Of course the letter had been written to a dead man. He had begun with that preamble. But why on earth had he taken the risk of mailing it? And now the dead man was alive. It would be some meeting, when they got together again. He would want to embrace his long lost brother and punch him on the nose, all at once.
*
The bombardment began on the afternoon of Thursday 14 December, and lasted through the night. Next morning the troops went ashore, and the task of protecting the transports while they unloaded began. There had in fact been very few kamikaze raids on this occasion, but that did not mean a sharp lookout wasn’t kept, and now the watchers were also keeping an eye on the huge masses of high wind-torn clouds which were drifting in from the east.
That evening a severe storm was reported west of the islands, and on the Saturday one hundred and thirty mile an hour winds were observed off Leyte. The flagship signalled all vessels to put to sea. ‘This is a dangerous typhoon,’ the message ran. ‘Every precaution must be taken. Keep to sea until it is past, but endeavour to stay as close to your stations as possible.’
‘Ever been in a real typhoon?’ Halliburton asked.
‘No,’ Clive confessed. ‘Have you?’
‘I was in a hurricane in the West Indies once, a few years back. Same thing, I suppose. It was pretty unpleasant, and those winds were only in the hundred mile an hour mark. I think we are going to have to watch it, Clive.’
‘Yes, sir.’ He toured the ship, made sure every external bulkhead door was secured, every port covered by its deadeye — the steel plate that would prevent water entering even if the glass were broken — every launch and float double and triple lashed. It had already been decided that when the storm was near the aircraft would fly off and seek airfields on Leyte, which would then hopefully be behind the wind.
Sunday dawned with the sky an opaque yellowish brown, through which the sun looked like a fried egg in aspic. The fleet was now some fifty miles off shore, still together, although the relative stations had been extended to allow for manoeuvring. ‘The best course is to heave to under power until the storm is passed,’ said the flagship.
‘If it’s a real big one,’ Halliburton commented, ‘that may not be practical.’
That afternoon great black clouds began to sweep across the sky; vivid lightning flashes cut through the gloom to the accompaniment of deep rumbles of thunder and there was a succession of really violent rain squalls splattering against the bridge screens like machine gun bullets. The sea was now starting to rise as well, mainly swell at the moment, but already some of the waves were losing their crests in the squalls. The planes were catapulted into the air and disappeared to the south.
Clive turned in at midnight — he and Halliburton had an arrangement by which one of them was always on the bridge, in six hour shifts — but was awakened soon after by the violence of the motion which threatened to throw him out of his bunk, despite the tightly laced leeboards. He preferred not to call his steward, dressed with difficulty, and made his way up to the bridge. The night was dark, and wild in the extreme, with the wind howling around the screens and waves slapping the hull like giant hands.
‘Hasn’t really arrived yet,’ Halliburton said.
Clive peered into the radar screen. They were surrounded by the blips of the fleet, and all the ships still appeared to be maintaining their stations, but disconcertingly, every so often one of the blips would disappear, lost in a trough, before coming up again.
By dawn the seas were really big, and the motion quite disturbing. Huge walls of green water topped by foaming white crests surged out of the east, and the cruiser’s bows went up and up and up as she rose on the swell. With engines slow ahead each climb seemed eternal. At the top it was possible to look around at the rest of the fleet, and wonder if oneself was appearing quite as unstable — even large carriers were rolling thirty degrees. Then it was down the other side, down, down, down until it seemed the ocean had no bottom and one was plunging straight through to the centre of the earth, while every other ship disappeared from view. Then the climb up the back of the monster in front began again.
As long as the waves were well spaced this motion, if awe inspiring, was not dangerous. But every so often there was a rogue, shorter than the others between crests, although just as high. These did not give the ship time to recover. While she was still going down into the trough such a monster would rear above her, poised to deliver several hundred tons of foaming water on to the foredeck. In these circumstances, remaining hove-to under power was out of the question. Halliburton would ring down for full speed ahead, and the cruiser would hurl herself into the very centre of the wave. This was heart stopping work, but it was based on the correct theory: it is the water which does the damage to a ship, and the longer it is left on deck the more dangerous it is. Barbados would disappear entirely from sight beneath the tumbling wave, the noise would be tremendous, and then her bows would smash through on the other side. But now it was even more necessary to use the engines. Halliburton would immediately call for dead slow to reduce speed, otherwise the cruiser would enter the next trough too fast, with an additional risk of danger.
His handling of his ship was superb; Clive could only watch and learn, and hope that in similar circumstances he would react as quickly and positively. But as the hours wore on his confidence grew. They might have lost several lengths of rail and several floats as well, but they were going to survive the storm.
Not everyone was as fortunate. In the middle of the morning there came a radio call. ‘SOS, SOS, USS Hull taking water and capsizing. SOS, SOS, USS Hull taking water and capsizing.’ Halliburton and Clive looked at each other; Hull was an old destroyer. But before they could attempt to decide what to do, a message came from the flagship: ‘All ships will maintain stations,’ it said tersely. ‘Repeat, all ships will maintain stations.’
‘Makes sense,’ Halliburton said. ‘If we tried to find Hull there’d be one hell of a pile up.’
‘So those poor bastards drown.’
‘As our American cousins would say, that’s the way the cookie crumbles, Clive. He could’ve been hit by a kamikaze in a flat calm. Better one destroyer than a couple of battleships to collision.’
Clive knew he was right, but he thanked God he was on a relatively big ship. Only a battleship would be more secure. Or, he thought wryly, a submarine. Walt probably wasn’t even aware there was a storm blowing at all.
*
‘Take her down, Mr Galt,’ Walt said.
Galt was happy to obey. Even at seventy feet Sea Lion was being swept to and fro by the surging sea. ‘It must be shitting hell up there,’ he commented.
‘I guess it is,’ Walt agreed. ‘Well, there won’t be any Japs around tonight, that’s for sure.’
‘One hundred feet.’
‘Level off. That’s better.’
Here the motion was nothing more than a constant trembling.
‘Course three five seven, slow ahead,’ Walt said. His business was to patrol the South China Sea just beyond the fleet position and make sure there were no other sneak attacks on the American task forces; with the storm warning sending the big ships to sea he had taken Sea Lion a further fifty miles to the west. He thought the storm was a damned nuisance, because he wanted the Japanese to try again, give him another chance to bag a big one. If he had been officially informed that it was reckoned to be one of his torpedoes which had first inflicted damage on Mushashi, reducing her speed and leaving her vulnerable to air attack, he still hadn’t sunk the giant battleship himself. But Yamato was still around. The latest information was that she had returned to Japan for repairs following the Battle of Leyte Gulf, as the several engagements last October 24 and 25 were being called — but surely the Japanese would commit her to the defence of their islands as soon as she was again battleworthy.
That, he thought, would make up for a lot of things — such as the fact that Clive was alive. Of course he was delighted that his brother should have sur
vived, and so romantically, and presumably he was worrying needlessly: a letter, mailed by chance in Majura and addressed to a name in Australia would hardly have any possibility of turning up. He had written Clive to congratulate him on his triumph, and received a note back, looking forward to a get together in Tokyo — not a word had been spoken about the letter, so obviously he hadn’t got it.
They’d have a good laugh over it, in Tokyo. Which, the way things were going, could be quite soon.
‘Propellers,’ Galt said.
Walt frowned. But there were propellers above them. Propellers with a lot to do, as they suddenly raced, and then as suddenly died again.
‘Coping with that big stuff,’ Galt commented. ‘Better her than us.’
‘We have to take a look,’ Walt said.
‘Up there?’ Galt asked.
‘Periscope depths,’ Walt said.
‘Even that’s gonna be pretty unpleasant.’ But he knew better than to argue with his skipper; when Walt McGann was in the presence of an enemy ship, or even a possible enemy ship, he knew only one objective. ‘Going up. Eighty feet.’
The ship began to move, to and fro.
‘Sixty feet.’
Now she was rising and falling as well.
‘Forty feet. Two men on the helm,’ Galt snapped, and a rating hurried up to give the coxswain a hand. Sea Lion rolled and slumped, rose and plunged downwards again.
‘Thirty feet.’
‘Up periscope,’ Walt said. He had to hang on to it to avoid being thrown across the bridge. But he got his eye to the aperture, gazed at a mountainous wall of water rising above him. ‘Shit,’ he commented.
Sea Lion went down again, some twenty feet, and then surged back up again. Walt was back at the periscope, and now he looked at a trough. The time was nearly noon, yet the day was as dark as dusk. But he could make out, some quarter of a mile away, a destroyer. Her engines had apparently failed, and thus she had been swept off station and out to sea; because she was undoubtedly an American ship. Now she lay in the trough, rolling scuppers under, and already low in the water.
‘That ship is sinking,’ he muttered.
‘A Jap?’ Galt asked.
‘One of ours. We have to give them a hand. Take her up, Mr Galt.’
Galt gulped, looked at the helmsmen. ‘You guys hang on tight,’ he said. ‘Going up. Twenty feet.’
A wave picked up Sea Lion and laid her on her side. Men slid across the control room and from forward there came shouts of dismay.
‘Ten feet,’ Galt said.
Walt was up the ladder, swinging to and fro as the submarine yawed. He threw up the hatch, burst into the conning tower, signalling gun in hand. But Sea Lion was now in a trough herself, between two huge waves. He fired the gun anyway, and a moment later the submarine had surged to the top of the next swell, looking down on the destroyer. The crew had seen the flare, and now they saw the submarine too. Men waved and pointed, as Sea Lion shot down the slope.
They were going too fast. Walt grabbed the intercom. ‘Slow your engine,’ he bawled. ‘Half speed.’ They were also shooting past the destroyer. ‘Warps,’ he bellowed. ‘We need warps.’
He had no idea how they were actually going to get the men off the stricken ship, but it never entered his mind not to try. Four men scrambled into the conning tower beside him, armed with warps, gasping with horror at the wildness of the scene, the huge waves bearing down on them, the foaming crests, the heavy black clouds, the crackling lightning, and the listing destroyer.
‘We’ll get upwind of her,’ Walt told them, ‘and trail warps. Then we can pull them in. Stand by to release oil, Chief,’ he told Ramos down the intercom. ‘We’ve overshot. Bring her about, Mr Galt. Wait for the word.’
They had gone over the top of another crest and the destroyer was out of sight. Walt knew that turning his ship in these seas was going to be a tricky manoeuvre; it would actually be safer to submerge and take up a new course down there. But that would waste precious time, and he didn’t know how much longer the destroyer had.
They sank down into the trough. ‘Now,’ Walt shouted down the tube. ‘Hard right rudder, full speed ahead. Get her round, Joe. Get her round.’
The submarine shot ahead and began her turn. But she was not the most manoeuvrable of craft, and she was only half way when Walt heard a tremendous roaring. He looked up, and saw a monster wave, some fifty feet from trough to crest, towering above them — and they were exactly broadside on to it.
‘Shit,’ he said again. ‘Dive, dive, dive.’ He pushed the four men down the hatchway, but the last was still only halfway through when the wave broke on them. Walt felt as if the Empire State Building had dropped on his head. The force was such that he was not even washed out of the conning tower, was instead crushed to the deck, hanging on to parted radio struts, completely dazed for more than a minute. The sailor had disappeared, washed below by the force of the impact — several tons of water must have gone down with him.
Sea Lion was certainly going down. Walt couldn’t be sure whether she was sinking or diving. But by the time he regained his feet her foredeck was submerged and there was another huge wave about to break over them. He slammed the hatch shut. ‘Secure,’ he screamed into the intercom. And was again struck by a moving wall of water.
*
‘Some Christmas present.’ Admiral Halsey sat in the chair beside Lew’s bed on the hospital ship, his shoulders slumped. ‘I find it difficult to believe. A man who can risk his life in every possible way against the enemy, and get away with it … drowned in a hurricane. He was being the hero again, you know, Lew. He was sure that destroyer was sinking. And she floated. But he saved his own ship, by slamming that hatch, gave Joe Galt the chance to take control and get her down and pump her dry. God damn, to have Clive come back, and Walt … I just do not know what to say.’
Neither did Lew. He thought, the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. ‘Did you lose a lot?’ he asked.
‘Three destroyers. But I never want to experience a storm like that again. They’re calling it Halsey’s Typhoon. God damn, Lew, I am sorry. You don’t know how sorry.’
‘As you said, he took a lot of chances,’ Lew said.
‘They tell me you’re going back to Hawaii pretty soon.’
‘Yeah. The doc seems to think I can be moved without falling apart.’
‘Brenda’ll be there.’
‘Sure she will. Bull … give’em hell, eh? For Walt.’
‘That’s what I have in mind,’ Halsey assured him.
*
‘Yamato went down yesterday, Your Excellency,’ Oshiwa reported.
‘I saw that,’ Hashimoto growled. He sat at his office in Tokyo, brooded on the various reports on his desk. ‘Well, it was a suicide mission, and the intention was to beach her on Okinawa and use her as a fortress, anyway. But it is sad to think of so splendid a ship at the bottom of the ocean. There will never be another like her.’
‘She was struck by thirteen torpedoes and six bombs,’ Oshiwa said. ‘She fought to the last.’
‘Yet she is sunk. The Imperial Japanese Navy no longer exists,’ Hashimoto said. ‘And the war in Europe is virtually over; the Russians are in Vienna. They will be in Berlin next week. And we have a new cabinet. What is Suzuki going to accomplish that all the others have failed to do?’
‘We are still holding the Americans in Okinawa,’ Oshiwa said eagerly.
‘Yet will they win there too,’ Hashimoto said disconsolately. ‘As they did in Iwo Jima. And after Okinawa they will come here.’
‘They will never dare invade Japan,’ Oshiwa declared.
Hashimoto looked out of his window at the devastation which had once been Tokyo. He had been here in 1923, when the city had been laid flat by an earthquake. If the devastation caused by the bombing was more selective, it had also been more destructive. ‘Perhaps they will not have to,’ he muttered. ‘Still, we must fight to the end, Oshiwa. I am going to take a few days off. I will go do
wn to Hiroshima for a rest.’
Oshiwa bowed. He knew that Hiroshima was where his superior had sent his English mistress for safety. He personally thought that the time had come for Hashimoto to do away with the woman; there were more important matters to be attended to. But Hashimoto remained infatuated with her.
A fact Joan recognised. She found it fascinating the way their relationship had changed over the three and a half years they
had lived together. The all conquering, dominant Japanese admiral had slowly dwindled into an uncertain, homely, sometimes desperate figure. Perhaps in her company he could close his mind to the unthinkable present and even more unthinkable future, and recapture the triumphant omnipotence of 1942. Certainly she knew he valued her above any wife, which was why he had sent her from the target that was Tokyo to this quiet provincial city.
What then, of her feelings for him? The hatred had long dissipated. To live with a man and hate him for more than three years would have been to go insane. As she had recognised in Rabaul, there were so many things about himself and his culture which were wholly admirable. That idyll had been brought to an abrupt end by what she had seen in New Guinea, but now it was a year since she had observed the kempei-tai at work, and her senses were again being lulled by the beauty and delicacy with which she was surrounded.
She lived in luxury. Hashimoto had bought her a delightful little house close to the centre of the city. As the mistress of Hashimoto Kurita she was treated with respect by her servants and neighbours, and Hiroshima itself, situated at the head of a gulf off the Inland Sea, was a place of considerable charm. She could look up at Mount Kamuri, from which the River Ota flowed into the sea — Hiroshima, which means ‘the broad island’, was actually built on the delta of the Ota — or she could look down at the calm waters of the vast lake, studded with islands, and studded too with the endless traffic, varying from sampans to ferry steamers to warships, which chugged and rowed back and forth. She did not want to think of what was happening to the rest of Japan, the big industrial centres such as Tokyo and Osaka. She had seen something of Tokyo when they had first returned from Manila, and been horrified; Hashimoto’s house had been destroyed.
The Passion and the Glory Page 38
