Pacific Interlude (24 page)

Syl's first concern after the initial shock was for the
Yankee Yo- Yo
, but she too had been lucky—she was ahead of the
Y-18
, just alongside the
Garden City
, to take on a new load. Mostell must have been equally relieved to see the
Y-18
. His signal light blinked, “Thank God.”

Syl tied up astern of the
Yankee Yo-Yo
alongside the
Garden City
, and the crews of the three ships stood staring at the inferno where the airstrip had been.

“Major Harris,” Syl said suddenly. “He must have been there …”

“And all those guys who took our lines,” Mostell added.

“Just figuring probability, one of us two should have been near enough to get it,” Simpson said. “You can call it luck, or you can call it God …”

Syl couldn't help thinking that Simpson was pretty presumptuous to think God preferred him to Major Harris and the others, but he said nothing. As the daylight faded, the whole inner harbor reflected the flames. It looked like a huge and ironically beautiful sea of fire …

CHAPTER 17

“W
HAT DO WE
do now?” Buller said an hour later as they stood watching the flames gradually begin to die down. “There're no more barges or tanks to fill.”

“They'll bring in more barges tomorrow,” Mostell said, “and they'll put up new tanks soon enough. Meanwhile we can get a night's sleep. Might as well enjoy it while we can.”

“Why don't we just stay close tonight?” Buller asked. “Maybe we can get up a poker game.”

“Gas tankers should never raft up,” Simpson said. “Three tankers triple the risk.”

They agreed to anchor separately but meet later. Simpson as usual stayed aboard while Buller, Wydanski and Syl went to the
Yankee Yo-Yo
by skiff.

Mostell led them to his wardroom. The blonde ensign and the lieutenant junior grade who served as executive officer of the
Yankee Yo-Yo
seemed unusually tense tonight. The atmosphere of hostility in the cramped compartment increased when the ship's engineer, a lanky warrant officer of about forty with a southern accent, came in and sat down. Syl remembered that Mostell had disparaged the abilities of his engineer. There was, of course, no reason for him of all people to be surprised that a ship's company might not be exactly one big happy family.

Mostell passed around cans of warm beer and they started to play “baseball,” a crazy form of poker that had become a fad throughout the fleet. So many cards were wild that everyone held at least a full house and no one could be sure that even a straight flush would win. Although the betting was brisk, a quarter limit was set by Mostell, and the pot rarely held more than ten dollars.

Syl had trouble keeping his mind on the game, especially after a radioman announced that the aircraft carrier
Princeton
had been lost. It was unreal. Here they were bickering about cards aboard a gas tanker while sea battles were being fought all around them. Despite the official reports of a tremendous victory, the Tacloban airstrip had been blown up, a big carrier had been lost, and who knew what else was coming down? When the ensign and engineer began arguing about what to do when they each had a perfect hand, the shouting was interrupted by Paul Schuman, who suddenly arrived with two of his officers.

“I thought you were over at Dulag,” Syl said.

“That airstrip is such a swamp that they don't need any more gas,” Schuman said. “They sent me over to help you guys.”

“Haven't you heard? We got no more airstrip to supply,” Mostell said.

“The hell you haven't … they're already bulldozing Tacloban clear and they're moving in a whole new string of barges for us to fill. They'll be ready for us to do business in the morning.”

“Well, sit down and join the game,” Buller said. “By the way, when you got two perfect hands, what do you do?”

“You split the pot,” Schuman the peacemaker … and con artist? … said.

“You can have my place,” Syl said, tossing his cards down. “I think I'll go back to my ship and turn in.”

“I'll run you back,” Mostell said, following Syl to the deck.

“That smoke in there was getting to me, never mind the noise,” he said. “How about coming up to my cabin for a drink?”

Syl accepted. As they walked forward Schuman came up.

“I hate those damn wild cards,” he said. “You guys want to go over to my ship?”

“The meeting is coming to order in here,” Mostell said.

His surprisingly luxurious cabin was cool, with a nice breeze fluttering the black curtains at the open ports. To avoid closing them, Mostell left the cabin dark. A red bulb over his desk glowed in the darkness, giving the conclave of captains a conspiratorial air.

“What do you make of all this talk about a big victory?” Syl asked.

“Which one?” Schuman said. “Tokyo Rose says the Japs won a big victory and we say we did. I like to believe our side, but no government can afford to admit losses. We kept on saying for months that no damage had been done at Pearl Harbor.”

“We've admitted the loss of the
Princeton,”
Mostell put in.

“That's what scares me,” Schuman said. “I doubt like hell we lost just one carrier. If they got to her—”

“The fact is we're still here,” Mostell said. “The Japs' job was to drive us out.”

“So far, so good,” Schuman said.

There was a knock at the door and Buller came in.

“I smell Scotch,” he said. “Is this meeting just for you skippers?”

“Hell no, come in,” Mostell said, pouring him a drink.

“Here's to the end of the war,” Buller said. “I'm betting it will come quicker than we think.”

“You believe we sank the whole damn Jap fleet?” Schuman said.

“It don't make much difference. Germany won't last long now, and when she falls they'll bring all our navies and armies over here.”

“You think the Japs will quit?” Mostell said.

“We can just blockade 'em and starve 'em to death. No sweat.”

“I doubt if it's going to be that easy,” Schuman said. “A lot of men are going to have to die first.”

“Only if we follow damn fools like Dugout Doug,” Buller said. “That son of a bitch is gearing up to run for president.”

“To do that he's got to come out a winner,” Mostell said. “That's not so bad for us.”

“The hell it ain't. To be a winner you have to fight battles. All we should be doing is holding tight out here, waiting for the Krauts to fall on their asses. Then the whole damn world will be against Japan. How long do you think she could hold out?”

“Mr. Buller, do you really think that MacArthur is somehow the villain of the piece?” Mostell asked as he poured drinks.

“Don't get me started,” Buller said.

“But I'm curious. Do you really think that just one man could make all the big decisions?”

“If you really want to know, I don't think we should be over here in the first place,” Buller said. “I think just one man got us into it. Old Dougout is only his boy.”

“You'd have let the Japs get away with Pearl Harbor?” Schuman said.

“Roosevelt pushed 'em into that.”

“That's bull, but even if it were true, we had to fight.”

“We could have just sat home and built ourselves a fleet that could bomb hell out of them. Take a few island bases like the Marianas. What the hell are we doing here in the Philippines?”

“History will answer those questions,” Syl said. “We can't.”

“I still say we could have just stayed home and built up our strength while all those bastards fought it out. That's what old Huey would have done. If they hadn't shot Huey Long we'd be home getting rich and well-laid instead of getting ready to die for … for the Ruskies and Limeys.”

“So you're a Huey Long man,” Syl said, thinking that that somehow explained a lot.

“Damn right I am. Ole Huey knew that wars are fought for the rich. They do shit all for the guys who have to fight 'em. My father fought in World War One. He and a few million other guys who were lucky enough to live through it came home and starved to death. When a few of them marched to Washington to ask for help, get their bonus, old Dougout himself rode out on a white horse and led tanks against 'em. Like I told the skipper here, I'm in it because I want to go into politics and pick up where old Huey left off. After any war you need a good military record to get votes—old Huey was hurt bad because he had too much damn sense to get into the first world war. Nobody's going to call me a draft dodger.”

“Personally I find it very easy to accept that the Japs and Krauts are the bad guys and we're the good guys,” Mostell said.

“Likewise,” Schuman said. “And my ancestors were Krauts.”

“You want that red Stalin to win?” Buller demanded.

“Any enemy of Hitler is a friend of mine,” Mostell said.

“How long do you think it will be before we're told the Russians are the bad buys? Don't you see that this kind of shit will never stop?”

“Regardless,” Mostell said, “tomorrow we're going to have to lug gas.”

He stretched his arms, and the other officers stood up to go to their boats.

“In some ways,” Schuman said to Syl just before he shoved off, “I'd rather play penny-ante poker with all cards wild than talk politics. Especially with the likes of your man Buller.”

My man Buller, my ass, Syl thought, but said only good-night and good luck.

CHAPTER 18

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Syl found that new fuel barges already were being pushed in to replace the ones which had been burned and new storage tanks were being built in the ashes ashore. The airstrip was almost ready to be put back in operation and the army was thirsty for gas.

Major Williams, who looked surprisingly like Major Harris, was just as emphatic as he charged aboard even before the
Y-18's
mooring lines were out.

“By the time you get these barges filled we'll have the storage tanks ready,” he said. “Until everything's full, I want nobody to anchor, nobody even to sleep. When the flattops go home, this base will have to keep every plane we've got in the air. The navy may figure they won their victory, but the Japs still have plenty of planes all over these islands and they're still pouring infantry in here on the west coast. It's a long way to Manila and our planes are going to have to cover troops fighting every inch of the way.”

“So move it, move it, move it,” Cramer said as he rallied the men to hook up the cargo hose …

The deadly monotony of the shuttle run which continued day after day, week after week, created dangers of its own. Glassy-eyed with fatigue and boredom, the men bought homemade hootch from the natives who paddled dugout canoes alongside at night while the ship was unloading, and after they got their fill of that they didn't care where they smoked. With the ship bathed in gas fumes, Murphy fell asleep in his bunk with a lighted cigarette and set his sleeping bag on fire. That was put out quickly enough by sleepers who were awakened by the first smoke, but everywhere Syl walked at night he seemed to see the glow of cigarettes, which were quickly tossed overboard at his approach. During the first month of the shuttle run Simpson put a dozen men on report for smoking.

Syl's problem was to devise punishments which would deter the men from such actions without making them even more sullenly reckless. Since little liberty was allowed while the ship was so busy and there was not much for the men to do ashore anyway, the usual punishment of restricting a man to the ship for thirty days was meaningless. All hands seemed to be restricted anyway. Deck courts which could reduce a man in rank involved so much red tape that they were hardly ever held aboard small army ships, and men who had committed serious breaches were sent ashore for trial. Since no one wanted a lot of legal doings in a combat zone, the guilty were often forgiven and transferred to whatever ship had an empty berth. The word spread that the best way to get off a gas tanker was simply to fuck up. Syl suspected that some of the men who smoked and drank openly were trying to escape the vessel, and he mustered all hands to tell them that the punishment for breaking safety regulations was going to be special rotten duties like chipping paint on the boat deck, or boat drill, which meant rowing in circles on a boiling hot day. Looking into their angry faces he felt like a schoolmaster, but the only alternative would lead to disaster.

After the big aircraft carriers ran out of fuel and left the Philippines the Japs stepped up their air attacks on Leyte Gulf, and almost every afternoon at dusk, a few planes came over, sometimes flying above the clouds, sometimes hedgehopping over the surrounding hills to avoid the radar screen. As Klaxon horns and sirens went off all around the harbor, the men of the
Y-18
manned their two machine guns and stood staring at the sky, faces showing a mixture of belly-wrenching fear and a kind of excitement that was almost welcome after the maddening routine of the shuttle run. If the ship was loading or unloading during these air raids the men disconnected the hose and Syl took the tanker to an anchorage safely removed from other vessels. Mostly the bombs exploded on the wretched little city of Tacloban or near bigger ships anchored in the bay. But the
Y-18
had a narrow escape on November 15 when she was trying to get out of the inner harbor after a raid began. A Liberty ship whose red Baker flag announced that she was carrying ammunition in addition to her deck cargo of bulldozers followed only about five hundred yards astern as she also sought the necessary isolation from other ships. In the narrow channels these two ships, which had about the same speed, could not escape each other as they headed for broader waters. When a suicide plane darted over the top of a hill and crashed into the bow of the Liberty ship, her crew kept her going away from the surrounding wharves in spite of the flames that climbed from her forecastle and stretched toward her holds and bridge. The fire roared out of control and obviously could reach the tons of ammunition any second, but Syl could see men on her deck running with hoses, no one dropped rafts or jumped overboard. He ordered full right rudder and steered the
Y-18
out of the channel, ducking between two shoals to put as much space as he could between his gasoline and that impending explosion.