The Commodore (6 page)

They couldn't know that they'd face two American battleships tonight. They'd never expect Halsey to leave his carrier force, or what was left of it, unescorted like that.

No one else would expect that, either, especially his distant masters back at Pearl and Washington, DC. Ernie Jesus King would be suitably aghast—unless, of course, it worked. It had better work.

“Miles, I need a drink,” he announced to his empty cabin.

 

FIVE

Ironbottom Sound, Guadalcanal

“Bridge, Combat.”

“What've we got?”

“They're here. Multiple radar contacts, northeast of Savo, coming south. One big, four smaller. Maybe more. Twenty-four thousand yards, closing at twenty-seven knots.”

“Okay,” Sluff said. “Send a flashing-light report to the boss.”

“On the way,” Bob said.

“Officer of the deck,” Sluff called. “Pass the word throughout the ship: Enemy ships approaching. All stations: Button up tight and stand by.”

Sluff checked the gyrocompass. They had just turned west, having circled Savo Island. The formation hadn't changed: destroyers
J. B. King, Walke, Calhoun, Morgan,
followed by battleships
South Dakota
and
Washington.
They were passing through the waters between Guadalcanal and Savo Island, the site of too many defeats for the American forces. They were running downwind now, so there was no longer any cooling relief from the relative wind. The tropical night was so hot and humid that the sea haze was almost a fog. After Sluff's announcement, the men on the bridge stood a little straighter, and the idle chitchat of a moment ago subsided into frightened silence.

“Bridge, Sigs. From the boss: We see them. Open fire when we do.”

“Bridge, aye,” Sluff said. He relayed the message to the gunnery officer, Billy Chandler, up in the main battery director, one deck above.

“We have a solution on the lead ship, Cap'n,” Billy said. “They're not quite in range.”

“They should be in the battleships' range,” Sluff said. Hardly had he said that than a mile behind them the night erupted in red and orange balls of fire as the battleships let go. The thumping roar of their sixteen-inch guns followed a few seconds later, punishing the hot night air. Right behind them,
Walke
began firing.

“What's the range?” Sluff asked Billy.

“Nineteen-five,” he said. The effective range of
J. B. King
's five-inch guns was eighteen thousand yards. “Effective” meant that the chances of hitting the target at nine miles were really good. The guns, however, could shoot out to almost ten miles, or twenty thousand yards.

“Commence firing,” Sluff ordered. “Tell your topside AA gunners to look out for torpedo wakes.”

“Control, aye,” Billy shouted. Two seconds later, all five of
J. B. King
's five-inch mounts began blasting away, their barrels trained out to starboard and pointing high, at maximum elevation. The noise was terrific, with clouds of gunsmoke and wadding particles blowing back into the bridge because of that following wind.

Sluff tried to think about what would happen next. Once the heavies started shooting, the Japs would know they'd been ambushed by something a whole lot bigger than cruisers.

What would they do?

Launch a swarm of those terrible Long Lance torpedoes, that's what. He stepped out onto the bridge wing, trying to ignore the ear-numbing blasts from the forward gun mounts. The three mounts back aft were going full tilt as well, and a thousand yards astern he could see
Walke
's five-inchers pumping yellow flames. The five-inch barrage seemed insignificant compared to the enormous pulses of red-white-orange muzzle blasts from the big guys a mile and a half back. He couldn't imagine what it was like on the receiving end of all that.

“Bridge, Combat,” his talker shouted. “Enemy ships are turning around. Control reports we're getting hits on the lead ship, but they're definitely on the run!”

On the run, maybe, Sluff thought. Or, they were turning to present their torpedo tubes, now that they could see the Americans. He just
knew
the torpedoes were coming. The Jap Long Lance was much bigger than
J. B. King
's torpedoes. Twenty-four inches in diameter instead of twenty-one. They ran at almost sixty miles an hour, with a half-ton warhead, and outranged the American torpedoes by miles. He walked quickly back into the pilothouse.

“Left standard rudder,” he called. “All ahead flank, turns for thirty-four knots!”

“
Captain
has the conn,” the OOD announced inside the pilothouse. He sounded scared. You ought to be, Sluff thought. He moved quickly over to his chair and punched down the button for the CIC. “Combat, Captain, I'm hauling out of formation to avoid torpedoes. Tell gun control to check fire until we're clear of our own ships. I think there are torpedoes incoming.”

“Combat, aye,” the exec responded. “Radar shows there are more Japs coming out from around the
west
side of Savo. These look bigger. Cruisers, maybe.”

King
's guns remained silent as she straightened up and began to run down the column of American ships in the opposite direction. As if to make the exec's point, large waterspouts began to erupt around the destroyers who'd remained in the van. Then another series of shell splashes erupted all around the lead American battleship,
South Dakota.
Sluff could barely see them, but the force of their impact with the water meant that that had to be eight-inch fire from heavy cruisers coming in. He wanted to shout at the other destroyers: Maneuver, do
something
to avoid the incoming shells. Don't just steam in lockstep in a straight line in front of the battleships, whose enormous gun flashes were clearly illuminating the destroyers.

Another round of salvos came out of the night, landing this time on the other side of the column now drifting down their port quarter as
King
accelerated.
South Dakota
was just about abeam, perhaps a mile and half, thundering out nine-gun salvos with clockwork precision as
King
raced by, headed for the rear of the formation so that she could rejoin the shooting. Sluff knew that the Japs were refining their gunnery solution on the steady-as-you-go American formation. Salvos that landed short and then over meant that they just about had the range and the next salvo would be—

There was a bright yellow flash, a massive bang of overpressure, and then the sound of shrapnel flailing
King
's mast and upper superstructure. A moment later, the bitch-box lit up as huge waterspouts stood up all around them, shaking the ship like a dog with a rag.

“Bridge, Combat, we've lost comms with the task force. Radio says the radio antennas are probably down.”

“Okay,” Sluff said. “We're coming abeam of
Washington
now, and I'll resume firing when we're clear of her. Looks like
South Dakota
has stopped shooting for some reason. Looks like they're getting hammered by eight-inch.”

“Radar shows something really big coming around Savo now.”

“Very well,” Sluff said. “I'll eyeball us back into formation behind
Washington
as soon as—”

The night lit up behind them as the three destroyers still in the line,
Calhoun, Walke,
and
Morgan,
were eaten alive by the arrival of several Long Lance torpedoes. Sluff rushed out to his port bridge wing in time to see pillars of flame rising up from the sea, bright enough that he could actually see the
Washington,
still blasting away with her nine sixteen-inch guns. Ahead of her,
South Dakota
's guns were still strangely silent, even as she was being straddled again by even larger waterspouts. Damn, he thought. They've got a battleship, too. Up above, on the signal bridge, there were shouts for a corpsman.

“Officer of the deck,” Sluff shouted. “Put us astern of
Washington
at one thousand yards. Tell Gun Control to resume firing when arcs are clear.”

The TBS, or talk-between-ships, radio blared out a question from Admiral Lee himself: “
J. B. King:
What are you doing?”

Sluff grabbed the radio handset, but the transmit light didn't come on when he pressed the talk button. He dropped the handset into his chair just as the
Walke
blew up from a magazine explosion, showering the front of the formation with pieces of the ship and a million body parts and again lighting up the night.
King
's guns reached out to starboard and rejoined the gunfight as the OOD adjusted course and speed to position the ship in
Washington
's tumultuous wake. Compared to the volcanic blasts from
Washington
just ahead,
King
's guns seemed puny. Sluff stared in horror through the front portholes.
Washington
was still firing, but now her great guns were pointed up at a slightly higher angle, as if she was seeking out a target miles away. Then the
South Dakota
came back into the fight, firing intermittently, but now she was alight with fires in her superstructure and all along her main decks. Only her forward guns appeared to be firing, and then suddenly she heeled to starboard and lurched out of the battle line, or what was left of it. Only
Washington
plowed ahead, punishing the night with her main battery of nine sixteen-inch guns.

Sluff scanned the horizon to the north of them, but he really couldn't see anything because of all the gun flashes. He made sure the OOD had slowed down so
King
wouldn't run up the battlewagon's stern. The dark gray behemoth continued to send mountainous salvos northwest into the night, still regular as clockwork, the thump of her great guns almost strong enough to hurt his ears. Behind them the three stricken destroyers, two still burning and one already gone, disappeared into the gloom of the night haze. Then
King
's guns stopped firing.

“Bridge, Gun Control, no targets in range,” the gun boss called over the bitch-box.

“Bridge, aye. Combat, what are the Japs doing?”

“Radar shows two groups to the west of Savo, one turning west, the other coming on. The second group has a really big one, but it's out of range for us.”

As he watched
Washington
's guns blasting into the night, he realized that the big one was probably a Jap battleship and
Washington
intended to kill it. He stared out into the heavy night, but the big guys were duking it out at ranges beyond the night visibility and there was nothing to be seen. He felt useless: his job was to screen the battleship, but the gunfight going on now was way out of
J. B. King
's league. He was only grateful to have avoided the carnage that had erupted in the van of the formation, the one he'd bailed out on.

Survivors. That was something
King
could do. There had to be survivors from that deadly harvest of the Long Lances. Please God.

“Combat, Bridge, do you have a position for the point where our other tin cans got hit?”

“Wait one.” Then: “Affirmative, we have it on the plot.”

“Take us there,” Sluff ordered. “There'll be people in the water.”

“Captain, radar shows there's a Jap line formation coming down from east of Savo. Looks like destroyers. We go back there, they'll be on us.”

“Then set up a torpedo solution on that line. We're going back.”

“Combat, aye.”

Sluff ordered the OOD to haul out from behind
Washington
along her unengaged side and then accelerate to thirty-four knots, leaving the battleship to its long-range duel, and headed back along his own wake to intercept the point where the destroyers behind him had been shredded by the Jap torpedo swarm. He was headed east now, back toward the heart of Ironbottom Sound.

“Bridge, Combat, enemy formation at twenty-four thousand yards, coming straight down towards Cape Esperance. Looks like four DDs.”

“If they're on a steady course, set up both torpedo mounts to fire right down their column axis, once they get close enough. Tell Gun Control
not
to shoot until I say so.”

“Combat, aye.”

Sluff was thinking fast. He had to keep his guns quiet right now, because the approaching Japs would see
King
's gun flashes and he'd probably never get back to rescue the desperate survivors ahead. The night was dark enough and wet enough that he stood a good chance of remaining invisible. Once the torpedo solution crystallized, he'd launch ten torpedoes right at the approaching Jap column. Once they began to hit,
then
he'd let his gunners go to work while the Japs tried to figure out what was happening.

Wait: If he started shooting, they'd still see him, even if they were dealing with torpedoes. So: No.
Don't
fire. Tear 'em up with his tin fish but keep heading east. Plus, there was a dividend to his maneuvers: Those four Jap tin cans were a distinct threat to
Washington
. A torpedo attack on them would be the one contribution King
could
make to protect the big guy. He looked aft: Where the hell was the
Washington?

“Where's the
Washington?
” he asked Combat.

“Headed southwest now,” the exec replied. “Looks like she's getting out of Dodge. We're on our own.”

“Any sign of
South Dakota
?”

“That's a negative. She left earlier.”

The relative wind was back up again as
King
headed east at maximum speed. Down below in CIC the torpedo plot was being refined. Up on the bridge it was still hot and dark, and there was nothing to do but wait to see if his gamble would work. The big guys had left the field. Now it was down to
J. B. King
to blunt the oncoming attack and then see if they could rescue anyone from the earlier disaster.