The Iceman_A Novel Page 9

  “Damn,” Burlington said with real concern.

  Malachi laughed. “That may change once the admiral reads my daily logs,” he said. “The chief of staff as much as promised me that he would.”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Burlington said. “This was your first patrol, right? What was your bag?”

  “Heavy cruiser, three destroyers, a maru, and a frigate.”

  Burlington whistled softly. “Hadn’t heard about the other ships,” he said. “With a couple of exceptions, our results out here have been dismal. I suspect he’ll balance that with the mortal sin of disabling the magnetics,” he said.

  “Why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?” Malachi asked.

  “It’s coming, I think. We just might need some modern leadership at the top. We also need to untether our patrol areas from Jap naval bases, where they have all the advantages. I think we should be out on the shipping lanes, where the odds are much better for us.”

  “Does this admiral ever talk strategy or tactics with his skippers?”

  “One-way transmissions, mostly. He’s an admiral. Therefore he has to know more than any lowly commanders or lieutenant commanders.”

  “Even though he’s never made a war patrol.”

  “Bite your tongue, insolent dog,” Burlington said, with a grin. “But I’m betting you’ll get a severe talking-to and one last chance to cleave to the gospel or be damned, sir.”

  Malachi sighed. “I’m not going to put my boat, my crew, and myself at risk by using a torpedo that doesn’t work,” he said. “It’s a steam fish. It leaves a big wake, pointing right back at me. I’ll take that chance as long as I think we have a chance to sink something, but not to protect the reputations of the graybeards at BuOrd.”

  “Well said, Matey,” Burlington said. “Just don’t say that to the admiral. Instead you say, aye, aye, sir, three bags full, sir, tug your forelock, and then do what you want once you get out to sea. That’s what most of us have been doing.”

  “You fudge the logs?”

  “No, we just don’t log the settings. I use the phrase ‘as per doctrine.’ I’ve done some damage, so no one’s asking.”

  “That’s what it takes to keep command out here?”

  “Listen, you keep bringing back lots of tonnage sunk, they’re not going to fire you. Nimitz wouldn’t allow it. Now, you go out there and get skunked? Poof, you’re gone. I say, big deal. You and your crew will still be alive.”

  Malachi wondered if that was the four-devil mai tai talking, but then, looking at the rakish Reed Burlington, that might actually be good advice. “They serve decent food here?” he asked.

  “Don’t know,” Burlington said, finishing his drink. “I don’t come here to eat. I come here for this—he raised his glass and then pointed with his chin—and also that.”

  “That” turned out to be a half dozen pretty young ladies who had just come out onto the roof lounge in the company of three more sub skippers. Two of the girls waved happily at Burlington, who mouthed a silent “bye, now” to Malachi and hurried to join them at the bar. Malachi thought briefly about joining the party, but decided not to. They were all going to get seriously drunk, and that was something he simply could not do. He left the lounge and went down to the hotel dining room.

  He was shown to a corner table in the dining room, which was surprisingly full. It was an international crowd, with Aussies, Brits, Dutch, and Americans contributing to the accented babble. Australia had become the principal refuge for the surviving Allied forces that had managed to escape the clutches of Imperial Japan. In addition to the American submariners, there were elements of the British army and RAF who’d gotten out of Singapore and Burma just ahead of the Japanese army, as well as Dutch survivors of the doomed American-British-Dutch-Australia naval task force, cornered and destroyed in the Java Sea. The bulk of the Australian army was deployed abroad with the British overseas armies.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the waiter said. “May this young lady join you? I’m afraid we’re out of tables.”

  Malachi looked up in surprise and then rose to his feet. He made to pull back a chair, but the waiter beat him to it. The young lady in question was one of the crowd that had shown up on the rooftop. She was older than the rest, a tall, slender brunette with dark, smiling eyes and an air of inherited grace. She sat down, thanked the waiter, and asked for a whiskey when he had a moment. Her voice was low, almost throaty, but her accent was more British than Australian. He thought she was quite good-looking, although she did have some dark semicircles under her eyes.

  “I’m McKensie Richmond,” she said, offering him a slim hand. “Call me Kensie.”

  “Malachi Stormes,” Malachi said. “US Navy. Didn’t I just see you upstairs?”

  “You did indeed,” she said. “Uncle Reed said you really didn’t drink and that that was why you’d left instead of joining in. I decided I’d like to meet an American naval officer who wasn’t a drunk.”

  “‘Uncle’ Reed?” he asked.

  She smiled, and it softened her somewhat aloof expression. Up close he realized she was actually older than he was. “Don’t ask,” she said. “I’d rather not remember that party. At least, so my friends tell me.”

  Malachi grinned. “Well, we’re not all habitual drunks. In fact, most of the skippers aren’t career drunks at all. It’s more the nature of our business, I think.”

  “And what is your business, Captain? It is Captain, yes? We’ve been told that the entire top of the hotel has been requisitioned for submarine captains.”

  Malachi nodded. “Are you sure you want to know?” he asked.

  She blinked and then her chin came up. “Yes, please.”

  “Okay. We leave here and drive for a couple thousand miles up into Japanese occupied Oceania. We lurk for days in iron coffins in the depths of the sea, coming up to ambush Japanese ships and their crews by blasting holes in their ships, burning them in their own fuel oil, and then drowning them in the wreckage. Then we go back down to endure being bombed by enraged escorting destroyers for a few hours, desperately hoping we’ve selected the right depth, course, and speed to avoid having a five-hundred-pound depth-bomb open up our hull and send us down to die by being crushed to death when our submarine implodes at crush depth.”

  He paused for a moment. Her eyes were wide.

  “You asked,” he said.

  “So I did,” she replied.

  “So, oblivion from a bottle after four or five weeks of that is not entirely unwarranted, I would think.”

  She was staring at him now, a hand at her mouth, as were the people at the next table who’d overheard what he’d been saying. “I am so sorry,” she began. “I didn’t mean—”

  He waved her apology away. “It’s I who should apologize for being so dramatic,” he said. “You folks only see us when we come in to unwind. I fully understand how you’d get a bad impression. The truth is, we really appreciate your hospitality. We’re basically all refugees at the moment, and we thank God for you Aussies.”

  The waiter brought her Scotch at that moment, and she looked at it as if not sure she should accept it. She looked over at Malachi, who was silently laughing at her. She grinned, relaxed, took the drink, gave him a salud, and made a substantial dent in it. The tension broken, they ordered.

  “Are you married, Captain?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “Are you?”

  “Goodness, no,” she said. Then she hung her head for a moment. “That was indiscreet of me, wasn’t it,” she said. “That’s the one question no one’s supposed to be asking here in Perth these days, or so I’m told.”

  “It’s a reasonable question,” he said. “I think most of those guys upstairs are married, but they’re also human. They’ve been stuck in a submarine for weeks on end. To have a beautiful woman pay them the least bit of attention is probably the best tonic for recovering from what we have to do.”

  She cocked her head. “That’s quite philosophical, Captain. We’ve
all heard the stories about what London’s been like since ’thirty-nine. The blitz, I mean. There’s apparently a sense that if you can grab some human solace, grab it. The next raid might put you in the ground.”

  “Why, yes,” he said, giving her a rogue’s eye. “I absolutely agree.”

  She giggled. “You Americans,” she said. “You just come out and say it. A generous breath of fresh air.”

  “I’ve been told by expert Lotharios that your young men would rather spend time with their mates in a pub than with women. The skipper who told me that concluded that observation with a heartfelt deo gratias.”

  She laughed out loud and then finished her Scotch. “None of us knows what’s going to happen,” she said. “If you’d said a year ago that the entire British army in Malaya would surrender to a Japanese army invading Singapore on bicycles, we’d have laughed you out of the pub. Now we put a brave face on it, but with most of our army overseas with the Brits, this country is terribly vulnerable. The fact that you Yanks are here is actually reassuring.”

  “We’re here because MacArthur got his ass handed to him in the Philippines and we needed somewhere to hide.”

  “Is that how this awful business is going to end?”

  “Oh, hell no,” he said. “The Japs made the biggest strategic error in history by sneak-attacking Pearl Harbor. On December 6 America was a nation of isolationists. On December 8 we became a furious nation bent on revenge. We will pursue this, all the way back to Tokyo, and we won’t stop until they are crushed. They got a taste of what’s coming this summer at Midway. They lost four carriers. We lost one. They can replace maybe two of those over the next eighteen months, during which time the United States will commission ten. The Japanese have no concept of what’s coming.”

  “How long?”

  “It’s going to take three, maybe even four years, in my opinion. The Japs are tough as nails, utterly ruthless, and filled to bursting with a warrior ethos from the tenth century. The concept of surrendering when faced with overwhelming odds is not in their makeup. Death in battle is the supreme achievement for an honorable Japanese man. We will win this in the end, but it’s going to be the hardest thing America’s ever done.”

  “And you lot down there in Fremantle Harbour—the submarines—are beginning to make that clear to them.”

  “I must admit that, right now, we’re probably just annoying them, but not much more than that. The only comfort to us is that we submarine sailors are the only ones who can annoy them right now, except for some Marines on some island called Guadalcanal.”

  She regarded him with a calculating look. “That’s what my father says,” she said. “He’s a student of history. He says the Americans begin every war on the back foot. Then they recover. Then they come on like the bloody apocalypse. Like the Romans at Carthage, whose orders were to leave no stone left upon another and the entire land covered in a layer of salt for all time.”

  “Carthage is called Tunis now,” he said. “I’ve been there, to the site of Carthage. It’s acres and acres of jumbled building stones, brown weeds, scrub grass, and nothing—nothing—grows there to this day. Ah … here’s dinner.”

  Malachi had a fish while Kensie took on a large beefsteak and a glass of red wine with obvious relish. “This probably came from my family’s cattle station.”

  “Your family are ranchers?”

  “Among other things,” she said. “Iron and coal mining, trucking, sheep, road and rail construction, and various real estate holdings.”

  “Sounds like a regular empire,” he said. “How do you fit into the scheme of things?”

  “My principal duty is as a marriage prospect—into the right family, of course, in pursuit of yet another industrial alliance. Think medieval times. In the meantime, I’m a general surgeon and, I suspect, a huge disappointment to my father’s plans for me.”

  “A surgeon,” he said, admiringly. “I’m impressed. Forgive my ignorance, but is there an aristocracy here in Australia like there is in England?”

  She laughed. “We would never call it such,” she said, sipping her wine. “But there are some important families, the descendants of what you Americans call robber barons. Remember, a lot of the people in this country are descended from men sent out from England as convicts. Some of them made good.”

  “One way or another.”

  “Absolutely,” she replied. “Some of us try for a veneer of civilization here, but Australia truly is a wild place, full of dangerous animals, ancient aboriginal tribes, tough men and tougher women, and a low tolerance for the affectations of Old Europe. We find it exhilarating.”

  He laughed out loud, again startling the nearby diners. “Sounds like where I’m from—the state of Kentucky. It’s deeply Southern and proud of its mountains, deep coal mines, bourbon whiskey, endless caves, racehorses, guns, moonshine, and grotesque poverty disguised as flinty self-reliance. A man knows where he stands in Kentucky, and if he forgets or oversteps, some geezer up on a ridge with a Civil War rifle will correct that.”

  She had her chin in one hand while she listened to him, her dark eyes roving over his rough, almost grim face, aggressive jaw, and a Semitic nose that was almost too big for his face. From a distance she would have thought him a brawler, but his vocabulary and intensity told her that this was man with some layers. And history, probably.

  “I met a so-called American Southerner a few weeks back,” she said. “His accent was rather thick. Yours is definitely not.”

  “I came from a family of coal miners,” he said. “When I got to the naval academy they made fun of my Kentucky accent and rustic expressions. A widowed teacher in Annapolis took pity on me and ironed all that ‘grits and mushmouth,’ as she put it, right out of me.”

  A young man in hospital whites pressed through the dining room, saw Kensie and made a beeline for their table. She uttered a low groan when she saw him.

  “Doctor Richmond, there’s been a train derailment. Passenger train, full of soldiers. Dr. King needs all hands on deck.”

  “I’ve had a Scotch and a glass of wine, Bennie,” she said. “I should not be operating.”

  The young man just stared at her, making it clear that, one, they were overwhelmed at the hospital right now and, two, a piddling amount of alcohol, by Aussie standards anyway, was no excuse for not coming along. Right now would be nice, indeed. She made a face and turned to Malachi. “To be continued, Captain, if it suits you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, surprising himself. “Suits me just fine.”

  She gave him a wan smile, got up, and then hurried after the hospital orderly. She moved with some authority and the confidence of a surgeon through the crowded dining room. Malachi admired what he saw.

  TEN

  The following morning the admiral called a skippers’ meeting aboard the tender. There were only five boats in port, all in various stages of maintenance and preparations for their next patrol. They met in the admiral’s cabin around the traditional long green felt-covered table. Malachi was surprised to find an armed Marine guard posted outside in the passageway. The chief of staff was there, along with the squadron commander’s operations officer. The squadron commander, Captain Lockwood, was on the other side of the continent for a conference with General MacArthur and his staff in Brisbane. Reed Burlingame was looking none the worse for wear, but that was not the case with Pogue White, who looked badly hung over. Malachi shook hands with the other three skippers and then they all took seats. A steward came around pouring coffee and then withdrew. The admiral made his entrance a moment later, and everyone stood up.

  “Morning, gents,” he said. “Please be seated. Everybody met Captain Stormes of Firefish?”

  There were nods all around. The chief of staff did not nod, Malachi noticed.

  “Firefish really rang the bell out there on her first patrol. Confirmed sinking of a heavy cruiser, three escorts, and a maru. This was all up in the northern reaches of the Georgia Straits above Guadalcanal. Admi
ral English told me Admiral Nimitz made the comment that this was the only piece of good news coming from the current Solomons campaign. Our losses in surface ships there have been catastrophic—Nimitz’s word. Those losses have had some consequences in the command arrangements here in the Southwest Pacific operational area.”

  Everyone perked up. This sounded serious.

  “Vice Admiral Halsey has relieved Admiral Ghormley in Nouméa as Commander Southwest Pacific.”

  There were some low whistles around the table. Bill Halsey was a whole different kettle of fish from the somewhat overwhelmed Ghormley and everyone out there knew it, even submariners who had never worked directly for him.

  “We here in Australia still work for Admiral Carpender under MacArthur in what they’re about to rename as the seventh fleet. But make no mistake: Halsey is going to go on a tear just as soon as he can, and apparently he’s already badgering MacArthur for the use of some of the submarines based in Australia. So it’s possible our operating areas may change, at least until MacArthur decides to go to New Guinea.”

  “As soon as it’s safe, you mean,” Reed Burlington commented. There were some sniggers around the table. MacArthur’s escape from Corregidor was still controversial among the few survivors of the Philippines disaster, in which his army had been captured, his air forces caught parked on the ground, and Dugout Doug, as he was called, safe in Australia.

  “That will be enough of that,” the admiral said. “He is the theater commander, and I will not brook any insubordinate comments about a four-star general. Now, the situation on Guadalcanal is becoming somewhat desperate. The Japanese navy controls the night, roaring down from Rabaul, bombarding the airfield there with impunity, and tearing up every surface ship formation we send against them. By day the Marines at Henderson Field control the Guadalcanal area using carrier planes taken from the Lexington, which was sunk back in May by a Jap submarine. This has led to an interesting situation. But first, let me tell you about the coast watchers in the Solomons.