Battle Stations: a novel of the Pacific War (Crash Dive Book 3) Page 2

  “Aye, aye, sir!” The ensign grinned up at Charlie. “The commander will see you now, Mr. Harrison.”

  Charlie smiled with narrowed eyes, partly to convey, “Nice one, kid.” And to add, “I’m committing your name and face to memory.”

  Even with a war on, the Navy preserved its stalwart tradition of hazing.

  Quiet Bill occupied a creaking chair behind a big desk stacked with papers. The desk drab and built to last forever, like everything in the Navy. A fan whirred on the desk, startling papers but doing little to reduce the oppressive July heat.

  Behind him, filing cabinets stood at attention against the wall, each packed with student files. Young men who went on to bright careers in the boats. Unfortunates who washed out and found themselves in for another line of work.

  Charlie stood at attention. “Reporting to the commander as ordered, sir.”

  The commander gestured. “Grab a chair, Harrison.” He thumbed open a file folder and scanned its contents. “Two war patrols. Ran the gun crew that sank the Mizukaze in the Solomon Sea. Got a Silver Star for the action. In the Celebes Sea, you took command and sank Yosai. Put some holes in a light carrier and a heavy cruiser, which rammed another cruiser and sank him. Got a boatload of refugees home. Awarded the Navy Cross. An exemplary contribution to the war effort.”

  “Thank you, sir.” So far, so good, though he sensed a “but” coming.

  “Hara-kiri, they call you. Men like you are showing that some things aren’t impossible, only unlikely. Not to mention proving twenty years of doctrine wrong. Some might say you were reckless, though. Reckless and lucky. They think you’re an outlier, statistically speaking.”

  Spoken like a true submariner. Submariners loved their statistics. In undersea combat, nothing was certain. All outcomes were calculated probabilities.

  “Big rewards usually have big risks attached,” Charlie said.

  “Like when you ran off on your own to fight the Japs on Mindanao?”

  There it was. The “but.”

  Charlie’s spine tingled while the commander scratched a fresh note in his file. “That was complicated, sir. It seemed like the right call at the time.”

  “Uh-huh.” Quiet Bill slammed the folder shut. “I heard something else. Something not in the file. Some business about modifying your fish. If that’s true, you took one hell of a risk. You could have blown up your boat.”

  Charlie said nothing.

  The commander frowned. “All right—”

  “I took a lot of risks when I was in command of Sabertooth, sir. But every one of them was a calculated risk.”

  Quiet Bill eyed him a moment longer but dropped it. If Charlie had modified torpedoes but was still serving in the submarines, somebody high up had buried it.

  “It’s all in the past,” the man said. “I’m concerned about the future. I assume you heard the scuttlebutt about Congressman May shooting his mouth off.”

  “I did, sir.”

  Everybody at the school knew about it. Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs Andrew May toured the Pacific Theater and held a press conference when he got home. He told the press not to worry about American submariners because the Japanese set their depth charges too shallow.

  Thanks to this valuable intelligence, the IJN would correct its mistake. The enemy had already bagged seventeen submarines so far in the war. A thousand souls rested in the deep. That number might now well skyrocket.

  “Back in April, after we blew Admiral Yamamoto out of the sky, the Japs executed three of the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders,” the commander went on. “Lined up them up and shot them like dogs. Firing squad. Promised a one-way ticket to Hell for any more pilots they captured.”

  America responded to the Pearl Harbor attack by launching sixteen B25 bombers, normally land-based, from the carrier Hornet. The planes bombed Tokyo and other installations but couldn’t return. They crash-landed in China. Colonel Doolittle’s raid had boosted morale across the home front.

  Charlie wasn’t sure where the commander was going with all this.

  Quiet Bill growled, “The thing is, we’re getting cocky, and they’re getting desperate. The war isn’t going to end anytime soon. It’s just going to get nastier and bloodier. We’re going to need our best out there in the boats. Understand?”

  A trickle of sweat ran down Charlie’s back. “Yes, sir.”

  “You’d be the first exec who hasn’t run every department at least once, especially engineering. The first with only two war patrols under his belt. You follow me, son?”

  “Yes, sir.” This was it. Quiet Bill wasn’t going to qualify him.

  “Qualification as an exec is similar to qualification for command. Do you think you’re ready to command, Harrison?”

  No, Charlie thought with brutal honesty. He’d gotten a taste of it, though, and he wanted it. “Is anybody really ready?”

  For him, it was a very real, not rhetorical, question.

  Quiet Bill sighed. “As good an answer as one could give, I guess.” The man’s eyes flickered across Charlie’s face, which was greased with sweat. “Relax, Harrison. I’m qualifying you for exec.”

  Charlie grinned before he could catch himself. “Outstanding, sir.”

  “Despite the deficiencies in your experience, you’ve shown yourself to be a mature CO and team player over the last three months. You’re cool under fire. It’d be a bigger mistake to take you off the submarines than leave you in.” He gazed at Charlie with concern. “You’re sweating like a pig. Too hot in here?”

  “I was worried,” Charlie admitted.

  “Qualification doesn’t mean you get detailed,” Quiet Bill reminded him.

  His heart sank. Now comes the bad news. “Of course, sir.”

  “As it happens, the commanders agreed with my reservations. Nobody would have you.” The man raised his hands. “Hang on a second, I’m not finished. Nobody, that is, except one. Gilbert Moreau.”

  Charlie’s eyes widened. He couldn’t believe it. “Captain Moreau of the Sandtiger?”

  “You want the posting? She’s just finishing up a refit at Mare Island.”

  “Are you kidding? The man’s a legend!”

  “He’s one of our best, for sure. As good as Mush Morton. Big risk taker, like you. I hope you all survive the war.”

  Charlie pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet. “Thank you for everything, sir. When do I leave?”

  The commander cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t you want to graduate first? Then you can talk to the detailing officer. He’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  Charlie reminded himself never to show emotion to a superior officer. He forced his expression into one of sullen competence. “Yes. Of course, sir.”

  The old submariner shook his head. “Chomping at the bit to kill some more Japs.” He swiveled in his chair to jam Charlie’s file in its proper cabinet. “Captain Moreau is going to love you, Harrison. Dismissed. Good luck to you.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HOMECOMING

  The troop train pounded across America, hauling Sherman tanks and boxcars filled with khaki-clad servicemen. The soldiers played Acey-Deucey, smoked, sang bawdy songs, read Batman and Tarzan comic books. As the days grew hotter, they pulled down the windows and lounged in their skivvies. Once a day, they poured out of the train for physical training, sometimes a lukewarm shower from the water tanker’s spout. At night, they slept in foldout bunks veiled by curtains.

  A member of a solitary brotherhood, Charlie kept to himself. He’d served in the submarines long enough he didn’t mind being cooped up so long. He sat by the window and gazed out. Big cities, small towns, mountains, and farmland rolled past. Amazing, this country, how big and beautiful and worth fighting for. He celebrated Independence Day watching fireworks bang over Chicago.

  Every mile of track brought him closer to his new command. Closer to the city where he grew up. The future and the past. Destiny, his friend Rusty had called it. It was out there waiti
ng for him, but first he had to get there.

  Whistle shrieking, the train chugged into the San Francisco station right on schedule. Young Marines roared and waved from the windows. All headed for the Pacific. Charlie had listened to them brag about killing Japs, watched them write anxious letters to loved ones. Many wouldn’t be coming home, and they knew it.

  Charlie scanned the crowd as the train gasped to a halt, exhaling steam. His heart sank. He’d sent a telegram from New London, but she hadn’t come.

  He shouldered his sea bag and stepped off the train into the crowd.

  “Charlie!”

  The feminine voice pierced him like a bullet. He spun in place, head bobbing for a better look. Shouting Marines surged around him.

  “Over here!”

  She stood on tiptoes to make herself taller, sweeping her arm over her head at the end of the platform.

  Charlie grinned and waved back. “Evie!”

  He wound through the swirling khaki crowd until he stood in front of her, still wearing a big dumb grin. She beamed her bright smile back at him. A simple gray short-sleeved dress sheathed her body.

  Evie looked fantastic.

  Then she launched herself into a hug, squeezing him for all she was worth. “Well, look at you!”

  His heart pounded in his ears as he held her warm body. Her scent brought an avalanche of memories. “God, Evie. It’s great to see you.”

  “You and me both!” She took a step back. “So how long do we have?”

  “Only a few hours. I have to report to my new CO.”

  “Well, that is TB. Too bad.” She took his hand. “Come on, then!”

  Evie pulled him off the platform and out onto the busy, sun-washed sidewalk. Charlie followed with hesitant steps, taking it all in. The city had changed, bustling with war effort. They headed toward the waterfront.

  “What have you been doing with yourself?” he asked her.

  “Working at the Ford plant. I’m a Rosie the riveter. Like that song by The Four Vagabonds?” She bent her arm and flexed her bicep. “We can do it!”

  “I don’t know that song,” said Charlie, amused and bewildered.

  “The factory doesn’t make cars anymore. We finish tanks, mostly. Send them off to the Pacific to fight. Picture me in overalls with a scarf wrapped around my head, holding a rivet gun.”

  “I’ll bet you’re a babe even in that outfit,” he told her.

  She punched his shoulder. “When I’m not doing that, I work on my victory garden, sell war bonds, give blood, hand in my empty toothpaste tubes. Everybody’s busy these days. Too bad you don’t have time to get up to Tiburon.”

  His hardworking mother and three older sisters had raised him after his father died back in 1932, during the hard times of the Depression. Despite the hardships of those years, they’d pulled together and done all right. His upbringing by four women had given him a strong mix of confidence and caution. His family’s poverty had taught him to be resourceful and put work first.

  Probably best he didn’t see Mom. He’d broken her heart when he’d gone off to the Naval Academy. America didn’t want war, but Charlie saw it as inevitable and wanted to get ahead of the curve. The peacetime draft came just a few years later.

  If he went home, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to leave again.

  “I have a stack of letters,” Charlie said. “Can you deliver them for me?”

  “I sure can.” Evie paused in front of a tavern and caught her breath. “And here we are. One of the few bars where they serve liquor to our brave fighting men. Buy me a drink, sailor?”

  He winced, remembering Jane saying those exact words on a beach in Oahu. He recovered with a smile. “Sure.”

  They walked out onto a veranda overlooking the bay and sat at one of the tables. Most of the patrons wore uniforms. A propaganda poster on the wall gave a shrill warning to servicemen to avoid catching syphilis. Charlie asked for a Schlitz. Evie wanted a Manhattan but ordered a hurricane. Whiskey was in short supply, with most distilleries converted to produce industrial alcohol for torpedo fuel.

  America was at war, all of it was. People and industry, body and mind. Total war. Victory or nothing, no matter what it took, no matter how long it lasted.

  After their drinks arrived, Evie nattered about home. Her father volunteered as a coastal watcher. The women’s dress code raised the hems on dresses to save cloth for the war effort. She bought the dress she was wearing for seven ration coupons, a bargain. Her mother had gotten good at canning garden vegetables.

  Charlie didn’t say much, just watching her. He enjoyed listening to her talk about home while the beer warmed his chest. By the way she went on, she seemed excited to see him but also nervous. Her last letter implied the door was open to possibility. By the time he read it, he’d already moved on, though the fire he and Jane had kindled in Oahu had been a dalliance, not much more.

  Seeing his Evie again stirred him up. Memories, each loaded with feeling, flooded his mind. Now that he sat here in her glow, he realized how much he’d missed her. Not the idea but the genuine article. Bright smile, crazy moods, and all. Before he ran off to the Academy, she’d been his best friend as well as his girl.

  Charlie sensed an opportunity to get her back. She could be his girl again. He didn’t know the words. He had no right to ask her to wait. He must earn it somehow, but he didn’t know how to do that. He had so little to offer a woman.

  His eyes dropped to her bosom while she talked. He remembered being with her before he joined the Navy, dozens of intimate moments.

  Unbidden, another memory intruded. Him and Jane fumbling in the dark in his room at the Royal Hawaiian, his hand grazing her soft pert breast.

  He felt the heat rise to his cheeks. God, had he been cheating on Evie? Was he now cheating on Jane? He shifted his gaze to the bay and watched the boats. Wind swept its surface of the bay and rippled the water.

  “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you?”

  His cheeks burned. “What? Who do you mean?”

  “The Navy. No, not the Navy. The war. You went and married it.”

  She may not have understood him like Jane did, but she had him figured out.

  “I don’t have a lot to give a woman right now. Nothing real, anyway.” There, he said it.

  He wanted her, sure. But he didn’t think he could have her. Taking her back would be unfair.

  She sighed. “I wasn’t talking about us. I was talking about you. Don’t give too much of yourself to this war.”

  “I’m going to live through this,” Charlie assured her. “I promise I will.”

  “I believe you. One day, peace will come. When it’s over, you have to be able to come home. You have to be able to give yourself to another cause.”

  Charlie thought about Jack Reynolds, the S-55’s exec. So consumed by his hatred of the Japanese that even if he lived, he wouldn’t survive the war.

  “I’m taking the war one day at a time,” he said lamely.

  “You and your naval gazing,” Evie sighed and added, “That was a pun.” She looked him dead in the eye and set her empty glass down. “You’re going to buy me another one of these, Charlie Harrison, and keep ’em coming.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HOME FRONT

  Charlie boarded a ferry bound for the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. There, he’d find Captain Moreau and Sandtiger, at the base for an overhaul.

  The hour-long journey gave him time to think. He’d made the right decision about Evie, but still felt a strong longing. Seeing her had inflicted a piercing loneliness. His short visit to San Francisco had only made him homesick.

  As the ferry passed Alcatraz, he gazed west past the Golden Gate Bridge into the blue haze of the Pacific. His return to duty would focus his restless brain. Life was a lot simpler out there, cruising the deep.

  Back in San Francisco, the afternoon fog rolled in and shrouded the city. The ferry chugged past Tiburon. Charlie smiled at the landmarks, each of which brought up a
childhood memory. He blew a kiss to his mom and sisters.

  The boat reached Mare Island and warped to the dock. Sailors hoisted their sea bags and tromped down the gangplank. Charlie asked directions. He stowed his bag in his room and went to the officer’s club, where he hoped to find Moreau.

  The commander of the Sandtiger played poker against two men sitting at a corner table. Charlie took a moment to register details. Buzz cut, bushy eyebrows, big nose, heavy jowls, square shoulders. A bear of a man. A lit cigar protruded from meaty lips. The captain scowled at him, face flushed with liquor.

  “Who could dis be?” he said in a thick Cajun accent. He waved Charlie forward. “Come see, boy.”

  Charlie stood at attention. “Lt. Charles Harrison, sir. Reporting—”

  “Well, well!” The captain grinned at the other players. “Dis here boy is my new exec, and just in time too. Fierce one, ain’t he?”

  One of the men looked up at Charlie. Balding, slim, gray eyes sharp as flint. Lt. commander insignia on his collar. Another submarine captain. “Just in time is right. God, look at him. Just a kid.”

  “Kid sank the Mizukaze, Frank. Avenged the 56.”

  “Ah,” the captain said. “You’re that Harrison.”

  His imperious impression didn’t change. Charlie couldn’t tell if being that Harrison was good or bad in his book.

  “Second time out, he sank Yosai,” Moreau said. “They call him Hara-kiri. What’d you do on your last patrol, you sumbitch? Sink some sampans, did ya?”

  The captain shook his head. “You always did like the wildcards, Gil.”

  “He ain’t wild. He’s an Ace of Spades. He’s my Ace now. Charlie, dis here is Cap’n Rickard, commands the Redhorse. Cap’n Shelby, the Warmouth. Fighting captains. The best of the best.”

  Shelby leaned back in his chair. His frank, friendly face broke into a crooked smile. “God help you with this maniac, Harrison.”

  “We’re gonna kill us some Japs.” Moreau bared his teeth and rubbed his big paws together. “A whole lot of ’em. Big mission ComSubPac is cookin’ up for us maniacs. Real big.” He squinted through a puff of cigar smoke. “Sail tomorrow, Charlie boy. Tonight, you got liberty.”