Hunter Sniper

CHAPTER NINE

There was a reason that Oatmire had joined the army rather than the navy. The reason was that he preferred dry land rather than the sea.

He was reminded of this preference while being bounced around in a small launch that was crossing a very large expanse of ocean. He suspected that the boatswain was doing his best to hit all the waves sideways, thus maximizing the rocking and bouncing of the boat to unnerve the ground pounder huddled miserably in the bow.

Oatmire felt his stomach begin to churn. He tried not to dwell on the extra helping of reconstituted powdered eggs that he’d had that morning, washed down by a mug of the navy’s thickest black coffee.

His mood was not helped by the salty spray that pummeled him in the bow. In fact, he seemed to be doing a good job of blocking the spray and thus preventing any of the actual navy personnel from getting wet, God forbid.

“How much farther?” Oatmire shouted, the breeze threatening to whip away his words.

“The ship is just over the horizon, sir.”

“All right. For a minute there I was worried that we were headed back to Pearl.”

“No, sir, we wouldn’t have enough fuel for that.”

Oatmire checked for a smile on the boatswain’s face, but the man had said it deadpan, as if he had taken Oatmire’s wisecrack about crossing the Pacific seriously. On top of that, the sailor had been concerned only about the lack of fuel, and not the lack of size of the launch.

“Good to know.”

Oatmire shook his head, managing to take a fresh face full of cold sea spray in the process. Sailors. Everybody said it was the marines who were trouble, but he wasn’t so sure about that.

He wouldn’t have been surprised if someone in the navy brass really had decided to send MacArthur’s aide all the way back to Hawaii in an open boat, just as a way of poking a stick in the general’s eye.

Disconcertingly, USS Nashville was slipping out of sight. Though massive in person, the distant ship seemed insignificant on the blue Pacific. A vast sky studded with puffy clouds swept down to meet the sea at the horizon. They were much too far out to sea for any glimpse of Leyte, of course.

The launch rode up a wave and sliced down in the trough, then up again, wild as any roller-coaster ride. His head spun, and he suddenly felt himself losing the skirmish with his queasy stomach.

He leaned over the side and heaved up his breakfast. He sat up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. At least he’d had the good sense to lose his breakfast over the downwind side of the launch.

The boatswain made no comment, perhaps out of a sense of interservice diplomacy. Oatmire suspected that he’d been trained to ignore seasick army officers, lest they be even further embarrassed.

Oatmire groaned. He thought back to the conversation he’d had with his closest friend on the staff when he had suggested that perhaps someone else would be better for the job. Anybody else. But they both knew his orders weren’t going to change. These orders had come from General MacArthur himself.

“What I don’t get is, why me?” The look on Oatmire’s face made it clear that he still didn’t understand his situation.

“Look, Oatmire, if MacArthur sent Sutherland on that ship, those squids would all be on their best behavior. They’d never say anything in front of him. Besides, MacArthur would miss him too much. He is the chief of staff, after all. You, on the other hand, nobody is even going to notice. Hell, nobody is even going to miss you here.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You know me. Just trying to cheer you up.”

Oatmire’s thoughts were interrupted by a change in the engine noise. The launch that had been bravely pushing through the Pacific chop suddenly slowed to a crawl, nearly wallowing in the waves. Oatmire had thought that going slower would be a good thing, but he realized that he was mistaken.

He looked up, but there was nothing on the horizon. “What’s going on? Why are we slowing down?”

“We’ve got two aircraft incoming, sir. I don’t think that they’re ours.”

Following the sailor’s glance, he saw the two planes. “I’ll be damned.”

The aircraft remained at high altitude, so it was impossible to determine whether they were friend or foe. Maybe someone with sharper eyes could tell the difference, but squinting over the sights of a typewriter had taken its toll on Oatmire’s vision. However, the fact that there were only two planes was suspicious. American aircraft generally flew in squadrons, but the Japanese were flying sorties with smaller numbers of planes, reflecting their dwindling forces.

One thing for sure, if they were Japanese, the launch would be defenseless if they came by for a strafing run. One good burst from the machine guns of a Zero would reduce them to splinters, or at least put enough holes in the hull to ensure that their journey wouldn’t last much longer.

The boatswain had slowed to eliminate any wake, which was the most telltale sign of a vessel moving on the surface, even one as small as this.

Oatmire held his breath and kept quiet, as if the pilots could hear him all that way up. It would seem as if their small boat would hardly be worth the effort, but it was hard to say how vengeful a Japanese pilot might be feeling.

Once the planes had started to slip from sight, the boatswain reengaged the throttle, and the launch began making headway once again.

The small boat resumed its bouncing journey, but Oatmire kept one eye on the sky in case the planes returned.

He doubted that his adventures with the United States Navy could have gotten much worse, but he was wrong about that.

Finally, a brooding gray silhouette appeared on the horizon.

“There she is, sir,” the boatswain said helpfully, evidently just in case army officers were blind in addition to being prone to seasickness.

“I see her.”

Since the incident with the aircraft passing overhead, Oatmire had been more than alert. He studied the ship ahead with interest.

He was glad to see that the ship was large, which would be some countermeasure against the Pacific swells, but that was as far as the allure went.

He remembered once seeing a tall ship, a massive wooden vessel with canvas sails, rigging like gossamer, and a carved and painted figurehead portraying a Romanesque woman or maybe a minor goddess. Even a landlubber like Oatmire had been struck by the beauty of that ship, almost like a massive swan sweeping silently across the water. The navy vessel on the horizon did not resemble that majestic tall ship in any way.

“What the hell is that?” Oatmire asked.

“That’s the USS Kalinin Bay,” the boatswain replied, sounding puzzled. “Didn’t anyone tell you where you were going?”

“I was told that I was visiting a ship. That looks like a giant floating shoebox.”

For once, the boatswain cracked a smile. “You wouldn’t be far wrong, sir. The Kalinin Bay is an escort carrier. What we call a Jeep carrier or baby flattop.”

The boatswain then launched into a surprisingly detailed explanation of a Jeep carrier, which had very little to do with Jeeps, although there might be some of those stowed in the hold for transfer to Leyte. Instead, this was a small carrier intended for just twenty-seven aircraft and with a complement of more than nine hundred men, including pilots and aircrew. The so-called Jeep carriers could be built relatively quickly and deployed to Pacific outposts, where the resources of a full-size carrier would be wasted. More than fifty of these Casablanca-class escort carriers were now scattered around the Pacific, forming a small navy in themselves. The boatswain stopped short of explaining that Kalinin Bay was named for a remote body of water in Alaska.

In comparison, a full-size aircraft carrier such as the famed USS Enterprise transported up to ninety-six planes and more than twenty-two hundred personnel, almost as much of a floating city as a ship.

The smaller carrier had been built for utility rather than looks. Oatmire had thought that USS Kalinin Bay resembled a giant floating shoebox, which was an apt description. Though shorter in length than the mighty USS Nashville, the Jeep carrier somehow looked bulkier due to its sheer sides. Oatmire stared with some apprehension at the rope ladder that hung down the side of the ship, blowing around in the ocean breeze like a loose thread.

“Here we go, sir,” the boatswain said. “My advice is, don’t look down. And don’t stop climbing.”

The launch nosed up against the steel skin like a baby whale nudging its mama. Oatmire looped his seabag over his shoulders, swayed unsteadily with the weight, then lurched forward. A wave had slapped them away from the ship, opening a gap between the launch and the dangling ladder. For a moment it seemed as if Oatmire might fall into the sea and never be seen again. But the skilled boatswain yanked at the throttle and the rudder, closing the gap so that when Oatmire did fall, he managed to grab the ladder and hang on for dear life.

Oatmire knew that he couldn’t stay there forever, feet planted in the bucking launch and wet hands grasping the ladder. He forced himself to start to climb.

Below him, the launch pulled away.

“Good luck, sir!” the boatswain shouted, and then the small boat headed back across the sea.

Fueled by sheer terror and adrenaline, Oatmire managed to climb the ladder. The ladder was not secured at the bottom, which meant that from time to time it swung out over the water like a pendulum when the ship rode a large swell. “Dear God,” Oatmire muttered, holding on for dear life until the pendulum swung back and smacked him against the steel skin of the ship. At the top, hands reached down and helped him over the side. Oatmire flopped onto the deck and lay there gasping like a freshly caught fish.

As he caught his breath, Oatmire began the first of his naval observations.

First of all, he noted that there was no fanfare. Apparently the ship’s captain hadn’t even taken the time to be there to greet him — that was how far down the pecking order Oatmire was in the scheme of things.

The ship was apparently already at anchor and had not stopped expressly for him. The business of the ship was going on around them, sailors busy coiling lines and mopping up oil spills from the flight deck. Other sailors were busy doing jobs and working on equipment that Oatmire couldn’t even identify. He felt more like a landlubber than ever.

The arrival of a junior army officer did not warrant any sort of ceremony and was scarcely noticed, even if he was coming from General MacArthur. If it had actually been MacArthur arriving on the ship, it would have been a different story. The ship’s officers would have all been on hand to greet him, and most of the ship’s crew would have been gathered in formation, all wearing their best uniforms. Of course MacArthur wouldn’t have bothered to go aboard a Jeep carrier, no more than a chef would have stopped to eat at a roadside diner.

“That last step is a doozy,” said a voice that clearly sounded amused, and Oatmire looked up to see a naval officer reaching down to assist him with getting upright again.

“Let me help you with that, sir,” a sailor announced, and Oatmire felt himself being relieved of the weighty seabag. He lurched sideways as he adjusted to not being weighed down.

Oatmire regained his balance and found himself looking into the smiling face of a lieutenant commander. The man was about average height and build, with what seemed to be a friendly disposition.

“I’m Tom O’Connell,” the lieutenant commander announced, extending a hand that Oatmire shook. Oatmire understood that it was a rank equivalent to an army major, which meant that O’Connell technically outranked him. “Welcome aboard.”

Oatmire couldn’t help but grin back. “So you’re going to be my babysitter, sir?”

O’Connell laughed. “If you want to call it that. Officially, I’ve been assigned to be your liaison, mainly because they don’t know what else to do with me. The ship I was on got sunk by the Japanese back at Ironbottom Sound, and they put me aboard this carrier. They already have a full complement of officers, so I end up with a lot of ‘and other duties as assigned’ by the captain. No need to call me ‘sir,’ by the way — I’m just here as your tour guide.”

It was an honest and straightforward introduction. Oatmire couldn’t help but smile again. “I’ve got to say, that sounds a lot like my job back at HQ, which is probably why I got sent out here.”

“Why exactly are you here?” O’Connell was friendly enough, but Oatmire noticed that the naval officer had quick, intelligent eyes. Maybe his lack of other duties wasn’t the only reason he had been assigned to chaperone an army officer. Like most career officers, he was probably an Annapolis graduate. Not much would get past him.

At any rate, it was a fair question to ask why he was on board. “I’m a liaison. General MacArthur wanted to promote interservice—”

O’Connell cut him off, looking amused. “Liaison, huh? You mean you were sent here to spy on us. In that case, let me show you around. We’re not as big as the Indianapolis or even the Nashville that you just came from, but there’s still plenty to see.”

Oatmire didn’t bother to argue about being called a spy. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he was there or what he was looking for, but he thought that he would know it when he saw it.

“I’d appreciate a tour,” Oatmire agreed. “As long as it doesn’t involve climbing any other ladders.”

“Don’t worry. Coming up the side of that ship was the most excitement you’re likely to see. The Seventh Fleet is strictly supply and logistics. If you wanted to see some action, you should have gotten yourself sent out to Halsey’s Third Fleet.” O’Connell waved a hand to indicate the ocean beyond. “They’re at least sixty miles out. They’re the ones who are tangling with the Japanese right about now.”

“Quiet is fine by me,” Oatmire said. He took a step, realizing that his legs still felt rubbery after the climb up the ship’s ladder. He took another step and staggered.

O’Connell moved to steady him. “You know what? There’s officially no booze allowed on board, but the officers do keep a little scotch on hand for medicinal purposes. I’d say you could use a drink.”

“I think I could use a drink — strictly for medicinal purposes,” Oatmire said.

“That’s the spirit,” O’Connell said. “Right this way.”

“I have to admit that I’m suddenly liking the navy a lot more than I did a minute ago.”