Final Harbor

Chapter 21

Hinman was standing at the half-opened window in the hotel room in San Francisco, listening to the muted rumble of traffic down in the street when he heard the bathroom door open. He turned as Joan came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her that covered her breasts and barely covered her thighs. He poured coffee for both of them.

“Now that’s what I call class, lady,” he said with a grin. “The girl comes out of the shower covered up. Any other woman as beautiful as you are would be sitting here drinking coffee in the raw.”

“My mother brought me up to be a lady,” she said with a wicked grin. “And one of the things she taught me was to never take my clothes off in front of a sailor. All sailors are sex maniacs, thank God for that!” He drained his coffee cup and stood up and she let out a small shriek.

“My God, man, you were sitting there starkers! Talk about class! You have no class at all, you darlin’ man! Get your fanny into that shower while I get dressed and then we’ll go down and have some breakfast.”

“Well, it’s over,” she said as she mopped up the last of the syrup on her plate with a forkful of wheat cake. “Today is a free day and tomorrow we go back to Washington. You are scheduled to see the President and the Secretary of the Navy the day after, at ten in the morning.” She looked up as the hotel manager walked up to their table.

“You’ll pardon me, Captain, Lieutenant,” the man said. “This telegram, priority delivery, came for you sir.”

“Thank you,” Hinman said. “Won’t you have a cup of coffee with us? I want to tell you what a fine hotel you have here.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you,” the hotel manager said. “If you’ll excuse me while I take care of one small matter. Be right back.”

Hinman ripped open the telegram envelope and read the page swiftly. Then he read it again, slowly. He looked at Joan, his face beaming.

“It’s from Bob Rudd, Commander Rudd in Pearl Harbor. No, by God, he signs himself Captain Rudd! Must have got his fourth stripe! He says orders have been cut for me and I’ll pick them up in Washington. I’m to return to Pearl as soon as possible! That means I’m going to get a ship, Joan! I’ll have another submarine!”

“But you won’t have the thirty days’ leave they promised you,” she said. “Is that what that means?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Well,” she said with a small shrug. “That’s the way of a sailor with a girl. It’s off to sea again while the shy maiden sits at home and wonders about all the other women the sailor is romancing in all the other ports.”

“Maybe you wouldn’t wonder about things like that if you were Mrs. Arthur Hinman,” he said. She looked at him, her eyes widening.

“Oh, damn it! I bungled it!” he blurted. “I wanted to do it the right way, get down on one knee and ask for your hand in marriage and now I’ve ruined it!” He hung his head.

She sat without moving, her eyes closed.

“You left something out,” she said in a half whisper. “You left out something you’ve been saying the last few nights in such a low voice that a girl strains her eardrums to hear you. Now say it out loud!”

“I love you,” he said. “Yes! I love you!”

“That’s better! I’ll marry you! But when? We’d have to get a license, maybe, blood tests. Those things take time.”

“I’ve learned a few things from you,” he said. He stood up as the hotel manager approached.

“Sit down, sir,” Hinman said. “I apologize, I don’t know your name, sir.”

“No reason you should, Captain. A good hotel manager is never heard and seldom seen. I’m Steve Lewis and we’re honored to have you with us.”

“Well, Mr. Lewis, it’s been wonderful for us. You run a very efficient hotel. Your people have made us very comfortable.” He poured coffee from the carafe.

“I hate to impose on you for anything more but we need some information. I just hate to ask you for any more favors.”

Lewis looked at him and smiled. “I was in Los Angeles the other night, Captain. I was invited to that dinner and I accepted because I was tied up here and wouldn’t be able to hear you when you were speaking this week. I don’t think you can ask me for any favor that would be too large.”

“I’m ordered back to sea,” Hinman said, “and Joan, Lieutenant Richards here, and I want to get married. Time is so crucial, sir, I thought, hoped, that maybe you could give us a suggestion as to how we could get around the formalities of license, the waiting period I mean. Is there any way around that?”

The hotel manager smiled. “If I may suggest it, sir, the Mayor has the power to perform marriages and if you don’t object, our hotel lobby would be a rather nice setting for your marriage. I personally extend my invitation to you to accept the hotel’s offer to be your host at your wedding supper this evening.”

“I wouldn’t put you to that trouble,” Hinman said slowly. The manager rose.

“Trouble, Captain? No trouble at all. Please check with me after lunch. By then I will have everything arranged.” He was almost trotting when he left their table.

“You’ve learned a few things about public relations, haven’t you?” Joan said with a wide grin. “You wouldn’t know that an event like this will put this hotel on the front page of every newspaper in the country or at worst, on page three. You wouldn’t know that the Mayor of San Francisco loves good publicity. You wouldn’t know anything about things like that, would you!”

“Oh, I’ve learned a few things about public relations from you,” he said airily. “Learned a few things about pubic relations, as well.”

“Not half of what you’re going to learn,” she said. “Now let’s get out of here and go and do whatever soon-to-be-married couples do while they’re waiting for the knot to be tied.”

“Go to bed?” he asked innocently.

“Save it! I’m a hellion on a wedding night!”

The scheduled half-hour with President Roosevelt and the Secretary of the Navy, Frank Knox, a Chicago newspaper publisher, lengthened into an hour. Knox, a big, bluff, jovial man shook his thick forefinger at Joan.

“When I knew you in Chicago, young lady, you never gave any sign of having this much sense! When this war is over you bring this man of yours to me and we’ll find some work for him to do so he can support you in a style you’d like to get used to.”

“When this war is over she’ll probably go with him to some God-forsaken submarine base out in the Pacific,” the President said. “You keep your hands off my officers, Frank! I don’t want you seducing them with offers of good jobs!”

Later, at the Navy Department, a gray-haired Chief Yeoman, who wore the silver dolphins of the qualified submarine man on the breast of his jacket, took them into his small office and seated them in hard chairs in front of his desk. Hinman noted the six diagonal gold stripes on his left sleeve, “hash marks,” each standing for four years of honorable service. He made a guess that the Chief was on shore duty because of his age and length of service.

The Chief Yeoman was succinct. No, Lieutenant Richards now Lieutenant Hinman, could not be assigned to Pearl Harbor in any capacity. WAVES did not serve outside of the continental limit of the United States. Sorry about that, sir.

Yes, Lieutenant Commander Hinman’s promised thirty-day leave had been canceled. Captain Rudd’s orders were quite specific: Lieut. Comdr. Arthur Hinman would report to Pearl Harbor at once for reassignment. And then the Chief Yeoman had turned and looked out of his office window for a long moment.

“Sir,” he said, turning back to face Hinman and Joan, “as of today the aircraft assigned to you for the War Bond tour has been returned to regular duty.

“I can offer you a courier flight to the West Coast where you will have to wait seven days for a flight out to Pearl. I cannot offer that to Lieutenant Hinman, sir, there is no room on this flight, which leaves in one hour from now.

“Or, if you have to see other people here at the Navy Department and cannot make that flight all I can do is to offer you a courier flight to Chicago that leaves at fifteen hundred hours this afternoon. You will have to find something to do in Chicago for six days, sir; a courier flight will leave from Chicago six days from now for the West Coast, arriving in time to connect with the flight to Pearl.” He looked down at his desk. “There is room on that flight for Lieutenant Hinman, who will be assigned to duty from Mare Island Navy Yard, sir.” He looked away again, his hand resting lightly on Joan Richards’ service jacket, which was lying on his desk.

“I had to make the entry of marriage in Lieutenant Richards’ service jacket, sir. I noticed that her place of residence before enlistment is Chicago.”

“Do I understand that there is room on the fifteen hundred flight to Chicago for Lieutenant Richards?” Hinman asked.

“Yes, sir, there is.”

“I do want to see some people here,” Hinman said slowly. “I don’t see how I can do that and still pack and make that flight to the West Coast in one hour.”

“I can understand that, sir. Very hard to do.”

“Is it possible to get orders cut to ride that courier flight to Chicago?” Hinman kept his voice neutral.

The Chief Yeoman opened his desk drawer and took out two thick envelopes. “Here are your orders and Lieutenant Hinman’s orders for the courier flight to Chicago, sir, and for the flight from Chicago to the West Coast and your orders for Pearl. Lieutenant Hinman’s orders to report to Mare Island Navy Yard for assignment are included in the Lieutenant’s orders.”

He grinned. “Appreciate.what you said to that dope out in L.A., sir. We’ve got quite a few of that kind here in Washington. They’ve been pretty quiet since you sounded off!”

“You’re a good man, Chief,” Hinman said. “Do you miss the Boats?”

“Yes, sir, I do. I had to put in for shore duty four years ago. My wife had a bad heart attack. Hell of a place for a submariner to be, in an office ashore. My battle station used to be the bow planes.” His face became wistful. “I was a very good bow planesman, if I do say it as shouldn’t.”

“I’m sure you were,” Hinman said.

The Chief Yeoman stood up in back of his desk. “I don’t want to keep you from your appointments, sir.” He grinned. “Have a good honeymoon!”

“Are all submarine men like that?” Joan said to Hinman as they walked down the hall of the Navy Department building. “I mean, that whole thing was like a charade! He had the orders cut all along, in his desk!”

“I know,” Hinman said. “But you have to follow the rules, you know. Are all submariners like that? Pretty much so. They take care of each other, they stick together. It’s a camaraderie you won’t find anywhere else in the service except maybe in the aviation branches. Have we got a place to stay in Chicago?”

“Any hotel will do,” she said happily, squeezing his arm. “I’ve got to store up enough memories of you to last me until I see you again!”

Captain Bob Rudd met Hinman at the airport in Pearl Harbor. Hinman nodded at the gold eagles that were pinned to Rudd’s shirt collar tabs.

“On you they look good, sir. Congratulations.”

“War is no respecter of ability, Art,” Rudd said. “They make anyone who’s alive and breathing a Captain. Or an Admiral. Severn got his big stripe. He’s gone back to Washington after some quote unquote well-earned leave. I’ve got his job. How about that, hey?”

“I want a ship, sir,” Hinman said. “With all due respect, I want a ship and the sooner the better!”

“We have to talk about that,” Rudd said. “Later. Right now there’s something I want you to see before we talk about giving you a ship. Things aren’t like they used to be, you know.” He motioned to his driver who opened the rear door of the Staff car.

“Son,” Rudd said, “take us to where I told you to take us.” The car stopped at the land end of a pier in the Submarine Base and the car’s driver half-turned in his seat.

“Can’t go down on the pier, Captain. That sign warns us off. Cranes are working down there, sir.”

“We’ll walk,” Rudd said. He got out of the car and with Hinman walked down the length of the pier to where two cranes were trying to pull the periscope out of a submarine. Hinman looked at the faded number painted on the submarine’s battered Conning Tower.

“My God, it’s Mako!”

“Yup,” Rudd said. “Got in day before yesterday. Mealey had himself one hell of a patrol run! Dove under a screen of twelve tin cans with aircraft overhead and slammed seven fish into a Kongo class battleship. Took an awful pasting! Japs just kicked the shit out of them! Propeller shaft on one side, port I think, is bent a little but the Yard has a spare. You can see what happened to the attack ‘scope. After Trim tank is ruptured and a lot of little stuff, busted welds, things like that. They ain’t got one light bulb left in that thing, not one gauge glass that wasn’t shattered! Come on aft, here, look there! Damned five-inch twenty-five deck gun got blown right off its mounts! The Yard people can’t figure out how that could happen without tearing a hole in the hull but it did.”

“Did he sink the battleship?”

“Not quite. Battleship’s skipper beached the thing on the reef at the Northeast Entrance of Truk. Intelligence intercepted the damage reports on the battleship. Her ammunition lockers for the forward turrets exploded. Killed about three hundred of their people. The ship’s out of commission for two, three years. He only gets credit for severely damaging the ship. But old Stoneface Mealey got himself rightly pissed off because they were dropping so much stuff on him that he went up during the attacks and sank a Fubuki, busted it right in two with one shot! You know, that cold-blooded old bastard went in to seven-hundred yard range on that wagon? I never liked old Mealey very much before but he’s one hell of a submariner!”

They walked the length of the submarine along the pier and Hinman noted the torn wooden decking, the deep dimples in the submarine’s pressure hull.

“God, she took a beating! Any casualties on our side?”

“One man, youngster, machinist mate named Richards, that the right name? You should remember, he was part of the original crew. Got thrown against the engine in the Forward Engine Room and fractured his skull. He was buried at sea.”

“Anyone write to his parents?” Hinman asked.

Rudd nodded. “Joe Sirocco took care of that. Wrote a hell of a nice letter. Joe took Mike Brannon’s place as Exec Hell of a man! Reservist but just one hell of an Executive Officer. Old Mealey said he’s one of the best men he ever sailed with and when Mealey says that about a feather merchant that is one hell of a feather merchant! You’ll like him.”

“Like him?” Hinman’s voice faltered slightly.

“By golly, I forgot to tell you.” Rudd’s face wore a broad grin.

“Mealey got his fourth stripe, he’s a Captain now. They posted him as my Number One Boy, my assistant. I had to find someone to take the Mako, son of a bitch of a ship is all busted up and no other officer would want her so I figured on giving her to you!”

Hinman wiped the tears from his eyes with no attempt to conceal the act. “Don’t you ever gig me again about playing jokes on anyone! You dragged me away from a bride and a honeymoon, you canceled my leave and you never said anything about this!”

Rudd shrugged. “Makes up for some of the lousy jokes you played on me when I was your Skipper,” he said happily. “Now I suppose you want to go through her, check everything?” Hinman nodded eagerly.

“Okay, let’s get that over with,” Rudd said. “Then I’ll drop you at the BOQ with your bags and you’ll have time enough to get a shower and get into your dress canvas before I come by to pick you up. We’re eating at Captain Mealey’s house. Tomorrow or the next day you can go out to the Royal Hawaiian and see the crew. They got word out there today that you were coming back as the Skipper. I’d make a bet that the biggest beer bust in the history of the United States Navy is going on out there right now!”

“How is Dusty Rhodes, Barber, Ginty, the others?”

“Fine,” Rudd said. “I talked to Dusty when they got in. He told me Mealey ordered a reload of the Forward and After Room tubes to begin while he was still firing, if you can picture that! Dusty said that Ginty was opening the tube outer doors and closing the outer doors with only one hand on the Y-wrench! I didn’t think anyone was strong enough to do that!”

The two men picked their way down Mako’s shattered decking. “They’ll never get this ship ready for sea in under three months!” Hinman muttered.

“Oh yeah?” Rudd replied. “You don’t know this Navy Yard! You’re scheduled to go on patrol in just a little under four weeks from today, Art! This is one hell of a Navy Yard! Bring ‘em back a periscope and I think they could build you a submarine under the periscope in two months!”