Sue pried the top from a bottle of beer with an opener and handed the bottle to Jamie. “Was it that bad?”
He had been quiet since he’d picked her up and driven the short distance to the beach. The area was so lovely, so calm, that it was almost possible to forget there was a war on.
“I had to dredge up some memories I’d been trying to forget,” he replied.
She tucked her legs under her knees and took a bottle for herself from the cooler. Going to the beach had been her idea; the inquest had been the navy’s. Jamie looked so drawn and forlorn that she wanted to hold him to her and rock him like a baby. He was so thin and frail in his swimming trunks, she found it difficult to think of him as an officer, and a hero who’d survived both the Japanese and the ocean. At least the burns from the sun had gone and the cut on his back was a barely noticeable scar. He was pale, and the early evening in the sun would do them both some good.
When it came to thinness, she wryly thought that she matched him, bony limb for bony limb. Sue considered herself slender to the point of skinny and bemoaned what to her was an almost total lack of a bosom. At least she didn’t look foolish in her two-piece bathing suit like so many plump women did. She saw that the waist of her suit had ridden low and her navel was almost exposed. She pulled it up while thinking that, if she had better hips, it wouldn’t slide down so much.
This was the first time she and Jamie had done anything social. Their relationship had been very cordial but based entirely on work. Even the times they’d had lunch together had been because of the pressures of work, not because they wished to enjoy each other’s company. She hadn’t planned on suggesting anything like this evening at the beach, but he had looked so distraught after the inquest that she thought it was a good idea.
The Navy Department had finally commenced an investigation into the loss of the Pennsylvania. The sinking of a single ship, even a battleship, had largely been lost in the immensity of the disasters that had befallen the U.S. Navy since December 7. It seemed unlikely anyone even cared anymore.
Finally, however, four elderly and unimportant admirals had made the journey from Washington to interview Jamie Priest, the only known survivor of the sinking. In Jamie’s words, the admirals had been more than a little pissed that they had to travel to California instead of Jamie coming to them, but Admiral Nimitz had made it clear that he wanted Jamie to remain in San Diego. Thus, the four admirals trekked across the nation on a series of trains and buses, suffering through the inconsistencies and delays of a transportation system still paralyzed by the impact of war. They took the opportunity to loose their anger when they interrogated Jamie.
Now he shook his head in frustration. “I didn’t have the answers they wanted. They couldn’t get it through their heads that I was just a lonely and lowly officer who wasn’t assigned to anything in particular, who didn’t know squat about the battle, and who spent the entire time scared to death. They wanted to know what was happening on the bridge and got angry when I told them I never got on the bridge. I thought one of them would have a fit when I said I wasn’t certain where the bridge was. They didn’t even care how those guys died in the water, although I got the hint they thought I could have done something better to save them. The bastards.”
He finished his beer and took another one from Sue, who let him know she liked being called Suzy by her friends and he now qualified. “I guess they felt they wasted a trip, and they’re right. I don’t know what they wanted, but they should have known they wouldn’t get it from me. They’ll just have to wait until the war’s over and they talk to the other survivors.”
If there are any, Suzy thought. She’d caught snatches of conversation between senior officers that told her otherwise.
She decided to redirect his thoughts and pointed out the glories of the sun reflecting off the waves. It didn’t work.
“Japan’s out there,” Jamie said.
“So’s Hawaii,” she answered softly.
Jamie bit his lip. “God, I’m sorry. I haven’t given a thought about you losing your father. I must sound like a spoiled child.”
“Just a little,” she teased. She was gratified that he did seem genuinely contrite. A lot of guys wouldn’t have cared.
“Tell me about your dad,” Jamie said.
She leaned back on her elbows and drank in the sun. She took off her glasses, and the world beyond a dozen feet away became a pleasant blur. She wished she was naked and could let the sun play over her entire body as she liked to do on some of the more private beaches in the area. She wondered what Jamie’s reaction would be. Shock? Dismay? Delight? Maybe someday she’d find out.
“Not much to say. He was a good man, a good father, and a good sailor, and I loved him very much. He encouraged me to get an education, which I did. He served with Spruance, which is how I got this job as his clerk at the tender age of twenty-four. Being a sailor, Dad was gone for long stretches of time, so I got used to him not being there. My mother lives in Oakland. They got divorced a few years ago, and she remarried some guy who works in a factory. The guy’s a jerk, and I’m really disappointed in Mom, but I guess she needed the security.”
Suzy took another beer for herself and snapped off the top with more force than was necessary. She’s hiding her anger too, Jamie thought, but not very well.
“Dad died on his battleship,” she went on. “Now they’re saying the Arizona will be a permanent tomb or memorial when we retake Hawaii. I’d like that, and I know he’d like that. I could visit there and know where he is and that he’s finally safe.”
“In the meantime, we do what we can,” Jamie said.
He was proud of his work. Already a partial solution had been found for the problem of the torpedoes running deeper than set. The weight difference between the test warheads and a real warhead was significant enough to cause a torpedo to run ten feet deeper than expected. Adjusting the settings was all that was needed, although there was concern that the earth’s magnetic field was producing variances that also affected the settings.
The situation with the impact detonators was still not totally resolved. It was now a given that they were too sensitive, and there was talk of copying a more reliable British design. In the meantime, mechanics onboard submarines tinkered with each torpedo to make them all more effective.
“When you write your book, put me in it,” Suzy said with a grin.
“My what?”
“You heard me. After the war, you will write a book about your experiences, and I want to be in it. As the heroine, of course.”
Write a book? Funny, but the thought intrigued him. “Okay, I’ll write a book. And I’ll put those four admirals in it in all their glory.”
Perhaps a book would be a way of telling the world about the quiet courage of people like Seaman Fiorini, and about his photos, which might have influenced the course of the war.
They finished their beers, and Suzy broke out sandwiches. As they ate, she couldn’t help but think that her father would have liked Lieutenant Jamie Priest.
Charley Finch had never intended to be a traitor. All he ever wanted was a little peace and comfort for himself and a way out of the prison camp. If it meant ratting on a couple of his buddies, well, so what? He’d done it before, and he’d do it again if the situation was right.