Ghostboat (36 page)

They poured into the corridor, led by Clampett and Cassidy, alternating in wild clamoring cheers:

“Ann Sheridan!”

“Betty Grable!”

Hardy and Dorriss had to avoid being crushed. Through the flames and smoke they could see that the crowd included nearly half the crew. A smile broadened Hardy’s face. He remembered.

Cassidy shouted, “Grable’s the one!”

Voices joined in support.

Clampett turned at the control room bulkhead and screeched, “Ann Sheridan!”

The steward, who was part Filipino, jumped up with a shout: “Carmen Miranda!”

“Git outta here!” growled Dankworth.

Dorriss dove into the crush of men and made his way across to Hardy. “What is
this?”

“Submarine sweetheart contest.” Hardy grinned. He swung out and joined the marching throng. Dorriss hustled after him.

As the crowd marched aft, past the radio room, the galley, the crew’s quarters, they picked up more participants, who were promptly brow-beaten into support of one or the other candidate. Someone handed Clampett the Ann Sheridan poster, which he raised high in the air, turning his torch over to Witzgall. He marched backward and chanted, “Ann Sheridan! Ann Sheridan!”

The men in the rear started passing pencils and slips of paper forward through the crowd. Choices were marked and ballots were relayed to the front of the line. Some of the ballots disappeared into shirts—whole stacks of them never reached the polls. And Roybell kept pulling pre-marked ballots out of his shirt, shouting, “Here’s one for Grable! Another one for Grable!”

In the forward engine room, Clampett turned the Ann Sheridan poster over to Lang. Brownhaver threw him the ballot box. It was a small carton with the word vote scrawled on one side. Clampett held it out in front of him and wedged his way back through the crowd, collecting the ballots.

“Put your votes in here! Right in the box! This ain’t basketball, Googles, just drop it in!”

The steward held up his ballot, anxiously waved it in Clampett’s direction, and yelled, “Carmen—” He was cut off by a rude shove from Dankworth.

Clampett was afraid the votes were going against him. When Giroux stepped up and proudly announced, “Grable,” Clampett ducked him, then went on zig-zag-ging, picking up only Sheridan votes, bobbing under the torches until he was all the way back to the control room. He let the last of the men pass by and drop in their ballots—and then he faced Hardy and Dorriss.

“That’s it?” he said. He glanced into the box; it was filled to the top with little slips of paper. He held it out to Hardy. “Sir—like to delegate you to tally the votes.”

Hardy twinkled. “Oh, I’d be delighted, Corky—”

Clampett winked surreptitiously at Hardy. “Ann Sheridan’s a shoo-in, don’t you think, sir?”

“Fair chance,” granted Hardy.

“Yup. Well, here they are.” He handed over the box. “One man—one vote. Democracy.”

Dorriss peered into the box, and his jaw fell. “Must be five hundred ballots in there.”

Hardy looked up from the pile of counted ballots on the table in the crew’s mess. “Betty Grable,” he announced.

Cheers went up. They were as excited over this as they had been over blasting Japanese shipping out of the water. Clampett thrust through the crowd and confronted Hardy, wearing a look of chagrined disbelief.

Hardy pointed to the ballots. “Four hundred twenty-three to two hundred ninety-six.”

There were more cheers from the Grable men. Cassidy whistled through his teeth. Cookie stepped forward and gaped bug-eyed at the ballots.

“How
many votes?” he asked.

“Four-hundred twenty-three to two hundred ninety-six,” Hardy repeated.

“Shit! You mean I been feeding seven hundred men?”

He laughed right in Clampett’s ear. Clampett turned red and grabbed the ballots, swirled to another table, and began a recount.

Hardy stared at him a long moment, a smile widening his scratchy old beard.

The Grable supporters let Clampett have it—a blast of jeers that only made him count faster.

Still grinning, Jack Hardy looked up and caught sight of Captain Frank, standing just inside the galley, coldly eyeing the proceedings. Dorriss appeared at his side; they had a short whispered conference. Once the Captain glanced at Hardy.

He felt another warning shiver.

The Captain chose his next big moment well. With the exception of Clampett, the crew’s morale was the best it had been since the voyage began, so he decided to take advantage of it, to boost it and aim it in what he felt to be the right direction.

From the conning tower he switched on the intercom to all compartments. He lifted the battle phone and announced:

“This is the Captain. In case you have forgotten, today is December seventh.” He was silent for a moment, then continued: “Three years ago our country suffered the most shameful episode of its entire military history. We do not recall this date with pride. There is no dignity in defeat.”

His voice echoed around the boat. There was no compromise in his tone.

“We have had our fun tonight... While we all took part in it, we all recognize the insignificance of our brotherly feelings—because this is
not
a ship of men; it is
a. weapon!
And by its proper application, we will attend to the destruction of our enemy with strength, dispatch, and skill! In memory of those who were killed at Pearl, we will from this date onward be the most formidable weapon in the Pacific!”

There was not a sound in the wardroom as Frank’s voice crackled from the overhead speaker. But Hardy was not hearing the voice of Ed Frank; he was hearing Billy G. Basquine, the greatest rabblerouser in the Submarine Force.

“If those bastards still think that they have an island, a fortress, or a bay that they can call impregnable, then they haven’t met
us!”
Frank’s voice quavered.

“If they think they’ve sent us to the bottom of the sea, then let them think it! Let them make all the announcements and send all the condolences the airwaves will carry, but when we reappear—at a time and place they least suspect—we will exact a vengeance from them far beyond anything they have done to us!”

Hardy thought he was going to be sick. He left his breakfast and started toward the conning tower. What was the Captain talking about?

“We have a mandate from the Congress of the United States, from the Commander-in-Chief, and from the Almighty. With all those sanctions, whatever methods we use can be justified. The outcome is ordained, set, unalterable! We have only to fulfill it!”

Hardy stood with his head just above deck level in the hatch well, watching Frank bent over the intercom, the spread shoulders, the determined face and the mad, lunatic eyes.

December 7th. Four days to go. What
was
going to happen when they reached the area where they had gone down before? Did Frank know? But he wasn’t Frank; he was Basquine. Did Basquine know?

“That is all, gentlemen.” Frank finished his speech and closed down the intercom. His gaze fell on Hardy, and they stared at each other a long time, until the tiniest smile of triumph crept over Frank’s face.

CHAPTER 20

December 10

The next three days proved depressingly uneventful to a crew charged up for the kill. The enemy was nowhere in sight. Frank became jumpy; his trigger finger itched. He took his frustrations out on Hardy, deliberately making it tough for him. In wardroom meetings he would drop hints to the other officers about Hardy’s mental unreliability, and they took it as sanction for rumor-spreading.

Hardy realized what was happening, and took refuge in the forward engine room with Cassidy. He no longer had any confusion over the Chief’s identity. Hardy saw him as he wanted to see him—as the friend Walinsky had been to him in 1944.

Hardy stood the night watch on December l0th, Officer of the Deck from 2000 to 2400, and stared out at the wallowing troughs, the frothy caps whipped up like cream, enduring the roll and pitch of the boat as she slugged through toughening seas, on course for the north Of Japan, the Kurile Islands.

He huddled in his jacket and desperately tried to ignore everything except the job at hand. He had decided to divorce his mind from his duties, to perform as an automaton, to let the submarine take him where it wanted to, and to keep his opinions to himself. If he was being rebuffed because they all thought he was insane, then the safest course was to maintain a low profile. He would live this out to its conclusion, however awful that might be, and
whenever
it came...

But it turned December 11th, and Jack Hardy knew that the solution to his dilemma was less than a day away.

Since his log had been forgotten and disregarded for days, he appeared to be the only one aware of what was to come at 2130 the next night. If he wanted to, he could simply remain mute and smug and it would all come to its foregone conclusion. Or, if he truly was out of his mind, then nothing would happen when they reached that deadly spot in Latitude 30°. But if the submarine went to her demise a second time—well, Jack Hardy would be redeemed. He could die vindicated.

He smiled. It wasn’t the best of all possible solutions.

He was relieved by Vogel, who took the OOD watch, and Dorriss, who tramped up to the bridge for a little midnight air. Neither said anything to Hardy. He went below in silence, marched straight to the CPO quarters, pulled off his clothes, and dove into the sack.

He was deep in slumber when something seemed to drift in and move against him, touching his shoulder. He thought he sensed light through the darkness, playing across his eyes, then a shadow covering it—fingers pressing him, more insistent. There was a reddish glow on his eyelids. He grumbled, and suddenly came awake to something shaking his shoulder.

The curtain was parted a few inches, and he could see the red glow of combat lights in the compartment beyond. Whatever had touched his shoulder was gone, but he heard another sound, a tapping... fingers drumming on the bulkhead outside, moving out of the CPO quarters. He pulled the curtain. He was aware of a shadow fleeing down the corridor toward the control room. He rose, half asleep and puzzled. He slipped on his shoes and, dressed only in his underwear, stumbled out to the corridor.

The red lights were on throughout the boat. There wasn’t a man to be seen in officers’ country. He was alone, and it was deathly quiet. He moved aft, intending to follow that shadow to the control room.

He ducked through the hatch and stepped in, suddenly bathed in red light. He could make out the forms of the control-room crew... yet there was something odd. He froze in shock.

This wasn’t the control-room crew at all...

He was exchanging stares with the officer contingent from the crew of 1944! They were gathered around the plotting table, white phantoms haloed in red, staring at him.

Bates stepped forward, and when he spoke his voice echoed as if it were coming from the bowels of the submarine itself.

“Cold feet again, Jack?”

Hardy’s knees sagged; he couldn’t stand up straight He had to back against the hatch. Then Basquine stepped forward and, in the same terrifying voice, asked,
“Are you going all the way with us, Jack?”

Hardy’s mouth opened. He wanted to scream a defiant
No,
but he couldn’t.

Basquine and Bates and the other apparitions began to fade from sight, blending in with the red illumination until they disappeared. Hardy was left cowering in a corner of the control room in his underwear, facing the regular watch detail under Stigwood and Roybell. They were staring at him in amazement.

My God! a voice shrieked inside him. It wasn’t real! You imagined it! Terrified, he could hardly choke the words out:

“The Cap—the Captain—where?”

“On the bridge,” mumbled Stigwood.

Hardy climbed the ladder to the conning tower and stood shivering in the cold. He could see legs—the Captain’s. Suddenly the cobwebs cleared from his mind and he could see—the truth. He
wasn’t
crazy. He had experienced a
vision.
He had seen the
purpose,
and it was the purpose that was insane—not him. He whirled on the helmsman and bellowed fiercely: “Stop all engines!”

The helmsman turned and stared at him.

“Stop this boat!” Hardy shouted and, shoving the helmsman aside, reached for the MB and rang up ALL STOP. He punched the intercom to the engine rooms and hollered, “All stop! Secure all engines!”

As soon as his engines were shut down, Cassidy began to wonder why. He hurried forward to the control room.

Dorriss came down from the bridge and confronted the helmsman. “What the hell do you think—”

“Ask Mr. Hardy, sir.”

“Hardy?” Dorriss turned on the Professor. “You better explain.”

“Where’s the Captain?”

“I’m the
Exec!
Explain to me!”

Ed Frank came down the ladder in silence. His eyes scanned Hardy. “What’s so goddamned important you couldn’t wait to put on your clothes?”