At the Midway (48 page)

"Signal the
Daisy
Mae
:  We are proceeding to Midway."

Stepping out on the bridge, he let the clean wind smack him with brisk bursts.  The final degree in his decision was supplied by something that had nothing at all to do with Midway.  The young whaler they had rescued was not yet entirely coherent.  His ranting about sea monsters could only be the result of his wound and long exposure.  Oates could console himself with the fact that this detour had at least resulted in the saving of a life.

But
whose
life?  The boy had given them his name and a scratch-pad autobiography.  Yet his story concerning the fate of the
Lydia
Bailey
cast a doubtful light on his every word.  What had really happened out there?

The ship's surgeon marveled at William Pegg's recuperative ability.  "It's a shame about his hand, captain.  He'd make a fine recruit, otherwise."

"And his hand...?"

"No monsters, sir, please.  A shark did that.  I've seen it before.  The boy will live, and that's miracle enough.  Fever's broken already.  If it weren't for all his talk about sea serpents, I'd say a week more in sick bay would fix him up.  Sea monsters sinking a one hundred and eighty-ton whaler!  I hope he's not permanently demented."

The fact remained they had found Pegg where whaling ships were rarely seen.  The boy had told him about the damage to the pintles.  It had thrown them off course by several degrees longitude.  And the whaleboat they found him in not only confirmed his occupation and the type of ship he came from, but looked as though it had been in a battle.  Before leaving it behind
-
-
there was no room for it on board
-
-
the bluejackets had noted the peculiar marks on its side.  It certainly appeared as if something huge had nibbled at the gunwhale.

But all this only made the boy's story more intriguing, not veracious.  The weather had been extraordinarily calm for weeks, now.  William had lost track of time, but guessed he'd been adrift for ten days or more. Even so, it was doubtful the
Lydia Bailey
had been lost in a storm.  A storm that severe would have also capsized the whaleboat.  Oates racked his mind for an answer, and soon hit on an unsettling possibility.  In his delirium, William might have transformed an unknown menace into monsters.  Something so horrible the lad could compare it to nothing else.  Something as awesome... as a Japanese battle fleet.

That was why he needed Singleton.  Oates did not consider him a charlatan.  He possessed too much knowledge, was known for too many notable accomplishments, to be a fake. He also was a walking lexicography of technical jargon.  If he did not know something, you would never know it by the way he spoke.  With the conviction of science he could explain to William the impossibility of his delusion.  Perhaps then the boy would be able to recall what had really destroyed his ship.

"Mr. Grissom!"

"Yes, sir."

"We're a fine target in these white ducks.  How much battle-gray do we have in our paint lockers?"

"Enough to cover the ship twice, sir.  Seems someone thought we might get into a fight."

"Then let's use it.  Organize details.  Every man available."

"Aye aye, sir.  If I may ask--"

"I know as much as you do.  I'm only eliminating a risk."

"But if we go into battle...."

"The
Bonhomme
Richard
was a wooden ship and she accounted herself pretty well."  Noting Grissom's pursed lips, Oates added, "If we run out of coal, we can stoke the boilers with our 'armor.'  Where there's a will, Mr. Grissom...."

"Yes, sir," the exec grinned wryly.  With a nod of commiseration, Oates again turned to face the sea head-on.

Oysters and packets, sailors and tunny.  I have it all, and none is for me.

Every day the beast grew more voracious.  There was no end to the feeding.  The faces in the boiler fires had begun to coalesce into a single molten visage that winked again and again, a jester of endless pranks.  Standing back, Gilroy looked at the other boilers to either side of him.  He wondered if they contained beasts like his.  One hundred and forty-three degrees Fahrenheit.  That's what the thermometer had said last he saw it.  He gazed at the other stokers and coal
-
passers.  They dragged themselves back and forth across the sizzling deck like prisoners shackled to dead men: themselves.  They slow
-
marched with their long
-
handled scoops, thumping the wood ends in a dirge drowned by engine noise.  Their skin was smothered in a mascara of coal dust.  Minstrels of Hell… plug, plod, ages and ages… the undead Hell.  Their bodies had become dark solitary caves; their contrasting eyes were bored, fearful creatures, peaking out.

They were supposed to inspect each clump of coal to make certain it was not dynamite in disguise.  Thus far, two illicit explosives had been found on the
Florida
.  Both had been discovered before the Fleet rounded the Horn.  Rabid anarchists and fanatical union miners in West Virginia were among the chief suspects.  But no one knew for sure.  There were thousands of avowed anarchists in the United States, members of a world
-
wide movement intent on not just bringing governments to their knees, but on abolishing them altogether.  They saw the Fleet as the ultimate symbol of unnatural authority.  They would have fervently applauded any setback it encountered.

There had been no time to search the coal before their hasty departure from San Francisco, which meant the stokers had to be doubly careful.  A difficult thing, with sweat in their eyes and every joint aching.  But one stick alone, even soggy and broken, could destroy the five
-
million dollar battleship.  If the unionists were the ones responsible for sowing bombs in the Fleet, the irony was lost on the black crew; they were common laborers, just like the common laborers trying to blow them up
-
-
for the good of all common laborers.  The end result was a massive increase in common labor.  The stokers went half blind picking through the coals.  The electric torches bolted above them offered more shadows than light.

To Gilroy, watching, participating, the entire procession was twisted into a turgid, narcotic farce.  Sometimes he laughed lazily at the idea that he was a part of it.  But every time relaxed acceptance of his fate came within reach, something happened to snatch it away.  It was intolerable.  Simply unacceptable.  All he wanted was to be left alone.  But the world shouldered in, told him he could not relax.  That he could not just drop down and die.  Not yet.  There was no charity in this, only greed.  The world wanted every last ounce of life out of him.  Of will.  When he had become a hollow pit, then would it let him go?

So began his grand search.--a search as profound in its way as the deepest peregrinations of great philosophers.  On every trip back to the bunkers his eyes darted further up the heaped coal as he prayed for a glint or gleam that would say: 
Here I am, your passage to the greater world.  The downy pillow of oblivion.  Feed my explosive heart to the boiler.  Sacrifice me to the beast.  Your freedom
-
-

A hard earthy thing beat his shoulder.  It was the chief engineer, demanding his attention. He had to shout directly into Gilroy's ear.  It was the only way one could be heard over the din.

"Hey! You got the gawks again, Gilroy?"  'Gawks' was the chief engineer's flippant term for a heat stroke.  He'd suffered it himself on more than one occasion and knew first
-
hand the desperate gape, the conviction of death.  He was glib because he could think of no other way to approach it.  The stokers did not see it that way.  To them, the chief was just another son
-
of
-
a
-
bitch warrant officer.  He wrapped his hand around Gilroy's brow.  The stoker did not move.  He knew the chief was testing his skin.  If it was cold and clammy, he would know Gilroy was only suffering from heat exhaustion.  The remedy would be simple: a visit to the cool air topside.  But if he was exceptionally hot, if his pulse
-
-
which the chief could feel through his temples
-
-
was racing at one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty beats per minute, he'd know they were dealing with deadly hyperpyrexia.

After several moments, he shook his head and removed his hand.  "I don't know, Gilroy."

"What?"

Leaning to his ear, the chief shouted, "I can't tell.  You're fucked up on something, aren't you?"

"Naw, Chief.  I'm all right."

"Like hell.  I see your lips movin' all the time.  What the hell are you doing?  Singing to yourself?"

"I'm just breathing, Chief."

"That's damn peculiar breathing.  I've got my eye on you, Gilroy.  You hear?  You hear?  I want you to drop dead before you fuck up on me.  You hear?  You hear?"

"I'm all right, Chief."

The boiler room was a wicked parody of tall Palladium music halls.  The loudest sounds echoed with hypnagogic intensity.  Thick chains shouted overhead.  Gilroy turned his back to the chief.  The beast was calling.  Even the chief must know the beast had to be obeyed.

As word was passed of the work details, rumor seared the ship: battle.

There could be no other reason for hiding the glorious (if besooted) white flanks of the
Florida
under drab gray.  Only the officers knew of the cablegram from Midway.  The ordinary bluejacket thought they had been banned from San Francisco.  They had been no more unruly than other crews, so this had to be punishment for all the time they'd spent in the Observation Ward.  It was the ship, not the crew or captain, that they held accountable.  There was no way on earth they could eke out another knot or make the wood shields gleam like true armor.  Black gangs excepted, most sailors possessed a deep loyalty, if not love, for the ships they were stationed on.  The men of the
Florida
, however, pounded the decks in loathing.  And now... fear.

"The Japs," word spread.  "They sent us out to fight the Japs.  Alone."

"Pipe down, there."  Ensign Garrett hobbled towards one of the starboard work crews.  For a moment, silence fell like a brick.  It was nothing short of wondrous that Garrett could stand, let alone walk.  His face was black and blue, the cuts were still bright, and it was a sure bet the rest of his body was in no better shape.

"We going into a fight, Mr. Garrett?" one of the sailors ventured.

"Never you mind.  Just keep the ball rolling. You there!  Get lower with that stroke!"

The paint fumes were potent under the hot sun.  Canvas sheets were raised to protect the sections from seawater as they were first painted, then allowed to dry.  This was why the sailors called it "nearpaint"--they had to lean close over their brushes.  More than one of them was overcome by fumes in the confined spaces.

Each brushstroke spread their apprehension still further.  Between the wood armor and flammable nearpaint, the gundecks might go up in a great sheet of flame if they were struck by even a small caliber shell.

"What happened, Mr. Garrett?  Was it that boy we picked up?  Did his ship run into--"

"Mr. Garrett, if a shell hit near the six-ers, it'd go right through--"

"Mr. Garrett, with no armor around the ammo hoists, won't we--"

Garrett was saved from responding when another work crew emerged from a starboard hatchway.  Two things stopped the questioners dead.

First, the detail was led by Midshipman Beck, who very nearly walked over Garrett when he turned the corner.  They stared at each other briefly, then exchanged stiff salutes
-
-
Garrett's being the stiffer by far.  This calm exchange of naval civility had required enormous self-control on the part of both men.  The bluejackets nodded admiringly.  Now came the moment of truth:

"Lieutenant Grissom has instructed me to augment your detail with these men."

"Very well, Mr. Beck.  Put them on the next gunport.  You'll have water coming up in your face.  That can't be helped."

"Aye aye, sir."

That came off well enough--but the men Beck had brought with him were stewards and messmen from the galleys, every man jack of them black.  They occupied the spot Garrett indicated and cast uneasy glances at the first detail
-
-
whose return looks were equally bemused.  One year ago, the stewards had been sailors.  Few had thought twice about mixed crews before.

But the demotion
en masse
tainted the black sailors as much as color ever could.  Everyone was glad the Negroes had been around to replace the Japanese stewards.  Had they not, the whites would have been stuck with the job themselves.  Yet there was little gratitude.  Perversely, the unspoken belief was that they had been made stewards out of some inadequacy on their part.  They were now unworthy not because they were black, but because they were stewards.