At the Midway (60 page)

Her departure was a mixed blessing.  Her weight and impetus, as well as the high speed the
Florida
had built up, had caused water to flood across the low freeboard and would have swamped the bilge pumps had she remained a minute longer.  But the fires that had already begun to sputter found new life.

Wood, cordite, corticone and dead men supplied the fuel.

1552 Hours

Ensign Garrett was clutching the window bars of his prison when the
Florida
was struck.

Behind him, Stoker Gilroy had been cackling:  "Garrett!  I know you.  We both got the shit beat out of us and look where we end up!  The world hates losers.  Gives 'em to the Navy to finish off."

His demented oratory was cut short when the ship jumped crazily.  He flew across the cell and whammed against the bulkhead next to Garrett.

"Ah..." the stoker gurgled almost comically as he desperately searched for a direction in which to balance himself..

The ensign's grip slipped and his arms shot through the bars, his cheek crashing into the edge of the window.  The sentry in the corridor performed an unintended, almost comical flip, landing on the wall rather than the deck.

"Let us out!" Garrett bellowed at him.

But the sentry was trapped against the far wall.  He was looking
up
at the brig.

"We must have struck a reef.  Grissom... that stupid--"

"Fuck," Gilroy concluded.

The ship righted almost as violently as it had keeled over.  Garrett slapped against the deck, while in the corridor the guard thumped down sharply.

"Let us out!"

They'd struck the reef.  That seemed the only possible explanation to men belowdecks.  For all the sentry knew, the
Florida
had been sliced open.  He was not one to leave prisoners locked up for drowning.  He unlocked the door.

"Out!  Get out!"

1554 Hours

The officer of the deck sat in the pilothouse and watched life race from his body in great scarlet gouts.  He had been bounced to starboard like everyone else when the monster boarded.  The observers on the wing had been ejected off the bridge like shells lobbed from a mortar, landing on the lower platforms at such odd angles that every one of them was killed instantly.

It was Lieutenant Grissom's luck that he was not among them.  In the rush of jubilation that had preceded disaster he had gone to the voice tubes.  He wanted the ship photographer fetched to the bridge so he could capture on film the death of Green Stripes.  When the ship lurched, his mouth crunched down on the pipe.  The brass flap was still open.  When his front teeth were knocked out they went rattling down the speaking tube

The OD was less fortunate.  Whipped across the wheelhouse, he'd saved himself from falling out the window by grabbing the ledge.  In the pocket of his tunic was the Fleet Signal Book.  The nearest ship that would have understood the flags was thousands of miles away, but it was his duty to keep the book on his person.  When it popped out, he leaped forward to catch it.  As he pulled back, he was horrified to find his tunic soaked red.  Glass sticking up from the casement had sliced his neck in one neat swipe.  Staggering backward, he baptized the deck with his blood.  He dropped down and watched his life drain away.

Singleton shared Grissom's good fortune.  At the moment of devastation he was passing the binnacle and was able to grab hold of it as he fell.  Flat on his stomach, he looked on as the pool of blood from the dying man gushed towards him.

The ship straightened.  With the superstructure bulkhead behind them, no one had seen the creature prop itself on the main deck.  Their conclusion was the same as Garrett's:

Reef
.

With his mouth bleeding painfully, Grissom battled to his feet and met the eyes of the dying man.  The exec's brimmed with silent apology, convinced they'd struck the reef, that the man's death was his fault.

The helmsman had held onto the wheel throughout, at one point being swept off his feet and Ferris-wheeled three hundred and sixty degrees before landing back on the deck.  After regaining his equilibrium, he gauged the distance to the reef and made certain it was maintained. He was so intent on his job he did not realize the others thought they had been hulled.  Giving the now-dead OD a cursory glance, he called out, "Bearing Oh-Nine-Six, Mr. Grissom.  We're leaving the island behind."

Grissom looked up, surprised by the southeast heading.

A yeoman burst into the pilothouse.  "Where's the captain?" he inquired breathlessly.  The soot covering his body did not hide the bright gleam of blood on his arm.

"I'm in command.  What is it?"

Grissom's tone was so tentative and slurred the messenger glanced at the ordnance officer for confirmation.

"Mr. Grissom, we need the reserve damage control party to starboard...."  As he gasped for breath a belt of .30 caliber ammunition went off in the fire amidships.  Bullets sprayed in all directions.  There was a heavy patter on the metal walls.

"Fire!" Grissom exclaimed.  "We're on fire!  Again!"

The messenger was astonished the men on the bridge were so much in the dark.  He quickly filled them in.

"It
jumped
out of the water?" Singleton said disbelievingly.

Grissom grabbed the command phone and in a barely comprehensible voice ordered the reserve to starboard.  Only after he hung up did he look at it in wonder, as if astonished the phone had worked.

1450 - 1601 Hours

When the twelve-and eight-inchers loosed their salvos at Sand Island, Amos Macklin and William Pegg had been in the common galley.  The firing gongs sounded, but Amos was so caught up in what they were doing he did not notice until it was too late.  The large stew pot containing hot duff sauce shot up to the ceiling, spraying its contents on everything in sight, with the greatest dose reserved for the two men standing under it.  Fortunately, William had turned down the heat ten minutes earlier or they would have been scalded.

But the galley was a catastrophe.  Pots, pans and utensils were strewn over the deck.  These could be explained away.  But not the duff sauce.

Tossing a rag at William, he hissed, "One hand or not, you got me in this.  Help me clean up!"  Then he grabbed a mop and plied it desperately across the tiles.  What was happening topside?  The former Seaman Second Class was stuck cleaning gunk off the deck while chaos reigned overhead.  Reef or war mattered little compared to what would happen to him if the Fust Luff caught them.  No doubt he would accuse Macklin of dragging the sick boy out of the infirmary to practice voodoo in the galley.

When they were done, Amos gave vent to his anger.  "You're more trouble than you're worth.  Go back to sick bay!  Clean yourself off.  Get back in bed!"

William followed him out the rear galley hatch.  Both of them stopped when Ensign Garrett was marched past them, obviously under arrest.  Dreading the armed guards, Amos ducked back into the galley.  "Get away from me!" he shouted at William, then ran through the dining hall and into the corridor.

The air was still potent with the stench of the twelve- and eight-inchers.  Amos didn't know what was happening, but from the clanging of the ammunition hoists he concluded more action was imminent.  One could not shuck the Navy overnight.  He had to get back to the work detail in case they were ordered into damage control reserve.

He was passing one of the ventilating trunks when he heard the deep thrum of guns pounding overhead.  The shaft acted like a giant voice tube, conveying the reverberations into the depths of the ship.  He raced ahead, oblivious to the looks of disgust given his duff-odor as he passed sailors in the narrow corridors.

Suddenly, the aisle tilted crazily like a game box, splaying him against the wall.  He heard a familiar sound.  Desperate to get back to the work party, he let out a shout of dismay when the horizontal bulkhead doors slid shut.

Nearly every other battleship in the Fleet was fitted with bulkhead doors operated by a central electrical switch.  But the ancient
Florida
had the same kind of hydraulically operated doors that had given ships of the last century endless trouble.  Even on a steady sea they had a tendency to close spontaneously--for no other reason, it would seem, than that they had a mind to.  Amos was trapped with seven other men in a twenty-yard stretch of corridor.  A dull pounding aft signaled others in the identical predicament.  The hatches were made to resist the efforts of desperate men as well as the indifferent sea.

Amos was not about to wait.  Help might be dead and gone and they wouldn't know it until they were dead and gone, too.  The local controls were on the other side.  Knowing how useless his action was, he began hacking at the steel door with a chain lever.

He'd been at it several minutes when he heard a voice on the other side and the grunts of someone twisting the hand-control valve.  The door began to open.  The ratchety click echoed up the corridor like a siren song.

"Out you go!  All hands report starboard.  We got a fire there has to be snuffed.  Come on, let's keep the marbles rolling."

"There's more trapped aft," Amos informed Ensign Garrett.

He nodded at a seaman holding a crank lever.  "See to it.  Everyone else, follow me!"

1605 Hours

In the forward twelve-inch turret the gun crew was devastated by fear.  A shell had been clanking up from the handling room when the creature boarded.  There was a ferocious
wham!
as the car struck the side of the elevator, then a telltale thump as it fell on the safety catch.

Their relief was short-lived.  On a separate car the powder charge had continued to rise.  Just as it reached the chamber the ship lurched again.

The bags were catapulted against the top of the cage.  They burst against the upper hoist and a downpour of explosive powder covered the chamber and gun crew.  Mingling with their sweat, it formed a deadly paste on their skins.  Only the gun captain, who had been able to keep his perch through the turmoil, was spared.  Which did not disguise the fact that he was trapped with the rest of them.  The tiniest spark would be enough to kill them all.  Even if they were able to get out, sparks from the smokestacks and the eight-inchers above could turn them into human bombs.

"They'll have to flood the chamber."  The gun captain twisted slowly around until the lines attached to his leather headgear brought him up short.  "Unless we can get a hose in here."  He spoke lowly, as though a shout could ignite the powder.  No one could hear him through their Eliott Ear Protectors.  He raised his voice.  "Mr. Beck!"

"Aye!" the midshipman said tremulously.

"We need a hose in here.  Fast.  You're the closest to the hatch."

"Aye aye, sir...."  Cautiously, he edged towards the hatch.  So carefully, because if any tool fell, if metal clapped against metal, a spark....

But when he cracked the hatch open and smoke blew in, he was forced to close it quick.

"Maybe it's from the funnels," said the plugman hopefully.

The gun captain gave him an admonishing glare, but dared not reach out to hit him.

"No," said Beck.  "That wasn't coal smoke."

"If we go out there... we
can't
go out...."

The powder looked like an oil slick in the dim battle light.  Some of them thought they could feel the temperature rising.

Garrett was lucky after all
, thought Midshipman Beck.

1616 Hours

The fire on the starboard beam was almost out of control.  Grissom ordered a one hundred and eighty-degree turn so that the smoke would blow leeward, but the starboard exits were still choked black.  Garrett and the men following him were compelled to use the forward hatches.

The main deck was a shambles.  Wounded men had been laid out beside Number One, their cries stinging the air.  Smoke wound around the double-decked turret, though as yet it was not threatened by the flames.

"Dammit," Garrett shouted.  "Too much water and not enough."

They had to plug the fire mains to stop water getting down the ventilating trunks.  If they failed in that, the men in the engine and boiler rooms could drown.  But they needed to hook up hoses to the centrifugal pump to combat the blaze that was about to engulf the entire starboard gun deck.

"All right, half of you--"  The ensign sliced the air with his arm, chopping the men into two parties.  "--cover the ventilating shafts with rubber sheets.  Shove them in hard--use those deal flats.  But make sure they're secure, because if we don't burn we drown.  The rest of you follow me."

The smell was horrendous.  The fire had found the life jacket compartment abaft the forward casemates.  Black smoke boiled out as the rubber burned and melted.  Where the deck was warped by heat, resin had squeezed through the corticone covering and caught fire.  In turn, the precious teakwood caught.  Men overcome by fumes staggered blindly.  Some reached for the weather rail, only to fall overboard.  The rail had been removed for General Quarters.