He had submerged himself in these details, railed at them because they could not be avoided, spent his time accomplishing them because some amorphous, unidentifiable authority, unnamed, unknown and probably nonexistent behind the myriad façade of Fleet Orders, Force Instructions, Navy Department Orders, Bureau of Naval Personnel Letters and rules and regulations of every conceivable kind, simply prescribed them. Now he realized he had secretly been glad they existed.
The reality, he had frequently reminded himself — it had been something like a placebo for his mixed-up feelings — was in that quonset hut in another part of the Mare Island Navy Yard, where he had brought Laura. Where, like a hundred other wives in like circumstances, she was struggling to create a home inside the curved walls and rudimentary facilities which were all the Navy could provide for seagoing personnel. He would never have believed, then, what he knew now, that even Laura’s gentle ministrations had not been adequate to assuage his depression, that he had welcomed the mountain of meaningless detail because it gave a sense of accomplishing something for the Eel (inanimate steel that she was) and her steadily decreasing crew. It was almost as though the Navy understood that wartime skippers of small, tightly knit ships like submarines or destroyers might need something to keep them from going mad during the enforced dissolution, and had deliberately provided it.
Buck Williams’ voice cut through, started a new train of thought. “We sure used to spend a lot of time thinking up big schemes in this little place. Remember the rockets we took on our third patrol, and how we finally used them on the emperor’s palace?”
“Getting there was really something,” chimed in Keith. “Those rockets had just one range, you know, and we couldn’t train the launcher, either. So we had to get to the exact spot we picked, and lie to there with the boat exactly stern-on to the palace. That’s when I earned my navigator’s merit badge. If old Doherty hadn’t been helping me we’d never have made it.”
“That was just one of the good jobs you did for us, Keith,” said Richardson. “More power to Doherty, too. He was a sharp navigating quartermaster. Wonder what he’s doing now — but it was really you, you know. Remember how you found our carrier? The ultra message was wrong, and you were the one to realize it. If you hadn’t made me change position at the last minute we’d not have found him.”
“Sure, Skipper,” said Buck, “and if you hadn’t got the damned torpedoes squared away earlier she’d never have sunk, either. We only had four fish left, remember.”
“Admiral Small gets the credit for the torpedoes in my book,” said Rich. “He’s the man who fought that fight all the way to the top. Joe Blunt was his honcho for the experiments, and I was lucky to be around with my bum leg after the Walrus. That was right before the Eel showed up needing a new skipper.”
“And crew, too,” said Keith. “That was some training period you put us through. After that, there wasn’t anything we couldn’t do. I guess chasing that convoy out of Tsingtao was the toughest thing, ending up in the fight with the Mikura tincan. But getting those Chinese coast watchers right out from under the Japanese Army on our next run was no picnic either. I’m still envious of Buck, too, for having the most fun of all, going ashore to blow up that train in the tunnel.”
“The British did the same thing in World War One,” said Buck. “Do you still have that book of yours, Skipper? We all read it for ideas. That Sea of Marmara submarine business of theirs was wild, the way they went through nets and minefields with those old simple boats. They didn’t have any of the special stuff we had for our Tsushima caper.”
The conversation was animated, each bringing up his own memory nuggets, each reliving the exciting days, hardly waiting for the preceding episode to be savored before claiming attention for his own latest recollection. They had, as a matter of course, ranged themselves in their habitual places in the wardroom. Richardson could almost imagine all of them turned back in time, himself included. All were fifteen years older: Keith and Buck designated to command new submarines the like of which had not even been dreamed of when last they had sat here; himself, now nearly as old as Joe Blunt had been, named to be their squadron commander. Yet, in Richardson’s eyes, all looked the same. Buck’s hairline had receded a trifle, lines had become permanently etched around his mouth and eyes, and he was a little heavier, though still the wiry, humorous activist. Keith looked precisely as before. His shock of brown hair was as full as ever, the wide-spaced light gray eyes looking as directly and sincerely as always from a still youthful, though more mature and self-confident, face. If anything, he was even more trim than before. Only his capable hands and stubby fingers, slightly more wrinkled, betrayed that he must be nearing forty years of age.
Richardson himself looked no different in his own eyes, certainly felt no different, although he had had to make the usual adjustment to growing astigmatism: glasses for reading in artificial light. His two juniors would have testified that the intervening years sat lightly on him, forgetting that the change in their own perspectives worked both ways. The sandy hair was farther back over the temples, the nose with that strange crease in it was slightly heavier, the skin under his chin a little more lined, looser. He, too, had kept his weight, although (his own confession) it had been a battle because of Laura’s good cooking.
The lunch, despite coming out of boxes, was excellent. All three were ravenous, ate swiftly. There was a tacit understanding that they could not stay too long below. Besides, San Francisco Bay had too much of interest.
“I wonder what Furakawa is doing now,” said Keith, pouring himself a second cup of coffee from the thermos jug. “He was one of those dedicated naval officers. Samurai, I’ll bet. Actually I rather got to like him, even though I was certainly afraid of him for a while.”
“Yancy said none of them would have lasted another day in the water,” said Richardson. “They were in a pretty bad way at first. But I agree with you. After he got back on his feet, he was a menace until the surrender.”
“Lining them all up outside the wardroom, in the passageway, to hear the surrender broadcast was a stroke of genius,” said Buck. “Remember the look on their faces? I’m sure it was old Hirohito himself, because they all bowed down to our radio. That was the day we realized for sure they were planning something really desperate. Old Furakawa had the oddest expression when we paraded him through the boat and showed him the stuff we had laid out to clobber his people with.”
“That was after his personal surrender, wasn’t it, Skipper? Didn’t he personally tell you the war was over so far as he was concerned? But I can recall being petrified when you let him come into your room alone. What if he’d tried to attack you right then?” Keith frowned at the memory.
“Well, I was ready for him, and we knew he had no weapons,” said Rich. “Besides, he was a man of honor, and I figured he’d keep his word. If it had been Moonface, now, from our second run, you can bet I’d have been a lot less accessible. I’d like to see Furakawa again, too. Someday he may be running the new Japanese Navy. He was an honest, dedicated man, as you said, and an enemy to be respected, even while he was a prisoner. I learned a lot about his country from him while we were waiting to get out of the Sea of Japan.” He glanced at his watch, lifted his cup for the last gulp of coffee.
The others were torn between the desire to preserve a delicious nostalgic moment and the need they all felt to go on deck again. Twenty minutes below, now exceeded, was long enough for almost anything to happen. But Buck tried to hold the magic an instant longer. “Speaking of Moonface,” he said, “makes me think of poor old Commodore Blunt. What a shame no one realized how sick he really was. He should have been in a hospital instead of being sent to sea as our wolfpack commander. I don’t suppose any hospital could have helped his brain tumor, but if you hadn’t had Yancy put him out that day …” he stopped uneasily. Something, a shadow intensified by the dim light, had crossed Richardson’s face. Keith’s smile had changed to a thundercloud. He should have remembered that Jobie Richardson’s real name was Joseph B., and that the middle initial stood for “Blunt.” “Sorry, Skipper,” he muttered, thoroughly abashed. “That was dumb of me. I know how much you thought of him.”