He wanted to ask someone, but no one else was around, only sleeping patients. They were probably wounded marines from one of the island campaigns. He had no sense of time. How long had he been here? Did she know what had happened? Did she even know that he was on the island?
Her lovely face was still fresh in his mind, as if he had seen it only moments ago. Maybe he had just dreamed it. It had to be night. The blackout curtains were drawn across the windows. Even if she did know he was here, she would be at home by now, asleep, getting some rest for her next shift.
Then he heard a noise. The door at the far end creaked open slowly, allowing the light from the outside hall into the dark room. The silhouette of a woman appeared in the doorway. She was holding a steaming coffee cup in both hands.
Wright’s heart jumped in his chest.
Her glimmering hair in the soft light. Her beautifully curved hips. The way her skirt caressed and accented their lovely shape. Her petite delicate shoulders, appearing even smaller when she held the cup with both hands. Her sensuous legs. Her fragrance, unmistakable even from the other side of the room, sweet yet seductive. It had to be her.
“Mar …” he tried to speak but quickly broke into another bout of coughs.
She quickly came across the room to his bed.
“Shhh,” she said from the darkness. Wright could tell she had a smile on her face, and he wanted to see her face.
She placed a soft hand on his bare chest, and motioned for him to lie back.
He tried to speak, but she stopped him with a gentle finger on his lips.
“You shouldn’t talk,” she whispered. “Your lungs and throat need time to heal.”
He squeezed her hand, then brought it to his lips and kissed it, then he noticed that the ring was no longer there. She withdrew her hand, then leaned over and kissed his lips. After being at sea for so long, he thought her lips felt like the softest things he had ever felt in his life.
“I took my roommate’s shift tonight,” she said. “I’ve watched every toss and turn you’ve made. I just went to get some coffee, but I wish I had been here when you woke up.” She gave him a wink and a smile. “The doctor says you inhaled a lot of smoke. He said you’ll probably be assigned to shore duty for a while, if not permanently. I know you probably won’t like that, but I’m glad.”
He didn’t care. He could be happy sitting at a desk for the rest of the war.
“Oh, I almost forgot. A man in one of the rooms upstairs was asking about you. I guess he was on your boat. I went up and talked to him. He seemed very nice. I let him know how you were doing, and he told me to tell you that you had good taste in women.”
Wright smiled at her.
“He’s a little worse off than you are,” she continued. “He’s set to be shipped back to the States. I guess the war is over for him.”
Wright started to ask who it was, but remembered the burning sensation in his throat.
“He also asked me to give you this.”
She pressed something into his hand. It was cold and metallic. Margie took out her small nurse’s pen light and shined it on the object.
It was a gold piece of metal shaped into a design. The design showed two oversized dolphins meeting above a surfaced submarine. It was the gold dolphin insignia, the coveted badge worn over the breast pocket of all submarine officers.
Wright immediately recognized this particular set of gold dolphins. It was an old pair. Its dull shine and dingy grooves represented many hard years aboard the boats. He had seen this same set of dolphins many times above the left breast pocket of Captain Tremain.
“So this means you’re a qualified submarine officer,” she whispered. “Isn’t that right, Ryan?”
Historical Note
Though I have made painstaking efforts to provide an accurate historical setting, Pride Runs Deep is a work of fiction, and I would be remiss in my duties as a writer if I did not mention some of the historical facts that might be of interest to the reader.
There actually was a submarine USS Mackerel (SS-204) on the United States Navy list during World War Two. The real Mackerel spent most of the war on the East Coast of the United States serving as a training and experimental submarine for the Prospective Commanding Officers (PCO) School in New London, Connecticut. She also assisted in anti-submarine training for the various Task Groups preparing to take on Hitler’s U-boats in the North Atlantic. The Mackerel had only one contact with the enemy, during which she exchanged torpedoes ineffectually with a German U-boat while en route to Norfolk, Virginia. While not dramatic, her service was invaluable to the training of future submarine captains and to the development of new submarine and anti-submarine tactics. She was decommissioned in November of 1945.
There never was a secret Japanese battleship Kurita. However, the USS Archerfish (SS-311) did sink the secret Japanese aircraft carrier Shinano near the same location in November of 1944 while the carrier was on its maiden voyage. The Shinano was indeed a “supercarrier” and displaced well over seventy thousand tons, the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine. The Archerfish was performing lifeguard duty for B-29 strikes against Honshu when she happened upon the Shinano and sank her.
I chose early 1943 as the setting for Pride Runs Deep because it was a pivotal time for the U.S. Submarine Service. Japanese anti-submarine efforts saw a sharp increase in intensity. During 1942, the United States Navy lost a total of only three submarines to enemy action. Throughout that first year of the war, U.S. submarines ranged up and down the waters of Imperial Japan sinking ships at will and fighting against a mostly confused enemy. By 1943, the Japanese Imperial Fleet had learned how to use the combined forces of aircraft, escort ships, and mines to effectively fight the elusive U.S. submarines. As a result, sixteen U.S. submarines were lost to enemy action in 1943, an increase in losses exceeding 500 percent. This marked increase in submarine losses had a psychological impact as well as a tactical one. The crews began to calculate the odds of perishing on the next patrol, which were about one in five.
Despite the losses, U.S. submarines sank over five million tons of Japanese shipping during the war, virtually all of Imperial Japan’s merchant capacity. Tens of thousands of brave Japanese naval and merchant sailors died in this devastation. In all, the U.S. Submarine Service lost fifty-two submarines and over three thousand five hundred brave men killed in action.
In conclusion, I hope this novel conveys some of the courage displayed by the combatants and merchantmen on both sides of this epic conflict. Today, Japan and the United States of America are staunch allies, which I think is a credit to both nations. During my time in the submarine service in the 1990s while I was stationed at Pearl Harbor, I found it comfortably ironic that more often than not, a Japanese submarine shared the pier with my submarine. Across the water, I would often see Japanese destroyers moored right alongside our own ships, as if to signify that one-time enemies were now bound firmly together in friendship. And each morning at 0800, the national ensign rose from flagpoles and fantails, thousands of working sailors stopped what they were doing and came to attention, and the “Star-Spangled Banner” would resound throughout the harbor followed immediately by the national anthem of Japan.