Pacific Interlude (19 page)

“What happens after we get to Point Baker?” a merchant captain asked.

“You'll wait for instructions,” the commander said. “I don't need to tell you that this is a big operation, maybe the biggest in history. There are a lot of complex parts which have to be timed right. Stick to your orders, maintain your schedule, and you'll have nothing to worry about. Good luck.”

That was all. As a prelude to battle, the commander's speech seemed to lack a certain flair.

“They should work us up with some kind of an Indian war dance,” Syl said. “I could do with a little stamping around to get my blood up.”

“Let's go to the officers' club,” Schuman said. “There will be enough whooping and hollering there for you. And your blood will at least go up in alcoholic content.”

The officers' club consisted of five big tents on a platform over the water at the edge of the harbor, where a native village had stood before the army moved it out. This could be reached only by boat and offered the advantage of enabling officers to urinate over the rail into the sea at will instead of waiting in line for more formal facilities.

Syl and his friends arrived in the middle of the happy hour, when booze sold for half its usual price of thirty cents a shot and every officer from the entire invasion fleet appeared to be there, filling the tents like a circus crowd. Extra bars had been set up to take care of this emergency and it did not take the three Coast Guard officers long to get their drinks, but it was so crowded they returned to Schuman's skiff and in the last rays of the setting sun went skimming like a beettle through the great city of anchored ships to their own tankers.

As they approached Mostell's
Y-22
, which had the nickname
“Yankee Yo-Yo”
painted on the side of its pilothouse in yellow letters, and Schuman's
Y-22
, which carried the white words
“Gasoline Alley”
on its bow, Syl realized that a party was in progress on the decks of the two vessels, which were still moored together, lying at one anchor. Army officers, corporals and sergeants had joined the Coast Guardsmen. Someone had brought beer. Cigarettes glowed on both fantails, where smoking was allowed, and also on the tank decks, where it wasn't, but these were discreetly dropped overboard as the officers came alongside. Neither Mostell nor Schuman seemed upset. After waving casually at his crew Mostell led the way to his cabin, where he poured Scotch and ordered more ice from the cook.

Smelling the Scotch, a major and an army captain came in and were given their share. It was hot in that little cabin, and it was not long before Mostell led the others to the wing of his bridge, where they stood glass in hand, enjoying the night breeze and the glittering lights of the ships all around them, few of which bothered with blackouts. Schuman broke into “Bless 'Em All,” perhaps because he knew that Mostell liked to sing his version of it.

“The officers ride in a motorboat,” Schuman began in a shaky tenor.

The captain, he rides in a gig
.

It won't go a goddamn bit faster
,

But it makes the old bastard feel big
.

Mostell needed no urging to go on from there. He'd borrowed or invented bitter verses for each branch of the military. In honor of the major he began with the army, his basso profundo imposing silence all over the ship when he boomed:

They call us the grunts, the old doughboys
,

The sad sacks, the poor damn GIs
,

We live on a diet of mud mixed with blood

And die with green flies on our eyes
.

The soldiers on the tank deck cheered. Mostell went on:

But the army's the strength of the nation
,

The outfit that really wins wars
.

The navy thinks fame is the name of the game
,

That and the chasing of whores
.

The Coast Guardsmen, who considered themselves cousins of the navy, booed, the army men approved. Shifting allegiance, Mostell sang:

It's the navy that wins all the battles

And then puts the soldiers ashore
.

So then they get laid and dress up for parade
—

They call this the horrors of war
.

Then on to other services:

I speak for the leatherneck bastards

The bellboys no sailor calls pal
,

But when the army got beat and ran in retreat
,

Just who took Guadalcanal?

And:

We're lucky, we pilots, we flyboys
—

We suffer no boredom, no dirt
.

We all love to fly so far up in the sky
—

It's the coming down part that can hurt
.

There were cheers when Mostell finally got around to his own service:

We Coasties run freighters and tankers
—

They're not much more than a barge
,

But with ammo and gas stacked up to our ass
,

The hole that we leave can be large!

And all hands joined in when Mostell wound it up with the old chorus:

Fuck 'em all, fuck 'em all, fuck 'em all
,

The long, the short and the tall
—

There will be no promotion this side of the ocean
,

But I still say, my lads, fuck 'em all
.

Mostell sat down and accepted a glass of Scotch from Schuman and a cold beer to chase it. He did not sing anymore that night, just got quietly drunk, but for a few minutes he had made the war seem to Syl … and maybe the others … an exercise where fear was no more than an uproarious joke.

CHAPTER 13

T
HE DECKS OF
the
Lucky Eighteen
were as quiet as a graveyard when Syl returned to her that night. He had drunk too much and the silence confused him until he remembered that Buller had planned to take most of the men ashore to blow off steam, leaving only a skeleton crew to keep an anchor watch. Only Simpson sat brooding on the bridge. As Syl walked none too steadily across the tank deck to their cabin the old mustang gave him a stiff, ironic salute.

He didn't return it.

At a little after six the next morning Simpson woke up Syl, shaking his shoulder.

“Captain, something crazy is happening. We got to stop it—”

“What?” Syl sat up, shaking his head to clear it.

“A landing barge has come alongside with a whole bunch of gas drums. They want to give us a
deck
cargo. Who ever heard of a tanker carrying a deck cargo?”

In his slept-in uniform, feeling a little dizzy, he walked to the tank deck. An LCT with a hastily contrived tripod mast and boom was already unloading shiny 52-gallon gray drums.

“Hold
that.”

“Skipper, if you don't like it, see the colonel,” a second lieutenant said. “I'm just following orders.”

“Nobody loads this ship without my permission—”

“Skipper, this is an army ship. We load 'em, you Coasties sail 'em. That's what the colonel will tell you.”

“We can't take a deck cargo like that,” Simpson said. “There's no way we can secure it.”

“Just lash it to the rail,” the lieutenant told him.

“That little handrail won't hold those drums in a seaway,” Simpson said.

“Captain, nobody wants these gas drums. There's a general order out saying we can't put 'em in the LST's or the freighters—they've had too many explosions. We need gas drums to put ashore for the tanks and trucks. You guys are loaded with gas anyway, so why not take some more?”

“Because, damnit, they'll be impossible to secure. This deck will be swept by green water in a blow.”

“So rig lines. This ain't no time for safety first.”

Syl glanced over to the other tankers and saw they were accepting gas drums from other landing craft. If he raised hell with the colonel he'd cause nothing but trouble for himself. Seeing him waver, Simpson said, “Skipper, you've got to refuse to sail with a cargo like this. The worst they could do is transfer you ashore.”

And then, of course, Simpson would be able to take command and sail, Syl was sure, while he himself sat in a transient officers' tent, safe but humiliated.

“I don't give a damn what you do,” the lieutenant said. “My orders are to put these goddamn drums on your deck.”

“We'll take 'em,” Syl said. “Mr. Simpson, have Cramer secure them as best he can. He can run a line from those forward bitts and tighten it with the stern winch.”

“Cramer ain't aboard yet,” Simpson said and clenched his teeth before adding, “the rest of the deck gang came back with the motorboat before midnight like I told all hands, but Cramer and Mr. Buller are already six hours late. I've no idea how they plan to get back.”

“Did our sailing orders and charts come aboard last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you look at them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you tell Mr. Buller we have to weigh anchor at nine?”

“Yes, sir. I told all hands.”

“Then Buller and Cramer will figure out a way to get back in time.” (He hoped.) “Meanwhile, roust out the deck gang and see to getting this cargo secured yourself.”

Turning quickly, Syl went back to the wardroom for coffee, which he very badly needed. The fact that he'd gotten drunk the night before instead of returning to his ship to study the detailed convoy instructions made him feel guilty. It also built up his anger at everyone else—the army, Simpson, Buller and Cramer. With everybody fouling up like this—multiply his ship by hundreds—how could any invasion be headed anywhere but to hell and gone?

Come off it, Syl thought as he sat down and sipped his coffee. It was a good bet that throughout history most great voyages had probably begun with men suffering bad hangovers and guilt for a thousand duties not done. The thing to do now was just to get to it.

At seven-thirty Syl went to the flying bridge and studied the harbor with the binoculars but could see no sign of any boat approaching his ship. While there was still time, maybe he should send someone ashore to look for Buller and Cramer. The ship's motorboat would take at least an hour to go in and back. He could probably borrow Schuman's fast skiff, but where to look? The officers' club had been closed for hours and Buller could have wandered with Cramer to any part of the huge base, which sprawled over the whole mountainside. If they had gotten drunk enough, they might now be sleeping it off aboard any ship in the harbor whose crew had let them aboard. They could wake up at sea aboard a destroyer and be damn glad they'd escaped a helpless little gas tanker.

And from Syl's point of view, maybe that would not be such a bad development. Buller was a troublemaker who'd become dangerously popular with the crew. Cramer was a good chief boatswain's mate but he would side with Buller in every conflict. The ship would be a hell of a lot more peaceful without them. Eventually replacements would be provided. Meanwhile he and Simpson could take alternate watches until they could train a couple of petty officers to spell them. And with Buller gone, Simpson could bunk with Wydanski, and Syl finally would have a cabin—and more freedom from righteousness—

“Captain, I'd like to take the motorboat aboard now,” Simpson said, and Syl understood that he too would be glad to get rid of Buller and Cramer.

“Take it aboard.”

Syl was impatient to get underway and surprised to realize how intensely he hoped that Buller and Cramer would not get back in time.

At ten minutes to nine Syl put the engine room on standby and told Simpson to start taking in the anchor but not to break it out yet. Going to the flying bridge again, he still could see no sign of a boat approaching. Mostell's
Yankee Yo-Yo
was pulling away from Schuman's
Gasoline Alley
. The small figure of the captain with the basso profundo voice climbed to the flying bridge and waved at Syl.

“Mr. Simpson, you can break out the anchor now,” Syl said as his watch told him that it was precisely nine o'clock. “When you get it secured, set sea watches. It looks like we're going to the Philippines.”

The men in the pilothouse gave a cheer, and Syl set a course for the sea buoy outside the mouth of the big harbor, where many ships were now getting underway, the sun flashing on the spray from the hoses they used to wash the last of the New Guinea mud from their anchors as they rose dripping from the water.

The
Y-18
had not gone a thousand yards when Syl saw a green skiff like Schuman's approaching very fast, sending up wings of white spray like a speedboat on a lake, and heard the high-pitched whine of its big outboard. He focused his binoculars and soon was able to make out Buller's unmistakable bulk in the bow and Cramer in the stern.

“Stop the engine,” he said with a sigh. “Mr. Simpson, stand by to take Mr. Buller and Cramer aboard. My guess is they'll want us to take up that boat too.”

“Where the hell will we put it?” Simpson asked, gesturing toward the tank deck, which except for a small passageway that had been left in the middle was crowded with gasoline drums.

“Take the motor off and secure the hull on the forecastle head. Those plywood boats are light. The men can muscle it up.”

Before Simpson could argue the skiff came alongside, and Buller and Cramer climbed aboard holding its lines.

“We've got a lot of stuff to unload, boys,” Buller said, gesturing toward a pile of cardboard cartons in the middle of the skiff. “Don't drop it overboard. A lot of it's beer.”

News which made the men even happier to see Buller return. Thompson, a stout second-class boatswain's mate, jumped into the skiff and started to pass up the boxes.

“Put them all on the fantail for now,” Simpson shouted. “We've got to leave this passageway clear.”

The men soon emptied the skiff, detached the motor and horsed the plywood hull over the tops of the gasoline drums to the forecastle head. Syl resumed speed and soon fell into a line of ships heading out to Point Able, near which several big convoys were making up. The
Yankee Yo-Yo
and
Gasoline Alley
followed astern of him, their blunt bows plunging as they cleared the headlands and encountered a steep ocean swell.