Griffin W.E.B. - The Corps 08 - In Dangers Path

«Before I came in the Navy, Chief, I ran tuna boats out of San Francisco,» Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider said. «What did you do?»

«No shit?» Chief Carpenter's Mate Peter T. McGuire, USNR, replied. «I spent some time on boats like that. Remember

They Go Down to the Sea

, Jake?»

Dillon nodded. «It laid an enormous egg,» he said.

«That was a movie,» Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider said. «They rented some boats from my father. I was ten, eleven years old.»

«They were your father's boats?» Chief McGuire said. «I'll be damned.»

«Can you muster a labor detail, Mr. Schneider?» Major Dillon asked. «The truck is loaded with boxes we need aboard your boat. And two rubber boats.»

«It would be best if you could lash this stuff outside,» Chief McGuire said. «Rather than put it inside, I mean.»

«To the vessel's

superstructure

, you mean, Chief?» Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider asked. «Rather than

below

?»

«Right,» Chief McGuire agreed with a smile.

«Sir,» Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider said, looking at Dillon. «May I ask what the crates contain?»

Jake Dillon smiled at him. «Sand,» he said.

«There's twenty-seven of them,» Chief McGuire amplified. «Average weight, fifty pounds. Total weight, thirteen hundred and fifty pounds.»

«And as soon as Lieutenant Lewis can get here,» Major Dillon said, «there will also be two hundred and fifty gallons of avgas, in five-gallon jerry cans. Fifty cans.»

«Total weight seventeen hundred fifty pounds, give or take,» Chief McGuire added.

«And when we come back in the morning,» Dillon said, «in addition to myself, Lieutenant Lewis, and Chief McGuire, there will be five other men with us.»

«Aye, aye, sir,» Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider said. He was nearly consumed with curiosity, but he had been ordered to ask no questions, and didn't. Even when he saw Major Dillon's boxes. They were of various odd sizes and constructed of what looked like aircraft aluminum. Each bore a number, (1) through (27).

The crew of PT-197 had just about finished moving the boxes and rubber boats from the truck to the boat when another GM 6 X 6—this one painted Navy gray—drove up.

Lieutenant Chambers D. Lewis III, USN, climbed down from the cab. He was wearing the aiguillette of an aide-de-camp.

He and Major Dillon and Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider exchanged salutes. Chief McGuire did not.

«I was told the skipper would be here,» Lieutenant Lewis said to Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider.

«You're looking at him,» Chief McGuire informed him. «And we lucked out. He used to run a tuna boat out of 'Frisco. He probably knows more about boats than you do.»

«I'm sure he does,» Lieutenant Lewis said with a strained smile.

Major Dillon coughed into his balled fist. Or laughed.

«My name is Lewis,» Lewis said to Schneider, offering his hand.

«Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider, sir.»

«Has the chief explained what we need, Mr. Schneider?»

«Yes, sir.»

«Any problems?»

«No, sir. Sir, may I ask where we are going?»

«We'll let you know that in the morning,» Lewis said. «I hate to be so secretive, but we've had a bad experience with an aviator who couldn't keep his mouth shut.»

«Yes, sir.»

«The distance involved will be about seventy-five nautical miles, one way. We may be there a couple of hours. Does that pose any fuel problems?»

«No, sir.»

«We will want to put out at first light,» Lewis said. «So we'll be here ten minutes before that. Will that give you enough time?»

«Yes, sir.»

«Permission to come on the bridge, Captain?» Lieutenant Lewis asked at the next morning.

«Granted,» Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider replied. «Good morning, sir.»

At least one of these people knows how to treat the master of a man-of-war,

Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider thought, pleased.

The good feeling was immediately dissipated when Major Dillon and Chief McGuire came onto the bridge right after Lewis, having apparently decided the permission obviously included them.

Lieutenant Lewis handed Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider a nautical chart, and Schneider examined it in the light of a flashlight. There was an X approximately equidistant between Oahu and Molokai in the Kaiwi Channel. «Right about there, please,» Lewis said.

«Aye, aye, sir.»

By the time they had cleared the antisubmarine net guarding Pearl Harbor, it was light. Lieutenant Schneider was thus able to see for the first time where the twenty-seven oddly shaped aluminum boxes and the fifty cans of aviation gasoline in jerry cans had been lashed to his vessel. Patrol torpedo boats are not very large vessels. The packages and jerry cans were lashed all over the deck, fore and aft.

My God, we look like a garbage scow!

The seas in the Kaiwi Channel were moderate. Under ordinary circumstances, Lieutenant Schneider would have been able to push the throttles of PT-197 full forward, and her Packard engines would have sent her sailing magnificently over the water at better than thirty knots. But Lieutenant Schneider, who was in fact very experienced in handling small vessels in the ocean, knew it would be unwise to get her speed up. Sooner or later, her bow would inevitably crash into a swell. She—and the torpedo tubes and gun mounts—had been designed with that in mind. They would take the shock. But not with the added weight of fifty jerry cans and twenty-seven odd-shaped packages weighing an average of fifty pounds strapped to them wherever a line could find a hold.

They had crossed the antisubmarine net at 0450. It was 0750 before Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider felt secure in informing Lieutenant Lewis that they were at the point he had specified on the chart.

«Captain, please, maintaining headway speed, circle this position,» Lieutenant Lewis ordered, then turned to Chief McGuire. «Go get the radio, please, Chief.»

«Right,» Chief McGuire replied.

The radio equipment came in two pieces: The radio itself sat on a tripod. McGuire handed that up to Lewis on the bridge, and Lewis and Dillon set it up. There was a telescoping antenna on top, like an automobile antenna, but longer, stronger, and colored black. There was also a telegrapher's key, and a microphone was clipped to the side of the case. The second piece looked like a stationary bicycle. McGuire set this on the deck, handed a cable to Lewis, then mounted the bicycle. Lewis connected the cable to the radio, put a headset on his ears, then made a motion to McGuire to start pumping. He did so.

There was a barely perceptible humming noise, and then the dials on the radio illuminated. When he was satisfied with the position of the dials and the switches,

Lewis began tapping the telegrapher's key. «This is supposed to have a range of twenty-five miles,» he said. «With the telescoping antenna. Let's see.» He tapped the key, threw a switch and listened, and then tapped the key again, repeating the process for several minutes.

So far as Lieutenant Schneider could make out—and he had done well in his radio telegrapher's course at the University of California before getting commissioned—Lewis was sending a gibberish of short Morse code letters: A, E, I, N, and so on.

Then, while listening, Lieutenant Lewis smiled.

«They've got us,» he said. He threw a switch and resumed tapping the telegrapher's key, tapping it for longer periods, sixty seconds or so at a time, before listening for fifteen seconds.

Lieutenant (j.g.) Schneider wondered whom he had contacted, but he had been ordered not to ask questions, and did not.

Lewis finally picked up the microphone. «Seagull, Seagull,» he said into the microphone. «This is Texaco, Texaco. How do you read?»