The Commodore (26 page)

The December 7 slaughter of the spit-and-polish, bugle-blowing, brass-polishing, teak-deck-holystoning battleship navy had changed a lot of things. For one thing, far too many potential execs and skippers drowned in the burning oil fires of Pearl Harbor. The interwar years' stately parade of superannuated captains and commanders was suddenly decapitated, and then the Bureau of Navigation, which administered naval officers' careers, had to scramble. Instead of lineal numbers and dates of rank, professional ability had necessarily risen to the forefront in the calculus of promotion.

He tried to roll his memory through those years leading to command of a destroyer, but they were a blur when compared to the night with the battleships, the contemptuous looks from Halsey's staffers after that battle. And after that, another blurred passage as his mind roamed among the flashes in the night, the sound of the torpedoes launching, the terror in the sonar gangs' voices when they reported hearing the sleek monsters whining past the ship as if hunting. And then the final battle, the seeming ease of the ambush followed by that terrifying report of three big ships rounding Kalai's southern point and heading straight for them. That sinister black cruiser looming out of the night, its forward eight-inch guns training over in his direction, aimed right at
him
even as his own flagship's guns were banging away, tracing hot red arcs of fire into the cruiser's superstructure. He could see the light from his own flagship's gun flashes reflected in the windows of that towering steel pagoda temple just before she opened fire and ruined everything. The noise was beyond frightful. It was overwhelming, punctuated by the cries of the wounded and the convulsive lurch of the ship as she was cut in half …

“Wake up, Captain,” a woman's voice shouted. “Wake up. They're
here
. We must leave.
Now!
”

He tried to focus, gather his senses, and then he heard the all-too-familiar sound of naval gunfire, nine-gun salvos ripping the night apart, followed by painful explosions outside among the plantation warehouses and processing buildings. Bright fires were burning out there, and the grounds around the house shook with every salvo.

Before he could gather his wits there were natives in the room, carrying what looked like an old-fashioned World War I canvas litter. They swept the mosquito netting aside, pushed back his sheet, and then lifted him bodily onto the litter down on the floor. His skull felt like it was cracking again. He tried to protest but could only whimper, and then his bearers were hustling through the house and out to the back veranda as another salvo, closer this time, tore up trees and small outbuildings, showering them with dirt, burning palm fronds, and wooden fragments. The fires were brighter now that they were outside, and the four men carrying him broke into a jog. Sluff couldn't think, only feel the thump-thump-thump of their bare feet as they ran across the yard and headed out into the actual rubber-tree plantation along a sandy road. He grimly fought the urge to throw up as the pain in his head found something new to keep time to.

Finally the shells began to fall behind, becoming red flashes seen through the forest of rubber trees instead of the pounding blasts they'd just run through. He saw Jennifer Matheson running behind the stretcher-bearers, trotting along without even breaking a sweat, that big Webley pistol firmly in her right hand. She didn't look frightened, only determined. He became aware of other people running out alongside them as they headed back into the orderly rows of rubber trees and away from the cacophony of the attack behind them. Some of the “boys” had rifles; others were carrying canvas bags in each hand.

They've rehearsed this, he thought. This isn't panic; this was planned. He thought he heard the chatter of machine gun fire behind them and wondered if a landing party had just arrived. Then the pain in his head grew worse, much worse, and he began to cry out. The bearers never broke stride, but, suddenly, David was running alongside. Something sharp pricked the side of his neck, and then everything became much, much better.

 

TWENTY-THREE

Kalai Highlands

“This the chap?” a gravelly voice asked. “Looks like an oversized wog, he does.”

Sluff heard Jennifer cluck her tongue. “That's rude, Jack,” she scolded. “He's an American Indian. And he's a naval officer, to boot.”

“Humph,” Jack snorted. “I've seen pictures of wooden Indians, but from the looks of
that
wound, this one's going to be a steel-plate Indian.”

Sluff could hear other people moving around them, as well as the sounds of distant gunfire. He thought it sounded like a ship's guns. He tried to open his eyes but the morphine still had him and he wasn't able to make anything work except his hearing.

“Have you reported that he's here?” Jennifer asked.

“Aye, I have,” Jack replied. “Nothing back yet. From the sounds of that sea fight the other night, the Yanks are probably up to their eyeballs in Japs about now.”

There was a sudden gabble of pidgin nearby. Jack muttered an uh-oh and withdrew. Sluff wondered where he was. It felt like he was on a hard bed or cot and inside a building. He could hear many footsteps of people walking on a wooden floor, and the room smelled of wet palm fronds. He tried again to open his eyes. No go. He tried to speak. To his surprise, the word “water” croaked out of his parched mouth.

“Ah, right,” Jennifer, said. “Water.” She snapped out something in rapid-fire pidgin and a moment later he felt a wet towel being wiped gently over his face and then there was a cup at his lips. He tried to open his mouth but he couldn't, and for some strange reason that panicked him.

“Easy, easy,” she said, feeling his body tense up. Then he felt the tip of that wet towel being pressed between his lips. Slowly a wave of wetness permeated his mouth but without choking him. Better, he thought. Then he whimpered and went back under.

He awoke later to the sound of a tropical rain beating down on a metal roof. The noise was deafening but also comforting. This time his eyes did open. It was dark. The rain fell like a solid waterfall. He swallowed, or tried to. A small wave of nausea rose in his throat but then subsided. He wondered what time it was and where everyone had gone. Incredibly, the roar of the rain grew louder, and he closed his eyes again. He was still thirsty. Then he heard voices nearby, excited voices. He opened his eyes and looked around the small room. He moved his right hand and gently probed the bandage covering the side of his head. It felt like there was a broken dinner plate taped together under there that had been glued back together but only recently.

The voices grew louder and then there was a flashlight coming toward the partially opened door. Jack came in, followed by Jennifer and two Melanesians, carrying a stretcher.

“Good, you're awake,” Jack said. “Look—there's a problem. We've had a message that the Japs have landed an army search party on the beach and that they'll be looking for us by sunrise.”

“Oh” was all Sluff could manage through his dry mouth. Jennifer heard him croak and brought him a glass of water, which, this time, he could manage.

“We're two hours into the hills above the plantation
if
they know where to look. Based on what my boy told me I have a bad feeling that someone's blabbed and they
do
know where to look. As soon as this rain stops, we have to do a runner.”

“Okay,” Sluff said, and made as if to get out of bed. He felt Jennifer's hands restraining him, and then his cracked skull weighed in, convincing him to stay very still. Another native showed up in the doorway, firing away in pidgin.

“Shit!” Jack muttered when the man finished. “They've got dogs. We've got to go now. Jenny, darling, you sort out moving the Yank. I've got to dismantle the teleradio and bury the extra codebooks. Oh, and Captain: The control station says the American navy will be sending a submarine to get you. When and where to be determined. Okay. I'm off.”

Jennifer instructed the two bearers to put the stretcher on the bed. While she immobilized his broken head as best she could, they transferred him from the sheets to the stretcher and strapped him to it. He tried not to cry out. He thought he could feel the bandage getting soggy, but then they were on the move again, this time out to the veranda, where they parked the stretcher between the arms of two chairs. Jennifer had formed a pillow from one of the bedsheets and got it under his neck. Then two blankets were rolled tight and put on either side of his head. Finally they parked a pith helmet over his head and face, tied it down to the stretcher poles, and then they were away into the night, walking, thank God, and not trotting. The rain drummed on the helmet as if trying to find a way to get in and drown him while the rest of his body felt actually cold.

He couldn't speak or see anything, but it felt like they were going up, with occasional downward stints to cross streams and flooded gullies before resuming the climb. He wondered if this torrent would destroy their scent. Dogs. He shivered, both from the chill of the rain and the thought of a pack of dogs catching up with them, followed by sword-wielding samurai wannabes. Then he thought about the two bearers, grunting with the effort of carrying his nearly two hundred pounds through the jungle and across mountain slopes in darkness and pouring rain. What if they dropped him? Would he roll down the hillside like a rotten log and fetch up in a swollen stream? If the sound of baying dogs rose behind them, would they drop him and run? He realized he was thinking selfishly. These men were doing there uttermost to get him away from the Japs. He tried to think of a way to repay them, or at least thank them. Then there was a bright light followed by a blast of sound as a shell exploded somewhere up the hill from them.

The bearers stopped immediately and put him down as the acrid smell of high explosive drifted down the hillside. Another shell went off, but farther away and down the hill from where they were halted. Then there were others, some close, some distant, seemingly random, as that Jap cruiser anchored off the plantation wharves fired lone shells into the hills above the plantation, just to let the coast watchers know that they were missed and being sought after. Every thirty seconds a round would sail over or under their position in the man-high grass, whistling through the torrential rain and then blowing up in a shower of wet mud and cracking trees. They're not aiming at anything, he thought. Just shooting up the hills to let us know that they're coming. The randomness of it made it even more terrifying. He heard Jennifer shout an order and then they were on the move again. The rain never let up.

Two exhausting hours later they went to ground in a cave. He knew it was a cave because one moment the rain was hammering on his body and the next it was an echo. The bearers moved much more slowly now as they picked their way over rocks and litter on the floor of the cave, which stank of bat guano and tropical mold. Finally they set him down and removed the pith helmet. To his surprise he could see. It was very early morning outside, but light enough that he could make out the dimensions of the cave and see the shadowy forms of the men who'd carried him so far. He made eye contact with one of them and mouthed the words, Thank you. The man gave him a big grin and then Jennifer came up.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, kneeling beside the stretcher. She looked exhausted, but her eyes shone with the strength of someone who's seen and dealt with worse than a night escape across the tropical escarpments of Kalai Island.

“The braces helped,” he said. “Is there any more water?”

She held up a canteen and carefully fed him about a cup's worth. “We should be pretty safe, for now, anyway. Jack took the radio and his team in the opposite direction to another hide. We're hoping the rain will drown out their scent. And ours.”

“How do you two communicate?” he asked.

“Runners,” she said. “These boys can move through these hills like ghosts. Jack's also sent down a rifle party.”

“They'd take on a Jap army patrol?”

“Oh, no,” she said with a knowing smile. “They're hunters. They have instructions to shoot the dogs. Kill the dogs, and the Japs will blunder about until they run out of food and water.
Then
the boys will take them on.”

“Jack says someone blabbed.”

She shrugged. “Maybe,” she said. “Most of the people on Kalai hate the Japs because of something that happened three years ago. But you never know—for the price of some tobacco or a rifle and some ammunition? There're bad apples on this island just like anywhere else. Besides, the Japs seem to be winning over there on Guadalcanal, so from their perspective, maybe the right move is to get on the side of the winners, you know?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, glad to have had the water. Then he remembered something about a submarine. He opened his eyes to ask her about that but she was gone. He looked over at the clutch of natives, who were obviously exhausted. They were passing a bowl of something between them, each taking three fingers of what looked like rice and then passing it on to the next man. One of them saw him looking. He got up, came over to the stretcher, and offered two fingers' worth of rice. Sluff opened his mouth and took it. It tasted fishy, as if someone had ground fish paste into it. Salty, too. Wonderful. He realized he was very hungry and hoped that that was a good sign.

The man rejoined his crew and Sluff closed his eyes again. Outside he could still hear the occasional crump of naval gunfire as that cruiser spat shells randomly into the hills, seemingly just for the fun of it. He wanted to raise a hand, feel the side of his head. He'd been seeing strange colors and was having trouble forming words in his mind.

Stop trying, he thought. Rest. He wondered if there was any more of that fishy rice. A shell went off outside, fairly close this time.