Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

He ate alone at the Royal Hawaiian that night. He ordered pork chops and lots of milk, and then he bought a scarf in the gift shop, a silk scarf with a picture of the islands on it, and he had it sent to his mother, Julia Regan, in Talmadge, Connecticut. Then he went back to the ship. He didn’t know how early it was. They were demagnetizing the hull, and everyone had been asked to turn in his watch for safekeeping ashore because the process could do something to the movement; he didn’t understand quite what it was about. They were showing a movie on the boat deck, something with Joan Crawford. He changed into his dungarees and then went to watch the last two reels, thinking of Ardis Fletcher back home.

On December sixth, they left Oahu for Nawiliwili on the nearby island of Kauai. There was supposed to be some sort of celebration in honor of Pearl Harbor Day the next day. The scuttlebutt said that the people of Nawiliwili were going to give a luau on the beach for the officers and men of the Hanley . The scuttlebutt, usually accurate because it filtered down from the radio gang who saw all communications even before the captain did, could not have been more wrong. There was no luau on the beach. Instead, on the seventh, a group of seventeen-year-old high-school girls came aboard at about 1100 for a tour of the ship. The men were asked to put on shirts for the visitors. As they worked painting the ship (the civilian workmen at Pearl had left this task to the technicians, the sailors who had learned early in their naval careers that scraping and painting were recurring diseases), the girls went through the ship wide-eyed, ogling the guns and the torpedo tubes and the masts and the blinker lights and the signal flags and the depth charges. The men of the Hanley greeted their visitors with remarkable restraint. Like perfect gentlemen, they went about their painting, brushes dipping and swishing. There were no catcalls and no whistles. But three hundred pairs of eyes hungrily devoured the fresh young bodies under the thin tight skirts and full blouses, and three hundred tongues licked lips in anticipation of the evening. There would be a dance that night, the scuttlebutt said, at the local high school. These sweet young maidens would be in attendance, the scuttlebutt said. Greedily, the paintbrushes dipped and swished.

This time, the scuttlebutt was right.

The men of the Hanley put on their whites and shined their shoes and combed their hair and visited the pharmacist’s mate. They found the local high school, and they heard the music inside, and they marched in like conquering American heroes, ready to celebrate Pearl Harbor Day, but there wasn’t a girl to be seen for miles.

Instead, there were the local boys.

Apparently, the good mothers of Nawiliwili had heard of the destroyer tied up at the dock, had heard their good daughters telling about the school trip to the destroyer that morning, had rightly surmised the sailors aboard that ship would invade the high-school dance that night, and had wisely decided to keep their daughters home and in their own safe, snug beds. The men of the Hanley blamed the local boys for this act of perfidy. The local boys blamed the presence of the sailors for their own lack of female companionship. Unfortunately, a lot of the sailors had bought out the local liquor store before heading for the high school. When they saw there were no women, they began drinking. Within a half hour, the fight started. David left the moment it began. He caught a cab to town and went to the local movie. The picture he saw, and he could not suppress a wry grin, was The Virgins of Bali .

He got back to the ship at about 2340, just as the watch was being relieved. Mr. Devereaux, one of the new communications officers, was unstrapping the .45 from his waist and handing it to Mr. Dinocchio, the ship’s navigator. When he saw David, Devereaux turned and said, “Hey, you’re in one piece!”

David came up the gangway and saluted Mr. Dinocchio, who was strapping on the .45. Dinocchio returned the salute lazily.

“Didn’t you go to the dance, Regan?” Devereaux asked. He was a short man with coal-black hair, brown eyes, and a wide chipmunk grin. He had thick black eyebrows, which always seemed slightly askew, and he spoke with something of a sneer in his voice, as if thirty-six years of living owed him more than a miserable existence as a lieutenant j.g. aboard a Navy destroyer, an attitude strengthened by the fact that life aboard the Juneau had been more formal but at the same time more civilized than this.

“I went, sir,” David said.

“How’d you escape the melee?” Devereaux asked, his eyebrows askew, a twinkle in his brown eyes.

“I left when it started, sir.”

“Good boy,” Devereaux said in admiration. His eyes flicked to the dock. “Take a look at this. Here’s an example.”

Two sailors were stumbling toward the gangway, arm in arm, weaving drunkenly. Their whites were stained with blood, the jumpers torn, the trousers streaked with grass marks. Cautiously they helped each other up the gangway, releasing their supporting embrace on each other to salute the ensign on the fantail — which ensign had been taken down at sunset — and then to salute Mr. Dinocchio, who regarded them with sour Boston distaste.

“Reques’ permission to come aboar’, sir,” the first sailor said.

“Yeah, come ahead, Nelson, come ahead,” Dinocchio said.

“Ditto, sir,” the second sailor said.

“All right, all right,” Dinocchio said, annoyed. “Come on, go get out of those clothes. You’re all full of blood, both of you.”

“Sir,” the second sailor said, “do you know who is the bes’ buddy inna whole worl’, sir?”

“Who?” Dinocchio said.

“This fella here. Nelson. This fella. Yeoman Firs’ Class Rishard Nelson. The bes’ buddy onna ship, inna Navy, inna whole wi’ worl’!” The sailor waved his arm grandiosely and almost fell over the side. Nelson caught him and held him up.

“No, sir,” Nelson said to his friend. “No, sir, buddy-boy, nossir. You are the bes’ buddy inna worl’.”

“No, you are.”

“No, mate, you are the bes’, abso-lutely!”

The second sailor turned to Dinocchio. “Okay, sir, so tell me summin, willya, sir? Would you?”

“What is it, Antonelli?”

Antonelli grinned. “Sir, why should my bes’ buddy inna worl’ hit me onna head with a whiskey bottle?”

“I thought you was a gook,” Nelson said.

“I ain’ no gook.”

“I thought you was one.”

“Buddy, you nearly bust my head. You know that, buddy?”

“All right, let’s hit the sack,” Dinocchio said, “before I put you both on report.”

“Two buddies?” Antonelli asked, astonished. “Sir, you would put two buddies on report?”

“Come on, come on, shove off.”

The sailors embraced again and wobbled off toward the aft compartment, arm in arm.

“You should see some of the others,” Devereaux said. “Arbuster came back with a broken arm. Do you know him? A gunner’s mate?”

“I think so, sir,” David said. He hesitated a moment and then said, “Well, good night, sir. I guess I’ll turn in.”

“Just a second, Regan,” Devereaux said.

“Sir?”

“Have you got a minute?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s take a walk aft, have a cigarette.”

“Yes, sir,” David said, puzzled.

“What a vessel,” Dinocchio said in his broad Boston accent. “This ship is the last stronghold of baaa-barism in the Pacific fleet.”

“Things are rough all over, Lou,” Devereaux said. He grinned his chipmunk grin, added, “Don’t forget now, the skipper wants to be wakened as soon as everyone’s aboard,” and then began walking with David toward the fantail. The garbage cans had not been dumped. They were stacked just forward of the fantail depth-charge rack, and they stank to high heaven.