Pacific Interlude (45 page)

“How am I ever going to leave you?” he said.

“By ship or plane,” she said, and nipped him on the ear.

While they were dressing she touched a bell pull and an elderly maid no taller than a ten-year-old child served a Filipino dinner that tasted like Chinese food. The only part he remembered was the image of Mary's right hand holding a tiny porcelain cup to her lips. Sliding another wall panel, she revealed a low double bed with black silk sheets. If this was a house of assignation, he envied the regulars.

Mary's lovemaking was different now, not so passionate, but expert in ways that were altogether new to him. Before, he had always done his best to be a good lover. Relaxed and letting Mary play him like an instrument, he was a little shocked at first, but not for long. Lie back and enjoy her, he told himself … She brought him to his third climax, then sponged him off and fed him glasses of iced wine, and he could not help but wonder if she was deliberately turning away from romantic love to the practiced performance as a prelude to farewell. While giving him every possible pleasure, she now seemed to him to protect her deeper self, remaining somehow aloof while reducing him to spasms. The mood she created was joyful, but exactly not one that invited whispered intimacies …

Afterward he slept for almost five hours, awaking suddenly in near-darkness, thinking he was back aboard the
Y-18
. The sound of the distant brook falling down the sides of the ravine sounded like the sea swishing past the sides of the old ship and the gasoline moving about in her tanks as she rolled. He lay rigid, his ears straining for the steady beat of the old Diesel, even said aloud … “Mr. Simpson, you there? Why has the engine stopped …?”

“You are
here
with
me
,” Mary whispered, kissing him on the lips. “You're
not
on the ship.”

“How long?” Meaning how long before he had to go back to the ship.

“You've been ashore a long time.”

He came back then, remembered that the ship had sailed to Okinawa without him, had not been reported as arriving … Drawing Mary closer to him, he slept another six hours.

When he woke up this time bright sunshine was streaming through the open side of the room overlooking the ravines. Wearing a short multicolored silk kimona, Mary was pouring tea into tiny cups, and in that wide-sleeved garment she really did look like a butterfly.

“Good morning,” she said with a smile.

“I don't think I want this day to come. We have to go back …”

“I can stay another day if you can.”

“I have to see if there's any news about the ship, and if you want me to see some colonel, I may need all the time I can get.”

“Thank you for thinking of that.”

“If Paul got you off for being so young, maybe I can get your aunt off for being so old.”

She kissed him, then brought him a tiny cup of tea.

“I can get coffee if you would prefer it.”

“This is fine.”

“Breakfast will be out on the terrace. Do you want a swim first?”

“If you'll go with me.”

“I think we make love here. A gardener is out there now.”

A gorgeous butterfly shedding its wings, she took off the kimona and hung it in a closet.

“Syl … do you have any special requests this time?” She knelt by the bed.

“Just that I'd like to make love, not just sex, although I'm not complaining …”

“When you make love well you must not create pain,” she said, lying beside him, cupping his scrotum in her hand and squeezing slightly. “Almost pain is good, but no one wants to be really hurt.”

She rubbed the inside of his upper thigh lightly with her sharp fingernails, pressing them into the most sensitive spots.

“Don't you like this?”

“I want to say good-bye. That's what this really is, isn't it? Things won't be the same when we get back, no matter how long I can stick around.”

“This is the best way to say good-bye. No butterfly kisses … No Poor Butterfly. I give you what I can, you give me what you can. No tears, Syl …”

And all the while saying this she manipulated his body in such a way that he gasped with pleasure, but her face was as dispassionate as a physician's. In a way appropriate … what she was doing was curing his body … Still, he put his arms around her and pulled her face down next to his own, but her lips were taut against his.

“No butterfly kisses,” she whispered, and as he released her she stroked his forehead. “Come now, it's time we settle down to earth.”

Before starting back to Manila he emptied two of the jerry cans into the tank of the jeep. The smell of gasoline brought the
Y-18
so vividly back to his mind that he almost felt the steel decks under his feet, heard the creak of her mooring lines and Cramer shouting, “All right, move it, move it …” He stood staring at the shadows of the gas fumes swirling in the bright sunshine on the driveway, like the ghosts of a tangle of snakes.

During the long drive back to Manila he could not get the men of the
Y-18
out of his mind. When another jeep passed him, driving fast, a thin pinch-faced man at the wheel looked exactly like Simpson … No sooner had he recovered from this delusion than he seemed to see Sorrel, a young blonde sailor hitchhiking by the side of the road, and the man who sat on a suitcase next to him was Cramer. A young corporal directing traffic on the outskirts of Manila became Hathaway, and old Wydanski walked a dog across the street when Syl stopped for a red light. Suddenly the whole city seemed to be full of mirror images of his crew, or their ghosts …

If the
Y-18
was lost, how long before Commander Patterson would be informed of it? Days could go by, even weeks, before sinkings were officially reported to personnel officers. The loss of a ship as insignificant as the
Y-18
would never make the broadcasts or newspapers. But if the
Y-18
reached Okinawa safely a dispatch would be sent and he'd be on his way back to her. That could happen in the next three or four days …

But Patterson had wanted to send him home to a new LST. How much time would it take for the commander to get a decision from headquarters? Priority dispatches could flash back and forth from Manila to Washington in a few hours, and maybe the question of who was to command a ship would be considered important enough for quick action. Syl felt a need to see the commander, to ask him where he stood. If he hurried he could get to the commander's office before it closed.

Driving fast, he arrived at the Coast Guard office with a half hour to spare. He left Mary in the jeep and ran in. Patterson was putting papers in drawers when Syl came in. He glanced up, smiled.

“How was Baguio?”

“Great, but I can't help wondering about my orders …”

“I think I've resolved the matter. I told you there's no point in sending you back to the
Y-18
if you're just going to make trouble with the army, insist your ship isn't seaworthy and refuse to sail her in the open sea. They need skippers for the landing ships, the new ones rate a lieutenant commander. I told you all this.”

Syl sat down on the metal chair in front of the desk. “I know, sir, but has headquarters agreed? I still feel—” Oh, shut up, hero. If they order you home, they order you home …

“I sent them a strong recommendation, a very strong one. I doubt they'll bother to overule me. I told them that you're a fine seagoing officer but you make trouble with the army. Nobody upstairs wants that. By the way, those landing ships work with the navy. The only army you'll see will be passengers.”

Syl only nodded, not trusting himself to say anything.

“Do you still wish I'd sent you back to your tanker?”

“Yes and no, sir. I can't honestly say more than that … Have you heard anything from the
Y-18
?”

“No, and I'm not likely to. She's out of my jurisdiction when she leaves Manila Bay.

“I just hope she makes it—”

“It's out of your hands. Mr. Simpson has a hell of a lot more experience than most skippers … Well, it's just about five o'clock. How about a drink?”

“Thank you, sir. I'd like that.”

Opening a desk drawer, Patterson took out a bottle of Jack Daniels—Buller's favorite—and two paper cups. After pouring both half-full he got up and handed one to Syl.

“Here's to your old command, and your new one,” he said.

Feeling uneasy, even theatrical, Syl touched the rim of his paper cup to the commander's and drank.

“Do you know where my new ship will be?”

“They're building a lot of landing ships clear up on the Great Lakes. If you're lucky you'll get one of them. By the time you take any leave due you and bring her down through the Mississippi you might be just in time to get back out here for the biggest show of them all, the invasion of Japan. Now you wouldn't want to miss that, would you?”

With a wry grin the commander poured Syl another drink. “That one's really going to be something.”

Syl gulped down the drink. “Sir, one of my officers, Buller, didn't understand why we just don't starve 'em out with a naval blockade. It never seemed very likely to me, but I'd like to know your thoughts.”

The commander sat down and refilled his cup. “It might work, eventually, but even if it did it would take too much time, maybe a year, maybe more. Who's going to wait for that? And in the meantime, they'd get more and more desperate. They'd throw every man, woman and child against us. It could be worse than an invasion.” He drained his cup. “Well, good luck to you, captain. You can pick up your orders here in about forty-eight hours. You got a girl who'll keep you busy until then?”

“Yes …”

“Don't take her home with you. Filipino girls are real lookers, but they don't do too well in our climate. If you know what I mean.”

“My girl does.” And so did he, and he didn't like it.

“So check back with me Thursday morning. I'll try to arrange air travel home for you. Those troop ships take forever.”

“Thank you.”

Outside the office Syl paused by a water cooler, too full of emotion even to want to see Mary at this moment. The
Y-18
was gone from his life … he would never see that rusty hull again. He probably would never see Buller, Simpson, Wydanski or any of the others again, even if they survived the war. Chances were he would never hear a word about the
Y-18
, no matter what happened to her. The three other ships he'd served on had disappeared from his life the moment he left them, as completely as though they had sunk, though they were probably still sailing the seas. The service was like that … even close shipboard friendships, or enmities, almost always evaporated as soon as the men were separated. He had such mixed feelings about everyone aboard the
Y-18
, and yet he felt devastated now, as though he had lost a whole family …

It was ridiculous, he felt like crying, yet if those orders were changed and he was sent back to the tanker he would hardly be celebrating. What the hell did he want? He was going home, for thirty days leave at least, and maybe the whole damn war would be over before he ever got back to the Pacific. Why wasn't he running out to whoop it up …?

He drank three cups of warm water, turned and slowly walked back to his jeep, where Mary was waiting.

“What happened?” she said.

“I got orders to go home and get a new ship.”

“That must be good news for you. They say those who bring good luck deserve to get some.”

“Yes, it's good luck, all right …”

“What do you want to do to celebrate it?”

And Syl said something which greatly surprised him. “I'd like to find a church,” he said. “I … just want to sit there and think …”

CHAPTER 35

T
HE CHURCH SHE
took him to was an ancient Spanish cathedral with one wing burned out, but it stood as it had for centuries, imperturbable in the midst of chaos. The roof arched so high and was so dimly lit that there was no visible ceiling. In a smaller room off the nave short thick candles glowed. Syl had never before been aware of the guttering flame of a small tower of wax as the perfect symbol of life. The tiers of candles shining in the shadows drew him toward them. As a Protestant he was uncertain of procedures in a Catholic church, but he knelt in front of the candles and tried to remember a prayer.

He was not good at this. The Lord's Prayer, which he had memorized long ago in Sunday School, didn't seem to have much to do with the chaos inside him now, despite its stately cadences. He knelt in silence, thinking of Simpson, his love of rectitude, and of Buller, his hunger for the men's love … two kinds of passion that flickered as precariously as the candles. He thought of Wydanski and his broken dream of going back to Brisbane and his girl after the war to start life over again. And of Hathaway, Grinelli, Murphy and Sorrel, and felt ashamed because he had never come to know the enlisted men well, could hardly remember some of their names even though he'd lived within a hundred and eighty feet of them for so long. Even in civilian life he'd tended to live under a glass bell, had never managed the easy communication with others that had seemed to come so easily to, say, Buller. Well, in his fashion he mourned his own loss of the ragged crew of the
Y-18
. Yes, damn it, in his way he guessed he had loved them. Kneeling on the cold marble floor, he tried to pray for them, and for himself.

Sensing his need for privacy, Mary knelt in a nearby pew, saying her own prayers.

They walked out of the church silently and did not talk as they returned to her room. He sat down on the cot, rubbed his face and realized that his time in Manila was over. He took hold of Mary's hand. “You've helped me, God knows. Now I want to do my best for you. Where are these papers you want this colonel to sign, and what's his name? Where's his office?”