WHEN DUTY WHISPERS LOW (The Todd Ingram Series Book 3)

by JOHN J. GOBBELL

  “What if I find---“

  “---Jerry. I’m doing you a favor by letting you out of your cage. Just get up there, look over your ship, take your pictures, then get back here ASAP. Okay?”

  “I’ll do it, Commodore. By the way, any word on the ATF?” The ATF was a fleet tugboat.“ Due in here tomorrow. Now git.”

  “Aye, aye, Sir.” Landa scampered down the accommodation ladder. PT-94 idled in, her engines rumbling. He jumped aboard, and the PT pulled clear of the 12,000 ton destroyer tender. As soon as she passed through the anti-submarine net, her skipper hit the throttles. With a roar from her three great Packards, the seventy-eight foot Higgins, rose on her step. A large plume of white spray spewed behind as she headed up The Slot at thirty-five knots.

  They’d been running up The Slot for over three hours in the rain, navigating by radar, not seeing landmarks. Visibility was poor, but the seas were calm with long, low ground swells allowing PT-94 to remain easily on the step, with hardly any of the bone-jarring crunching the PTs suffered in harsher weather. Landa stood next to Lieutenant junior grade Oscar Bollinger, a lanky, dark-headed officer with a shark-like overbite. On Landa’s right was the boat’s executive officer, a bespectacled young ensign named Ralph Thomas, who pulled a towel from around his neck to wipe rain from his glasses every two minutes or so. All three were bareheaded, rain whipping their faces.

  During the trip, Bollinger often stepped into the chartroom to check radar fixes. There, a grinning, gum chomping, radarman was hunched over the receiver, “Gambino” stenciled on the back of his blue dungaree shirt. Everyone called him “Bambino,” presumably because of his freckled babyface. It didn’t seem to bother the young sailor as he happily sat before his lightweight Army Air Corps SCR 517A radar, plotting fixes on the chart table. While below, Bollinger would turn the helm over to Ensign Thomas. But Thomas had to wipe his glasses every two minutes; so Bollinger gave the helm to Landa who settled in comfortably, keeping the PT on course 290 true.

  After a while, Bollinger came up and stood beside Landa.

  Landa shouted over the engine’s roar, “Want your helm back?”

  “You’re doing fine, Sir,” Bollinger shouted back.

  Landa admitted to himself that he was enjoying steering this floating gas bomb. He waved at the chart house hatch. “How we doing?”

  “Mondo Mondo is on the scope straight ahead about fifteen miles.”

  Landa nodded: Another twenty minutes or so.

  A few seconds passed, then Bollinger yelled in Landa’s ear, “How do you like PTs, Commander?”

  “As long as it doesn’t blow up.”

  PT-94 swooped over the top of a swell and eased gracefully into the trough. Bollinger asked, “What did you do in civilian life, Commander?”

  “Career. Merchant Marine Academy, right into the Navy.”

  “Destroyers the whole time?”

  “Haze gray and underway. How ‘bout you?”

  “Book store. I was headed to Harvard Business School when my dad died. I inherited his book store and that was it.”

  “Where?”

  “Santa Barbara.”

  “Pretty town. You like it?”

  “Love it. We have an apartment over the top. And it’s lucky, too, having a place to live. It was tough in the depression. It killed my dad, I’m sure. After he was gone, we squeaked by. Then two years ago, we made a few bucks. Then zap! The Japs bomb Pearl Harbor and here I am.”

  “We?”

  “Wife and a son.” Bollinger reached for his wallet. “Here.” He showed Landa a photo of the three of them, a blonde wife and a blond little toddler perched on her knee, with Bollinger hovering in back, his shark’s teeth flashed a broad smile.

  While Bollinger pocketed his wallet, Laura West popped into Landa’s mind. He looked off into the mist, wondering if he had done the right thing at the Villa Rivera. No doubt, her reaction was just love on the rebound. If he had been able to stick around, they would have had a quick fling, probably a one night stand, then she would have dumped him like a hot tamale.

  ...but she felt so good in his arms. And her singing that night. Something had emerged from Laura that seemed to him so grand, so epic and all for the taking. It seemed so right. And she’d stopped drinking hadn’t she? All because of him. Didn’t he owe her something?

  But then he saw the Barber blow up and Luther gone with it. “Awww, damnit.”

  “What?” It was Bollinger.

  “I said, you have a nice family. What about---“

  There was some commotion below. Gambino stuck his head out the hatch and said, “Captain?”

  Bollinger ducked into the charthouse. A minute later, he came up, his lips pressed. “Mind if I take it now, Commander?”

  “Of course. Everything all right?”

  Bollinger shook his head slowly. “Damned radar. When you really need them, something always goes wrong.”

  “What?”

  “Magnetron blew up. Gonna take a while to fix it. So we have to DR in...” he waved a hand at the rain, “in all this. But Bambino is one of the best. Let’s keep your fingers crossed.”

  Landa bent over to unlimber his camera. As he did, it occurred to him that the visibility was, at best, one hundred yards. He rose and said, “Word is that there are Japs aboard the Howell.”

  “Doing what?” said Bollinger.

  “Crapping in my shower,” Landa said, an edge to his voice.

  Bollinger laughed. “Time for everyone to wake up.” He pushed a button. There was a loud screeching below and sailors poured out of hatches to the man machine guns and the aft-mounted forty millimeter cannon.

  Thomas donned a pair of sound-powered phones and soon announced, “Manned and ready, Sir.”

  “Very well.” He looked down to Landa and asked, “Well, Commander, how do you want to do this?”

  “How about a quick pass from out of the mist? They won’t know we were there until we’re gone.”

  There was a whoop from below. A broadly grinning Gambino stuck out his head, “Radar’s up, Sir. Mondo Mondo two miles, straight ahead.”

  Landa and Bollinger both gave an incredulous, “Two miles?”

  “Yessir,” Gambino said.

  Bollinger quickly pulled the throttles back and the boat settled in the water, her wake catching up, lifting the transom and shoving the PT forward. He said, “Okay, Bambino. Keep on your scope.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Gambino scrambled down the hatch.

  “Damn,” said Bollinger, we’re a couple of miles ahead of our track.”

  “What happened?” asked Landa.

  “Damned Army radars. Who knows? We had a fuzzy picture with the old magnetron. Maybe that’s what threw us off.” He paused then asked, “What now, Commander?”

  Landa cocked an ear aft. The engines were much quieter, but still... “Think they can hear us?”

  “Must have heard us before we chopped the throttles.”

  “How about now?”

  Bollinger tipped his hand from side to side.

  “How accurate is your radar?”

  “Umm, should be plus or minus twenty five yards.”

  “Twenty-five yards?”

  “When it’s working right,” said Bollinger.

  “How is it now?”

  Bollinger ducked in the pilot house then came out. “Resolution’s good. I’d say it’s okay.”

  “Can you put us on the step and make a quick pass. I figure I can get a few pictures, maybe a half dozen, before we duck back in the soup.”

  “Worth a try.” Bollinger took out a towel and wiped rain off his face.

  “We can’t go closer than five hundred yards...”

  “Suits me, Commander.” Bollinger explained the plan to Thomas, who passed the word throughout the boat. Then he called down the chart room hatch. “Hey, Bambino. I want you to start calling ranges every one hundred yards once we get inside a thousand, Got it?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Bollinger donne
d a steel helmet. “All set?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Ralphy, your glasses dry?”

  Thomas gave a broad grin and carefully arranged a steel helmet around his glasses. “All set, skipper.”

  “You ready, Commander?”

  “Of course.” Landa put on a helmet and buckled the strap.

  “How about your lens cap?”

  Landa flashed the uncovered lens to Bollinger. “Film is in the camera, too.”

  “Okay, boys, here we go.” Bollinger advanced the throttles. With a thunderous blast, PT-94 quickly gained the step and charged into the rain.

  Gambino yelled up from the charthouse, “nine hundred, come right a bit...eight hundred, right on the money...seven...six...”

  Suddenly, the Howell hove into sight.

  “Five hundred yards,” yelled Gambino.

  “Close enough,” Landa yelled.

  Bollinger spun his rudder to parallel the ship. “She’s all yours, Commander.”

  Even at five hundred yards it seemed as if they were right on top. Landa steadied his camera on the bulwark and began snapping pictures. That was when he saw a red flash, forward of the Howell’s aft stack. “Sonofabitch! They’ve got the quad forties going. Go back!” He yelled.

  Bollinger needed no encouragement and spun his helm to port as forty millimeter tracers arced overhead. “Ralph! Commence fire! Go for that forty millimeter.”

  Thomas relayed the command, and soon PT-94s port and starboard twin fifty caliber gun mounts began chattering, while the forty-millimeter methodically pumped out rounds.

  PT-94 raced for the squall line. As Landa looked back, it seemed as if the Japanese had only two of the four forty-millimeter cannons going. But that was enough, each barrel capable of firing eighty rounds per minute. He was fairly certain the Japanese gun crew didn’t have electrical power, so it would be difficult for them to track the PT manually. But they began to gather a rhythm, and plumes of water shot up off their starboard bow, then three more hit in rapid succession to port.

  “Go! Go!” Landa yelled.

  Bollinger jinked the boat right, then left, and tried to shove the throttles further forward even though they were already in the stops.

  To port, a line of geysering plumes of water ate their way toward them, Bollinger whipped the rudder again, to the right this time and mercifully, PT-94 whipped into the squall line, the visibility shutting down to fifty yards.

  Landa was ready to cheer when he heard a loud metallic clang followed by a THUNK!

  ...rain dripped down his face and he blinked his eyes. Pain. Twenty-five thousand volts of electricity ran up his right leg. “Ahhhh!” Landa tried to rise.

  “Easy, Commander.” It was Gambino, putting a splint on his right leg.

  “What the hell?” Landa’s ankle throbbed horribly. And he had a goose egg on his head.

  “Looks like you broke it, Commander,” said Gambino. “But the skin ain’t broken.”

  “You okay, Commander?” Bollinger stood over him.

  “What happened?” Except for a pathetic gurgle, there was hardly any engine noise. And what ever was running in the engine room made the whole boat shake violently. Beside him, Ensign Thomas’s lifeless eyes stared through his dripping spectacles into the rain. A pool of blood formed beneath his head and ran into the deck grating. “Oh my God.”

  Bollinger goosed one of the chokes, making the port engine backfire. Then it caught and the boat surged forward, as black smoke poured out the exhaust. Then the engine nearly quit with Bollinger having to do the whole process again. At length, he said, “Nips got in a lucky round just as we ducked in the soup. Hit the engine room, took out two engines and just about wiped out the port engine. Killed my Motor Mac down there.” He nodded to his right. “...and Ralph,”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too. This was just his third ride. I was beginning to like the little jerk.” Bollinger took off his helmet and dropped it on the grate. Rain dripped down his face and he ran a hand over his mouth. “We’re taking on water faster than the pumps will hold us, so I’m going to have to beach us pretty soon.”

  Landa tried to rise. Pain shot up his leg. “Agghh.”

  “That’s the bad news.”

  “Yeah?” Landa laid back, his leg on fire.

  “The radar still works.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

  7 April, 1943

  IJN CinC Headquarters,

  Rabaul, New Britain Island

  Bismarck Archipelago

  Yamamoto was quartered in the governor’s mansion perched high on a hill where breezes were cool, the view of Rabaul’s great natural harbor, breathtaking. The Germans had built the mansion in 1910; but ten years later, they lost it all. Rabaul and the Bismarck Archipelago were ceded to the Australians, part of Germany’s World War I reparations: the end of their expansion in the Pacific.

  Heijiro, the Gensui’s orderly, awakened him at five o’clock with a cup of strong American coffee. He took a quick shower then dressed in a red housecoat. Stepping down the grand staircase and out the foyer, he walked outside onto the broad granite porch to watch the dawn break.

  Twenty minutes later, a man on horseback materialized from the gloom. With a grunt, Isoroku Yamamoto walked down the steps to greet him.

  “Good Morning Gensui.” Vice Admiral Ryunosuke Kusaka was perched aboard a shimmering black horse; but he looked like a scarecrow silhouetted against the broad expanse of Rabaul Harbor, 1000 feet below. Dressed in green utilities, the officer in charge of Southeast Area Fleet operations in Rabaul had insisted on eating his men’s rations. And his body looked like it. Yamamoto estimated he weighed no more than fifty kilos.

  The Eastern horizon glowed with the new day, making Yamamoto’s housecoat seem to radiate. “Come on up, my friend. Have some breakfast.”

  Kusaka leaned back a bit, swung a leg over the saddle, then let his weight ease him off the horse. “No stomach for it, Gensui. Too much Johnnie Walker last night.” Silently, Kusaka’s aid, a full Navy captain, stepped forward, caught the horse’s reins and led it away, its hooves clopping into the murk.

  Yamamoto nodded with a chuckle. Kusaka had him there. They had drunk a lot last night. After a final Operation I planning session, lasting until 9:30,Yamamoto, Kusaka, Vice Admiral Matome Ugaki, his Chief of Staff and Third Fleet Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa had done quite a bit of damage to the case of scotch Yamamoto had brought from the Musashi.

  Yamamoto said, “Well then, come on in. We have green tea, sea bream and cold beer to wash away last night’s tremors.”

  The blast of a whistle echoed up from Rabaul Harbor. Then an anchor chain rattled in a hawsepipe. They stopped to listen and watch, as the sun rose above the hills to the east.

  They’d been friends for over three decades and Yamamoto knew Kusaka had something to say. “What?”

  “Good news. Ozawa has agreed to give us the last of his eight dive bombers.”

  Yamamoto raised his eyebrows.

  “From the Zuikaku,” Kusaka offered.

  “And?”

  “And they’re taking off now and will be here in three hours. After refueling and arming, they can be ready to go at, say, ten-thirty or eleven.”

  The corners of Yamamoto’s mouth turned up. He raised his arms momentarily and dropped them to his side. “Good work, Kusaka. How did you ever convince him?”

  “After you went to bed, I threatened not to refuel his carriers.”

  “Excellent. We’ll hold off the attack until those planes are ready. I don’t want them to go unescorted.”

  “I agree Gensui. It’s only a two hour delay at the worst.”

  Yamamoto took Kusaka’s elbow and led him through massive double doors. Aids and attendents stood about, but Yamamoto dismissed them all with a wave of his hand. He said, “At last, we have fine weather today.” It had rained heavily the past three days causing Yamamoto to postpone Operation I.

  “Yes, Gensui. And it’s reported t
o be clear over Guadalcanal.”

  “Excellent.” Yamamoto sniffed, as the odor of fresh breakfast wafted from the kitchen. “We have eggs.”

  Kusaka grimaced.

  Yamamoto slapped Kusaka on the back. “First some Bromide. Then the eggs.” Yamamoto led him into a well appointed, high ceilinged dinning room. The long mahogany table was huge, and could easily accommodate twenty diners in splendor. He dragged one of the heavy chairs out and said, “Here, sit, Kusaka, sit.”

  “But, I’m not hungry.”

  Suddenly, Yamamoto’s face turned stone-cold. “Damn you.” He pushed Kusaka into a chair.

  “What?”

  “You’ll eat.”

  “But I justBA

  Yamamoto leaned over and grabbed Kusaka’s lapel, his voice rumbling. “Why do you think I had to come up here?”

  “But Gensui...”

  “I need every bit of you. Healthy. Not on some sort of fast, making the men look up to you. Now, there’s food for you in the larder. And I want you to eat, damn it.” He leaned closer. “These strikes are our last chance to hold onto the Solomons. If they fail, we fail. To bring this off, my pilots need a healthy air officer. One they can look up to; one who can properly lead them.”

  Yamamoto released Kusaka’ lapel and stood.

  “Yes Gensui...”

  “That’s why I had you up here this morning. To eat, damnit!”

  “Yes G---“

  “--We’ll have a proper American breakfast.” He clapped his hands. Stewards poured into the dining room, carrying gleaming silver trays laden with steaming food. “You’ll need every calorie throughout these ten days.”

  Kusaka’s stomach knotted in protest. “Yes, Gensui.”

  The attack force began their takeoffs from Lakunai Airfield at exactly ten-thirty. Commander In Chief Isoroku Yamamoto stood at mid-runway, resplendent in dress whites, with full medals and sword, waving at his planes as they roared past. He was by himself, purposefully away from his entourage. He wanted his pilots to see him.

  Each time a plane thundered down the runway, Yamamoto saluted, then grabbed his cap by the bill and waved it in the air. Since he was the only one in dress whites at the air briefing earlier this morning, most of his pilots managed to wave back, while coaxing their bomb-laden aircraft off the ground.