Back to Quarters F

Returning to Pearl Harbor, the army transport makes a perfect landing and taxis up to the big hangar on Hickam Field. I step out stiffly, dirty, unshaven and as hungry as a wolf. Pearl Harbor seems unbelievably hot after the cold, high altitudes. I am deaf as usual from the quick descent. The Army kindly gives me a car and the sergeant drives me to Marine Headquarters. There I deliver the confidential papers I have brought from the Colonel of Marines on Midway, and drive to Quarters F.

Except for a piece of bread and a cup of coffee at 4:30 that morning, I have had nothing to eat since dinner at 5:30 the day before. It is now four in the afternoon. The house is silent, dining room, pantry and kitchen empty – beyond the steward and mess boys sleep. I put back my head and send forth loud lamentations – "Steward, Benito, Guerrero" – the pots and pans dance to the volume of sound. The little mess boy comes running, jacket half on, thinking the house afire. "Food," I say in a low whisper, "food for the love of Guam." In no time three steaks appear between large slices of bread, with cups of steaming coffee. I inhale them, as happy as a clam at high tide.

A shower and a clean shave, and getting into fresh starched whites, I look up to see the Admiral standing at my open door. "So you’re back from your Midway vacation," he says with a grin. "Well, it’s time we got going on our picture. That’s a real seagoing sunburn you picked up. And how about an old fashioned in the garden to celebrate the return of the prodigal?" "Look what the tide washed up!" bellows the Salvage Officer, flinging his oil stained shirt into the room behind him, the thick hair on his barrel chest sparkling with sweat. "Well, well, Art has returned to our little home," says the big Captain, "look at his bright-work. Ain’t he pink and shiny?" There is a clatter of bath sandals in the hall, and the Admiral’s young Aide stands grinning in my crowded room, a bath towel around his boyish waist. "See any blondes at Midway?" "Sex rears its ugly head!" yells the Salvage Officer. The Admiral’s Mess is home from work.

We dine in "whites" at seven. The Admiral sits at the head of the table, his gold shoulder markings gleaming in the ceiling lights, his whites fitting very snugly – for he is not thin. The Captain sits at the other end and I sit at the Admiral’s right, with the Salvage Officer between me and the Captain. The Aide is opposite us. We all irk and torment the tall young Aide continually, and he likes it. The two mess boys, one Filipino and the other a Chamorro from Guam, stand one on either side of the pantry door after serving soup. The Admiral, his face deadly serious, bellows, "Steward!" The steward rushes in. "Did you make this soup?" "Yes, sir." He breaks out a broad grin and says in Spanish, "It’s the best you ever made." The Filipino proudly vanishes with the dignity of his rating. The boys smile, shyly pleased.

Serious talk of weighty daily problems, praise of men that are doing well, concern for those who are falling short. Quick to find a flaw in a messmate’s sense of humor about himself, impersonally personal. Dinner finished, the Admiral rises. We lounge into the next room, tired men after a long day’s work. This was a sun porch, but has been blacked out. Four of the long narrow windows are open, admitting a breeze and the late light. We are no sooner lazily smoking in the big Filipino caned chairs, than the boys come in and shut the windows tight. It is blackout time, and they turn on the tall electric fan. To the right, the door is curtained and screened into the big living room. This is not blacked out, and the front door leading to the screened porch stands always open for air. This room, our halls and stairs, are in complete blackness.

The Honolulu Advertiser and Star-Bulletin are shaken flat, the better for tired eyes to see, and rustle abruptly with the turning of the pages, amid stifled yawns. The Admiral only reads the funnies – he knows the news. The center table is piled high with maps, charts and periodicals from home. The Captain rises, stretches and vanishes through the curtain, returning shortly with a ten pound box of candy sent from home. "Oh boy!" says the Aide. "Hot dog!" yells Salvage. "I oughtn’t to," says the Admiral, and does. A recorded comic is turned on. The radio gives a six weeks old version, often in the wrong sequence, but it is home and theater to us.

The Aide, a Lieutenant (j.g.), is not long out of Annapolis. He was in the California, high up in the towering mass of odd steel shapes one above the other, that we call the foremast on a battle wagon. They blazed away all through the blitz. Everybody likes him. He is affectionate, highly intelligent, with a charming personality; the pet of the Mess. The Admiral treats him like a son. From Pittsburgh,- he accents the de of any word that so begins – Dee-troit, dee-lighted. He is the son of a doctor. Most of his gear was lost during the submerging of his stateroom. He got his two stripes in June.

The Captain (CEC) USN, is a civil engineer. Flew out right after the blitz. Keeps his eye on all the building and the thousands of civilians working here – welders, drillers, carpenters are moved about like an army, filling the gap where they are most needed. His duty brings him in close touch with our Commandant, aside from the congeniality of our Mess. He sleeps badly, reads all the periodicals for relaxation, and often sits dazing over the radio after the rest of us have gone to our rooms at nine. He speaks of his interesting engineering accomplishments and of his handling of men in a modest, matter of fact manner; and he would be mystified if he knew that I think engineering a highly romantic profession. He daily bemoans the fact that he was ordered here so quickly that he had to leave two Virginia hams behind him.

The Captain knows all our weaknesses and kids us with kindly humor. He had a son, an Ensign, in the Nevada. When the smoke cleared away, all that was left of his uniform were his shoulder markings, clinging to a portion of his neck band. Otherwise he was naked save for a coating of blood. He was badly wounded, so his men had torn off his clothes to make bandages and tourniquets. A deck rivet had been deeply imbedded in one leg, but he kept his guns firing. Moved to the coast and mostly recovered, he wears the Navy Cross. The Captain’s son-in-law, a young Naval officer, the captain of a four-piper, comes to see us when he is in port.

The Salvage Officer, a bull lieutenant, was in his element the minute he arrived amid the smoldering wreckage. He was formerly an officer in the Marine Corps, stationed in China and elsewhere. A well known polo player throughout the Far East, he has had experiences and close shaves from Russia to India. The ladies pursue him. The Aide has hero worship for him. His khaki cap is all one color, eagle, anchors and gold strap are black. When he heaves his stained shirt and trousers into a corner of his room and dives into the shower, his blatant voice loud in tuneless song, I know what’s coming. Our rooms are separated by our bath. In no time he swaggers in, securing his brass buttons down the front of his whites, white cap with its bright gold on the side of his head, a roguish devil. He hooks the tight high neckband in front of my mirror, smiling approvingly at his reflection. I am working in my drawers, spattered with charcoal. He roars with laughter, doesn’t glance at my picture, smacks me on the back, "Belay that. Enjoy life, what the hell!"

He is a swashbuckling soldier of fortune and Naval engineer all at once, bound on liberty for no good. The next night he will fall asleep after dinner, his strong muscles relaxed, head back and his mouth puckered into a complete open circle. There will rise aloft the even dull cadence of sound. The Admiral will lower his paper, look over his glasses and grin. "Where is my Aide?" he says to the room. "Aye, aye, sir," and the Aide walks over and gives Salvage a smart kick on the foot. "Knock off that whistle, Romeo!"

There are hundreds of small messes, aside from the high ranking quarters. A few officers banded together in small houses, with boys to clean and cook.

Ready for bed, I palm my flashlight, smothering the bright rays to a dull red, and open the opaque windows. There is a white wavering glow from welders on a big ship, all else is black. I had ceased for a while to hear the pile driver, but now at the open window the dusty breeze bears the loud monotony, a-nóther-blitz-a-nóther-blitz-a-nóther-blitz-a-nóther-blitz – it says fast and furiously. Sometimes in the night you are awakened by its sudden halt. It hisses a steamy breath, resting, and waiting for you to fall asleep. You doze. Ping! – pong! It lightly taps its new victim into place. You wait in agony – doze. Ping – ping (quicker); pong, pong, pong (still faster), a-nóther-blitz-a-nóther-blitz-a-nóther-blitz-a-nóther-blitz.... You are as helpless as the pile it drives.

At breakfast I say to the Captain, "I’d miss that pile driver all day long, used to it, but don’t you think the damn thing needs a rest it night?" He smiles happily, "Many of my friends complain of my pile drivers, especially in Dutch Harbor I remember. We had an echo there that was a beaut. It breaks my heart to assure you that this one is goin’ to continue right through your entire happy stay. Have some coffee?" "How about the midnight freight, gentlemen, that spends a solid half hour on the grade up from the harbors? That gets me!" says the Admiral with real feeling. "I gotta be honest," the Captain heaps sugar into his coffee. "Me too – why don’t he use two engines and a ton of sand? A few slow puffs and you know it’s comin’,- his drivers spin and he sounds like a steam engine imitating a Diesel." "He reminds me of a fat man running on a treadmill,. panting like hell and getting nowhere fast," I add. "What burns out my bearings," says the Aide, making motions for me to toss him a cigarette, "is that the minute he gets over the brow of the hill, just below our garden, he is so dee-lighted that he starts tooting his whistle. You’d think he was in my room. I’m going to shoot that engineer some night!" "I hope you get him," says the Captain. "The four telephone calls were a great help to Morpheus. I smothered two, but the gallant Aide was on the downstairs wire; and after the third he woke you up, sir'." "Same thing," said the Admiral. "Army on the windward side of the island reporting unidentified object bearing so-and-so, 5000 yards to seaward, Opened fire after third call; we sent a destroyer to investigate after fourth." "I never heard a damn thing!" says Salvage with a smug grin.

In the dazzling bright morning, the Admiral and his Aide in spotless whites walk to the car. The coxswain stands at attention holding the door open, salutes smartly. The Captain and Salvage drive off in their car in coatless khaki. The big Minah birds that both run and hop at once, take over our lawns, their loud shrill cries sing alto to the bass roar of Pearl Harbor. Guerrero is my room boy and has the place shining. I take off my trousers and shirt and go to work in my shorts. The breeze from the garden is pleasant against my skin. Sharpening charcoal, I start to draw. The boy has finished the bathroom and is standing behind me watching. I know he wants to speak. "What’s on your mind, Guerrero ?" I say without looking around. "Every day picture get more beauty, but make big mess on deck." Well, there is no doubt about it. Charcoal and white chalk do drift to the floor like salt and pepper. Later the coxswain appears at my door. He has a letter from home for me, addressed in my wife’s handwriting. I tear it open greedily for news. It is from my little girl who has had a visitor, a dachshund named Duchess, staying with her. Printed laboriously in ruled lines, the letter reads: "Dear Daddy, Duchess is a darling one. Love, Betsy."

Back to work; an hour flashes by. The telephone rings – the Admiral is sending his car for me, because one of our great ships is soon to pass out of the harbor in a task force bound for the Solomons. Our fighting ships of today gladden the heart of sailor men as much as ever did the old "wooden walls" of the past, and to the keen observer each ship, even of the same class, has its distinct character and appeal. Although their propelling machinery is housed snugly below decks, they have the great beauty that is born of purpose. We stand on Hospital Point overlooking the narrow waters to Ford Island. Planes are circling around to the seaward, destroyers dashing about beyond the harbor gates. The parade starts past us. Two long, lean ships slide by, followed by a huge carrier. Presently the great ship looms large as she makes her majestic way through the narrow channel to pass us. Now there is no purer admiration in the world than a seafaring man’s appraisal of a ship. For with a man appraising a woman and guessing her hidden charms, as the chaplains say, sex is bound to enter, selfishness and other weaknesses of the flesh. But when this ship passes, with all her great stark functional beauty, officers, men and workmen appear as if by magic all along the stringer-pieces of the foreshore. They stand there in silent but excited admiration, appraising her power and guessing her hidden beauty in entrance and run, below the muddy waters of the narrow harbor. I have never seen more spontaneous reverence – what prestige she has!

Leaving the Admiral at his office and driving back to the Quarters, I begin to think of the intricate communication system of a great fighting ship, the maze of telephonic gear to pass the word to any part of her, or to all hands through her loud speakers. Of the keen hearing and perfect understanding by her engineers, of the function of her machinery, or their quick detecting of a complaint from some worn or defective part. Of her Damage Control Officers, who must see, hear, and find out where she is wounded, locate it and repair or compensate for it; often with a flashlight in blackness, water or suffocating smoke, amid the confusing roar of a man-made tornado.

Like all things nautical, this is inherited from another day. For the men of the old sailing ships had fine ears for their brand of music, played on thousands of feet of their great stringed instruments, the ship’s rigging. Think of the fine hearing and keen perception of those hard driving officers! Standing at the break of the poop on a black wild night, they could by the sound of the wind in the cordage, know when to bellow an order through a salt caked megaphone, to ease off or to harden some complaining gear aloft!

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