The Final Storm - Jeff Shaara [18]
Gordon said, “With your permission, sir, I’ll go below. Cook should have some breakfast ready about now. The crew deserves a toast, even if it’s just bad coffee.” The captain stood aside as the rescue teams came up onto the bridge, the men filing down through the hatch. Gordon began to follow, said, “Lieutenant Green is on first watch. I’ll send him up. Breakfast, Skipper?”
“In a minute. Go on below. Tell helm, resume course zero three zero, maintain twelve knots. Double-check the torpedo count, fore and aft. We need to keep hunting.”
“Aye, sir.”
Gordon disappeared, and the captain was alone now. The morning was cool, the breeze light, the sub rocking gently through the long, deep swells. He kept his eye on the oil slick, thought, nice try, Captain. You almost pulled it off. I was careless, cocky, all ready to gloat about one more great victory, sending some piece of junk merchant ship to the bottom. You were counting on that, weren’t you? Smart enough to know I might be careless. I should have listened to sonar. Gifford knew you were there, knew there were two ships. I won’t make that mistake again.
He couldn’t shake the thoughts of his friend Beaumont, the Tang. Maybe he never knew what hit him either. Best way to go. Best way for any of us. He saw a man coming up through the hatch, another of his officers, Green, followed by a crewman.
“I have the watch, sir. Lieutenant Gordon said to tell you that breakfast is in your mess.”
“Thank you, Steve.”
“Good shooting this morning, sir. We nailed those bastards but good.”
“Yep. Good shooting.”
He made one more glance toward the oil slick, knew that he would not forget this. The curses were always there, the insults, Nip bastards, Jap sons of bitches. Yeah, maybe, he thought. They’re the enemy and we hate their guts. No good Jap but a dead Jap. But that one was a sub captain, and he was sharp, and if he’d had better equipment …
He turned away, moved toward the hatch, thought, lucky for all of us, he won’t be around to try that again.
2. NIMITZ
GUAM—HEADQUARTERS, CINCPAC
(COMMANDER IN CHIEF, PACIFIC)
MARCH 20, 1945
He took careful aim, squeezed off a round, the .45 jumping in his hand. He squinted, could see the impact on the target, a small hole just right of center. He aimed again, fired one more round, the small hole punched square on the paper target’s crosshairs. He turned, glanced toward his Marine guard with a self-satisfied smile.
“Sixty years old, dammit. Eyes like a hawk. Anybody feel like taking the old man on?”
The Marines knew the routine, their sergeant offering a polite smile.
“Thank you, sir, but my men don’t get their pay for another three days. I can’t have any of them coming to me for a loan because the admiral’s cleaned their pockets.”
Nimitz turned again to the target, smiled, had heard that answer before. He thought of refilling the pistol’s clip, but the heat was stifling, even the late afternoon cloud cover not enough to hold back another day of sweating misery. He glanced up, saw no sign of rain, shook his head, said aloud, “Another scorcher. And this is supposed to be spring. I really don’t want to suffer through this place in July.”
There was no response from the Marines, the eight men who followed him everywhere he went. It was the standard procedure, handpicked bodyguards, the best security force Nimitz could imagine. On Hawaii there hadn’t really been much of a need for this kind of security, other than protection from the most pesky of newspapermen, or the occasional GI, fueled by a little too much liquor, who had decided that airing his grievances straight into the face of the highest-ranking officer available might be a good idea. Even at Pearl Harbor, Nimitz hadn’t seen much of that, the Marine guards more brutally effective at their job than they would want him to witness.
He holstered the pistol, wiped a handkerchief across his brow, turned again to the Marines. He had tried to memorize their names, knew the sergeant was O’Neal, a huge plug of a man from Chicago, who might be just as happy in a police uniform,