Sentinels of Fire (19 page)

The sea cabin was no more than a steel closet just behind the pilothouse. It had a fold-down bed, a fold-up steel sink, and a steel toilet, and measured perhaps ten by six feet, all in. There was a single porthole, now patched with tape, a sound-powered handset next to the bed, and a gyro repeater with a magnifying lens at the foot of the bed. That was it. The OOD could step through the pilothouse door and open the sea cabin door if he had to get to me quickly. With only a single bulkhead between the sea cabin and the pilothouse, I could hear everything being said out there, so if there was sudden excitement, I'd probably hear it.

It felt strange, occupying the captain's sea cabin, but it was necessary. The captain's inport cabin was too far away in terms of getting to the bridge in seconds. I wasn't comfortable with moving my living quarters from the XO's stateroom to the captain's inport cabin. It just seemed a bit presumptuous. Besides, they'd have a new CO up here within a week or so, and then I'd just have to move again.

I lay down on the bed after slipping off my sea boots. I didn't bother taking off my clothes. My life jacket and steel helmet were hanging on a hook next to the door, and it took me at least fifteen seconds to fall asleep, all the noises from the bridge watch seeping through the bulkhead notwithstanding.

What seemed like ten minutes later, the phone next to the bed squeaked. I picked it up. “XO,” I said automatically.

“Morning, sir,” the OOD said. “GQ in fifteen minutes.”

“What for?”

“Morning GQ, sir.”

“Good lord—what time is it?”

“Zero six fifteen, sir. Fresh coffee made and waiting.”

I hung up the phone, looked at my watch, and confirmed the time. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had what qualified as a full night's sleep in the destroyer Navy. There was a knock on the door and the bridge messenger, a young seaman apprentice, stuck a hand in with a mug of coffee. “Two sugars, Cap'n,” he announced.

“It's still XO, but thanks for the coffee, young man.”

Jimmy Enright came out once GQ had been set throughout the ship. There were no contacts, short or long range, but, as we'd learned to our sorrow, that didn't mean there was nothing out there. All hands topside were looking. I finally took up residence in the captain's chair.

“A night with no raids?” I asked Jimmy.

He handed me a yellow sheet off the Fleet Broadcast. He pointed to a news item. Halsey had taken all the carriers to Formosa and struck Jap air bases all over the island. Then they went just south of Kyushu and did more of the same. Japs had been otherwise occupied, apparently.
We
got some sleep.

“
All
the carriers?”

“All the big-decks, and the fast battleships, too. Left the escort CVs to do air support over the Okinawa battlefields and the picket line. I guess Halsey got tired of sitting still and taking all this grief from the kamis.”

“That's our boy,” I said, “but you know they'll be back.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “I almost couldn't sleep last night because of those long-range snoopers. That means something.”

“I think it means radar-directed attacks at night on the fleet and the picket line, starting with the picket line. We need to talk tactics.”

“First and foremost, they have to get night-fighters out early so we can take out those control planes.”

“The escort CVs have night-fighters?”

“Probably not,” he said. “So until Uncle Bill gets back…”

“We snuffies are on our own,” I finished for him. “The moon will be even bigger tonight.”

“Even so, XO, you can't see a black dot in the dark.”

“How much star shell we carry?”

“I'll have to ask Guns. Probably a hundred, maybe a hundred fifty rounds. You thinking of blinding them?”

“Why not? The search radars can see 'em when they're high enough. When they drop down and get on the deck for their run in, they go off the scope. So, when they do that, compute an advanced dead-reckoning position and start firing star shells on that bearing. Then follow up with VT frag. It's worth a try.”

“Damned straight,” he said. “Lemme kick this around with Marty and the fire-control chiefs. Maybe there's other stuff we can do.”

“Okay, and as acting XO, I want
you
to organize the day so that the crew gets a break and some decent chow. If Halsey kicked ass over there, they'll take a day to recover. But tonight, I think we're in for it.”

“I don't understand, XO,” Ops said. “The intel report said they had maybe five hundred fighters and bombers left.”

“They lost their last operational big-deck carrier late last year,” I said, “but if they kept building planes anyway, it may be closer to five thousand.”

*   *   *

After a hot shower and a shave, fresh khakis, and a real breakfast, I summoned the department heads at ten. I asked them to bring me up to speed on where we stood in regard to materiel condition—what equipment was up, what was down, ammo, fuel, people, sick list, walking wounded, unrepaired damage, everything. It took an hour and a half. We were in fairly decent shape, considering.

All the guns were fully operational. In peacetime that had never been the case in any ship I'd served in. Funny what constant suicide attacks could do for equipment readiness. We had a nearly full supply of ammo and lots more of that wonderful VT frag. Our reason for being, the long-range air-search radar, was operating in full beam for a change. Some of that was due to the atmospheric conditions, but most of it was due to the twenty-four-hour-a-day attention of the electronic technicians, who spoke softly to each vacuum tube on an hourly basis, I was sure.

We talked tactics to deal with night attacks. The star-shell gambit looked like it might work to disrupt the kamis on their final drive into the ship. A star shell is filled with a burster charge of magnesium and potassium perchlorate in a perforated steel can, suspended from a small parachute. When it ignites, it produces a blindingly white light akin to welding, especially when it assaults night-adapted eyes. They could be fired on time fuzes to burst wherever you wanted them to.

The CIC radio talkers had come up with the idea of searching the frequency bands for the Jap control circuit and then jamming that with a stronger signal of our own. I asked how they could do that. CW: continuous wave. Set up a Morse-code key on that frequency and simply hold it down. Not wanting to dampen their spirits, I didn't tell them that CW operated in the HF (high frequency) band, while air control circuits were all in the VHF (very high frequency) or even UHF (ultra high frequency) bands. I'd let them do it, anyway.

The chief bosun had suggested we tow a line of spare life rafts behind the ship, illuminated with life-jacket lights, which were small, single-cell-battery-operated white lights. The idea was to distract the kami pilot into aiming astern of us. I knew that some of this stuff would be minimally useful but decided that we'd try it all.

Late that afternoon I addressed the crew over the
1
MC, introducing myself with “This is the exec speaking.” I told them that the captain had suffered a nervous breakdown, and that I was in temporary command until a new CO could be assigned to the ship. I told them about Halsey's strikes on the kamikazes' bases in southern Japan and Formosa. The good news was that Halsey's strikes had probably seriously hurt the kamis. The bad news was that Halsey and the big-deck carriers, along with their precious night-fighters, were still over a day away from us. I told them about the long-range, standoff snoopers who'd been lurking beyond the normal CAP range.

“I think this means that they're going to start night attacks. A big plane, equipped with an airborne radar, will vector smaller planes—Zeros, Vals, Zekes—against the picket ships. Once our night-fighters get back into the area, we can send them after those radar controller planes. But tonight? We're going to have to fight them off on our own. We're going to try some new tactics, star shells, maneuvers they haven't seen, and, if we can find them, jamming their control circuits. In the end, it'll come down to what it always comes down to: See the bastard, fill the sky with hot steel, and pray.

“The thing that's changed is this: The Japs have figured out that as long as
we're
out here on the edge, they'll never be able to get in and surprise the important ships, the carriers, the amphibs and their support boats, and the merchies, that are going to take Okinawa away from them. Remember this, too: Okinawa is not just another island, like Iwo or Saipan. It's part of their homeland. They know we're going to win this thing. Apparently, they've all agreed to die to prevent or delay that from happening. Everyone on our side is trying to help them accomplish that. I wish I had better news, but there it is.

“The supply officer informs me there are ten cases of steaks in the reefers. I told him to break 'em all out and to set up charcoal grills on the fantail. I wish I had some beer to go with them, but Cokes will have to do.”

I paused for a moment. “
Malloy
is a lucky ship. We've dodged some big bullets, and that's because you guys know what you have to do to keep us all alive. Enjoy a steak tonight. Your enemy is eating bugs and razorgrass. We
will
beat these monsters. That is all.”

I hung up the
1
MC microphone and went into the sea cabin. Jimmy Enright came in right behind me. “That was great, XO,” he said. “Tell it to 'em straight and they'll relax and polish their guns. The rumors have been … interesting.”

“I wish Halsey and his carriers were closer,” I said, “but there it is. Maybe they raised enough hell to keep those kami air bases out of business for a few days.”

“You think so?”

“No, I don't, not with those snoopers out there. I wish we could drive a destroyer out there to where the snoopers have been loitering, radio and radar silent, wait for him to show up, and then shoot his ass down.”

“You know, XO, what they really oughta do is station
our
CAP ashore on the part of Okinawa we've already taken. Then they wouldn't be dependent on carriers.”

“You're forgetting, Jimmy. We're small potatoes. The admirals and their staffs think carriers and battleships. We're just a voice on a radio saying, ‘Hey, down there—look out, here they come.' Like the commodore said, it's hell on wheels up here for us, but most of the kamis are going against Allied forces off Okinawa. And you know what? The Army and the Marines are getting chewed up pretty bad. The Japs have had three years to fortify that island. Tunnels. Prepared positions. Underground artillery parks. They're all gonna die, but they're gonna take a whole lot of American boys with them. There are no soldiers or Marines going to get a steak tonight.”

“Yeah, but they can withdraw if it gets too hot. Withdraw, regroup, attack again. Where do we go?”

“We go to general quarters, Jimmy,” I said with a smile. “Call me when the steaks are ready. I'm gonna take a nap.”

*   *   *

It had been surreal, the smell of charcoal and burning beef. The cooks had tried to form french fries out of powdered potatoes. Disaster, but the crew ate them willingly, if just to support the side, with ketchup in great demand. Dessert, however, had been a special treat. Our Negro night baker, Mooky Johns, had taken it upon himself to bake fresh Parker House–style rolls that afternoon, which he produced on big metal trays on the fantail with butter and jam. I thought there'd be a riot. I never got one. None of the officers did, but the smell of fresh-baked bread and hot butter was almost good enough. Then the sun went down. Fresh coffee was brewed at both the authorized and all the unauthorized coffee messes, and then we all settled in for the night watch and waited for the vampires.

The radio traffic among the other picket ships indicated that everyone else also thought that the Japs were probably coming tonight. There were five other picket stations active that night. Personally, I thought we all ought to get together, form a circle about ten miles wide, and invite the sonsabitches to try their luck. That wasn't going to happen, because our orders were not to lure the Japs into a thirty-gun AA trap. Our orders were to create the widest possible radar coverage fan between all the kamikaze airstrips in Japan and all those lightly armed support ships feeding the carnage on Okinawa. The cliffs around the fleet anchorage at Kerama Retto were crawling with antiaircraft gun positions, but no radars, so they, too, needed a heads-up to get ready and start looking, even more than the big carrier formations. With the main carrier fleet still six hundred miles away, both the amphibs, known in the Navy as gators, and the picket destroyers were fresh out of air support. The smaller, escort carriers were not night-capable, and thus just as vulnerable to kamikazes as we were. The problem was lack of mobility. The support ships off Okinawa were tethered to the battlefield ashore; we picket destroyers were tethered to our stations.

Atmospheric conditions were both good and bad. It was an unusually good night for radar. The air-search radars especially were working well, with little cloud interference or weird ducting effects. On the other hand, there was a bright moon, which would make it easier for the kamis to line up on us, and also easier for lurking Jap subs to get off a shot. Our only defense against subs was to keep moving in a random manner, not necessarily going fast, but constantly changing course in order to frustrate their torpedo data computers. That, and careful scrutiny of our surface search radar screen; with a calm sea, any radar contact within three miles would be cause for alarm.

At 2100 I went into CIC to get a look at the overall tactical picture. The big vertical plotting boards, normally full of bright yellow grease-pencil markings indicating our own CAP stations, were ominously empty. The radarmen who would normally be writing backward on the boards were sitting around on overturned trash cans, smoking and waiting for something to do. I sat down on the three-legged stool at the head of the DRT that the captain would use when he was in Combat. I started reading the message board, which was a steel medical clipboard on which Radio Central had clamped yellow teletype messages of interest from the general Fleet Broadcast. Some of it was AP news articles from the States. Other messages were operational summaries about the recent raids over Formosa, the latest Western Pacific weather synopsis, or the admin pronouncements originating at Main Navy and the new Army headquarters building back in Washington called the Pentagon. I found myself looking for a message that would indicate when we'd get a new skipper, but there was nothing. Surely there was a three-striper out there in that enormous fleet who'd be jumping at the chance for a destroyer command, but then I remembered the sarcastic play-acting among the department heads the other night, so maybe not.