thought ironically, simply no room for larger people in many military professions.
Before boarding, they were gathered in a conference room by their skipper, a very young, short, and lean lieutenant commander named Torelli who gave them a stern lecture.
“I know I am junior in rank to most of you, but let there be no doubt—I am the captain of this sub and I will make all decisions while you are on board. To begin with, you will be assigned bunks and you will spend as much time as possible in them and I don’t care how cramped and uncomfortable they might be. This is in order to keep you out of the way of the crew, who have assignments that must be carried out if we are to arrive safely. If we are in danger, you will lie perfectly still in those bunks and not even talk. If you have to piss or crap, do it right there and don’t worry about it. We don’t believe that the Nips have any sound-detecting devices like sonar, but we’re not certain so nobody’s taking chances. When necessary, we will run as silent as a mouse. We don’t think their radar’s all that great either, but a lot of things were proven wrong on Pearl Harbor, weren’t they?”
That comment was greated with grunts and growls. The Japanese had been terribly underestimated.
Torelli continued. “The food on board will be shitty at best and the heads are inadequate for the needs of the crew, much less an additional dozen men. Cleanliness might be a virtue in another world, but such virtue will have to wait until we reach California. For those of you who’ve never been on a sub, it will stink like a sewer when you go on board, so a little more shit odor and body stench won’t make a hell of a lot of difference, and it will get worse the longer it takes for us to get to California.”
“Will you attack Jap ships if we spot any?” Merchant asked.
“My orders are to deliver you safely and not pick any fights. We will only defend ourselves and then only as a last resort. I have four torpedoes left from my last patrol. Since we’re heading to California, the powers here declared I couldn’t have any more of their precious supply.”
“Have you sunk any ships?” Tim asked.
“Nothing to write home about,” Torelli said. “Two small freighters.”
Torelli didn’t add that most of the torpedoes he’d fired had either malfunctioned or missed, and he didn’t think his aim had been off all that often. He’d had a Japanese light cruiser dead to rights and the many torpedoes he’d fired had failed to explode, even though he’d heard two of them clang against the enemy’s hull. This was an issue that was very common and a cause of great concern among American submariners. He’d reported it up the line to Admiral Lockwood, who now commanded the sub force and was waiting for the bureaucratic shit to hit the fan.
Like children in grade school, they were paraded single file out to the dock. Tim looked around. It was two in the morning, a time when all good Japanese spies should be asleep, and all but the most essential lights were off in the harbor. Naval intelligence and the FBI said there weren’t any spies around, but who could be certain? Tim was one of many who wondered just how the hell the Japs had known so much about Pearl Harbor. The only logical answer was that there had been spies, probably Japanese consular officials, maybe others.
The sky was clear and there was a half moon, so there was some visibility. There was no real reason to suspect any of the population of Hawaii of being spies, but one could never be too careful. What they couldn’t see, they couldn’t report.
Even though there was a war on, secrets were hard to keep, and several dozen onlookers were present. Both curious military personnel and a handful of civilians were kept behind a tall wire fence by armed sailors. Some of the civilians were dependents and looked distraught. Tim looked to see if Amanda was one of them, and there she was. He waved and she waved back. She didn’t smile. He thought she looked a little lost, and he ached at leaving her behind to what might be a terrible fate.
Tim needed only a little help making it down the submarine’s deck hatch and into the hull. As promised and as he recalled, the odor of oil, grease, and God only knew what overwhelmed them and a couple of officers gagged.
“Pussies,” muttered a sailor and other crewmen laughed.
“I guess we are pussies,” said Merchant. “Dane, I’ve talked to Torelli, and you and I are going to be bunking by each other. I’m taking the top, of course. I’ll be the senior officer in the group and rank does have some privileges.”
“Understood, sir.”
“If we’re going to spending a lot of time cheek by jowl, I’m going to pick your mind about anything you know about Japan and the Japanese. If nothing else, it might help pass the time. If you bore me, I’ll have Torelli fire you out a torpedo tube. If what you know is useful, you’ll be giving some briefings to the staff when we get to California. If we get to California, that is.”
The sub began to move and there was a disconcerting feeling when she slid bow down and submerged to periscope depth. The tug led her and the two others out of the harbor and through the narrow channel that led to the ocean. If the enemy was anywhere, they would be waiting for them to emerge from the harbor.
They lay in their bunks with hearts racing. They wouldn’t have far to go before they reached relative safety, as the island of Oahu was considered by some to be a mountain that jutted up from the ocean depths; the dropoff to truly deep water would be sudden and soon.
After a surprisingly short amount of time, Torelli gave orders and the sub dived to deeper waters. They had made it out of Pearl Harbor and were on their way to California. They hoped.
A few miles back, Amanda and a handful of others stood by the empty space that once held the three subs and watched and stared. That they could see nothing at all was both frightening and reassuring. For Amanda, it was a terribly lonely feeling and she tried hard not to cry. She felt a sudden and intense kinship with the man she’d so recently met and barely knew. Now, however, she had her own decisions to make, but one thing was tremendously important. She had to get to California.
The train from hell had taken an eternity, or so it seemed to Second Lieutenant Steve Farris, U.S. Army. Hell, the starting point, had actually been Chicago and the train had been overfilled with GIs and their duffle bags and some equipment, minus weapons and helmets. They had been en route to the West Coast to reinforce the troops waiting and watching for a Japanese invasion. Instead of the couple of days a train trip should have taken, the journey from hell had lasted for two long weeks. Two weeks without proper food, not enough water to drink and wash with, and, when they went through the mountains, plenty of scenery, but no heat. The toilets had backed up almost immediately and toilet paper ran out as well.
He’d even seen his first stabbing as two soldiers had gotten into an argument over something. One man wound up with a switchblade in his gut, while the other was placed under arrest and would be charged with attempted murder. Farris been shocked by both the sudden violence and the tremendous amounts of blood that had been spilled.
The men in his brand-new platoon had looked to him for leadership and Farris couldn’t provide it. The men, with the exception of Platoon Sergeant Stecher, who treated him with the polite contempt of a veteran for a novice, were all straight out of basic training and scarcely knew how to put on their uniforms. Farris wasn’t much better. He was a ninety-day wonder recently graduated from Officer Candidate School and didn’t know much more than his men, and he sure as hell didn’t know what to do when men settled arguments with knives.
Nor could he get much help from his company commander, Captain Lytle, as that man had spent most of the trip drunk. Lytle had commandeered the only compartment on the train and had filled it with crates he’d brought along. Stecher said that Lytle had owned a bar back in Pennsylvania and had brought most of his inventory.
Finally, somehow, they had made it to San Diego and the platoon stood in the train station with several hundred other men in wrinkled and filthy uniforms. Sergeant Stecher stepped up to Farris and made no effort to salute. Farris ignored Stecher’s quiet insolence. “What now, Lieutenant?”
“Food, water, and a shower, sergeant. At least that’s what I want, and then maybe some sleep.” He saw some Red Cross people giving out donuts and told Stecher to send the men over to get something to eat. To his mild surprise, Stecher didn’t put up a fuss. Maybe Farris had said the right thing. After all, didn’t an army travel on its stomach?
Captain Lytle walked unsteadily up to them. “We are now a recon battalion and part of the Thirty-Second Infantry Division currently stationed here in San Diego. When your men are through stuffing their faces, there are some trucks to take us to temporary quarters, and after some training, out to our patrol areas.”
Farris saluted and went to gather his troops. They were part of an understrength and poorly trained National Guard detachment from Pennsylvania that had been fleshed out with a number of raw recruits, brand-new officers
