Pacific Interlude (38 page)

“Get yourselves a good rest,” the major in charge said. “God knows where you'll go from here. We'll all be moving up before long. My bet is Okinawa.”

Rest without recreation meant idleness, and tensions increased as they lay at anchor from dusk to dawn, staring at the few lights ashore. Even during the days there was not much for the crew to do as the ship completed her short shuttle runs and lay for hours loading or unloading. There was much rain, short but frequent tropical deluges which drenched everyone's clothes quicker than they could be dried. Shoes in lockers acquired a crust of mildew, and the whole ship rusted so badly that she began to look more red than green.

The inevitable native canoes ghosted alongside the anchored ship at night to sell booze. The distilleries in Manila were put into operation almost before the shooting stopped, and bottles of “MacArthur whisky,” little more than brown alcohol, were soon available, in addition to homemade wines. Once more Syl and Simpson found men drinking and smoking in any hidden corner of the ship they could find, and once again Syl reminded the men of the safety regulations.

Keep them busy, he told himself … He managed to acquire five-gallon cans of red lead and green paint from the army base. Chipping the rusty steel plates could make sparks and could not be done while the ship was loading or unloading, but sandpapering could go on at all times, and so could the painting. Since an adequate supply of turpentine and rags could not be found, the men used gasoline and odd bits of old clothing to clean their brushes.

After two weeks of shuttling gas and painting, the routine was broken by panic. At about eleven o'clock on a muggy night while the ship lay at anchor, Syl and Simpson were jarred by the shriek of the general alarm and Cramer's hoarse call of “Fire forward, fire forward in the paint locker!”

Heart pounding, Syl was almost trampled by men rushing for the hoses as he ran to the bridge. Smoke was pouring from a ventilator funnel above the paint locker, and in the throat of it was a blush of flame. Cramer was already shooting clouds of carbon dioxide down it from a hissing fire extinguisher. As soon as the hot door of the locker was opened men advanced with spray nozzles. The blaze was put out, but a hot argument about its cause started. Perhaps someone had ducked into the paint locker to smoke and nurse a bottle, or perhaps there had been spontaneous combustion in a bucketfull of gasoline-soaked rags. In either case, carelessness had endangered the lives of the whole crew. Simpson wanted a culprit, but everyone denied putting the bucket of rags there or smoking anywhere near that place.

While all the shouting was going on Willis limped up to Syl on the bridge. In the dim light from a cloud-covered moon Syl at first thought that his glistening face was wet from the hoses or sweat and was shocked to realize that his nose was bleeding profusely.

“What happened?” he said.

“I got hit.”

His voice was toneless.

“Who hit you?”

“Damn near everyone, it felt like.” …

Jumping up from his bunk in the darkness of the forecastle with the other men at the first shriek of the general alarm, Willis had been slammed against a steel bulkhead by unseen persons. His injury could have been pure accident, but he remembered men hitting and kicking him while passing. He had been knocked down and “stomped,” he said.

“I almost got trampled myself,” Syl said. “Maybe nobody did it on purpose—”

“Maybe,” Willis said. His voice sounded dead. “I can't prove nothing …”

“You can't
see
that character in the dark,” Cramer said when asked his opinion. Several men nearby laughed. “You got to move it when that alarm goes off. Anybody who's slow is going to get run over …”

Willis said nothing. He sat on a hatch on the tank deck holding a handful of toilet paper to his nose and cut lips.

“What are your injuries?” Syl said.

“My knee hurts,” Willis said in that flat monotone. “I hurt all over. I think my nose is broke.”

“We'll get you to a doctor,” Syl said. “I'll put you on the train to Manila in the morning if we can't find one here.”

“Manila!” Murphy said. “Anybody want to sock me in the nose?”

“His nose ain't broke,” Cramer said to Syl later that night after Willis had returned to his bunk. “You can't break a nigger's nose—”

“Chief, that's a stupid goddamn thing to say. And if you use the word ‘nigger' again I'm going to have you busted—”

“If you want to transfer me to Manila for a deck court you can do it any time you want, sir. For your information, sir, I've done a lot of boxing and a nigra's nose is a lot harder to break than a white man's. That boy is malingering, building up his hurts just to get off of here. If you let him get a trip to Manila out of it, every man in the forecastle is going to come down sick inside of a week.”

“Apparently I think better of the men than you do,” Syl said. “You are dismissed, chief.”

The next morning Syl could find no medical facilities in San Fernando and he couldn't see how anyone without an X-ray machine could tell whether Willis's badly bruised nose was broken. No question the man's left knee was very swollen. After typing up a letter ordering him to go to an army hospital in Manila for treatment and to return to the ship as soon as possible, Sly borrowed an army jeep and drove Willis to a nearby railroad station.

“What will I do if the ship's gone when I come back?” They were sitting in the jeep, waiting for the train.

“I'm guessing we'll be here a couple of weeks,” Syl said. “Report to the Coast Guard personnel officer in Manila when you're ready to come back.
If
we've already sailed they'll just transfer you to some other ship.”

Willis's face remained expressionless, but Syl thought he could see hope in his eyes for the first time in days. No surprise … how long could any man stand the hostilities of his own crew plus enemy attacks and the built-in tensions of a gas tanker?

“I'm sorry all this happened,” Syl said.

“Yes, sir.”

He sat looking down, his face showing nothing.

“It's crazy, I know, but the military actually has good intentions. If they're going to get rid of segregation, they've got to start somewhere.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cramer, some of the others … it takes people time to learn … we can't change them overnight, it takes patience—”

“Yes,
sir
.”

“All of the men aren't like that. Sorrel and Hathaway tried to be your friends.”

Willis did not look up.

Syl was grateful when the engine pulling three small cars arrived, a narrow-gauge railroad train that looked like something out of an amusement park.

Syl carried the laundry bag in which Willis had packed his few remaining possessions.

“I'll try to make things better when you come back,” he said as he handed the bag to Willis aboard the train.

“Yes, sir,” Willis said, not looking at him, and was lost in a crowd of soldiers.

As the train pulled out for Manila Syl was somehow convinced that he would never see Willis again, and in spite of himself was relieved at the thought. What happened to Willis was lousy. But it was nobody's fault. He'd try to remind himself of that when he got feeling too guilty …

“So he's gone,” Cramer said when Syl returned to the ship. “Good. That's one smart little nigra. It wouldn't surprise me if he finally turns out to be the only survivor of the
Lucky Eighteen
.”

“That's a lousy way to talk, chief. He'll be back and we all can survive this goddamn war if we don't go crazy ourselves. Tell the men that if I find anyone smoking anywhere but the fantail I'm going to confiscate all tobacco and matches and throw them overboard.” You tell 'em, captain …

A week later Wydanski found men smoking cigarettes in the engine room again and Simpson caught more in the forecastle. Syl lined up all hands on the tank deck and ordered them to drop their cigarettes and matches on the deck.

“This time I'm telling you for the last time to give it up. If it happens again there'll be a body search, and appropriate punishment.”

The men's faces were sullen and only a few packages of cigarettes and matches were dropped to the deck. After Syl ceremoniously dropped them overboard, he turned and said, “I am doing this to save your asses too, not just mine.”

The men turned and sullenly went to the forecastle. Syl had often felt himself to be unpopular aboard ship, but he had never before run up against this silent wall of hatred from his own men. He went to the wardroom, where Buller and Simpson were drinking coffee, their faces covered with sweat.

Even Simpson thought he was carrying things too far. Mostly he was afraid there would be an explosion among the men. Who knew? Maybe he was right … Syl went to his bunk.

For most of the next miserable two weeks he just lay there, thinking bad thoughts, reading a little, emerging only when he had to move the ship from the fuel barge to the big tanker and back again. His uniform was always wet with sweat and his sleeping bag stayed damp. In the fetid nights he often got chills and wondered whether he'd picked up malaria in New Guinea despite the atabrine pills, which he had been forgetting to take recently. His throat felt raspy and the cough that had plagued him in Tacloban came back. When he woke up with chills and coughing in the middle of the night he shamelessly found himself wishing he would get a fever high enough to justify following Willis to a hospital in Manila. Maybe the damn ship would sail to Okinawa without him. At least then the
Y-18
could have two survivors. Simpson would be delighted finally to be put in command. The men still hated Simpson even more than they did him, but most of them thought Buller was a regular fella … okay, the combination of Simpson and Buller might work better without him. God knew, the
Y-18
was not exactly a happy or efficient ship now. If Buller were made executive officer, some nice young ensign would be sent to take his watch. Maybe a new officer would have steadier nerves. Only someone with a crazy man's ego could think that the ship couldn't survive without him …

Syl had almost talked himself into believing that he could best help the ship by leaving her when Simpson appeared in his cabin just after they had taken on a new load of gasoline.

“Skipper, this gas is bad.” He showed Syl a jar of muddy colored liquid. “It looks about half high octane, half low.”

“Have you asked the skipper of the tanker about it?”

“Sorrel's trying to raise him on the signal light now.”

The captain of the merchant tanker said he had simply given them part of a new cargo he had just brought from California—the different kinds of fuel could have been mixed anywhere along the long supply line.

“Take it out to sea and dump it,” the major in charge of the tanks at San Fernando said.

“Hell, you can use it in cars and trucks, can't you?” Syl said.

“I got no place to store it. Dump it. We'll need you to bring in a load from another tanker. I've got whole flights of planes waiting to take off.”

Syl headed the
Y-18
out to sea. Remembering Simpson's story about the tanker that had discharged her cargo too close to shore and had burned out a whole base when the wind changed, he steamed ten miles before slowing down, heading into what little wind there was, and ordering the gas to be pumped over the side. The stench was overpowering.

“What a
waste,”
Buller said as they stood on the flying bridge watching the torrent of gasoline pour into the sea. “They're rationing that stuff ashore.”

“The least of my worries,” Syl said, watching the glassy wake stretch out astern. Seagulls wheeled away from the fumes that hazed the air above it. Sweeping the horizon with his binoculars Syl said, “All we need now is some native in a dugout with a cigar …”

“We're too far out for dugouts,” Buller said. “If I had only known this was going to happen I could have arranged to sell this stuff. Some of the natives in Manila have little tankers. They'd come down for this. It'd be better than wasting the stuff. Jeeze … two hundred and twenty thousand gallons … you have any idea what gas is selling for on the black market ashore—?”

“No,” Syl said, “and I'm not interested.”

“Just for the hell of it, I checked up by the railroad station. Something like fifty cents a gallon, over a hundred thousand bucks for this load …”

Syl shook his head, coughed painfully.

“A hundred thousand bucks gone to kill the fishes,” Buller said disgustedly, and went below.

After getting rid of this cargo they took a new load from a merchantman that had just arrived and discharged it at the base before anchoring for the night.

During the early part of dinner in the wardroom Buller was markedly quiet as Wydanski and Simpson talked about the latest radio reports of the fighting at Iwo Jima.

“God knows how many men are dying on those beaches,” Wydanski said. “We're damn lucky to be here.”

“More waste,” Buller said, tossing his napkin on the table.

“We still got to take Japan,” Simpson said.

“We can starve the bastards out!”

Syl had heard this argument too many times. It sounded like wishful thinking … The Japs had hardly showed a passive disposition so far. Suicide planes, last-ditch fighting in the streets of Manila, on the miserable coral islands … no, the only way they'd be beaten was to beat them on their home ground … millions would die …

He went to his cabin. As he lay down in his bunk a chill hit him. Huddling down in his damp, musty sleeping bag, he coughed so hard that nausea hit him. He ran to the head.

Soon after he returned to his bunk, there was a knock at his door. “Skipper, can I come in?” Buller.

“Come,” Syl said between more coughs.