“The fish will run good,” Rhodes said. “Ginty and the new guy in the After Room, DeLucia, and I went up to the Torpedo Shop and did the finals on each fish ourselves. And the Old Man has given me the word to modify the exploders again.”
“No shit!” Barber said. “He told you that?”
Rhodes nodded and sipped his coffee.
“He told me he wants to be there to help Ginty and me when we modify the exploders,” he said. “From what he said he knows a little something about torpedoes and exploder mechanisms.”
“He knows engines,” Barber said. “He came back to the engine room when I was fine-tuning the fuel injectors and he sure as hell knew what questions to ask and I sure as hell knew I’d better give him straight answers. I like to go to sea with a man like that.”
“So do I,” Rhodes answered. “Most of the crew isn’t too happy. Cutting off liberty the last three days for all but the married guys didn’t sit too well. They figure he’s a hard-ass.”
“Don’t make a shit to me what they think,” Barber said. “All I want is for him to get me home safe. Getting so it’s harder and harder to go off and leave Dottie and the kid. Must be a sign that I’m gettin’ old or something.”
The destroyer that had led Mako through the harbor net and out to sea whooped its whistle three times and turned away and Mako’s crew settled down to the boring routine of running down the long sea miles to the patrol area. Captain Mealey sent Joe Sirocco to the bridge to take over the deck and summoned the officers to the Wardroom.
“Joe has read our patrol orders,” he said. “I want you to know where we’re going this trip.” He touched the right side of his white mustache with his finger.
“We’ve got a good patrol area, one that should give us a lot of targets. It’s south of Luzon, on the shipping lanes out of the harbor at Manila. We’ll run on the surface as long as we can on the way out. I am going to hold drills, a lot of emergency drills on the way out. This crew and all of you have to be letter-perfect in everything. We’ll hold deck gun firing drills beginning the day after tomorrow. Chief Rhodes fixed up some small kegs with flags on them for targets.”
“Are you going to attack on the surface with the deck guns, Captain?” Lieutenant Simms was grinning. “Hell, I’d like to pick a boarding party from the crew, sir. We could board and destroy the way the old Navy did it!”
Captain Mealey stared at his Engineering Officer. “If I contemplate boarding an enemy ship, Mr. Simms, I will pick the men to board.” He stood up. “You have my permission to tell our patrol area to your people.”
Lieutenant Grilley found Chief Rhodes and sent him to the Forward Torpedo Room to tell the people up there where Mako was going and went aft to talk to the people in the After Room himself. He met Rhodes in the Crew’s Mess.
“Sounds like a good area, Chief. People up forward happy?”
“Reasonably, sir. They’re still hot about no liberty the last three days but they’ll get over that. Ginty is worried about if the Japs have closed the bars in Manila.”
Lieutenant Simms yelled his information about the patrol area to the men on watch in each Engine Room and then went back to the Maneuvering Room to give the word to Chief Hendershot and his people. When he had finished he stood, leaning negligently against the door of the head. Chief Hendershot was sitting on the padded bench in front of the control console.
“The Old Man is thinking about forming a boarding party to take smaller ships, stuff too small to waste a torpedo on,” he said with a grin. “He wants me to lead the boarding party, take the prize at cutlass point!”
“Didn’t know we had any of those aboard,” Hendershot said. “I think we got six old bayonets around. Could use them I guess. They won’t fit the rifles but we could carry ‘em.”
“Officers have swords,” Simms said. “I’ve got mine with me. It was my graduation gift from the Academy; my father paid over two hundred dollars for it. Beautiful piece of steel — you can shave with it.”
“Kinda hard to do that in that small stateroom you people live in, isn’t it?” Hendershot’s mouth was smiling but his eyes were wary.
“Your sense of humor went out of style in the Depression, Chief,” Simms said. “What we should do with this submarine is to take out the tubes in the After Room and the rest of the gear back there and cut the hull so it could be opened up like a clamshell. Then we could keep a PT boat back there, flood down, launch the PT boat and really raise hell with the enemy! Excuse me, I’ve got to use the head.” He opened the door to the tiny toilet and backed in and closed the door. He came out in a few minutes and went forward. Hendershot went over and opened the door to the head and turned back, his face dark with anger.
“You!” he said to one of his gang. “Get a bucket and a brush and clean that fucking toilet bowl. That bastard’s got a revolving nozzle for an asshole! Sprays the whole damned bowl! Fucker has got a head of his own in the Forward Room and a guy to clean it. Why in the hell does he have to use our head?”
He asked the same question of Dusty Rhodes as the two men sat in the Chief’s Quarters, next to the Captain’s stateroom, his voice low but vibrating with anger.
“I don’t know of any regulations says he has to use the head in the Forward Room,” Rhodes said slowly. “The man on watch at the torpedo tubes in the Forward Room can use the Officers’ head up there if he has to piss and there’s no one to relieve him. About all I can do is to tell you to grin and bear it. Maybe he won’t do it again.”
“Shit!” Hendershot rasped. “He did it every fucking day on both the other patrol runs! He’d come back there and shoot the shit with the guy on watch at the board and then he’d go in our head and spray that damned bowl with his crap! I don’t like cleanin’ heads, neither do you. We’ve both cleaned enough of them in our time. I’m gonna think of something.”
“Think twice when you do,” Rhodes said crisply. “You know this Old Man, you served with him. Don’t put your head in the meat grinder. He’s nobody to fuck with, this Old Man.”
“Oh, shit, I know him,” Hendershot said. “He’s always been a hard rock. But he’s tougher now than he used to be. Used to be he’d hit you with the Book if you fucked up but he didn’t use to disqualify anyone like he did Spook. That was a hell of a belt for getting drunk. It was enough the silly bastard got the shit scared out of him, blind for four days.”
“It was where he got drunk,” Rhodes said. “He got drunk aboard and Barney killed himself on that drunk. The Old Man could have given him a General instead of a Summary Court.”
“It was still a hell of a belt,” Hendershot insisted. “I didn’t hear about anyone trying to help Spook out at the trial.”
“Grilley tried, he tried real hard,” Rhodes said. “Nate Cohen volunteered to give testimony about Spook’s character and they heard him and said thank you.”
Hendershot looked at Rhodes. “You know that; you must have been there.”
“I was,” Rhodes said. “Captain asked me to give my opinion of Spook’s ability. I gave him a good send-off, said I’d go back to sea with him any time.”
“Old Man asked you to do that? Well, that was fair. But that’s the way he is, hard son of a bitch, but pretty square. He was that way when I was with him in Panama. Another thing you better know about this dude. He knows the gear aboard. Knows my stuff fuckin’ near as good as I do. I’ve been with hard-asses before who didn’t know nothin’! Acted hard to cover up. This dude acts hard because that’s the way he is, hard.”
It took Hendershot two days to perfect his plan and when he was ready to carry it out he turned to the man who was on watch with him at the control console.