War and Remembrance (10 page)

“Sir, my wife —”

Hart’s hostile look softened, and his tone too. “Yes, I’m told that your wife is Jewish, and that she may be caught in Italy with a baby. That’s a very bad business and I sympathize, but what can you do about it?”

“Sir, I’ll be ten thousand miles closer, if by chance there is something to do.”

“But we need submarine officers here. I’m combing them from the tender and the beach. For all you know, your wife’s back home by now. Isn’t that the real truth?”

“It’s not likely, but even so, I’ve never seen my son, Admiral.”

Hart stared at Byron and shook his head in a tired way. “Dismissed.”

It was a long glum run to Bataan with Branch Hoban on the driver’s seat beside Byron, in an Army truck groaning with crated mines. At the Mariveles Navy headquarters he said good-bye to his work gang. They responded with offhand waves and grunts as they began unloading. He doubted that they would stay together long.

“Now then,” Hoban jovially remarked, as the dinghy puttered out past the green rocky island of Corregidor into the breezy bay, “the next question is, where’s the
Devilfish?”
He stared around at empty waters stretching everywhere. Manila lay beyond the horizon thirty miles off. Smoke from an air raid marked its location. Not a ship was in sight; not a tug, not a garbage lighter. Fear of the bombers had cleared the bay. “The squadron’s lying doggo on the bottom out around here, Byron. We’ll just wait.” For about an hour periscopes briefly rose from the waves, looked about, and vanished, while the dinghy lay to, tossing. Finally one scope popped up, turned, fixed a stare at the dinghy like the wet head of a sea serpent, and made for it. The dark hull broke the surface, streaming white water; and soon Byron was back aboard the cramped
Devilfish,
which, much as he disliked it, felt and smelled like home.

The executive officer staggered him by saying that his relief had reported aboard. At his hoot of disbelief Lieutenant Aster insisted, “He’s here, I tell you. It’s Ensign Quayne. You know him, that long drink of water off the poor old
Sealion.
They’re reassigning her officers. You were up for a letter of commendation, my boy, but the admiral instead is transferring you to the Atlantic.”

Byron said with false nonchalance, “Then when can I leave, Lady?”

“Hold your horses. Quayne’s had only four months at sea. He has to qualify first. Wardroom meeting, incidentally, in a couple of minutes.”

Ensign Quayne, a pale nail-biter, fresh off a submarine sunk at Cavité, was the one new face at the small green-covered table. Captain Hoban showed up clean-shaven. He looked not only younger, Byron thought, but less obnoxious; the dashing peacetime hotshot and lady’s man giving way to an officer meaning business.

“If any of you are wondering about the soup strainer,” Hoban grinned, unfolding the old scuffed H.O. chart of the northern Pacific on the table, “it’s a war casualty. Not much chance of keeping it properly trimmed at sea, so — the word from headquarters, gentlemen, is to stand by for war patrol
number one. Button up all maintenance work in three days, or scrub it. We top off, take on provisions and torpedoes, and go. The intelligence is that a mess of big transports have already left the Jap home islands, escorted by battleships, carriers, cruisers, and Christ knows what else, for an invasion of Luzon in force. Destination, probably Lingayen Gulf. Looks like Christmas on patrol for the
Devilfish
and most of the squadron. Our orders are simple. Targets, in order of priority: first, loaded troop transports. Second, major combat vessels. Third, any combat vessels. Fourth, any Jap ship.”

A thrill rippled down Byron’s spine. Around the table he saw tightened lips, widened eyes, sobered expressions; on Carter Aster’s long face, a peculiar fleeting grin.

The captain tapped the blue and yellow chart. “Okay. First, to review the basics. We’re eighteen hundred miles from Tokyo here. Five hundred from the Formosa bomber base that’s been slugging at us.
Seven thousand miles from San Francisco, lads.
More than four thousand miles from Pearl Harbor.

“As you know, Guam and Wake look to be goners. They’ll probably be operational Jap air bases in a week.” Hoban’s finger jumped from point to point on the worn creased chart. “So our line is cut. We’re in the Japs’ back yard, surrounded and trapped. That’s how it is. How we got into this mess, you can ask the politicians some time. Meantime help can reach the Philippines only by sea, by the long route via Samoa and Australia outside Jap air range. Ten thousand miles,
each
way.” His meaningful look went round the table.

“Incidentally, that story about the big convoy from San Francisco is horse manure to bolster civilian morale. Forget it. We’ll patrol in waters totally controlled by the enemy. The rest of the Asiatic Fleet will be heading south to Java. They can’t take the bomber raids. Only the submarines will stay. Our mission is to harass the landing of the main Japanese expeditionary force — where, it goes without saying, destroyers will be thick as fleas on a dog’s back.” Another glance around; a tough, exhilarated smile. “Questions?”

Sitting in an easy slouch, Aster held up a hand. “What was that fourth priority, sir? Any Jap ship?”

“Affirmative.”

“Unarmed merchantmen and tankers, too?”

“I said any Jap ship.”

“We follow Geneva Convention procedures, of course — warning, search, putting the crew into boats, et cetera?”

Hoban slid coarse gray mimeographed sheets from a manila envelope. “Okay, here’s orders on
that
point.” He flipped pages. His voice became monotonous and declamatory. “Here we are. ‘On December 8, this force received the following fleet order from the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet:
EXECUTE UNRESTRICTED REPEAT UNRESTRICTED SUBMARINE WARFARE AGAINST JAPAN
.’” Hoban paused to give his officers a meaningful look. ”
’Devilfish
will govern itself accordingly.”

“Captain,” Byron said, “didn’t we declare war on the Germans in 1917 for doing just that?”

“Glad you brought it up. Negative. The Germans sank neutral ships. We’ll attack only enemy ships. ‘Unrestricted’ here means warship or merchant vessel, no difference.”

“Sir, what about Article Twenty-two?” Ensign Quayne said, holding up a bony finger with a chewed nail.

Sans mustache, Hoban’s smile looked boyish. “Right. You just memorized the articles for the qualification course. Repeat it.”

In a dull flat voice, Quayne self-consciously recited:

“Except in the case of persistent refusal to stop on being duly summoned, a submarine may not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant vessel, without having first placed passengers, crew, and ship’s papers in a place of safety. For this purpose, the ship’s boats are not regarded as a place of safety, unless the safety of the passengers and crew is assured, in the existing sea and weather conditions, by the proximity of land, or the presence of another vessel which is in a position to take them on board.”

“Outstanding,” said Hoban. “Unlearn it.” Quayne looked like a startled fowl. “Gentlemen, the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor without warning in the middle of peace talks. We didn’t throw away the rule book of civilized war. They did. This isn’t the war we trained for, but it’s sure as hell the war we’ve got. And it’s just as well. By the time we’d go through that rigmarole, our target would shoot off an SOS and Jap planes would be swarming on us.”

“Captain, let me understand you.” Aster touched a match to a thick gray cigar. “Does this mean if we see them, we sink them?”

“We see them, Lady, we
identify
them, and we sink them.” A jocularly ferocious grin lit his face. “When in doubt, of course, we give them the benefit of the doubt. We shoot. Any further questions? Then that’s all, gentlemen.”

As the officers left the wardroom the captain said, “Briny?”

“Yes, sir?”

Byron turned. Hoban was extending a hand and smiling. The wordless gesture, the youthful smile, seemed to wipe out six months of hostile tension. This was leadership, Byron thought. He grasped the captain’s hand. Hoban said, “Glad you’ll have at least one war patrol with us.”

“I’m looking forward to it, Captain.”

He had been up since dawn, working hard; and he worked late into the night in the torpedo rooms with his chiefs and crewmen, getting ready for a combat patrol. Falling asleep was seldom a problem for Byron Henry, but
this night his thoughts kept drifting to his wife and son. In the cabin he now shared with Quayne were all his mementos: her picture taped on the bulkhead, her letters worn and wrinkled with rereading, the scarf he had filched from her in Lisbon, a single cracking snapshot of the infant. Lying wideawake in the dark, he found himself reliving the best moments of the helter-skelter romance — their first meeting, their adventures in Poland, her declaration of love in the pink boudoir of Jastrow’s villa, the rendezvous in Miami, the wild lòvemaking of the three-day honeymoon in Lisbon, and their dockside farewell in a foggy dawn. He could call up these scenes in detail, her own words and his, her littlest gestures, the look in her eyes; but the memories were dulling, like old phonograph records played too often. He tried to picture where she was now, and what his baby might look like. He gave way to fantasies of a passionate reunion. Like a jewel in his possession was the knowledge that his relief was aboard; that this first war patrol would be his last voyage on the
Devilfish;
that if he survived it, he would be going to the Atlantic.

T
HE
day Pamela Tudsbury wrote her letter to Captain Henry — three weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack — a chill November fog had been darkening London for a week, seeping through windows and keyholes and past closed doors, penetrating every cranny. Doorknobs and banisters were sticky to the touch. Indoors or out one breathed fog; there was no escaping the damp. Bronchitis had her feverish, shivering, and coughing up phlegm as she sorted out her things for tropic travel.

The six o’clock news droning out of her bedside radio chilled like the fog. The threat of the Japanese to enter the war was becoming acute. Rejecting Roosevelt’s latest peace formula, they were massing troops and ships on the French Indo-China coast, a clear menace to Malaya and Singapore. Radio Moscow was denying that Rostov, the key to the Caucasus and its great oil fields, had fallen to the Germans, but every Nazi victory claim these days was lamely conceded by the Soviets within a week; by now they had confirmed that Leningrad was cut off and under siege, and that the Wehr-macht was surging toward Moscow. Moreover, a German submarine had in fact — as Radio Berlin had been claiming for days — sunk the carrier
Ark Royal
off Gibraltar. The announcer read out this budget of disaster with that BBC calm which was becoming so threadbare. She packed cheerfully, all the same, because she might see Victor Henry on the other side of the world. As for the news, she was numb to it. For months there had been only bad news.

The telephone rang. She turned off the radio to answer it.

“Pamela? It’s Philip Rule.”

A voice from the past; a deep, self-assured, unwelcome voice. Arresting an impulse to hang up, she said, “Yes?”

“That’s a dim yes Pam. How are you?”

“I have a filthy cold.”

“You do sound it. Sorry. What are you doing?”

“At the moment? Packing.”

“Oh? For that round-the-world thing Talky’s announced?”

“Yes.”

“Is Singapore on the itinerary?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’m going there myself next week for the
Express.
Getting a ride direct in a Blenheim bomber.”

Pamela allowed a silence to lengthen.

“Pam, Leslie Slote’s in town from Moscow. He’s asking after you. I thought you might join us for dinner. He’s told me quite a bit about your friend, Captain Henry.”

“Oh? Is there any news about him?”

“Well, Pam, I don’t know how up-to-date you are on Captain Henry.”

“What’s Leslie doing here?”

“He’s on his way to the U.S. legation in Bern. That’s his new post.”

“Strange. He’d only been in Moscow a few months.”

“He got into trouble there.”

“Of what sort?”

“Something about the Jews, I gather. It’s a sore point. Don’t bring it up with him.”

“Where are you dining?”

“At the Savoy.”

“I can’t get to the Savoy in this blackout and fog.”

“Ill come for you, darling. Seven o’clock?”

At the attempted airy intimacy Pamela said, “How’s your wife?”

“God knows. Last I heard, she was working in a factory outside Moscow. Seven o’clock, then?”

Pamela hesitated. She was resolved to steer clear of Philip Rule, but she did want to find out what Slote knew about Pug Henry’s movements. Leslie Slote was an arid ambitious Foreign Service man, who had jilted Natalie Jastrow back in the old Paris days, after the four of them had had merry times together for about a year. He and Phil had seemed equally heartless then. She felt a bit more kindly to Slote now, because he regretted what he had done. It seemed extremely odd that he had had anything to do with Jewish matters; for he had dropped Natalie mainly to avoid the career problem of a Jewish wife.