“I appreciate that, sir,” Olsen said. “But I have to say that I’d just as soon stay aboard with you as your number two boy. I want you to know that.”
“I’m grateful that you feel that way, John. But you’re a career officer. Command will look good in your record later on. Now I’ve got other business.
“We’re going to have two weddings in the next day or so. Bob Lee is getting married and Paul Blake is, too. I had to interview both women the last time we were in port. Both are first rate.”
“So what’s there to worry about?” Olsen asked. “You look as if this is something to be upset about.”
“Well, damn it, both Lee and Blake have asked me to be their best man. I don’t know anything about being a best man. The only wedding I ever went to was my own, and I was so scared that time that I didn’t know what was going on.”
“Well,” Olsen said, “you can cut the load in half by asking the two of them to have a double wedding.”
“That’s a sound idea,” Brannon said. “All right, if you don’t know about the privileges of command here’s a lesson. You argue the case for a double wedding with the two wedding parties and get hold of the chaplain to write out a short brief of my duties as a best man at a double wedding.” He grinned at Olsen.
The wedding was held in the chapel of a church just off St. George’s Square in Perth. The crew of the Eelfish, cold sober by order of Chief Flanagan, were in attendance. Later, at the reception in the hotel where the crew was quartered, Steve Petreshock nudged Jim Rice.
“There’s ol’ Bob Lee’s new wife. Got himself one hell of a good-lookin’ broad. She’s what, five, six inches taller than he is? She’s got that look in her eye. Swings her ass right nice, too. That skinny old Bob Lee is like to be nothing but skin and bones when the honeymoon is over. If he can go the course at all. He looks outmatched.”
“Don’t worry about skinny Bob Lee,” Rice said, a smile splitting his black beard. “I was on watch one night in the Forward Room, and he took a shower in the officers’ shower and forgot his towel. Came out buck-naked, and that skinny old boy is all horn, let me tell you. Don’t sell skinny little guys short, because most of them ain’t.”
Over on one side of the room Mike Brannon was talking with Paul Blake’s new in-laws.
“Our only regret is that Constance will be so very far away,” Mrs. Maybury said. “But we love Paul, he’s such a sweet boy. Don’t you think so, Captain?”
“I don’t think of him as ‘sweet,’ ” Brannon said with a grin, “but I know what you mean. I think of him as a very brave young man, very skilled in his work and an asset to our crew. What you should do, Mr. and Mrs. Maybury, is to visit Paul and Constance in the States when the war is over.”
“Oh, we intend to,” Maybury said. “One of the privileges of being port director, y’know, is being able to travel on the liners at no cost. We intend to visit them and then go on to England. Both of us are second-generation Australians, and neither of us have seen where our people came from.” Brannon excused himself as John Olsen came toward him, beckoning. He walked back across the room with Olsen to where Bob Lee was standing with his bride and Jerry Gold. The new Mrs. Lee walked up to Brannon and stopped, her eyes level with his.
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since you were last in port and had to do that interview with me to see if I was fit to be the wife of an American Navy officer.” Her eyes were glinting with laughter. “I’m so glad I passed your inspection, and I want to thank you for the lovely letter your wife wrote to me.
“She did?” Brannon said.
“She did. A lovely letter.”
“Well,” Brannon said awkwardly, “I did write her before we left port last trip. I felt embarrassed, having to interview you and Blake’s fiancée, and I told Gloria about that. I didn’t think she’d write you.”
“But you knew she would if you put my name and address in your letter,” Mary Ann Lee said softly. “Bob has told me that you’re a very tough captain, a regular sea dog. I think you’re a sentimental Irisher and I love you for that.” She stepped closer and kissed him, and Brannon felt the blood rushing up his face. Mary Ann Lee chuckled and turned away.
Time passed slowly for Mike Brannon as he waited for the Eelfish to be dry-docked and the new sound heads fitted. For Brannon it was a critical time. Ashore a vicious political war was being waged, and Brannon wanted desperately to be able to avoid taking sides, something that was becoming more difficult by the day.
Almost two years earlier Admiral Christie, then in command of the largest group of submarines operating in the Pacific, had been summarily relieved of command at Brisbane and summoned to the United States. Christie, an expert on torpedoes, was needed to sort out and break the bottlenecks in torpedo production at Newport Torpedo Station. Admiral Christie’s place at Brisbane was taken by Captain James Fife. Christie left no doubt in anyone’s ears who would listen that Jimmy Fife wasn’t a big enough man to fill Admiral Christie’s shoes.
Christie had hardly settled in Newport when the over-all commander of Submarines Pacific, Rear Admiral Robert English, was killed in an air crash. In the resultant swirl of political maneuvering for the newly vacant job, Christie was recalled to Pearl Harbor and then sent to Fremantle to take over the submarine base there.
Meanwhile, Captain Fife, now in charge at Brisbane, had openly criticized the way Admiral Christie had handled submarines when he was in Brisbane. Fife announced that he would “tighten things up.”
One of the new procedures instituted by Fife was to shift submarines about as if they were pieces on a chess board — and to require submarines to report their positions at frequent intervals. The flow of radio traffic between Brisbane and submarines on war patrol increased heavily. In the course of four weeks four submarines were lost to enemy action, and an investigation was called for. Captain Fife was exonerated of any blame. Admiral Christie disagreed with the findings and began his own investigation. He became convinced that Fife’s demand that submarines report their positions frequently by radio allowed the Japanese to use radio direction finders to locate American submarines — and send antisubmarine forces to sink them.
Christie made his opinions public, and Fife, incensed, offered to resign. General Douglas MacArthur, who was fond of Jimmy Fife, intervened, and the offer to resign was dropped.
Now, two years later and across the continent of Australia at Fremantle, Admiral Christie was again being relieved of command and — again — his relief was Jimmy Fife, now a Rear Admiral.
Rumors about the reason for the change of command were thick, but neither of the principals said a word. Christie, no mean Navy politician, had a few shots left in his locker, and he meant to use them as best he could. His efforts to kill the change of command failed. Admiral Fife, it was said, had friends in high places in Washington. The change of command would go through. The submariners working out of Fremantle began to worry. Admiral Fife was known as a loner, a man who neither drank nor smoked and who disapproved highly of any indulgence in alcoholic beverages, no matter how dangerous or frightening a war patrol had been. Fife was a man dedicated to his work, and he literally lived at his desk, seven days a week from dawn until late at night. By comparison, Admiral Christie was a genial, friendly man who understood submariners and, more importantly, was tolerant of human frailties.