The steward left.
Egan said, “We have to keep an eye on the meat. Precious commodity in this war, meat. No point throwing it all away to those boys, and the rest of us do without.”
Ah, Pete thought. There’s the Captain Egan we know and love. . . .
“Dig in, gentlemen,” Egan said.
Though the captain’s behavior had dulled Pete’s appetite, he made himself eat, noticing that every time the skipper looked down to fill his fork, another strip of Connor’s bacon appeared on Pete’s plate. Glancing at Connor, Pete was rewarded with a pleading look; he managed a half-grin for the mortified comedy writer.
“I hope you all noticed,” Egan said, “what a fine job these mess stewards have done for us—getting us this good breakfast, polite and efficient. When that was the colored role in this man’s Navy, we were much better served. Much better served.”
Connor was agape at this apparently unintended pun; Pete elbowed him.
“Of course,” Egan said, “what occurred at Port Chicago was a genuine tragedy.”
They all nodded but said nothing.
“A loss of life, yes, and for all the fuss about the Negroes, a good number of white men were lost, too, not that the bleed-ing-heart newspapers seem to notice. And the real tragedy is that it’s put us behind schedule. I’m sure you heard, the Port Chicago coons were supposed to be back on the job two days ago, but they’ve mutinied, and they’re all going to rot in prison and eventually in Hell. Thoughts?”
No one responded.
“Those black boys getting the rough justice they deserve does not, however, get the Liberty Hill loaded. The reason I’ve called you here this morning is I want to know if you people think our blacks can handle the job, without blowing up Mare Island and us with it.”
This speech had left Pete, Rosetti, and Connor so astounded, none of them had a word to say, though all their mouths yawned open.
Fortunately, Driscoll picked up the slack.
“Yes, sir,” Driscoll said. “We’ve got good men. We treat them with courtesy and respect, and they repay us with their hard work. In addition, Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Connor have been working on the literacy level of the less educated members of the crew.”
“That so?” Egan asked, the shaggy eyebrows turning toward Pete and Connor.
Pete and Connor exchanged looks; Connor’s fear of the captain trumped Pete’s belly ache.
“Full credit should go to Ensign Connor,” Pete said, and Connor’s expression tightened, as if to say, Thank you so much!
Pete continued: “The ensign thought it would improve ship safety and I agreed to assist him. It will obviously help if our boys can read the signs in dangerous areas.”
Egan wagged a finger at them, but he did not scold the two officers, instead saying, “Well done, Mr. Connor, Mr. Maxwell. Do you think they’re up to the task of loading my ship without destroying her, and killing every living thing within a two-mile range?”
“I do, sir.”
“Good,” Egan said. “It’s settled then. We’re first in line— and I want us up to the pier by noon, Mr. Driscoll.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The steward’s mate peered in, came over and refilled the coffees, then again disappeared. They finished their meals in relative silence. With their plates pushed aside, Egan looked at Driscoll; something sly was working around the brown orbs under the shaggy eyebrows.
“Do you think you’re ready for command, Mr. Driscoll?”
Driscoll did not hesitate: “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Egan said, obviously pleased with Driscoll’s decisive tone. “Then this should work out nicely.”
A chill washed over Pete as he realized what was coming, and he’d bet a month’s pay Driscoll and Connor and Rosetti all had the same nasty goose pimples. . . .
The skipper said, “I’ve got to go to the base dentist this afternoon—got a tooth’s been killing me. And, because I haven’t had a leave in over a year, the brass have given me a weekend pass. So, Mr. Driscoll, you’ll be in charge of seeing that, while I’m away, the ship is properly loaded.”
Again without hesitation, Driscoll replied, “Aye aye, sir.”
Rising, Egan gave them the hint of a smile, an expression you see on cats in the process of playing with a captured mouse. The officers rose as well, four puppets on one string.
“Carry on then,” he told them, took one last pull at his coffee, and strode out.
With Egan safely out of earshot, Rosetti asked, “Did somebody just fuck us? Usually I get a kiss first and a cigarette after.”
“Dick’s the one who got screwed,” Connor said. “We’d all have been out on that dock, anyway, even if Egan hadn’t found a loophole to stay away himself—far, far away, leaving any blame to Dick, dead or alive.”
Driscoll was brooding.
Connor asked, “No rejoinder, Dick?”
“If we all blow up,” Driscoll said, “I hope what’s left of us lands on him.”
If that was a joke, nobody laughed; but also nobody disagreed.
Egan stayed with the ship until they were moored at the loading dock at Mare Island. Not long after, the captain was striding down the gangplank, and right behind him were the four white non-coms—Griffin, Whitford, Smith, and Blake.
As Officer of the Day, Pete stopped them all before they disembarked to check their papers. By looking over the orders, Pete realized Egan had given weekend passes to the four non-coms, who all smugly saluted before heading to the pier, leaving the Fantail Four to deal with an all-black crew and fifty thousand tons of live ammunition.
With Egan and the non-coms gone, Pete gathered the other three officers and explained this newest development.
“I told you we were expendable, Pete,” Driscoll said.
Connor said, “Does he want us to fuck up? Does he want this ship blown to scrap metal, and us to Kingdom Come?”
“Why not?” Rosetti said. “The bastard would just get another ship, with an all-white crew, this time.”
Connor said, “Those boys at Port Chicago were right to refuse to load ammo under these conditions.”
Driscoll turned on him. “Were they? You think mutiny is a viable option, Connie? Allow me to disagree.”
“Vince,” Pete said, “Dick’s right and we all know it. We’re not going to refuse to load. We’re going to do our jobs, and you know it. We’ve already taught every guy on the ship to recognize ‘No Smoking’ and ‘Explosives’ and so on.”
“They can also recognize Donald Duck and Robin the Boy Wonder,” Driscoll said dryly, referring to the comic-book “primers” Pete and Connor had bought at the Mare Island PX.
“So the skipper and his Klan members get liberty,” Connor said, “and we get to load ammo.”
“There’s a war on,” Pete said.
“I’ll do the comedy.”
“Ladies,” Driscoll said, “we’re going to do the job we’ve been assigned. And we are going to goddamn shine.”
“Yeah,” Rosetti said, “but will the shines shine?”
Pete said, “Maybe you shoulda got off with the captain and his bigoted buddies.”
“Don’t go holier than thou on me, Pete,” Rosetti said, frowning. “I know people of every color and get along with ’em just fine. You know every other white boy in Podunk Center, Iowa, so kiss my ass.”
“Easy, Vince,” Connor said.
But Rosetti was ranting, facing Pete down. “But you know and I know that we have a lot of ignorant boys, and I mean boys, teenagers, who are gonna be jumpy as hell after Port Chicago on top of all their other problems. Can they really be trusted to not blow us all to hell and gone?”
“I think they can do the job,” Pete said, arms folded, holding his ground. “With our help, they can. And with our captain’s help.”
“Our captain?” Connor said. “Have the engine fumes gotten to you, Pete?”
“I don’t mean Egan, I mean our captain—Captain Driscoll here.”
D
riscoll, head cocked, was eyeing Pete. “What are you saying, Maxie?”
“You’re in charge. With Egan, you’re defacto captain, right? Like you were of the Harvard football team?”
“I was the captain, yes, my Junior year, before I unwisely went to sea with you lunatics.”
Pete shrugged; grinned. “Wouldn’t happen to have one of those Harvard pep talks up your sleeve, would you? Halftime in a tight game?”
“You’ve lost me, Maxie.”
“We need these men on our side, Dick.”
Rosetti frowned. “They’re supposed to be on our side already.”
Pete was fired up now. “Well, they would be, if for just one minute they thought we were all on the same side—Americans fighting one damn war, and not each other.”
“We’re listening,” Connor said.
“Okay, so I’m from lily-white Podunk, Iowa. Fine. Swell. But I know how I felt when I walked around San Diego and saw signs saying, ‘No Sailors.’ But there weren’t as many of those signs as the ‘No Colored’ ones—‘No Sailors, No Dogs, No Colored.’ How did you like that, walking down the street in your country’s uniform?”
The others said nothing.
“Vince, would they have served your mother? She’s Mexican, you said. That’s ‘colored,’ right?”
“Really,” Driscoll said. “Your mother was from Mexico, Rosie?”
Frowning, vaguely embarrassed, Rosetti nodded. Then he straightened and said, “No, not from Mexico—she was born here, Mexican American. But after the Zoot Suit Riots, I thought I was going to have to move her to San Diego, to be closer to me, so I could protect her. My dad’s still alive, though, and he said he could handle it. He’s half-blind but he’s strong. He’s had to be.”
“But if you had brought her down, Vince,” Pete said, not confrontationally, “she’d have been just another colored person, right?”
Rosetti swallowed. “You’re not wrong.”
Pete turned to Ben. “How about you, buddy? You’ve endured so much prejudice you changed your damn name. Have to sneak the lousy bacon onto my plate, to avoid the captain’s evil eye.”
“Okay,” Connor said. “The world’s not fair. That’s not a news bulletin, Pete.”
“No. It isn’t. But think for a second—think about it, and you’ll know how our boys must feel. What they’ve had to put up with, though they’ve had it a lot rougher than either of you guys. All they want is an even break—to be on equal footing with white folks. And for once, they want to feel like someone gives a damn whether they live or die. Nobody . . . nobody . . . likes to feel expendable.”
“Well,” Driscoll said, “we certainly care whether they live or die. Because they’ll be doing it in our presence.”
“Then convince them, Dick,” Pete said.
Driscoll gave Pete the blank-as-a-baby expression. “Hell, Pete. You just gave the speech . . . to us. Give it to them.”
Pete shrugged. “Fine. But it would mean more coming from you.”
“Why do you say that?”
Connor said, “Like the man says, Dick—with Egan gone, you’re the captain of the ship.”
Driscoll half-smiled. “Maybe I just like hearing you fellas say it. Okay, Maxie—you’ve sold me. Rosie, round ’em up and I’ll give them Maxie’s speech. You don’t mind if I improve the syntax, Maxie, do you?”
“Not at all, Dick. But give me ten minutes before you start this show. I want to talk to somebody first. Somebody who can make all our lives easier.”
“I’m in favor of that,” Driscoll said. “Ten minutes.”
Before long, standing on the main deck, port side away from the pier, between hatches four and five, Pete glanced at his watch—seven minutes already. He wondered how much leeway Driscoll would give him. Next to him, sucking on a cigarette, Sarge Washington was shaking his head.
Pete had just given Sarge the Reader’s Digest version of what the Fantail Four had discussed.
Flicking the sparking butt over the rail into the bay, Sarge said, “Know why I like you, Mr. Maxwell?”
Pete said nothing.
“It ain’t just you blow a mean horn. I know more than one guy blows a mean horn. It’s that you are the craziest white motherfucker I ever saw . . . sir.”
Pete, weary, laughed just a little. “That’s a word I never heard before I got in the Navy.”
“Well, it’s a rough word. But it has its uses. And you know I mean you no disrespect.”
“None taken. Does this mean you’ll help us with the crew?”
Sarge nodded. “Oh yeah. Don’t wanna get my ass blowed up no more than you white boys do, sir. But I also don’t want to face a firin’ squad as some damn mutineer. How do you do mutiny on dry land, anyway, Mr. Maxwell?”
Pete ignored that, and began ticking off on his fingers. “Five hatches, five men. Five more on the pier side, two shifts. That’s twenty men that you choose, Sarge, who you think are the best.”
“I understand, sir. When will you want that list?”
Pete said, “Lieutenant Driscoll will be addressing the crew in about two minutes. We’ll write the list down later— for now, you just go round ’em up.”
“Aye aye.”
Driscoll gave the complement of twenty his variation on Pete’s speech, and by the time he was done, they were hollering their support.
“You’ll work hard,” Driscoll said, “and you’ll work careful, but fast. You’ll load your own ship and do it in thirty-five hours. First thing Monday morning, when Captain Egan gets back, the Liberty Hill Victory will have its holds full, ready to sail.”
They would work one seven-hour shift before night fell, then two seven-hour shifts each, Saturday and Sunday. Everyone had a job and was expected to do it. They’d have to work together and, more importantly, trust each other.
And everybody knew the consequences of a screw-up— the wreckage was still strewn around the nearby Port Chicago base, where over three hundred men seemed to whisper from the grave to them, every time the wind blew.
Chapter 7
AUGUST 11–14, 1944
Much to the relief of Seaman Ulysses Grant Washington, everything had gone fine on that critical first shift.
Opening the hatches had taken a couple of hours. Removing the wooden covers and the braces down through four decks over five holds was not something that happened quickly, even with sixty men throwing their backs into it.
Once that was done, however, things had picked up. Pallets were stacked with metal cases of .50-caliber bullet belts, others stacked with crates of M-1 clips—literal tons of ammunition loaded one pallet at a time, the first going into hold one, second into hold five, third into hold two, fourth into hold four, and finally the fifth pallet into hold three, before starting the routine again. This way the ship remained balanced as she was loaded.
By the end of the first seven-hour shift, the men were all dragging, dripping sweat and wrung out from breaking their backs with no time off except for two ten-minute smoke breaks on deck, and of course the occasional piss break—otherwise working straight through.
When the shift finally ended, they ate heaping plates of beef stew on deck, enjoying the evening breeze as they passed around rolls and pitchers of lemonade.
Sarge was amazed and even gratified when the officers ate with them, each of them dripping sweat, too. Lieutenant Driscoll and Mr. Rosetti ate up toward the bow, Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Connor aft with Sarge and his friends. Afterward, Sarge watched as each officer went from man to man telling them what a great job they had done. When Maxwell got to him, they shook hands.
“Hell of a job, Sarge,” Maxwell said with a grin.
“Thank you, sir.”
“We couldn’t have done it without you.”
“That is nice to hear, sir.”
Maxwell’s expression turned oddly shy. “Let me ask you something—do you think the crew would get a charge out of seeing some entertainment from their officers?”
“Well . . . why not
? What kind of entertainment, Mr. Maxwell?”
The twenty ammo loaders sat on deck under the stars while the two ensigns and two lieutenants assembled before them, even the stodgier Driscoll, who’d made himself scarcest of the four during the work day.
Maxwell, a small black circular pitchpipe in hand, stepped forward in front of the smiling if bemused audience and said, “Back in San Diego, we had a quartet. Called the Fantail Four. I know there are some very good musicians among you fellas, and I hope you don’t mind us butchering a few of what
just might be your favorite tunes, a capella.”
Maxwell set the pitch.
They started off with “If I Didn’t Care,” in a slightly exaggerated but damn accurate impression of the Ink Spots, including the spoken part, and soon the boys were clapping and hollering and whooping and laughing. The quartet, grinning at each other after the tune got huge applause, loosened up and put on a really fine approximation of the Mills Brothers doing “Paper Doll.”
What Sarge liked was they didn’t coon it up—they obviously had respect for the songs and the singers, and what could have been an embarrassing moment—a bunch of white boys in vocal black face—instead provided a common ground.
The crowd swelled as sailors from below deck, who hadn’t been involved in the ammo loading, joined the party. The four white officers crooned and clowned for their receptive colored crew—the biggest laughs coming when the white officers donned mops for wigs as the Andrews Sisters doing “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” in exaggerated drag queen moves (“No! No! No!”), getting howls and cries of “Oh baby!” “Oh mama!”
They went on to perform several other tunes, not imitating anybody, and they had a nice masculine sound, with Driscoll’s high tenor surprisingly sweet, and Maxwell providing a rich, almost operatic baritone on several solo parts. “Sentimental Journey” got all the boys swaying and damn if there weren’t some teary eyes over “I’ll Be Seeing You.”
The last tune was another Ink Spots, but minus any imitating, and gradually every sailor on deck joined in, singing, “I’ll get by as long as I have you. . . .” The big male sound rolled over the deck and out onto the water and back again.
Red Sky in Morning A Novel of World War II Page 12
