Neptune's Inferno_ The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal - James D. Hornfischer [172]
McCandless went down to the heavily armored enclosure below the bridge, joining two quartermasters, Higdon and Floyd A. Rogers, who took turns going aft to the smoke-filled central steering compartment to relieve the faltering steersman, whose job was physically onerous. Through the horizontal slits in the eight-inch armor of the conning tower, McCandless kept a close lookout ahead, keeping the ship in the open water between Savo Island and Guadalcanal. Spying the coast near Lunga, he decided that if it became necessary to beach the ship, he would be sure to do so in the American-controlled sector. As he proceeded along, he imagined himself to be straightening out his battle line, re-forming the assembled power of Task Group 67.4 behind the flagship. Behind the San Francisco, the Portland was advancing into the mix with Abe’s battleships, too. The light cruiser Helena was blasting away at anything her gunners could find. The Juneau, behind her, leading the rear destroyers, lashed into targets near and far with five-inch fire. For all practical purposes, though, the task force had ceased to be a cohesive unit.
CLIFF SPENCER, having promised Allen Samuelson a life jacket, went to a life jacket locker, opened it, and found a man hiding inside. “This locker is too thin to protect you!” he hollered, and the marine displaced, only to be killed elsewhere minutes later. Retrieving a pair of life jackets, Spencer went to find Samuelson, stepping around the dead. When Spencer found him again and handed him the jacket, the marine clutched it to his chest and, as Spencer put it, “quietly passed from this vale of tears.” Standing over the dead man, experiencing his first twinges of survivor’s guilt, Spencer wrote, “In his final moments he was not in pain. The life jacket I gave him gave him comfort, and he just slipped away.”
Then his right hand took an impact that felt like a baseball bat. Spencer saw that his thumb was blown back, leaving “mangled red meat where my hand attached to the wrist.” A sergeant in his detachment, John Egan, was rallying survivors to get the silenced five-inch guns back into action. Seeing that Spencer would be of little help, Egan directed him to sickbay. As Spencer descended several ladders, the last one was ripped away and he fell in a heap to the quarterdeck. When he recovered his senses, he looked around and saw that all but one man from the gallery of five-inch mounts had been cut down. The lone survivor was a chief fire controlman, wounded but still standing. “His headset wires were cut off just below his chin and he was bleeding from the ears and nose,” Spencer wrote. “He shouted the order repeatedly for his non-existent crews to ‘fire.’ He appeared to be dying on his feet and I knew he could not even hear me, let alone help me.”
Lurching aft on one good leg over razor-edged debris, Spencer stepped over and around the human forms, careful to soften his path by treading on their sleeves and pant legs. One fallen sailor, thus disturbed, shouted, “Get off of me you SOB. I ain’t dead yet.” Spencer hid behind a searchlight platform as a Japanese destroyer appeared to port, firing with small arms. As tracers and small rounds ricocheted off bulkheads, he was hit again. He cried and tried to pray. From a dark corner of the ship, he heard another sailor sobbing. Recognizing the voice, he found it was someone he knew well and hailed him by name. “I’m no coward,” the sailor said. “I just don’t know what to do!” Spencer gave him a job. “He cut off most of my undershirt and wrapped it around my right hand.… He then half carried me down to the mess hall for treatment, talked to me while we sloshed our way forward through the starboard passageway, giving me encouragement every step of the way. Let