The Winds of War

This was Lawrence in his urgent and imperious vein, which Kirby knew well. He considered Lawrence possibly the most brilliant man alive. Kirby was several years older than the Nobel Prize winner. He had given up a straight scientific career and gone into industry after his Ph.D., largely because of his encounters with Lawrence and a few other men much younger than himself and unreachably more brilliant. They had made him feel outclassed and deflated. To be urged now by this man to take a task of this importance was irresistible.

“I hope to hell I’m not offered the job,” he said. “If I am, I’ll accept.”

By the time the sun rose over San Francisco, the line between night and day had travelled halfway around the earth, and the invasion of the Soviet Union was half a day old. Masses of men had been killed, most of them Russians, and the Soviet air force had lost hundreds of airplanes — or perhaps more than a thousand; the disaster was already beyond precise documenting.

In the officers’ club at the Mare Island Navy Yard, at a window table in the sunshine, several submarine skippers were chatting about the invasion over ham and eggs. There was little dispute over the outcome. All agreed that the Soviet Union would be crushed; some gave the Red Army as long as six weeks, others foresaw the end in three weeks or ten days. These young professional officers were not a narrow-minded or prejudiced handful; their view was held in the armed forces of the United States right to the top. The wretched showing of the Red Army against Finland had confirmed the judgment that Communism, and Stalin’s bloody purges, had reduced Russia to a nation of no military account. American war plans, in June 1941, ignored the Soviet Union in estimating the world strategic picture.

The submariners at Mare Island, peacefully gossipping at breakfast about the spread of the holocaust on the other side of the world, were expressing only what the service as a whole believed.

The main topic of discussion was whether or not the Japanese would now strike; and if so, where. These few lieutenant commanders inclined to agree that so long as the President kept up his suicidal policy of letting them buy more and more oil and scrap-iron, the Japs would probably hold off. But the consensus lasted only until Branch Hoban of the Devilfish challenged it.

No skipper in the squadron had more prestige. Hoban’s high standing in his class, his chilling air of competence, his sharp bridge game, his golf shooting in the seventies, his ability to hold liquor, his beautiful wife, his own magazine-cover good looks, all added up to an almost suspiciously glamorous facade. But the facade was backed by performance. Under his command the Devilfish had earned three E’s in engineering and gunnery, and in fleet maneuvers in May he had sneaked the Devilfish inside a destroyer screen and hypothetically sunk a battleship. He was clearly a comer headed for flag rank. When Lieutenant Commander Hoban talked, others listened.

Hoban argued that the world situation was like a football game, and that in Asia, the Russian Siberian army was the player facing Japan. With this latest move, Hitler had sucked the Russian man back toward the other wing, to be held as Stalin’s last reserve. This was Japan’s big chance. The Nips now had a clear field to run the ball from China south to Singapore, the Celebes, and Java, cleaning up all the rich European possessions. If only they moved fast enough, they could go over the line before the United States could pull itself together and interfere. He broke off elaborating this favorite metaphor of servicemen and left the breakfast table when he saw his new executive officer motioning to him from the doorway.

Lieutenant Aster handed him a dispatch from Commander, Submarines Pacific: DEVILFISH OVERHAUL CANCELLED EXCEPTION REPAIRS VITAL OPERATIONAL READINESS X REPORT EARLIEST POSSIBLE DATE UNDERWAY MANILA.

“Well, well, back to base!” Hoban grinned, with a trace of high-strung eagerness. “Very well! So ComSubPac expects the kickoff too. Let’s see, today’s the twenty-second, eh? There’s that compressor and number four torpedo tube that have to be buttoned up. Obviously we don’t get the new motor generator, and all the job orders will have to wait till we get alongside in Manila. But that’s okay.” Holding the dispatch against the wall, he pencilled in neat print, Underway twenty-fourth 0700, and handed it to Aster. “Send that off operational priority.”

“Can we do it, sir?”

“Make the Captain of the Yard an information addressee. He’ll damn well get us out of here.”

“Aye aye, sir. We’ll be short an officer. Ensign Bulotti’s hospitalized for two weeks.”

“Damnation. That I forgot. Well, we sail with four officers, then. Stand watch- and-watch till we get to Pearl, and try to hook us a fresh ensign out of the sub pool there.”

“Captain, do you know anybody in ComSubPac Personnel?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well enough to swipe an ensign off new construction?”

To Aster’s saucy grin, Hoban returned a droll grimace. “Got someone in mind?”

“There’s this ensign, a shipmate of mine off the S-45 who’s just reported aboard the Tuna. It’s two whole months away from shakedown.”

“Is he a good officer?”

“Well, unfortunately he’s a sack rat and goof-off.”

“Then what do we want him for?”

“I can make him deliver. In a pinch he’s resourceful and courageous. His father’s a captain in War Plans, and his brother flies an SBD off the Enterprise.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad. What class is he?”

“He’s a reserve. Look, Captain,” Aster exclaimed, at Hoban’s wry expression, “the officer pool will be full of reserves. You’re not going to keep a whole wardroom of regulars. Not on the Devilfish. Byron stands a good watch, and I know him.”

“Byron?”

“His name’s Byron Henry. Briny, they call him.”

“Okay, maybe I’ll telephone Pearl. Kind of a dirty trick to play on this Briny, though, isn’t it? New construction, based in Pearl, is a lot better duty than going to Manila in the Devilfish.”

“Tough titty.”

Hoban looked curiously at his executive officer. He did not yet have Aster sized up. “Don’t you like him, Lady?”

Aster shrugged. “We’re short a watch stander.”

The Pacific showed no combative specks to the westward-moving sunrise. Early sunlight slanted into the hangar deck of the Enterprise, moored to buoys in Pearl Harbor, on disembowelled airplanes, half-assembled torpedoes, and all the vast clutter of the floating machine shop that this deck was in peacetime. Sailors in greasy dungarees and officers in khakis were at work everywhere. Through the steel hollow, smelling as all carriers do of gasoline, rubber, metal, and sea air, a boatswain’s pipe reverberated above the workaday noise, followed by a Southern voice loudspeaker, “Now hear this, Meeting of all officers in the wardroom in ten minutes.”

Warren Henry climbed out of the cockpit of an SBD, wiping his hands on a greasy cloth. He put on his khaki cap, saying to the sailors working with him, “That’s me. Wish me luck.”

When he arrived in the wardroom, officers in khaki shirts and black ties already filled the chairs and lined the sides. Amidships, against the forward bulkhead, stood the movie screen, and on the green baize of a nearby table a slide projector rested. The captain, a chubby man with thick prematurely gray hair, rose and strode before the screen as soon as he saw Warren. “Gentlemen, I guess you’ve all heard the news. I’ve been keeping track on the shortwave, and it seems clear already that Der Fuhrer has caught Joe Stalin with his hammer and sickle down.” The officers tittered formally at the captain’s pleasantry. “Personally, I feel sorry for the Russian people, saddled with such lousy leadership. The few times I’ve encountered their navy officers, I’ve found them friendly and quite professional, though somewhat odd in their ways.”

The question is, how does this affect the mission of the Enterprise?”

Now, as many of us know, Lieutenant Henry of Scouter Squadron Six is something of a red-hot on military history. I’ve asked him to give us a short fill-in here, before we get on with the day’s work, so that — attention on deck!”

Rear Admiral Colton appeared through a doorway, and with the noisy scrape of scores of chairs, all the