The Commodore (5 page)

“God, I wish I knew what the hell was going on,” Sluff said to the exec, who'd come out to the bridge wing with him. The glistening hulls of the huge battlewagons were barely visible now that the sun had gone down. None of the ships were showing navigation lights, so from here on out Sluff knew it was going to be a radar game. The two battleships looked like castles of steel as they plowed through the darkening waters of Ironbottom Sound.

“You better get below,” Sluff said. “Make sure everyone's had chow and then we'll have to set GQ pretty soon. I don't think there
is
a plan, other than going up around the top of Savo Island and seeing who shows up.”

“The Japs show up, they're gonna get the surprise of their lives,” Bob said.

Sluff looked over at his exec in the gloom. “So far, it's been the Japs who've done all the surprising. They're pretty damned good at this night stuff. Most of the iron on the bottom of Ironbottom Sound is ours.”

“It's their torpedoes,” Bob said. “We see a Jap destroyer or cruiser, we have to assume their torpedoes are already on their way.”

“Damned right, so once we determine that they've seen us, we maneuver. Change course. Change speed. Do something—
anything
—to disrupt their torpedo firing solution.”

“But we're in formation,” Bob protested. “We can't maneuver out of the line without orders.”

Sluff shook his head. “They haven't even had the courtesy to tell us what they
think
is going to happen tonight,” he said. “We get into it, XO, I'm going to do what it takes to keep us alive and
then
to go after the bastards. You can bet your ass the battleship guys are not going to be thinking about their destroyers once the shit starts.”

“Yes, sir,” Bob said, his voice neutral.

“You disagree?”

“No, sir. I like the hell out of that ‘keeping us alive' plan.”

Sluff laughed as the exec left the bridge and headed for the CIC. The OOD reported that the ship was on station at the head of the line plowing through the black waters of Ironbottom Sound. His exec was absolutely correct, though. A warship in formation was supposed to stay in formation until ordered otherwise. In Sluff's opinion, however, that's why there were so many American ships lying beneath them in Ironbottom Sound. This rigid adherence to formation doctrine gave the enemy an immense advantage: Once they could see an American formation, they knew that their fire-control solution wasn't going to change much, which was perfect for a torpedo attack.

Four destroyers, two battleships, looking for trouble. He stared into the blackness ahead. The night air seemed to be oppressively hot and humid, even with the sun down. The twenty-knot breeze coming over the bow gave scant comfort. He looked at his watch. Twenty thirty. Most of the night actions around Guadalcanal had erupted around midnight. The Japs timed their arrival at their objective area so that they could do what they'd come to do and then be out of range of the Cactus air forces by daylight. But what if they came early? As if to accentuate that question, lightning erupted way over on the northwestern horizon, too far away to be heard but bright enough to paint the huge steel towers of the battleships looming behind them in a brief, yellow glaze. That's what battleship guns probably looked like at night when they started shooting at you from over the horizon.

Change of plan.

“Officer of the deck,” Sluff called into the pilothouse. “Pass the word: GQ will go down in five minutes.”

He went to his sea cabin as the shrill notes of the bosun's call pierced the 1MC speakers on the weather decks and every space within the ship. He'd told the XO to plan on GQ in twenty minutes or so, but those distant flashes bothered him. The captain's sea cabin was more like a steel box right behind the bridge than a real cabin. It measured six feet by eight and contained a fold-down bunk, a sink, and a steel commode. It was designed so that an exhausted captain could lie down for a few minutes while not being more than three steps away from the bridge. His battle-dress gear hung on a bulkhead.

He used the head, washed his face, then changed into a long-sleeved khaki shirt, buttoned to the throat. Then came his kapok life jacket, which he tied across his chest with three strings before he pulled up the two straps that went between his legs and back up to the waist. There were two tiny flashlights pinned to the bulky jacket, one red-lens, one white. There was also a police whistle on a cord attached to the jacket's lapel.

Already beginning to sweat from all the layers, he strapped on his steel helmet with the letters CO painted front and back. He could hear the tramp of men hurrying to their GQ stations, along with the first sounds of hatches going down. He bent over with difficulty to stuff his khaki trouser hems into his socks. Finally came the utility belt, which contained a packet of morphine syringes, a full-sized red-lensed flashlight, a pouch of battle-dressing bandages, a sheath knife, and a holstered .45 semiautomatic.

He stood up and inhaled, feeling a little like a knight about to climb up on his charger. The gear hanging from his belt and life jacket was mostly for use in the water or in a life raft. He'd often wondered about the utility of the pistol, but the idea was that if all the officers carried a sidearm and the ship went down, there would be some guns aboard the life rafts. That was the published version, anyway. The officers all knew there were other uses for a pistol should battle damage, horrible wounds, or a hysterical crewman require it. Unlike in a land battle, retreat was not an option in a naval gunfight.

The GQ alarm finally sounded, almost as an afterthought, since most of the men were already on station. He could hear the phone-talkers out on the bridge taking manned-and-ready reports from GQ stations throughout the ship. He took a deep breath and went back out onto the bridge. The usual chorus greeted his arrival. The OOD reported that the ship was manned and ready for general quarters. It was fully dark now, with only a faint moon showing through a high overcast. He went out onto the bridge wing, where he could just barely make out the white bow wave of the destroyer next behind the
King.
The battleships, one and a half miles back, were now lost in the gloom.

He went back into the pilothouse area to the chart table, which was illuminated by a dim red light. The navigation plot showed that the formation was north-northwest of Savo Island, about ten miles behind them. He wondered how long they'd head northeast up the channel, called the Slot by the Americans, that ran all the way through the Solomon Islands chain to New Britain and the Japs' big naval base at Rabaul, almost six hundred miles from Guadalcanal. As if in answer to his question, the signal bridge called down with another course change, this time to the southeast. Admiral Lee, embarked in the
Washington,
obviously suspected that the Japs were listening to American tactical radio frequencies, so he was staying off the radio until the action started. Sluff acknowledged the visual signal and then told the OOD to initiate the turn when the signal was executed. A minute later the bitch-box sounded off with a single word: “Execute.”

The ship heeled gently as she came right to the newest course. The rest of the formation would do likewise, each ship turning in the same spot where
King
had put the rudder over until the entire column was steadied up on a southeasterly heading. He picked up the sound-powered phone handset next to his chair, dialed CIC, and asked for the exec.

“XO, here,” Bob answered a moment later.

“I think I need to tell the crew what's going on,” Sluff said.

“Yes, sir?”

“So you're in charge of the Combat
Information
Center. What the hell's going on?”

Bob laughed. “Um, well, we're on course one three five, speed twenty, and it's, uh, dark outside?”

Sluff smiled. “Tell me something I don't know,” he said. “Like: Has the boss transmitted a battle plan of any kind?”

“No, sir, not that we've seen. After what happened last night, I'm guessing they have intel that the Japs will be back, and hopefully our battleships'll surprise them. But for right now, we're in the mushroom mode for sure.”

The mushroom mode: in the dark and up to their necks in manure. “Okay,” Sluff said. “I wish I had that radar display up here, but I don't, so I'm depending on you and your radar guys to keep me informed as to enemy contacts and what the big boys are doing. If nothing else, when the battlewagons start to maneuver, I do
not
want to get in the way of either one of them.”

“Got it, Cap'n,” Bob said. “Right now all the ships are on station and there are no unknown radar contacts.
Washington
's radar is mounted about a hundred feet higher than ours, so they should see any Japs first. I assume that's when Admiral Lee will start using the radio instead of flashing light.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Sluff said. “It's a pity they don't turn the destroyers loose to go up the Slot and see what's what.”

“No squad dog or divcom,” Bob pointed out. “I think the admiral's pretty much winging it.”

“Sounds familiar,” Sluff said. “Okay, I'm gonna get on the 1MC and do the same thing.”

He hung up the phone and told the bosun to pipe all-hands and then give him the 1MC microphone.

“This is the captain speaking,” he began. “As most of you know we've joined up with a formation of two battleships, the
South Dakota
and the
Washington.
Right now we're steaming in a southeast direction headed down toward the eastern side of Savo Island. The admiral in the
Washington
expects the Japs to come down tonight to finish whatever they came for last night when they ran into our cruisers.”

He paused to take a breath. “You saw our cruisers this morning. That fight did not go well for us, except for the fact that the Japs turned back when it was over. But they have to know they kicked ass last night and that our cruisers are not likely to be out here tonight. What they
don't
know is that two battleships have taken their place, so hopefully we're going to surprise them when they come. If they come, they usually show up around midnight, so that's when I would expect action. Until then, stand easy on station while we wait to see what happens. Hopefully I'll have time to give you a heads-up before the shooting starts. I need all hands who are topside to keep a watch out for torpedo wakes—that's how the Japs usually start a night fight. That is all.”

He handed the microphone back to the bosun as the echo of his voice died out on the weather decks. He wished he could have told them more, but at least his crew now knew as much as he did, which admittedly wasn't much. He wondered what the admiral back there on the flagship knew.

“Bosun's mate of the watch,” he called. “How's the coffee supply?”

“Hot, black, and ready for paving, Cap'n,” the bosun responded.

 

FOUR

The port of Nouméa, New Caledonia

Vice Admiral William F. Halsey looked out at the darkened anchorage and saw not very much. It was nearly midnight. The South Pacific breezes tried their best, but his cabin still reeked of cigarettes and human stress. His flagship, an elderly submarine tender called USS
Argonne,
had no air-conditioning, even in the flag spaces. Have to do something about that, he thought. Maybe run that arrogant Frenchman out of his expansive offices. It wasn't like the French colonial government had anything to do these days but maintain their notorious pride.

He'd sent his remaining operations staff officers to get some sleep. One of them had asked him, pointedly, if perhaps disrespectfully, if
he
was going to get some sleep. Halsey had banished him from his office with a growl and a beetling of his bushy eyebrows, followed by a small smile. His chief of staff, Captain Miles Browning, had stayed behind. He was in the outer office, reading the message traffic and nursing his many ulcers.

It was up to Ching Lee now, Halsey thought, especially after the mauling his cruisers had taken last night.
San Francisco, Portland,
and
Helena
were still limping their way back. As the remnants of the cruiser force had started back to Nouméa,
Juneau
had been torpedoed with the apparent loss of all hands just below Florida Island.
Atlanta
had succumbed even before the retreat began. Two flag officers lost: Dan Callaghan had been Ghormley's chief of staff right here in Nouméa, and Norm Scott—another big loss. Should've kept Scott back here at headquarters. In retrospect, Scott had simply been a supernumerary last night.

He fired up the umpteenth cigarette of the evening. Sending his only two battleships up to Ironbottom Sound was most certainly a calculated risk. Chester Nimitz might not agree, but Chester was back in Pearl, while he, Halsey, was right here with a real crisis in his lap. Battleships were designed for Jutland, with great formations of huge ships blasting away at each other at eighteen miles. That's how battleships fought. Sending
Washington
and
South Dakota
into the narrow confines of the waters around Guadalcanal defied every tenet of naval tactics. Battleships with sixteen-inch guns were practically invincible against other battleships mounting fourteen-inch guns, as long as they tried conclusions at battleship ranges. But last night, Dan Callaghan had taken a cruiser and destroyer formation into something resembling one of Nelson's close-in melees, where destroyers set the top hampers of battleships afire from ranges of less than a quarter of a mile, and the Japs' Long Lance torpedoes had harvested almost his entire cruiser force.

He mentally recited the butcher's bill again.
Atlanta,
gone.
Juneau,
her back broken by a Long Lance, vaporized by a Jap sub on the way back to Noumea.
San Francisco
shredded.
Portland
with her propellers blown off by another Long Lance. Not to mention all the destroyers lost. The only bright spot: The Jap battleship
Hiei,
admittedly something of an antique herself, had been rendered helpless by gunfire from a dozen American ships and then wrecked the next day by vengeful aviators launching from the dirt field at Guadalcanal. The Japs had brought two of their battleships,
Hiei
and
Kirishima,
to bombard Henderson Field and then cover the landing of a fresh infantry division on the island. Dan Callaghan had stopped that effort, at the cost of his life, but tonight Pearl was warning him that the Nips were coming back to finish the job. Pulverize the airfield, then land an entire convoy's worth of replacements.
Then
crush the Marines.