Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [179]
"You did?" the Captain inquired coldly.
"Yes, sir. I was a Phi Chi."
Captain Kelley stared at the man for a moment, and said no more during the rest of the meal. After he had left, Bus invited me to join the four officers and himself on a small veranda overlooking the channel. It was a peaceful scene. The Torpex rode at anchor, its two guard boats moored some distance away. Wrecks of four huge quonsets lay-strewn about the Depot, but moonlight danced quietly upon the roofs of two hundred others. Negro truck drivers hurried endlessly up and down the water front. At one dock a barge was loading with gear for the Torpex. And along myriad paths through the Depot trucks, lifts, dollies, mules, finger lifts, cherry pickers, stone crushers, and paint machines moved in prim precision.
It was an orderly scene, a quiet scene after rush and hurricane. A low moon hung to the south, and coconut trees were everywhere. It was a tropic night in early March. Autumn would soon begin and there would be some respite from the heat. We felt at ease when suddenly from the bay came a great noise and rush of wind. The Torpex exploded!
Destruction was instantaneous and complete. The Torpex and the two guard boats were never seen again, no part of them. Our dock was blown down and all hands on the loading barge killed. Four quonsets nearest the channel were blown apart. And the blast did not last five seconds!
All that we saw was a flash of light. All that we heard was a great sigh of wind that knocked us to the deck. And the Torpex was gone.
Of the crew she carried, only our four guests and two enlisted men remaining in our hospital lived. The rest had vanished. It was later said that the two men in sickbay knew at once what had happened and that neither would speak to the other all night.
Our four guests reacted differently. One, a tall Kansan, said nothing, picked himself up from the deck, turned his back on the bay and started drinking. Another, from Massachusetts, kneeled on the deck and said a prayer. Then he, too, started drinking. A third, from Oregon, kept swallowing in heavy gulps and biting his lips, first his lower lip and then his upper lip. Later on he became very hungry, and we cut open a can of chicken. The fourth man, from Wisconsin, started talking. It was he who answered the telephone and reported his four friends alive. Then he told us all about the Torpex, who her captain was, a fine man, who her officers were, and how the enlisted men never gave them any trouble. He told us about his home in Madison, and how he was going back there to University and take a law degree when the war was over.
He talked in a low, rapid voice. From time to time he would ask one of the other officers to corroborate what he was saying. He would snatch a small piece of the canned chicken or take a quick drink of whiskey, and then he would be off again. Finally, when the terror had worked itself out, he sat on the veranda and looked at the magnificent channel, where the Torpex had been. Little boats were hurrying about. We knew, we knew too well, the grisly haul those fishing boats were taking that night.
The man from Madison turned his back to the scene. He could still hear the chugging engines, though, so he started to talk again. "You know," he said, "our skipper was the finest man. He was so considerate. We could go to him with anything and he would listen to us just as patiently. He had three kids, and at every port there would be eight or ten letters from each of them. He loved them very much. The only time he ever spoke about them to me was to show me his girl's picture. She was about fifteen and lovely. He said, 'It's really funny, you know. She'll probably have been on her first date and fallen in love by the time I get back. I haven't seen her for twenty-one months. And do you know what I was thinking?' he asked me. 'I was thinking something foolish. But I kind of wish that she would marry a naval officer. And not necessarily an officer, either. I don't mean it that way at all. Just some nice boy from the Navy.'