Pacific Standoff, page 25
“I don’t want to teach, sir; I want to keep my command. I can handle it—there’s nothing wrong with me.” The imp in his belly pinched him viciously.
“I didn’t say there was. Dammit, McCrary, according to BuPers you were up for rotation two months ago! I put my foot down that time, but it has to come to all of us. Man, don’t you think I’d like to be out there? I spent my whole career training to command a submarine, and when war finally came I was too senior! Don’t you think I hate sitting behind this desk, sending you men out? But I do it to the best of my ability, for the good of the service. And I expect the same from you.”
“I want to keep Manta,” Jack said stubbornly. He knew that he was fast using up his stock of good will with the admiral, but that no longer seemed to matter. All that counted was holding on to his boat. It was all he had now.
“You know what they say about taking your pitcher to the well once too often, don’t you, Commander?”
“Yes, sir. But I think my skills and experience will best be used if I retain command of the Manta. One more patrol, that’s all I’m asking, Admiral!”
Garfield turned a pen over in his rugged hands. “Well…it’s against my better judgment, McCrary, but all right. You won’t be easy to replace, now or later, and that’s a fact.”
Holding back a sigh of relief, Jack said evenly, “Thank you, sir. You won’t regret it.”
“Bull! I’ll start regretting it the minute you walk out of this office, but you have my word. But remember, and start getting used to it now: this patrol is it. I don’t care if you sink the whole Grand Fleet and the Emperor to boot, after this you’re going home for a well-earned rest.”
* * * *
He found Bob on the terrace of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. For a moment he saw in his mind the midshipman who had been two years behind him at the Academy, the young lieutenant he had gotten to know during those anxious months before Pearl Harbor. The images merged and hovered as a contrast to the stern warrior who looked out over Waikiki Beach with narrowed eyes. The war had exacted its price from all of them.
Bob saw him and grinned, washing half a dozen years from his face. “What ho, Skipper!” he cried. “What news from the Lord High Admiral, His Grace of Garfield?”
“Much news, Sir Robert,” replied Jack, falling into the game. “His Grace has a surplus of gongs on hand and is graciously dealing them out. You’re in for a Silver Star, which entitles you to free admission to Wednesday matinees at any Pantages Theater.”
“Pray convey my thanks to His Grace.” He raised his coffee cup in a mock toast.
“There is more, Sir Robert. In view of your manifold talents, services, and so on, you are to be raised from simple knighthood to the ranks of the nobility forthwith. Congratulations.”
Bob frowned, trying to decipher the joke. “Has it pleased His Grace to select a title for me?”
“How do you like ‘Captain Church’?” Jack saw comprehension growing in Bob’s face and reached for his hand. “Congratulations again, Bob, for real. You’re getting your own boat, just as soon as the guys at Portsmouth Navy Yard finish building it. And I don’t know anyone who deserves it more.”
Bob was dazed. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the ambitions he had cherished and then put aside were being fulfilled. A command of his own! And once he piled up a good record, he would be in a position to take his career in any direction he wanted after the war. He could take time off for an advanced degree in naval history, maybe even get an appointment at the Academy or a posting abroad as a naval attach with time to pursue his research.
He suddenly realized that Jack was watching him with an odd expression on his face. “How soon does all this happen, Skipper?”
“It’s already happened, old man. You’re free as a bird; you can leave for the States tomorrow if you like. The orders were being cut while I was with the admiral.”
“I couldn’t do that, just disappear without saying good-bye to the men.”
“No, I guess not. I’ll tell you—if you stay around for a couple of days, we can give you a real send-off, get a private room at a restaurant, lay in some booze, and swap tall tales till the cows come home. How does that strike you?”
Bob turned his head for a moment and stared out across the beach at the sea. The bright daylight was making his eyes water. He blinked twice and turned back. “That would be great,” he said heartily. “Just great.”
* * * *
“Hello, Miriam? It’s Mike Gold.… Just this morning. I was afraid you’d still be at the university.… Thanks, I’d like to, but do you think we could meet for dinner tonight? Just the two of us? Tell your mom I’ll take her up on it tomorrow, if the invitations’s still good.… Great! How about Lau Yee Chai’s? Six? I’ll see you then.”
The restaurant was a two-story building that looked like a pagoda, with big gold Chinese characters across the front. Mike got there twenty-five minutes early, spent five minutes pacing the sidewalk and another five in the men’s room combing his unruly hair and straightening his neckerchief, and finally allowed the headwaiter to show him to a secluded booth at the side of the room. He sniffed the air appreciatively. The exotic fragrance of the native flowers on each table mingled with the equally exotic aromas wafting from the kitchen. Serving on a submarine, you forgot that air could smell good.
He surged to his feet. Miriam was at the door, scanning the large, half-empty room. He started toward her, but she saw him and hurried over. He took both her hands and was on the point of kissing her when he realized that dozens of eyes were on them. He reddened and started to back away, but then he saw a question in Miriam’s face. To hell with those guys, let them look all they wanted! He shifted his hands to her shoulders and gave her a long kiss. Its intensity surprised and shook both of them, and for a few moments after they sat down, they avoided each other’s eyes, taking refuge in the elaborate menu.
“Do you know about this stuff?” Mike said at last. “All I know is egg foo young and chop-suey, and I don’t see either one.”
Miriam laughed and agreed to take charge of ordering. When she finished, she turned back to him, her dark eyes large with concern. “You’ve lost some weight. Was it bad this time?”
He shrugged eloquently. “What can I say? It’s been worse, it’s been better. We got back in one piece. How has it been with you? You look a little tired.”
“Not tired, worried. It’s Father. He has been hearing terrible stories about what is happening in Europe, so terrible that they can’t be true. He won’t eat. He spends all his time in his library, sitting, staring down at the rug, talking to himself. It’s driving Mom crazy, but what can she do? Half the time he doesn’t hear her, even. But he wants to see you. He was glad when he heard you got back safely. We all were.”
“Miriam—” He stopped to clear his throat. “Miriam, I’ve got some news for you. I’m being transferred from my boat.”
Her face tightened, became a mask. “You are? What…when… Will you be in Hawaii still?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been accepted for Steno School, in San Diego. It’s a chance to qualify for chief. I didn’t think I had a hope, but the skipper must have written some recommendation.”
“That…that’s wonderful, Mike. I’ll sleep a lot better knowing you’re in California and not out there somewhere. I’ll miss seeing you, though; we all will. When do you leave?”
“That’s what’s nice about it: school doesn’t start until July, so I’ll have three weeks or so before I sail. I want to spend it with you.”
“Mike—”
“No, wait a minute. After I make chief, they won’t put me on a boat again. I’ll be manning a desk somewhere. I might even be able to swing being stationed at Pearl. I could still fall down a manhole or get hit by a truck, but—” She started to speak and he gently put a finger to her lips. “I didn’t want to say anything, Miriam, while I was serving on a submarine. Too many of them don’t come back. But now, now I think I might come out of this alive.” He took a deep breath. “Will you marry me?”
She couldn’t speak, but he saw her answer in her face. He reached across the table for her, and at that moment the waiter arrived with a tureen of soup and three covered metal dishes.
* * * *
“…so to Commander Church, and to all the others who are leaving the happy company of the Manta Maru, we say, good luck and Godspeed. Sink ‘em all!” The cheers as Jack sat down were made more raucous by the influence of several rounds of Coke highballs. He grinned and waved, and secretly hoped that the meal he had arranged would calm things down. It would not look good to have his entire crew rounded up by the SP’s!
Dutch was getting to his feet and holding his hands up for silence. “Mr. Church,” he said, “the men have asked me to speak up for them, to wish you luck in your new command, and to give you this.” He passed over a small box and quickly sat down. Bob opened the box and found a finely detailed model of a Gato-class submarine, carved from solid steel. He held it up for everyone to see. There were cries of, “Read it,” “Read the bottom!”
Bob turned it over and read aloud, in a voice that trembled slightly: LTCDR R CHURCH USN FROM THE CREW OF U.S.S. MANTA MAY 1944. FOR WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO RECEIVE…
He stopped and looked around the now silent room at all the faces that were so familiar to him. Would he see any of them again? He stood up and cleared his throat. “Skipper,” he said, “shipmates, I’m fresh out of speeches. It’s been a privilege for me to serve with such a great bunch, and I want you to know that this reminder of Manta will be by my side for the rest of my life. Thank you, all of you.” As the men applauded, he started to sit down, then changed his mind and stood again. “Now, then,” he called, “who’s for another drink?” The applause changed to wild cheers. Jack rolled his eyes and hoped that the waiters would hurry up with the food.
Chapter 23
“The Marianas are the key to control of the Western Pacific!” Dusty Miller tapped his pointer on Guam and Saipan. “As you all know, our invasion fleet and support forces are assembling right now. The enemy has to contest them, while he still has both enough ships and enough fuel to use them. It’s take the pot or crap out for the Japs, and our job is to load the dice.”
The four submarine skippers, old hands all, exchanged grins over Miller’s metaphor.
“Our latest intelligence,” the SubPac staff chief continued, “indicates that most of Ozawa’s forces are here at Tawi Tawi, in the Sulu Archipelago. That gives him several options: to pass through Sibutu and then either Surigao or San Bernardino Strait, or to sail across the Celibes Sea and around the south end of Mindanao. Nimitz and Spruance must know when and by what route Ozawa sorties. Make no mistake about it: we’re on the offensive now, and God willing, victory is in sight, but we can still lose this war. The Japs are able to throw five major carriers and a half dozen battlewagons into this donnybrook. If luck is with them, or if we screw up, we could find ourselves back at December 1941.”
His audience nodded, impressed by his seriousness.
“Your boats will form a picket line roughly 150 miles east of the Philippines; we’ll refine your positions as more intelligence comes in. Your primary mission is to locate and report on enemy carrier forces.” He stopped and looked each man in turn straight in the eye. “I’ll repeat that. Your highest priority is to be making and reporting contact with the Jap carriers. Is that clear?”
“You mean,” protested Tim “One-Gun” Forster, “that if a Jap flattop crosses my bow at fifteen hundred yards, I’m supposed to just wave to him and then send a message to Daddy?”
“That is exactly what I mean, Forster! I know we usually work on the principle of a bird in the hand, but not this time. The stakes are too high. Of course, once you’ve gotten your contact report through, you’re at liberty to pursue and attack.”
The men laughed sourly at the notion of pursuing a high-speed carrier force. Miller might as well suggest shooting down a Zero with a Daisy air rifle.
* * * *
Four days out from Pearl, Jack received new orders. Manta was to link with the three other boats to form a square scouting formation west of the Marianas. Manta drew the northwest corner, more or less on a line between Saipan and Okinawa, and arrived on station at the end of the first week in June.
The first order of business was to bring the men back up to fighting trim. Almost a fifth of the crew were new, rotated on board just before the boat sailed, and the old hands had lost some of their edge from their two weeks in Honolulu. Jack drilled them mercilessly, springing surprise alarms of every sort at any hour until he was satisfied that they were ready for any emergency.
His concern was not only with the crew. He also used the drills as a way of taking the measure of his new exec, a taciturn Reserve lieutenant named Jack Murphy. He did not think that he and Murphy would ever be close friends, but as the days wore on he came to respect the man’s stolid competence and endless capacity for hard work. One change Jack did make: at battle stations he took back the captain’s traditional place at the periscope or on the bridge. The intuitive link he had felt with Bob and with his cousin did not exist between him and Murphy. The other officers noticed, of course, but said nothing; he could not tell if Murphy was aware of the change.
Radio dispatches allowed them to follow the developing battle. An American submarine watched the Jap fleet sortie from Tawi Tawi, and another, two days later, saw them clear the San Bernardino Strait. Neither was able to get close enough to attack. Meanwhile American troops were storming ashore on Saipan, against heavy opposition. If Ozawa succeeded in neutralizing Spruance’s force and caught the Marines on the beach, it would be a slaughter. Spruance, apparently seeing the danger, postponed the landings on Guam and turned west to meet the oncoming enemy.
Manta could do nothing to help. Even after ComSubPac shifted the picket square a hundred miles south, a glance at the chart showed that she was still out in left field. Far to the southeast, an air battle raged that would become known as The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot. American planes and shipboard antiaircraft batteries chewed up the Japs and spit them out, shooting down 330 of Ozawa’s 400 planes. Two of his first-line carriers were on the bottom, victims of the American subs Albacore and Cavalla. But nothing disturbed the peace of the waters around Manta. The doubled lookouts had nothing to look at but clouds and occasional frigate birds. The boat might have been on a Caribbean cruise.
At 2121, during Lou’s watch, one of the lookouts suddenly called, “Sir! Searchlights, off the port quarter!” Lou spun around, his night glasses rising to his eyes. At first the horizon was as dark in that direction as in any other, but then he saw it, a thin, faint pencil of light that moved swiftly across the sky. “Hard left rudder, all ahead full,” he barked. “Steady on 1-6-5.”
“1-6-5, aye, aye.”
The four Winton diesels roared their song of power as Manta came about and surged toward the distant enemy. Jack was on the bridge almost before the turn was completed. “What have you got, Lou?” he asked, pulling his red goggles down to hang around his neck and then tucking his shirttails in.
“Searchlights from below the horizon. Dead ahead.” Jack looked and saw nothing. Still, Lou knew his business. Jack’s confidence was repaid twenty minutes later when more searchlights, brighter now but still below the horizon, pierced the night sky, reminding Jack of newsreels of London during the Blitz.
“Radar contact!” Jack leaped for the bridge speaker. “Six blips at twenty-five thousand yards, bearing 3-5-5 relative.”
“Acknowledged.” Jack calculated quickly. At that range the radar would not even detect anything much smaller than a battleship. Should he send off a contact report now? ComSubPac would want more than six blips and a position, he would want to know the composition, course, and speed of the enemy force. Manta could give him all that in fifteen minutes.
A quarter of an hour later the boat, ready for battle, ghosted toward the retreating Jap fleet at six knots. At least twenty warships spread themselves before his binoculars, and he had already identified two of them as carriers and three others as battleships. By God, he had always wanted to sink a carrier! He knew he could, too, but his orders were explicit. Sighing, he lowered the glasses and scribbled a detailed contact report. He would go in as soon as it was safely off.
Moments later the messenger returned. “Sir, Pulaski says he’s having trouble with the transmitter,” he gasped out. “He says he can fix it in five minutes.”
“Tell him to fix it in two,” Jack roared. “No, belay that! He’ll do it as fast as he can, I guess.”
“Destroyers on the starboard beam! They’re heading for us!”
Jack’s hand slammed into the diving alarm even before the lookout had finished. “Clear the bridge!” he bellowed. “Dive! Dive!” He counted heads as the men dashed for the hatch, then followed them down. “All ahead emergency, deep submergence!”
As the boat clawed for the depths that were her best protection, her crew waited with their hearts in their throats for the inevitable pounding. Nothing happened. Perhaps the Jap tin cans had been uncertain of their sighting, or perhaps they had been content with driving the intruder under. After ten minutes Jack said, “Make your depth sixty-four feet.” At that depth the periscope tip would be only inches above the surface. He watched as the depth gauge crept slowly, cautiously upward and settled at sixty-four, then knelt to catch the periscope yoke as it emerged from the well. There was complete silence in the conning tower while he walked the scope through 360 degrees.
“My God,” he finally whispered, “we’re right in the middle of them! There’s a thirty-thousand-ton battle wagon a mile to starboard and a flattop five thousand yards astern.”
The men stood ready, waiting for the order to attack. But it didn’t come. Jack stood by the periscope as if frozen while alternatives and objections chased each other in a blur through his mind. In the end the contest was won by the discipline and respect for orders he had been trained to since he was a boy.
