The Lonely War (2 page)

The full brunt of the sun hammered Seaman Andrew Waters. Sweat turned his dungaree uniform a dark shade of blue, and the muggy air made his breathing feel like ingesting lukewarm seawater.

To take his mind off the heat, Andrew studied the confident gait of Lieutenant Nathan Mitchell. The exec’s khaki uniform was freshly pressed; its only blemish was a small sweat stain under each armpit. A green canvas belt hugged his waist, and from it hung a canteen over his left hip and a holster over his right. The holster partially concealed a Browning .45 automatic.

Mitchell was lean for his six-foot-one height. Andrew thought his bronzed skin and fawn-colored hair made him appear too young for his rank of lieutenant. Andrew guessed the officer’s age to be about ten years older than himself—twenty-eight or nine—and at that moment, Mitchell whistled a happy tune on this excruciatingly hot morning.

By the time they passed the Port Director’s office, sweat streamed off Andrew’s forehead, and he felt his remaining strength drain from his legs, making it nearly impossible to carry his burden.
I’ve failed again,
he thought. Time after time he had struggled to pull his weight with his shipmates, but his slim frame was not built to endure physical hardship. At home he used his sharp intelligence to prove his worth, but the US Navy only valued brute strength and moronic obedience from its seamen. In this theater of fighting men, he was a failure.

He would have loved to drop his seabag and sail home to the boarding school to bury himself in literature, music, and mathematics. But that was not an option. So he swallowed hard, making a last-ditch effort to keep up with the others.

He managed a dozen more steps along the dock before he saw, through sweat-blurred vision, Seaman Grady Washington begin to stagger like a drunkard and stumble backward. Andrew dropped his gear and jumped to break Grady’s fall, grabbing the young Negro from behind. The deadweight of his unconscious shipmate drove them both to the dock.

Sprawled under Washington, crushed against the wooden planks, it seemed as though a strong man had pinned him, holding him prisoner. It felt like a personal affront.

Andrew yelled to Lieutenant Mitchell, who still held a tune on his lips.

Mitchell turned to stare at the fallen sailors. He pointed to one of the other men and said with an authoritative voice, “Hudson, help Waters carry that man to the shade.”

Petty Officer Third Class Joe Hudson, a swarthy sailor dressed in frayed dungarees, lowered his gear to the dock. He grabbed Grady under both armpits and muscled the sailor to the shade beside the Port Director’s office. The lieutenant followed as he unhooked the canteen from his webbed belt. He told Andrew to hold Grady’s head up while he knelt and poured water over the comatose sailor’s nappy head.

Grady coughed, his eyelids fluttered.

With the officer kneeling only two feet way, for the first time Andrew was able to furtively study the lieutenant’s face. His heartbeat quickened. The man’s cheeks were attractively sunburnt and supported a straight nose and powerful eyebrows. Andrew detected a keen intelligence simmering behind those eyes, which were clear and discerning and the color of pale jade. Their intensity startled Andrew. He inhaled sharply, catching a whiff of the officer’s scent. Beneath the pleasant odor of talcum powder, he discovered the aroma of sweat-moistened skin.

Andrew tried to look away, but he couldn’t help but follow the path of a bead of sweat sliding from under the officer’s hat, making its way along the reddish cheek and strong jaw, where it clung to that beautifully sun-kissed skin. Andrew felt himself drawn to the officer like the moon draws water.

Grady’s eyelids popped open and his eyes rolled around in their sockets like loose marbles. His lips trembled with unrealized words, as if he might possibly have a speech disorder.

Mitchell pressed the canteen to the black sailor’s lips, trickled water into the pink cavity, and poured more water over his head.

“You fainted from the heat, sailor,” Mitchell said. “Happens all the time.”

“You’d think a jungle bunny would be used to the heat,” Hudson quipped while mopping his shaved head with a purple handkerchief, “being from Africa and all.”

Andrew glanced up, scrutinizing Petty Officer Hudson and Seaman John Stokes, who stood in the shade, casually watching the scene. Stokes was a Nebraska farm boy with strawberry-colored hair and a Milky Way of freckles scattered across his face. He carried himself with an ungainly youthfulness, as if he was still growing into his body. His pillbox hat was bleached an absolute white and tilted so far forward that it hid his eyebrows.

“Button that mouth, Hudson,” Mitchell barked. “We don’t tolerate racial slurs on the
Pilgrim
.”

“Sir,” Hudson replied, “does that include half Japs, too? I thought we was here to kill Japs.”

“One more insulting remark and you’re on report. Is that clear, sailor?”

“Aye, sir. Crystal.”

It’s starting already,
Andrew thought.
Okay, survival rule number one: never show fear. Rule number two: deflect opposing force by pulling your adversary off balance.

Andrew eased Grady’s head onto the dock and stood to face Hudson. He swallowed. Hudson was built like a heavyweight prizefighter. His face revealed the bent bulb of a nose that had been crushed and remolded, a dished cheekbone, and scars over both eyes. His body looked distorted and menacing, and his swagger was common among the “old salts” who had a hard need to prove they were the stud bulls of the herds.

Andrew held him with an unflinching stare. “It’s time you learned the difference between Japanese and Chinese,” he said with a slight French accent. “For the record, I’m half Chinese, half American.”

“Chinks and Japs is all the same,” Hudson snarled. “They all smell yellow to me.”

“The Chinese are our allies,” Andrew said. “They’ve fought the Japanese on and off for over eight hundred years. Japan has been kicking America’s butt for only, what, five months?”

Hudson sneered. “In the old Navy, we didn’t put up with smart-mouth chinks and namby-pamby niggers. In the old navy you could trust the man next to you with your life. But those days is gone, and for a buffalo-head nickel I’d get the hell out this new Navy.”

“That’s it, Hudson,” Mitchell said. “You’re on report.”

“Only a nickel?” Andrew dipped two fingers into the pocket of his dungaree pants and extracted a quarter. “Here’s two bits. Tell the discharge officer to keep the change.” He flung the coin at Hudson. It tumbled through the air, hitting the petty officer in the chest, dead center.

Hudson clenched a hamlike fist. “Sass me again, you yellow monkey, and I’ll kick you bowlegged!”

“Can the bickering, right now.” Lieutenant Mitchell stepped between them. “On my ship, we get along, do our jobs, and if anyone makes waves, I jump on them with both my size-twelve’s kicking. Another word out of either of you and it will cost you your next five liberties. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” they sang out.

“Hudson and Stokes, wait at the whaleboat. Waters, help me get Washington on his feet.”

Andrew knew he could safely confront Hudson with the lieutenant on hand, but even so, relief swept through his center like an ocean wave. This, he knew, was the first barrage of an ongoing battle, and once aboard ship, Mitchell wouldn’t be conveniently on the spot to protect him.

Hudson and Stokes retrieved their gear and marched down the pier. Andrew pulled Grady to a sitting position.

Mitchell handed Grady his canteen. “Clear your head before you try to stand, sailor.”

Grady clambered to his feet and handed the officer his canteen. “Thank you, suh,” he drawled. “I reckon I’m fine now.”

Andrew and Grady hoisted their gear and followed the lieutenant to the whaleboat nestled at the pier’s head. Andrew admired the boat’s functionally beautiful lines, with its broad beam and both ends sporting a sharp bow. The Navy still used these boats because they inspired confidence in a heavy sea and landing through rough surf.

Hudson sat on a thwart near the bow with Stokes behind him. Three oarsmen manned each side; a coxswain stood at the tiller. All seven dungaree-clad crewmen glared at Andrew and Grady as they passed their seabags to an oarsman. A facade of disbelief turning to anger spread over each face.

“What’d I tell you?” Hudson sneered.

The redheaded coxswain spit over the gunwale.

Grady climbed into the boat while Andrew gazed at the redhead standing at the tiller. The man’s lips seemed too small for his mouth, stretched over teeth that were somewhat pointed and bared to the gums, like a rabid dog. Andrew’s absentminded scrutiny of the stranger proved dangerous, because he suddenly realized that the redhead was staring back at him so aggressively that his intention was clearly to make an issue of the matter.

“Look alive, Waters,” the lieutenant said.

Andrew dropped beside the lieutenant with his right shoulder pressed to Mitchell’s left, their knees touching. They pushed off and were borne along by rowers. The boat seemed to fly over the blue-green plane. Andrew noticed the clocklike cadence of the oars, the rowers’ labored breathing, and the faint scent of the lieutenant’s sweat-moistened skin, still hovering under the pleasant aroma of talcum powder.

They passed a line of predators at anchor—destroyers, a cruiser, a submarine—all swarming with deckhands and welders and riveters, most of whom were stripped to the waist and covered with grime.

Andrew stared out over the bay. The morning was like true summer, with the sea smooth and bright under the sun and a slight breeze off the water to soften the heat’s edge. He glanced at the horizon. A line of dark cumulus clouds galloped toward them from the southeast.

Mitchell shifted beside him. His eyes followed the young sailor’s gaze. “You see it?”

Andrew no longer contemplated the oncoming squall. He felt the lieutenant next to him, heard the man’s clear voice fuse with the sound of his own shallow breathing. His pulse thumped at his temples as he turned to gaze into those jade-green eyes. His mind floundered for a heartbeat before he said, “Should hit around sundown, sir.”

Mitchell nodded.

Andrew’s eyes widened as they approached his new ship, and his spirits sank. She lay low in the water, the USS
Pilgrim
, Destroyer #119. Her twenty thousand tons of steel was shaped like a knife—her forecastle rose high above the water from bow to bridge like a sturdy handle and fell sharply away to a low main deck that ran from conning tower to stern like a thin blade. Four smokestacks sprouted from her superstructure, their gaunt columns smudged the sky with black smoke. Andrew counted two bulky gun turrets with five-inch guns perched on her forecastle, a half dozen torpedo launchers along her amidships, and two stern-mounted depth-charge racks.
She’s an awesome mass of destructive power wrapped in gray steel
.

A deeply spiritual young man, Andrew was about to board a ship whose sole purpose was to destroy human life. He felt his testicles draw close to his body as the
Pilgrim
grew large before him. He silently told himself that even on this death machine, he must stay true to his pacifist principles.

The whaleboat came to rest alongside a limp chain ladder hanging from the
Pilgrim
’s quarterdeck. Mitchell scurried aboard, saluted the colors, and turned to supervise the gear being hoisted over the railing. A gaggle of sailors flocked to the afterdeck, all leaning over the railing cables to get a glimpse of the new men. A few catcalls cut the morning air, but most of the men simply glared down at Andrew.

He stood in the whaleboat with his legs spread for balance, his head rising above and falling below the level of the
Pilgrim
’s main deck. He hesitated, studying the torpedo launchers along the amidships, before climbing the ladder with the awkwardness of a landsman. Here, then, was a final moment of perception before his surrender: the deadly gray hulk, the crew’s defiant stares, the dark line of clouds advancing on him, and Mitchell’s jade-colored eyes beckoning him aboard.

He stepped on deck by a deliberate act of will (it felt deliberate, although he was too numb to form thoughts), surrendering to his fate.

For a moment, still, nothing seemed different. It felt like another failure, as if he could still jump overboard, swim to shore, and all would be set right. But a brutish sailor wearing oily dungarees charged along the narrow deck, deliberately slamming into him with a beefy shoulder. Andrew stumbled over a tangled nest of air hoses, landing hard on his butt. The sailor snarled, “Stay the fuck out of my way, Jap-boy!”

Andrew’s stomach folded in on itself as he realized this crew was roughly the same as the one on his last ship. He could feel their apprehension. He knew that he, and even Grady for that matter, would never be accepted. They were already marked as outsiders and that’s where they’d stay.

He inspected each face that leered at him, one by one, without directly staring at them. No one seemed dangerously hostile, which lowered his anxiety a notch, but at the same time he knew there would always be the truculent stares and off-color remarks. Every hour of every day would be a trial, as it was on his last ship, the
Indianapolis
. With the realization of what was in store, his spirits sank to a new low, settling near the murky rock bottom of his soul.

He pulled himself to his feet and studied his surroundings. Chaos—hoses snaked between piles of machine parts, power tools, oily rags, and scraps of rusted steel. Shirtless men with grease-stained bodies chipped at rust while welders used acetylene torches to mend bulkhead seams. The repeating thunderclap of metal striking metal reverberated belowdecks.

He stepped over a pile of debris to stand next to his seabag. A brass plaque on the bulkhead informed him that this ship was named after Chester H. Pilgrim, a battleship commander who had died in the North Atlantic during the First World War.

Chief Henry Swiftcreek Ogden marched up and scrutinized the four newcomers. His stout body had an imposing posture. Two scars cut across his cheek. Cobweblike lines etched his iodine-colored face from hairline to Adam’s apple, covering everything except his stony eyes. He made a sound, more of a grunt than a word, but it carried a truculent undertone that conveyed an unmistakable disapproval.