Days of Infamy (29 page)

“Hear O Israel, the Lord is God …” a sailor standing next to Stubbs whispered, in English.

The corpsman cut the rest of the trousers off, looked up.

“You’re going to make it,” he cried, “you’re going to be OK. You still got your equipment. You’re still a man.”

Stubbs, horrified, saw that the corpsman was lying; the kid was horribly burned and torn by fragmentation that had sliced into his groin.

The corpsman pulled a morphine syrette out of a pouch strapped to his hip, pulled off the protective cover of the needle, slapped it into the sailor’s blackened arm, and squeezed it. Part of the man’s burnt flesh came away with the needle.

Stubbs, horrified, yet unable to turn away, could not move.

The corpsman looked, with a penetrating gaze, at the chaplain, who was continuing to recite the prayer in Hebrew.

The chaplain, tears in his eyes, nodded.

The corpsman pulled out three more syrettes. Those working around him were silent. He quickly stabbed all three into the tortuted man’s arm, trying to find a vein.

“Hear O Israel …” Others were whispering it now in English, following the lead of the Jewish sailor, who had translated it from Hebrew. In the burned, blackened face of the sailor, his lips were moving, mouthing the words… and then he was still.

The chaplain leaned over and gently kissed him on the forehead.

“Go in peace, son.”

The corpsman sat back on his heels.

“God damn it,” was all he could say, head lowered. He motioned. Two sailors picked up the body and moved it to the pile farther down the corridor.

“Next,” was all that the corpsman could whisper.

Stubbs turned away and pushed on, unable to bear the sight of the next man awaiting his turn, left leg gone at the knee, bloody tourniquet wrapped at mid thigh, hands and face burned.

“Not me,” the boy started to cry.

The chaplain was by his side.

“Not you, son, you’ll make it. What’s your name and faith?”

Stubbs pushed on. The smoke ahead was thick, acrid; it was impossible to see more than a few feet, Stygian, with flashes of light, men yelling, the fire crew ahead backing up a few feet. There were two sailors dragging back a third man wearing an “asbestos joe” outfit. They pulled the hood off. The sailor inside was passed out, overcome by heat. Another sailor upended a canteen on the man’s face, then pressed it to his lips as he started to come around.

Dangling electrical cables were still hot, swaying, sparking, arcing death to any who might brush against them. He turned to one of his half-dozen assistants who had been trailing behind him.

“Go forward to the next compartment. Cut the power mains there. Get replacement cables and …” He paused, looking at the fire forward. “Just cut the electricity. Go over to Main Street. If the fire isn’t sweeping in there, find out where it is clear. Get replacement cables out of the nearest damage control locker, plug them in, and run them back across to the starboard side. Got that?”

The seaman first class was off, disappearing into the smoke.

“Gangway!”

He looked back. Half a dozen sailors were manhandling a heavy ten-by-ten piece of oak shoring. They had slings attached to it so they wouldn’t lose control of the quarter-ton length of timber. At the bottom of the gangway they paused, a sailor putting his hand on the watertight hatch down to the next level, checking for heat, squatting down to look through the small glass peephole to see how bad the flooding was.

“It’s OK!” he shouted, and he unscrewed the hatch and pulled it back.

“Christ,” was all he said as he guided his team hoisting the timber and started down the steps to the next deck below. They were into chest deep water by the time they hit the bottom of the ladder, men cursing about how hot the water was. They disappeared from view, part of the team next deck down that was struggling to drive ten-by-ten timbers into place to shore up one of the bulkheads inward
from an oil tank that was threatening to rupture, cracked already from the impact of one of the torpedoes.

He was tempted to go down with them, but felt it was time to report back in to the bridge. He went up the ladder the shoring crew had just descended.

On the fifth deck, the smoke was almost as bad. Of course, the damn stuff rose, pouring up through ventilation shafts, gangways still open, emergency escape hatches not sealed off. He went forward to the damage control center for this deck, pulling the door open, going in, assistants following before they slammed it shut.

The air inside was slightly better, drawn down by fan from a vent up on the hangar deck. A plot board in the middle of the room was covered with a chart of the ship. The lieutenant running damage control on this deck looked up at him.

“Fire contained for the moment on this deck, sir,” he announced. “But we’re getting a lot of water runoff from the fires up on the hangar deck.”

“How is it below?”

“We’re surviving.”

There was a momentary lurch; he could feel it in the soles of his feet. Something had given way below; within seconds he could sense they were taking on more of a list to starboard.

He felt isolated, only aware of what was going on here, on this deck, and what he had just seen below. He picked up a phone, heard the click. Good, it was still connected to the damage control center on the bridge.

“Stubbs here.”

“Sir, Lieutenant Ferguson here,” came the reply, connection barely audible. “The admiral is asking what the hell just happened down below.”

“Put him on.”

“Yes, sir.”

A momentary pause.

“Stubbs, you there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What in hell was that?”

He could feel the soul of this ship, sensing that the list was stabilizing, but he’d have to counterflood again.

“Sir, I think it was one of the bulkheads, seventh deck. It was partially staved from the torpedo impact. It probably gave way.”

He thought of the shoring crew he had watched pass just a few minutes ago. He hoped those kids were still able to get out.

“You are still saying we can hold on?”

“Hell yes, sir.”

“I trust you, Stubbs,” Halsey growled. “But it is chaos up here, the smoke is blinding. At least we’re under the clouds so the Japs can’t see us.

“Ferguson here reports they got a phone hookup running down to the port engine room.” He hesitated. “It’s hell down there. Can we get them out?”

Stubbs sighed. “Sir. They’re under two decks of fire and boiling hot water. Besides, if we try and pull them out now, that means abandoning the only engines we still have. That shuts down all power, that shuts down the pumps, we lose the ship.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll talk to them and explain the situation.”

“Right then. Stubbs, we just made visual with
Indianapolis
and its escorts. They’re coming up alongside.”

“Damn good! I’ll be up topside in a few minutes. Can we see if we can get them in close enough to help dampen the fires, start evacuating some of the wounded, and run some power supply across?”

“Fine then. Signing off here.”

“Please put Ferguson back on, sir.”

A momentary pause.

“Ferguson here, sir.”

“Patch me through to the engine room.”

“Yes, sir.”

It took long seconds before someone picked up on the other side. He could barely hear who was speaking over the background noise of what sounded like steam blasting, men shouting.

“Just answer yes or no,” Stubbs shouted, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes …” The voice was distant.

“This is Commander Stubbs. We are aware of your situation. I’m going to give it to you straight.”

“Go ahead …”

“We can’t get you out yet. You have two decks of water and fire above you. We cannot get to you now, but as God is my witness I promise we will.”

“Christ, sir. It’s over a hundred and thirty down here.”

Damn, that could put a man down in a matter of minutes. He could imagine the nightmare of it, steam venting, the claustrophobia, knowing one is trapped, the terror of feeling the ship listing more to starboard. Wondering if it would just keep on rolling over, invert, and then plunge down—and then one waited, hearing bulkheads collapsing, lights blowing out, waiting for death in the boiling darkness.

“You must stay at your posts,” Stubbs said slowly. “Do not try any of the emergency hatches.”

He hesitated.

“And we need you. If you abandon your post, this ship will lose the last of its power. You are the only ones left. We lose you,
Enterprise
will sink.”

A pause on the other side.

“Yes, sir.”

“I promise we’ll get you out. Call in to damage control every fifteen minutes. We’ll keep you posted. Now stick with it, son.”

“What the hell else can we do?” came a distant reply.

“That’s the stuff.”

He hung up, unable to say anything else. Chances were, by the time they did pump the decks clear—if they could pump them clear—the men down in the engine room would all be dead. They were still getting some air; the intake and exhaust stacks to the boilers had to still be working, otherwise the fires would have snuffed out by now.

It would be the heat that would kill them.

He left the fifth deck and started up to topside. He paused on the
hangar deck. Fires here, damage from the first attack, were pretty well under control. The aft elevator hung down at a drunken angle. A crew was already working on it. He wondered if that was a futile gesture. It would take a shipyard with a heavy crane to lift the elevator out so that the hydraulics could be replaced, a new shaft set into place, and then the elevator deck itself replaced. It was a crazy gesture, but on the other hand, it was some kind of signal that they were working to turn
Enterprise
back into a fighting ship. For the moment, any more hands sent below would be in the way.

Amidships was now a hospital area. Once men pulled out from below were stabilized, they were brought up here where at least the air was cooler, an ocean breeze blowing gently through the open sides. A group of sailors were lined up, waiting their turn to give blood for their comrades, corpsmen matching up types and doing direct transfers.

Once topside, he pressed up to the main deck. Seeing the flight deck relative to the horizon, the extent of the list became visible and for a moment far more alarming. They were going to have to evacuate any possible positions below on the portside that could be sacrificed and flood them to keep the ship on an even keel. What was left? He’d have to get back into damage control and run down the prospects.

As reported, he could now see the smudge of smoke on the southern horizon. In spite of the lowering tropical clouds, slanting rain coming down off both port and starboard sides a mile or two out; he could just barely make out the high masthead of
Indianapolis
—a damn good old ship, nearly a battle cruiser with its armament and displacement.

He could only hope that she had enough oil on board so they could pump some across to replace the tens of thousands of gallons lost from the torpedo hits and flooding; otherwise, even if they saved
Enterprise
from sinking, she’d soon be dead in the water anyhow, along with her surviving escorts.

He turned and went back up to the bridge to report in.

Halsey stood on the open bridge, silent, nodding as Stubbs made his report.

And even as he started to explain what was going on below, the deck bumped beneath the soles of their feet, almost as if they had struck something; a second later a blast of fire erupted out of their starboard side. An instant later the explosion changed tone, sounding like large firecrackers. Tracer streaks soared up through the rising fireball.

“What the hell was that?” Halsey cried.

Stubbs shook his head.

“I think it was one of the forty-millimeter magazines.” He sighed. “It just lit off.”

He thought of the young ensign leading the valiant effort to try and empty it before it blew. He wondered if anyone knew the kid’s name.

“Stubbs, should I transfer my flag over to
Indianapolis?”
Halsey finally asked.

Stubbs looked him straight in the eye and shook his head.

“Sir, I hate to sound like some rotten movie line here, but I’ll have to say it: Don’t give up the ship.”

Halsey smiled and grasped Stubbs’s hand.

“ANY QUESTIONS?”

No one spoke. Dave thought that if ever there was a ragtag group this had to be it. Three Wildcats including his own. Three P-40s, two P-36s, five Dauntlesses, which would be the core of the strike force, and three B-17s.

None of them had trained together except for the Dauntless and Wildcat crews off of
Enterprise.
The B-17 guys were fresh from the States flying the older B variant. All the fighters flew at different speeds and had different handling characteristics, and all knew after but a day and a half of battle that they were dead meat against the Zeroes.

It had actually turned into a bit of a democratic process. Struble, as senior rank, had first made noises that he would plan and lead the strike, but the army guys sided with Welldon, captain of the B-17 Gloria Ann, and without much argument Struble had deferred.

The plan was straightforward and simple. They would launch the B-17s first, followed by the Navy planes, then the 40s and 36s, which
would barely have enough fuel to get there and back. If the Japs were where the PBY, which had gone silent a half hour ago, had said they were, and if they maintained their heading, then maybe this motley crew would have a chance of doing real damage to the Japanese carriers.

Altitude would be twelve thousand, a compromise between different aircraft as to most economical cruising height for fuel. Cloud cover was over fifty percent, tops up to twenty thousand; it was going to be turbulent. Welldon in the lead would elect whether to go straight through a cloud or circle around it if it looked too tough to fly through.

There was nothing more to be said.