Into the Storm (2 page)

Now, standing on the bridgewing, he allowed a huge yawn to escape and hoped it made him look calm instead of just worn-out. The morning sun was bright, and the beauty of the vast, calm, almost violet sea was marred only by the distant hump of Bawean Island and the tiny cluster of American and British destroyers guarding
Exeter
’s wounded flanks like battle-weary army ants escorting their injured queen to a new home. As far as Matt knew, he was looking at all that remained of the Allied Forces in the American, British, Dutch, Australian—or ABDA—defensive area. He knew they’d been the last ones out of the tangled mass of wreckage and half-sunken hulks that Surabaya, Java, had become. ABDAFLOAT’s initial force was composed of two heavy cruisers, seven light cruisers, twenty-three destroyers, and about thirty submarines and assorted support vessels. Now all that was left were three battered, Great War–vintage U.S. “four-stacker” destroyers, one British destroyer,
Encounter
, and the badly damaged heroine of the River Plate, HMS
Exeter
. The massive Japanese fleet that destroyed or chased off the rest of their comrades now had them alone to concentrate on. USS
Pope
(DD-225) and HMS
Encounter
screened
Exeter
’s starboard side, while USS
Mahan
(DD-102) and Matt’s own
Walker
(DD-163) screened to port.

He glanced up at the lookout standing in the little tub near the top of the mast. Rodriguez, electrician’s mate 3rd class, appeared transfixed, staring through heavy binoculars at a point far astern. From where he stood, Matt couldn’t see anything yet, but he knew the two Japanese heavy cruisers and the destroyer that had pursued them since 0700 were still behind them. Rodriguez could see their smoke and they were getting closer.

When they’d slipped out of Surabaya the night before, they intended to run the Sunda Strait into the Indian Ocean and make a dash for Ceylon. Blocked by the enemy, they reversed course across the Java Sea to run east along the Borneo coast. Their quick about-face gained them breathing room, but the enemy cruisers launched observation planes. Two circled even now, high above and beyond reach of their meager antiaircraft defenses. All they could do was watch while the planes kited lazily overhead and reported their progress to every Japanese ship within range of their radios.

The convoy was limited to twenty-seven knots by
Exeter
’s damage, but Matt knew
Walker
couldn’t steam much faster herself. The daily litany of mechanical casualties plaguing his ancient ship read more like a shipyard inventory than a morning report.
Pope
and
Mahan
were in no better shape. The stress of constant steaming and frequent combat—in addition to ordinary wear and tear—had placed a heavier strain on
Walker
’s machinery and equipment than she’d endured in all her twenty-three years of service.
Walker
had gone beyond her design, and Matt was very much afraid that she, as well as her crew, was being pushed beyond their capability.

He hadn’t commanded her long, only four and a half months. As a reservist, even one from the Academy, he’d been treated pretty rough by the Navy. He’d worked his way into the exec’s slot on a Benson-class destroyer (a major step up in the peacetime Navy), but he’d lost the posting to an older regular officer and found himself on the beach. He knew it wouldn’t last and he was right. War was brewing all over the world, and it was just a matter of time before the United States got involved. When he got the letter, he expected—hoped for—a posting to one of the new Fletcher-class destroyers, possibly as gunnery officer. That would have suited him fine. Much to his surprise, he was given a command. But not of one of the sleek, lethal, modern destroyers he yearned for. No, he was to command one of the decrepit and almost defenseless antiques with which he was familiar, but found far from satisfying. Even more disheartening, his “new” command was attached to the Asiatic Fleet.

USS
Walker
had toiled with the Asiatic Fleet for more than six years and in that time she’d never been back to the country of her birth. She was 314 feet long and not quite 31 feet wide. Her long, sleek, needleshaped hull and the four slightly raked funnels that provided the unofficial moniker for her class gave an impression of speed. And she was fast—by the standards of 1919—having made thirty-six knots on her trials. Even now she wasn’t what one would have called slow, but the effort required to maintain her maximum speed was . . . excruciating.

Her ancient boilers were choked with sediment, and her steam lines sprouted leaks with unpredictable capriciousness. Her wiring was so corroded that most of it didn’t do anything anymore. Much had been spliced or bypassed, and unidentifiable bundles of wires ran all over the ship. Her hull plates leaked rust through cracked and peeling paint, despite constant work by her crew to keep it chipped and touched up. The plates themselves were only two-thirds as thick as they once had been. She stank of sweat, smoke, grease, paint, fuel oil, steam, and strangely, hot linoleum. Her round bottom made her roll horribly in anything but the calmest seas, and she rattled and groaned and vibrated so badly you could feel it in your teeth. Her blowers produced a loud and decidedly asthmatic
⁵
wheeze, and the general cacophony of abused machinery made hearing difficult in the remotest areas of the ship.

Her main battery consisted of a meager quartet of four-inch guns—only three of which could possibly bear on a single target—and none of which could elevate high enough to engage aircraft. There was one little three-inch antiaircraft gun on the fantail, but its range was so short it was used mostly for firing illumination star shells. The only even marginal antiaircraft defenses she had were two .30-caliber machine guns on the fire-control platform and two .50-caliber guns on the amidships deckhouse. Hanging over the fantail where it tapered sharply to a slightly rounded vee were two old-fashioned depth-charge racks. Her real teeth consisted of twelve 21-inch torpedoes carried in four triple-tube mounts between the number four funnel and the aft deckhouse. The torpedoes, and her once-respectable speed when delivering them, had been the reason for her creation so long ago. But like everything else in this new war so far, the torpedoes had been a grave and costly disappointment.

Matt had always heard that new captains often overlooked the shortcomings of their first command. But the first thing that sprang to mind when he saw her riding at anchor in Manila Bay, besides a general feeling of dismay over her apparent condition, was that the white-painted letters “163” on her bow seemed much too large.

Matt had been to the China Station and the Philippines—the Asiatic Fleet’s area of operations—only once before. He’d been an ensign aboard another four-stacker during the buildup over the
Panay
incident, when the Japanese “accidentally” bombed and sank an American gunboat on the Yangtze River. Even then, the men, ships, and conditions of operation in the Asiatic Fleet made quite a negative impression. Equipment- and personnel-wise, the station was the abused, ugly dog of the Navy. The men were considered the dregs of the service, and the ships were thirdrate obsolescent relics that, it was joked, were kept in the Asiatic Fleet because they weren’t worth the fuel to steam home to scrap. When he assumed command of USS
Walker
he’d studied the log and fitness reports of his predecessor, Captain Simmons. As expected, the crew’s reputation for hard drinking and carousing was confirmed on the pages he read. But to his surprise, there was also a subliminal thread of tolerance, amusement, and even protectiveness among the author’s words. Discipline had been strictly maintained, but it was quickly clear that Captain Simmons had liked his crew. Judging by the initial reserve with which Matt was received, the feeling was mutual. He wondered at the time how difficult it would be for him to “fill the Old Man’s shoes” and how much trouble he’d have making the men conform to his own expectations. Even on more agreeable stations, change often provoked the most friction when a new captain took command. And he hadn’t “come up” in the Asiatic Fleet.

Despite his apprehension, there was little friction after all. Perhaps it was his quiet competence and uncomplicated, black-and-white sense of duty that left no doubt among the crew where they stood. Or maybe it was his quick discovery that these men were not dregs—at least most of them weren’t. Ever since the Depression, the Navy had been particular about the recruits it accepted. A fair percentage of the misfits may have gravitated to the Asiatic Fleet, but for the most part, the men were at least as professional as their counterparts on other stations. They just led an entirely different life than was the norm in the rest of the Navy. They were forced to cope with worn-out equipment and keep their ships combat ready with little more than the proverbial baling wire and chewing gum. It was only natural that they might vent more steam than their peers on stations with less stress, a better climate, and fewer “diversions” than had been the case in China or the Philippines. He could discipline and punish them for their rowdiness and debauchery during a night on the town, but in his heart he couldn’t condemn them for it. Their ability to fix anything, or at least make it “sorta” work, in difficult circumstances appealed to his sense of independence. Whatever the reason, much quicker than he’d expected, he’d been elevated to the exalted status of “Skipper,” and he realized he liked them too.

Now, captain and crew together had been tested in the cauldron of combat, and Matt’s black-and-white concept of right and wrong had come under serious assault. They’d dodged air attacks and experienced the unexpected exultation of “victory” in the Makassar Strait. They’d seen the senseless waste of lives in the Badung Strait caused by confusion and miscommunication. They’d lived through the frustration and horror of the Battle of the Java Sea, while their comrades on other ships and in other navies died for a purpose that began to elude them. No one questioned the War; it came without warning or mercy. It was real, it was allconsuming, and it was here. Why they were fighting it here was the unfathomable question.

Leaving the Philippines was tough. A lot of the guys had Filipino wives and sweethearts, and to them it was home. Some planned to retire there. But after the Air Corps was slaughtered in the opening days of the war, the only things left that had wings had red circles painted on them. Clearly, if the air belonged to the Japanese, remaining in the Philippines was suicide. No one wanted to leave, not even Matt, who still hated being stationed there. But he hated being “run off” even more. Maybe it was his Texas upbringing, or the “Spirit of the Alamo” or something like that, but he’d been perfectly willing to fight to the last even though the withdrawal made good sense.

Shades of gray appeared when
Walker
and Des Ron 29 were redeployed south to defend the Dutch East Indies. It was clearly a hopeless cause. Air cover was still nonexistent, and there weren’t enough ships to stop what was coming. The Dutch oil fields were the Japanese objective, but leaving a few old ships to try and slow them down would only provide them with target practice. If they had to make an Alamo-like stand, why couldn’t they have done it in the Philippines? Their “home” waters, so to speak?

Java belonged to the Dutch, and it was understandable that they’d want to keep it, but it was impossible. Reinforcements weren’t coming. It made more sense to Matt to pull everything out and save the men and ships until they had enough to knock the Japanese on their butts for a change. Of course, he wasn’t an admiral or a politician, and the very condition of the Asiatic Fleet proved that its survival wasn’t a priority to those who were. He admitted he might’ve felt differently if Java was his home. The Nazis had Holland, and Java was all that was left. He
had
felt differently when the Philippines were at stake, and he hadn’t even liked it there. It was all a matter of perspective. He knew he was relatively young and inexperienced, but he couldn’t shake the thought that if it was strategically wrong to defend the Philippines, it was wrong to defend Java too. Maybe he was just bitter. The same people who expected them to fight to the last in the Dutch East Indies hadn’t lifted a finger to support the United States in the Philippines.

After the disaster in the Java Sea he thought even the Dutch would realize it made more sense to fight their way back in than be destroyed getting kicked out. As far as he knew, they hadn’t sunk a single Japanese ship during the battle. Except for
Exeter
and the aged destroyers, ABDA-FLOAT had ceased to exist. He was mistaken. Word was that Admiral Helfrich, the Dutchman who’d replaced Tommy Hart as ABDA’s commander, still planned offensive action even after Admirals Glassford and Palliser told him they had nothing left. The Dutch had no monopoly on stubbornness; the British hadn’t showed much more sense regarding Singapore, and thousands of Americans were trapped in the Philippines, cut off from any support. But it was past time to leave. ABDA had done its best with what it had. There’d been willing cooperation, but no coordination. Without air cover or reconnaissance, or even a common language, they’d been like blindfolded kids running around on tricycles with a steamroller bearing down. It was a disaster.

He often reflected on the certainty he’d felt regarding an eventual war with Germany, and he admitted that before he got out here, he’d never given much thought to the Japanese. Evidently nobody had. Now his entire consciousness was devoted to preventing that underestimated foe from shredding his ship and her crew and sending them to the bottom of the Java Sea.

With a gauging glance at the stately
Exeter
off the port quarter to ensure that
Walker
was holding proper formation, he stepped into the pilothouse. The gunnery officer, Lieutenant (j.g.) Greg Garrett, looked anxiously from the port bridgewing and Matt waved him back. The tall, lanky young officer nodded solemnly and resumed scanning the sea toward the dark smudge in the north that was Borneo. A good kid, Greg. He was conscientious and industrious, if just a bit intense. They were still at general quarters, as they’d been since the morning watch, and Garrett’s battle station was normally on the fire-control platform above the pilothouse. Matt had told him to rotate himself and his team out of the wind and sun periodically. The main battery was useless against air attack, and it would be a while before they were in range of the Japanese cruiser’s eight-inch guns. Longer still before they could hope to reply. Even so, when it was Garrett’s turn to take a break, he merely descended to the pilothouse and kept doing what he’d done above—watching and waiting. Matt understood how the younger man felt. The atmosphere of anxiety and tension was thick. Everyone anticipated the cry warning of enemy ships or planes.