Pacific Interlude Page 23

  “You’re crazy,” Simpson said. “She’ll blow. They can jump, we can pick ’em up—”

  Except they’d have a hell of a time getting any from the burning ship, Syl thought, and Buller again was echoing his thought aloud.

  The Y-18 was headed toward the big tanker in preparation for mooring and was going so fast that it took little more time to go alongside than it would have taken to turn. The men on the Merchant Prince lined the rails as the Y-18 neared, lowered lines and scrambled down, some taking flying leaps into the rigging as the smaller ship scraped slowly by without fully stopping. When no more men could be seen at the rail, Syl ordered full-ahead emergency, flank speed. For some reason he felt no acute sense of danger and was all unreasonably sure that the Merchant Prince would not blow for another minute or two. His stomach started to feel queasy only when the Y-18 was five hundred yards away, almost far enough to be safe, but not quite. One minute more, Lord, one more …

  The prayer was answered. The Lucky Eighteen was not destroyed when the tanker blew, but she was so close that everyone on deck was knocked off his feet and an out-reaching tongue of pale yellow fire licked the paint on her stern, singeing it before withering. Burning fragments from the big tanker’s boats and pilothouse, some of them several feet long, rained on the Y-18’s deck along with a shower of broken glass. Syl’s first words when he got back to his feet were, “Hoses, for Christ’s sake, man the hoses, get the fires out …”

  The crew hardly needed to be told. The hoses were already gushing their spray as Syl started to give his orders.

  “Anyone hurt?” Simpson shouted.

  An instant of silence before Cramer answered, “Nobody bad I can see.”

  “Any officers here?” a burly boatswain from the Prince called, a plaintive note in his voice. “Did any of our officers make it?”

  “I’m here,” a tall balding engineer replied. “I guess the skipper and the mates were on the bridge.”

  “No, I’m here,” a tall, thin third mate who had been lying on the deck said as he climbed to his feet. “I was up forward.”

  “Rhinehart? You here?” Buller shouted.

  “Bobbie, Bobbie,” Sorrel called out, and ran to the forecastle. No answer. He ran aft, searched the whole ship, calling his friend’s name while everyone else aboard listened silently.

  “I guess Rhinehart’s missing,” Simpson told Syl quietly.

  A picture of young Rhinehart hugging his dead monkey flashed into Syl’s mind. Now he was dead, but this time no burial at sea would be necessary. Astern the Y-18, the flaming hulk of the Merchant Prince was now sliding to the bottom stern-first, her fiery bow rising and pointing at the sky. With a great hissing sound and rising clouds of white steam, the whole ship disappeared, and nothing was left but burning bits of debris, none bigger than a man. There was a long minute of stunned silence aboard the Y-18 while the men stared. The heavy-set boatswain, who had been wearing a blue watch cap, took it off, and a few of the others did likewise.

  “Come left slow,” Syl said to the helmsman, and went to the voice tube. “Ahead full—no more emergency flank speed.”

  “What’s going on?” Wydanski said.

  “The big tanker blew. The Merchant Prince… We got most of her men off …” He turned to the helmsman and added. “Steady on that point of land over there.”

  “That tin can is signaling,” Simpson said, pointing at a destroyer racing toward them, a light flashing from the wing of her bridge. “Where the hell is Sorrel?”

  “I’m here,” Sorrel said tonelessly.

  He had been sitting on the deck, hugging his knees and rocking back and forth. Getting to his feet, he went to his signal light on the wing of the bridge and studied the destroyer.

  “He says, ‘Well done,’” he added, his voice flat. “He wants to know if you want to put wounded aboard him. He has a doctor.”

  “Anybody need a doctor?” Simpson called.

  Four of the Merchant Prince’s men stepped forward, one with a badly burned face.

  “Stop the engine,” Syl said. “Stand by to lower the motorboat.”

  The engine-room telegraph jingled.

  “The engine is stopped, sir,” the quartermaster said.

  “Thompson, get the names of those men we’re putting off,” Simpson said. “I want to log them. Then get the names of everyone we took aboard.”

  “All hands from the Prince muster here,” the third mate called from the crowded tank deck. “Starboard side.”

  There were thirty-three.

  The Y-18 slowed to a stop, and her boat was launched and headed toward the destroyer with the wounded men. As it was returning, the destroyer signaled, “Return to Tacloban with survivors,” and headed toward the still peaceful-looking beaches of Mindoro.

  “Mr. Simpson, please get me a course to Tacloban,” Syl said.

  “Aye,” Simpson said, and went to the chartroom.

  “Where the hell are we going to bunk all these men?” Cramer demanded.

  “We’re going to have to round up every tarp and sleeping bag we have,” Buller said. “Skipper, I got some whiskey in my locker. Can I issue it?”

  “Give it to the survivors.”

  “Can I at least give beer to our boys?”

  “Issue two cans each and tell the cook to make a big stew.”

  “The course is one four eight, compass,” Simpson said.

  After making sure the motorboat had been taken aboard, Syl ordered full speed ahead and put the ship on the new course. The men on the tank deck needed and welcomed the appearance of beer and whiskey.

  “Take her, Mr. Simpson,” Syl said.

  “I got her, sir.”

  “Course, one four eight, speed eight knots. Keep a sharp lookout for more of those goddamn planes.”

  “Aye. Course, one four eight, speed eight knots. I got her, sir.”

  Syl went to his cabin. He had a curious need to figure out what had happened, as though he had just come aboard and wanted to ask someone. He had just stretched out on his bunk when there was a knock at his door. The tall thin mate of the Merchant Prince appeared, holding his cap in his hand.

  “My name’s Morris, sir,” he said. “I want to thank you …”

  “Our duty,” Syl said, the two words sounding sharp and odd. And, he realized, terribly stiff.

  “No sir, you didn’t have to pick us up. We never could have made it if we’d had to swim or take to the boats. You saved our lives. They ought to put you up for a medal, I mean you and your crew …”

  “It was as easy to get you as to turn,” Syl said.

  “Still, you brought a gas tanker alongside a burning gas tanker. That’s something. If the skipper of that tin can doesn’t write a letter I guess I will. Your ship deserves a unit citation at least—”

  “Thank you. How many men did you lose, Mr. Morris?”

  “The skipper, the first and the second—they all went, and the whole bridge gang went with them. We were standing by to get underway. The skipper expected trouble. Warnings were out. None of us even saw it before we were hit. Our guns were manned but we didn’t fire a shot. If I hadn’t got a wild hair up my ass about that rust streak on the bow I wouldn’t be here. I had to argue with the skipper to let me fix it.”

  “We’re all lucky, Mr. Morris.”

  “I suppose … anyway, our men all thank you, sir. I just wanted to tell you that.” He turned then and went out, pulling his cap squarely on his head.

  Syl lay down again, but only a few minutes later Buller appeared, a glass of bourbon in hand.

  “I figured maybe you could use this,” he said.

  Syl sat up and accepted the drink. It tasted very damn good.

  “Did that mate tell you he’s going to write a letter, putting us all up for medals?” Buller said.

  Syl nodded.

  “Do you think we might get the Navy Cross?”

  Syl looked at him. “I doubt it, whole thing probably will get lost in the shuffle …”<
br />
  “Hell, can’t have that happen. I’ll write a few letters myself. I got friends who can help—”

  “Votes, Mr. Buller?”

  “Damn right … a medal could mean a lot of them.”

  “I’m sure,” Syl said. “Good luck to you.” Actually he wanted to tell him to go to hell. Men had just burned up, including a shipmate, Rhinehart, and he was already collecting medals and counting postwar votes. And this was the guy who was always talking about how much he loved the men …

  “Old Simp wanted to cut and run,” Buller was saying.

  “Doesn’t make him a coward. Tankers aren’t supposed to be rescue ships. We could easily have joined the Prince when it blew.”

  “True … do you want a beer to wash that down? It’s not very cold.”

  “I’ll wait till we get in.”

  Suddenly Syl felt mortally tired.

  “Hey, skipper, when I get to be president, you want to be secretary of state?”

  “I’m not the type.” Not the type at all, he thought. He just wanted to see the world, not run it.

  CHAPTER 23

  AFTER BULLER LEFT, Syl tried to sleep. Sooner or later he’d have to write a letter to Rhinehart’s mother. What would he say, that her son had died while trying to learn how to tame a monkey? He’d tell her he’d been killed in action while heroically doing his duty. All women wanted their men to be heroes. His own mother would be delighted if he got a medal, so would Sally. They’d pin it on the gold star flag hanging in the window. God … what a terrible farce …

  After landing the survivors of the Merchant Prince in Tacloban, the Y-18’s reward was to be put back on the shuttle run. Syl sent the crew ashore in shifts with Buller, who arranged baseball games and “beer busts,” for which each man was able to draw only two cans from the army. Although they grumbled a lot, the men obviously felt new pride in their ship and insisted on painting “Lucky Eighteen” in huge white letters on the sides of the pilothouse, in spite of Simpson’s warning that bragging about a ship’s good luck was a sure way to change it.

  After a time, a bad sense of letdown set in. The men grew more jumpy than ever on the tedious shuttle run. In a curious way Rhinehart had occupied a more important position on the ship than anyone had realized. The youngest and most naive man in the forecastle, he had cheerfully done all the most menial jobs, cleaning out the heads and washing dishes in the galley. None of the other men wanted these jobs. Until a replacement appeared, the men fought to avoid cleaning the heads and the cook had to get Cramer to coerce a different man into his galley for dishwashing every night, to the accompaniment of a lot of swearing and broken crockery.

  At night more canoes glided alongside, and Syl occasionally saw girls disappearing like shadows into the forecastle, but he worried less about them than about the booze they brought with them and the cigarette cartons the men gave them in return. It was hard enough to discipline men not to smoke aboard a gas tanker without trying to do the same with native girls. He’d prowl the decks and the forecastle, order the women off the ship, and hated himself for doing it as much as the men, at that moment, hated him.

  With the war now going so badly in Europe no end seemed in sight, the men stopped talking about peace and concentrated on the good times they hoped would be waiting for them in Manila.…

  On January 6 a huge convoy moved out of Leyte Gulf, joined up with others and two days later sailed into Lingayen Gulf, where they landed troops which began to fight their way across the big island of Luzon toward Manila. Neither the Y-18 nor Paul Schuman’s ship was included in this operation, being ordered to stay behind and shuttle gasoline to the Tacloban airstrip, which was busier than ever sending flights of bombers to the battle.

  The men complained about missing the action, while secretly grateful for avoiding it.

  Syl for the first time in more than a year developed a cold that turned into a bad case of bronchitis. He lay in his cabin, sweating and coughing.

  “You ought to go ashore to a hospital,” Schuman said during one of his frequent visits. “You look like you have a hell of a fever.”

  “I’m afraid they’d keep me there.”

  “Listen, hero, the ship can run without you. Your officers are pretty damn competent. Better than most.”

  Syl said nothing. His throat ached when he talked.

  “If you played your cards right they might give Simpson the command and send you home,” Schuman pressed on. “God knows, you’ve got plenty of sea duty under your belt. And if they’ve got you in for a medal, that wouldn’t hurt.”

  Syl swallowed hard. The idea was almost too good to think about. He wondered whether he was right in thinking that the Y-18 couldn’t make it without him or whether that was just his ego talking.

  Before he could make up his mind his body decided the issue by recovering. And almost as though he resented that, he became even tougher on the crew about the women.

  “Skipper,” Buller said to him one night after he’d given a virtuoso performance, “do you really want the men to stop raising hell aboard?”

  “They’re sure going to send us all to the bottom if they don’t.”

  “Then let ’em raise hell ashore. They can’t get anything but a couple of warm cans of beer from the army or navy, but I know a little cantina where they could meet some girls and—”

  “Those native bars are off limits.”

  “This one don’t have no sign on it. I see plenty of officers in there all the time. It’s on the outskirts of the town. You could make a deal with the men. If you let me take them out there in shifts, they’d maybe behave themselves better on the ship.”

  “The hootch they’ll get in a native cantina could kill them—”

  They’re getting it here anyway, and this cantina has some good Scotch. They have a connection.”

  There was only a moment of silence before Syl said what he wanted to say in the first place. “All right, set it up. At least you’re right about one thing … it’s a hell of a lot less dangerous for them to raise hell ashore than on board and blow us all up.…

  That night Buller took a quarter of the men ashore, leaving the rest to continue the shuttle run. The arrangement continued happily for several weeks. Buller enjoyed the advantage of going ashore every night to play shepherd, but even Simpson had to admit that “infractions of safety regulations” aboard greatly decreased. Now the threat of punishment by restricting the men to the ship had some real meaning.

  But this all came to an end on February 10, when Buller and the shore party did not return to the ship on time. After a half hour of waiting, Syl had to sail from the fuel barge to get a new load of gasoline. When the Y-18 returned three hours later a dour army lieutenant with an MP band on his arm met her.

  “Does a big goddamn ensign named Buller belong aboard this ship?” he asked Syl.

  “Yes. Is he in any trouble?”

  “You might say … are you missing a chief boatswain’s mate and three sailors?”

  “Yes.”

  “We got the whole bunch of ’em in the stockade. Are you their commanding officer?”

  “Yes. What did they do?”

  “Skipper, I don’t even have time to begin to tell you. The colonel’s drawing up a list of charges long as my arm. He wants to see you. Right away.”

  Leaving the ship in Simpson’s care, Syl was driven to a green Quonset hut at the army base. The colonel who waited for him was tall, thin, red-faced and angry.

  “What did they do?” he shouted in reply to Syl’s first inquiry. “That crazy bastard Buller was operating a whorehouse right here on my base and the rest were all helping him. He got together with the madam and helped her steal booze from the officers’ club. When my men came to investigate they attacked them. Two of my boys are in the hospital—”

  “I’m sorry to hear that—” Was he really?

  “All you tanker bastards are the same. You’re crazier than the marines.”

  “How long are you goi
ng to keep them locked up?”

  “I’m holding them for a general court. Who knows how long that will take.”

  “Can I speak to Mr. Buller?”

  “I’ll have him brought in. I couldn’t talk to the bastard much last night—he was too drunk. I’m curious to see what he has to say for himself.”

  A few minutes later Buller was led in between two MP’s who were almost as big as himself. In handcuffs and leg manacles, he looked like a chained bear. Both his eyes were blackened, his face badly bruised and his fists puffed beyond their usual size, but he managed a grin.

  “Morning, skipper, thank God you came to rescue us—”

  “Nobody can rescue you,” the colonel shouted. “I’m going to put you away for five years—”

  “Colonel, I know you’re upset about the men who got hurt,” Buller said equably, “and I am too, but just what charges are you going to bring against me?”

  “Operating a whorehouse on an army base in a combat zone, stealing liquor and assaulting the military police. For starters.”

  “Well, sir, do you mind if I discuss those charges one at a time? In the first place, sir, that was no whorehouse. It was just a nice little cantina. No one could ever prove it was a whorehouse—”

  “There were native broads there by the dozen. Are you trying to tell me they were nuns and nurses?”

  “No, sir, but they were no whores. I don’t think General MacArthur would like the army to go on the assumption that all Filipino ladies are whores if they’re not nuns or nurses.”

  “They were taking money from the men. That was observed.”

  “Some of the girls were selling drinks, sir, and a few souvenirs. They weren’t doing nothing improper.”

  “They were coupling with the men all over the place and you know it—”

  “Sir, I’m not clear about that word ‘coupling.’ They were dancing and being nice and affectionate but nothing indecent was happening on the premises. What Filipino ladies do isn’t really our concern anyway, is it? They’re a free people now.”

  “One of my boys propositioned a girl and was accepted—”

  “Sir, that’s how the fight started. She didn’t accept—she was embarrassed. That MP was very crude. I’m sure General MacArthur wouldn’t want American soldiers to treat Filipino ladies that way. This whole thing could look very bad in court, or the papers—”