Pacific Interlude (3 page)

“Sir, I'm a simple man,” Simpson said. “I didn't go to college, like Mr. Buller and I'm sure you did. All I got to go by is the Bible and the book of regulations. I've gone by one of those books or the other all my life. I can't stop now.”

“If I looked through the Bible long enough, Mr. Simpson, I'm sure I could find a passage which would justify our attempt to live by the spirit, not the letter of the law. I also don't know of any regulation which deals with a situation quite like this.”

“Thou shalt not steal,” Simpson said.

“Also, thou shalt not kill, but we still have to fight a war.”

“I interpret that to mean that we can defend our country, we can act as the good right arm of the Lord and smite our enemies with righteous wrath. I've thought about that a lot.”

“I'm sure. Mr. Simpson, I believe that the regulations permit the sale of surplus government property which has been declared unfit for use and they also permit money to be raised in various ways for a ship's welfare fund. I will make sure that no officer aboard this ship makes personal profit from selling gas. Every penny will be accounted for. Ultimately the decision of what to do about our cargo is mine. I am doing what I think is right, and also what's best for the war effort, which you care about. After thinking it over, I've decided to let Mr. Buller go ahead with his plan. I ask your cooperation and I at least expect no opposition.”

“I can't give you an answer on that right now, sir. I'll have to see what the Lord wants me to do.”

Jesus, Syl thought. This guy means it. “I have great confidence that the Lord will steer you right,” Syl said. “Now, do they have any hot coffee in the wardroom?”

“Just cold food, sir. With the gas leaking into the bilges, I've ordered the galley range secured until we're steamed out.”

“The men have just been eating cold food? How long have you been here?”

“About two weeks, sir. The skeleton crew rented an apartment ashore with the money they got selling gas. They eat there.”

“I think I'll go ashore for a bite myself. Will you make sure that some officer stays aboard?”

“I'll be here myself, sir. I hardly ever go ashore. Things are kind of wild out there. Brisbane is not exactly a God-fearing city.”

“So I hear,” Syl said with a straight face. “Pray for me, Mr. Simpson.”

Simpson left. While Syl was washing his hands in the cramped head adjoining his cabin, he heard a gentle rap at his door. A dapper white-haired man stood there. His sleeves bore the two gold stripes of a full lieutenant, but he looked dignified enough to be an admiral.

“Hope I'm not bothering you, sir,” he said. “I'm Charlie Wydanski, the engineer. Mr. Simpson said you might like to see me.”

“Come in, Mr. Wydanski. Sit down.”

Syl tried to tell himself that first impressions did not always mean too much, but he had begun by disliking Simpson and feeling in danger of being overpowered by Buller. It was a relief to meet an officer he instinctively liked on sight.

“I'm glad to see you've come aboard, sir,” Wydanski said. “I wish we could have had the ship cleaned up better.”

“The crew can't do much until the yard gets to work.”

“I wish I could report to you that the engine is in good shape, but to tell the truth, I don't know how many hours we've got left in it. Either the old crew didn't keep an engine room log or it's been lost. We don't have hardly any spare parts or tools.”

“It's the old story, I guess. We'll have to do the best we can with what we've got.”

“A gas tanker should have bronze wrenches—there are lots of times when you don't want to make sparks. I think somebody must have taken ours ashore and hocked them. We have to work with taped wrenches and that ain't easy or safe.”

“Tell Mr. Buller to try to get some bronze wrenches. He's the supply officer.”

“There's not much chance out here, but we may trade some off the merchant tankers when we get going. I can say that we've got some good machinist's mates. The boys are better than I expected.”

“That's good news.”

“I can't complain anyway,” Wydanski said. “I volunteered for this duty.”

“Did you know what you were getting in for?”

“You mean all that scuttlebutt about our job being to supply advance air bases?”

“I'm not sure it's all scuttlebutt.”

“Sir, I figure that the army and navy both know that a gas tanker has to be kept out of combat. It was just an accident that this one got hit. They say that lightning never strikes in the same place twice.”

“So they do.”

“Frankly, it ain't combat that scares me. They've lost a lot of these little tankers but it wasn't the Japs which blew them up—it was their own crews.”

“Oh?”

“All it takes is a cigarette in the wrong place, a spark from the galley range or a spark from a tool. I guess you know that when we're loading or unloading, we displace a lot of gas fumes and they can settle all around us. Sometimes a nail in a man's shoe on a steel deck can make a spark and that can be enough.”

“I guess we'll have to have shoe inspection.”

“The main danger on a gas tanker, sir, is smoking. Also drinking, because men who drink smoke, and they don't care much where. When the men first come aboard, they're usually careful, but after a while they get used to the danger and start forgetting about it. On a ship like this, discipline is always the main problem.”

“You've served on tankers before?”

“Big ones way back in the First World War. I've been on the beach ever since, but I remember the need for safety regulations.”

“We'll enforce them here.”

There was another knock on the door.

“Captain, would you like me to muster the men for reading your orders?” Simpson said. “All hands are now aboard.”

“I was going to go ashore for a bite to eat.”

“It's just that the old hands might not be sure now who's in charge, you or me,” Simpson continued. “Especially since you're having to make decisions right away, they should know who their captain is.”

“All right, Mr. Simpson, muster the men.”

“They should be given a chance to get dressed proper, sir. Can you give them half an hour?”

Worries about dress aboard this rusty wreck seemed surrealistic to Syl, but he said, “All right. While the men are getting ready, I'd like to talk to all the officers in the wardroom.”

“Right away, sir.”

The four officers of the
Y-18
crowded the little wardroom. Buller sat with his elbows on the table, his massive body filling one bench. Syl felt more the actor than ever as he sat down at the head of the table and began.

“Gentlemen, it looks like we've got quite a job to do,” he said with a smile. “I think we should start by learning a little about each other. My name's Syl Grant. I got my training in the ROTC course at Columbia College just before the war. All my life I've fooled around small boats and I transferred from the navy to the Coast Guard because I figured the Coast Guard would give me a better chance to serve aboard small ships. I didn't want to wind up a bellboy aboard an aircraft carrier, and it looks now as though there's not much danger of that.”

He paused, and the others grinned.

“My first duty was aboard the cutter
Modoc
on the Greenland Patrol. I went from there to exec and then skipper of a subchaser on North Atlantic Patrol. Next they gave me an FS, an army freighter about the size of this vessel. I took her from California to New Guinea and there you might say I fouled up.”

“How?” Buller said, sounding surprised.

“I got in a little argument with an army colonel and that's a no-no, no matter who's right. In brief, he loaded my holds with ammo and put two hundred troops on my decks—that's not exactly regulation procedure right there. I didn't even have tarps to cover the troops and no boats for them in case of trouble. Our clutches were bad—we had just limped into port. So when the colonel ordered me to take those troops up to Puna, I refused to sail on the grounds that the ship was not ready for sea. I was right, even legally, but the colonel had me transferred ashore and told my exec to sail.”

“What happened?” Buller asked.

“He got there all right, although he had to limp along on one engine and those troops had to spend a bad week. To tell the truth, the whole thing made me look kind of silly, even though Commander Benson took my side. I don't know whether I got sent to this tanker for punishment or just because I happened to be available, but in any case I'm glad to be aboard a ship again and I think we can make this into a good little vessel.”

“It will take work, but it's possible,” Wydanski said.

“Before we got hit, she wasn't bad,” Simpson said.

“All right, Mr. Simpson, maybe you can now tell us a little about yourself.”

“I've put in my twenty years and would have retired if it hadn't been for the Japs,” Simpson said. “I was a chief quartermaster. Just about all my time was spent at sea on everything from picket boats to buoy tenders and the big cutters. I go back to Prohibition days. In them years we really had a war on our hands.”

“How long have you served on this vessel?” Syl asked.

“About two years, since we left 'Frisco.”

“I know you were aboard when this ship was hit. Could you tell us a little about that?”

“It was off Biak—no one expected any trouble. This Jap Betty plane was after a carrier that just happened to pass near us. He dropped his bombs on the flattop. He only got one hit and that didn't do a lot of damage. The gunners on the flattop hit him and he was trailing smoke when he saw us and decided to crash dive. We were lucky he wasn't carrying any more bombs and that he hit the pilothouse, not the tanks.”

“Why didn't the fire spread to the tanks?” Syl asked.

“We were lucky there too. One of the tin cans that had been escorting the carrier came right alongside and smothered us in foam. Our own hoses never could have handled it.”

“You were lucky, all right,” Syl said.

“Yeah, except for the skipper, the ensign and the whole bridge gang. They never got out of the pilothouse. I would have been there too, but I'd just come off watch and I was down in the cabin, asleep. I guess God figured it just wasn't my time to die.”

“Apparently,” Syl said. “Now, Mr. Wydanski, how about you?”

“I was Merchant Marine in the First World War and served as engineer on big tankers,” Wydanski said. “Later I went to work running generator plants ashore. When the war began, my feet started getting itchy. I was overage and my blood pressure acts up sometimes, so I had to get waivers, but the Coast Guard finally took me and here I am. This is the first time I've been to sea in about twenty-five years, but I know diesels and think I can do my share.”

“I'm sure you can,” Syl said. “Now Mr. Buller …”

“Hell, I'm an oil man, not a sailor,” Buller began. “Oil is an essential industry and I was making so much money that I had no damn desire at all to be a hero, but then the chairman of my draft board got a wild hair and they was about to draft my ass into the army. I figured the Coast Guard would be better than that, so I finagled around and got myself a commission on the grounds that since I'm a damn good oil surveyor, I must know navigation. I know diesels and pumps too—there's not much about an oil rig I can't fix, but I didn't want to get stuck in no engine room, so I'm a deck officer.”

“Have you had any sea duty at all?” Syl asked.

“Three months on the damn buoy tender that brought me out here. She was run by a bunch of meathead Academy boys and I didn't get on with them too well. I asked to get off and I was in the transient officers' camp in Milne Bay until they sent me here.”

“How did you get to be an oil man?” Syl asked.

“Hell, I'm from Louisiana bayou country, where the oil squeezes up between your toes when you walk. I'd still be barefoot if I hadn't played football in high school. That got me a scholarship to Tulane where I had the smarts to learn everything I could about oil. Later I played pro ball till I got me a stake and dug my first well. I'm a wildcatter. I was making fifty grand a year before Uncle Sam put his arm on me.”

“Impressive, Mr. Buller. Now, I'm not going to give any of you any sage wisdom or advice. I am very much aware that I'm only twenty-four years old, by far the youngest officer here, but I've spent the last three years at sea, most of that time in command of small ships. Commanding a ship is a job no one can do exactly right. You all know what has to be done in your areas and I'll try to stay off your backs as much as I can. I'm under no illusion that I know more than I do know and God knows I'll welcome all the help you can give me. Thanks for your attention.”

“I'll go see if the men are ready for muster now,” Simpson said.

“Give me about five minutes,” Syl told him. “I'll be in my cabin.”

An actor needs to catch a few minutes between acts, he reflected as he sponged off his face with a towel dipped in lukewarm water from the tap. He wished he did not have this feeling that he was acting so much of the time. “Just be yourself,” his mother had often told him, but the last true self he remembered had been a college boy. He could not come aboard this ship in gray flannel slacks and a tweed sports jacket to be himself when he took command.

Sometimes he liked to imagine it was his college boy self that had been a role circumstances had forced him to play and that he really had been born to be the captain of a ship. His mother's brother and father had been regular naval officers and his father had commanded a subchaser in World War One before starting his career as a history professor. His mother had said that the ghosts of many sailors roosted in his family tree, maybe dating from way back in the Viking days. Sometimes it helped him to believe that the sea was in his blood. In his heart he felt that all this family tradition was mostly bullshit, but on the days when he could take it seriously, it probably improved his skipper act. Now what in the hell was he supposed to tell the poor damned enlisted men who found themselves aboard this desperate rust bucket?