Pacific Standoff, page 9
It took him a few moments to catch on, and when he did, he felt slightly sick. “Oh. You mean…”
“Uh-huh. Just a girl and her dog. I didn’t much like it myself, but it’s not something you’re going to see back in Kansas, is it?”
“I hope not,” Charlie said fervently. “And I don’t think I want to see it here, either.”
“Oh, I don’t insist. I think it’s only on Saturday nights anyway. But you must see a low cabaret while you’re here. I know just the place. Any of your mates whose minds you’d like to broaden?”
Charlie glanced around. He knew Ted Fuller best, from working with him in the engine room, but Ted was just a bit on the dull side, and newly married to boot. The other ensigns he hardly knew. That left Lou daCosta; the more Charlie thought about the idea, the better he liked it. Along with a sort of dignified reserve unusual in a man of twenty-five, Lou had a streak of odd humor that showed itself at unexpected times. He might be just the sort of fellow to have with you at a “low cabaret.” He took Clark over, introduced the two, and suggested that Lou join their excursion. Lou flashed a very white smile and agreed at once. As soon as everyone had taken leave of their host, they were off. As they waited in the warm darkness for their taxi, Clark warned them not to mention the name of their ship. There was probably nothing to it, but according to rumor the town was crawling with German spies.
El Gallo Rojo exactly fit Charlie’s idea of a waterfront dive. The fan that hung from the low ceiling revolved too slowly to disturb the pungent clouds of cigarette smoke. The small stage was brightly lit, but the rest of the room was lost in obscurity. Clark led them to a round table a few feet from the crowded bar. A few heads turned as they passed, but most eyes were fixed on the singer, a heavily made-up woman in a blood-red dress with dozens of layers of ruffles and pleats. From her expression and tone Charlie decided that she was singing a very sad song. The moment it finished, the waiter appeared.
“Tres cervezas,” said Clark.
“Si, señor. ¿Y por las señoritas?”
Charlie knew enough Spanish to work that out, and he glanced away from the singer to discover that their party had doubled in size. The senorita closest to him had a broad face, a lot of black hair, and a gold tooth that flashed when she smiled. Her skimpy dress exposed the tops of her black net stockings and a narrow strip of white thigh at one end and most of her full breasts at the other. He dutifully returned her smile, gathering from Clark’s exchange with the waiter that the senoritas were having champagne.
“It’s really soda water,” Clark said casually, “but it’s only a couple of bucks a bottle, so what the hell. If they had to have a beer with every customer, they’d be even fatter than they are already, right, sweetheart?” He patted the cheek of the one nearest him, who smiled blankly.
The singer had started again. If anything, this song was even sadder than the last one, but the men at the bar were enthralled by it. Charlie sipped at his beer, which was okay but not cold enough, and regretted coming. The singer depressed him, the senorita left him cold, and the heavy tobacco smoke was making his eyes water.
A flourish, cheers, and the singer vanished through a curtained side door. Another flourish, and a couple in striped shirts and black berets leaped onto the stage and started throwing each other around in slow motion. At least this act didn’t require a translator. Charlie had seen better apache dancers in New York, but the finale hadn’t been as startling there. Here, after the usual twists and twirls and slitherings on the floor, the man grasped the woman’s striped shirt by the shoulder and jerked it down, ripping it in half. They finished the dance with her bare to the waist and left the stage to cheers and much stamping of feet and pounding of glasses. Apparently that was the finale of the cabaret as well, because the lights went out on the stage, leaving Charlie with brilliant spots before his eyes for several minutes.
When he could see again, he found that the senoritas had finished their champagne and left. He directed a questioning look at Clark, who said, “They had to powder their noses. How do you like the low cabaret so far?”
“That last act was pretty hot stuff, but they must spend a fortune on her shirts if they rip one up every night.”
“It’s a trick,” said Lou. “Shirts don’t tear that easily. Try it on one of your skivvies when we get back to the boat.” He seemed about to say more, then fell silent. Charlie became aware that the hum of conversation at the bar had become a single, rather strident, voice. The words meant nothing to him, but something in the tone raised the hackles on his neck. He looked over at Clark, who didn’t seem to have noticed anything, then at Lou. Was it his imagination, or had Lou eased his chair away from the table?
“What’s going on?” he said in an undertone.
“An agitator,” Lou replied in a similar tone. “Doesn’t like Yankees, says we stole part of their country and ought to be kicked out. He seems to think Hitler will help them.”
A burst of unfriendly laughter from the bar.
“No, don’t turn around,” Lou warned. “He’s just making some unflattering remarks about our appearance, habits, and ancestors. I won’t bother to translate.”
“Should we leave?”
Clark, to whom Charlie addressed the question, shrugged helplessly and looked out of his depth. “I don’t think we’d get away with just walking out,” said Lou. “Our best move is to let them start something, then finish it quick. We won’t have to wait long, I’m afraid.”
At that moment one of the men from the bar started across the room with a full glass of beer. He appeared to trip on a chair leg and started to fall toward Lou. In a movement too fast to follow Lou shoved his chair back and sprang to his feet. “Cuidado, hombre!” he shouted. The man came up from the floor with a knife in his right hand, aimed at Lou’s gut. Charlie, who had played tackle on the Academy’s 150 squad, started to dive for him and was jumped from behind. Whoever it was whose arm was around his throat badly needed a bath. Charlie cocked his arm and drove the point of his elbow into his assailant’s stomach, then, as the arm loosened around his neck, whirled and followed up with a left jab. His opponent backed off, giving him a moment to look around.
Clark had a chair poised over his head, ready to smash down on any incautious head. As for Lou, he was holding a beer bottle in each fist, and even as Charlie looked, his right hand flicked over and smashed its bottle against the edge of the table, leaving a ring of wicked-looking shards. The guy with the knife was treating Lou with respect, circling just out of reach of the bottles.
If only they could form a ring and cover each other’s backs, they might be able to get out the door unscathed. For the moment they faced only four or five attackers; the rest were content to watch from a safe distance until the outcome was clear.
A scruffy-looking man with a black droopy moustache dived under Clark’s upswung chair and butted him in the stomach. Clark gasped and sagged toward the floor. Charlie was reaching over to help him when some sixth sense warned him. He sprang back just as a blade flashed past his neck, nicking him just above his Adam’s apple. Maddened by the sudden sting, he grasped his attacker’s arm by the wrist and elbow and brought it down with shattering force across his thigh. The knife fell, forgotten, to the floor as its owner screamed and clasped his broken arm to his chest. Charlie took his shoulders, spun him around, and punted him across the room, then helped Clark to his feet.
Lou was still locked in a duel with his original opponent. Both men were balanced on the balls of their feet, arms wide, bodies hunched in a knife-fighter’s crouch. Lou waved the broken bottle in his right hand in slow circles, light glittering off the ragged points of glass. His eyes were fixed on his opponent’s face. The knife slashed across in a disemboweling stroke, but Lou was no longer in reach. Just as the stroke finished its follow-through, he flung the bottle in his left hand at his opponent’s head, then in the same fluid motion snatched the heavy champagne bottle off the table and smashed it into the hand that held the knife, following up with a brutal kick to the groin. “Vengan cazar amigos!” he shouted. “Come and get it!”
No one seemed to be in a hurry to accept his invitation. The three officers retrieved their hats from the floor, flung some money on the table, and walked out in dead silence. As their taxi pulled away, they heard the distant sound of sirens.
“Are we going to catch some flak about tonight?” asked Lou.
“I doubt it,” Clark replied. “The Canal Zone authorities aren’t very friendly toward nationalists and Nazi sympathizers. The odds are that the police will be told someone tripped and knocked over a table. Say, you two really dished it out back there. I never saw what hit me.”
“A very oily head, I think,” Charlie said with a grin. “You’ll have to send that shirt to the laundry right away.”
“And what about you?” he retorted. “Did you know you’re bleeding all over your collar?” Charlie touched his throat and winced. “Another eighth of an inch,” Clark continued, “and it would have been the end of a promising naval career! Honestly, I had no idea it was that low a dive or I wouldn’t have taken you there. Still, the floor show was okay, wasn’t it?”
“Theirs or ours?” asked Charlie ruefully.
* * * *
“How do you like your new orders, McCrary?”
“Sir?” Jack had dropped by Captain Bogan’s office to tell him that the work on Manta’s engines was nearly completed and that he was planning to sail for Brisbane the next day. The greeting, and the reference to new orders, baffled him.
“What, haven’t you seen them yet? Your communications officer needs a rocket; they came through this morning. Your boat has been transferred from Brisbane to Pearl. As it turns out this delay was a good thing. It saved you several hundred miles of cruising in the wrong direction.”
Jack was stunned. Only a few months before, when he had been replaced as captain of the Stickleback and rotated Stateside, the commander-in-chief of the Pacific submarine fleet, “Terrible Ted” Thornhill, had sworn that he would never have Jack in his command again. That, he was convinced, was the real reason Manta was assigned to the Asiatic Fleet. And now this abrupt change in orders—what could it mean? Was there some mistake? “I see,” he said cautiously. “We’ll be attached to SubPac, I suppose?”
“Well, what else, man?” Bogan replied impatiently. “The Greenland herring fleet?”
Jack flushed at the sarcasm but kept his voice under control. “No, sir, it’s just that during my last tour of duty Admiral Thornhill and I had some, ah, differences of opinion. I’m a little surprised to be welcomed back, so to speak.”
Bogan laughed shortly. “You are behind on reading your mail, aren’t you?” He shuffled through a stack of dispatches. “Oh, yes, here we are. Admiral Thornhill was injured last week in an airplane accident and is on indefinite medical leave. CincPac has appointed Rear Admiral James Garfield to the post of ComSubPac. He’s an old submarine hand, isn’t he?”
“He certainly is,” said Jack fervently. “Before the war he was one of the few men to stand up to the battleship admirals, even though he hadn’t made flag rank yet. He has a better grasp of the submarine as a strategic weapon than anyone in the service. You’re going to see some changes now, Captain!”
Bogan shook his head. “Not I, McCrary. The only changes here are the number of hash marks on the men’s sleeves. But it sounds as if you and your boat are in for some exciting times. My only wish is that I could make that kind of contribution myself. I was too young to serve last time, and this time I meet submarine and PT boat captains my son’s age. Just remember this, my boy: when you come face to face with the enemy out there, you’re carrying the hopes and wishes of an entire generation of Navy men who fought to keep the service healthy through some mighty bleak times. Don’t let them down!”
Chapter 9
As acting exec, Lon had more than enough to do, so Jack offered to take over the duties of navigation officer. He had not had to use those skills in years, and he was childishly pleased when, just before noon on their fifteenth day out of Panama, exactly according to his reckoning, Diamond Head hove into view. They were expected; a DE was waiting to guide them through the submarine booms. For Jack it was all so familiar: Hospital Point, Ten-Ten Dock, the sad wreckage of Battleship Row. But for many of the men this was their first visit to the naval base that in a single December Sunday had become a symbol to all Americans. They crowded the foredeck, obstructing the line-handlers, pointing to one sight after another. When the mast of the Arizona came into view, its ensign still fluttering gallantly over the sunken hulk and the thousand sailors whose tomb it was, a somber silence fell. Only when the sight was hidden by the turn into Southeast Loch did the mood of excitement start to revive.
As they approached the sub base at the head of the Loch, a brass band struck up “Aloha Oe,” followed by “A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.” A new boat fresh from the States didn’t draw the crowds of a veteran back from patrol, but the rest of the welcoming ritual was ready. There were crates of fresh fruit, tubs of ice cream, and most welcome, the sacks of mail. Within minutes after tying up, the decks were dotted with sailors munching on apples while they read their letters from home.
Admiral Garfield and a few of his staff had been waiting on the dock, too, and came aboard as soon as the brow was in place. Jack was secretly shocked to see that Jim Garfield had gone gray in the last year and a half. The war was leaving its signs on all of them. “Jack,” he said, extending his hand, “welcome to Hawaii.” He introduced his staff, then Jack introduced his officers and took him on a quick tour of the boat. He was particularly interested in the surface armament, the four-inch deck gun and the two Bofors.
“I know you’ll find them a help,” he said, “though it’s still not enough firepower. The problem is that my fellow admirals in BuShips and BuOrd are just beginning to understand the function of our craft. They still think of us as scouting ahead of the fleet and shooting torpedoes at enemy fleet units. The idea that we’re really commerce raiders is too ungentlemanly for them, but that’s the fact. And as the war goes on, more and more we’ll be encountering targets that are too small to waste a fish on and too large to ignore completely. What I’d like to see on my boats is five-inch guns fore and aft. I’ve been after that since before the war and at least the General Board agreed to design in the foundations for them. If we can get the guns, we can mount them, but that’s turning out to be a very big ‘if.’ I see you had machine-gun mounts installed along the deck; your idea, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir. There were a few times in my last command when I needed something like that badly.” As he spoke, it seemed to Jack that a shadow crossed the admiral’s face, but his next question was on a different subject.
“You’re carrying a full load of fish?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Newport specials, I suppose. We’ll pull them this afternoon and give you some with the new contact fuse. Not a full load, I’m afraid; we’re in the middle of one of our usual shortages. Come up to my office when you’re squared away, McCrary.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
* * * *
When Jack reached headquarters an hour later, having started the laborious process of unloading Manta’s stock of torpedoes, he found Admiral Garfield with a tall blond commander whose face was disfigured by a burn scar that covered most of the left side.
“Come in, McCrary; do you know Dusty Miller, my ops chief?”
Jack tried hard to suppress his impulse to stare. He did know Miller—the man had been in the class ahead of Jack at the Academy—but he never would have recognized him. What on earth had happened to his face? “Of course, sir. How are you, Dusty?”
“Jack.” They shook hands and sat down.
The admiral rested his interlaced hands on the desk in front of him. “I have some bad news for you, I’m afraid,” he began. “It looks as if the Stickleback is lost.”
Jack stared at him, not willing to believe that he had heard the words. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “Lost, sir? When? How?”
“We don’t know. Three weeks ago she called at Midway and topped off the fuel tanks en route to the Palaus. There’s been no word since. I put a recall on the air last week. If she were still afloat, she should have turned up by now. We haven’t made it public yet—a few more days will make it more sure—but I wanted you to know at once.”
Jack remembered his first command as he had seen her last, here at Pearl Harbor. He had shaken hands with every man of her crew, and as he walked away they had cheered. Now most of them were dead, sealed forever in the iron coffin they had sailed against the enemy. Their faces swam before his eyes, and he relived moments of excitement, moments of corrosive fear, quiet moments on a tranquil sea, that he had shared with them. There would be no reunions in years to come.
He straightened his shoulders. Admiral Garfield was watching him with a gentle expression. “A lot of good men have gone West in this war, Commander,” he said, “and we’ve all had friends among them. You have my sympathy.”
“And mine,” Miller added.
“Thank you, sir. And thank you for telling me like this. I…I wouldn’t have liked to find out from a bulletin on my desk.”
“No, I didn’t think you would. And I wish I could postpone my business with you, but it won’t wait. We’re going onto the offensive in the Aleutians with an invasion of Attu and Kiska. Intelligence says the Nips will try to counter with a major battle fleet. I’m sending you to the Kuriles to interdict them.”
Jack set aside his sadness for later. His mind boiled with speculation over this new assignment. The Aleutian chain stretched southwestward from Alaska like a spear aimed at Japan, and one of the first Jap assaults after Pearl Harbor had been against the outermost ports of Kiska and Attu. At the time some had thought this was a prelude to an invasion of Alaska or the West Coast, but having seized the two islands and garrisoned them, the Japs apparently forgot about them. An American invasion would certainly remind them, however, and call forth a response. And Manta was to help block that response. “Aye, aye, sir,” said Jack levelly. “When do we sail?”
