At the Midway Page 5

  He needed a break from the young, innocent faces of the midshipmen in the junior officers' mess, so he went to the chief cook, an ancient black who always looked as though he were about to fall asleep, but who in fact possessed a stunning reservoir of energy. He had to. Overseeing the preparation of three huge meals a day demanded the most out of a man, if he wasn't to be met by the galley.

  "I'll take the slop," Amos told him, nodding at a couple of pails.

  The cook nodded wordlessly. The story of Midshipman Beck and his coffee had already circulated back to the galley and scullery. It was not surprising Macklin wanted to get away for a spell.

  Opening the galley hatchway, Amos was relieved to find a stiff breeze coming in off the port beam, hitting him directly in the face. He would have to walk all the way around the superstructure and the aft turrets so that he could empty the buckets to starboard. He'd been in the Navy too long to perpetuate the novice trick of throwing scraps into the wind--with a faceful of muck as the result.

  This little chore would take him at least ten minutes--more if he could dally convincingly. With luck, he would not have to face Beck again until breakfast.

  It was dark, but Amos could see the Minnesota and the Ohio from the hatchway. Their running lights glowed eerily in the light fog, like the globe lamps Amos had once seen on a misty street in Liverpool. Ardois lights winked continuously, like insomniac insects. Foggy tentacles reached out and grasped for the bridge and the brightwork. One of them chucked Amos on the chin, and he shivered. This was one of those uneasy nights when the world seemed set to grab you. Perhaps this hadn't been such a good idea, after all. Come to think of it, he could finish this task in five minutes, tops. The tall ventilator funnels moaned, as if to hurry him on his way.

  He had taken only a few steps when he heard a man sobbing. Resting the buckets on the deck, he peered into the darkness under one of the lifeboats. It took him several seconds to make out the man prone beneath it--several seconds more to recognize him.

  "Gilroy? That you?"

  The man did not answer. The sobbing continued, only now Amos realized he was not crying. He was suffocating, fighting for air.

  Even in daylight recognizing Gilroy would have been difficult. His face was darker than Macklin's, yet he was a white man. He was part of the Artificer Branch, a Fireman Second Class--one of the 'black crew'. This was the group that lived and worked in the bowels of the ship, along with the stokers and engineers and coal passers. The members of the black crew were the only white men Amos ever felt sorry for.

  Looking across at the Minnesota, he noted the water surging up around its armor belt. For the first leg of their journey, Admiral Evans had ordered that a speed of eleven knots be maintained. From Virginia to the Caribbean, no variation would be allowed. The voyage had hardly begun, and already the schedule was tight. At flank speed the Florida could manage 16.2 knots‑‑the slowest in the Fleet. These were spurts that put only a brief strain on the black crews. But day after day at eleven knots was a killing pace. Combined with the tough training maneuvers they'd undergone prior to their departure, the quick transit was pushing the black crew beyond endurance.

  "The Bennington," Gilroy gasped abruptly.

  Macklin's eyes widened. "You mean the tubes?"

  But Gilroy was heaving so hard he could say no more. Leaning closer, Macklin discovered the problem. The smell of gin burst in waves from his lungs.

  "Damn fool," Macklin hissed. The temperature in the boiler rooms rarely dipped below one hundred and ten degrees. Toiling in that kind of inferno, the last thing a man needed in his body was alcohol. Both he and Gilroy had seen men go into convulsions and die after a long stint down below. More often than not, when their pockets were turned out a flask was found.

  Gilroy regained his composure enough to run a rag over his face. After a few swipes, a streak of white mixed with blood showed through the thick crust of coal dust. Gilroy was using the same kind of emery cloth that was used to scrape rust off the metalworks.

  "Lord Almighty... here, use this. It isn't clean, but it won't take your skin off."

  Gilroy lifted his arm like a man hauling stones and took the dish cloth Amos held out. "Don't matter, Amos." He heaved a few more times. "We all look like you, down there. We don't have faces, anymore."

  "Don't talk. Just--"

  "Down there," they heard a voice say. "A couple niggers. Up to no good, I'd say."

  Amos' heart sank when he saw who the marine sentry was talking to. Midshipman Beck was not the only man on board who deemed Ensign Garrett his personal nemesis. Amos had heard that Garrett was the one who led the galley gangs that ambushed reluctant stewards. If the rumor turned out to be true, he would not be surprised.

  "Black ghosts, black ghosts..." Garrett chanted weirdly as he approached the two men. "Someone's scared up the black ghosts."

  "Sir, I--"

  "But one's not so black, eh?" Garrett leaned down and sniffed. "Call out the marines! We have a drunk, here."

  "But he's--"

  "--not drunk? You mean he's gundecking?" Whenever Ensign Garrett was in one of his mocking moods, which was most of the time, he had a way of pressing his upper lip inward. This exposed a gap between his two front teeth, producing a faint whistle when he breathed. "I don't think he's faking. Let's see him stand!"

  Without thinking, Amos leaned down to give Gilroy a hand. The moment was not made any pleasanter when he banged his head on the lifeboat. His white kitchen hat was knocked into the slop bucket.

  "Avast there," Garrett whistled. "I want to see him stand on his own."

  "It don't matter, sir," Gilroy said tiredly. "It's the Bennington all over again...."

  The whistling stopped suddenly. Of late, the name of that warship was a catchword for disaster. The year before, a boiler tube on the Bennington had burst, scalding sixty men to death. Word got around that the captain had known there were cracks in the tubes long before the accident. He was not reprimanded, because he remained silent about cracked tubes on other ships. The Navy had no love for Cassandras, no matter how clear their case. "You'd better watch talk like that, stoker," Garrett said coldly.

  "You go down and look at the boiler tubes," Gilroy said breathlessly. "All the warrant officers know, but they're like you. They don't want to talk about it. We've hardly begun, and the cracks are already showing."

  "Your cracks are showing."

  "Go look! What if it goes while we're in Estrecho de Magallanes?" he pleaded, his days on a Spanish tramp steamer slipping through. "That would be the finish of all of us. Not just the black crew, but Macklin here, and you...."

  Amos began counting the creaks of the davit span as it rocked gently above the lifeboat.

  "You're not looking to get on the binnacle list," said Garrett. "You've been at the bottle, stoker."

  Creak... creak... creak....

  "That's a special violation on an expedition like this."

  Creak... creak... creak....

  "We're not just talking about the brig. This is--"

  Creeeeek....

  Garrett jerked his head up.

  "The wind," Amos said.

  "No... we've changed--"

  Marines were running aft with their bugles. They put them to their lips and began blowing wildly. Abruptly, gongs sounded.

  "General Quarters!"

  Curses piled on curses as plates piled on laps. Stewards dropped their trays. Mess men were thrown over steam vents. The junior officers looked like so many jack-in-the-boxes as they tried to jump out of their seats, only to drop back down as the ship lurched again.

  A marine stuck the bell of his trumpet through the hatch and blew as hard as he could.

  "Son of a bitch, we hear!" Midshipman Beck shouted as he wiped coffee out of his eyes. He cleared them just in time to see the marine slip and fall with a loud blat!

  Midshipman Davis had found his feet. He dashed for the hatch and jumped over the prostrate marine. Bounding on deck, he found himself at d
ead center of a chaotic storm of shouting sailors and marines and darkness interrupted by slashing lights.

  Davis had been handed over as Dr. Singleton's personal factotum, but the alarm took him away from that onerous duty. More than just excitement, it also shot a thrill of delight and relief through his whole body.

  Ensign Garrett forgot all about Gilroy the instant the bugles sounded. It was his job to oversee one of the most dangerous operations in the Navy and he had no time to think twice. Running to the forward gun turret, he opened the thick steel hatch and waited for the gun crew to arrive.

  For all the fumbling and falling, it did not take long. First the tripper, nodding at Garrett and bouncing through the hatchway--followed in quick sequence by the trainer, the hoistman, one of the pointers, both of the loaders, the other pointer, the rammer, then the plugman. Garrett began to swing shut the five-inch steel door.

  "Wait!"

  A hand appeared. Garrett just managed to keep the door from closing completely and depriving Midshipman Beck of several fingers.

  "Quick!"

  Beck scurried in. With help from the middy, the ensign shut and sealed the hatch.

  "Look lively, gentlemen. Let's start the marbles rolling...."

  The twelve-inch turret was a potential death chamber. The slightest mistake could kill the eleven men inside, as well as the eleven men on the other side of the steel bulkhead that divided the gun cages. And the men in the eight-inch turret, superimposed on the twelve-incher, would have little hope if a shell exploded under their feet.

  Beck was in training. At this juncture, his sole task was to watch, listen, and learn. Any mistake he might spot would have to go unremarked. He could not speak, could not move.

  Ensign Garrett smiled at the midshipman. This was his métier. They were not so much sailors as technicians. After all, the twelve-inch rifled gun was a precise machine. Weighing in at 53.4 tons, it was forty-five feet of pure menace. Charged with three hundred and sixty pounds of smokeless powder, it could fire its huge shell with a muzzle velocity of 2,800 foot-seconds and a muzzle energy of 46,246 foot-tons. If they failed to operate with the precision it demanded, they would miss the target. If they botched the job completely, they would blow up. It was all quite simple to Ensign Garrett.

  Beck saw it very differently. To him, staring at the ominous breech mechanism and recoil cylinders, the turret was a chamber of horrors. The game was to eliminate those horrors. Once that was accomplished, the task was completed. Destroying the target was a bonus that gave you a good feeling later in the day. He glanced at Garrett--and for the hundredth time wondered at the strange naval formality that put him here.

  In a sense, the ensign was as much a nonentity as the midshipman. Garrett was not the gun captain--one of the pointers was. And Garrett did not tell the crew which way to aim the gun. That was the task of the turret trainer, who sat amidst a jumble of wires to the left of the breech. Talking constantly into a speaking tube, his eye was locked to the periscope that peeked over the hood, while his left hand whispered over the large wheel that controlled the barbette which pivoted the one hundred and thirty ton turret. One of the pointers sat below him, adjusting the sights.

  Neither did Garrett have anything to do with the loading of the gun, for that was performed by the tripper, the plugman, and the hoistman.

  As far as Beck could see, Garrett's sole purpose was to shout at the right moment. A moment that would, if they were lucky, never come.

  "Silence!" the gun captain commanded. This was the necessary prelude for the orders to come.

  The sight-setter was listening to commands from Central Station. Far below the waterline, under the heavily armored protective deck where few shells could penetrate, it was the hub of all voice tube and telephone communication. It contained emergency steering gear, in the event the pilothouse and conning tower were knocked out. Perhaps most vitally, it held the gunnery clock. Information from the range takers overhead was transmitted to the Central Station commander, who then entered it into the gunnery clock. Combined with data from the roll gauge, which indicated when the ship was steady, the processed information was fed to the gun captains. It was they, and their pointers, who finally decided when they were on target. But without the gunnery clock to tell them the distance and direction of the enemy, they would have no idea where to aim their guns. Usually, the ordnance officer or executive officer commanded Central Station. From the gun captain's sour expression, however, the men in the chamber knew the first lieutenant was at the other end of the line. A cold, presumptuous character liked by few. No doubt he'd been a number jumper during his Academy days. Not even Garrett liked him, but that may have been because the two of them looked so much alike.

  The sight-setter licked his lips. He would be calling out the range and deflection.

  "Watch it there!" the young tripper hissed at the plugman, who had stepped on his foot.

  The gun captain calmly reached over and slapped the tripper hard on the face.

  No one said a word.

  Including the ensign. With his single stripe, Garrett out-ranked everyone in the turret. But the pointer who had been assigned gun captain was just doing his job by enforcing the rule of silence. Everyone present was fully aware that within the last two years three dozen men had died in the gun turrets of the Georgia and the Missouri. There had been no survivors from those accidents to describe what had gone wrong. Perhaps someone had spoken out of turn.

  From the handling room below there was a sudden slam as the automatic shutter locked under the ammunition hoist. Then a grinding from deep below, like the Devil on the steps, as the shell car rose from the magazine. The gun captain and pointers slipped into their sighting hoods, their eyes pressed to the telescopic sights. Shell up, the rammer maneuvered its eight hundred and fifty pounds down the breech ramp.

  The tripper, still smarting from the slap, levered the first powder bag into place and with the smoothness of a bank vault the breech was swung open. The plugman moved forward, ready with the primer.

  "Belay that!" Ensign Garrett jumped forward. He pointed at the deck, near the large trunnion.

  The men in the turret held their breath.

  One of the powder bags had torn. It was a minute tear--only a small amount of nitro-cellulose powder had leaked. But if a chance spark flew out from the gears, the resulting explosion would kill every man in or near the turret. While the tripper and plugman plucked the grains off the deck, Garrett inspected the other two powder bags.

  Rotten. Both of them. There was no time to check every nook and cranny for loose grains that might have rolled out of sight. For all they knew, the turret was a bomb waiting to go off. The shell car was descending. A casual spark tossed out by the hoist might result in immediate incineration. It seemed to take forever before the flash-shutters slammed and the hoist stopped.

  No gun captain in the world could have prevented the sigh of relief that filled the chamber--a sigh that was also a plea directed at Garrett. They could continue--or they could stop. The ensign's word was all.

  The ordnance officers of the Fleet subscribed to a grim credo: "Better forty men killed than to lose the trophy." This dictum was applied during training sessions, when there was no enemy in sight. At the moment, the men in the forward turret had no idea what was happening outside. The turret trainer at the periscope could see nothing, and no information was forthcoming over his headset. For all they knew, the Japanese fleet had rounded the Horn and was preparing to engage the Atlantic Fleet off the east coast.

  The gun captain gave Garrett a glance that asked: "Well?"

  The men could see it in his eyes. The ensign was not afraid of dying. But he was afraid of acting stupidly.

  Almost imperceptibly, his neck twisted.

  The men understood he was shaking his head.

  Captain Oates did not know his underwear was hanging out.

  He'd been in his cabin looking over the chief engineer's log when the bugles sounded. Up to now, he had
instigated all of the alerts on the Florida himself. In fact, he had one in mind for later that evening at seven bells--a half hour before midnight.

  But this was totally unexpected. The captain's hand jerked, striking a bolt-shaped blot across the page he was laboring over. He was broadsided by a terrible fear:

  Collision.

  As he raced to the bridge, the ship lurched under him.

  Collision.

  The Atlantic Fleet had never quite perfected its system of night maneuvering. Most of the training off the cost of Virginia had involved flashy displays of firepower and daylight maneuvers. Admiral Evans doted over parallels, crisscrosses, tight turns and obliques, but these were all performed while the sun shown high. The spectators on the yachts and the beaches would not have appreciated the complicated yet banal moves and counter-moves that transported a fleet from one place to another in darkness.

  This explained why they were running with their navigational lights on, in spite of a near paranoiac fear of torpedoes. Because, more than torpedoes, they feared themselves.

  With all the long-range and rapid-fire guns on board, the ships of the Fleet could, theoretically, never see the whites of the enemy's eyes until they fished him out of the water. Yet the Navy's ship designers had not been able to shake their fondness for the ancient Roman galleys that had once plied the Mediterranean. Their most deadly feature had been the prominent rams built low on the bow, but they had been built long before the invention of gunpowder and twelve-inch guns.