The Commodore (34 page)

Browning stared at him for a few seconds and then left, slamming the door after him. Sluff lay back in his bed and let out a long breath. Hollis had been right. Browning
was
out to get him. Not enough to have Japs trying to kill you; now he had an admiral's staff after him as well.

His last jab had been an interesting technicality, but with Admiral Tyree asleep in the deep, no one would be wanting to file charges of incompetence against his ghost. In fact, another admiral who'd led his cruiser force to destruction had made the same maneuvering choice Sluff had made, and he'd been awarded the Medal of Honor. The truth was that he'd convinced his boss to run the same tactic he'd used too many times before and it had backfired. Who owns that, he asked himself. Go look in the mirror.

Listen to me, he thought, as he lay back into the pillows. Is everything really all about me? Is my so-called career that important? How about the men who died because of the orders I gave, on the fly, without a whole lot of thinking time. Didn't they count?

Then something occurred to him: There might be some survivors of that fight right here in the Nouméa hospital complex. Maybe he should emulate Halsey and go see them, tell them he was sorry for what happened. Quit worrying about Browning and his minions plotting to hang some dead albatross around his neck. What did Bob Frey use to say? “Screw 'em if they can't take a joke”?

 

THIRTY-TWO

Nouméa Field Hospital

As it turned out, there were several survivors from
Providence
and the destroyers sunk that night. Some of them were hopelessly injured—burns patients, for the most part, who were probably not going to survive. Tina Danfield had helped Sluff find them in the hospital complex, which was a sprawling collection of small buildings spread over a ten-acre area of coconut palms. The buildings were more like tropical huts, made of wood, with no heating or air-conditioning and many of them still sporting palm-frond roofs.

None of the people who'd survived the
Providence
sinking knew who he was, of course. He'd only been aboard briefly, and none of the admiral's staff had survived the torpedoing and subsequent shelling, which had turned
Providence
's flag bridge into a flaming mass of mangled metal as she settled into her watery grave. The destroyer survivors didn't know him, either—he'd only been the New Commodore for one night, and if they remembered anything about that night, they were trying hard to forget it.

He tried to make a brave face of it, pretending to know what their ships had done that night and telling them that they'd killed the Jap admiral and his whole staff, sunk one destroyer, and damaged a heavy cruiser and another destroyer. As he went along he started making stuff up about what they'd done to the enemy, and they seemed to appreciate it, even if they had no idea of who this ugly guy in a bathrobe with an armor-plated head was.

The first time he tried it he ran out of steam halfway between two wards and had to be helped back to the senior officers' ward in a wheelchair. The next afternoon he went a little slower, working his way down a list of names provided by Tina Danfield and her contacts in the hospital admin hut. On the third afternoon she came with him. She proved a lot more popular with the troops than Sluff did. She'd taken the time and effort to apply a little war paint and even Sluff thought she was a whole lot more interesting than the ugly Indian guy with the stainless-steel scalp. The only unpleasant experience was when they visited a sailor who'd lost a leg and a forearm to a shark. He'd been retrieved onto a life raft and, with tourniquets applied, made it back to Nouméa. He wanted to know why no one had come back for the survivors. Sluff had to tell him that there weren't any ships left to come back for the survivors until the next day.

“So it's true,” the man had whispered. “We got our asses kicked.”

“We did,” Sluff said. “And I'm partly responsible for that.”

“So whaddaya want from me,” the man said. “Forgiveness?”

“No, I'm just here to tell you I'm sorry. We tried, and it didn't work.”

“Well, ain't that nice,” the sailor said. “For you, whoever you are.
You
can still walk.” Then he'd turned his face away.

Tina touched Sluff's arm and they moved on to the next sailor, who was, thankfully, a lot more friendly. When they left that ward. Sluff said he'd had enough. Once they got back to his ward, Tina said she had to go back on watch. She asked if he'd be all right.

“You know,” he said with a sad smile, “that kid was partially right. Yes, I wanted to do the right thing, but I also wanted some forgiveness for my mistakes. He saw right through me, didn't he.”

“You keep talking about your mistakes,” she said. “It's war, Captain. You went out and fought the enemy. This time the enemy won. Next time he'll lose. It's not like you ordered your squadron to run away—you ran right at them. What did Nelson say? No captain can do much wrong if he lays his ship alongside one of the enemy's?”

Sluff stared at her. “How did you know that?” he asked.

“About Lord Nelson?”

“No, about what happened out there.”

She blushed. “I was the one pretending to clean the bathroom when that Browning guy came to torment you,” she said. “Walt used to talk about officers like that. He called them silver snakes.”

He smiled. “Well,” he said. “I was happy enough to accept the promotion to captain and the title of commodore. Now I suspect I'll have to be ready to take the consequences of losing a fight. It's how the system works, you know. You get promoted; you get a flag, the nice boat, a steward, and the big cabin. You screw it up, you get the big court.”

“You're not just going to quit, are you?” she asked.

“I'm tired, Tina. I'm also a little embarrassed about touring the wards, like I was Bull Halsey or somebody. That was about me, again. Maybe it's just time to let the wheels of naval justice grind out the right answer.” He paused. “Thank you for your moral support and your help. It was very much appreciated. But you might want to keep your distance. From here on out, I may attract some lightning.”

She shook her head and left quietly. He looked out the lone window, which had no glass, only screens. Sunset was coming down. How appropriate, he thought. He dozed.

He woke up and discovered it was almost nine. He was suddenly hungry. He got up, washed his face, got back into his bathrobe and slippers, and went out into the hallway. He asked a passing corpsman if the chow hall was still open. The corpsman said, yes, it was always open because the medical staff worked around the clock. Sluff got his cane and headed out the door to the building that held the hospital's cafeteria. Sure enough there were some bleary-eyed doctors and nurses in their surgical gowns eating at two of the tables. He grabbed a steel tray and went through the empty line, where he got some soggy chicken, watery string beans, and mashed potatoes. He took a table in a far corner of the cafeteria, near the coffee urns, figuring the docs and nurses had probably had enough of seeing patients for one day. He forced himself to eat the mushy food and then got a mug of coffee. He saw the medical people get up and head for the door. One of the junior nurses got the duty of humping all their empty trays to the steam-line scullery.

Once they'd left he was all alone, except for the bored-looking Negro cooks back in the galley. He leaned his chair back against the wall and sipped his vintage yesterday coffee. Outside he could hear some boxy green ambulance trucks grinding their way up the hill from the port with more broken bodies. He realized it was December, heading toward Christmas.

Christmas in the war-torn South Pacific, he thought. Now there's a cosmic joke if there ever was one.

That's when Admiral Halsey and an aide came into the cafeteria and headed for the coffee station.

 

THIRTY-THREE

Nouméa Field Hospital

As he approached the coffee urns Halsey saw Sluff. Those bushy eyebrows went straight up.

“Jesus Christ and General Jackson!” he exclaimed. “Commodore Wolf. You
are
alive.” Halsey sat down on one of the metal mess hall chairs and studied Sluff's face. “Shot at and missed, shit at and hit, I do believe, young man,” he pronounced.

Sluff exhaled a long breath. “It's a long story, Admiral,” he said. “And not a pretty one, I'm afraid.”

“You think I don't know that, Wolf? I've seen the butcher's bill. Tell me in five minutes—what the hell happened out there?”

It ended up being thirty minutes, not five, but Halsey let him tell it. The aide, a lieutenant commander, appeared to be truly horrified by what he was hearing. When Sluff finally ran out of steam, Halsey raised a hand.

“Okay, I get the picture. There's lot to be learned here—some of which we know, like our own goddamned torpedoes still not working, but how did those Jap heavy cruisers know
when
to come around the corner? They must be listening to our tactical radios.” He paused, took a sip of coffee, grimaced, and then put the mug down. “The biggest question I have doesn't concern the night fight. How long have you been here?”

“Got picked up by a PT boat about a week ago, and came here on a Catalina.”

“Surely someone reported that to my headquarters,” Halsey said.

“Don't know, Admiral. I wasn't the only casualty on the plane. Your chief of staff knew, though. He's been to visit me. Told me a court of inquiry is coming. Told me that some people at SOPAC headquarters think I gathered up my squadron and turned tail when those cruisers showed up.”

Halsey's face turned to stone. For a moment, he seemed to be about to erupt; then he quickly calmed himself.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll look into that. Meantime, I've got an entire theater of war to worry about, and this incident, while important, is not as important as the Japs' determination to reinforce their army on Guadalcanal. All the intel says they've got a big push coming. Are you fit for duty? Is that”—he pointed at the metal plate shining out of Sluff's head—“disqualifying?”

Sluff smiled. “Proof of what people have been saying for years,” he said. “That I have a very hard head.”

Halsey sighed, apparently not in the mood for humor.

“I need some physical rehab,” Sluff said, quickly. “Balance, strength training. Later, some skin grafts. But my mind is up and running, and I have many Japs to kill for what they did to us that night.”

“That's what I want to hear,” Halsey said, nodding. “Okay—get your rehab. And get your ass ready to fight.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Sluff said. “And thank you for hearing my side.”

“Don't thank me yet, Harmon Wolf,” he said, as he got up. “I may yet get you killed for real.”

He made a face at the offending mug of coffee and turned to leave, aide in tow. He stopped halfway across the room and turned around.

“Something you should know, Wolf,” he said. “You've got a very pretty ally, who buttonholed me in a ward tonight and told me where to find you.
And
what to ask about.
Juneau
widow, my aide tells me. You married?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then,” Halsey said, putting one finger against his nose. And then he left.

Well, then, indeed, Sluff thought. God bless Tina Danfield—heard Halsey was in the hospital, went and found him, and steered him to their meeting. Somebody had faith in him, he thought. Now he just had to generate some faith in himself.

He blew out a long breath and then shivered as he thought about going back out to face those black ships in the night again. Unconsciously, he touched the plate on the side of his head.

*   *   *

For the next three days he found out that “rehab” meant hours of exercising, from what someone called passive-resistance training to actual walking, stair-climbing, breathing, and, interestingly, hand-eye coordination tests. He couldn't go straight through any of it on the first day, but by day three he was definitely getting stronger. The only sign of brain damage was his ability to distinguish between colors. It wasn't that he couldn't see color, it was that he made occasional mistakes when reading a color chart. Otherwise, he was pretty much himself, warts and all.

On the fourth morning after Halsey's visit, Tina stopped by and told him that Captain Hollis had called. He didn't have time to come up to the hospital complex, but wanted Sluff to know that a new surface-action group was being formed to deal with something important about to happen at Guadalcanal, and that he, Hollis, was going to command it.

“Well, great,” Sluff said. “I think he's one of the good guys.”

“He had one more thing to tell you,” she said. “Browning is coming to see you. He didn't know what about, but he said to be careful.”

“Ah, the original silver snake,” Sluff mused. “When?”

“He didn't know,” she said. “You have more rehab work to do today, and then we have to talk about discharge. We need the space.”

“I understand,” he said.

“It's Guadalcanal,” she said. “Combat injuries but also tropical diseases: we've opened a
fifth
malaria ward. Kids are dying right and left. You should hear the stories the Marines are telling. It's awful up there.”

“I know,” he said. “At least a little bit. Tell me, how long will you be here in Nouméa?”

“
Me?
I'll be here until we win this thing in the Solomons. Then we'll go on to Japan.”

He stared at her. “You're that sure?” he asked. “That we're gonna beat these bastards?”

“Never doubted it,” she said. “And neither should you. Look, I've got to go. Watch yourself with that Browning fella.”