W E B Griffin - Corp 02 - Call to Arms

by Call To Arms(Lit)

  He also knew that it was Wednesday, 14 January.

  Not quite six hours before, the Pickerel had crossed the international date line; and Thursday, 15 January, had become Wednesday, 14 January, once again. From 180 degrees (which was both west and east longitude, exactly halfway around the world from Greenwich, England, which was at 0 degrees, east and west longitude), it was 22 degrees and some seconds-say 675 nautical miles-to the U.S. Navy Base at Pearl Harbor, on the Island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii.

  Captain Edward T. Banning, USMC, was aware that there was a very good chance that this Wednesday, 14 January 1942, would be the last day in his life. After a good deal of what he believed was careful, unemotional thought, he had decided that he did not want to continue living if that meant he had to live blind. And after reaching that decision, he had calmly

  concluded that today was the day he should do what had to be done.

  He would remove the bandages from his eyes, open his lids, and if he saw nothing but black, he would use the.45 on himself.

  With a little luck and a lot of careful planning, this could be accomplished with a minimum of disruption to anyone else's life. And that was important-not to make a spectacle of himself. It would be much better to go out here and now with a bullet fired through the roof of the mouth into the brain and to be buried immediately at sea than it would be, say, to jump out of a window in a VA hospital somewhere, or to swallow a handfull of pills. A.45 pistol was the answer, and today was the day.

  The Pickerel was sailing on the surface now, making sixteen or seventeen knots, and it would thus arrive at Pearl Harbor sometime between thirty-nine and forty-two hours from the time it had crossed the international date line.

  Captain Banning had done the arithmetic in his head. Not without effort, for without seeming unduly curious, it was necessary to acquire the data on which to base his calculations from Captain Red MacGregor and others. And then he had to do the work in his head. There was plenty of time to do it, of course, which was fortunate, for Banning had learned that he was far less apt with mental arithmetic than he would have believed.

  But he was reasonably sure that the Pickerel would be off Pearl Harbor waiting for the antisubmarine nets across the mouth of the harbor to be opened sometime between 1900 and 2200 hours on 16 January 1942. In other words, less than two full days from now. The antisubmarine nets would probably not be opened at night, which meant that the Pickerel would not actually be able to sail into Pearl until first light on 17 January.

  From his observations of Captain Red MacGregor (Banning was aware of the incongruity of a blind man making observations, but he could think of no more accurate word), he had concluded that the closer the Pickerel came to Pearl, the more according to the book MacGregor would run his command.

  Earlier, after Banning had very carefully asked if it would be possible for the blind then aboard to be given some fresh air, MacGregor had had no problem breaking the rules for him.

  This meant allowing them up on the conning tower, where there was really no room for them, and where they would not only be in the way, but would pose a hazard if a crash dive was necessary.

  When Banning asked him, shortly after they had entered the Philippine Sea at the upper tip of Luzon, MacGregor had considered the request and denied it.

  "A little later, Ed," he said then. "Maybe when we get past the Marianas."

  MacGregor had meant what he said. Two days later, when Banning had still been wondering if the time was ripe to ask again, the chief of the boat had come to him, and with rather touching formality said, "The captain's compliments, sir, and will you join him on the bridge?"

  Getting up the ladders to the conning tower hadn't been as difficult as Banning had thought it would be.

  And the smell of the fresh salt water had been delightful after breathing nothing but the smell of unwashed bodies, paint, and diesel fuel.

  Thereafter, the blind then aboard were permitted to get a little air on the conning tower once a day, for half-hour periods. And even though the time they spent on the conning tower cut into the time set aside for that for the crew of the Pickerel, there were no complaints. Only a real sonofabitch would deny blind then whatever pleasure they could find.

  After this had been going on awhile, Captain Red MacGregor noticed (as Banning hoped that he would; the manipulation shamed him, but he considered it necessary) that Banning himself never came to the conning tower, and he asked him about it.

  "I think my 'troops' need it more than I do," Banning said.

  MacGregor snorted at the time, but said nothing. At that evening's meal, however, he announced, "Henceforth, Captain Banning has the privilege of the bridge."

  What that meant was that Banning could go to the conning tower whenever he wished. He could then ask for permission to "come onto the bridge." If there was no good reason for him not to, permission was more or less automatic.

  In practice, others with the "privilege of the bridge" (the officers and chief petty officers) quickly left the bridge to make room for Banning when he put his head through the hatch and asked for permission.

  Banning was careful not to abuse his privilege. He went to the conning tower often, but never stayed long. His intent (and he was sure he succeeded) was to make his presence there routine. The officers and crew thus grew used to him coming to the bridge at all hours. And once there he kept out of the way, cleared his lungs, sometimes accepted a cigarette, and then went quickly below again.

  Banning was sure, however, that as the Pickerel came closer to Pearl, MacGregor would tighten his command, and conning-tower privileges would be revoked. Maybe not for him, but he couldn't take the chance.

  Now was the time. Twenty-four hours later the opportunity would more than likely be gone.

  Banning's "observation" of Captain Red MacGregor had taught him that MacGregor woke up whenever the watch was changed. Just for a minute or two, but he was awake.

  And he had wakened when the watch had changed to 0400. He hadn't moved or gotten out of his bunk, but his breathing pattern had changed, and Banning knew that he was awake and waiting to see if something would require his attention. Only when he was satisfied things were going as they should would he go back to sleep.

  Banning had acquired a good deal of admiration for Red MacGregor. He was a fine officer. He hoped that what he had in mind would not appear as a derogatory remark in MacGregor's service jacket. That had been an important consideration while he was making his plans. It was unfortunate that he could not think of anything that would get MacGregor completely off the hook. He could only hope that in the circumstances it would not be a really important black mark against him.

  Banning, as stealthily as he could, slipped down from the narrow upper bunk and lowered himself carefully to the deck.

  He sensed that he had not been as stealthy as he had hoped, even before MacGregor spoke.

  "You all right, Ed?"

  "I'm going to take a piss and then get a breath of air," Banning replied, hoping that there was nothing in his voice that would betray him to MacGregor. Banning had "observed" that MacGregor, like most good commanders, was both sensitive and intuitive.

  "We crossed the date line just after twenty-two-hundred," MacGregor said. "It's yesterday."

  "The chief of the boat told me," Banning replied, as he felt around for the drawer in which he knew he could find freshly washed khakis.

  "I had a hell of a time with that at the academy," MacGregor said. "My mind just doesn't accept that you can lose, or gain, a day just because somebody drew a line on a chart." Banning chuckled.

  He heard sounds he interpreted as the kinds MacGregor would make as he rolled over in his bunk.

  Banning put on his shirt, and then his trousers, and finally socks and shoes. He did so slowly, both because he wanted to make sure that he had the right button in the right hole, and because he wanted to give MacGregor time to go back to sleep. When he had finished tieing his shoes, he felt behind him on the bulkhea
d for the gray metal locker MacGregor had turned over to him. He opened it as quietly as he could and then took from it a khaki-colored rubber-lined canvas foul-weather jacket. Sometimes the wind carried spray as high as the conning tower, even in relatively calm seas.

  When he had the jacket on and had finished closing its metal hooks, Banning took something else from his closet where it had been concealed under a stack of skivvy shirts. He jammed it quickly in his waistband, and then pulled the foul-weather jacket down over it. -

  He went to the hatch and felt his way through it, and then he moved down the passageway to the head. He sensed that two crew members had flattened themselves against the sides of the passageway to make room for him to pass, but neither of them spoke to him.

  He found the door to the head, and then the doorknob. He pushed down on it, and it moved. This meant the head was unoccupied. If the head was in use, the door handle would not move.

  He went inside and threw the latch, and then sat down on the head. He pulled the foul-weather jacket out of the way, and then took the Colt.45 automatic from his waistband.

  Banning had thought this through, too, very carefully, going over it again and again in his mind. If he actually had to do the thing, he had to do it right. That meant very quickly pulling the pistol out from under the jacket and placing the muzzle into his mouth, so that even if someone on the conning tower bridge did happen to be looking in his direction, they wouldn't have time to stop him. He thought that even if someone did happen to be looking at him when he took the Colt out, they would be so astonished that there would be a couple of seconds' delay before they would try to take it away from him. A couple of seconds would be all he needed.

  That was presuming there was a cartridge in the chamber when he pulled the trigger. If the firing pin flew forward into an empty chamber, there would be no time to take the pistol out of his mouth and work the action again. If it didn't fire the first time, that would be it. They would take the pistol away from him with whatever force was necessary, and they'd never take their eyes off him until they docked at Pearl. After that he would be turned over to the then in white coats from the psychiatric ward at the Naval hospital.

  There weren't that many ways to end your life aboard a submarine at sea. You couldn't just jump over the side, for example. The bulkheads on the conning tower were almost shoulder high and would be difficult to climb over even if you could see. And even if he managed to jump off the conning tower without being stopped, then what? He would probably break his leg on the fall to the deck, or else knock himself out. The best he could hope for in that circumstance would be to be able to scurry across the deck like a crippled crab and bounce off the hull into the sea, then try to swim away from the hull before the suction of the propellers sucked him down to where the blades could slice him up.

  It would also be a dirty trick on Red MacGregor to blow his brains all over his cabin. Or to do it in the head where, every time one of the Pickerel's crew took a leak, he would remind himself that this was where that poor, blind jarhead captain blew his brains out.

  The place to do it was on the conning tower. His brains would be blown off the conning tower, and there would only be a little blood on the conning-tower deck when the body fell, easily washed away.

  After Banning did it, the captain would be called to the bridge. He would probably be thoroughly pissed at the officer of the deck for not seeing what the poor, crazy, blind jarhead captain had been up to, and for not stopping it. But once that passed, MacGregor would start to think clearly, like the good commander he was. There would be no point in getting the crew upset. Then someone would be sent below for a mattress cover and some line, and something heavy (probably a couple of shells for the five-inch cannon), and the body would be tied into the mattress cover with the shells, and then lowered to the deck.

  MacGregor would probably even go so far as ordering a flag placed over the mattress cover (it would be tied to the deck so it wouldn't be lost). And more than likely, he would read the Episcopal service for the burial of the dead at sea.

  And then he would order the Pickerel submerged.

  There would be a note in the log, Captain Edward J. Banning, VSMC, buried at sea 0500, 14 January 1942, and the coordinates.

  There was a school of thought, of course, that felt that suicide was the coward's way out of a tough situation. Banning had spent much time pondering that line of reasoning, and he had come to the conclusion that in his case, it just didn't wash.

  The main pain in the ass for him in being blind had not turned out to be the inconvenience. The inconveniences-the difficulties of just living without sight: spilling food all over his chin, not knowing if he had been able to properly wipe his ass, the constant bumping painfully into things-he could probably get used to, in time.

  What was wrong with being blind was that it gave you so much time to think. That was really driving him crazy.

  Thinking about Ludmilla, for instance.

  Ludmilla, "Milla," was the only woman he had ever loved in his life. And he had left her on the wharf in Shanghai when he'd been flown to Cavite with the advance party of the 4th Marines. The Japs were in Shanghai now, and it was entirely possible that Milla had already done to herself what he was going to do if it was black when he took the bandages off.

  He knew that she had thought about it. Once in bed, she had told him that she had been close to it before she met him, that she just didn't think she had it in her to become a whore, and that death wasn't all that frightening to her. Certainly, she would have thought of that again when the Japanese drove down the Bund. There weren't very many options open to a White Russian woman in Shanghai besides turning herself into a whore for some Japanese officer. Milla still thought seriously about such things as honor and pride and shame, and she was very likely to have concluded that death was far preferable to the dishonor of being a Japanese whore.

  And Milla had been around the block. She'd already gone through one revolution, and what she had told him about what she had experienced in St. Petersburg-the complete breakdown of society as she had known it-couldn't have been much different from what the breakdown of society in Shanghai must have been once the Japanese had come in.

  Milla was practical. She would have understood that the chances of her ever again getting to be with her husband of eighteen hours-her American, Marine officer husband, gone off to fight what looked to be a losing war-were practically nil.

  And she would have concluded that the eleven good months that they had had together before they had made it legal had been a brief happy interval in a miserable, frightening life.

  And she didn't know, of course, that he was blind.

  "The trauma to your optical nerves, Captain, is one of those things, I'm afraid, we don't know a hell of a lot about. Obviously, the trauma was of such severity to cause loss of sight, but on the other hand, it isn't as if anything in there had been severed or destroyed, in which case there would be no hope. I really can't offer an opinion whether your impaired condition will in time pass, or whether the damage is permanent. We just don't have the experience in this area. I would not be surprised, either way. In any event, we should have some indication in two or three weeks."

  If the sonofabitch thought there was any real chance the "impaired condition" would "in time pass," they would not have sent him out on the Pickerel. The 4th Marines had been given the responsibility for defending Fortress Corregidor. They needed the regimental intelligence officer, presuming of course that he could see.

  He had been sent out, with the colonel's permission, on the Pickerel. Q.E.D.

  Banning knew what would come next. They would get him stateside, most likely to the Naval hospital at San Diego. And there they would do whatever was humanly possible for him.

  Following which he would be handed a white cane, his retirement orders, and a one-hundred-percent disability pension. They would then turn him over to the Veterans Administration until he learned how to maneuver with the white cane
, or maybe with a seeing-eye dog.

  He could handle that, too, if he didn't have all this time to think about Milla and wonder what she was doing.

  The final conclusion he had drawn was that he could live without Milla, or the Corps, or his sight; but he could not give up all three at once.

  If he could see when he went to the conning tower and took the bandage off, then there was something. He wouldn't be with the regiment, but he would be what he had trained all of his adult life to be, a serving Marine officer in a war. Which meant he could do something about Milla, too-though he had no idea how.

  Banning pressed the checkered round steel magazine-release button on the Colt.45 automatic. The magazine slipped out of the butt into his hand. He laid the pistol carefully on his lap, then thumbed the cartridges from the magazine, putting them one at time into the side pocket of the canvas foul-weather jacket. There were seven.