At the Midway (49 page)

Amos Macklin noted no fine distinctions.   The Navy, far from being the harbinger of a new age of equality, had showed itself as a sea
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going plantation, complete with overseers and slaves.  He was not so much numb with disbelief as embarrassed over his gullibility.  He had believed something because he'd wanted to believe it.  It was the surest way to make a fool out of yourself.

He leaned out one of the gunports with a paint roller and cursed as briny waves slapped him in the face.  He'd barely started working the roller up and down when a flash of salty spray took him by surprise, blinding him.  Holding tight to the roller, he pulled back.

"Hey!" men shouted as he splattered paint around.  There was a messy clatter as he dropped the roller on the deck and clutched at his burning eyes.

"Oh, fine," came a familiar voice.

A minute later he was able to open his eyes.  He found himself face-to-face with Ensign Garrett.  He was stunned by this close-up of the damage Beck had inflicted.  Garrett could have been wearing a grisly Halloween mask.  The ensign grinned at him, revealing red-tinted teeth.  His mouth was still raw.

"Rough, trying to paint a casemate at twelve knots."

"Yes, sir... Mr. Garrett."

"Well, get back to it.  We have to keep the marbles rolling.  If we don't, the marbles will roll over us."

"Sir?"

"The yellow devils, Steward Macklin.  They want their old jobs back.  They're coming to get them."

Horror swelled in Amos' stomach.  Not fear of harm.  It was the idea that he would not be at a proper fighting post when the conflict began that staggered him.  In the unlikely event of a battle, the stewards had been told back at Norfolk, they would be assigned to damage control parties.  A necessary task, with no dishonorable taint to it.  But it was not the job they'd trained for.  Nor the status they had won, then lost.

"Mr. Garrett," someone called, "you mean it's true?  We're going to fight the Japs?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Garrett sighed.

The world blared in with trumpets and windblast.  Dr. Singleton took one grimacing glance abovedecks and recoiled.  "I can't go out there."

Midshipman Davis blocked his retreat.  "You have to."

"The captain be damned!"

Davis was in no mood for Singleton's tantrum.  Now that the good doctor had ruined his cool white tunic with his stomach contents, he was forced to wear his hot regulation blues.  Sweating heavily, he relished the words duty compelled him to speak:  "Sir, if you want the marines to tote you topside, that's your privilege."

"This is insufferable!  All right... all right... lead the way, Mr. Davis."

The climb to the bridge was a Matterhorn ordeal that nearly undid the doctor.  When they reached it, only to find out that the captain was down below, Singleton unleashed a string of oaths that would have lassoed a saint.

"He's in the wardroom," Lieutenant Grissom stiffly informed them once Singleton was finished.

Singleton was able to descend the upper decks with considerably more grace than he'd gone up them.  The hot coffee Davis had plied him with had started an invigorating sweat that lubricated his movements.

In the wardroom they came on Oates in conversation with the navigator.  Davis waited for them to finish before approaching.  After listening to the navigator's woes, however, Singleton grew impatient and stepped forward.  "Are your people still in the Dark Ages, Oates?"  As a virtual prisoner, he saw no need for cordiality.

Frowning, the captain raised his head. "Sir, you are no longer a privileged guest on my ship.  You'll hold your peace until spoken to."

"That's fine, but the magnetic survey yacht
Galilee
did its work in 1905.  Seems to me your charts are three years out of date."

Oates stared at Singleton long and hard.  If a man could literally ignite himself with wrath, Davis was sure Oates would be the one to do it.  The silence extended like a long fuse.  The middy began wondering how Lieutenant Grissom would handle their lonely expedition if Oates suffered an apoplectic stroke and dropped dead.  Odd, he'd never noticed the scar running along the bottom of the captain's jaw before.  As his face turned redder, the scar became whiter, until it looked like a strap that could be pulled of.

Finally, the dual colors abated.  The captain pointed his chin at his chart table.  "Show me."

Standing over the chart table, Singleton took up a pencil and made little notches in the navigator's chart of the North Pacific.  "The Department of Research in Terrestrial Magnetism
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that's part of the Carnegie Institute
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sent the
Galilee
into these waters because they were a complete unknown as far as magnetic observations were concerned.  Fortunately, I was at the Hydrographic Office in Washington when the new charts came in.  Uh… Mr. Davis.  Would you be so kind as to go to my cabin.  In my trunk you'll find the volume
Lines of Equal Magnetic Variation
.  With that, I think we can sort this out."

Having listened to Singleton maunder on and on about his crippled intellect, Davis wanted to ask if he thought he was up to the calculations he was talking about.  He gave the captain a dubious glance.  Oates nodded.  The midshipman saluted and left.

Peering closely at the chart, Singleton asked the navigator, "How old is this?"

"Ten years, I think.  It was the only one we could find on short notice.  The only one with Midway on it, at least."

The doctor's rude snort sufficed for an opinion.  While awaiting Davis' return, he elaborated:  "There are three sets of lines that denote terrestrial lines of force.  The Lines of Equal Declination
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that is, the Lines of Equal Magnetic Variation to you seafarers.  Then the Lines of Equal Magnetic Dip and the Lines of Equal Magnetic Force.  These last two are vital, since they determine how much a compass can be thrown off by iron in a ship.  But right now we're concerned with the navigator's chart."

Those who had known of Singleton's sorry condition but an hour before were agape.  They were all the more impressed when he spun some of the variation coordinates off the top of his head.  On returning with the charts from the doctor's cabin, Davis stood at the back of the wardroom
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the most amazed of them all.

"How many navigator's have been browbeat by their shipmasters when they missed the mark?  Yet every twenty years the magnetic compass shifts one degree.  In some places, such as Rio de Janeiro, it only takes six years for the change.  We blame ourselves for poor navigating when it's the planet itself playing tricks.

"Let's surmise a stormy passage to Hawaii from San Francisco.  The night skies filled with clouds, no celestial sightings possible--depending solely on the compass and using unrevised charts.  The
Galilee
discovered the magnetic field had shifted one to two degrees east since charts were made in the 1870's.  Given a two thousand
-
mile voyage, a navigator could find himself off one-sixtieth of the distance traversed--thirty-five miles!  I understand Midway is a mere two miles in diameter.  A target one could easily miss given the old magnetic readings.

Davis' astonishment was shattered when Lieutenant Grissom, who had joined them a few minutes earlier, chimed in.  "I'm afraid you've missed the point, Doctor.  The nights are clear.  We've been able to obtain very accurate shootings from the stars.  It's not the compass, it's the chart itself.  It's not a proper one.  Not much better than a schoolboy's map."

Singleton's guise of intellectual superiority crumpled, and the rest of his body sagged with it.  Now he looked like a simple, foolish drunk.  "Ah.  Well.  Damn.  Well, Mr. Davis, unroll that on the table, please.  This is--uh, ignore the magnetic readings, then.  This is still more accurate than what you've got."  He pushed away from the chart table.

Grissom and the navigator took his place.

"Yes, doctor," Grissom said after looking over the new chart.  "This is exactly what we need.  Thank you very much."  His tone said,
We thank you in spite of yourself
.

"I noticed all the paint being splattered about.  Going into battle?"  Singleton touched a spot on his face, as if making sure he still had nerve endings.  "If my services aren't required here, perhaps I can offer myself as a journalist from the monthlies."

"Right now, I need you for something else."

Singleton shaded his eyes.  The only light in the wardroom came from small electric fixtures.  In his condition, they were more than enough to inflict severe discomfort.  "Yes, Captain?  What is it?"

Outside the infirmary, as Oates related the tale of William Pegg and the
Lydia
Bailey
, replete with drownings and sea monsters, Singleton pressed his hands to his head, a pained look on his face.

"Exposed for that length of time, inadequately protected from the elements--"  There was a pounding in his head, not helped by the noisy clang and clatter of the ship.  Yet the anticipation of talking to someone claiming to have seen serpents
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beasts that had destroyed a whaler, no less
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sent a curious childish thrill through him.  It was all nonsense, no doubt . Still, it would be intriguing to witness the revival of an ancient myth.

"You might see or imagine anything," the captain agreed.  "But the boy did see
something
."

The doctor immediately understood what Oates was leading up to.  He was to be the luminary of science, the calm of reason in the storm.  But when he entered sick bay and saw William lying like a tossed rag, sympathy suddenly crushed his chest.  "My boy... my poor boy...."

Captain Oates lifted his brow.  He'd not anticipated this outburst.  A gush of alcohol-induced emotion was the last thing they needed.  He nudged Singleton to warn him against histrionics.  Taken unawares, the doctor toppled over.

The ship's surgeon rushed in.  "Doctor!"

Singleton smirked up from the deck.  "Doctor...."

Appalled, Oates strained to help the surgeon and Davis lift the portly man to his feet.  "Get a grip on yourself," he whispered fiercely.  "You're not helping anyone by acting like this.  Certainly not the boy."

"Young man...."  Singleton glanced back at Oates, then sat on the bunk next to William's.  "I've been given a general summary of your miraculous rescue."

William's good hand gripped the empty space where his missing fingers had been.  Turning slowly, he looked the doctor dead in the eye.  "The gulls talked to me.  That in your summary?  They cussed, told me lies, kept me company.  I know that was all in my head.  Their
sounds
weren't real.  But those serpents were.  They killed Lead Foot.  They killed everyone.  They'll kill you, if you run up on them.  I know what I didn't see.  I know what I saw.  If you come to try and talk me out of it--"

"Please!  Son!  I just came to chat.  My name is Dr. Singleton.  Paleontology is something of a hobby of mine.  You know, the study of monsters.  Ancient, extinct monsters.  Calm down! 
Supposedly
extinct monsters.  Now, why don't you tell me what they looked like?"

Like Oates before him, Singleton found himself pole-axed by the boy's conviction.  As the details of William's ostensible delusion came forth, Singleton's concentration focused.  What was he hearing?

"I'm going to get a drawing pad.  With your aid, I'd like to make a picture of these creatures.  And with your help, I'd like to perform a little experiment."

Dr. Singleton felt his lungs tighten like two great bolts in his body.  He asked the boy again:  "What was the length of these creatures?"  Again the boy gave him comparisons between the length of the
Lydia Bailey
and the animals which had destroyed it.  Again, Dr. Singleton checked his galvametric readings.  They were wildly erratic.  Which, in the contrary way of the psychogalvametric register, meant the subject was absolutely calm.

It had taken a bit of courage on the doctor's and the boy's part to enter this experiment.  As minor as the wound caused by the needle was, Singleton found it unsettling sticking William in the palm with it.  The boy had suffered to such a degree that even a pin
-
prick seemed too much to add.  William did not look at all trusting.  He had only one healthy hand left, and the doctor seemed intent on puncturing it to little purpose.  But all the friendly yet skeptical looks visitors had given him goaded him into uncertainty.  Singleton did not tell him this device would reveal the truth.  That might have been perceived as an insult.  Instead, he suggested this was a way to convince others of the truth.  And so William had held out his hand.

Something the doctor had not told Midshipman Davis about the psychogalvanic meter was that it was an excellent detector not only of moods, but of lies as well.  A peculiar electric current excited a person's skin when he or she told a lie.  The intense surge in activity would cause the indicator to become very still, like someone listening to a great piece of music for the first time
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an odd analogy that had popped into Singleton's mind the first time he read about the device's lie
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detecting capability.