The Commodore Page 26

  Halsey sighed, apparently not in the mood for humor.

  “I need some physical rehab,” Sluff said, quickly. “Balance, strength training. Later, some skin grafts. But my mind is up and running, and I have many Japs to kill for what they did to us that night.”

  “That’s what I want to hear,” Halsey said, nodding. “Okay—get your rehab. And get your ass ready to fight.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Sluff said. “And thank you for hearing my side.”

  “Don’t thank me yet, Harmon Wolf,” he said, as he got up. “I may yet get you killed for real.”

  He made a face at the offending mug of coffee and turned to leave, aide in tow. He stopped halfway across the room and turned around.

  “Something you should know, Wolf,” he said. “You’ve got a very pretty ally, who buttonholed me in a ward tonight and told me where to find you. And what to ask about. Juneau widow, my aide tells me. You married?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, then,” Halsey said, putting one finger against his nose. And then he left.

  Well, then, indeed, Sluff thought. God bless Tina Danfield—heard Halsey was in the hospital, went and found him, and steered him to their meeting. Somebody had faith in him, he thought. Now he just had to generate some faith in himself.

  He blew out a long breath and then shivered as he thought about going back out to face those black ships in the night again. Unconsciously, he touched the plate on the side of his head.

  * * *

  For the next three days he found out that “rehab” meant hours of exercising, from what someone called passive-resistance training to actual walking, stair-climbing, breathing, and, interestingly, hand-eye coordination tests. He couldn’t go straight through any of it on the first day, but by day three he was definitely getting stronger. The only sign of brain damage was his ability to distinguish between colors. It wasn’t that he couldn’t see color, it was that he made occasional mistakes when reading a color chart. Otherwise, he was pretty much himself, warts and all.

  On the fourth morning after Halsey’s visit, Tina stopped by and told him that Captain Hollis had called. He didn’t have time to come up to the hospital complex, but wanted Sluff to know that a new surface-action group was being formed to deal with something important about to happen at Guadalcanal, and that he, Hollis, was going to command it.

  “Well, great,” Sluff said. “I think he’s one of the good guys.”

  “He had one more thing to tell you,” she said. “Browning is coming to see you. He didn’t know what about, but he said to be careful.”

  “Ah, the original silver snake,” Sluff mused. “When?”

  “He didn’t know,” she said. “You have more rehab work to do today, and then we have to talk about discharge. We need the space.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “It’s Guadalcanal,” she said. “Combat injuries but also tropical diseases: we’ve opened a fifth malaria ward. Kids are dying right and left. You should hear the stories the Marines are telling. It’s awful up there.”

  “I know,” he said. “At least a little bit. Tell me, how long will you be here in Nouméa?”

  “Me? I’ll be here until we win this thing in the Solomons. Then we’ll go on to Japan.”

  He stared at her. “You’re that sure?” he asked. “That we’re gonna beat these bastards?”

  “Never doubted it,” she said. “And neither should you. Look, I’ve got to go. Watch yourself with that Browning fella.”

  “I will, and thank you again. I hope…” He ran out of words, and then she smiled at him. “It’s gonna be a long war, Captain,” she said. “Anything’s possible.”

  Captain Browning arrived at noon, accompanied by two JAG lieutenant commanders and a yeoman. Sluff had been about to go down to the cafeteria. He was no longer in hospital garb, courtesy of a classmate who’d come to see him. The classmate was executive officer in a new heavy cruiser that was staging through Nouméa, and he had managed to scrounge up some khaki trousers, uniform shoes, a shirt, complete with the requisite silver eagles, and the fore-and-aft khaki hat known fondly throughout the fleet as a piss-cutter. He’d also brought along some khaki swim trunks and other exercise gear. Given a heads-up from one of the corpsmen that brass was inbound, Sluff had taken the only chair in the room and parked his cane between his knees.

  Browning appeared to be surprised that Sluff was actually in uniform. Sluff didn’t get up when Browning and his crew came into the room, which meant they all had to stand. Browning, who understood the slight immediately, frowned but then cleared his throat.

  “I’ve come here to offer you a deal, Captain,” he said.

  “Do I need a deal?” Sluff said. “What about my court? I think a court might be to my professional benefit. You know, the truth about what happened out there and all that?”

  Browning glared. The JAGs studied the floor. The yeoman looked bored.

  “You do not want to be subjected to a court of inquiry,” Browning said. “Even if totally exonerated, your career will be forever tarnished. The facts of the destruction of your squadron cannot be waved away by any legal mumbo jumbo. So hear me out.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “We propose that you will be medically retired as a result of a serious head injury, as evidenced by that steel plate. You will return to the States and be invalided out. You will be retired in the rank of Captain, USN, with a pension for life at that rank. You will be provided medical care for the rest of your life as a wounded veteran.”

  “And?”

  “And, you will accede to these, um, terms, without complaint or objection. The war will be over for you, as it is for many wounded veterans. There will be no court of inquiry and no blame laid against your professional reputation.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What more could you want, Captain?” Browning asked. “Your war would be over. You will have what amounts to an honorable discharge from the service due to war wounds. You will be a casualty of that fiasco, rather than its perpetrator. What more could you want?”

  “Does Halsey know of this so-called offer?” Sluff asked.

  Browning put on a disdainful face. “What Admiral Halsey knows about anything at all is a matter for me to know and for you to accept. This isn’t a negotiation, Captain Wolf. This is a way for you to retire from the war with your reputation intact. After all, you were a principal player in a tragic defeat at sea for the U.S. Navy.”

  “Not for lack of trying,” Sluff said, softly. “We fought hard, actually, against heavy odds. You ever done that?”

  Browning’s face went red. God, Sluff thought. It was so easy to spin this snake up. Tina would have enjoyed this; he wondered if she was hiding in the bathroom again.

  “The answer is no, Captain Browning,” Sluff said, finally.

  “You’re kidding. Tell me you’re not that dumb.”

  “I’m neither dumb nor disabled. I’m being returned to full duty.”

  “With that?” Browning exclaimed, pointing at the steel plate.

  “Stronger than the original skull, Captain Browning. So: Bring your court if you want to. For now, however, we’re done here. I’ve got some rehab to attend to, and then they tell me I’m being discharged.”

  Browning stared at him in total disbelief. Sluff suddenly understood something. If Browning had been given a shot at such a deal, he would have taken it. He might have been the chief of staff at SOPAC, but Sluff wondered if beneath all that angry bluster he really was just a coward. Somebody had told him that Browning had been the brains behind the victory at Midway, but Sluff was willing to bet he hadn’t been flying an airplane that day.

  “You made a bad decision out there when those cruisers showed up,” Browning said. “You’re making another one now. At least you’re consistent. And as to being returned to full duty, I’m sure we can find some suitable billet for you while we arrange the court. Perhaps at the ammo depot. Good day, sir.”

 
Sluff gave him a polite smile and then waited for the group to leave. He looked at his watch, which had survived all of his various ordeals, even a brief stint on a Jap soldier’s wrist. It was still time for lunch, and the corpsmen were saying they had real beef hamburgers today. Now, that was important news.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Nouméa

  Things happened fast after that. The very next day Sluff was discharged from the field hospital and given a room at one of the old French hotels downtown that had been requisitioned when Halsey had arrived and now served as a bachelor officers’ quarters, or BOQ. There he found out that a new destroyer-tender ship, USS Dixie, had arrived in port. A destroyer tender looked like an ocean liner from a distance, and some of them had been converted from civilian trade. Inside, however, they were filled with machine shops of every description, and they could repair almost all battle damage as long as the ship concerned could make it alongside. Sluff cadged a ride down to the waterfront and went aboard to call on the captain. He explained his situation: He’d lost everything when Barrett went down, including service, medical, and pay records, not to mention all his personal effects.

  The skipper called down to the ship’s store and told them to outfit Captain Wolf with a full seabag. He said he would stand for the costs until someone in Disbursing found Sluff’s pay records. Once that was done, he invited Sluff to stay for lunch in his cabin, where they discussed waterfront gossip and especially the new task group that was forming up. Sluff learned that there were three captains in contention for the destroyer squadron command: one on Halsey’s staff and two others who’d recently been promoted and who were currently serving as destroyer commanding officers.

  The tender’s CO was of the opinion that the guy on Halsey’s staff was the favorite, but all three had one problem: none of them had as yet served in ship-versus-ship combat against the Japanese. The SOPAC staff guy had been CO of a cruiser in early ’42, but had been detached before that ship entered the Guadalcanal campaign, where she was subsequently sunk. The other two were fresh-caught captains coming from destroyer command in the Atlantic Fleet, which was primarily an antisubmarine effort against the U-boats currently tearing up the East Coast. He then asked Sluff what he was going to do next.

  “I have no idea,” Sluff said. “I’m either going to face a court of inquiry for the Russell Islands as fiasco, or go back out there and try it again. The elephants up at SOPAC are dancing, so right now I’m hiding out in the BOQ and waiting to see which way it goes.”

  “That guy, Browning, involved in this ‘dance’?”

  “Met him, have you?”

  “I did when I brought Dixie in from Pearl. Made an office call to meet Halsey. Got Browning instead. Thinks highly of himself, apparently. Gave me a lecture about working around the clock, seven days a week, to support the fight at Guadalcanal. That night I found him dead drunk at the O-club, the one down at the Ducos Cove Rec Center that the San Juan sailors built? Asked him if he was off the clock. Told me to go to hell.”

  “That’s him,” Sluff said. “But he may have his ass in a crack about now. He never told Halsey that I’d been recovered. Halsey wasn’t pleased with that.”

  “You know Admiral Halsey?”

  “In a manner of speaking—we’ve talked a couple of times. Anyhow, it’s all way above my pay grade right now, so I’m just gonna lay low and see what happens. Like I said, when the elephants dance…”

  “Yup. That’s a good rule. Well, good luck with it. They’re talking about sending Dixie up to Tulagi, to be closer to the action.”

  “That might be closer than you want to be,” Sluff said. “At least until they thin out the Japs’ Betty force. If you do go up there, you need to practice getting under way at a moment’s notice and going full bore. And your gunnery, too.”

  The CO laughed. “A tender? What we do is anchor and then build up an island of coffee grounds underneath us from all the machine shops. When they start to foul the main condensers, then and only then do we move.”

  “Not kidding,” Sluff said. “Bettys carry the airborne version of the Long Lance torpedo. Two of those in your guts and even this big girl would break in half.”

  That night Sluff signed out for the beachside rec center. He felt the need for a drink. He promised himself he’d stick to beer, but he was tired of hot single rooms in aging tropical buildings. He took the shuttle bus to the beach and went into the O-club. Now that he had some uniforms he didn’t feel quite so helpless, although the steel plate and his white hair did attract some attention. He wondered if Lieutenant Tina Danfield ever made it down to the rec center. He smiled to himself: she’d be mobbed if she did. After two beers he was feeling pleasantly mellow and wondering if he should maybe call her, when a very young-looking lieutenant junior grade threaded his way across the veranda and approached his table. He was wearing a two-ring gold aiguillette on his left shoulder, indicating he was an aide to a two-star. Everyone in the fleet, except the aides, referred to those rings as loafer’s loops.

  “Commodore Wolf?” the JG asked expectantly. Some of the officers sitting nearby perked up at that title of commodore.

  “How can I help you, Lieutenant?” Sluff said, wondering himself about that title.

  “Admiral Hollis sends his compliments, sir, and requests that you join him for dinner aboard New Orleans, his flagship. I have a car ready outside.”

  Sluff finished his beer and followed the lieutenant outside, where a gray staff car was waiting. They drove down to the harbor, where a black-hulled admiral’s barge was waiting at the fleet landing, two silver stars showing prominently on its bow. Sluff hoped the newly minted rear admiral wasn’t planning to take this pretty boat into battle, where it would become a dangerous fire hazard.

  New Orleans was a 1933 vintage heavy cruiser, with nine eight-inch guns in the main battery. She carried two floatplanes and an additional eight five-inch guns. Admiral Hollis greeted Sluff in his flag cabin and then introduced him to the cruiser’s skipper, Captain Henry Hodges. The flag cabin had a separate bedroom and bath, and the admiral’s office had been converted into a dining room by throwing a white tablecloth over the conference table. After dinner, the stewards cleared the table, brought in a silver-plated coffee pitcher, and then left the cabin. Hollis produced a bottle of Scotch, poured everyone two fingers into their coffee cups, and then asked Sluff to tell Hodges about his experiences fighting the Japanese since becoming a division and then a squadron commander.

  Sluff took a sip of the Scotch and then started in. When he was finished, the coffee remained untouched and the Scotch bottle was down to a bit of vapor. Hodges was looking at him with an expression that made Sluff wonder if he was up to command of a heavy cruiser in a night fight with the Tokyo Express. Hollis’s expression was unfathomable. Then he leaned forward to give Sluff the news.

  “Admiral Halsey has made his decision to appoint you as the destroyer squadron commander in the new task group. You’ll have eight ships, mostly new-construction Fletchers fresh out of training at Pearl. J. B. King will be among them, and you might consider making her your flagship. Your first mission will be to take them to sea for a week, assuming we get that much time, and whip them into a fighting force. No more catch teams, to use your expression. I’ll have a group SOP out by tomorrow night, the comms plan out in two days.”

  “What’s the mission up north?”

  “The Japs are planning to bring an entire army division down the Slot by a heavily protected troop transport convoy—as many as eight transports. Intel says their situation on Guadalcanal is becoming tenuous. We think this will be the last big attempt to defeat the Marines. Our mission is to stop them from getting to Cactus.”

  “What’s coming with them?”

  “There are five heavy and four light cruisers in Simpson Harbor right now, along with twelve destroyers. We have to assume that they’ll all come along for this show. The coast watchers will give us warning when they leave, and I’ve asked for some submarine s
upport to see if we can attrite the force on its way down. The ‘when,’ of course, remains the big question.”

  “But soon.”

  “Yes, soon. Halsey’s moving some carrier dive-bombers to Henderson Field to beef up the attack forces. Their mission will be those eight transports which will be carrying the bulk of the troops. Our mission will be the warships. The bombers need daylight. Against four heavy cruisers, we’ll need darkness.”

  “I’ll need a staff,” Sluff said.

  “Here’s what I suggest,” Hollis said. “Get set up on J. B. King; she’ll be here by morning. Then meet with your skippers and ask them each to send one lieutenant to you for temporary duty. They’ll all squawk and you’ll probably get four if you’re lucky. New Orleans here has a lieutenant commander who’s being detached and his relief’s already on board. I’ll assign him as your chief staff officer.”

  “His name is Larry Price,” Captain Hodges said. “Gunnery guy. Good officer. On his way back to the States to become XO in new construction.”

  “He know about this?” Sluff asked.

  “Knows and volunteered to do it,” Hollis said. “Look—we’re on the knife edge here. The Japs will have heavier and more experienced forces and they are desperate to get these troops ashore, not to mention the food and medicines they’ll need just to stay alive on Cactus. If we can bust that up, we’ll have won even if we don’t win the sea fight. The few—very few—prisoners the Marines have taken came in for food. If we can turn them back, the Japs on Cactus are doomed to starvation if nothing else.”

  Sluff nodded. “Piece of cake,” he announced, with much more confidence than he felt. Maybe it was all the booze.

  Hollis gave him a long, hard look. “You up for this, Sluff?” he asked. “That’s a big piece of metal in your head bone there.”

  “Think of it as armor, Admiral,” Sluff said.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  The Slot

  Two weeks later, not one, Sluff was ensconced in the left-hand captain’s chair on the bridge of J. B. King as the task group pushed its way north up into the Slot at twenty knots. They’d passed the Russell Islands to port just before midnight. One heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and six destroyers, not eight. Hollis had striven mightily for a trained and intact team with no more of this grab-a-destroyer-when-you-can business. He had succeeded, mostly, having lost two of the Fletchers to a carrier group, which was going into the Central Pacific to raise some hell. New Orleans remained the flagship, but the two light cruisers, Roanoke and Carson City, had joined the force only five days before word came that the Japs were finally going to make the big reinforcement push.