“The rest of the crew is a mix of Regulars and Reserves. Most of the leading petty officers are Regular Navy, all qualified submarine men. Most of the Reserves have never been to sea. But once we’re commissioned and operating we’ll make sailors out of them or kill them.”
“When is Commissioning Day?”
“That was going to be a surprise,” he said with a slow grin. “But I might as well tell you right now.
“On August the fifteenth in this year of Our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Forty-One, Marie Hinman will break a bottle of champagne across the bow of that submarine she looked at a couple of hours ago and christen it the United States Ship Mako.”
“This isn’t one of our jokes, is it?” she said. “Do you mean that the Navy Department is going to let the wife of a Lieutenant Commander christen a ship, not let the wife of a Senator or a Governor do it?”
“You’re the daughter of a respected Admiral,” he said. “No, it’s not a joke. You will do the honors. But if I can work it, I’ll switch the bottle of champagne for a bottle of sea water and we’ll come back here and have an orgy.”
“I’m in favor of that!” she said.
“You’d better be,” he said, “because the day after that you start across country and go on to Pearl Harbor in charge of the officers’ wives and families. I won’t see you again until we reach Pearl.”
She turned from the sink where she was wiping the dishes. “You mean I came all the way here from Pearl Harbor and I’ve got to leave in two months?”
“Yup,” he said. “Don’t blame me, the orders came from on high. Finish the dishes and get your skinny rear end into bed!”
“Always the romantic sailor!” she made a face at him and went into the bedroom. He waited, grinning.
The screech that came out of the bedroom was followed by a naked Marie holding a long rubber snake.
“You bastard!” she hissed. “I almost had a heart attack!”
He doubled over in the chair with laughter and she was on him, throwing him from the chair to the floor, her long legs clamping around him in a scissors grip. He howled with glee and squirmed upward until he could put his mouth against one of her small breasts. She stiffened and gasped and then she spread herself for him, pulling his head upward, searching for his mouth with hers, undoing his clothing, drawing him to her and into her.
“More coffee, Captain?” He looked up and saw Thomas Thompson, Officers’ Cook, standing in the door of the Wardroom.
“No thank you,” he said. “I must have been day-dreaming.”
The tall, powerfully built black man looked at him shrewdly. “My Grandma used to say day-dreaming was a gift of God,” he said in his deep voice. “But it don’t do you any good to dream about the past, according to her. You got to dream about the future.”
“Is it that easy to see?” Hinman said.
“For me it is. I been with you a long time, sir. Grandma used to say you could remember the past but don’t think on it. Ain’t nothin’ back there but hurt. You don’t think it’s hurt but it is, it leaves scars you can’t cover up.”
Chapter 7
The U.S.S. Mako slid through the oily waters of Pearl Harbor in the first full flush of morning, passing the torpedoed, burned hulks of Battleship Row to port. The off-duty crew members, dressed in clean dungarees and white hats, were standing at ease in two long rows on the after deck, their eyes taking in the feverish activity of the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard to starboard. Captain Hinman stood on the starboard side of Mako’s small bridge with Mike Brannon, who held a folded chart of the harbor. Brannon studied the course line he had drawn on the chart as the quartermaster sang out the bearings from a pelorus mounted on the bridge rail.
Down in the Maneuvering Room, just forward of the After Torpedo Room, Chief Electrician’s Mate Robert E. “Hindu” Hendershot sat at the big electrical control console beside one of his electrical gang, ready to go into action at the ring of the annunciators ordering him to change the rpms of the propeller shafts for one or both screws or to throw the massive electrical motors that turned the propeller shafts into full reverse. He lounged on a padded bench, one sandaled bare foot propped negligently against the shiny steel edge of the control console.
“Bridge talker says he’ll give us the word when we make the turn into the Southeast Loch,” the telephone talker said to Hendershot. “Mr. Simms is standing by in the Control Room.”
“Standing by for what?” Hendershot said in his soft Kentucky drawl. He waggled a foot at the ten control levers that stuck up out of the console and the score of dials above it. “Fucking battleship sailor knows the book but he don’t know what it’s like to be down here playin’ on this piano when the Old Man starts calling the square dance for docking. If we don’t make any mistakes he won’t come back here and tell us so, but if we fuck up one ring of those bells he’s gonna be back here hollerin’ his fool head off.” He pushed a curl of black hair from his white forehead. His dark blue eyes, fringed with luxuriant long lashes that were the envy of every girl he went out with, took on a dreamy look.
“Wonder if that Lola is still dealin’ beer off the arm at the Blackstone?” he said. He nudged the electrician beside him on the bench. “Now there is a broad, that Lola! She gives the best blow job you ever had, turn you inside out in about three minutes!”
On the bridge Mike Brannon studied his chart. “We can come right into the Southeast Loch in about one minute, Captain.” Hinman nodded, his eyes searching the harbor. He gave the order for the course change and the Mako turned slowly to starboard to head up the Southeast Loch toward the Submarine Base. As they neared the long concrete pier where they were to tie up, Brannon nudged Hinman’s arm.
“Look at the crowd on that pier!” He fumbled for the pair of binoculars that hung from his neck but Hinman’s hand stopped him.
“Don’t let them see you looking at them with the glasses,” he said in a low voice. “There’s always a crowd for a hanging!”
On Mako’s deck Dusty Rhodes checked his line-handlers. A submarine on war patrol carries no mooring lines, anchor or anchor chain. Mooring lines are stored in slatted lockers beneath the deck in several different locations and if a depth charge should rip those deck lockers open the hundreds of fathoms of four-inch manila line could foul the propellers. Depth charges could also cause the 105 fathoms of 1-inch steel anchor chain to rattle in its metal locker under the forward deck and give away the position of the submarine or worse, could dislodge the 2,200-pound anchor from its billboard and cause it to drop, dragging out the anchor chain and virtually immobilizing the submarine as it tried to maneuver submerged.
“Don’t try to catch the monkey fist when they throw over the heaving lines,” Rhodes cautioned a young seaman. “The monkey fist on the end of the heavin’ line is full of lead, it’ll break your hands. Let it drop, haul in the eye of the mooring line and get it on your cleat. Don’t panic.” His sharp eyes studied the pier. “That’s only old Admiral Nimitz standing there waiting for us!”
The Mako turned into the docking area, moving slowly, and then a huge boil of water erupted at her stern as Captain Hinman ordered both screws to back at full speed. A steady stream of orders to the helmsman and the Maneuvering Room came out of Hinman’s tight lips as he judged the way of his ship, the distance to the solid concrete at the end of the pier, the distance to the side of the pier where he was to dock his ship. His voice rose suddenly.