Richardson himself took on the problem of relocating the two Target Bearing Transmitters — one of them new — on either side of Eel’s bridge cockpit. A segment of the bulletproof side plating had been cut out of each side, and new bulged pieces to accomodate the instruments inserted. To get it done right, Richardson went over to the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard with the sections of heavy steel plate which had to be bent into a particular shape to fit his drawings. When the TBTs were mounted he personally supervised their location, height and precise alignment. Finally, with Buck Williams and Keith Leone assisting him, he spent hours carefully “bore-sighting” the transmitters, so that they accurately transmitted the angles of aim to the repeater dials in the conning tower.
The two-week refit at Pearl Harbor, supposed to be rest and relaxation for submarine crews between patrols, had been something less than restful for him, Eel’s skipper realized, when he and his crew rendezvoused back aboard their submarine. First, of course, there had been the coordinated tactics training, the “convoy college.” Then there were the demands of the refit itself, theoretically carried out in entirety under the supervision of the relief commanding officer. Obviously, however, the real commanding officer of any particular submarine could never be unconcerned about the work in progress.
And finally, of course, there was the time spent with Joan. Blunt had been right in one thing. She was indeed sought after. She must have especially made herself available for him — otherwise he’d have had no time with her at all. He found it difficult to analyze his feeling for her. The tensions of war and his own psychic needs were a part of it. So was her tremendous physical attraction. But this last was not special for him alone. Many had felt it. Jim Bledsoe, for one.
Deliberately, he had made his second evening with Joan as different from the first one — only the day previous — as he could. There was a nightclub in Honolulu which catered to the young-officer set, with a maximum of privacy and a dance band. Ostentatiously, it was placarded to the effect that it would close its doors half an hour before the curfew, to make sure that everyone had plenty of time to get home. For most of its habitués, Richardson found, this only adjourned the evening somewhere else. Hesitantly, he confessed that his ingenuity had not extended that far, and that he had not wanted to be with Captain Blunt a second night. Joan dimpled, and made it come right. Her room in Fort Shafter was only a convenience, a place to sleep should she have to remain late on some special project. She had a private apartment in the Moana Valley, with a private entrance.
The apartment was tiny, secluded, tastefully decorated, austere rather than luxurious. All Joan’s possessions, she told him, had been lost when she had had to leave Japan on the eve of war. Her father was in the diplomatic service, but she did not know where he was and thought he might be dead. (Richardson felt this was not strictly true.) Her mother had died some years ago. (This must be true.) It was not until several days later that Richardson realized this was the extent of the information he was likely to learn about her. She was adroit at making him talk about himself, his time at Annapolis, his first duty after graduation, his boyhood in California, his father’s zealous career as a Presbyterian minister, the often expressed ambition for Rich to follow in his footsteps. The bad times of 1930 had wrecked the traveling preacher’s hopes of sending his son to divinity school, and he had died within the year. The appointment to Annapolis had come as a chance for an education which the new widow would have been unable to provide from her meager estate. It also answered a deep personal dilemma. Rich, even as a boy, had sensed that he lacked his father’s dedication to the ministry. His mind ran to mechanical things. He loved machinery. The complex machinery of a submarine was a constant source of delight, and operating it, or watching someone else operate it — if he did it well — was sensuous pleasure.
It was peaceful listening to Joan’s records and talking quietly about the years before the war, when things (from the present view, at least) were much less complicated. He even told her one day about his girl while at the Naval Academy, his “OAO” (the initials were for “One And Only” in the schoolboy lexicon). Sally and he had had fun together. Undoubtedly, she had made someone a fine wife. His classmate Stocker Kane had married immediately after the expiration of the two-year rule, two years to the day after they had graduated. At one point Sally and he had planned the same; but as the two years stretched out ahead, and the demands of a navy life occupied all his interest, he had realized that his own confidence had not matched Sally’s.
“It was just that you didn’t really love her, Rich,” said Joan. “It was too soon for you.” He had to admit to himself that this was true.
Inevitably, even during their closest moments, when the war seemed so distant and Joan’s nearness so fulfilling, that cursed second self of his, which had forced the break with Sally, which sometimes took possession of him or, most often, merely stood there, watching, would evoke the thought of Laura.
Laura. Jim Bledsoe’s widow. Richardson could clearly remember the moment when he first met her. A near disaster during training operations. A trip to the bar at the New London Submarine Base Officer’s Club afterward. Jim bringing forward a smiling girl in a green dress. “This is Laura.” Gray-green eyes. Tall. Slender. Cool hand in his. Blond hair — natural. Rich’s nerves still jumping from the near-collision during a practice approach that afternoon, had responded magically to her presence. She was the first girl, in fact the only girl, who had ever affected him to such a degree. Had she not been Jim’s, had Jim not been his exec in the S-16—if there had only been more time — he might have dared to pursue the strong emotion Laura had so suddenly awakened in him.
The coming of war, a few weeks later, had telescoped everything. A cold, rainy Sunday at the club at New London. A chance encounter with Laura and Jim. The voice on the radio in the next room, sounding somehow different from the regular announcer, letting it be known, even though his words could not be distinguished, that something was radically wrong. Laura, sent back to New Haven. S-16, bravely, uselessly, girding for a possible sneak attack in the Thames River. A short time later, still in December, the terribly bad moment over Jim’s qualification for command of submarines. Laura, once warm and friendly, now cold. Still perfect, but even the coolness was perfection. Then it became apparent that she and Jim still hoped to snatch out of the jaws of war at least a few normal, or near-normal, months together. Before the Walrus was ready to go to sea, Jim had come in with a request for transfer to a New London — based submarine. It had been totally unexpected. Jim was petulant, antagonistic. In a release of long-suppressed emotion he had cursed the Walrus, Richardson, the whole naval establishment.
Perhaps Richardson should have approved the request and sent it forward. The official response would have been automatic; it would have been approved. But Jim’s position would have been understood as unwillingness, or fear, to enter the active war. His career in submarines would have been finished. He would have carried the black mark with him forever. Richardson already bore some of the responsibility for the unfortunate qualification fiasco. He could not do more to Jim than he had done already, however inadvertently.