Edge of Valor (39 page)

When they reached the bottom, Landa took Ingram aside. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

Landa didn't look to be in a light mood. And Ingram knew Landa's moods well. “Pardon?”

“It's personal, Todd.”

“Okay.” Ingram turned to White. “Take them aft, Tubby, and group up on the quarterdeck near the big gun mount, port side. I'll be right along.”

“Yes, sir.” White's eyebrows rose.

Ingram shrugged. “Don't know.”

“See you back aft.” Signaling with a hand over his head, Tubby White collected the Air Corps crew and Marines and walked them toward the fantail.

Ingram turned to Landa. “What?”

“You're going home.”

“Come again?”

“You're going home. Now. Your plane leaves in three hours.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Otis Dewitt and Toliver walked up. “Okay?” asked DeWitt.

“Okay what?” demanded Ingram. “What are you guys doing?”

DeWitt said, “Todd, it's about—uh, hello, Colin.”

Blinde had somehow merged with the group. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

Ingram whispered to Landa, “He's supposed to be going aft with the others.” Landa grunted.

DeWitt made introductions, then said to Blinde, “How'd you like the ceremony, Colin?”

“Very fitting, indeed. The general put just the right touch on it, I thought.”

Landa took a deep breath, once again inhaling Aqua Velva. Toliver must have sniffed it too, because he flashed a quick smile to Landa.

“How can we help you, Mr. Blinde?” Landa asked.

The “Mr. Blinde” was not lost on Colin Blinde. “I . . . ah, I just wanted to say hello.”

“Mr. Blinde. Please be informed that this is a classified conversation.”

Blinde gave a broad smile. “Oh, that's all right. I'm cleared for top secret.”

Silence. They stared at him.

Blinde gave a short laugh. “Except in the case where I don't have a need to know, I see. Please forgive me, gentlemen. Really, I was just trying to say hello. I'll be waiting in the back with the others.” He moved away a step.

Ingram said, “Thanks, Colin. Just walk straight aft on this deck. They should be beside number three gun turret. I'll be along shortly.”

“Okay, thanks, Todd.” Blinde walked off. .

“Jackass,” snorted Landa.

“Easy, Commodore,” said DeWitt. “Blinde is well connected in the State Department. He can be either a king maker or a career wrecker.”

“He's a turd.”

“Commodore,” barked DeWitt.

“Sorry, General, . . . uh, where were we?”

DeWitt said, “As I was going to say, this is about Helen. And fortunately, I can help. Correction.” He nodded to Landa and Toliver. “We can help.”

Ingram took a step back. “Speak English, will you?”

Landa took a letter from his back pocket and separated its pages. He removed a page and handed it over. “Take a look at this, Todd. It's from Laura, the letter I got a few days ago.”

The perfumed onionskin rattled in Ingram's hand as he read:

-4-

came together nicely. And so Arturo still chases me around the podium, but he's letting me play. I think he really likes my work. It's a game. I think he's too old for sex but he puts on a big show trying to make everybody think he can still do it.

On a serious note, I've been keeping in touch with Helen and am really worried about her. About two weeks ago, she phoned and almost broke down. I had to coax out of her that one of her patients at Fort MacArthur was wounded seriously; he was a tanker I believe on Okinawa. He lost his crew in a fire and he was seriously burned. He became a head case taking refuge under his bed with all the nightmares.

She told me he went completely fetal at times. Now it's happening to her. She's going fetal under her bed. She's keeping it from Mrs. Peabody but I'm worried now about little Jerry and how he's getting by with all that. I just don't know. She asked for the name of a shrink and I gave her the name of one or two here in Beverly Hills but I think that's too expensive for her.

Last I could get out of her was that she may try a guy at Fort MacArthur.

Well, that may be what she ends up with, but I think she really needs a husband. They've been through so much together. So if there is anything else you can do, please let me know.

Ingram looked up, searching their faces.

Landa nodded.

“Let me read it again,” Ingram said, turning his eyes back to the letter. This time through he dwelt on the part about nightmares and the fetal position. Guilt swept over him as he recalled how many times she had been there for him in rough times. Every time. And now, she was going through it with nobody to help. He had pills. He had belladonna; he had all sorts of stomach tranquilizers and headache pills to get him through. And he had his job and his ship and his crew. Worse, he admitted to himself, he had his pride and tried to suppress what bothered him. Helen did it too, and she buried it deep. But she was taking care of nut cases in San Pedro and raising their son with nobody to really lean on. After all she'd been through in the Philippines, the stress was bound to pile up. Those horrible last days on Corregidor alone should have been enough to break her, to say nothing of being tortured by those Kempetai ghouls on Marinduque Island.

He looked at DeWitt and Landa and Toliver. “I . . . son of a bitch. I don't know what to say.”

DeWitt said, “Well, I do, Todd.” He put a hand on Ingram's shoulder. “You're going home to take care of her. You've both had enough.”

Stark images swirled through Ingram's mind. He shook his head. “How about you, Otis? And you, Jerry? You guys deserve to go before me. Plus I have a ship to take care of.”

Landa said, “No arguments, Todd. You're going home. You have a beautiful wife and a fine young baby to look after. Thirty, sixty days and you'll be back. In the meantime, Tubby White gets to be captain and I get to yell at him, which is the real reason you're going. You're a pain in the ass and I can't intimidate you as easily as Tubby. So, you see it all works out.”

Ingram's head swirled. “I don't know . . . how?”

DeWitt stepped close and spoke in a low tone. “Keep this under your hat, Todd, but Admiral McCain is very ill. Admiral Halsey held him over for the ceremony but is sending him back to the States tonight on Admiral Nimitz's flying boat. You're going on that plane. Maybe you two can sing western songs together. I understand he likes that stuff.”

“Me? I can't carry a tune,” said Ingram.

“I'll teach you some farting jokes,” said Landa, the sun now cooperating and glinting off his impossibly white teeth.

“And I'll send along some reading material,” added Toliver.

DeWitt handed over a manila packet. “Orders. We had them cut during the ceremony. Signed by Boom Boom here and endorsed by Admiral Halsey.”

“It's official,” said Landa. “How can you lose?”

“I . . . I have stuff to pack, the ship to think of, my crew.”

Landa said, “Your gear is being sent over from the
Maxwell
. You're headed to the
South Dakota
to join up with Admiral McCain, and then you're off. From there, you hop on the plane and,” he pointed east, “course zero-nine-zero.”

DeWitt pulled out his cigarette holder, plugged in a Chesterfield, and lit up. “I think that's Navy talk for home, Todd.”

Landa said, “And don't worry about the Mighty Max. Tubby and I will take good care of her.”

Ingram sniffed. “That's what I'm afraid of.”

“I appreciate your confidence,” said Landa.

Ingram blinked. It was all happening too fast. Then he remembered Landa speaking with DeWitt, Toliver, Sutherland, and Halsey. “You mean you worked this out all the way to the top.”

“Even Halsey has heard of you,” said DeWitt. “He was happy to do it. He thinks McCain will enjoy the company.”

Ingram gulped. “At least let me say goodbye to my guests.”

DeWitt pointed, “Go. Be back here in five minutes. Can't keep Admiral McCain waiting.”

Chapter Thirty

5 September 1945

North Pacific Ocean, en route to North Island Naval Air Station, Coronado, California

T
he ride in Admiral Nimitz' four-engine PB2Y Coronado was comfortable but long . . . and boring. Hour after hour of droning interspersed with bouncing and bucking and strapping in and hanging on while trying to smile and look nonchalant.

Vice Adm. John McCain had been in a special bunk and was attended by a doctor, a corpsman, and two lieutenant staffers. The doctor kept an IV drip nearby, and once, three hours outside Wake Island, they actually hooked him up for a while. By the next morning, after their takeoff from Pearl Harbor, the admiral seemed much better, his eyes twinkling.

The weather had calmed, and Ingram walked forward to chat with the cockpit crew. Afterward, as he sauntered aft past McCain's bunk, the admiral spoke. “How's it going, son?”

Ingram smiled. “Fine, Admiral.”

“Have a seat.”

Ingram was surprised. The admiral had slept well after the doc had given him some knockout drops. He looked to the on-duty corpsman, who gave a quick nod.

Ingram sat in a comfortable chair facing McCain. The admiral had a great deal more color in his cheeks now than he'd had when two sailors carried him through the hatch yesterday. Skinny and short of stature to begin with, his weight had dropped to near one hundred pounds. The rumor was true.
John McCain has given his all
.

McCain asked, “You play cribbage?”

“Yes, sir. A lousy game.”

“Well, that makes two of us. Maybe later today.”

“I'd like that, Admiral. By the way, I'm Todd Ingram.”

“Shit, if I didn't know who you are you wouldn't be on this airplane.”

Ingram straightened a bit.

“Ray Spruance speaks highly of you.”

“He has been very kind to me.” Actually, Spruance hadn't been kind at all. Exhausted and debilitated after his escape from the Philippines, Ingram had been posted to a cushy job in San Francisco. Soon afterward, Admiral Spruance presented him with his first Navy Cross in the Pope Suite of the St. Francis Hotel, then turned him around and sent him out to the Solomon Islands as executive officer of the USS
Howell
(DD 482).

McCain nodded toward Ingram's Naval Academy ring. “What class?”

“Nineteen thirty-seven.”

“Class standing?”

Ingram pulled a face.

“Come on, I ain't gonna kick you off the plane.”

“Forty-eight in a class of 214.”

McCain lay back and laced his fingers behind his head. “Well, then, you don't have a thing to worry about, son. Care to guess my class standing?”

“Number one.”

McCain laughed. “You are a great bullshitter. You'll go a long way in this man's Navy. You going to stay in?”

“I made it this far, so yes, sir.”

“And Jerry Landa's your boss?”

Again, Ingram was surprised. “Yes, sir. CO of DESRON 77.”

McCain muttered, “Black-shoe bullshit.”

Ingram knew what he meant. They were jousting. Aviator lingo versus surface officer lingo. Aviators wore brown shoes; surface officers wore black. “Sir?”

“I seen you a few times alongside guzzling my fuel oil.”

“I saw you up there, Admiral. Thanks for the drink.”

McCain's eyes glittered again. “Jerry Landa,” he snorted. “Tells great farting jokes. I never laughed so hard.”

Ingram grinned.

“Okay, here it is. I graduated 79 out of a class of 116. About as low as whale shit.”