The Commodore Read online

  “Good, because I sure as hell have.”

  The last ship in his column would be the first one the Long Lances might overtake. If Evans dropped five-hundred-pound shallow-set depth charges in their faces, it would surely disrupt a torpedo attack from astern. One could hope, anyway.

  His JA talker, Chief Meyers, turned to him with the initial damage reports coming up from Damage Control Central. A damage control party had reached the forecastle. They reported that mount fifty-one had been knocked off its roller path by a direct hit on its left front shield and had suffered three dead and eight seriously wounded with burns. Sluff swallowed hard. He knew that only by the grace of God had that six-inch round not exploded inside the mount, which could have led to a catastrophic magazine explosion, like the holocaust that had torn that Jap cruiser to pieces.

  He called the exec down in Combat and asked for damage reports from the division. As he was talking he heard a thumping roar from astern, followed thirty seconds later by another and then another. Depth charges. He hoped.

  He went forward a few minutes later to inspect the damage to mount fifty-one, the forwardmost five-inch gun. He saw that the mount had indeed been blown off its roller path. It was now canted to one side with its gun barrel pointing off at an odd angle, knocked completely out of line. The left front side of the mount was dished in and blackened, with bright steel striations emanating radially from the point of impact. The doc and two of his corpsmen were attending to the wounded out on the forecastle deck, while a firefighting team was hosing down the smoking interior of the mount. The smell of burned flesh was everywhere, along with the stink of high explosive and hydraulic oil, which was bleeding out from the gun mount in several streams. He stopped short of going to look inside the mount. He would have been in the way, and he had no desire to see the charred corpses, which he knew were still inside. Based on what the wounded looked like, he knew the KIA count was going to go up.

  Bob Frey joined him on the darkened forecastle. He’d brought some notes on the damage and casualty reports from the other ships in the division, but he’d forgotten his red-lens flashlight.

  “Anything major?” Sluff asked.

  “Not that I recall,” Bob said, with a yawn. “My sense of it is that they’re all ready to fight.”

  “Good,” Sluff said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  SIXTEEN

  When the Jap ships faded off the radar screen, Sluff set the division up on a fifteen-knot patrol line between where their fight had taken place and the Guadalcanal-Tulagi axis. He’d originally planned to run right for the harbor but then realized the Japs were still out there. They should leave before daylight or the Cactus air force would have a field day, but until then his job was to make sure they didn’t regroup and pursue. He then called for readiness reports from the other three ships by flashing light so as to restore radio silence, ordered condition II in the formation, and then went to his cabin to make a head call and clean up. He then went back to Combat and supervised the preparation of the after-action report and the track charts. Finally he was able to lie down in his cabin for a quick nap before they all went to GQ at dawn for the run into Tulagi.

  As they lined up to make the harbor approach lanes, Combat reported enemy aircraft inbound. The bridge lookouts reported that the cruisers appeared to be getting under way, so Sluff turned the division around and ran for the open sea at thirty knots to get some maneuvering room. It turned out to be a small raid, perhaps ten bombers, most of whom were either shot down or run off by fighters launched from Cactus. None of the destroyers got to even shoot, but the cruisers put up an impressive AA barrage, which unfortunately bagged one of the Marine fighters from Cactus. Sluff sent Evans to pick up the pilot.

  He reported aboard the flagship at 0930. His eyes were sticky with fatigue, having been up all night. He’d been dozing in his chair as they made landfall on Tulagi, but then had come wide-awake when the Jap bombers had shown up. The admiral’s operations officer met Sluff on the quarterdeck and escorted him to the flag cabin. On the way he asked Sluff if he’d had breakfast.

  Sluff had to think about that for a moment. “No,” he said. “Coffee, yes, but breakfast? No.”

  The staffer knocked on the admiral’s door, went in, and beckoned Sluff to follow him.

  Damn, Sluff thought. I am bushed. The admiral came out of his bedroom with a broad smile on his face. He looked freshly showered and had on clean, pressed khakis. Sluff felt like a tramp at a church social.

  “Commodore Wolf, you look like you got rode hard and put away wet, if I may say so, sir.”

  “Busy night, Admiral,” Sluff replied. “Sorry for my appearance.” He eyed one of the conference table chairs with visible longing.

  “Do sit down, please.” The admiral asked if he’d eaten and then nodded at his ops officer, who left the cabin to roust one of the admiral’s stewards. “Tell me all about it. I ordered a sortie when your contact report came in, but by the time we were ready to go, you were already on the way back. I have some work to do with my cruiser division, I do believe. So: Let’s hear it.”

  Sluff laid it out, from the initial contact to the torpedo ambush, the first gunnery run, going quiet and getting north of the Jap formation, turning southwest, being surprised by being taken under fire by the cruiser, and then turning directly into the Jap formation, where each ship fired off two more torpedoes plus as much five-inch as they could cram through their barrels.

  “Then we skedaddled,” Sluff finished. “Before we pissed them off.”

  The admiral shook his head. “Damn,” he said. “I’d like to have seen that. Any ideas as to a score?”

  “Four distinct fires after the first torpedo launch. I think we really hurt one cruiser, and either that one or the other one blew up in our faces as we were going toe-to-toe. He shot my forward mount off and then something happened and he simply disappeared in a tower of fire. Definitely a magazine explosion. Beyond that, I don’t know anything factual, but we probably got a destroyer or two. I do know that they did not pursue us once we headed back southeast. They may have gone on down to Cape Esperance and unloaded some troops.” He paused to deal with a large yawn. “It all happened pretty fast, Admiral. We do have battle damage and casualties, but all four ships made it out of there by the grace of God.”

  There was a knock on the door and then a steward came in bearing a tray of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. The admiral joined him in making short work of what Sluff considered real food. And no SPAM, either.

  “We’ll have a proper report in to you later this morning,” Sluff said when he’d finished, feeling much better. “Plotting charts, damage reports, personnel casualties, and a summary RFS report. The harbormaster is refueling us right about now, but he says he has no torpedoes, so we’re somewhat defanged.”

  The admiral nodded. “We have an ammo ship due in from Nouméa today,” he said. “Mostly ammo for General Vandergrift, but they’ll have torpedoes, too. Now: The Japs have had their noses bloodied twice. I would suspect they won’t be back tonight.”

  “But we will go back out tonight, correct, sir?”

  “Absolutely, and all of us this time. They’ve taken some losses, but one thing we’ve learned about the Japs: They do not give up. And: They learn, too. They’ve been ambushed twice, so the next time they’re going to do something different. What, I don’t know. Maybe come down outside the Slot, or bring battleships again—they have a fair number of them and they know they’ve sunk most of our heavy cruisers.”

  “What’s their objective now, then?” Sluff asked.

  “What I’m hearing from General Vandergrift is that the Jap army on Guadalcanal is in trouble—out of food, lots of disease, plus some very bad tactical decisions that have decimated their numbers. Their troops are apparently calling Guadalcanal Starvation Island.”

  “Great,” Sluff said. “They started it as I remember.”

  “Well, the thing is, Navy intelligence reports that they’re sta
rting to use their warships as fast supply carriers. That’s probably what that mob you tangled with the other night were up to.”

  “Cruisers and destroyers as troop carriers?”

  “Thirty-six-knot cruisers and destroyers,” the admiral pointed out. “They can get in and get out before the Cactus air force can get at them, so if you indeed did sink some of those guys, you helped Vandergrift out, too.”

  “I think we did,” Sluff said. “But it’s all radar plots, except for the cruiser that blew up in our faces.”

  “Got a little close, did you?”

  Sluff smiled. “A little bird, actually a big bird, told me that I was getting a rep for running from a fight. Thinking too much about preserving my ships. Thought it might be time to correct that impression.”

  The admiral nodded but did not smile back. “More advice,” he said finally. “Thoughts about your professional reputation should not play a part in tactical decisions. Now, that’s easy to say and very hard to do, but as a unit commander, you have to focus down on the task at hand and not ever factor in what other people might think of you afterwards. The ability to do that is what separates the pro from the amateur, okay?”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  “No, no, that’s entirely natural. After thirty years of peacetime, we all have to overcome the tendency to worry about our careers, but now it’s time for the cold-eyed killers amongst us to advance. Don’t get me wrong: What you did last night, running right through that Jap formation, must have flabbergasted them, which is probably why your division survived taking on a force like that. I am delighted. Halsey will be delighted as well.”

  Sluff held up a hand. “Maybe we should wait to see what, if anything, we accomplished,” he said.

  The admiral smiled. “Get me my reports,” he said. “As you well know, the fight’s not over until all the paperwork is in. In the meantime, refuel, patch up what damage you can, and have your division ready for sea by sundown.”

  “Four boilers or two, sir?”

  “Two on the line, two on the boil, young man.”

  On the boat ride back to King, Sluff thought about what the admiral had said about allowing careerism to influence his decisions last night. Had he done that? Maybe not consciously, but … subconsciously? He shouldn’t have made that crack about correcting bad impressions. The truth was, he’d gone directly at the Japs because, somehow, they’d figured out his Comanche ride tactic, found the range, and were getting ready to tear up his little force with six-inch gunfire and torpedoes.

  He stood up in the cockpit of the motor launch as it approached King’s rust-streaked side. There was a fat black barge alongside forward, pumping black oil into King’s thirsty tanks. Mount fifty-one, still askew after taking that hit, had its barrel pointed almost straight up in order to allow men inside to clean up the remains of the gun crew. He could see hoses playing through the open hatches, and some of the cleanup crew were wearing face masks. They’d already transferred the most badly wounded ashore to the field hospital on Tulagi, and tonight they would be doing a burial at sea on the way out into Ironbottom Sound. Yet another sad offering, he thought, to those bloodthirsty gods keeping watch over the waters off Guadalcanal.

  In the distance he saw the gray shape of two Navy freighters inching into the harbor. He reminded himself to find out which one had torpedoes. As he climbed the pipe ladder, he heard the announcing system come on, four bells being rung, and then: “DesDiv Two-One-Two, arriving.” He thought back fondly to the days when it would have been: “King, arriving.” This commodore business was making his ass tired. Then he saw the exec waiting on the quarterdeck, with the by-now-familiar two message boards. He resisted a groan.

  SEVENTEEN

  Guadalcanal

  The group sortied from Purvis Bay at sunset, headed not up the Slot but over to Guadalcanal, where General Vandergrift was anticipating a major push by the Japanese army against Henderson Field. He had asked for shore-bombardment support and Admiral Tyree was more than willing to oblige. He had set up two bombardment units, each with one light cruiser and two destroyers. Wichita would cover the mouth of the Tenaru River, where ground patrols reported the enemy was massing troops under the cover of the jungle. Providence was to go four miles northwest up the coast, where coast watchers had reported a second staging area for artillery two miles inland, cleverly hidden from the Cactus air force in an abandoned copra plantation. The Japs had strung netting laced with palm fronds across the tops of the coconut groves and then set up a large artillery park to support the big push against the Marines at Henderson Field. Both units had been ordered to stand off the coast until full dark and then move in to two miles offshore, there to await the call for fire from Marine spotters on the ground.

  Sluff’s ships were operating as individual destroyers this time, mobile gun platforms, rather than as a tactical unit. Each ship was assigned to a specific radio frequency, on the other end of which was a Marine second lieutenant sweating it out in a foxhole much too close to the murmuring jungle across the river, where thousands of banzai-minded Japanese soldiers were gathering to make the emperor proud.

  Sluff called the exec and the gunnery officer to the bridge once they’d made their creep into the beach and turned to parallel the shoreline.

  “The jungle bunnies want us to wait until the Japs actually attack,” he told them. “They say it will be obvious when they do—they fire flares, blow trumpets, and yell a lot. They’ve sent us preplanned area fire targets—where they think the Japs are gathering. When it starts, our spotter will call for area fire. The idea is to saturate the Japs’ jump-off lines with naval gunfire. The group north of here will simultaneously open on the artillery park that’s supposed to support the infantry attack.”

  “Why not start it now?” LTJG Chandler asked.

  “The Japs are probably still moving up to their jump-off line along the river. The Marines want them all present for duty when we join the game. That’s why we have a spotter. For right now, we’re going to set up in our fire-support area and get the navigation track stabilized. We don’t have mount one, and, of course, our cruiser will be the main punch. We’re joining in because the Japs are supposedly bringing up four thousand troops, and they’ll take up a lot of real estate.”

  “This sounds like a slaughter in the making,” the exec said.

  “Which is what the Japs are intending to do to the Marines,” Sluff pointed out. “Bob, I want you in charge in Combat. The biggest thing is not to fire into friendly front lines. Use spots-away any time you’re unsure of where the good guys are and then let the spotter bring you back into the target.”

  “Won’t our spotter know where the Marines are from the git-go?” LTJG Chandler asked.

  “Let me tell you about spotters, Billy. An artillery or naval gunfire spotter’s life expectancy on the front line is about one hour. That’s why they send second lieutenants, because the first lieutenants simply won’t go. The Japs know who and what they are. They have special teams who go in with the sole mission of hunting down the spotters—the scared-looking kid with the ‘different’ field radio and a set of tripod-mounted binocs. So the first thirty minutes will be the most effective. We lose our spotter, we stop shooting until we get another one, okay?”

  “Who’s guarding Ironbottom Sound?” the exec asked.

  “Right now, nobody,” Sluff said. “The coast watchers have reported no ship movements up or down the Slot or even around Rabaul. So, once this little affair is over, the group will probably head north up above Savo, just to make sure.”

  “Hope they’re right,” Chandler said. “Those coast-watcher guys.”

  The Japanese attacked just before midnight and there was no mistaking when the Jap army jumped off. The air over the river lit up with several flares, and then came the racket of Jap rifles and Marine fifty-caliber machine guns trading arcs of tracers across the shallow flats of the river. King’s area-fire initial aim point was right into the river itself, an
d then extending north, back into the jungle on the Japs’ side of the river. The river’s wide mouth erupted into a continuous flashing roar of incoming shells, punctuated by the even larger rounds coming from Wichita, which was stationed behind the two destroyers and offset ten degrees so as not to be firing right over the tin cans. Then all three ships began to move the barrage to the right, degree by degree, hopefully covering the area where several thousand soldiers were formed up to run forward when the command came. King’s spotter wasn’t much help. All they heard from him was: Goddamn! Goddamn! Yeah. Keep it coming. For the moment, it sounded like their spotter had become their cheerleader.

  After three minutes, the preplanned fire mission was over. Now it was time for the spotters to bring the individual ships’ guns onto urgent targets—infantry coming in from an unexpected direction or tanks emerging from the muddy jungle, grinding right over the hundreds of bodies that lay before them and then lurching into the shallow water of the Tenaru River. The entire mission was being conducted from Combat, so Sluff occupied himself as senior spectator, watching the annihilation of an entire Jap army from the port bridge wing. Mount fifty-one remained silent, as if in honor of the ghosts of its gun crew who were now laid out in a row of rubber bags on the ship’s reefer decks, the compartment where the refrigerated and frozen food was stored. Mount fifty-two blasted away in ten-round increments, pausing to let the spotter refine his calls for fire. Sluff could smell the paint burning off its barrel.

  A few miles to seaward a rainsquall was marching across the sea. The muzzle flashes from Wichita made it look like a slow-moving thunderstorm. She was running a three-knot track beyond the destroyers but not by much, blasting away with her fifteen six-inch guns in majestic salvos, each rippling blast coming almost as fast as the destroyer guns. Fifteen balls of fire, followed by a simultaneous shock-wave thump to the ears and then the roar of the guns themselves.

  He looked up to the north and saw similar lightning flashes as Providence and her two destroyers worked over the massed artillery park. As he watched he saw what had to be an ammo dump go up in a pulsing ball of fire, accompanied by a fountain of hot shells falling into the jungle in every direction. Ten seconds later he heard the thump of the primary explosion, followed by a series of smaller thumps as the shells fell back to earth and into the Japanese lines.