Tales of the South Pacific (50 page)

Of the crew she carried, only our four guests and two enlisted men remaining in our hospital lived. The rest had vanished. It was later said that the two men in sickbay knew at once what had happened and that neither would speak to the other all night.

Our four guests reacted differently. One, a tall Kansan, said nothing, picked himself up from the deck, turned his back on the bay and started drinking. Another, from Massachusetts, kneeled on the deck and said a prayer. Then he, too, started drinking. A third, from Oregon, kept swallowing in heavy gulps and biting his lips, first his lower lip and then his upper lip. Later on he became very hungry, and we cut open a can of chicken. The fourth man, from Wisconsin, started talking. It was he who answered the telephone and reported his four friends alive. Then he told us all about the Torpex, who her captain was, a fine man, who her officers were, and how the enlisted men never gave them any trouble. He told us about his home in Madison, and how he was going back there to University and take a law degree when the war was over.

He talked in a low, rapid voice. From time to time he would ask one of the other officers to corroborate what he was saying. He would snatch a small piece of the canned chicken or take a quick drink of whiskey, and then he would be off again. Finally, when the terror had worked itself out, he sat on the veranda and looked at the magnificent channel, where the Torpex had been. Little boats were hurrying about. We knew, we knew too well, the grisly haul those fishing boats were taking that night.

The man from Madison turned his back to the scene. He could still hear the chugging engines, though, so he started to talk again. "You know," he said, "our skipper was the finest man. He was so considerate. We could go to him with anything and he would listen to us just as patiently. He had three kids, and at every port there would be eight or ten letters from each of them. He loved them very much. The only time he ever spoke about them to me was to show me his girl's picture. She was about fifteen and lovely. He said, 'It's really funny, you know. She'll probably have been on her first date and fallen in love by the time I get back. I haven't seen her for twenty-one months. And do you know what I was thinking?' he asked me. 'I was thinking something foolish. But I kind of wish that she would marry a naval officer. And not necessarily an officer, either. I don't mean it that way at all. Just some nice boy from the Navy.' He blushed and then put her picture away."

The man from Madison drew a deep breath and reached for some more chicken. "I'll break out another can," Bus volunteered.

"My skipper," the future lawyer continued, "doesn't seem at all like yours. He's a cantankerous man, isn't he?"

"He is that!" Bus agreed.

"If you won't tell anyone," the lawyer said in a low voice, "I think I can tell you why. Men aren't born mean," he said slowly. "Things make them that way. I think Captain Kelley is the same man I heard about in Madison. He had a daughter, too. Just like my skipper. Only his daughter fell in love with an Army man. A flier. He was a fraternity brother of mine. I only saw him once. He left the University to join the Air Corps. Well, he was killed, and then they found out Captain Kelley's daughter was going to have a baby. The Captain was furious, I understand. So she killed herself."

I was watching Bus Adams as the officer from the Torpex told his story. Adams had the fresh can of boneless chicken in his hand and was looking down at the lights in the channel. He squeezed the can until some of the liquid ran down his wrist. Then, politely, he offered some chicken to the hungry, deep-breathing young fellow from Oregon.

Bus stood looking at the dark shapes in the channel for a long time. He left the chattering lawyer, and I spent the rest of the night listening to the man talk himself out. Then I put him to bed. I also took the boy from Oregon in to his bunk. He sat on the side of the bed all night long. The other two officers had to be carried to their quarters. As Bus and I went to ours he said to me, "Perhaps you'd prefer to miss breakfast."

"I'll be there," I said.

It was a shaken, uncertain crew that ate breakfast next morning. The sun was bright, but death was in the air. Bus Adams looked as if he had not shaved. Captain Kelley was grim and precise. We ate our papayas and lime in silence.

Then Bus spoke. "I should like a transfer to a fighting squadron," he said. Captain Kelley stared at him. To discuss business at breakfast was an unforgivable breach of etiquette.

Bus continued. "I just heard that Screwball Snyder is up north. He's one hot pilot. I'd like to fly with him." He said this last directly to Captain Kelley, who ignored him.

"This Screwball Snyder was quite a boy," Bus went on. "And quite a lad with the ladies!" Again he spoke directly to Captain Kelley. Again he was bitterly ignored.

"Screwball and I flew across country once," Bus said in slow, clear, loud tones. "He bet me that he could sleep with a different dame in every city we stopped at."

The other officers were horrified. Such talk had never before passed current at our mess. They looked at one another. I looked at Captain Kelley. His face was ashen. He looked at his plate and crumbled a piece of toast in his left hand. There was a long silence, and then Bus spoke again. His voice was cold and gray. "And do you know..."

Captain Kelley rose from the table. His junior officers rose, too, as a compliment to their skipper. Dropping his napkin unfolded, he left the mess hall. That afternoon Bus Adams, fighter, tough guy, roustabout, was on his way north to share in the bombing of Kuralei.

FRISCO

I WAS on the LCS-108 when we hit Kuralei. I joined the small ship at Noumea and was on it nine days before we hit the beachhead. I got to know the crew pretty well.

LCS-108 was a landing craft, very small, loaded with guns. It was the smallest ship that went to the invasion under its own power. Its job was to carry an initial assault crew of twenty-five volunteers who were willing to do anything at the invasion and to do it first. This crew expected to wade ashore through three feet of water breaking on coral against an enemy-held beach. The other seventy-five men formed a heavily armed reserve unit to throw in where the fighting became thickest. The crew itself, about thirty men, were to man the antiaircraft guns and harrass the enemy with rockets.

The skipper of the 108 was an Annapolis ensign. His men truly worshipped him. "God help us if we meet a Jap battleship!" his men told me. "Cap'n will head right for it." I am sure he would have.

The exec was a young school teacher from Nevada. He was an ensign, too, as were the other two officers. The exec spoke in a high voice. One of the seamen told me, "Only difference between the skipper and the exec is that if you do wrong the skipper could knock you down. The exec just makes you feel awful small."

I think the skipper was secretly miffed at having aboard an officer senior to himself. In case of trouble, you know. But I knew nothing about ships and was, I hope, no hindrance.

We made rendezvous at D-minus-two. It was a glorious feeling. You went to bed alone on the vast ocean. In the morning you were surrounded by big important ships of the line. I relaxed. If Jap planes did break through they would surely overlook a mere spot on the ocean like us. The skipper, on the other hand, tried always to maneuver his craft so that in case of attack he could flank some big ship from a starboard torpedo. He doubled the antiaircraft watch. I don't know when he slept. He was all over the ship, his first command. I saw him in the most unlikely places.

D-minus-one brought frequent squalls. This scared us, because Jap torpedo planes like to dive through small clouds and pepper the ocean with fish. We had four alarms that day, but no Jap planes. Night fell and the storms went. We sailed under a magnificent sky, bright with stars. Then, in the distance, we saw other stars blazing in fury across the sky! The warships were at Kuralei! The bombardment was on!

We watched the fiery display for hours. Men who would work as never before when the sun came up, could not drive themselves to sleep. They clustered about the rails and guns to watch the American Navy in its first great Pacific bombardment. I tried to sleep, but could not. Once, when the noise had become familiar, I dozed off for a moment. But I was soon awakened by a tremendous dull thump. There were cries on deck, and I thought we must be hit. I hurried topside and saw an eerie sight. The Japs had hit one of our oilers. She blazed like a torch. As I watched, both fascinated and horrified by what I saw, one of our greatest battleships passed between us and the flame. For breathless moments the tremendous ship was silhouetted. Then it left the flame and so far as we could tell vanished.

The oiler burned itself out and was sunk. In hushed groups we watched new salvos strike Kuralei. But no longer were we sure that no shore fire would hit us.

Like the men on deck, I could not sleep. Yet the bombardment tired my eyes and dulled my brain. It was too massive to understand. I went below to my own bunk and found that I was simply incapable of staying there alone. Like the youngest seaman, I was assailed by thoughts that were not meant for lonely harvest.

I went forward to the crew's recreation room. I knew that I was intruding, yet I had to. The enlisted men of LCS-108 were not unpleasant to me, since I had no authority over them. In fact, I think they may even have been glad to see me. They thought I knew much more than I did.

"How many men on an oiler, sir?" they asked.

"I don't know," I replied.

"Do you think they all went down, sir?"

"There are always some survivors, aren't there?" I reasoned. "Seems to me out there would be a pretty good place, if you had to get it anyway. Look at all the ships!"

"That's right!" the men said. They nodded to one another. The thought cheered me, and I think it did the same for the men. Suddenly I felt that a strong portion of America was there to protect us during the next few days. And we, in turn, were protecting others. In the days that followed these reciprocal thoughts came back to me time and again. The sense of belonging is one of the great gifts men get in battle.

As the night wore on the exec came down. He, too, was unwilling to stay in his quarters. Men coming off watch drifted by for a drink of water and stayed. The air was heavy with smoke. As always in such Navy groups, somebody started singing. Where the deer and the antelope play... We joined in, trying to hit close harmonies and holding notes until they fairly groaned to be let loose.

A coxswain was, by nature and by talent, leader of the singing. He was a slight boy under twenty. He had a fine, Irish tenor. Before the last notes of a song had died away, he would lead forth with another. Soon, as in every songfest I attended, he started the two old favorites of all males voices. In high falsetto he sang, "I'm coming, I'm coming! For my head is hanging low." I think we sang that song at least eight times. The real singers amongst us introduced variations and trills I had not heard before. The bellowers simply hit a few notes and held them deliciously long.

Then the coxswain started the other favorite. Silent night, holy night! All is calm, all is bright. He had a fine voice for the carol and was joined by a bass who rumbled the low notes. It may seem strange that men aboard a ship about to go into action would choose to sing a German carol, a carol in fact so German that it sounds rude sung in English. Yet they did elect that song, and when they sang it, it was not German, even though more than half the men sang it in that language. Nor, in a sense, was it a religious song. It was merely a succession of glorious notes which men could hold onto with affection as if they were, indeed, memories.

Our singing was interrupted at 0230 by loud explosions. We hurried on deck in time to see a series of ammunition dumps on Kuralei go up. Spires of flame shot several hundred feet into the air, subsided, and then sprang higher. Again our ships, hundreds of them it seemed, were illuminated. Full in our path a cruiser loosed a salvo and passed into the darkness. Soon another took its place. New explosions rocked the beaches.

After some minutes we went below again. The mood for singing was gone. A heavy-set fireman who by choice was in the assault party sat next to me on the table, our feet on a bench. "I tell you, sir!" he said. "I haven't seen anything prettier than that since Market Street on a Saturday night!"

"You mean Market Street in Frisco?" a gunner's mate asked. Several men leaned forward.

"Yeah! Market Street in Frisco!" the fireman said.

"What a town!" another fireman murmured.

"You can say that again, buddy!" a seaman said approvingly.

Conversation ceased for a moment. All the men near me were thinking of Market Street in Frisco. Suddenly two men started speaking at the same time: "I remember..." one said. "It was on Market..." the second began. They laughed and each indicated that the other should speak first. The cook, whom nobody liked, broke the impasse.

"I was in Frisco four days," he said.

"So what?" a voice inquired.

"So it was the best leave I ever had," the cook replied. "What the hell did you do in Frisco?" the voice taunted. "Pick up a soldier?"

"Nyah, to you!" the cook replied. "It was Friday. I was having a fish dinner. I looked across the aisle and there was this babe."

"What was wrong with her?" the stooge asked.

"Where that babe was wrong," the cook said, "you'd never notice it!" The stooge had no comment. Men in the recreation room leaned forward. They were interested in what happened when the cook, whom they otherwise detested, met a girl in Frisco.

"What happened, cookie?" someone asked.

"Well, this babe-and I ain't kiddin', fellows. She was just about through her dessert and there I was on me soup. It looked to me like she was givin' me the eye, but you know how it is. A smart girl. Maybe she is. Maybe she ain't. She sort of puts it up to you."

"Thass the kind I like," a drooly voice interrupted. "The kind that puts it up to you."

"Knock it off! So what happened, cookie?"

"So quick as a wink I ditches my soup and steps beside her. 'You ain't finished your dinner!' she said. 'To hell with it!' I answered right quick. I give the waiter a couple of bucks and said, 'Keep the change!' Then the waiter said, 'But the young lady's?' So I slung him another two bucks. Well, the dame really give me the eye then. She seen I was a spender."