temporary and that suited him just fine. It looked as if there was only enough fuel for two or three full flights of thirteen hundred miles each, which was the P38’s range. He’d only recently completed training and, while anxious to take on either the Germans or the Japanese, knew he was good but had doubts as to whether he was good enough to duel with an experienced enemy pilot. From what he and the others had heard about the Japanese, they flew their Zeros with consummate skill. Piggy loved his twin-tailed fighter and looked forward to using it against the enemy, just not any time real soon. Some of the twin-tailed planes had been stationed in Alaska, but they’d been withdrawn after the Midway debacle.
Senior officers quickly informed all the pilots that there would be no training or orientation flights. They wanted to minimize the chance that the planes would be seen by unfriendly eyes although, obviously, they might have been spotted flying in. Hogg and the other pilots all looked at each other. The need for secrecy meant that the Japs
When asked if they would have some time to go into town, the pilots were informed that there was no town. They were also told not to drink any water that hadn’t been boiled or any food that had been cooked in local water. The same held true for the local booze. Montezuma’s Revenge was spelled out in great detail and Hogg decided he would take no chance on having a case of the raging shits while trapped in the cockpit of his plane. Even if he and the plane made it back, he was told that both would have to be hosed down.
A ragged cheer told him that the tent designated as the mess hall had opened for business. Piggy was a healthy young man and he hadn’t eaten since morning.
He entered the tent and grabbed a metal tray. “What’s today’s main course?” he asked one of his fellow pilots.
“Shit on a shingle. What else?”
“If I asked you to leave San Diego, would you?” Tim asked.
Amanda smiled tenderly and patted him on the cheek. “No.”
“I didn’t think you would.” They were seated on a park bench and had a view of the bay. It was almost empty of warships.
“And don’t even think of asking. I’m a nurse and I’ll stay here and do my duty just like you will.”
Tim thought there was a big difference between a naval officer and a civilian nurse, but prudently kept his opinion to himself.
She squeezed his hand. “The big battle’s going to come and very soon, isn’t it? And it’s going to take place around here, right?”
“That’s the rumor.”
“Tim, you know more than that.”
“Not really. A lot of people think that there will be fighting around here, and, yes, I’m one of them, which is why I had hoped you would consider leaving.”
“Well, I’m not going. Do you really think the Japs are going to target civilian areas and places like hospitals? I don’t think they did that when they attacked Pearl and Honolulu.”
“Civilians were killed, weren’t they? I seem to recall hiding in a shelter with a beautiful but frightened nurse while everything exploded around us.”
“I wasn’t frightened, I was terrified. But you’ll be here, too, won’t you?”
“No.”
“What?” she said. She was shocked. “Where are they sending you now?”
Tim took a deep breath. He’d hated the thought of telling her and had been putting it off. “Spruance is going to take over from Halsey. It seems that Bull has gotten another attack of his skin infection and, while it’s still mild, Nimitz can’t take the chance of his being incapacitated during the middle of a battle.”
“So let me guess, he’s taking you along with him.”
Tim nodded solemnly. “Yes, and some other personnel, including Merchant. Seems he wants at least some of his regular staff with him, and that makes sense. Who knows, maybe he’ll want me to translate surrender terms to Yamamoto.”
“That’s not funny and it doesn’t make sense,” she said, wiping away a tear. “Jesus, Tim, how many battles have you been in? Haven’t you done enough?”
“I can think of a lot of guys who’ve done a lot more, so no, I haven’t done enough. I’m not being noble and I’m scared to death for the both of us, but the curse of the military is that you can’t let down your comrades, your buddies.”
Which was why Amanda knew she couldn’t leave San Diego when others remained behind. “When will you be leaving?”
“Two or three days. Why?”
She stood and pulled him to his feet. “Then we’ll have to act quickly, won’t we?”
“This, Skipper, is a torpedo.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I would never have known.”
Crowley ignored Torelli. “And this is a torpedo without its clothes.”
He lifted off the metal sheath covering the warhead. “And this is the part of the torpedo that we are to never ever touch or change under penalty of death or something worse.”
Torelli looked at the torpedo’s innards. There it was, the mechanism that was supposed to guide the weapon under the hull of an enemy ship and, in response to the enemy ship’s magnetic field, detonate the torpedo, thus breaking the back of a supposedly doomed vessel. Problem was, it frequently didn’t work even though the bastards at BuOrd said it did and that any problems were caused by submariners who were too stupid to follow instructions.
The same problems continued even if the electronic widget was disconnected and the torpedo used as an old-fashioned impact weapon. All too frequently that didn’t work either, as they’d found out in highly unauthorized tests against Japanese merchant shipping. The damned torpedoes just weren’t dependable and couldn’t be counted on. Using the torpedo as originally configured often resulted in the fish disappearing. The consensus was that the torpedo was running low, but why? When used as an impact weapon, they’d literally heard the torpedo clanging against the hull of an enemy ship, but without a resulting explosion.
Crowley pointed to the impact trigger. “Based on my highly unscientific knowledge of engineering I think I see the problem.”
Torelli grunted. Crowley had a degree in engineering. “I know all about problems, young Lieutenant. What’s the solution?”
“I think the trigger mechanism is too weak and needs to be strengthened. I can’t prove it without seeing a torpedo that’s failed after hitting, and there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening out here, but I think the trigger mechanism is too fragile and probably collapses instead of causing a detonation. If we strengthen it, we might correct the problem.”
“We could also get court-martialed,” Torelli said.
Crowley glared at him. “We’d have to survive in order for that to happen, and what do you think our chances of that would be when we’re told to stop staring at Jap ships and begin trying to kill them?”
Torelli eyeballed the offending mechanism, looked up and smiled grimly. “At any rate and assuming our survival, I’ll bet we could arrive back at San Diego without any altered torpedoes left, couldn’t we?”
CHAPTER 21
AMANDA LAY NAKED ON THE BED AND LOOKED UP AT THE ceiling and the bare light bulb that was, mercifully, off. The only light in the room was from a night light in the bathroom. She was covered with sweat and, for the first time in her young life, she was sexually satisfied, at least for the moment.
She was also married.
