And this time, their guns were radar controlled.
The morning kaleidoscoped into flaming noise and light and death. The guns roared and the ships rolled to the force of each discharge. The Japanese ships were shrouded in huge pillars of water, and soon in flame as well as the unfailingly accurate American shooting took its toll.
Yamashiro replied as best she could, as did her support, but they were hopelessly outgunned and not one of their shells found its target. But the battleship kept on coming, and got as far as abeam of Hibuson Island, which marked the effective end of the strait itself, before she turned away, blazing from stem to stern. The Japanese destroyers now raced up to lay a smoke screen under cover of which the cruisers might hope to escape. Poor devils, Lew thought; they don’t realise that is going to make no difference at all.
It did, however — to the Japanese. Out of the darkness there came the tortured grinding sound of a collision, and the radar screen showed two of the cruisers locked together.
The ships drew apart, and the Japanese struggled back down the strait; the order was given to cease fire for fear of hitting American destroyers or torpedo boats. Dawn revealed that Yamashiro had disappeared, and boats were put down to rescue her few survivors. Search aircraft soon found the various other damaged Japanese ships, and these were despatched by torpedo.
‘Well,’ Fisher said. ‘That was something. I guess we can claim a victory.’
‘I guess,’ Lew agreed. ‘Remembering this morning, gentlemen. I have a feeling you will never see its like again.’
‘I would like to know just what the hell those guys thought they were doing,’ Garcia said. ‘Attacking at odds of one to six, with no hope of success, but just keeping on coming until they sank … ’
‘They were obeying orders,’ Lew suggested.
‘But what orders, sir?’ Garcia argued. ‘Not even the Japs would send a whole squadron to total destruction without some reason.’
They didn’t have long to wait to find out. Lew had just sent all hands to breakfast when the telegrapher brought up a message from the flagship. ‘All units will steam north at full speed for Samar and the San Bernardino Strait. Enemy battle squadron consisting of four battleships, seven heavy cruisers and escorting vessels reported emerging from strait and turning south for Leyte. This is an emergency. Repeat, this is an emergency.’
*
‘Holy Jesus Christ!’ Garcia said, as alarm bells rang and the engines began to work up to full speed. ‘Those guys were decoys.’
‘Yes,’ Lew said grimly.
‘But who the hell are these guys?’ Fisher asked.
‘They have to be the force Halsey thought he’d turned back yesterday. Maybe he did turn them back, but he didn’t stop to find out how far.’
‘But God damn, if those battleships get amongst the transports off Leyte there’ll be the biggest massacre of the war. Can we make it, Lew?’
‘We’ll get to Leyte first,’ Lew told him. ‘No question about that.’
But he didn’t care to think what was going to happen then. This was going to be no turkey shoot. The four Japanese battleships included Yamato, which was quite capable of sinking any American ship on her own.
‘Message from flagship, sir,’ the telegrapher said.
Lew read: ‘Enemy aircraft reported flying south. Stand by for attack. Have requested support from Admiral Halsey, but doubt this will arrive in time; the Third Fleet is now fully engaged with the main Japanese carrier fleet off Cape Engano. Repeat, stand by for air attack.’
Binoculars swept the sky, time and again, and also the horizon. Leyte came into sight to port, and the battleships continued to hurtle north, regardless of fuel expenditure. Now news started to come in from north of Samar, and it didn’t sound good. The escort carriers of the Leyte group had gallantly taken on the Japanese battle squadron, flying off their planes and then turning south to find some reported weather and laying down smoke screens. But already USS Gambier Bay had been sunk, and three other carriers badly damaged.
Now it’s our boys’ turn to commit suicide, Lew thought grimly. All the euphoria over Walt’s success against Mushashi and this morning’s triumph at Surigao was forgotten. ‘Where the hell are they,’ he growled. ‘What do you see, Petty Officer?’
‘No contact, sir. No … planes, sir.’ His voice rose an octave. ‘Approaching from the north west.’
Lew stared into the sky, which was at that moment obscured by a rain squall. ‘Stand by to receive enemy aircraft, Mr Fisher,’ he said.
Fisher transmitted the order, then remarked, ‘If we can’t see them, visually, it’s fair to assume they can’t see us. They don’t have radar.’
‘They’ll know we’re here when we open fire. Which will be the moment they come within range.’
‘Yes, sir.’ The order went down to the gunnery control room, and a few minutes later Florida’s anti aircraft batteries blazed into action. It was somewhat uncanny, to be shooting into the clouds and not seeing what they were firing at, but within seconds an aircraft appeared beneath the clouds, plunging downwards in a plume of smoke.
‘One of the bastards,’ Fisher said.
‘And there’s another,’ Garcia shouted.
‘And there’s a third,’ Lew said. He was looking straight ahead over the bows of his ship, and not half a mile away a Japanese plane had dropped through the clouds, undamaged, and was coming straight for them, skimming the waves. ‘Kamikaze dead ahead at sea level,’ Lew said into the tannoy.
‘The sneaky rat,’ Commander Laughton replied. ‘We’ll get him, sir.’
But Lew knew they wouldn’t, in time. The aircraft was at this moment too low to be hit by the pompoms, but then it emerged over the bows, flying straight at the bridge. Every forward gun opened on it. Lew stared into the cockpit, and the Japanese face, half hidden by the goggles, stared back. Lew watched the man jerk and slump in his seat as bullets tore through the fusilage. But nothing was going to stop the plane now; it was too close.
‘You guys duck,’ Lew said to the bridge crew. And then thought, third time lucky.
Chapter 14
The Pacific, Japan and Hawaii — 1944 — 45
‘How are you, old son?’ asked Admiral Halsey.
Lew could only see out of one eye; the other, like the entire rest of his body, was bandaged, and he was held in place in his bed on board the hospital ship by a series of struts to stop him moving to the roll of the vessel. He could, however, use his mouth. ‘They tell me I have more holes than a pin cushion.’
‘Any other guy but you would’ve been dead,’ Halsey pointed out. ‘You seem to have virtually taken that kamikaze full in the face.’
‘How’s the ship?’
‘Looks a bit odd with her fighting top all burned to hell. But she’s afloat, and we can repair her.’
‘Fisher?’
‘No luck.’
‘Garcia?’
‘Amazingly, just a few burns. He and Laughton took command and got her back to base. Good guys.’
‘Yes,’ Lew said. ‘Good guys.’
Halsey grinned. ‘Well trained.’
‘But what about the battle? Those Jap battleships off Samar.’
‘Well, I guess we were lucky there.’ Another grin. ‘I sure was. I reckon maybe I was a bit over-optimistic in taking everything I had, including Mitscher’s carriers, north to find Ozawa. But it seemed a heaven sent opportunity to get rid of the Jap carrier fleet once and for all, and heck, I was so damned sure we’d settled Kurita.’
‘We all thought that,’ Lew said, sympathetically. ‘But why didn’t he clean up?’
‘He could’ve, with you guys so occupied with the kamikazes. If he’d come steaming south with all his guns blazing he could’ve done one hell of a lot of damage. But he didn’t seem able to make up his mind to do that. He engaged our escort carriers, as I guess you know, and sank a couple of them. But instead of pursuing them he just footled around off Samar for a couple of hours. Then it seems,
from our interception of his messages, that he spotted a couple of reconnaissance planes and assumed they were from Mitscher’s Task Force. So he high-tailed it for home. As I said, we were lucky. Mind you, once we got Kinkaid’s shout for help, Mitscher was coming back south just as fast as he could. His planes caught up with Kurita’s squadron and did a lot more damage.’
‘And how did you go against Ozawa?’
‘Like shooting ducks. I want to tell you, Lew, that this battle, or these battles, the last couple of days, added all together, represent the largest naval engagement ever fought. And the most decisive victory ever gained by any fleet in history, too. As near as we can figure, the bag is one fleet carrier, Zuikaku, three light carriers, Chitose, Zuiho and Chiyoda, three battle-wagons, Mushashi, Fuso and Yamashiro, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, and eleven destroyers. That totals something like three hundred thousand tons of enemy ships sent to the bottom. You fought at Jutland. What were the figures there?’ Lew thought. ‘The British lost about one hundred and fifty thousand tons in fourteen ships.’
‘That’s exactly half, on both counts. And the Germans?’
‘Oh, they only lost eleven ships, about sixty thousand tons.’
‘We also bagged one hundred and fifty planes.’
‘They didn’t have planes at Jutland, or it may have been a whole different story. How were our losses?’
‘Well, Ozawa’s planes got one light carrier, Princeton, and Kurita’s battleships and the kamikazes two more, Gambier Bay and St Lo. That’s it, apart from three destroyers. That’s thirty five thousand tons. One to ten isn’t a bad rate of exchange, eh? Oh, we lost a hundred planes as well, but we were throwing in everything we had.’
‘And dead?’
‘Around fifteen hundred. They lost an estimated ten thousand.’
‘Then, as you say, Bull, it really was a decisive victory. What happens now?’
‘We aim to clean up the Philippines by Christmas, and then move on to Iwo Jima. That’s going to be a toughie, and Okinawa is going to be worse. There’s one hell of a lot of hard fighting left before we ever put a man ashore on the Japanese mainland. So we want you up and about and in command just as soon as you can make it.’
But there was no conviction in his tone; he had spoken with the Surgeon Captain before coming in.
‘I’ll be there,’ Lew said. He also had spoken with the Surgeon Captain. ‘Just as soon as I can make it.’
‘Sure you will.’ Halsey stood up. ‘And I have some news which is going to make you leap right out of that bed.’
Lew gazed at him, unable to imagine what he meant. ‘Brace yourself,’ Halsey told him. ‘Clive’s alive.’
‘What?’ Lew did give a convulsive leap on the bed, and shouted in agony as rivers of pain raced down his burned and broken limbs.
The two navy nurses hurried forward. ‘That was not a nice thing to do, Admiral,’ the lieutenant said, reproachfully.
‘Well, I had to tell him,’ Halsey protested.
Lew had got his breath back. ‘But how? Where?’
‘Seem’s he’s been living in the jungle for over a year.’
‘The jungle? You mean he made some island in the Indian Ocean, after being shot down?’
‘Heck, no. He never was shot down. He never was flying to Ceylon at all. He was posted to New Guinea. Back in 1942, would you believe it? As an observer behind the Japanese lines. He was there a year before they cottoned on to him, then he escaped into the jungle, and as I said, lived there with some Dutch female, for over a year.’
‘Great God in the morning,’ Lew said.
‘Some guy. They’re saying it was partly his information enabled us to ambush the enemy in the Coral Sea, back in ’42. Ain’t that something?’
Lew licked his lips. ‘Where is he now?’
‘He’s serving on board HMS Barbados. That’s a British cruiser. He’s actually with the Third Fleet. If we weren’t pressing on so hard I’d see about getting him down here to visit.’
‘Just let him get on with the job,’ Lew said. But to think that Clive was alive, having done an exceptional job, and that he was again fighting virtually alongside his brother … ‘Say, Doc,’ he demanded, when Halsey had left. ‘Just how soon am I going to get back into action again?’
‘You’re not, Lew. Not in this war. Not unless it lasts until 2000.’ The Surgeon Captain grinned. ‘For God’s sake, man, taking the last one as well, you’ve seen one hell of a lot more action than any man deserves to, and live. Let the boys get on with it. It’s their turn.’
*
‘What a catastrophe,’ Hashimoto said, holding his head. ‘What a catastrophe. Virtually half the navy lost. Leyte lost. They are devils. And they will be in Manila next. Where is my transport, Oshiwa? Tell me that?’
‘It is waiting for you, your excellency. The authorisation came through this morning.’
‘What?’ Hashimoto leapt to his feet. ‘Why was I not told before?’
‘The news arrived this morning, your excellency,’ Oshiwa said patiently. ‘I came straight here.’
‘Ha. Then we must leave. Get up, you stupid cow,’ he shouted at Joan. ‘Get up and get dressed. We must hurry.’
‘The aircraft will wait for you, your excellency,’ Oshiwa told him. ‘There is other news.’
‘What other news?’
‘The Allied command in Australia have released a communique announcing that a Lieutenant Clive McGann has just been recovered from the mountains of north western New Guinea.’
‘Clive McGann?’ Joan shouted.
Oshiwa glanced at her; like almost everyone else, he did not know her real identity.
‘Clive McGann?’ Hashimoto asked. ‘You mean he was shot down there?’
‘No, your excellency. He was placed there as an observer of our shipping movements along the north coast of New Guinea.’
‘You are telling me that Clive McGann is the man we were searching for?’
‘Yes, your excellency.’
‘And never found. And you say he survived? I was assured that was impossible.’
‘Well, your excellency, he is alive. He lived in that jungle for more than a year, in the company of the Dutch woman, van Gelderen.’
Hashimoto’s hands curled into fists.
While Joan’s head seemed filled with champagne. Clive was not only alive, he had triumphed. With his pretty Dutch friend. Oh, Clive! And she had actually been within a few miles of them, once. If only she could have known.
Hashimoto glared at her. ‘I suppose this pleases you,’ he growled.
Joan stared back at him, then began to laugh.
*
‘Seen that barometer, Clive?’ inquired Tom Halliburton. ‘Nine six nine millibars. It doesn’t go much lower.’
Clive looked from the upper bridge of HMS Barbados at the sky, which was cloudless, but with a peculiarly brassy blue about it. Certainly there was weather about. There often was in December. But as he also looked about him at the huge invasion fleet headed east of the southern Philippines to make a landing on Mindoro, the island immediately south of Luzon, and therefore within striking distance of Manila itself, he did not suppose that even a typhoon was going to make too much difference to their success.
It was, after all, good to be back on the bridge of a ship at sea. And Barbados was a trim ship. Approximately the same size as Exeter, she was of a much newer design — launched in 1938 — and thus had twelve six-inch guns as opposed to eight eight-inch, carried two aircraft, and had a complement of nine hundred officers and men. If her three-inch armour belt left her exposed to kamikazes the same could be said about every ship in the fleet. Even USS Florida had taken a beating, although her much heavier armour had saved her from being sunk. But Dad had taken the worst beating of all, from reports. He had received a letter from him, dictated to a nurse, and he had been as indomitably cheerful as ever in the past, and over the moon about Clive’s own triumph, but it was clear, simply from a clinical list of h
is various broken bones, that it was going to be a long time before Lewis McGann walked again, much less commanded a warship.
But he was alive, and when the war was over, they would get back together. He had written back to say that.
As for Walt … it was no less uncanny to know that Walt was somewhere quite close, further offshore, of course, in the submarine which he was captaining with such distinction. He too would know of his brother’s survival by now. Clive grinned at the sea as he wondered what Walt’s reaction had been, having mailed those two letters.
The first, back in 1942, had been perfectly understandable. Walt had got himself into an emotional tangle and didn’t know where to turn. As Clive had thought before, he was a true son of his mother’s. The second had been the most amazing epistle Clive had ever read — he wasn’t sure he wanted ever to receive another one like it. In fact, having read it, he had burned it for safety. And yet its words remained burned on his brain.
Walt had killed a man. And not a Japanese, but a fellow American. So it hadn’t been premeditated and maybe O’Malley had actually died of a heart attack. It had still been Walt’s punch which had triggered the attack. And then he had run away and left his mistress to take the blame. It was incredible how a man who was as bold as a lion in action, and as careless of personal safety as a mongoose, could be such a moral coward. Of course to have remained and gone to the police would have cost him his first command: Sea Lion would certainly have sailed the next morning anyhow, in view of the situation.
But he would have done the honourable thing, and he could have been charged with nothing more than involuntary manslaughter — and his career would have been in ruins? Hardly for a Congressional Medal of Honour holder. And he would have done the honourable thing.
Now … to have run away and left this Linda to face the music was bad enough. To begin to have doubts as to her motives was downright dishonourable. He claimed to love her, to want her more than anything else on earth, and if only half the things he claimed and spoke of were true — another touch of immature tattling, about the woman he apparently intended to marry — Clive could well understand his feeling that way. At the same time, to wonder if she was after his money was unforgiveable.
The Passion and the Glory Page 37
