“And?”
Connor sighed, leaned back. “These boys are from all over the place—New York, Chicago, St. Louis, the big towns, but also Paducah, Hattiesburg, and towns plenty smaller.”
“So what?”
“In the South, the blacks and whites are segregated.”
“This is news?”
“Not to me, but the Navy maybe.” Connor shook his head, clearly frustrated. “You think their education, their schools, are as good as the white variety? Hell, even Negroes from the North aren’t getting anywhere near the same quality as we got.”
“I . . . I guess I never thought about that.”
“Well, they’re not gonna teach you about it in school!” Connor, bored with his food, pushed it aside and lit up a Lucky. “One guy, a kid from Georgia, told me how they had a single teacher for all twelve grades—nearly fifty kids and only one teacher! A lot of our boys grew up poor, dirt fucking poor, Pete . . . to where they had to quit school in the seventh or eighth grade to work in the fields, sometimes earlier than that. Some of these boys are practically illiterate. Hell—no ‘practically’ about it.”
The terrible possibilities were immediately apparent to Pete. “Oh, hell. You mean, we’re going to be dealing with ammunition . . . high explosives . . . and the crew can’t even read?”
Connor shrugged. “Not all of them are illiterate. Maybe only 20 or 30 percent. But we still have got to do something about it.”
Pete frowned. “You think the Navy is going to let us disqualify them and get them off the ship?”
“Sure. Right after they send Dorothy Lamour and Dinah Shore to our cabin for a personal USO show.”
“Well, if we can’t get them off the ship, then . . . really there’s only one alternative.”
“That’s the way I see it,” Connor said.
Pete pointed at the radio writer. “You’re going to have to teach them to read.”
Connor’s eyes got bigger than Eddie Cantor doing his Banjo Eyes routine; he thumbed his chest. “Me?”
“It was your idea. You’re the guy who knows words. You studied literature in college, and—”
“Literature! Literature to these guys is comic books.”
Pete shrugged. “Might not be a bad place to start. Beats Dick and Jane.”
For once, Pete had topped Connor, who just sat there agape.
“Look,” Pete said with a grin, “I won’t stick you with the whole job. We’ll do it together. I was studying to be a teacher myself. Be good practice.”
Connor liked the sound of that, and got interested in his chow again. After the two officers had eaten, they began discussing the logistics of what they wanted to do. They were in the midst of this when Willie came in to pick up their plates.
“Willie,” Pete said. “Would you mind sitting down with us for a moment?”
“Here?” The steward’s mate looked around as if being seen sitting in the officers’ mess might get him time in the brig. “With you men?”
“Sure,” Connor said. “Nothing against it in the regs, Willie.”
“Well. . . . Let me just take these to the kitchen, first.”
Pete said, “Fine. We just want to bend your ear a little.”
“Oh kay,” Willie said skeptically, taking the dishes out with him.
In a minute or so, Willie was back; he sat on the wooden chair next to Connor while Pete explained the problem and how they hoped to deal with it. But Willie began frowning halfway through and clearly wasn’t onboard.
Connor asked, “I can see you have a problem with this, Willie. What is it?”
Willie shook his head. “What you’re saying, sirs, and I mean no disrespect, but . . . you’re saying us colored boys is just a bunch of damn fools.”
“No,” Pete said, flabbergasted by this response. “God, Willie, not at all!”
Willie’s upper lip curled. “Stupid, then.”
“Hardly,” Pete said. “There’s a big difference between stupidity and ignorance.”
“Oh, we ignorant fools, then . . .”
Connor turned and gazed right at Willie. “Ignorance is not stupidity, and it’s not foolishness, either, unless you make no effort to correct it. A lot of you fellas can already read. But the ones who can’t—who don’t recognize the words ‘Explosives’ or ‘No Smoking’—they can wind up hurting everybody, black and white.”
By now Willie’s frown had turned thoughtful.
Pete said, “We’re talking getting a little education to your buddies. To make their jobs easier, and everybody safer.”
“Well,” Willie said. “That ain’t the dumbest idea I ever heard.”
Pete had him now. “It’ll be helpful to the boys in the long run, too—we’re not going to be on this ship forever, Willie. Peace’ll come and if these guys can read, they’ll have a leg up.”
Chin crinkled, Willie nodded. “I can see that.”
“Of course,” Connor said, “they may react like you did, and think we’re just a bunch of smart-ass white boys looking down on them.”
“You ain’t wrong.”
Pete leaned forward. “But, Willie, if leaders among the men—like you and Sarge—step up to the plate, it’ll go over swell. It’ll go like gangbusters.”
“Me and Sarge? How do you figure?”
“You can help sell this to the boys. Explain the safety issue, and what it’ll mean for their futures. Anyway, we’ll be on a long sea voyage and it beats assholes and elbows, scrubbing down the decks.”
Willie was thinking that over.
Connor said, “You and Sarge could even tutor the guys between classes.”
“Tutor? You mean, us teach, too?”
“You can read, can’t you?”
“Of course I can. Sarge can read up a storm—I seen him do it. He’s got books and shit.”
Connor held out an open palm. “How about it, Willie? You want to fill Sarge in about this for us?”
“Guess I can do that, Mr. Connor.”
“I mean, I’d be glad to do it myself.”
Willie waved it off. “That’s all right. No offense, sir, but Sarge’ll take it better from me or maybe Mr. Maxwell. He likes Mr. Maxwell, where he thinks you’re kind of a smart aleck. Sir.”
They dismissed Willie, and Pete said to Connor, “Can I help it if I’m likable?”
“Shut up and let me suffer,” Connor cracked.
“It’s what you people do best,” Pete said, affably.
Pete spent the afternoon in his cabin trying to catch a nap. Connor was on duty on deck and Rosetti’s target practice was over, so getting to sleep should have been a breeze.
It wasn’t.
The longer he lay on his bunk, the more he worried over his and Connor’s teaching notion. It had come about more or less spontaneously, but now, on reflection, Pete realized they should be running this idea past the skipper. But Egan had made it clear that he wanted as little to do with the colored crew as possible.
Still, this was the Navy, and protocol was protocol, and if the teaching was undertaken and then raised the captain’s ire, that risked alienating the crew members, when the classes got rudely shut down.
In his mind he heard Kay’s voice: Why not side step your captain, and take it to your friend Dick?
Yes! I could present the notion to Dick when we’re on watch tonight.
Right. And if Dick tells you to go to the captain with the idea, you do just that.
And if he says he thinks it’s a good idea, but doesn’t suggest going to Egan?
No problem. Dick liking the idea is tacit approval, and you can go ahead. Any other questions?
Pete and Driscoll took over the watch at 1900, just after dinner. About three hours into their shift, Pete was standing outside the wheelhouse on the port side of the bridge, binoculars around his neck on a lanyard.
Through the open door, he could see Jackson, the Negro helmsman, at the wheel; beyond Jackson in the darkened wheelhouse sat Driscoll in the skipper’s chair. The two men were
bathed in the soft blue-and-red glow of the instrument lights as they headed toward the Golden Gate Bridge.
Normally, they would have waited for sun-up to sail into the bay. The ship had plenty of headroom beneath the huge structure, but those guiding her still had to be aware of the monstrous pilings buried in the ocean bed. Scraping those, or worse yet hitting them, would be a disaster. Blackout orders kept the bridge darkened at this hour, as well, making the trip a further risk.
Egan had ordered the nighttime approach, however, as new orders had come in for the Liberty Hill to report to Port Chicago near San Francisco for loading and refueling, chop chop.
“And that doesn’t mean in the morning,” Egan had said.
“Aye aye, sir,” Driscoll had said.
Now, as the ship approached the bridge in pitch darkness, Pete found himself on edge as he drew up the binoculars in hopes of spotting something. The cities around them—San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and the smaller communities, San Rafael, Richmond—were all under blackout orders as well, and only a few scattered lights dotted the landscape like stubborn fireflies. Pete strained his eyes and finally managed to make out the silhouette of the looming structure.
“Steady as she goes,” he called out.
Driscoll echoed the order, as did the helmsman. They were lined up perfectly, and as they eased under the immense structure at quarter speed, Pete gazed up at its underside ominously blocking out the stars above. They crossed under, and as they emerged on the other side, the stars in the sky right where he left them, Pete let out his breath, his entire body relaxing.
He walked into the wheelhouse. “All clear, sir.”
“Very well,” Driscoll said.
“We’ve got a few minutes now, sir,” Pete said. “Could I talk to you?”
Driscoll nodded and rose in that unfolding manner of so many tall men. “Steady as she goes, Mr. Jackson,” he said. “We’ll be right outside if you need us.”
Jackson said, “Aye, sir.”
Pete led the way out the starboard door onto the wing of the bridge where a soft warm whisper of breeze awaited them.
Pulling a pack of Luckies from his shirt pocket, Driscoll shook one out. Pete did the same with his Chesterfields, sharing Driscoll’s Zippo, turning their backs to the wind as they lighted the smokes.
“So, Maxie,” Driscoll said. “What’s up? Cow get loose from the barn again?”
For once Pete skipped any city boy/country boy repartee and went straight to the literacy problem and the solution he and Connor were developing.
After a long drag, Driscoll held the smoke in his lungs for a long moment, then blew it out through his nose. “You guys seriously think you’re going to change the lives of a bunch of poor colored boys by teaching them how to read?”
“That’s part of it. Maybe saving our own lives here on the USS Powderkeg, as you called it, is another.”
Driscoll’s chuckle had a patronizing, patrician tinge. “Maxie, these Jim Crows who can’t read are, unlike you, really right off the farm . . . sharecroppers, most of them—what the hell do you think they’ll be able to do with this little bit of knowledge?”
“Maybe save lives on this ship. Maybe get a decent job after the war.”
“Maxie, haven’t you noticed? They’re colored. You don’t need to read to shine shoes or be a porter.”
Pete glanced through the open door to see if Jackson had eavesdropped any of this. But the helmsman’s eyes were straight ahead and gave no sign that he’d heard Driscoll’s insult.
Pete knew Driscoll’s privileged point of view was a wall he couldn’t break down. So he stuck to safety.
“Dick, you want somebody to light up a cigarette in the wrong place, because he mistakes ‘incendiary’ for ‘entryway’ or ‘infirmary’ or God knows what?”
“Sounds like a lot of work for minimal gain,” Driscoll said. “I mean, here we stand, the two of us running this ship—the captain hardly comes out of his cabin. And what kind of ship is it?”
“A . . . a Victory ship.”
“An ammunition ship. And let me ask you, Maxie—what kind of training in shiploading or handling ammunition or for that matter commanding men have you had? Or me, or Connie or Rosie?”
“None, really. Learn by doing, I guess.”
“Has the Navy given us any manuals from which to teach these colored boys about ammunition handling?”
“No.”
“We’ve got the Red Book with its codified safety regs designed for peacetime, moving small quantities of ammo. And that’s all. Nothing for the men. Do you know why?”
“No.”
“Because the United States Navy views these colored boys as expendable. And guess why the complement of white officers and non-coms is so small, Maxie—it’s because we, too, have been deemed expendable. How do you like that?”
“Well,” Pete said, and swallowed, “I don’t. So let’s do what we can to help these boys read, so none of us get blown to hell.”
Driscoll, with that blank baby expression he got, just stared at Pete.
“Or maybe,” Pete said, “I should just go to the skipper with it, then?”
The exec rolled his eyes as he tossed his sparking cigarette into the sea. “Jesus, Maxie, Egan will throw a shit fit!”
“If you won’t give me the okay, Dick, I at least have to try.”
Driscoll raised a palm in surrender. “All right. All right. You and Connie wanna do this on your own time, it’s fine by me. I happen to think you’re on a fool’s errand, but as long as I don’t have to be one of the fools, go right ahead. It may relieve your boredom on the long days at sea.”
“Thank you, Dick,” Pete said quietly.
“When have I ever denied you anything, Maxie, my boy?”
Pete tossed his cigarette overboard, and the two officers went back into the wheelhouse.
“Mr. Maxwell,” Driscoll said. “Go back out on the wing and see if there’s any sign of that tugboat, will you?”
“Aye aye, sir,” Pete said and passed through the wheelhouse and out the port side door.
Driscoll was referring to the tug that would bring the harbor pilot out to take over the helm, a local sailor who knew the bay intimately and would steer the Liberty Hill Victory through and on up the narrow channel to the appropriate loading pier at the Port Chicago Naval Base.
Raising the binoculars, Pete slowly scanned the horizon, but could see little in the pitch black. They were still short of the area where they’d meet the harbor tug; but, in the darkness, the sooner he could spot that boat, the safer everyone would be.
“No sign of them, sir,” he said, glancing back through the door. Steward’s Mate Wilson was handing Driscoll a mug of coffee off a tray and had another ready for Pete.
Driscoll said, “Keep a sharp eye.”
“Aye, sir.”
Pete was still facing the wheelhouse when Wilson came toward him, through the door, the steward mate’s hand on the mug of coffee, ready to pass it to Pete.
Over his shoulder, Pete thought he caught a flash of something on the shore, maybe behind the hills in front of the ship.
As he turned, a bigger ball of fire rose three, no, four thousand feet, illuminating the sky in bright yellow and red, lighting up the base and the hills, too, so intensely that Pete brought his arm up reflexively to shut out the glare. The ship rocked, and Pete heard the tray and mug crash to the deck just as the sound of the massive blast reached them. Pete lurched to keep his balance and wheeled away from the explosion.
“Lord, my eyes!” Willie was screaming, his hands going to his face as he dropped to his knees as if in desperate prayer.
Pete blinked rapidly trying to dissipate the white lightning bolts that seemed to be going off in front of him. He could barely make out Driscoll diving toward the button that set off the horn as the executive officer screamed, “Battle stations!”
“What the hell?” Pete managed as several more smaller explosions went off behind the hills.
On the shoreline, tongues of red flame shot out from gray-black plumes of smoke while smaller explosions, shells bursting probably, created an elaborate fireworks display.
Helmsman Jackson yelled, “Jesus Christ, the Japs are bombing the base!”
Captain Egan sprinted onto the bridge clad only in his skivvies, yelling, “What the hell’s going on?”
The only answer the captain got were smaller explosions that continued for another thirty seconds, though it felt much longer. Every crewman aboard the Liberty Hill Victory was in motion now, grabbing helmets and life jackets as they sprinted to their battle stations.
Egan tried again: “What the hell is going on?”
But no one responded; everyone, at least everyone who could still see, was staring toward the shore—flames had taken over where, minutes before, the base at Port Chicago had been. Flaming rubble had replaced it and the two ships docked there, the conflagration’s reflection onto the water making it seem as if the very ocean had caught fire.
Chapter 6
JULY 17, 1944–AUGUST 11, 1944
Seaman Marvin Hannah had only just arrived at Port Chicago a week before the explosion. The teenage drummer had kept his word to bandmates Willie and Sarge—and even that nice ofay horn blower, Pete something—and enlisted the day he turned eighteen, two weeks or so after their last gig at the Silver Slipper.
A shortage of men at Port Chicago had seen Marvin rushed through Robert Smalls training camp in a month, and soon—like so many Negro sailors—Marvin found himself not on a ship, but on a dock, loading ammo.
Marvin had spent much of that evening bitching that he’d rather be working nights; in July in California, a clear, cool night like this one, a gentle breeze whispering in from the southwest, would have smoothed out that rough duty on the dock. Right now, the same cargo ship he’d helped load in the day’s hot sun was taking on more ammo and explosives, as the boys of Third Division worked under floodlights, chipping away at the 5,000 or so tons of the nasty stuff that needed shifting from boxcars to the E. A. Bryan. The Quinault Victory had just moored around six, and a hundred guys from the Sixth Division were rigging the ship for loading.
Just before the shit hit the fan, the enlisted men’s barracks was still as a photograph, most guys in their bunks and well on their way to dreamland.
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