At the Midway (52 page)

Grissom was right.  Most of the men could not sleep.  The forecastle was charged with excitement.  The form of the adversary mattered little.  Whether fish or fleet, it was something unknown.  If fish, it would be the adventure of discovery.  If fleet... well, death too could be an adventure.

Not only excitement, but pain kept Ensign Garrett awake.  He felt even worse than he looked.  Lying down was agony, standing was just as bad.  He prayed for sleep.  But the slightest rocking of his hammock rubbed sore bones against damaged muscles, springing his eyes open as he suppressed a shout of misery.  That he should never have fought Midshipman Beck was obvious.  Equally obvious was the fact that he could not have backed down without loss of honor.  There it was; and here he was.
 
He did not perceive the awe of the men who had witnessed the fight.  Only the humiliation, the crushing loss of status.  He met men's eyes as he had always met them--only now, he did not see them.  In effect, he'd learned to look blindly into the multifarious face of the crew.  Before, he'd only been able to do that with women.

It could have been worse.

What a godsend William Pegg had been!  His rescue not only diverted everyone's attention from his defeat, but the story he told circulated quickly belowdecks, where belief far outweighed disbelief.  Concern of impending battle with Togo's sailors was replaced by quiet awe.  The ensign garnered only brief glances as he passed crewmembers in the corridors.  The ordinary bluejackets had sea serpents on their minds.  A far more imposing prospect than a beat up and bruised commissioned officer.

Problem being, Garrett was infected, too, only his anticipation was heavily dosed with dread.  Ever since the night he had stopped the loading of the forward turret, he had been plagued with doubts concerning the powder bags.  During maneuvers and gunnery practice at Magdalena Bay a dramatic increase in efficiency and rate of fire had been achieved, although comments were made on the poor quality of the powder bags.  But Admiral Evans had succumbed to gout and been sent home.  There was positive confusion in command.

Still, it would not do for a ship of the line to blow up while firing salutes in a foreign port. It was rumored the bags would be replaced once they reached San Francisco.  If so, the
Florida
had not remained long enough to benefit.

A chill underlay Garrett's physical pain.  What if it was true?  What if they were about to confront Togo's proud fleet?  If powder came loose in the turret again, would he once again halt the firing?  The question had given him silent fits during the fleet exercises in Man-of-War Cove. Every time a charge was brought up, Garrett all but crawled on the deck in search of loose powder grains.  On any other part of the ship the gun captain and his men would have smirked.  But a silent consensus filled Turret One.  No comment would be made where their safety was concerned.  To hell with damning the torpedoes.  Let Garrett search.

But he no longer cared.  If they were sunk in an encounter with the Japanese, all trace of his defeat by Beck, of his shame, would be erased.  Besides, he was now too sore to get down on his hands and knees.  By obeying orders to the letter, he might succeed in blowing up the
Florida
before a single salvo was exchanged.

0451 Hours

Midshipman Davis gave up trying to sleep.  Men kept moving below his high-slung hammock.  His mind reeled with fanciful heroics.  He would sink a battleship with a well-aimed shot.  Or the
Florida
would be hit, the men around him would go to pieces, and he would remain at his station and stave off disaster.

But... the hammock squeezed his shoulders.  It brought to mind the canvas sack they'd sewn the bluejacket in at Magdalena Bay before submitting him to the sea....

He shot onto the deck.  He stowed his hammock in the nettings and went out to the berth deck, where the lower tier six-inch casemates squatted near the water.

Whispers haunted the hatchways and corridors.  Marines in their narrow blue caps nervously fingered their brass trumpets.  In some respects, they had the most hazardous job on board.  In the midst of battle, they would have to dart back and forth behind the steel and wood barriers, delivering messages and tooting commands.  And at any time they might be called upon to land on a hostile beach.

Too much to dwell on.  For Davis, primary consideration lay with the six-incher in his charge.  Sea salt could play havoc with the gun's mechanism.  Only with constant cleaning could the efficiency of the piece be maintained.  For perhaps the fiftieth time in the last twelve hours, Davis took an oil rag and worked on the exposed gears.  As he backed away to admire his handiwork, he bumped into someone standing behind him.

It was Beck.

"Going to rip into them, eh?" Beck said.

Davis was wise enough to say nothing when there was nothing to say.

"I don't think it's ever going to happen... no, course it won't.  But you know, old pal... we might take some losses.  I might be one of them.  So might you.  I just thought... well, isn't it obvious what I'm thinking?"

"I was checking the gun," said Davis.

"Hey, what the hell.  What I wanted to say is... why don't we kiss and make up?"

"That's a hell of a way to put it."

"Only trying to make it easy.  On both of us."

For a long moment Davis stood silent.  He could not explain his hesitation.  Not at first.

With the gunports closed, only a few dull electric torches shone on the covered gun deck. The bruises on Beck's face could only be surmised, though from what Davis had heard they were far less severe than those he'd inflicted.  But that was just it.  He was the man who had thrashed Ensign Garrett.  Beck was a fellow to admire and to reckon with.  It was hard for Davis to swallow his new notoriety.  While Davis himself was at the same place he'd started at the day before, the week before, the year before.  He was speechless in the face of his own insignificance.

Beck interpreted his silence as something else.

"Maybe you can't see it.  I have my hand sticking out here.  If it's too dark....  Okay, I won't beg.  I guess bastards come out with the season."

He stalked away.

Davis heard voices and nervous laughter above him.  No doubt the gunners on the upper deck were also checking their six-inchers.  Perhaps, on the eve of battle, some of them had been able to mend broken friendships.  But Davis found himself frozen against it.  No matter how easy Beck wanted to make it, envy would never make it easy for Davis.

0510 Hours

"We know you're stashin'.  They brought you in late, eh, Gilroy?  My guess is you brought in a load from Chinee
-
town.  What is it?  Opium?  Start your own little den?  Or was it
-
-
no, not heroin.  Your arms aren't marked.  Own up, or we'll toss you in the furnace, you'll see."

"Don't threaten me," Gilroy hissed.  "I'm telling you, it's nothin'.  I just been under the weather."

"Oooh
-
hooo! that's weather in your eyes all right.  Two white poppies and an opium typhoon.  Come on, Gilroy, we're not asking for the whole kit.  Just a fair shake three ways."

Had he been thinking clearly, Gilroy would never have tried such a puerile lie.  The two stokers before him had been watching him almost as closely as the Chief.  They recognized a path they'd walked down themselves on more than one occasion.  Obviously, they wanted to stroll again.

They had no prospects.  There was no promotion out of the hellhole.  They could, of course, refuse to re-enlist.  Jump ship, even, if their lives depended on it.  Many sailors abandoned the Navy and few were ever caught.  But they had no place to go.  Rather than put themselves through the effort of the hard chore of thinking about options, they sought peace.  If they became addicts that was all right.  It might be considered a sensible occupation compared to what they were doing now.

Gilroy saw his own desperation reflected in their eyes.  They were greedy for oblivion.  They would do anything to feel nothing.  He gauged them warily.  If he didn't split his cache with them, there was no doubt they'd drop a few hints to the Chief--after trying to force it out of him in other ways.

"All right.  You're right.  Meet me in the paint locker amidships, lower deck."

"I don't think so.  We're coming with you now."

The stare he gave them was noncommittal, an emotional blank.  Finally, he nodded slowly.  "All right.  Follow me."

They scurried like sick rats down the corridors and hatchways, as though they already had the opium in their pockets.  Marines kept a wary eye on them.  One had to keep a wary eye on firemen and stokers.  One never knew when one of them might succumb to the heat and labor and go berserk.  The Leathernecks had a word for it, borrowed from veterans of the Philippines:
huramentado.
  It originally applied to Sulu Moros.  In battle one of them would go crazy for blood and attack no matter how bad the odds.  But the insanity could also erupt in the middle of a quiet village.  A warrior would stroll out from under the ilang
-
ilang trees, smile at the people in the market, then whip out his Maylasian sword and begin hacking everyone to bits.  If there were soldiers in the village
-
-
it didn't matter which army
-
-
they shot the man down like a mad dog, because that was precisely how they thought of them. 
Huramentado
was a mystery to white man and Asiatic alike.  But the mystery was not half as bad as the unpredictability.

Same with the stokers.  One knew it was the heat that caused them to go off the deep end, but one could never predict when it would happen.  The black gang was aware of how their shipmates viewed them.  Every so often, one of them might leap at a bluejacket and yell, "Boo!" just to see them jump.  But it was not a joke they played very often.  Someone might mistake it for
huramentado
and club the offender in mid
-
laugh.

"Here you go."

After glancing up and down the corridor they entered the paint locker.  It was really a small paint factory, redolent of blanc fixe, barytes, silica, lithopone, petroleum thinners, China wood oil and soya bean oil.  After the magazines, it was the most flammable part of the ship.  Every container was tightly sealed, all brushes kept clean.  But with the
Florida
switching to battle gray a good deal of work had been done and the air was rich with fumes.  Even so, as Gilroy pulled the gluey pack from its niche near the scuttle vent, the quickened breath of the two men watching told him they were quite willing to light up here.

"I've a pipe."

"Light up now?" one of the other stokers said.

"I do it all the time.  The fumes hide the smell."

"You mean
-
-
"

"Haven't blown up yet."

"Then you're one lucky bastard. Smells like the inside of a bomb in here.  'Sides, I've… uh… seen this done before.  You got to heat up the opium, first."

"Not this.  It's a special batch.  Just pack the pipe like it was tobacco."

"You're full of shit.  I never heard
-
-
"

"You'll never get a better chance than now.  You realize how hard it is to find a place to smoke this so's no one notices?"  Gilroy's lie was bold and dangerous.  So far, he had not found a chance to smoke any of his opium.  Laudanum pills had been all he could manage.

"It's a wonder you haven't been caught."  The second man looked at him closely.  "But you've been taking something, there's no denyin'."

"Oh, fucked up royally, no doubt.  So here's the dope and here's the pipe.  How do you think I got this way?"

"I don't suppose a puff would hurt.  Not if you can light it straight, like you say."

"Now you're talking."

The two men watched eagerly as Gilroy opened the pack, then cut off a small chunk with a penknife. He filled the bowl, then handed the pipe to one of them.

"I'll watch the door," Gilroy said, moving away.

"Right.  And I'll take that, first."

Gilroy handed the pack over.

One of the stokers lit a match over the bowl while the second leaned forward to puff.  A small coil of smoke rose and drifted sluggishly towards the vents.  Carefully, the man with the match drew away and blew it out.  The opium in the bowl smoldered.  They looked at Gilroy inquiringly.

Before they could move, he grabbed a container of paint remover from the shelf and whipped off the cap.

"No!" Gilroy commanded as the man who'd held the match started forward.  "Ease off, there.  Now, hand me the pack."

"You're full of shit, Gilroy.  You don't think
-
-
"

Gilroy swung his arm. A stream of highly flammable liquid arced outwards, coming perilously close to the bowl. The man with the pipe could not jerk away for fear the tiniest glowing fragment would ignite the room.