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Four Stripes Two smart Marines appear at my door and hand me a note from the Captain. He wishes me to lunch with him in his lonely grandeur. I climb to the broad sunny topsides, weave in and out of the anti-aircraft shields, and arrive at the sanctum of sanctums – the Captain’s door. I announce myself through the armed Marine guards, and the Captain steps out, hand extended. I salute and clasp his big hand. Spacious quarters running right athwartships, delicious lunch, Filipino steward in stiff coat standing abaft him. The Captain is a North Carolinian, tall, shy and modest, with a charming courtesy to all – a fine Naval officer, beloved by his officers and men. Omnipotent, he runs his ship with the strictest discipline down to the smallest details, yet making each of the ship’s company a part of a "happy ship." We talk of many things and I like his old school phrases of people and places. "Yes, I know Commander So-and-So, and he is a mighty fine gentleman." I speak of a Georgian house, and he says, "I had the honor of being entertained in that hospitable Colonial home." I think of the weight of responsibility rested on the broad shoulders of our Navy four-stripers. Living and messing alone, segregated from his shipmates by rank, while all his officers have messmates, bantering, laughing and talking shop around their wardroom table. Each has his part – Executive, Gunnery, Navigation, Engineer, First Lieutenant, Communications (radio, signal, ship’s secretary), Medical, Supply, Division, Junior, Chaplain, Marine – all the juniors, petty officers, bluejackets with all their classes and rates. He is the commanding officer – the Captain. He is responsible ashore or afloat for all of them. The ship’s very hull, her every boat and part, her cargo, and all the two thousand souls in her, rely on his word. He passes his word through the ship by his tireless Executive, and his word is the ship’s word, and his word is law. He says "Make it so," and it is so. I come back with a jerk – "Yes, sir, this is delicious salad." His eyes smile past his large, well-shaped nose. "I reckon you are dreaming of your art. By the way, ah-h (shyly) ah, do you find all the co-operation you anticipated from our officers in the Navy? Of cou’se I mean the regulars. I trust this – ah – too pointed question doesn’t embarrass you, Coale. Disregard it if you like." "I have been given a hand everywhere without exception, just as in your ship, sir." "I am right glad of that." At that moment a Marine appears beside the Captain, salutes, "A plane is reported to starboard by the sky watch, sir." We rise hurriedly, as I thank the Captain for my charming lunch, and he insists that I precede him out his door. In a few seconds the Identification Officer is trying to hold the tiny spot in his glasses against the dancing light of the sky. Closer and closer she comes, and the tenseness is suddenly broken by his reporting to the Captain, who had appeared out of the deck by his side, "PBY, sir." Having blinked satisfactory identification to the cruiser, she circles around counting and appraising us, and vanishes to report us – a distant spread of wings, a blurred dot, then nothing. The shepherd dog with her slow flock of sheep plods on. One of our "tin cans" had what she thought was a contact with a submarine last night, but as Huck Finn. said, "Nothing come of it." Which reminds me that some of the troops aboard are from the Tennessee mountains, and some of their company can’t read or write – got their first shoes with their uniforms. Long to be taught so they can sign their reports and read their names, instead of making their mark. Rut as marksmen they are unsurpassed and all want to be young Sergeant Yorks – all want to fight. A young Army lieutenant leans on the rail beside me, borrows my binoculars and scans the troops aboard the ship abeam of us. We talk of the beauty of San Francisco, which is the port he hails from, and he compares all other cities with her and they all fall short. He squints thoughtfully across the sea and says, half to himself, "I went to Philadelphia once for a week. It is like a cemetery with street lights." Ours is a big country. Landfall The last night – nine days out. Soft, warm and pitch black, with a sense of closing with the land that all sailors feel. Straining eyes from the bridge, dead silence, dim loom of officers peering forward through large square ports, the big foremast just discernible. The long fo’castle rises, melts into obscurity, dips slowly down, and the whole great mass silhouettes against the phosphorescence rushing aft beneath us. The Captain’s quiet voice comes from the void abaft the quartermaster, "Get the position of that ship to port, Jones." "Aye, aye, sir." A faint mass at the door and he disappears on the port wing. "Give me the bearing on that ammunition dump" – his voice floats away on the damp breeze. Below, hermetically sealed up for blackout, the ship is a little hell afloat, a beautiful melange of odors. Toasted humans, hot oil, and many savory scents mingle into one lovely whole. I lie listening to the whirr of my electric fan, the even cadence of the hot engines, in a bed of sweat. All I need is blood and tears to be at war. Up at dawn in a soft violet world. The air is damp and warm. Lazily the light increases, and to starboard we see two great mountains emerge from their sleeping shroud of blue clouds, their feet still hidden in celestial blanket! Our ships are dingy in this melting color. The long, lean cruiser suddenly breaks the spell by catapulting her plane over the deep green-blue sea. Two four-pipers have joined us, and out of the misty color, four swift bombers in formation roar past us. The lavender clouds melt away, and as if by eastern magic, sea and mountains take their place a soft, lazy, moist and handsome scene. On such a dawn a. this came sea-weary whalers for water, wood, fruit and liberty; came the slow packets bringing the Boston missionaries,.to stay and make a jolly good thing of it. Later the luxury liners, gay with bunting and bright paint, moved swiftly in bringing the tourists who came to play and spend. Diamond Head and the gap that the Jap torpedo planes flew through for the stab from the sky that brought war. Past Honolulu, and with just steerage way we move slowly up to the nets at the narrow entrance to Pearl Harbor. A PT boat roars around, leaving us encircled in a lacy belt, white against the green water. The bombers go by like bullets overhead. Past the palms of Hospital Point, Ford Island to port, we make our slow entrance; note the tell-tale oil smudge around the shores, the rusting bottom of the Oklahoma, the twisted distortions of the Arizona; and in the hot sun, our hearts are cold with anger. |