Pacific Interlude (15 page)

“We had a bit of trouble, skipper, but I admit that it was not one hundred percent your men's fault,” was the way he began when Syl entered his office.

“What happened?”

“It's an old story for us. Your men had some girls in that house. The girls went there of their own accord, but some of our men who just came back from Africa didn't like it and broke in. Your men had a right to defend themselves, but when the police arrived they had a fight too. Property damage, some broken heads, I don't know how bad yet. Three of our men are in the hospital and two of yours.”

“Do you have their names?”

Lambert consulted a note on his desk.

“Buller and Cramer, an officer and a CPO. I understand they were the worst. Or from another point of view the best. They fought like bloody lions.”

“What are the charges?”

“Plenty could be drawn up, skipper. Your boys could charge ours with breaking and entering, assault and maybe attempted murder. The damage to the house could be put off on those who broke in. On the other hand we can charge your boys with resisting arrest and creating a bloody riot, even when we got them away from our troops.”

“What do you want to do about it?”

“It would take months for the lawyers and courts to sort it out. Some of your men told us your ship is about to sail to the Philippines. Is that right?”

“I don't know where we're going, but we're getting ready to sail.”

“Well, take your men and get 'em out of here. If you restrict them to the ship until you've left Australia, we'll forget the whole bloody mess. Your men in the hospital will be your problem. We won't press charges if you don't.”

“That sounds good, but I better talk to Mr. Buller and Chief Cramer first …”

Bruised and battered, Cramer and Buller greeted Syl enthusiastically and quickly accepted Lambert's deal.

When a police truck brought the crew of the
Y-18
back to their ship early in the morning, they looked like men who had just lost a battle, hardly like the sailors who were supposed to be getting ready for one. Their uniforms were dirty and torn. Black eyes appeared to be contagious, as were swollen noses, cut cheeks and bandaged hands. Looking sullen and depressed, they lined up on the well deck in front of their commanding officer.

“All right, men,” Syl began, “the less said about this whole mess the better. All hands except last night's duty section are restricted to the ship until we sail. We should be out of here in about three days. The past is past, but I warn you, don't foul up again. We have a long long one ahead of us. Dis
missed.”

The men gave a ragged cheer. For a short time, at least, the
Y-18
was almost a happy ship.

CHAPTER 10

A
HEAD OF SCHEDULE
, the yard prepared to launch the
Y-18
the next day. It was a cool, clear morning with a stiff wind coming in from the bay. Because her diesel tanks had been cleaned but not yet refilled, the ship's engines were still inoperative, and without cargo she would float high in the water like a big steel balloon. While Simpson was making a final inspection of the newly painted bottom Syl asked Higgins where he was going to moor the ship.

“At the fuel dock over there,” Higgins said.

“We don't have power yet. Do you have a tug available?”

“We can horse her over with the lines. Hell, she ain't the
Queen Elizabeth
. You handle the lines on deck, we'll handle them on the wharf.”

“But who's in charge?”

“I am,” Higgins said. “Until you power, she's the yard's responsibility.”

Syl was glad that had been settled, because a gust of wind hit the high-sided tanker as soon as she was water-borne and, in spite of a network of lines holding her, she was blown against a nearby wharf. Syl's men got out fenders in time and no damage was done to the ship, but in all the excitement a heavy manila line which had been supplied by the yard parted under the strain and snapped into the face of a workman on the wharf, smashing his mouth and his nose. The man was carried to a first-aid station to wait for an ambulance. An hour later the superintendent reported that he had a broken nose and a few lost teeth. Although the injuries were relatively minor, Syl, Simpson and a few of the other men were uneasy. The
Y-18
had been launched in blood. A bad omen.

While the ship was taking diesel fuel, trucks arrived alongside with hundreds of cartons of food and gear of all kinds. The crew formed a chain, passing these aboard and stacking them on deck. In the midst of all the confusion, old Henry, Teddy's caretaker, drove up in a station-wagon loaded with cartons of books. At the moment there was no place to put them except the cabin Syl shared with Simpson, where they filled his bunk, the desk and most of the floor space.

“I hate to bother you with paper work at a time like this,” Wydanski said.

“What can I do for you?”

“Do you have any forms for the GI insurance? I want to make some changes in my policy.”

“Do you have to do that
now
?”

“It's just that I want to change my beneficiary,” Wydanski said. “I wouldn't want anything to happen to me before I did that.”

“Nothing's going to happen to you today—”

“But if I don't change it now I won't get a chance to mail it until we get to New Guinea and maybe we won't even stop there. Do you have our orders yet?”

“No.”

“Sir, I'd like to change my beneficiary right away. I won't have any peace of mind until I do. I owe Mildred something. I don't want every damn thing I've got to go to my wife. Mildred's done more for me than anyone ever did.”

“See Mr. Simpson about it. And while you're worrying about Mildred, please don't forget to check the spare parts for the engine room.”

Wydanski got the message and took off.

As soon as the fuel tanks had been filled, Higgins strode down from his office. “You've got to move this bucket out of here—go to the north pier. I've got three more ships waiting to take fuel.”

Syl glanced at the mountains of cardboard boxes and crates that crowded the decks from stem to stern, covering the mooring lines, bitts and cleats.

“Give me half an hour, Mr. Higgins.”

“All right, but move it as fast as you can.”

Cramer, hearing this exchange—his right hand was bandaged and his face was bruised—sang out, “All right, boys, move it,
move
it. We're going to wrap this ship up and take her to sea. So get your asses moving. You got twenty minutes to clear these decks.”

An American destroyer circling off the end of the wharf while she waited to take fuel blew her whistle imperiously, and Syl went to the bridge. He called down the voice tube to the engine room. “Mr. Wydanski. Is the engine room ready to get underway?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Stand by to test the engine.”

After checking the mooring lines, Syl ordered slow ahead, then slow astern. The old Enterprise Deisel had a deep hollow cough and spat too much smoke up the stack, but the ship obediently surged back and forth in her slip. She was as ready to go as she would ever be.

When enough cartons had been cleared off the deck to clear the lines, Syl clicked on the loud hailer. “All right, chief, call the men to mooring stations. We can finish the stowage when we get to our new berth.”

“Mooring stations it is, sir,” Cramer called and put a shiny boatswain's pipe to his lips. Not all wartime boatswain's mates even knew how to blow one, and its shrill treble call at least lent a professional note to the confusion on deck.

Simpson appeared on the wing of the bridge and spat over the side, watching the current move the spot he made on the water.

“Captain, we have a little tide setting us off the wharf, but a lot of wind pushing us on,” he said. “When she's light, she handles funny in conditions like this. I'm used to her. Do you want me to handle this operation?”

“I'm sure you can do it, but I always do my own ship handling,” Syl said. “Since I'm responsible, I might as well bust her up myself.”

The truth was that he had always been at his best when handling ships around wharves, had always loved it, but had also been scared by it. This was a small tanker but she still weighed five hundred tons. With nothing but her single low-powered engine and her blunt, high-sided hull he anticipated she would be damn near unmanageable, sailing sideways and probably refusing to back straight until she got up a dangerous amount of sternway. Any miscalculation could result in serious damage; injury or death to the men, a board of inquiry, a court-martial for incompetence. At least the cargo tanks had been steamed out and not yet refilled. After the first load of gasoline she would be a floating bomb that any collision could set off. He was lucky to be able to get used to her while she was still relatively safe.

“The men are at mooring stations,” Cramer called from the tank deck through cupped hands.

Syl stepped to the starboard wing of the bridge and studied the situation. With the help of the slight current it should be simple to spring her off the wharf against this wind and back her smartly out of this slip, but if that high bow blew off, she would crab around and that could be a mess. There was a lot of weight in this wind and despite the current, she was squeezing her fenders thin. This was no small boat you could push off with your arm or foot. Five hundred tons. No, this wasn't the
Queen Elizabeth
, but the big ships used tugs. If he got in a mess, the first crack out of the barrel the crew would lose whatever confidence they had in him now. He saw Higgins standing on the wharf with folded arms, his expression impatient, almost contemptuous. Finally Syl glanced at the windward side of the slip, maybe twenty-five yards away.

“Mr. Simpson, let's do this the easy way,” he said. “Put four men over there and pass heaving lines to them. We'll warp her out.”

“That's not necessary, sir—”

“I think so. Use the bow and stern winches to haul her alongside the windward side of the slip and then we'll just walk her out, keeping a strain on the weather lines. When I get to know her better I may give you more dramatics.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

It was a sensible decision—Simpson must know that—but maybe he had hoped to see his commanding officer foul up right from the start. He sounded disappointed as he gave the orders.

When Higgins saw the warping begin, he shrugged and went back to his office. The destroyer stopped blowing her whistle and backed off to give sea room. Buller came to the bridge to watch.

“I don't know too much about this kind of thing,” he said, “but give me a couple of weeks, and I'll get the hang of it. There ain't nothing too complicated about it, is there, skipper?”

Syl didn't answer him.

“Move it, move it, move it.”

Cramer kept repeating that refrain after the ship moored at the north pier of the yard and final preparations were made for going to sea. The men picked it up, sometimes sarcastically, as they cleared the decks of supplies and found stowage for all the gear below decks.

Their hangovers had worn off, and like most sailors Syl had known, they were eager to go to sea after a few weeks in harbor, even if the port they were leaving was as good as Brisbane had been. Syl had not yet received his sailing orders, but the men had been listening to news broadcasts in the radio shack and to Tokyo Rose, whose predictions, damn her, generally turned out to be accurate. They assumed they were bound for New Guinea and then on to join the invasion of the Philippines, or a nonstop voyage to Mindanao, the nearest of the Philippine Islands, where the battle was expected to begin.

Syl too was anxious to get going. Teddy had gone to Sydney and there was nothing for him to do ashore. He sensed that she never wanted to see or hear from him again, despite or because of the good hours they had shared. If the ship's job was to lug gas, why not start doing it? The only way to end this damn war was to get out and fight it. Good patriotic noises, but genuine all the same. Time to get on with it. After too long a time in port, the sea seemed especially clean. Military precision, neatness and efficiency were in a sense welcome antidotes to constant hangovers. At least for a while. At sea a man could earn some self-respect and the ways of other sailors were simpler to cope with than those of women, who seemed to offer too much or too little.

Only Wydanski seemed genuinely sorry to leave. He had installed his girl, Mildred, in a small apartment and had promised to return to her after the war. On that last day, the job of supervising final repairs and checkups in the generators and main engine kept him aboard until midnight and the ship was due to sail at dawn, but he shaved, showered and put on a freshly pressed uniform to go ashore for the last few hours.

The ship's detailed sailing orders came at the last possible minute. At five o'clock in the morning an army lieutenant drove his jeep into the yard and gave Syl the brown manila envelope and a roll of the latest charts. The typewritten instructions filled three pages but their import was simple. The
Y-18
was to take a cargo of aviation fuel from a large merchant tanker in Brisbane harbor and go to Hollandia, New Guinea, there to wait for further orders.

The date was October 3, 1944.

“Of course everything is supposed to be top secret,” the lieutenant said, “but I'm sure the Japs know the biggest buildup of all time is underway. You'll be lucky to find room to anchor in Hollandia harbor. Rose says we're going to hit Mindanao next week—she's been moving the date ahead a long time. Your guess is as good as mine, but I'm betting MacArthur is too smart to go where we're expected. I've even picked up rumors that we're going to jump straight into Manila.”

Syl's stomach contracted. There sure as hell was going to be a showdown. He wished he could go into battle on a fighting ship with some speed and guns instead of riding this slow, defenseless, explosive target. Well, they couldn't have a war without gas any more than they could have a party without booze, or so someone had said …