transport or hospital ship, and, yes, that does mean that the navy is abandoning Hawaii. Only the army garrison will remain.”
A hand was raised. “What about dependents?”
Merchant hesitated then shook his head sadly. “They’ll either stay or go by transport if there’s enough room. My personal opinion is that there won’t be enough room to take everyone.”
The man paled. Obviously he had family at what had once been a great duty station, and now was in the front lines of World War II against a particularly savage and barbaric enemy. Dane wondered what happen to people like them and also wondered what would become of Nurse Amanda Mallard. The future did not look pretty for those who would remain.
Captain Merchant went on to clarify what many already knew. There was only one American aircraft carrier remaining in the Pacific. The
Merchant added that the U.S. Navy had a number of battleships remaining even after the disaster at Pearl Harbor, including a couple that had been damaged during the raid and subsequently repaired. Merchant said that all of them were old and that less than a handful of other American battleships were in the Atlantic confronting the Nazi U-boat menace. In Admiral Nimitz’s opinion, those few old battleships would be destroyed if they attempted to take on the Japanese carriers and their attendant battleships.
“It’s rumored that the Japs have at least one monster battlewagon that could blow all our ships to hell,” added Merchant, “but we’re taking that with a grain of salt.”
New battleships and carriers were under construction and in varying degrees of completion, but they would not be ready for battle for some months at the very least.
“To be blunt, gents, we are on our own, which is why the Pacific Fleet, such at it is, will be departing for San Diego. We gave some thought to us being picked up by subs off a beach up north, but decided it would be too difficult and time consuming to ferry people out through the surf. Besides, a lot of our key people are too old for such shenanigans or, like Dane here, too banged up. Ergo, we will be boarding in the harbor and will exit the channel submerged. We will exit behind a tug which we will use as a beacon and a guide.”
Merchant looked at his watch. “You have a little more than twenty-four hours before we go, so settle what private matters you have. And Dane, I want to see you.”
When the group had scattered, Merchant took Dane into Spruance’s empty office. “First off, are you going to be able to get on the sub?”
“I’ll have no problem, sir.”
“That’s good enough for me even though I think you’re lying through your teeth. Second, the admiral wants to thank you again for saving his life. You will probably get a promotion and you will definitely get a letter of personal commendation from the admiral, if not a medal. Second, and I don’t know what the hell he means by this, but he said you and he had no conversations regarding mortality while in the life raft.”
Dane smiled. “Please tell the admiral I have no idea what he’s talking about.”
Merchant blinked and then grinned. “Damn good answer. See you tomorrow night.”
Dane had no bills or any other personal matters that needed settling. He thought about his situation for a moment and made a decision. It took only a few moments sweet-talking another nurse to get Amanda Mallard’s phone number and home address. He called her and invited her to dinner. She declined, but said she’d go for a walk with him if he cared to meet her. She reminded him that his leg needed work and he’d better go walking if he wanted to get on that sub.
An hour later, they were strolling in the clean warm sands of Waikiki. Both were barefoot and Tim’s pants were rolled up to his knees. Amanda wore a flowered skirt that she tied up and tucked into her waist, providing him with a mid-thigh view of her slender white legs. They strolled along the edge of the water like kids, dodging the waves and getting their feet wet. An occasional larger wave splashed them and they laughed. It was an opportunity to forget the violent world around them and they took it with gusto.
Although she’d declined to go to dinner with him, he brought a couple of steak sandwiches from the officer’s club. The meat was tender, rare, and covered with onions and mayonnaise. She’d devoured hers in a couple of minutes after commenting that rationing was already making life difficult. Tim ate half of his and told her to take the rest back to her apartment, which she said she shared with two other civilian nurses.
“Are you feeling guilty?” she asked.
“A little. I’m well fed and mending from my injuries and, tomorrow night, getting out of what used to be this island paradise. I’ve got to tell you, I’m very unhappy at the thought of you remaining here. I was kind of hoping we’d have time to get to know each other a little better.”
She smiled gently. She wasn’t wearing her glasses and her eyes were large and bright. “That makes two of us, although the latest scuttlebutt has us going by transport in a couple of weeks. The same rumors have us being escorted by the battleships that either survived the attack or were in California when Pearl Harbor was struck.”
She shuddered and leaned against him. “If I live to be a hundred, I will never forget that morning. When some of the wounded got to me, they weren’t humans anymore, Tim, they were just pieces of meat that were somehow still alive. Many of them weren’t alive for long, and that may have been a mercy.”
Tim mentioned that he too would never forget the dead and dying on the
In the distance, a handful of sailboats, silhouetted by the moonlight, moved gracefully across the swells. It was a scene from another world, another era. Tim wondered if Japanese warships were just over the horizon or if enemy periscopes were surveying the shore, and if they could see the two of them walking together and what they thought about it. Maybe some Jap captain was laughing and planning their destruction. The enemy planes that had attacked the day before had come from a carrier that had to be out there somewhere.
Amanda looked up at the stars. “If I can’t get on a transport, I’ll sail to California.”
“You’re joking.”
She bristled and stamped her bare foot, splashing both of them. “I am not joking, and please don’t tell me you’re one of those men who thinks women are fragile and innocent creatures who can’t do anything without a big strong dumb man helping them. You may be big and strong and probably not dumb, and have nice brown eyes, but I can manage well enough alone. I can sail a boat and I have friends who can do it as well, and oh yeah, I know an old guy who owns one. Give me a decent sailboat and enough food and water and I can sail it anyplace.”
He took her hand. She did not pull it back. “If it comes to that, Amanda, do it.”
The Japanese had committed terrible atrocities when they’d taken Hong Kong and the Philippines. They’d targeted nurses and hospitals for many of their most savage outrages, slaughtering the patients and raping the nurses before murdering them as well.
She managed a smile. “Want me to look you up when I make it to California?”
“I would like that a lot.” He pulled her to him and they embraced. He felt her body shake. She was crying. He kissed her and she held him tightly. “We’ll meet in California.”
Her response was to kiss him back.
The three submarines that were to take the forty men of Spruance’s staff were docked in slips located below the fleet headquarters. It was the same building where the now-disgraced and removed Admiral Kimmel had watched both his fleet and his career destroyed.
Along with Tim and Captain Merchant, another ten men would be squeezed into what they had been told were already extremely tight quarters. Tim was well aware what that meant, having spent a couple of days in a sub before the seaplane had picked up him and the admiral. Tim was larger than average, and the average submariner was even smaller than that. For that matter, so too were pilots and many others in the military. There was, he
