Herman Wouk - The Winds of War

“Say, Pug!” Jocko Larkin, walking past with three younger officers, halted, and told them to go ahead and secure a table. “I’ve been trying to call you. Do you know about the Devilfish ?”

“No.” Pug’s heart thumped heavily. “What about it?”

“Well, it was the Sealion that was sunk at Cavite. The follow-up report came in a little while ago. The Devilfish was undamaged.”

“Really?” Pug had to clear his throat twice. “That’s definite, now?”

“Couldn’t be more definite. The dispatch says the Devilfish report was erroneous.”

“I see. I’m sorry about the Sealion , but you’re a bearer of good news. Thanks.”

“My other news isn’t so hot, Pug. The thing we talked about — I’m trying but that looks like a pipe dream.”

“Well, you warned me. It’s all right.”

“I’m still scratching around for something, though. Join us for lunch.”

“Another time, Jocko.”

Dropping the letter in the club mailbox, Pug went out into the sunshine. A stone had rolled off his heart; Byron was all right! And one way or another, Jocko would get him out to sea. Strolling aimlessly through the Navy Yard, digesting these sharp turns of fortune, he arrived at the waterfront. There alongside the fuel dock with thick oil hoses pulsing, was the Northampton .

On leaving Larkin’s office, Pug had fought off a temptation to visit the cruiser, deciding that it might be a jinx to set foot on board before knowing his orders. Now it didn’t matter. He thought of mounting the gangway and having a look around. But what for? He had served a year and a half in a sister ship, the Chester. These were handsome vessels, he thought, strolling along the dock beside the bustling Northampton, which was loading ammunition and frozen food stores as well as fuel for battle patrol — handsome vessels, but half-breed bastards, spawned by a sickly cross of politics and warship-building.

The Washington Treaty, which Pug considered a preposterous folly, had bound the United States back in 1922 to limit its cruisers to less than ten thousand tons, and to guns of eight-inch caliber. There had been no limit on length. These hybrids were the result-overblown destroyers, with the length of battleships but a quarter the weight of metal, with slender beams, light armor, and medium punch. Their mission was to act as scouts and merchant raiders, and to fight enemy cruisers. Any one of Japan’s ten battleships could blow the Northampton out of the water; nor could she survive a torpedoing, except with perfect damage control. After the California , the Northampton was a relatively shrunken affair.

Still, Pug thought, he would have been glad enough to get her. It was exciting to see the cruiser taking on beans, bullets, and oil for a combat mission. Jocko was right, Operations was the inside track. But, for the good of his soul right now, Pug felt he needed to be loading beans, bullets, and oil on his own ship.

He drove back to the house. On the desk in his bedroom, a handwritten note was clipped to a wrinkled Western Union cable:

From: Janice.

To: Dad-in-law.

Subject: Miscellaneous.

1. In case anything comes up, am at the Gillettes with Vic. Home for dinner.

2. Warren phoned. Won’t be back. They sortie at dawn.

3. Yeoman from California delivered the attached. Says it’s been kicking around the base for days, and just came to their office on the beach.

4. Love.

He opened the cable.

DEAREST JUST THIS INSTANT HEARD ON THE RADIO OF JAPANESE ATTACK AM UTTERLY HORRIFIED FRIGHTFULLY WORRIED ABOUT YOU DESPERATELY ASHAMED OF THAT RIDICULOUS IDIOTIC LETTER WORST POSSIBLE TIMING FORGET IT PLEASE PLEASE AND FORGIVE HOPE YOURE SAFE AND WELL CABLE ME

He sat nodding grimly as he read it. Rhoda to the life! He could hear her telephoning it: “Am UTTERLY horrified, FRIGHTFULLY worried about you, DESPERATELY ashamed of that RIDICULOUS, IDIOTIC letter. Worst POSSIBLE timing…” Pug suspected it was a bone to the dog. He knew Rhoda’s bursts of contrition. She was never so sweet as immediately after some disgusting behavior. This saving grace had gotten her over many rough spots; and her impulse in sending the cable might well have been sincere. But the process of repair would be long, if indeed it was even beginning. Their marriage now was a salvage job like the California . He did not know what to reply, so he tossed the cable into the desk drawer, beside the letter for which it apologized.

That night at dinner, Pug drank a lot of wine, and a lot of brandy afterward. Janice kept pouring, and he gratefully accepted. He knew he would not sleep otherwise. The alcohol worked; he scarcely remembered turning in. At four in the morning, he snapped wide awake, and it occurred to him that he might as well watch the sortie of the Enterprise . He dressed quietly, closed the outside door without a sound, and drove to the overlook point.

The darkness was merciful to Pearl Harbor. The smashed battleships were invisible. Overhead a clear starry black sky arched, with Orion setting in the west, and Venus sparkling in the east, high above a narrow streak of red. Only the faintest smell of smoke on the sea breeze hinted at the gigantic scene of disaster below. But the dawn brightened, light stole over the harbor, and soon the destruction and the shame were unveiled once more. At first the battleships were merely vague shapes; but even before all the stars were gone, one could see the Pacific Battle Force, a crazy dim double line of sunken hulks along Ford Island — and first in the line, the U.S.S. California .

Victor Henry turned his face from the hideous sight to the indigo arch of the sky, where Venus and the brightest stars still burned: Sirius, Capella, Procyon, the old navigation aids. The familiar religious awe came over him, the sense of a Presence above this pitiful little earth. He could almost picture God the Father looking down with sad wonder at this mischief. In a world so rich and lovely, could his children find nothing better to do than to dig iron from the ground and work it into vast grotesque engines for blowing each other up? Yet this madness was the way of the world. He had given all his working years to it. Now he was about to risk his very life at it. Why?

Because the others did it, he thought. Because Abel’s next-door neighbor was Cain. Because with all its rotten spots, the United States of America was not only his homeland but the hope of the world. Because if America’s enemies dug up iron and made deadly engines of it, America had to do the same, and do it better, or die. Maybe the vicious circle would end with this first real world war. Maybe it would end with Christ’s second coming. Maybe it would never end.

But he was living in 1941. Below in the brightening dawn lay his own sunken ship and his own destroyed fleet. The professional sailors and fliers who had done this thing, and done a damned smart job of it, had obeyed orders of politicians working with Hitler. Until the life was beaten out of that monster, the world could not move an inch toward a more sane existence. There was nothing to do now but win the war. So Victor Henry meditated as the Enterprise moved down channel in the sunrise and out to sea under the escort of destroyers and cruisers, taking his firstborn son into battle.

Back at the house, he found Janice all dressed. “Hi. Going somewhere?” he said. “I thought you’d still be asleep.”

“Oh, it’s Vic’s cough. It hangs on and on. I’m taking him to the clinic down at the base for a checkup. You just missed a call from Captain Larkin.”

“Jocko? This early?”

“Yes. He left a message for you. He said, ‘She’s all yours.’”