Days of Infamy (33 page)

Are we France now, he wondered, as Collingwood lit him another cigarette and passed it over, while the generals and colonels behind them argued as to just how many Jap carriers were still out there and if they would be back tomorrow. The point was moot anyhow. From what they had listened to earlier, the island no longer had a single plane capable of offensive action other than one, perhaps two, shot-up B-17s and maybe a couple of Dauntlesses.

“You know something?” James sighed, while the argument behind them continued. “Maybe we hit the wrong target just now.”

“What the hell do you mean?” Collingwood asked.

“Think about it. Our guys are sweating out the oil supply if
Enterprise
is still out there. There’s no way it will come back here if it is still alive. Hell, the channel might be blocked for days regardless of what they say, and then what is Halsey supposed to do, just sit out there? Just hang a ‘kick me’ sign on him for the Jap subs. He needs oil to get back to the States.”

“So what are you getting at?”

“Their oilers. We know they don’t have many. Suppose our guys had targeted them instead. They’d even be easier to hit, slower with fewer guns, one good shot and boom the thing just tears apart. Do that and the Japanese fleet might be screwed.”

Collingwood stared at him intently for a moment and sighed.

“Wish the hell we’d thought of that earlier”—he paused—“like yesterday and somehow communicated it.

“Try convincing them now,” and he pointed back to the staff officers fruitlessly arguing behind them, “and besides, we don’t have anything left to hit with.”

James half lowered his head, frustrated, angry, numb with exhaustion. The pain in his arm was getting worse by the minute.

The brass behind him could argue all they wanted, he just felt an infinite exhaustion. It was time to try and go home.

“I’m leaving,” he announced and tried to stand up, and next thing he knew he was back in the chair, his legs giving out.

“Dianne!”

She had been sitting against a hangar wall, head down, dozing, but was awake, wiping her eyes as she came over to Collingwood.

“Would you help Commander Watson here to the hospital?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t need a hospital.”

“It’s an order, James,” Collingwood said, “so let’s not play any more silly games about this, or I’ll pull one of those generals over there into it to back me up.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” James announced. “We’ve got to start rebuilding a decoding center here, or somewhere.”

“Sure, James, now go.”

He nodded and stood up. Dianne gently put an arm around him, and they started toward the open hangar door, Collingwood by his side. He had a vague recollection that last night he had parked his Plymouth up near CinCPac. Damn, that was a couple of miles away.

“Dianne, you know where the hospital area is set up?”

“Yes, sir, I think so.”

“Take that car over there,” and he pointed out a battered DeSoto, and fished the keys out of his pocket. “If they release him, take him home, then you go home too and get some rest. I’ll see both of you tomorrow.”

She helped James get into the car, slipped into the driver’s seat, and got it rolling, driving around piles of wreckage. She had to back up off a street that was closed, with water from a broken main spraying twenty feet into the air. A Shore Patrolman told her there was an unexploded fourteen-inch shell down in the hole. It was obvious he was not pleased with his assignment; he looked back over his shoulder nervously as he gave directions for getting around to the base hospital area, set up in a row of barracks.

She backed up, turned the corner, and then slowed.

“Merciful God,” she whispered, and pulled up onto the curb, turning off the engine.

James, eyes half closed, stirred and looked out the window.

The lawn area in front of the hospital looked like something that reminded him of old photographs of the Civil War. Three long rows of bodies were laid out on the lawn, covered with blankets, sheets, old tarps. A team of stretcher bearers was setting a body down even as he watched, lifting him off the stretcher, pausing for a moment. Then they picked up the stretcher and went back into the barracks hall.

Dianne had the door open.

“Come on, sir, you’ve got to go in there. At least let them get some sulfa on the wound and we’ll get out.”

He tried to smile, as if he wasn’t afraid, but suddenly he was terrified.
The memory of the amputation of his hand while he was still awake came back. The local anesthesia had barely blocked the pain.

He leaned against her as they started for the barracks door. On the opposite side of the lawn, more than a hundred men were waiting, some lying on stretchers, others sitting, a few standing. Every kind of injury imaginable confronted James. Men cradled broken arms. Some looked as if they were not hit at all, but just sat or stood, eyes vacant. Others rocked back and forth, clutching their stomach, chest, head, a leg, or what was left of a leg, and there was a universal moaning, crying, occasional screams.

He stopped, unable to move another step.

“Stay right here,” Dianne said, and she let go of his side, going up to a female nurse who was bent over a stretcher case. A corpsman by her side was cutting back the man’s uniform jacket, revealing a hole in his right chest, blood leaking out with every breath.

“Priority!” she shouted. She marked a number on the wounded man’s forehead with a grease pen and motioned for a stretcher team to pick him up and take him inside.

The doorway was open and James could see in. Though it was still daylight, bright incandescent lamps were set up inside. At least a dozen surgery teams were at work, with mess hall tables now surgical tables.

The sight of it made him feel weaker, as if he were going to faint.

“Sir, she wants to look at you,”

It was Dianne, and by her side the female nurse. Her uniform might have been sparkling white once; now it was literally caked with dried blood and fresh blood, as if she had just staggered out of a slaughterhouse—which, he realized, this actually was. The woman would normally have been very pretty—tall, jet black hair tucked under her cap—but now her eyes were hollow, dark circles, and a nervous tic was causing an eyelid to flutter.

“Let me see the arm,” she said woodenly.

He raised the bandaged stump up.

“You lose this yesterday or today?” she asked, almost matter-of-factly, as if asking him about the weather.

“No. The hand was amputated four years ago. He was hit on the
Panay,”
Dianne said. “The stump was hit by shrapnel or a bullet yesterday morning.”

The nurse nodded.

“Panay? What was that?”

He couldn’t reply.

She took his arm, and he winced as she raised it, sniffed the bandage, nose wrinkling, then let the stump go. She put a blood-caked hand to his forehead.

“Sir, it’s infected and you’re running a fever,” she said. “I’m marking you low priority. Take a seat on the lawn,” and she started to raise her grease pen to write whatever was the code for his case on his forehead.

He stepped back.

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long do I have to wait?”

“Sir, there are other men a lot worse off than you.”

“I don’t mean that,” he snapped back, sensing that she was interpreting his question as some sort of appeal, or an attempt to pull rank to be treated first. “I just want to know when you think someone will look at it.”

The girl sighed, and it struck him at that instant that she was in shock, in a way as wounded as the men she was tending.

“It’s OK,” James said softly now. “I know these guys are ahead of me.”

“Maybe tomorrow morning, sir,” she finally said, and her voice was brittle.

“Can you get us a couple of sulfa packets?” Dianne asked. “I was training to be a nurse once; I’ll take care of him.”

“Sure,” and she motioned to a corpsman who was on his knees, using forceps to pull out a piece of shrapnel from a marine’s forearm. The man was grimacing; obviously the hasty operation was being performed without any painkiller.

The nurse turned and walked away, going over to a stretcher that
was being carried up the walkway. She stopped the team for a moment, gave one quick glance at the man lying on it unconscious, wrote a number on his forehead, and gestured over to a grove of palm trees. There were a hundred or more men lying under those trees, a lone chaplain with them; it was obviously the dying place, where those triaged off were placed until they died.

Dianne was back by his side. “I got some sulfa. Let’s get the hell out of here, sir. I’ll take you home.”

They started back to the car.

“Dianne?”

She slowed, looked over her shoulder to the young second lieutenant who was calling to her. His arm was in a sling, his forehead bandaged, his nose swollen—it looked broken—and his face blistered, except around the eyes, clearly where flight goggles had protected them.

The young officer came up to them.

“Adam? Good lord, are you OK?”

“Sure, Dianne, sure.”

“What happened to you?”

“Got shot down, that’s what happened. Crash landed, broke my damn nose. Medic said I might have cracked my noggin. I’m waiting to get x-rayed.”

His voice was slurring. James could see the young pilot was badly battered.

“I’m sorry, Adam,” and she leaned up and gently kissed him on the cheek. He winced a bit but forced a smile.

“Jeremiah, how is he?” she asked—and in that instant, the look in his eyes, James knew. For the moment he forgot his own pain, and with his good hand reached out to grab Dianne’s.

“Oh damn,” Adam sighed. “You didn’t hear about it?”

James squeezed her hand tight.

“He’s dead, Dianne. Got shot down yesterday afternoon.”

She froze in place, and then strangely, actually laughed softly.

“No, not my Jerry. He always said he was the best, you know that, Adam.”

“He was the best, the best we had,” Adam whispered. “I’m sorry, Dianne. Word was he went at it alone in one of those obsolete crates, a 36, against the entire third wave. Gave the first warning, then went in alone.”

“So you didn’t see him?” she asked softly. “His body, I mean.”

“No, sweetheart,” Adam sighed. “He crashed out to sea, no chute.”

“He could have made it to shore somewhere, that would be like my Jerry.”

Adam said nothing, only lowered his head.

“Take care of yourself, Adam,” she whispered.

“Come on, James,” and she started to walk back to the car, James still holding her hand tight.

“I’ll drive,” James said.

“What?”

“I’ll drive, Dianne. It’s OK.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Ignoring his pain, he helped her get into the passenger seat, went around to the driver’s side, and got in. For a moment he cursed his sense of chivalry. It was going to be hell shifting gears.

“Can I have the keys, Dianne?”

She reached into her purse, pulled them out, and handed them over without saying a word. He made eye contact with her.

“Dianne?”

“What, sir?”

“He’s gone. I heard the report when it came in yesterday. A lone P-36 spotted the Japs, said he was closing to attack, and then radio contact was lost. I’m sorry. I had no idea it was your boyfriend flying that plane. I would have told you if I had known.”

She didn’t reply.

“He died a hero, Dianne. He gave us ten extra minutes of warning, enough to get our defenses ready.”

He felt foolish saying what he had just said. Did dying a hero really matter to a woman, any woman who had lost a lover, a son, a husband?

And then she dissolved into tears, sobbing, leaning against his shoulder. He put his good arm around her for a moment, hugged her as he would a child.

He finally let go of her, started the car, and left the place of sorrow.

They drove in silence, except for her muffled sobs.

There was surprisingly little traffic on the road out of the base, though he had to gingerly weave around more than one wreck and backtrack around a blocked-off street, cratered by a bomb or a shell. Every shift of the gears was agony, as he braced the steering wheel with his legs, injured arm nestled into his lap.

Once out of the base the streets were all but empty. National guardsmen were posted every few blocks. A couple motioned for him to stop, but he didn’t slow down, and at the sight of his uniform and then his handless arm, which he deliberately rested on the rolled-down driver’s side window, they let him pass until he was onto Pali Highway.

A roadblock and long frustrating minutes of inching up to the checkpoint.

Again some national guardsmen; a sergeant came up to the window and looked in.

“Identification, sir?”

He took his hand off the gearshift, fumbled to his breast pocket. Damn, his wallet was gone; he must have dropped it somewhere, he couldn’t remember.

“Sergeant, I’ve lost my wallet.”

“What about her?”

She didn’t move, face turned away.

“Sergeant, she just found out her boyfriend was killed, a pilot. Damn it, I’m wounded, I’m ordered to go home, and home is up that road.”

The sergeant looked at the blood-soaked bandage covering the stump and nodded.

“Sir, we’re not supposed to let traffic over the pass to Kaneohe. Civilians are being evacuated to this side of the island in case the Japs try to land there.”

“I know. I moved my family out last night. I’m just going up the road a mile then turning off.”

The sergeant hesitated then nodded, stepped back, and saluted.

“OK, sir.”

And he motioned to the half-dozen men who blocked the road ahead to let him pass.

He eased the clutch out, struggled to get into first gear, drove up the empty road, and finally turned onto the street where Margaret’s cousin lived. He was barely into the driveway and the door was open, Margaret flying out the door and down the steps, her mother hobbling behind her.

She pulled the door to the car open, and he winced.

“James?”

“I’m OK, just a little shaky. If you could help her out, I’d appreciate it.”