"I hope you brought some bathing trunks with you," Pickering said.
"Sir?"
"I got some for him, Sir."
"Well, then, I'll see you both later at the cottage. Have fun."
"I'll try to see that he does, Sir," Sessions said.
Pickering walked to the Studebaker.
"How's your head?" Sessions asked when Lewis slid into the jeep beside him.
"I am a Naval officer, Captain. Naval officers know how to hold their liquor. What gets The Marine Corps up at this early hour? And what was that about swim trunks?"
"First, we're going to get you settled in the BOQ, and next we're going to show you-or maybe you'll show us-how to get heavy and awkward objects down a curved, wet, and very slippery surface into rubber boats. And then you're going to practice paddling a rubber boat overloaded with heavy and awkward things around the harbor. And presuming you don't drown today, you'll do it again tonight, or before daylight tomorrow."
"Really? Where are you going to get a curved and slippery surface?"
"McCoy found an old coastal freighter that went belly-up at a pier," Ses-sions replied. "He rented it for a week from the Aussies."
"What do you mean, 'rented it'?"
"When he asked if he could use it, the owners said, 'Certainly, and exactly how much were you thinking of paying?' "
"I don't think you're kidding."
"I'm not. Anyway, he and Koffler and Hart have been over there since daylight, setting things up. I hope you remember how to swim?"
"Are you involved in this exercise?"
"No. I'm not going on the mission, therefore I don't have to practice. But I thought I would watch. With a little bit of luck, the OSS might drown him-self."
"You've really got it in for this guy, don't you?"
"Let's say it wouldn't break my heart if he did drown this morning."
"You going to tell me why?"
"What did your admiral tell you?"
"He said McCoy's in charge, and to conduct myself accordingly."
"If that's all he said, then one of two things is true. Either the General didn't tell him about the OSS, which means that I can't tell you; or he did tell him, and your admiral decided he didn't want to tell you, which also means I can't tell you."
"If you hate this guy so much, why don't you just drown him?"
"I think that's probably been considered. If anyone had asked me, I would have voted 'yes.' "
Sessions reached into the back of the jeep, dipped his hand into a musette back, and came out with a pair of blue swimming trunks.
"Don't let it be said the Marine Corps never gives the Navy anything," he said as he handed them to Lewis.
"General Pickering used the name 'Macklin,' " Lewis said, making it a question. "The OSS officer's name."
"That's his name."
"I think I may know him."
"I don't think so," Sessions said.
"Why not?"
"If you knew him, you'd try very hard not to let anybody know," Sessions said.
Chambers Lewis examined the swim trunks. According to a Royal Aus-tralian Navy label on the inside waistband, they were four inches too large, and they did not have a built-in jockstrap.
"They don't have a jockstrap."
"They're Navy trunks," Sessions said. "Sailors have no balls, and there-fore a jockstrap is unnecessary."
"Screw you, Captain Sessions."
But you 're right. Some sailors don't have balls. This sailor in particular doesn't have balls.
Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis, USN, Annapolis '40, had been forced to the conclusion that there was serious question whether he had the balls-the intes-tinal fortitude, the courage, however more politely the condition might be phrased-to wear the uniform he was wearing, to represent himself as an offi-cer of the Naval Service.
He was also alive, he believed, because he was a coward.
The first indication that he was equipped with something less than the nec-essary balls came-as one hell of a surprise-shortly after he reported to the Submarine School at New London, Connecticut, six months after he graduated from the Naval Academy.
During an orientation ride on a fleet submarine before beginning their training, Lieutenant Commander Thomas B. Elliott, USN, Annapolis '32, gave them a little talk, explaining that the makeup of some people simply disquali-fied them for the silent service. These individuals had nothing to be ashamed of, Lieutenant Commander Elliott said, any more than they should be ashamed of having blue eyes, or red hair. It was the way God had issued them.
The Navy's intention with the orientation ride was to save both the Navy and the individual whose makeup was such that he couldn't take submarine service time and money by sending him back to the surface Navy now-and without any sort of stigma attached-before the lengthy and expensive training began.
That, Ensign Chambers D. Lewis knew, was bullshit pure and simple. Any officer who couldn't handle being in a submarine shouldn't be in the Navy at all. And certainly a notation on a service record that an officer who volunteered for submarine training, and was accepted, and then left New London within a week of his arrival would be tantamount to stamping the record in three-inch-high letters, COWARD. Cowards not only deservedly enjoy the contempt of non-cowards, but are unfit to command men, which is the one basic function of a Naval officer.
Lewis remembered very clearly the first time he heard a submarine skipper give the order to "take her down." He had nightmares about it, waking up from them in cold sweats.
He was standing not six feet from the skipper when he heard that com-mand. And the moment the Klaxon horn sounded, and the loudspeakers blared, "Dive! Dive! Dive!", he was bathed in a cold sweat, virtually overcome by a mindless terror. For a time he thought his heart stopped and that he was going to faint. He remembered little else about his first voyage beneath the sea except that he was aware they were under it; that just a foot or two away the sea was doing its best to break through the flimsy hull and crush and smother everyone inside, including him.
Lieutenant Commander Elliott gave them another little chat after they tied up back at New London-and Lewis had a clear picture of Elliott, too. He looked competent and professional, everything an officer, an officer of the si-lent service, was supposed to be.
He wanted to emphasize, Lieutenant Commander Elliott told them, that absolutely no stigma would be attached if anyone decided now that the sub-marine service was not for them. To the contrary, it was their duty to make their uneasiness known, to save themselves and the Navy a good deal of diffi-culty down the line. The lieutenant commander went on to say that he knew of a dozen young officers who had the balls to speak up, and were now doing very well elsewhere in the Navy, in both the surface Navy and in Naval Aviation.
He would be in his office from 1900 until 2200 that night, Lieutenant Commander Elliott said. If anyone wished to speak with him regarding a re-lease from the silent service, they should come see him. Anyone who did so would be off the base within two hours, and there would be absolutely no stigma attached to their transfer. He would also be in his office for the same purpose every Saturday morning from 0800 until 1100, so long as they were in training.
Ensign Lewis talked himself out of seeing Lieutenant Commander Elliott that night by telling himself that the mindless terror he experienced on the dive was an aberration, an isolated incident that would not be repeated, and that it would be the highest folly to throw away his Naval career-and the tough four years at Annapolis that preceded it-because of one incident, an aberrational incident that would not be repeated.