiped his face with a towel, and muttered, “Man is a sadist.” Walking over to the side table, he grabbed a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch.