8
Midway, although listed as one of the Hawaiian Island chain: is actually a coral reef containing two small islands, the larger of which is also known as Midway. Its chief inhabitants, until the Navy came along, were hundreds of thousands of gooney birds. People who had to spend time on Midway were known for their perverse refusal to appreciate the beauties of nature to which they were being exposed. After a man had been a while on Midway, the story goes, he both thought and acted like a gooney bird.
But we were to be spared this after all. Two days out of Midway, as flights of the albatross circled lazily about over- head, orders arrived directing us to stop only long enough to pick up our mail which had already been forwarded there, and continue on to Pearl. Our consumption of fresh water for bathing purposes instantly tripled.
As we entered Pearl Harbor I looked over the scene with interest. Battleship row was minus one battleship: West Virginia had at last been towed away for repair. California would be next. I searched the Navy Yard as we passed it. At the far end, next to an empty dry dock, looming among the forest of cranes in all her battered majesty, bulked the unmistakable silhouette of a carrier. I gasped. She could only be the Enterprise. Her presence in Pearl Harbor must be a huge secret.
Saratoga, I knew, was undergoing repair in Puget Sound.
Lexington, Wasp, Yorktown, and Hornet had all been sunk in action. The Big E was our last effective flattop.
We put into the same dock from which we had set forth almost exactly two months before, and this time the crowd and the band and the welcoming committee were all for us.
Among the throng I soon spotted Admiral Small and Captain Blunt, watching us gravely as Jim warped us alongside. Nearly everyone looked at our battle scars with awe, but my old skipper gave me only a few moments to get used to their questioning glances. 'Rich,' he said almost as soon as we had shaken hands, 'where's your patrol report?'
'Down below, Commodore, I mean, Captain,' I said, clumsily retracting the courtesy title which had gone with his old job. 'It's ready for the mimeograph machines.'
Give it to me right away, will you? I'll read it right off the stencil, if your Yeoman didn't put a carbon back-up in his mill.'
I sent Dave for the stencils, Blunt took the parcel and turned immediately to leave the ship. 'Rich, we're very inter- ested in the dispatch you sent after you got near enough to Midway to transmit. I can see why you weren't able to before.'
There was something like respect in his rasping voice. 'I want to talk to you right away. Come up to my office in the administration building as soon as, you can.'
The Admiral approached, with Eddie Holt behind him.
Congratulations again, Rich,' said ComSubPac. 'You took quite a beating out there. I'm surprised you were able to remain on station. I want you and Blunt to get together immedi- ately. Maybe he'll bring you in to see me later, and anyway, well see you at dinner tonight in my quarters at Makalapa.'
He saluted and followed Captain Blunt over the side.
Eddie lingered behind. 'Did anybody tell you you're going into dry dock, Rich?' he asked.
'Nope. When?'
'Right now. They're waiting on you. Maybe you saw the empty dock as you stood in. Dry docks around here don't stay empty for long.'
'You mean, next door to the Enter-'
'Shh!' Eddie looked startled. 'Can that! Don't breathe that name around here! Better get the word to your crew, too, if you noticed her as you came in. She's Top Secret, and red hot. But that's where you're going, all right! We want you to get over there right now, before sending anybody off the ship or anything. You can do all you have to do, after you get there.
We promised you'd be out in three days, just long enough for a quick bottom job. We'll inspect you for underwater damage, too!'
'Dammit, Eddie, Old Man Blunt wants me. How am I going to do both?'
'That's your problem, Rich. But if you don't get this beat-up bucket of yours into that dry dock in an hour, they're coming after me with a club. I had to swear upon my sacred honor and put up my wife's virtue as security that I'd have you there. We have a hell of a time getting dry-dock space, you know. You'd think we were in a different Navy. You gotta go!'
Eddie Holt's urgency was not to be denied, and there was a way out. I had been turning it over in my mind for some days, and though my hand was forced, in a way, this was as good a time as any to spring it. 'Jim,' I said, 'I've got business with the Chief of Staff. Get the ship under way and put her in the dry dock. I'll meet you over there.'
Jim's face showed astonishment for a moment, then lighted as he realized that I meant it. A few minutes later I stood on the dock and watched Walrus get under way. It was the first time she had moved anywhere without me, even though some- one else might have been doing the actual maneuvering, giving the orders, I was there, on the bridge, ready to jump in and take over if an emergency developed. I had become used to the idea that she could not move without me, and I was suddenly conscious of the most peculiar feeling, an indescribable sort of premonition, as she backed slowly away.
Premonition or not, Walrus seemed under excellent control as she maneuvered in the harbor channel. I watched her from the dock until she went out of sight, then turned away, and a few minutes later I was walking up the steps to ComSub- Pac's headquarters and opened the door marked 'Chief of Staff.'
'Lieutenant Commander Richardson,' I said to the neatly dressed Yeoman seated at the desk.
'Yes, sir?' he began, 'may I help you?' Then he leaped to his feet. 'Oh, you're the Captain of the Walrus! The Chief of Staff is waiting for you.' He led me through the next door into the inner office. 'Commanding Officer, Walrus,' he announced.
I knew Captain Blunt well enough to skip the formalities.
'Have you a pair of binoculars handy, sir?' I asked him. 'I'd like to look out of your window for a minute to see how Jim's doing.'
'Here!' Blunt opened a drawer in his desk. 'What's up?'
He grinned when I told him.
'That's an old submarine trick, Rich,' he said. 'Every skip- per comes to it some time.' He winked. 'You know, things move pretty fast during war, and the tension of war patrol is just about the best test of a man's qualifications there is. I don't think there'll be any more Qualification for Command boards-at least, for the duration.'
'You mean, it's up to me entirely?' I asked him.
'Yes. If you say your Exec is qualified for command of a submarine, well take your word for it and make the necessary notifications. All you have to do is write us a letter to make it official.' He sucked his pipe.
'I'd like to recommend Jim, then,' I said without hesitation.
'He's had the seasoning he needed, and he'll make an out- standing skipper.'
'Write a letter to ComSubPac and it's done!' Blunt stood beside me, watching Walrus move out past the tug berths and round the tip of ten-ten dock. She was making slow speed, staying under good control. Only the show-off goes racing around a crowded harbor with a big ship. If you have to cut loose the time and place is at sea, where it might make the difference between victory and defeat. Blunt nodded in appro- bation as Walrus went out of our sight, then swung to me.
'Rich,' he said, sucking on the inevitable unlighted pipe, 'I suppose you're wondering why we changed your orders and had you come here for refit instead of Midway.'
'I thought perhaps it was the dry-docking,' I suggested.
'Partly, but that's not the main reason. I want to talk to you about that destroyer which depth-charged you. You stated in your dispatch and patrol report both that you got a close look at him before he worked you over. What was he like?'
I moved to the edge of my chair. 'I got only the most fleeting look at him, well-deck forward, two fat stacks
