by Ken Follett
But the American high command thought the attack might come at Hawaii, and the army feared an invasion of the west coast of the United States. Even the team at Pearl Harbor had a nagging suspicion it could be Johnston Island, an airstrip a thousand miles south of Midway.
They had to be one hundred per cent certain.
Chuck had a notion how it might be done, but he hesitated to say anything. The cryptanalysts were so clever, and he was not. He had never done well in school. In third grade a classmate had called him Chucky the Chump. He had cried, and that had guaranteed that the nickname would stick. He still thought of himself as Chucky the Chump.
At lunchtime he and Eddie got sandwiches and coffee from the commissary and sat on the dockside, looking across the harbour. It was returning to normal. Most of the oil had gone, and some of the wrecks had been raised.
While they were eating, a wounded aircraft carrier appeared around Hospital Point and steamed slowly into harbour, trailing an oil slick that stretched all the way out to sea. Chuck identified the vessel as the Yorktown. Her hull was blackened with soot and she had a huge hole in the flight deck, presumably caused by a Japanese bomb in the Battle of the Coral Sea. Sirens and hooters sounded a congratulatory fanfare as she approached the Navy Yard, and tugs assembled to nudge her through the open gates of No. 1 Dry Dock.
‘She needs three months’ work, I hear,’ Eddie said. He was based in the same building as Chuck, but in the naval intelligence office upstairs, so he got to hear more gossip. ‘But she’s putting to sea again in three days.’
‘How are they going to manage that?’
‘They’ve started already. The master shipfitter flew to meet her – he’s on board already, with a team. And look at the dry dock.’
Chuck saw that the vacant dock was already swarming with men and equipment: he could not count the number of welding machines waiting at the quayside.
‘All the same,’ Eddie said, ‘they’ll just be patching her up. They’ll repair the deck and make her seaworthy, and everything else will have to wait.’
Something about the name of the ship bugged Chuck. He could not shake the nagging feeling. What did Yorktown mean? The siege of Yorktown was the last big battle of the War of Independence. Did that have some significance?
Captain Vandermeier walked by. ‘Get back to work, you two girlieboys,’ he said.
Eddie said under his breath: ‘One of these days I’m going to punch him out.’
‘After the war, Eddie,’ said Chuck.
When he returned to the basement and saw Bob Strong at his desk, Chuck realized he had solved Strong’s problem.
Looking over the cryptanalyst’s shoulder again, he saw the same sheet of paper with the same six Japanese syllables:
YO—LO—KU—TA—WA—NA
He tactfully tried to make it sound as if Strong himself had solved it. ‘But you have got it, Lieutenant!’ he said.
Strong was disconcerted. ‘Do I?’
‘It’s an English name, so the Japanese have spelt it out phonetically.’
‘Yolokutawana is an English name?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s how the Japanese pronounce Yorktown.’
‘What?’ Strong looked baffled.
For a dreadful moment, Chucky the Chump wondered if he was completely wrong.
Then Strong said: ‘Oh, my God, you’re right! Yolokutawana – Yorktown, with a Japanese accent!’ He laughed delightedly. ‘Thank you!’ he enthused. ‘Well done!’
Chuck hesitated. He had another idea. Should he say what was on his mind? It was not his job to solve codes. But America was an inch away from defeat. Maybe he should take a chance. ‘Can I make another suggestion?’ he said.
‘Fire away.’
‘It’s about the designator AF. We need definite confirmation that it’s Midway, right?’
‘Yup.’
‘Couldn’t we write a message about Midway that the Japanese would want to rebroadcast in code? Then when we intercepted the broadcast we could find out how they encode the name.’
Strong looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘We might have to send our message in clear, to be sure they understood it.’
‘We could do that. It would have to be something not very confidential – like, say: ‘There is an outbreak of venereal disease on Midway, please send medicine,’ or something like that.’
‘But why would the Japs rebroadcast that?’
‘Okay, so it has to be something of military significance, but not top secret; something like the weather.’
‘Even weather forecasts are secret nowadays.’
The cryptanalyst at the next desk put in: ‘How about a water shortage? If they’re planning to occupy the place, that would be important information.’
‘Hell, this could work.’ Strong was getting excited. ‘Suppose Midway sends a message in clear to Hawaii, saying their desalination plant has broken down.’
Chuck said: ‘And Hawaii replies, saying we’re sending a water barge.’
‘The Japanese would be sure to rebroadcast that, if they’re planning to attack Midway. They would need to make plans to ship fresh water there.’
‘And they would broadcast in code to avoid alerting us to their interest in Midway.’
Strong stood up. ‘Come with me,’ he said to Chuck. ‘Let’s put this to the boss, see what he thinks of the idea.’
The signals were exchanged that day.
Next day, a Japanese radio signal reported a water shortage at AF.
The target was Midway.
Admiral Nimitz commenced to set a trap.
(iii)
That evening, while more than a thousand workmen swarmed over the crippled aircraft carrier Yorktown, repairing the damage under arc lights, Chuck and Eddie went to The Band Round The Hat, a bar down a dark alley in Honolulu. It was packed, as always, with sailors and locals. Almost all the customers were men, though there were a few nurses in pairs. Chuck and Eddie liked the place because the other men were their kind. The lesbians liked it because the men did not hit on them.
There was nothing overt, of course. You could be thrown out of the navy and put in jail for homosexual acts. All the same the place was congenial. The bandleader wore make-up. The Hawaiian singer was in drag, although he was so convincing that some people did not realize he was a man. The owner was as queer as a three-dollar bill. Men could dance together. And no one would call you a wimp for ordering vermouth.
Since the death of Joanne, Chuck felt he loved Eddie even more. Of course he had always known that Eddie could be killed, in theory; but the danger had never seemed real. Now, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Chuck never passed a day without visualizing that beautiful girl lying on the ground covered in blood, and his brother sobbing his heart out beside her. It could so easily have been Chuck kneeling next to Eddie, and feeling the same unbearable grief. Chuck and Eddie had cheated death on 7 December, but they were at war now, and life was cheap. Every day together was precious because it might be the last.
Chuck was leaning on the bar with a beer in his hand, and Eddie was sitting on a high stool. They were laughing at a navy pilot called Trevor Paxman – known as Trixie – who was talking about the time he tried to have sex with a girl. ‘I was horrified!’ Trixie said. ‘I thought it would be all tidy down there, and kind of sweet, like girls in paintings, but she had more hair than me!’ They roared with laughter. ‘She was like a gorilla!’ At that point Chuck saw, out of the corner of his eye, the stocky figure of Captain Vandermeier entering the bar.
Few officers went into enlisted men’s bars. It was not forbidden, merely thoughtless and inconsiderate, like wearing muddy boots in the restaurant of the Ritz-Carlton. Eddie turned his back, hoping Vandermeier would not see him.
No such luck. Vandermeier came right up to them and said: ‘Well, well, all girls together, are we?’
Trixie turned away and melted into the crowd. Vandermeier said: ‘Where did he go?’ He was already drunk enough to slur his words.
Chuck saw Eddie’s face darken. Chuck said stiffly: ‘Good evening, Captain, may I buy you a beer?’
‘Scotch onna rocks.’
Chuck got him a drink. Vandermeier took a swallow and said: ‘So, I hear the action in this place is out the back – is that right?’ He looked at Eddie.
‘No idea,’ Eddie said coldly.
‘Aw, come on,’ said Vandermeier. ‘Off the record.’ He patted Eddie’s knee.
Eddie stood up abruptly and pushed his stool back. ‘Don’t you touch me,’ he said.
Chuck said: ‘Take it easy, Eddie.’
‘There’s no rule in the navy says I have to be pawed by this old queen!’
Vandermeier said drunkenly: ‘What did you call me?’
Eddie said: ‘If he touches me again, I swear I’ll knock his ugly head off.’
Chuck said: ‘Captain Vandermeier, sir, I know a much better place than this. Would you like to go there?’
Vandermeier looked confused. ‘What?’
Chuck improvised: ‘A smaller, quieter place – like this, but more intimate. Do you know what I mean?’
‘Sounds good!’ The captain drained his glass.
Chuck took Vandermeier’s right arm and gestured to Eddie to take the left. They led the drunk captain outside.
Luckily, a taxi was waiting in the gloom of the alley. Chuck opened the car door.
At that point, Vandermeier kissed Eddie.
The captain threw his arms around him, pressed his lips to Eddie’s, then said: ‘I love you.’
Chuck’s heart filled with fear. There was no good ending to this now.
Eddie punched Vandermeier in the stomach, hard. The captain grunted and gasped. Eddie hit him again, in the face this time. Chuck stepped between them. Before Vandermeier could fall down, Chuck bundled him into the back seat of the taxi.
He leaned through the window and gave the driver a ten-dollar bill. ‘Take him home, and keep the change,’ he said.
The taxi pulled away.
Chuck looked at Eddie. ‘Oh, boy,’ he said. ‘Now we’re in trouble.’
(iv)
But Eddie Parry was never charged with the crime of assaulting an officer.
Captain Vandermeier showed up at the Old Administration Building next morning with a black eye, but he made no accusation. Chuck figured it would ruin the man’s career if he admitted he had got into a fight at The Band Round The Hat. All the same everyone was talking about his bruise. Bob Strong said: ‘Vandermeier claims he slipped on a patch of oil in his garage, and hit his face on the lawn mower, but I think his wife socked him. Have you seen her? She looks like Jack Dempsey.’
That day, the cryptanalysts in the basement told Admiral Nimitz that the Japanese would attack Midway on 4 June. More specifically, the Japanese force would be 175 miles north of the atoll at 7 a.m.
They were almost as confident as they sounded.
Eddie was gloomy. ‘What can we do?’ he said when he and Chuck met for lunch. He worked in naval intelligence too, and he knew the Japanese strength as revealed by the codebreakers. ‘The Japs have two hundred ships at sea – practically their entire navy – and how many do we have? Thirty-five!’
Chuck was not so glum. ‘But their strike force is only a quarter of their strength. The rest are the occupation force, the diversion force and the reserves.’
‘So? A quarter of their strength is still more than our entire Pacific Fleet!’
‘The actual Japanese strike force has only four aircraft carriers.’
‘But we have just three.’ Eddie pointed with his ham sandwich at the smoke-blackened carrier in the dry dock, with workmen swarming all over her. ‘And that includes the broken-down Yorktown.’
‘Well, we know they’re coming, and they don’t know we’re lying in wait.’
‘I sure hope that makes as much difference as Nimitz thinks.’
‘Yeah, so do I.’
When Chuck returned to the basement, he was told that he no longer worked there. He had been reassigned – to the Yorktown.
‘It’s Vandermeier’s way of punishing me,’ Eddie said tearfully that evening. ‘He thinks you’ll die.’
‘Don’t be pessimistic,’ Chuck said. ‘We might win the war.’
A few days before the attack, the Japanese changed to new code books. The men in the basement sighed and started again from scratch, but they produced little new intelligence before the battle. Nimitz had to make do with what he already had, and hope the Japanese did not revise the whole plan at the last minute.
The Japanese expected to take Midway by surprise and overwhelm it easily. They hoped the Americans would then attack in full force in a bid to win the atoll back. At that point, the Japanese reserve fleet would pounce and wipe out the entire American fleet. Japan would rule the Pacific.
And the USA would ask for peace talks.
Nimitz planned to nip the scheme in the bud by ambushing the strike force before they could take Midway.
Chuck was now part of the ambush.
He packed his kitbag and kissed Eddie goodbye, then they went together to the dockside.
There they ran into Vandermeier.
‘There was no time to repair the watertight compartments,’ he told them. ‘If she’s holed, she’ll go down like a lead coffin.’
Chuck put a restraining hand on Eddie’s shoulder and said: ‘How’s your eye, Captain?’
Vandermeier’s mouth twisted in a grimace of malice. ‘Good luck, faggot.’ He walked away.
Chuck shook hands with Eddie and went on board.
He forgot about Vandermeier instantly, for at long last he had his wish: he was at sea – and on one of the greatest ships ever made.
The Yorktown was the lead ship of the carrier class. She was longer than two football pitches and had a crew of more than two thousand. She carried ninety aircraft: elderly Douglas Devastator torpedo bombers with folding wings; newer Douglas Dauntless dive bombers; and Grumman Wildcat fighters to escort the bombers.
Almost everything was below, apart from the island structure, which stood up thirty feet from the flight deck. It contained the ship’s command and communications heart, with the bridge, the radio room just below it, the chart house and the aviators’ ready room. Behind these was a huge smokestack containing three funnels in a row.
Some of the repairmen were still aboard, finishing their work, when she left the dry dock and steamed out of Pearl Harbor. Chuck thrilled to the throb of her colossal engines as she put to sea. When she reached deep water and began to rise and fall with the swell of the Pacific Ocean, he felt as if he were dancing.
Chuck was assigned to the radio room, a sensible posting that made use of his experience in handling signals.
The carrier steamed to a rendezvous north-east of Midway, her welded patches creaking like new shoes. The ship had a soda fountain, known as the Gedunk, that served freshly made ice cream. There on the first afternoon Chuck ran into Trixie Paxman, whom he had last seen at The Band Round The Hat. He was glad to have a friend aboard.
On Wednesday 3 June, the day before the predicted attack, a navy flying boat on reconnaissance west of Midway spotted a convoy of Japanese transport ships – presumably carrying the occupation force that was to take over the atoll after the battle. The news was broadcast to all US ships, and Chuck in the radio room of the Yorktown was among the first to know. It was hard confirmation that his comrades in the basement had been right, and he felt a sense of relief that they had been vindicated. That was ironic, he realized: he would not be in such danger if they had been wrong and the Japanese were elsewhere.
He had been in the navy for a year and a half, but until now he had never gone into battle. The hastily repaired Yorktown was going to be the target of Japanese torpedoes and bombs. She was steaming towards people who would do everything in their power to sink her, and sink Chuck too. It was a weird feeling. Most of the time he was strangely calm, but every now and again he felt an impulse to dive over the side
and start swimming back towards Hawaii.
That night he wrote to his parents. If he died tomorrow, he and the letter would probably go down with the ship, but he wrote it anyway. He said nothing about why he had been reassigned. It crossed his mind to confess that he was queer, but he quickly dismissed that idea. He told them he loved them and was grateful for everything they had done for him. ‘If I die fighting for a democratic country against a cruel military dictatorship, my life will not have been wasted,’ he wrote. When he read it over it sounded a bit pompous, but he left it as it was.
It was a short night. Aircrew were piped to breakfast at 1.30 a.m. Chuck went to wish Trixie Paxman good luck. In recompense for the early start, the airmen were eating steak and eggs.
Their planes were brought up from the below-decks hangars in the ship’s huge elevators, then manoeuvred by hand to their parking slots on deck to be fuelled and armed. A few pilots took off and went looking for the enemy. The rest sat in the briefing room, wearing their flying gear, waiting for news.
Chuck went on duty in the radio room. Just before six he picked up a signal from a reconnaissance flying boat:
MANY ENEMY PLANES HEADING MIDWAY
A few minutes later he got a partial signal:
ENEMY CARRIERS
It had started.
When the full report came in a minute later, it placed the Japanese strike force almost exactly where the cryptanalysts had forecast. Chuck felt proud – and scared.
The three American aircraft carriers – Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet – set a course that would bring their planes within striking distance of the Japanese ships.
On the bridge was the long-nosed Admiral Frank Fletcher, a fifty-seven-year-old veteran who had won the Navy Cross in the First World War. Carrying a signal to the bridge, Chuck heard him say: ‘We haven’t seen a Japanese plane yet. That means they still don’t know we’re here.’
That was all the Americans had going for them, Chuck knew: the advantage of better intelligence.
The Japanese undoubtedly hoped to catch Midway napping, in a repeat of the Pearl Harbor scenario, but it was not going to happen, thanks to the cryptanalysts. The American planes at Midway were not sitting targets parked on their runways. By the time the Japanese bombers arrived they were all in the air and spoiling for a fight.
