Honorable Men (17 page)

“If I had been told as a middy that I would ever live to experience such a humiliation...!”

Then he broke off abruptly and asked Chip some questions about his life and background. It appeared that he had done his homework on his flagship skipper, for he knew about the Benedicts and Benedict. But he had no objection, he observed curtly, to wealth.

“Annapolis men are supposed to be snobs. Or didn't you know? We have to marry dough if we want our children to grow up to be little ladies and gentlemen. I've never been in the swing. Like a poor sap, I married for love.”

“I didn't take you for a snob, sir.”

“Just for an SOB? You dropped the
n
?”

“I don't care if my boss is an SOB so long as he's a competent flotilla commander.”

“And I'm that?”

“So far, anyway.”

“Are you trying to flatter me, Benedict?”

Chip suppressed a smile. “By agreeing that you're an SOB? Maybe. Are you so proud of it?”

Hastings snorted. “Okay. We're quits. I
am
a good flotilla commander. And what's more, you're going to be a good LST skipper. Though that's not saying much. I never saw such a sorry lot of supposed naval officers as I have down here. Does it matter, though? What is an LST but a sea truck? Anyone can drive one. But I'm damned if my flagship isn't going to have at least a vague resemblance to a naval vessel. If it kills me! And that's why my flag is going up on your LST.”

“I am honored, sir.”

“Oh, no, you're not, Benedict! Don't give me that. You're pissed off. Every officer and man on your tub is going to hate your guts. They'll know they can't be ragamuffins under my eye. And, by God, it'll be your job to see they're not!”

Chip glanced at his almost empty glass. “Will that be all, sir? Perhaps I should be getting back to the base.”

As he had anticipated, Hastings looked disappointed. “Is it so pressing?”

“Not, of course, if you want me to stay.”

“Well, God damn it all, I do want you to stay!” Hastings was beginning to show the effect of the whiskey. “Can't you imagine that even a flotilla commander might want a little human company?”

But Chip was unyielding. “Human company or naval company? Does the commander want to drink with the lieutenant? Or does Gerry Hastings want to drink with Chip Benedict?”

“Drink with me, Chip.”

“With pleasure, sir. And we'll have a bottle on me. Waiter!” Chip proceeded to order a quart of the best Scotch that was available.

Hastings nodded to approve. “I like the way you did that. For you know, Chip, even if I married a poor girl, I'm still a snob. I like aristocrats. I'm a bit of one myself. My greatgrandfather was a captain under Farragut. And my old man served with Dewey in Manila.”

“That's better than making glassware, isn't it?”

“Oh, I think so,” Hastings candidly agreed. “I never meant that your family was aristocratic. I meant that you were. You're too good for a grubby trade like that, my lad. Though I suppose once this war is over, your old man will expect you back in the shop.”

Chip had never before heard the idea expressed that
he
might be too good for Benedict. He found it decidedly agreeable. “I'd love to know why you went into the navy.”

“There was never any idea I wouldn't. From the time I was a small kid. We have a family tradition of service. It's as if we had been chosen by God to guard America. Seriously! We look at all you capitalists as so many children romping in the fields, blissfully unaware, as you pick one another's pockets, of the wolves watching hungrily from the forest. And every couple of decades we have to take charge of things until the wolves have been beaten back. But then you can always go back to your little fun and games.”

“I see. You really feel superior to us.”

“Of course we do! Because whatever else we may be, we're men. And the only way you can tell a man from a dog is if he can kill and skin a wolf. We don't set much store on the art of pickpocketing.”

“You belong to the Middle Ages, don't you?” Chip surmised. “When a man could live by his sword and leave moneymaking to Jews and usurers.”

“Just so. The Industrial Revolution did away with gentlemen. You find them today only in the armed services.”

“And it takes gentlemen to win a war?”

“You bet it does. MacArthur, Patton, Marshall—where will you find their types on Wall Street?”

“Then I am fortunate indeed to go into battle under the flag of Gerald Hastings!” Chip raised his glass.

“But what the hell can I do with a fleet of barges?” Hastings demanded, gloomy again. He hung his head as if struck by a sudden blow of depression. “When I think of the opportunity I had! Navigator of a battlewagon! You know, Chip, we wait all our lives for the blessed chance of war—it's what we live for, don't kid yourself it isn't, whatever the other regulars may say—and when the gods give me the one thing I begged and prayed for, what do I do but blow it? And condemn myself to this!”

“Where you will make your name,” Chip insisted, with an air of confidence that he did not quite feel. It was almost awesome to him that even under the influence of the liquor Hastings would not attack the commanding officer who had foisted off his error on a junior. “How do you know the gods didn't plan it all for your benefit? Amphibious warfare is the coming thing. What can you do with battleships but fight other battleships?”

***

Chip and Hastings worked well together from then on. They went to Boston for the commissioning of the ships of the flotilla and the assembling and training of their crews, and Hastings moved his flag and small staff aboard Chip's LST. They sailed on a shakedown cruise to Providence, and the flotilla then crossed the Atlantic to London to await the anticipated invasion of France.

All hands chafed under the commander's relentless drive. But Chip noted that it worked. Hastings would board one of his vessels without warning at two in the morning, rouse up the captain, bring the crew to battle stations, put them through all the drills, including fire, collision and even man overboard, and then inspect the ship from bow to stern. He was always impassive and deliberate; he addressed his criticisms to the commanding officer and none other. He never offered the smallest commendation; a thing done wrong had to be corrected, that was all. And it was corrected, too. For the commander's dreaded nocturnal visitations would continue unabated until it had been.

One thing that surprised Chip was the degree of Hastings's animus against the enemy. He had surmised that a man with so small a regard for civilians might have a natural admiration for the spirit of Japan and Germany, which could create such splendid war machines. But this was not the case. Hastings took his role of protector of his nation so deeply to heart that he seemed to feel an actual obligation to hate and despise all that threatened it. There was no evidence that his universe contained a god, but it certainly contained a number of devils. Sometimes Chip wondered whether his friend was not more concerned with killing than saving.

“Why are we worth defending?” he asked him once.

“We?”

“All us wretched capitalists. All the people you sneer at: movie moguls, slick brokers, purveyors of porno rags and mags, shyster lawyers, quack doctors—all those that fail to recognize the supremacy of the navy blue. Why not let them burn up in the cleansing fire of a fascist victory?”

Hastings seemed shocked. “But don't you see I've got to have hope?” he cried. “What in God's name is the point of keeping America free if America won't someday produce something? And isn't that, damn it all, precisely what smart, trained bright guys like you were made for? Jesus, there must have been some reason for you!”

Only with Chip did he relax, and Chip, to deserve his confidence, had to run the tightest ship of all. He had become totally identified with his unpopular but respected superior, and the skippers of the other vessels always came to him when they needed something from the flag. It was not unlike his sixth-form year at Saint Luke's, when the masters used to ask him to intervene in their favor with Mr. B. He had as much faith, too, in the commander as he had had in his grandfather. Gerald Hastings was undeniably a great administrator.

T
HE INVASION
went off easily, without damage to any of Hastings's flotilla, because they landed in Gold Beach, where the German opposition was not as strong as in the others. But on their second trip to Normandy, while they were waiting offshore at anchor for the tide to go out before disembarking their ammunition trucks, the ship was struck by a bomb from a low-flying Stuka. As there was no detonation, Chip, on the bridge, at first assumed that the bomb must have passed through a bulkhead and plunged into the sea. But the report of a search party soon revealed otherwise. It was on the tank deck in an ammunition truck. His first thought was that Hastings must at once transfer his flag.

He found the commander in the wardroom, drinking coffee, waiting for him.

“The bomb's in one of the trucks. It must have pierced two bulkheads. You can see it. It's sticking out.”

Hastings was expressionless. “How near the bow doors?”

“Close. Second row.”

“Good. Open them and lower the ramp. I know about demolition. I'll handle it. I'll need just one man, a volunteer, and a stretcher to carry the bomb. Get the crew aft as far as you can except for the men on the guns.”

“Why? If it blows, it'll take the whole ship.”

“Don't argue with me. You never know with bombs.” Hastings was on his feet, putting his cap on. “Get that man, will you.”

“I'm your man.”

“Don't be an ass. You're the CO.”

“The exec can run this tub. You've said yourself anyone can do it. You need a cool hand. I'm it.”

Hastings paused, but only for a second. “Okay. You get the stretcher and turn things over to the exec. I'll be looking at that bomb.”

Chip remembered afterwards that his mind seemed to have room only for action. He went to the bridge, told his whitefaced executive officer to open the bow doors and assume command. All personnel not on guns were ordered to the fantail. He then went to the tank deck via sick bay, where he picked up a stretcher. He found the commander outlined against the dawn light filtering through the opening bow doors, intently studying the round black end of a cube protruding through the hole it had made in the truck side.

“It's all right,” Hastings muttered. “If it's been through two bulkheads without going off, it's probably a dud. Put the stretcher down right here and do exactly as I tell you.”

Chip felt an instant shock of relief. A dud. We're going to be heroes over a dud! But as he watched the commander's finÂ
gers begin to manipulate that cube, he realized with a second shock that Hastings was not treating it as a dud. His fingers moved so slowly that they seemed only to be grasping it.

The minutes ceased to be time; this was a void in space. So this is how it will end, Chip thought curiously. I won't even know it. Suddenly it will be over. Did I ever really exist? And if so, how can I end? But I will. And the problems will be over, too. Benedict. Mummie. The right and the wrong.

Out of nowhere came the commander's voice.

“You'll have to get the nose when it comes out. Handle it as if it were your sore prick. When I say ‘Lift,' we place it on the stretcher.”

Unbelievably, these things happened. Chip was surprised by the hard touch of the metal. Then he and the commander were lying on their stomachs on the ramp, lowering the stretcher, by its leather thongs, inch by inch to the water.

“Slowly, oh so slowly,” Hastings whispered. Not till it was totally submerged did he say, “Okay. Let go.”

Chip stared at the black water surface, hypnotized.

“Let's get the hell away from here! It may still blow.”

Chip, walking down the tank deck after the quickly striding shape of his superior, realized that his shirt was a soggy, heavy lump of sweat.

Topside, in officers' quarters, Hastings said tersely: “Return the men to battle stations. And then report to my cabin.”

When Chip pulled aside the curtain of the commander's compartment, a bottle was thrust suddenly in his hand. It was brandy. He took a long swig.

“Do you realize, Lieutenant Benedict, that you're drinking while your ship's at general quarters?”

“I'm following the flag, sir.”

He felt Hastings's tight grip on his shoulder. They were the same hard fingers that had gripped the shell.

“Okay, pal. Now get your ass back to the bridge.”

And Chip, standing up in the fresh early morning, looking out at the vast, now peaceful flat sea, felt a happiness such as he had never known before.

***

When the flotilla was next in London, Chip paid a visit to his friend Lars Alversen, at Navy Headquarters in Grosvenor Square. Lars was on Admiral Stark's staff, in a position of responsibility beyond his rank of mere senior lieutenant, as one could at once see from his large office and bare desk. He jumped up as Chip came in, his eyes alight with enthusiastic affection.

“Chip, by God! I knew you were in, and I was just going to your ship. I have news for you.”

“Can it wait? Till I tell you something first?”

Lars looked at him, dumfounded. Then he laughed, as if this was Chip all over, and returned to his seat. “It will keep, I guess. What's on your mind?”

As Chip told the story of Gerald Hastings and the bomb, he could not but be impressed by how sympathetically Lars listened. Lars was that rarest of men, the perfect staff officer. It was obvious from the trim fit of his unwrinkled blue uniform, from the relaxed attention of his demeanor, that he had not been recently in any areas of bloody action, but he managed to imply that he knew you had been and to seem to deprecate, with just the right emphasis, his own immunity. Chip knew that Lars could not have escaped that immunity, no matter how much he had tried. He was too evidently indispensable to an efficient headquarters.