Larsen tensed, called back over his shoulder to the talker: “Notify all stations to stand by for break-off!” He glanced at the Bedford’s bridge and saw that the white duffel coat had vanished from its position in the wing, then he focused his attention on Ben Munceford, who was dangling from the highline midway between the two ships. The bosun’s chair hesitated and stopped; the figure in it looked up from the viewfinder of the camera, the face glowing a startling pink in the hood of the immersion suit as it twisted sideways and upward, staring back questioningly at the tanker’s bridge. The line suddenly slackened, and for a second or two Munceford’s feet cut a foaming wake in the water rushing beneath him; then the line cracked tight again, catapulting him into violent gyrations which came within a hair of looping the whole rig and jamming it midway. A small object detached itself from the struggling black figure, arcing gracefully through the air before splashing into the sea; it was Munceford’s camera on its way to oblivion, a hundred fathoms down. Some howls rose from the Tiburon Bay’s main deck, topped by Chief Grisling’s profane invocations to the devil.
“Steady up, helmsman!” Captain Larsen roared at the wheelhouse. “Steady up or you’ll break the highline and put a man in the screws!”
Mr. Wilburforce screamed “Jesus!” and rushed into the wheelhouse.
By some miracle the highline held, the bosun’s chair settled down from its wild swaying and suddenly began moving again toward the Bedford. It seemed that the sagging shape encased in black rubber had hardly touched the destroyer’s deck before that end of the rig was cast off and allowed to fall clear. Almost simultaneously the fuel hoses were knocked out of the quick-release fittings, their ends splashing into the waves, where they writhed like serpents. The destroyer was clear, pulling ahead and veering away with a rising whine of her turbines, all within a little over a minute since the GQ alarm.
“Tell all stations to retrieve and secure gear as quickly as possible,” Captain Larsen told the talker. “I want an immediate report from Mr. Boomer on the amount of bunkers transferred as of break-off.” He went into the wheelhouse and interrupted his executive officer’s lecture to the helmsman on steering techniques. “You may take the conn, Mr. Wilburforce. Continue on zero-seven-zero for the time being. Might as well slow down until we get the hoses and lines back aboard.”
“The Bedford is calling on the TBS, sir,” the chief quartermaster announced.
Larsen unzipped his parka and flipped back the hood as he walked into the navigation office. When he took off his cap and threw it on top of the chart table, pure white locks of hair fell over his forehead and they made his face suddenly look much older. The TBS radio was attached to the bulkhead next to the LORAN and the chief quartermaster handed him the mike. As he took it, he noticed Lieutenant Hirschfeld slumped in a chair, nursing a mug of coffee.
“Hoarfrost to Coldsnap. Captain speaking “
The voice which came back to him had a strange crackling quality caused by the scrambler which protected the TBS circuit from enemy ears, but he immediately recognized it as belonging to the Bedford’s executive officer. “Coldsnap to Hoarfrost. We are proceeding to investigate emission. You will leave area immediately and execute maneuver Able Fox before resuming mission to rendezvous and feed Polarbear. Maintain radio silence. Acknowledge and repeat.”
Captain Larsen confirmed the order, hung up the receiver and switched the set to stand-by. After calling the new course to Lieutenant Wilbur-force, he went to the big Thermos and poured himself a cup of coffee, which he wolfed down scalding hot. Hirschfeld had watched him silently while he talked to the Bedford and now their eyes met and locked in what became such a long stare that something had to be said.
“Well, Mr. Hirschfeld . . . looks like your Captain Finlander is tearing off on another of his wild war games.”
“They are not games, Captain.”
“Takes them pretty seriously, eh?”
“Very.”
“I’ve never met him personally. Refueled him twice before, but never met him. But I hear he’s a remarkable officer. A real genius at antisubmarine warfare.”
“Are you asking me to tell you about Finlander, Captain?” Hirschfeld asked him, cocking one of his sensitive black eyebrows.
Larsen shrugged. “Everybody’s curious about Finlander, aren’t they?”
“Yes, he’s a remarkable officer,” the young surgeon told him in his flat, unemotional voice. “Yes, he’s a genius at anti-submarine warfare. And because the cold war is not a real war, he’s like Captain Ahab sailing his Pequod through a closed season on whales.” He contemplated the dregs in his empty cup, dropped his tone to a whisper and added: “But Ahab finally met up with his Moby Dick, didn’t he?”
Captain Larsen looked perplexed for a moment, grunted and walked out of the navigation office, thoughtfully crossing the darkening wheelhouse to one of the windows. The Bedford was a blur dissolving into the distant murk, leaving only a ghostly white furrow to linger on the swells.
5.
Two seamen had grabbed Ben Munceford as he swung aboard the Bedford, roughly manhandled him off the highline and steered him out of the way, leaving him clinging to a stanchion while staring in shock toward the spot, already far astern, where his camera had fallen from his hands. Now there would be nothing to show for his trip, no film for any TV news directors to buy and no pay to alleviate the relentless creeping deficit in his finances — not even fare back to the United States! He felt like screaming at these men that they were a bunch of incompetent asses, but only one paid brief attention to him.
“Welcome aboard, Mr. Munceford,” a huge young officer greeted him in passing. “I’m Ensign Ralston, JOOD.” His gloved paw shot out and gave Munceford’s hand a hearty pump. “Sorry you got roughed up. Couldn’t be helped. We’ve got a GQ on and you’ll have to be shunted below for a while. Steward’s Mate Collins will take you to your cabin.” Without awaiting any reaction, he rushed off to supervise the hurried stowing of stores which were still piled on the destroyer’s deck.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch!” Munceford spat out between clenched teeth, staring accusingly at the enormous steel flanks of the Tiburon Bay, falling away from the Bedford with the disconnected hoses and highline dragging in her wash. He could still hear Chief Grisling’s fading curses and see Captain Larsen casually leaning over the port wing of his bridge. “God-damned clumsy bastards!” Unheeding his fury, the tanker majestically steamed on while he felt the deck beneath him heave and tilt as the destroyer pulled ahead and sheered away.
“Excuse me, sir, but we’ve got to clear the deck fast,” a man said to him, gripping his arm. The face framed by the hood was that of a handsome Negro. “If you’ll step this way, I’ll get you out of your suit, then show you to your quarters.”
“I’d like to speak to the captain,” Munceford fumed, resisting the tug.
The steward’s mate merely shook his head and began applying firmer pressure. Munceford had a last glimpse of the crew working in swift silence as they grappled with the tangle of gear and piles of containers, then was shunted over the high combing of a door and plunged into the darkness of the Bedford’s interior. His eyes adjusted themselves to the dim red glow of blackout lights in a passageway. The hand gripping his arm shoved him under one of them and began unfastening his immersion suit.
“You know they lost me my camera,” Munceford exclaimed bitterly.
“That’s rough, sir,” the Negro steward sympathized, “but they shouldn’t have sent you across with anything loose in your hands. Against. regulations.” With a firm, quick skill he peeled the rubber folds downward and, for a second, stared in surprise at the gaudy camouflage jacket beneath them.
“That Tiburon Bay’s a screwed-up bucket,” Munceford told him, angrily kicking his feet clear of the immersion suit. The steward’s mate picked it up without answering, threw it on top of another one which was lying in a puddle on the deck, then said: “Follow me, please.”
On amazingly sile
nt feet the Negro ran down the passageway, turned a corner, stopped and pressed Munceford against a bulkhead to allow a group of shadowy figures to run past them. There followed the sound of watertight doors clanging shut from somewhere below, but he plunged down a hatch and companionway, padded along another long corridor, turned another corner, opened a door and pulled aside a curtain to reveal an even smaller cabin than the one Munceford had occupied on the tanker. “This is it, sir,” he said. “Top bunk. Starboard locker. Your gear will be brought down after GQ. Now I must go to my battle station.” Without any further formalities the steward’s mate vanished down the passageway. A few seconds later another watertight door was heard to close with a solid metallic thump.
At first Munceford thought that there would be nobody else occupying the cubicle, it was so sterile and neat. But he noticed a toothbrush stuck in the bracket above the washbowl, and a pipe lay in the ashtray on the tiny desk. He looked around the bulkheads for a porthole, but there was none; a hissing airduct provided the only ventilation. The cabin swayed and pitched with a strangely detached motion, making him feel that he was imprisoned in a sealed tin box which had been cast upon the sea. With a sudden sense of claustrophobia and loneliness, he sat down on the immaculate lower bunk, listening to the urgent whine of the turbines, the only sound to break the oppressive silence. The foreboding which had come over him when he first saw the Bedford appear out of the fog returned and changed his anger over the lost camera to a gnawing depression. Where was his cabin mate? Where was anybody in this empty, throbbing ship?
Munceford considered leaving the cabin, but decided he would become hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of dark passages and only run up against closed watertight doors, so he lay back on the bunk to rest his muscles wrenched by the wild ride across the highline. Feeling something hard pressing through the thin pillow, he reached under it and pulled out a small photographic portfolio made of luxurious morocco leather. Flipping it open, he found himself looking into the face of a gaunt, elderly woman with a benign smile; across the tweedy slope of her bosom was a stiffly penned inscription: To Peter, with Love from Mumsy.
“Christ! A Mumsy’s boy, yet!” Munceford exclaimed aloud.
But the frame was the kind with four panels folded accordion fashion and while the two middle sections were empty, the last one contained a photograph of a girl. Such a beautiful girl that she instantly aroused Munceford’s old animal instincts and made him forget all his troubles of the moment as he stared at her in fascination. She could have been a natural blond or a redhead, her glossy soft hair very stylish, yet with just the right touch of casualness. The eyebrows were delicate without being weak and the widely separated eyes beneath them had to be either blue or green — there was a wonderfully humorous twinkle in them. Her nose was very fine and ever so slightly turned up. Her full, sensuous lips were drawn into a wistful little smile which created a delicious dimple on her left cheek. The long, aristocratic neck blended into a magnificent pair of bare shoulders and there was a slight suggestion of freckles on her chest where it met the curves of her breasts. These had to be enormously exciting . . . but the photographer had left them to the imagination. In the white space where they should have been, there was scrawled in a boldly impudent hand: All of me for Pete’s sake — Adoring, Shebeona!
Shebeona! What a name! Ben Munceford pursed his lips to let out a soft whistle, but no sound crossed them. Here was a woman to take your breath away! Those eyes held wisdom, mischief, understanding and fun. But, above all, here was real beauty, earthy and divine all at once. Not of the crude shallow kind of his discarded Nancys! Her voice had to be vibrantly soft, not wheedling or whining or shrill. Yes — here indeed was a woman! If he ever met her, he knew he would be lost. Perhaps even now, while only holding her picture in his hands, he had become lost to her spell. What kind of man was it who possessed her? Did he really possess her? What sort of chap was this Pete to whom she had so humorously and ardently inscribed this photograph? Was she his wife? Fiancée? Or just a girl friend? How intimate was their relationship?
Munceford suddenly became conscious of the fact that he had no right to stare at Shebeona like this, or to lie with her in this bunk. Reluctantly he closed the folds of the portfolio and tucked it back under the pillow. Then he abruptly got up and guiltily brushed aside the curtain to peer into the passageway outside the cabin. It was dark and empty and smelled faintly of fresh paint. He could hear no sound beyond the moaning from the engine rooms. Directly opposite, there was a closed door marked with the numeral 5 and he impulsively stepped over and knocked on it. There was no answer.
“This is a hell of a way to see life on a destroyer,” he mumbled bitterly to himself and returned inside his own cabin. The ship heeled and shuddered as she sliced through a big swell. He lost his balance and clumsily flopped back into the lower bunk, but did not bother to get up again. Penetrating through the steel of many bulkheads, the sound of rushing water faintly reached Munceford’s ears as the Bedford rose up and shook off the spray enveloping her. He lay back on the pillow, feeling the hardness of the frame under it; presently he sneaked another look at Shebeona.
6.
When the GQ alarm sounded, Lieutenant Commander Chester Porter had only been aboard the Bedford for some forty minutes. He had just completed a telephone conversation with Commander Allison, the executive officer, in which it was decided to postpone a courtesy call to the bridge until after all his gear and some replacement medical stores had arrived and he could report himself ready in every respect to assume his duties as ship’s surgeon. The call to battle stations had precipitated matters and startled him a bit, but he was an experienced officer who did not allow small confusions to get the better of him; even though not familiar with this particular vessel, he had served on destroyers before and knew their ways in general. While aboard the Tiburon Bay, he had conscientiously plowed through the Qualification Course for this latest class of DDL, something not actually required of a medical officer. However, Lieutenant Commander Porter was a meticulous and precise man. who prided himself in always doing a little more for the navy than it required of him. Thus, when the call to General Quarters was so unexpectedly thrust upon him, he promptly sought his post in surgery, where he was gratified to find that a chief pharmacist’s mate and two corpsmen had the situation well under control. Whatever had been Lieutenant Hirschfeld’s transgressions, they obviously did not include failure to train his medical staff properly.
Porter made certain that the compact surgery was ready to receive casualties, checked sick bay, whose six bunks were fortunately empty, then stepped into the small receiving office and sat down at the desk. The chief pharmacist’s mate, who looked more like a bright intern than a sailor, followed him in and reported: “We have two corpsmen stationed on the boat deck and two in the engine room, all ready with first-aid kits. Pharmacist’s Mate Engstrom with a party of litter carriers are in the seamen’s mess. Chief Steward’s Mate Lang and Smythe are organizing an auxiliary dressing station in the wardroom. All according to SOP, sir.”
“Good. Looks like you have this department running smoothly. What is your name?”
“McKinley, sir. You will find the complete roster and watch schedule on that clipboard there. The medical log is in the top drawer of the desk. Here is the key to the narcotics locker. It is unlocked during GQ.”
The surgeon took the key and carefully clipped it into the ring attached to his belt. “Are morphine ampoules included in the first-aid kits even during practice GQ, McKinley?”
“Yes, sir. You will find that almost all our GQ’s are actual GQ’s.”
“Oh? How often does Captain Finlander pull them?”
“Whenever there is a contact, sir. They happen three or four times a week.”
“Real intensive training, eh? I suppose we bring in simulated casualties too?”
The pharmacist’s mate’s high forehead wrinkled in momentary perplexity, as if he were having trouble making the new surgeon un
derstand the situation. Then he smiled. “There’s darn little simulated stuff aboard the Bedford, sir. Everything’s for real — except actual bloodletting.”
“Well, I am surprised Mr. Hirschfeld hasn’t ordered litter-carrying drills. I’ll take that up with the captain.”
“Yes, sir. In the meanwhile, may I suggest you report the medical department ready at battle stations. I had not had time to do that when you came in, Commander.”
“Oh, God! And here we are gabbing away!”
McKinley pushed a telephone in front of the surgeon and depressed a button marked BRIDGE. A talker identified himself with a businesslike tone and accepted the report. When Porter hung up, hoping that Finlander would be impressed that he had taken hold so quickly, the chief pharmacist’s mate had left and could be seen checking the sterilizers in the surgery. Porter began to get up to join him, but a long roll of the ship pressed him into his chair and he decided that it would be best if he stayed out of the way for the time being. Until he had familiarized himself with things, procedural matters of the department could be run by McKinley, who seemed very competent. So he remained at the desk and engaged himself in the safe activity of examining some of the paperwork which it contained.
The medical log showed that the Bedford’s crew were unusually healthy. In leafing through it, the surgeon found very few entries during the twenty-one days the ship had been on patrol. A cook had been treated for grease burns. A seaman first-class had had his throat swabbed for laryngitis. A radar operator had suffered from a stye. A machinist’s mate had spent one day in sick bay with suspected appendicitis, which had turned out to be acute indigestion. All of these cases were certified returned to duty in Lieutenant Hirschfeld’s precise handwriting. The only thing which caught Porter’s eye and struck him as being slightly strange was the fact that a page had been neatly cut out of the log, leaving a blank strip of paper between November 28 — six days ago — and November 29. There were actually no missing entries, but as logs are not supposed to be in any way altered or defaced, the surgeon wondered about it briefly. Then he decided that it might have been a matter of accidental damage or spilling of some staining liquid. He leafed through to the present date and signed himself in as medical officer in charge, relieving Lieutenant Hirschfeld.
The Bedford Incident Page 4
