Pacific Interlude (42 page)

She perched on the edge of his bed. “I brought you a present,” she said, taking a pint of Scotch from her bag and slipping it under his covers. “Maybe you shouldn't have it, I don't want to make you more sick.”

“Just the opposite. Cutty Sark! This stuff is worth its weight in gold out here.”

She took two paper cups from her bag, and after glancing around to make sure that no nurse was watching she quickly picked up the bottle, unscrewed the cap and began to pour. The delicacy of her hands still fascinated him. He'd read about people having a foot fetish but he'd never heard of a man getting obsessed with a woman's hands. When she handed him his cup he put it on the bedside table, caught her wrist, and kissed the palm of her hand.

“I've wanted to do that,”—and more—”ever since I met you,” he said. “When you're sick you can get away with crazy things—”

“That's not such a bad kind of crazy,” she said, putting her cup on the bedside table and stroking his hair back from his sweaty forehead. Her fingers felt cool and delicate as they looked.

“I can't believe you,” he said, studying her face, her large slightly slanted brown eyes and full lips. “You're perfect—”

“I'm glad you don't know me better.”

“I know what I need to know. You're beautiful, you're kind and you're here.” Hardly originial, but heartfelt.

There was a scent of gardenias about her, sandalwood, a whole tropical bouquet, it seemed to him. Good thing that the blanket covered his groin, where he felt a stirring, the first in weeks. He must be getting better …

“When you get better, how long will you stay in Manila?”

“I don't know.”

“You go home or you go back to your ship?”

“That's the question. I expect I'll go back to my ship.”

“Where is she? Or is that a military secret?”

“I'm not sure.”

“I know there is bad fighting in Okinawa. A lot of the ships have gone to Okinawa …”

She made the name of that island sound forlorn.

“I guess I'll be going to Okinawa …”

“What will you do after the war? Let's talk about that.”

He was grateful for the change and before he knew it was babbling on about his plan to buy a boat and follow in the wake of the Vikings. “A man named Samuel Eliot Morison actually has done things like that.”

“And you will too,” she said gravely. “I think you are a man who will do what he wants.”

“One night I dreamt you came with me,” he said. “You were sitting at the wheel of my boat in sort of a red sarong and we had red sails.”

“Did they match?”

“Exactly. They were both the color of your lips right now.”

“You get the sails and I will get the sarong.”

“Is that a promise?”

“I never give promises,” she said, leaning over to kiss his forehead, “but I like to dream too.”

The nurse soon signaled the end to this visit. Mary gave him one more kiss on the forehead. “I'll be back tomorrow,” she said. He watched her walk down the aisle, graceful as a dancer. The gentle sway of her hips caused more whistles and she gave a little wave as she disappeared through the door. A military hospital, he thought, couldn't be an easy place for a girl to visit, any girl … what kind of a girl was she …? One no questions should be asked of—he was sure only of that. If she wanted to tell him her history, maybe someday she would.…

She came almost every day after that. He looked forward to her visits but in a way wished they would stop, that they had never happened, because they made his decision to go back to the
Y-18
harder to handle. Mary was not a girl who made promises, but she let him prattle on about buying a boat and sailing the world with her. She seemed so interested that he almost began to believe that they were making a real plan.

“You do the sailing and I'll do the cooking,” she said. “I'm a very good cook …”

“Do you get seasick?”

“I don't know,” she said with her special smile. “We will have to find out.”

That night he had a dream of two ships, the
Y-18
, her hull red with rust, and a trim black-hulled ketch with red sails. They were on a collision course, sailing across a calm, azure sea. He seemed to be suspended above them, looking down from the sky like God himself, but he was not all-powerful, because in spite of his shouted warnings the ships kept on sailing toward each other, and as they came close the tanker loomed above the smaller ship like it was going to devour it … He woke up just before the crash, his whole body bathed in sweat.

He did not have to study Freud to interpret that one. Any chance he had of sailing the seas with Mary or any other kind of future would be wiped out by that tanker if he went back to her …

“When am I going to get out of here?” he asked the doctor after another week went by.

“You're coming along but it's slow.”

“You said two weeks or a month. It's almost a month.”

“That will teach me not to make predictions. It's going to take you time to get your strength back.”

At least he was strong enough to feel restless, and by the first of May the doctor let him walk to a common room in his bathrobe. It was often empty except for a few patients who wanted to listen to news reports on the radio.

Mary met him there late one afternoon. “Soon you'll be leaving,” she said. “Is there a chance your ship will come back here?”

“Not much …” He had a mental picture of the
Y-18
sailing on another shuttle run in Okinawa. There were few cities in Okinawa as far as he knew, and maybe Buller wouldn't find a way to sell black market gas there. Maybe the ship was running more smoothly than she ever had. If she'd survived so far, she was probably in some harbor relatively safe from typhoons, and it was still true, he assumed, that the suicide planes usually chose larger targets. Maybe there was so much fighting ashore that the natives hadn't yet gotten around to peddling booze alongside the ships … It was wrong, Freud or no Freud, to let himself think that going back to the
Y-18
would somehow mean certain death …

“Do you think you'll get any leave before you get orders?” she asked.

“I suppose I might get a few days, if I had somewhere to go.”

“There's a wonderful place named Baguio not so far from here. Have you ever heard of it?”

“It's some sort of a mountain resort, isn't it? The radio said the Japs are still fighting up there.”

“They've just surrendered. I have an aunt in Baguio. I should drive up to see her.” She paused, then added, “I would love to show you Baguio. It is always cool up there. It was our summer capital before the war.”

“How long would it take to get there?”

“It is only about a half day's drive. We could stay at my aunt's and come back the next day. She has a kind of inn, an old villa.”

“I'll make it if I have to take French leave,” he said, and stood up from his chair, towering above her as she rose from hers. For the first time he put his arms around her and kissed her. It was not much of an embrace, not with three men turning from the radio to stare and laugh at them.

“You've got a date in Baguio,” he said.

“I think you'll like it.”

“I know it.”

The thought of a leave, however brief, with Mary helped to stop him from brooding about going back to the
Y-18
. For one night at least they could presumably arrange to be together. Think of that. One way or another, the rest of the future would take care of itself.

CHAPTER 32

E
VEN WHEN SYL
began to feel his strength returning, the doctors refused to let him leave the hospital. Some of his tests were not yet right, they said. If they let him go too soon his illnesses could quickly recur.

On May 7, when the news of Germany's surrender was broadcast, Syl was still sitting in the hospital common room. There was surprisingly little excitement in the wards and the surrounding city remained quiet that night. Germany was a long way away. More immediate by far was the fighting on Okinawa, which the announcer said was continuing more fiercely than ever, with hand-to-hand combat on steep ridges in the interior and intensified attacks by waves of suicide planes and ships offshore.

Syl could almost see Buller pacing the deck of the
Y-18
and thinking that now that the war in Europe was over, why did American ships have to sail within reach of suicide attacks; that Japan could be starved to death from a safe distance even if it took a year or more; and that if the generals were in a big rush they could just continue the fire-bomb attacks that had already leveled most of Tokyo. Why did more Americans have to die trying to take Okinawan hills when Japan was nothing but a cornered criminal, no longer a powerful enemy? Why did the United States government in an hour of triumph have to continue to operate old ships like the
Y-18
as though the army was still straining its last resources in a desperate battle? Buller would be pounding his fist into his palm as he strode around asking these questions, and right now Syl wasn't so sure that he knew any good answers. If she had to go on shuttling gas for months while the battle to take the rest of Okinawa continued, the men would listen to Buller and would get crazier than ever. Who would care about breaking petty regulations? Why not have a drink and light up? “If she's going to blow, she's going to blow,” a lot of the men in the forecastle had often said, shrugging their shoulders. “It's all a matter of luck anyhow …”

Simpson wouldn't be able to cope with that, and Buller wouldn't even try. But if he went back and sang his “song” once again he just
might
get them through the last crazy stages of this war …

Mary arrived just then, carrying a bottle of champagne to celebrate V-E Day.

“What's the matter with you?” she said. “You look upset! You ought to be happy. You are winning!”

“I'm sorry, you're right. Here's to winning …”

“You are a strange man, Syl … Well, tell me, how soon will we be able to go to Baguio?”

Three days later, on May 10, Syl was released from the hospital. An army laundry had washed his uniform, which now hung loosely on his gaunt frame, but when he started toward Commander Patterson's office he figured he at least had to look better than the last time he had been there.

Mary took him to the hospital in an old Model-A Ford truck that she said belonged to a cousin.

“I wish you didn't have to see this commander,” she said. “He might give you orders right away. Why can't we go to Baguio first?”

“He'll probably have orders for me,” Syl said, “but I'm pretty sure he'll tell me to take a couple of days leave before I go back …”
If
I go back … It was really up to Patterson.

He felt so tense when he walked into the Coast Guard office that he started to cough again.

Commander Patterson smiled when Syl entered his office. “Sit down, Captain Grant,” he growled in his deep voice. “I've been going over your record, trying to figure out what to do with you.”

“Where's the
Y-18?”

“She sailed for Okinawa four days ago. She was delayed by engine trouble.”

Or, Syl couldn't help thinking, had Buller talked Wydanski and even Simpson into hanging around as long as possible to sell gas? Forget it … that engine had no doubt broken down all on its own …

“She should never have sailed,” Syl said. “She's not fit for that voyage. I told you that.”

“Mr. Simpson said she was … If I send you back to her, are you going to declare her unseaworthy?”

“If
she makes it to Okinawa, she'd be all right for a shuttle run in protected waters. But I'd declare her unfit for long voyages. Yes …”

“You declared another ship unseaworthy, didn't you?”

“Unfit for carrying troops. There was a general order out—”

“I know about that. You were right, but the ship made it anyway.”

“That's the way it turned out.”

“I think you're a pretty good sailor, Mr. Grant, but we all have to learn to deal with the army. The army has a right to ask us to take unusual risks in time of war. And we are still at war. Japan hasn't surrendered yet and I don't think you have any secret intelligence that she's about to. Headquarters wants me to send you back to the
Y-18
. They don't have too much faith in Mr. Simpson.”

Syl shrugged. “I'm ready to go.” And he was … felt almost relieved the uncertainty seemed over.

“I still can't make up my mind.”

“I thought you said headquarters wants you to send me back.”

“I did. But it's up to me to make a recommendation. You have a good record. Navy Cross—not many of those in the old guard. You've just been promoted to lieutenant commander. Have you heard that?”

“No, sir.”

“How the hell old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Do you know how old I was before I made lieutenant commander?”

“No, sir.”

“Forget it … doesn't make any difference. You've earned your stripes. But now you've got too much rank for a gas tanker, and besides, all you're going to do is make trouble with the army if I send you back to her—”

“I think I should go back,” Syl heard himself say. “Mr. Simpson can't handle the men. Mr. Buller …” He did not know how to finish that sentence.

“Mr. Buller was in here to ask for a new ensign. He looked very capable to me.”

“Yes, sir, that's the way he looks …”

“Yes … well, look here, Mr. Grant … you've had three and a half years of sea duty and only twenty days leave. I think you need a rest.”

“Excuse me, sir, but I think that ship needs me—”

“All young skippers think that. No, all skippers. Period. I don't even know why I'm arguing with you. Headquarters wants me to send you back and you want to go back.”