The Winds of War

As they shook hands over the table, Captain Larkin said with odd softness, “When you write Rhoda, give her my love.”

Naval Officers Club

Pearl Harbor

12 December, 1941

Dear Rhoda:

I’m somewhat stymied by the problem of answering your astounding letter, but putting it off won’t give me any inspiration. I don’t think I should waste your time setting down my feelings on paper. Anyway, I’m not sure I can do it, not being very good at that sort of thing, at best.

If I really believed this move would make you happy, maybe I could endure it better. However, it strikes me as a calamity for you as well as for me; and I am expressing this opinion though it hasn’t been asked for.

I know I’m no Don Juan, and in fact have been pretty much of a pickle-face around you a good part of the time. The reasons for this are complicated, and it might not be too helpful to go into them now. The basic point is that, taking the rough with the smooth, you and I have made it this far. I still love you — a lot more than I’ve showed, perhaps — and in your letter you’ve managed to say a few kind things about me.

I’m compelled to believe that at the moment you’re “love-sick as a schoolgirl,” and that you can’t help it, and all that part. I guess these things will happen, though one’s always caught unawares when the roof falls in. Still, you’re not really a schoolgirl, are you? Getting used to anybody new at our age is a very hard job. If you’re a widow, that’s different. Then you have no choice. But here I am still.

The life we’ve been leading in recent years has put a strain on our marriage. I recognize that, and I’ve certainly felt the strain myself. In Manila I said to Byron that we’ve become a family of tumbleweeds. That’s the truth, and lately the winds of war have been blowing us all around the world. Right now it strikes me that those same winds are starting to flatten civilization. All the more reason for us to hang on to what we have — mainly each other, and our family — and to love each other to the end. That’s the way I’ve worked it out. I hope that on further thought you will, too.

I’ll probably be at sea most of the time for the next year or two; so I can’t make the immediate effort to mend matters that seems urgently called for. Here’s how I’m compelled to leave it. I’m ready to forget — or try to — that you ever wrote the letter; or to talk it over with you on my next Stateside leave; or, if you’re absolutely certain you want to go ahead with it, to sign the papers and do what you wish. But I’ll put up a helluva fight first about that. I have no intention of simply letting you go. In plain words I want two things, Rhoda: first, your happiness; second, if at all possible, that we go on together.

I’ve seen a bit of Warren. He’s turned into a splendid officer. He has everything. His future is limitless. He has the brains, drive, acuteness, toughness, and sheer ability to become Chief of Naval Operations. Byron has come along too. We’ve been fortunate in our sons. I know they’re facing hazards, but the whole world’s in hazard, and at least my boys are serving.

I don’t know what went wrong with Madeline. I’m kind of sick about that, and don’t propose to dwell on it. If the fellow wants to marry her, that may clean the mess up as much as anything can. If not, he’ll be hearing from me.

You were right to say that your news would hurt less because of my orders to the California. In a peculiar fashion it’s working out that way. Ever since I flew into Pearl Harbor on the Clipper, after seeing Wake and Midway in flames, I’ve been living on a straight diet of disaster. Your letter almost fitted in as something normal. Almost.

I’m a family man, and a one-woman man, Rhoda. You know all that. Maybe I’m a kind of fossil, a form that’s outlived its time. Even so, I can only act by my lights while I last. My impression was, and remains, that Fred Kirby — despite what’s happened — is much the same sort of fellow. If I’m right about that, this thing will not work out for you in the long run, and you had better extricate yourself now. That’s as honest a judgment as I can give you.

Victor is a handsome baby, and Janice is a good mother, and very pretty. Our other grandson looks unbelievably like Briny as an infant. I’m enclosing a snapshot I picked up in Moscow from Natalie’s old friend Slote. I hate to part with it, but you’ll want to see it, I know. Let’s hope to God she got herself and that kid safely out of Italy before Mussolini declared war.

Jocko Larkin sends his love. He’s fat and sleek.

That’s about it. Now I’m going to start earning my salary — I trust — by fighting a war.

Love,

Pug

It was nearly lunchtime when Victor Henry finished writing this letter, and the officers’ club lounge was becoming crowded and noisy. He read the letter twice, thinking how meager and stiff it was, but he decided against rewriting it. The substance was there. One could revise some letters a hundred times without improving them. The letter he had posted to Pamela Tudsbury (how long ago that seemed!) had been more clumsy and barren than most of the discarded ones. He sealed the envelope.

“Say, Pug!” Jocko Larkin, walking past with three younger officers, halted, and told them to go ahead and secure a table. “I’ve been trying to call you. Do you know about the Devilfish?”

“No.” Pug’s heart thumped heavily. “What about it?”

“Well, it was the Sealion that was sunk at Cavite. The follow-up report came in a little while ago. The Devilfish was undamaged.”

“Really?” Pug had to clear his throat twice. “That’s definite, now?”

“Couldn’t be more definite. The dispatch says the Devilfish report was erroneous.”

“I see. I’m sorry about the Sealion, but you’re a bearer of good news. Thanks.”

“My other news isn’t so hot, Pug. The thing we talked about — I’m trying but that looks like a pipe dream.”

“Well, you warned me. It’s all right.”

“I’m still scratching around for something, though. Join us for lunch.”

“Another time, Jocko.”

Dropping the letter in the club mailbox, Pug went out into the sunshine. A stone had rolled off his heart; Byron was all right! And one way or another, Jocko would get him out to sea. Strolling aimlessly through the Navy Yard, digesting these sharp turns of fortune, he arrived at the waterfront. There alongside the fuel dock with thick oil hoses pulsing, was the Northampton.

On leaving Larkin’s office, Pug had fought off a temptation to visit the cruiser, deciding that it might be a jinx to set foot on board before knowing his orders. Now it didn’t matter. He thought of mounting the gangway and having a look around. But what for? He had served a year and a half in a sister ship, the Chester. These were handsome vessels, he thought, strolling along the dock beside the bustling Northampton, which was loading ammunition and frozen food stores as well as fuel for battle patrol — handsome vessels, but half-breed bastards, spawned by a sickly cross of politics and warship-building.

The Washington Treaty, which Pug considered a preposterous folly, had bound the United States back in 1922 to limit its cruisers to less than ten thousand tons, and to guns of eight-inch caliber. There had been no limit on length. These hybrids were the result-overblown destroyers, with the length of battleships but a quarter the weight of metal, with slender beams, light armor, and medium punch. Their mission was to act as scouts and merchant raiders, and to fight enemy cruisers. Any one of Japan’s ten battleships could blow the Northampton out of the water; nor could she survive a torpedoing, except with perfect damage control. After the California, the Northampton was a relatively shrunken affair.

Still, Pug thought, he would have been glad enough to get her. It was exciting to see the cruiser taking on beans, bullets, and oil for a combat mission. Jocko was right, Operations was the inside track. But, for the good of his soul right now, Pug felt he needed to be loading beans, bullets, and oil on his own ship.