“How is Dusty Rhodes, Barber, Ginty, the others?”
“Fine,” Rudd said. “I talked to Dusty when they got in. He told me Mealey ordered a reload of the Forward and After Room tubes to begin while he was still firing, if you can picture that! Dusty said that Ginty was opening the tube outer doors and closing the outer doors with only one hand on the Y-wrench! I didn’t think anyone was strong enough to do that!”
The two men picked their way down Mako’s shattered decking. “They’ll never get this ship ready for sea in under three months!” Hinman muttered.
“Oh yeah?” Rudd replied. “You don’t know this Navy Yard! You’re scheduled to go on patrol in just a little under four weeks from today, Art! This is one hell of a Navy Yard! Bring ‘em back a periscope and I think they could build you a submarine under the periscope in two months!”
Chapter 22
The Mako plowed westward across the Pacific, her bull nose throwing up twin sheets of spray that glistened in the bright moonlight. Joe Sirocco had the bridge watch and Captain Hinman was at his usual night station, aft of the bridge on the cigaret deck.
Sirocco leaned his elbows on the bridge rail and studied the ocean. The immensity of the Pacific never failed to fascinate him when he had the bridge watch. The Pacific, which covers one third of the Earth’s total surface, had impressed seamen for centuries. Those intrepid South Pacific islanders who had set out to sea in their outrigger canoes, armed only with their knowledge of the course of the stars and the habits of migratory birds, their familiarity with wind and current, had been so awed by the great ocean that they gave it status as a god, a natural force beyond understanding.
Sirocco turned to look southward. Somewhere out there, far below the horizon, sprawled the island groups of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia; scores of islands, many of them populated by people whose cultural levels ranged from the aboriginal to the surprisingly sophisticated. A sprawling anthropological paradise that was now threatened by a war between races of people the Islanders did not know. A war that would bring to the Islanders all the benefits of higher civilization; food in cans to take the place of the food that grew so readily on the fertile mountainous upthrusts of drowned continents and the fish in the sea. War, conducted with weapons that could kill from afar, a war that would make no sense for the Islanders who waged war only for important reasons, the taking of women to revitalize the blood of the tribe or war for land on which to grow more food.
The war would bring to these people the ultimate in higher civilization — change. The invaders would bring medicines to heal the sick. The tribal wise men, who for centuries had healed with no more than a few herbs and the power of their minds, a power largely lost by more civilized peoples, would be cast into disrepute.
The white invader and the yellow, each in his own way, would rule and, in ruling, downgrade those native rulers who were descended from centuries of rulers.
The religious men among the invaders would heap their scorn on the tribal wise men who, when faced with problems they could not solve or with crises beyond their powers to confront, would sit and meditate and their souls would depart their bodies and travel great distances to consult with those long dead and bring back their wisdom.
Sirocco stared out across the trackless waters over which his navigational skills and instruments would bring Mako to her patrol area at the southern end of the Philippine island of Luzon. He would use the same stars the ancient navigators had used in their fearless voyages across the great waters but Sirocco needed a sextant and books of mathematical formulae to determine Mako’s position north or south of the Equator and an accurate chronometer set at Greenwich Meridian Time to tell him his distance west of Greenwich.
Captain Hinman was lost in his own thoughts as he stood on the cigaret deck. He felt at peace with himself. Mako, repaired and refitted, was solid beneath his feet. His ship. The ship he had midwived and had baptized in action against the enemy.
The crew, for the most part, was his crew. Men he had trained. He sensed a difference that hadn’t been there before. Although he had been Mako’s Captain when she was blooded in action against the enemy there had been no retaliation from that enemy. During his absence another Captain had taken Mako into action against the enemy and had sunk and damaged ships. Under that other Captain Mako and its crew had been scourged in the flame and thunder of depth charge attacks. Mako’s crew had had an experience that Captain Hinman had not known and he could detect the slight, subtle difference in the crew. They had matured in small ways and each of them carried a vast respect for the enemy and the knowledge that they had been afraid and had endured the fright, which is perhaps the most maturing agent of all in a man’s coming of age.
He didn’t think about Joan during the long night hours on the cigaret deck as Mako worked its way westward over the long sea miles. He saved the thoughts about Joan for the time when he went to his bunk and as he waited for sleep to come he savored each detail of their last few days together.
He was thinking, this night, of the dinner he had gone to with Bob Rudd at Captain Mealey’s quarters on the Submarine Base.
He had known Arvin Mealey casually for years. He had never liked the man very much. Mealey was known as a loner, a man who did not seek out the company of his peers and who discouraged any social contacts by those junior to him. Mealey was known as a strict disciplinarian, a man with little tolerance for the weaknesses of sailors ashore was a man bound for trouble. When Mealey’s crewmen got into trouble ashore he investigated and if the man was at fault, he ordered court-martial. When Hinman’s crew got into trouble on the beach he immediately defended his men against all criticism and if possible, let the man off with a warning.
The dinner with the Mealeys had surprised Hinman. Agnes Mealey, a tall, handsome, regal woman had embraced Hinman warmly and kissed him on the cheek, congratulating him on his marriage. Captain Mealey, in the role of host, was relaxed and on one or two occasions had let a small smile show beneath his mustache, belying the nickname of “Old Stoneface” that he had carried for years. After dinner they had moved to the screened lanai for coffee and Mealey had recounted in detail the action against the battleship and the subsequent depth charging. When he finished he turned to Hinman.
“I owe you my thanks and appreciation, Captain. You gave me a fine crew to go to sea with, very well trained. For the most part, very good men.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hinman replied. “But I think it’s a shame they’re giving you a severely damaged on the battleship and not a sinking. If she’s on the reef, out of service for two or more years, she’s as good as sunk.”
Mealey nodded gravely. “Naval intelligence said their reports of intercepted messages show that it will be at least two years before they get her ready for sea again. I am content with the success of the attack. But speaking of damage, sir, there is a man in your Wardroom who in my opinion is damaged and should be transferred at once. I would have done so had I stayed aboard. I am talking about Lieutenant Peter Simms.”