The survivor (6 page)

**Bombing Six."

"Bombing Six? What's that?"

"Dive-bomber squadron."

Jason looked at him a little skeptically. "You an airedale?"

"I've been accused of it."

"Is that a combat squadron?"

"Not yet. But we have hopes."

"Oh," Jason said. Adam could feel any respect Jason may have had for him falling away Hke autumn leaves. Although Jason didn't physically move, it was as though he had moved about ten feet down the bench and into another world.

Now Jason slowly turned his head, the helmet shadowing his eyes, and looked for a long time at Adam before he asked, "Are you an oflBcer?"

Adam nodded.

"Oh," Jason said. Then he got up without looking at Adam again and walked across the room and sat down all by himself on the bench. He put the rifle across his lap, pushed his feet out along the floor, let his head, stiU in the heknet, drop.

He looked so lonely.

IT WAS ONE o'clock in the morning when another of the lean marines came into the room. He had on the same outfit as the rest of them, but Adam was sure that he was an oflBcer. "All right, gentlemen," the man said, "and away we go."

Adam went over to him, his helmet rolling off the bench again, and said, "Sir, there's been a mistake. I'm a naval aviator attached to VB-6. I'm a lieutenant, but somehow I've gotten lashed up in this deal and I can't get out. Nobody knows where I am and they won't let me even call my CO. Maybe you can get me straightened out.'*

"Oh yes," the officer said, looking at a List of names on a piece of paper. "You must be Lieutenant Land."

Oh, boy! Oh, joyl Adam thought, at last somebody is making some sense around here.

"There must be another Adam Land—in the Marine Corps."

"Perhaps," the officer said.

"Is it okay to leave all this junk here? And could I get some sort of official note so I won't get in trouble for being out after curfew?"

"Here's an official note," the officer said, handing Adam some papers.

"Thanks," Adam said, glancing at the typewritten paragraphs. Then he looked at them again, staring, not believing what he read. It was all there in the first short paragraph:

"1. Lieutenant Adam Land is hereby detached from VB-6 and wiU proceed immediately and report to Commander Operation Moondance in whatever port he may be for duty on his Staff."

"They've got the wrong manl" Adam said.

"Okay, gentlemen, fall in," the officer said.

The marines silently got up from the bench and formed into two ranks. The man with the birthday

was at the head of them and now asked, "Is this going to be another dirty one, Major?"

"Could be," the major said. "Let's go."

As Adam stood there, not behoving the words he was reading, the marines walked out of the room.

Adam was still standing there as the last one came by. "Here's your gear, sir," the kid, Jason, said, his arms full of Adam's paraphernalia.

"What's this all about?" Adam asked. "Where're we going? Come on, what's it all about?"

"They don't ever tell you, sir. Not even after you hit the beach. I didn't know I was on Guadalcanal imtil after I left the place. They called that Operation Watchtower."

"Are we going to some island?^ Adam asked, really alarmed now. "Look, I can't go. I'm not supposed to."

"Come on, you guys,** the major said. "Marchl"

As the marines went silently down the hall toward the door, Adam hurried until he caught up with the major. "Sir, something is all fouled up! I'm a pilot. An aviator. They've got the wrong name, or something."

"Did you read your orders?**

"Yeah, but somebody must've made a mistake!**

"There's no mistake, Lieutenant, so let's go. Shall we?**

Here it is again, Adam thought. Some general makes a mistake in a name or a serial number and then the giant machine takes over and you're caught in The System. His only hope, he knew now, was to go along with this thing until he could get to some-

body with real authority—a colonel, or maybe even a general, and get this mess straightened out.

Adam fell in at the end of the column where Jason was walking, still carrying Adam's gear. Adam slipped his arm through the helmet chin strap, then reheved Jason of the rifle and as much of the other stuff as he could carry.

Outside, the clouds from the Pali had swept down low over Pearl Harbor. It was so dark and so close to raining that it was hard even to make out the road they were walking along and the buildings on each side were just blacker parts of the cloud.

There was no talking. You could hear the boon-dockers on the asphalt and, occasionally, the clink of a canteen or something, but the column, to Adam, seemed dark and silent. "I wonder where we're going?" Adam whispered to Jason.

"Sshl" Jason said and then added a whispered,

u • y>

SU".

They walked for a long way, and at last Adam knew that they had reached a dock or a wharf because, beyond it, he could hear water lapping against something.

"Detail," the major called quietly, 'lialt."

The men ahead of Adam stopped in the dark and he heard the rifle butts being lowered gently to the ground.

"At ease," the major said, "but no talking. The smoking lamp is out."

Ahead of him Adam could see the outlines of the men, still in ranks, but now relaxed and moving a little. There was no sound here except

the lap of water against something and the far away sounds of riveting.

He was standing there thinking that this was like those nightmares in which something was forcing you to move when to move meant falling over a chff. In the dream you knew that all you had to do was find out what the force was and fight it, but you couldn't find out. This was the same, he decided. But there must be a force; there must be an officer somewhere to whom he could appeal, the Secretary of the Navy, the President Or he would go over the cliflE.

Then, as he stood there in the darkness in his own nightmare, something grabbed him.

Adam was so startled he dropped the two canteens which, fortunately, were in the canvas covers, so only made thudding sounds when they hit

Jason had him by the arm, his fingers digging into Adam's muscles. "Oh no!" Jason was saying in a terrified whisper. "Oh no! Oh no!"

"Tiun loose," Adam whispered. "What's the trouble?"

"It's a submarine!" Jason said. Adam couldn't see his face in the darkness, but in the tone of his voice and by his movements Adam knew that this kid in his combat outfit was terrified.

**They can't put me on a submarine," Jason wailed. "I can't go down in any submarine. I just can't do it!"

"I can't either," Adam said, "but it sure looks like we're going to."

*Tou're an officer," Jason said, pleading. "You can

do something. Tell them I can't go in a submarine. Tell them if I have to go in a submarine I won t be able to fight." Then he said, in a small voice, "I'm sick, Lieutenant.'*

**Then get well, buddy," Adam told him.

**But you re an officerr

*Tm nobody at aU," Adam said, and suddenly he realized that this was true. Adam Land, heutenant, navy pilot, ace surfboard rider, the man voted by his high school class as Most Likely to Become a Playboy, didn't seem to exist any more. In his place was a nameless person of no character or distinctness—a person in a dream—standing in the dark with his arms full of things he did not know how to use. Standing there waiting his turn to get down into this submarine and go to some unknown place where he had no business to be.

"I just can't go in a submarine,** Jason cried.

"Pipe down!" the major said and added, "All right, gentlemen, one at a time."

Ahead of Adam a marine with the deepest south-em drawl Adam had ever heard whispered. "This heah's a plot bah the Navy. They gonna revenge theyselfs.**

"I'm afraid,** Jason whispered. "Just the idea of goiQg under water in that thing makes me sick at my stomach."

"Stay loose," Adam told him. "If the Navy can do it, we can."

"But it might not come up!"

"They know how to get it up again," Adam told him, and hoped they did.

The line of men was moving steadily forward, and now Adam and Jason had reached the gangplank leading down to the deck of the submarine. In the dark the ship looked black and menacing, a long, flat-topped, low ship. The conning tower, black and streamlined, rose above him, and he could see the outlines of men up there leaning over the high shield looking down at them as the marines moved steadily forward and disappeared, one by one, down the forward hatch.

As Adam and Jason passed the shrouded deck gun a truck on the dock started its motor and began to move o£F. On its flatbed Adam could make out the shapes of torpedoes lying in wooden cradles. The truck, with no lights, drove on away into the darkness.

"I don't want to go,'* Jason said, his voice childish and frightened.

*'It won't be so bad," Adam told him, feeling a little ashamed of himself because he knew that he wasn't going anywhere in their terrifying boat. "At least the enemy can't see you in a submarine."

"But it's under the water!" Jason cried.

"All right, gendemen, down you go," the major said.

Ahead of hun, just around a blacker place in the deck Adam could see the head and shoulders of a man disappearing downward, and when he was gone he waited, touching Jason on the arm. "Go ahead," he said.

Jason walked toward the hatch like a man walking to be hanged. He turned his face back to Adam

and asked, plaintively, "Are you coming, too . . . sirr

"Right behind you,** Adam said.

He waited imtil Jason disappeared into the black hole and then, awkward with all the gear, moved forward and searched for the rungs of the ladder he could not see.

There was one good thing about all this, Adam thought, as he climbed dov^m, his gear clanging and banging against things as he moved. V^oever was really in charge of this outfit would be aboard the submarine. Once in the thing he was going straight to the boss and explain that his being here was a mistake. He wasn't going to be pushed aroimd in this thing any more. Not by sergeants or majors or colonels or even generals. Somebody had made a mistake, and since nobody else seemed ready to straighten it out he*d do it himself.

"You're standing on my head," a voice said from the dark below him, and Adam lifted his foot and then felt around with it until he could touch the deck.

"Okay," somebody said, **all our little heroes are aboard, so close the hatch."

Somebody crowding against Adam in the dark moved, and Adam could see him going up the ladder he had just come dovim. In a moment the black drcle of the hatch cover swung down and then it was absolutely pitch-dark.

"Just what I thought," a voice said, "the Navy hires moles to run these things."

"Hit the lights," a voice ordered and brilHant lights came on.

Adam had never seen so many people in such a small place. With the lights on he found that he was being pressed back against what he guessed was the inner end of a torpedo tube. A big brass handle of some sort was up against his backbone, but when he tried to move there was nowhere to go—the room was completely filled with marines, wall to wall.

"Whoever s standing on mah foots, get oflF," the Southerner said, "so's ah can get off the foots ah'm standin' on."

"When you are going to learn to speak English, Rebel?" a voice asked. "You're not standing on my foots, you re standing on my feets."

"You or Yankee professor, t/ow," the Southerner said.

Adam squirmed around, trying to get the handle out of his backbone, and pushed up against the major who, in turn was trying to find a little room to breathe. "Ive got to see the oflBcer in charge, Major," Adam said. "Right away." He said it firmly and in a tone that would not allow refusal.

"Be my guest," the major said. "He's in this boat somewhere."

"What's his name?"

**Colonel Marcus."

Adam turned to Jason, who was standing perfectly still in front of him. In the bright light Jason looked gray and sick with his Hps pressed together and his eyes closed. "Hold this stuff for me,

will you, Jason?*' Adam asked, pushing his rifle toward him.

Jason's eyes snapped open and he said, "Where re you going? You going to get off? Get me off too.**

"Ill be right back," Adam said, ashamed again for telling such a He. But what could he do for Jason? It was going to be hard enough getting out of his own troubles, and there wasn't a chance of getting Jason out of his. After all, Adam argued, Jason was a combat marine and had orders to be where he was. No aviation lieutenant was going to change that.

"Gangway," Adam said. "Excuse me. Gangway.** Marines shoved and jostled and griped as he made his way through the pack of them. "Gangway. Gangway," he kept saying.

"What do you want me to do," the tall beak-nosed one asked, "vanish?" But he moved somehow enough for Adam to pass him and go on toward the closed door at the far end of the room.

At last he reached the door—if that's what it was called. It was a low, oval-shaped hole in the steel waU and he had to step up and over to get out of the crowded room.

The corridor he stepped into seemed just as crowded. It was a very narrow, low-ceiKnged corridor janmied with people, but here everyone was moving either one way or the other.

The people here were all Navy, and Adam stopped the first one with a chief petty officer's cap and asked, "Where can I find Colonel Marcus?"

"In the skipper's stateroom/' the chief said, making way for Adam to pass.

"Where's that?"

"Third door on your left."

"Thanks," Adam said.

"For nothing, hero," the chief said and went away.

As Adam struggled on down the narrow corridor he heard diesel engines start and felt the ship begin to quiver. He had better hurry, he thought, pushing past a sailor with a foot-long beard.

He heard a faint voice from the outer world say, "Take in fom:." And now, with the diesels idling, the ship was f^lll of their sound—a low, panting hum.

"Take in one," the voice from outside ordered. "All back fuH."