The Lonely War (18 page)

Andrew dropped the Thompson’s muzzle and squeezed off a burst. The sand flew up inches from Hurlburt’s boots. The sound rang in Andrew’s ears as he pointed the muzzle at Hurlburt’s chest again.

“Are you willing to bet your life on my convictions?” His voice was so flat, he was sure nobody would detect the absolute fear hiding beneath the words.

The color drained from Hurlburt’s face, and his mouth twitched. He searched Andrew’s eyes intently. What he found apparently convinced him that Andrew was serious, because he took his hand off his weapon and signaled his men to disperse.

“Waters,” Hurlburt said, “if we both survive this, I’m going to see you court-martialed. You’re looking at twenty to life.” He raced after his squad. As soon as he reached the cliffs, he began to climb.

The sailors hauled the whaleboat into the surf and manned the oars. Andrew jumped in at the last moment and sat in the center of the boat, trembling.

Hudson patted him on the shoulder. “Guts! That took a ton of guts! You’re a better man than the rest of us pussies put together! That’s two I owe you.”

Fighting down the acidlike bile at the back of his throat, Andrew glanced at the Thompson he still clutched with white knuckles and tossed the machinegun overboard. 

Chapter Sixteen

April 28, 1942—0500 hours

O
N
THE
Pilgrim
’s bridge, all eyes were focused on the island, and no one noticed the red flashes eight miles to the east. Seaman Allard, perched in the crow’s nest beside the communications antenna, spotted the tracers rocketing across the cloudy sky. He yelled into the talking-tube that connected the nest with the bridge.

“Here she comes!”

Mitchell leaned over the chart table, marking bearings along their course line. It took him a half second to register the lookout’s warning. Hot needles stabbed up the back of his neck and along his shoulders. He dropped his pencil and raced forward, but before he could reach the wing hatch, he was hurled to the deck as a 250-pound, armor-piercing shell plummeted through the ship’s superstructure, ripping apart bulkheads and decking as it passed directly through the officer’s wardroom.

Clamor broke across the bridge. Bitton barked, “
Sound general quarters! Flank speed ahead! Emergency turn to starboard!
” He caught his breath and said in a normal voice, “Mr. Fisher, check the lookouts. Find out where the enemy is.”

Mitchell realized that the crew now had three critical tasks: assess the damage, control the damage, and engage the enemy. Andrew and the others in the whaleboat flashed across his mind, but he knew the ship came first—they would need to fend for themselves. He pushed himself off the deck and staggered to the bulkhead. With shaky hands and a hideous ringing in his ear, he pulled the red GQ handle.

The battle-stations gong shrieked through the ship. Men on the bridge leaped to carry out the captain’s orders. Towers of white water erupted around the
Pilgrim
while mordant black smoke billowed into the pilothouse, stinging Mitchell’s eyes and making it impossible to see. On the starboard bridge wing, he pointed to an orange flash over the black plain. “There! Thirty degrees to starboard. Distance, I make at eight miles.”

In a flash, the ship’s propellers spun in a violent whir. As the ship built speed and came about, another shell blasted through the hull amidships, right at the waterline. The entire ship shuddered. Below deck, fuel oil and seawater flooded the forward engine room.

“Fisher,” Bitton said, “as soon as our Goddamn faulty radar has a fix on them, commence firing! Mitchell, get damage control on those areas hit. I want to know exactly how we stand. Expedite all damage reports to the bridge.”

Bitton grabbed Fisher. “Dammit, Monte, where are our guns? Get us in the fight, for God sake.”

“Sir, radar shows five enemy ships eight miles to the southeast and closing at thirty knots.”

Mitchell shook off his battle jitters, ignoring the thrum in his gut and the metal taste in his mouth. He grabbed the intercom phone and barked, “Now hear this. This is the Exec. Convey all damage reports to the bridge, on the double.”

All the officers on the bridge pulled on life jackets and steel helmets.

“Captain,” Mitchell said. “Our forward engine room is not responding and we are losing speed. Outrunning them is impossible. Maybe we can slip around the other side of the island and lose them.”

“Good thinking, Nathan. Change course to get us around the back side.”

The
Pilgrim
’s five-inch gun turrets discharged an ear-splitting salvo, followed by another. Red tracers flew in both directions as white-hot shell casings ejected over the forward deck. The
Pilgrim
’s guns bore down tenaciously, trading salvos in a bold and furious melee while the crippled ship tried to slip away through a field of erupting waterspouts.

Mitchell watched the red tracers crisscrossing the sky. His mind was numb and he struggled to think clearly. Despite all the extensive training and drills, he couldn’t push down his feelings of panic. The eye-stinging smoke, the macabre light from muzzle flames, and the ringing in his ears all combined to create a feeling in his neck and shoulders as if molten lava were dripping down his spine.

Another shell slammed into the bow in front of the number-one gun, ripping an immense hole in the deck. The number-one gun went silent as orange flames vomited a hundred and fifty feet into the air. Red heat hit the bridge like it poured out of an open furnace. Seconds later, blackened sailors poured from the forecastle, dazed and stumbling about the deck. Smoke boiled from the hole, which was ominously right over the powder magazine. Cocoa and Grady were part of the forward firefighting party. They helped drag a thick hose to the edge of the hole and sprayed seawater on the flames.

“Skipper,” Mitchell yelled. “No damage control parties are reporting. The intercom must be dead. I’ll have to lay below and have a look.”

“Make it quick, Nathan. If they can’t control the forward fire, flood the number-one magazine and jettison the ready ammo. It’s our death sentence if that blows.”

Mitchell ran along the main deck, past cursing men who wrestled with the water hoses. Another shell smashed into the deck amidships and he slammed to his knees. The shell ripped into the main boiler; live steam shrieked through the gaping hole, drowning out the screams from the scalded men in the lower compartments.

Mitchell stumbled to his feet and found Baker at the aft edge of the quarterdeck, barking orders to the firefighting party. He grabbed Baker and turned the chief to face him. The chief’s face was streaked with soot and sweat, but there was no sign of panic in his eyes.

“Sir, the forward engine room is awash, but we’ve contained the flooding. There’s a huge fire forward and I’m not sure we can bring it under control before the magazine goes, but we’re giving it hell. And we lost a boiler, so all in all, I don’t like our chances.”

A scream echoed from amidships. “My leg, my leg!”

Mitchell patted Baker on the shoulder. “Flood the forward magazine and jettison the ready ammo. You need to somehow turn off the fuel valve to the boiler and have someone drag that man to sick bay.”

Mitchell raced toward the bow, but an explosion forward rocked the ship and sent him staggering backward, tripping over a tangled mass of hoses. He hauled himself to his feet and pushed his way through a pandemonium of panicked sailors running aft. He heaved himself up the ladder to the bridge and searched through the black smoke. The dim form of the captain appeared, bent over and coughing into his handkerchief.

The captain straightened up and looked Mitchell in the eye. Bitton’s eyeballs were rimmed in red while his face was blackened.

The helmsmen, radarman, signalman, and the lookouts all gathered around to hear the report. Their faces had each taken on the expression of stark terror.

“We’ve lost the forward engine room, a boiler, and the fire forward is still out of control.”

Bitton stood silent for a moment. Before he could issue another order, an explosion launched a thirty-foot section of the forecastle skyward. It was the powder magazine. The deck jerked, and all the men on the bridge fell back as a wall of flames roared skyward.

Heat hit Mitchell in the face like a blowtorch’s flame. Several members of the firefighting team, including Cocoa and Grady, were blown clean over the ship’s railing. The
Pilgrim
and her crew paused, stunned like a bull struck between the eyes with a sledgehammer.

The forward sections took on seawater by the ton, causing the ship to list heavily to starboard. Mitchell felt a jolt of pure fear race from his heart to his bowels as he calculated how much longer they could keep her afloat: five minutes, probably less.

“We’re licked,” Bitton shouted as he tried to see through the smoke to the island. “At least we accomplished our mission. Pass the word to abandon ship. Get everybody in the water and take muster. I want to know who we’ve lost.”

Before Mitchell could obey the order, all bridge electrical devices went dead. Emergency generators came alive to provide auxiliary power, but sparks flew and the lights sputtered before dying for good.

Mitchell couldn’t believe how quickly the situation had deteriorated. Twelve minutes had passed since that first warning yell from the crow’s nest, and now the ship was listing twenty degrees and was out of control. A dozen minutes from dead calm to catastrophe.

Mitchell ran onto the port wing and screamed at Baker to launch the remaining whaleboat, loosen the life rafts, and abandon ship. The orders flashed like lightning from one group to the next. The damage control and ordnance crews gave up the fight and turned on a dime into rescue units, hauling trapped men from flooding compartments and loading the wounded into the whaleboat and life rafts. It would take time to gather the wounded, Mitchell knew, time he was sure they didn’t have.

Bitton yelled through the smoke to Mitchell. “Have Kelso send out a distress signal. It’s imperative that he radio CincPac our position.” He handed a key to the duty quartermaster. “Take all the logs and publications from my cabin safe and throw them overboard in weighted bags. Move it, man!”

The twenty-degree list slanted the deck so that it had an uphill climb to port. One engine room still operated, pushing the ship ahead at five knots. The weight of the incoming sea smashed through the auxiliary bulkheads, flooding one compartment after another. Men abandoned the wounded belowdecks and scrambled to save themselves.

Mitchell climbed the ladder to the radio shack and ordered Kelso to send a distress signal. Kelso wagged his head, explaining that he had no electrical power. There was nothing he could do.

By the time Mitchell and Kelso made their way to the main deck, the ship had lost nearly all forward speed, and thousands of gallons of fuel oil spewed from the ruptured hull, creating a poisonous blanket over the sea that spread behind the ship. The
Pilgrim
now listed thirty degrees, and a whirl of chaos unfolded as sailors raced down the sloping deck and into the sea’s embrace.

Amidships, Baker and five sailors wrestled the whaleboat into the water while others freed the life rafts. The
Pilgrim
slowed to a crawl with her guns pointed out at queer angles. An incendiary shell hit the fantail, spewing fire all along the aft deck. Far up the slanting crow’s nest, visible in the fire’s orange light, the Stars and Stripes waved defiantly over the chaos below.

Mitchell smelled the nauseating stench of burning fuel oil, rubber, and human flesh. The ship shuddered beneath him as three explosions sounded in rapid secession throughout the interior. He sprinted to Baker’s side and studied the situation. Most of the crew were mustering at abandon-ship stations or were already in the water, but he didn’t see the captain anywhere.

“Chief, where’s the skipper?”

“As far as I know, he never left the bridge, sir.”

Mitchell dashed forward, taking the stairs three at a time. In the wheelhouse, Bitton was sprawled on the deck, unconscious. Firelight flickered across his blackened face. Mitchell grabbed Bitton by an arm and a leg, slinging the man over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He climbed through the hatchway leading to the starboard bridge-wing. The ship now listed at thirty-five-degrees, and even with the weight of the captain on his shoulders, Mitchell easily stepped onto the edge of the railing and leaped over the side, clearing the deck and splashing into the sea. 

He found himself in a dimension that had no bottom and no place to land, bobbing in a sphere of weightlessness. He struggled to maneuver the captain around and pulled the man through the water by the neck. He swam harder than he had ever done in his life, terrified that they would not get free of the vortex from the sinking vessel.

Another explosion sounded within the ship. At the same time, a shell smashed into the navigation-bridge. The stern reared high in the air, with one propeller still turning like a lazy windmill. With her proud bow under water, she slid into the blackness, letting out a high-pitched hiss as the main deck disappeared under the surface.

Mitchell turned in time to see the conning tower slide under. The enemy ships ceased firing. Then, only the agonizing screams from the wounded disturbed the silence as Mitchell wondered how many men were caught below deck.

In a flash his universe changed. A horrifying suction drew Mitchell and Bitton toward the ship—pulling, pulling, until they were wrenched under the surface.

Mitchell was no longer in the world of men and sky and sound, a place of light and darkness. There was only the black water and the suction that dragged him down. Mitchell kicked and clawed at the water, but Bitton’s deadweight towed him deeper. The awesome speed of their descent spread goose bumps over Mitchell’s scalp and the growing pressure felt like a vise crushing his skull.

My God
, he thought,
I’m going to die
.

Forced to release Bitton, he slashed his way toward to the surface. His lungs burned. They felt as if they were bursting, but at last he blasted back into the world of sound and his lungs felt the sweet relief of new air rushing in. He shrieked, partly from fear and partly from the loss of Captain Bitton.