Silent Sea

CHAPTER 11

For most submarine men the two weeks of rest and relaxation the Navy provided in a hotel ashore, the “R & R” period, was a time to unwind, settle minor differences that had grown to major irritations during the long weeks on war patrol, get gloriously drunk, and find a woman to engage in the act of procreation. That act was, of itself, a gesture of defiance to the death all submariners faced when they returned to sea.

Submarine officers were quartered separately from their crews. The Navy’s High Command recognized that some of its officers — after all, so many were non-career Reservists — might forget themselves and act in a manner unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The Navy felt that it was better if enlisted men did not see an officer in his cups or in pursuit of female companionship.

The port Shore Patrol teams that roamed the city day and night were instructed to treat submariners gently, to keep them from making a disturbance, and if need be, take them back to their hotels, where they were turned over to the hotel security guard.

Not all submariners spent their R & R time drinking or searching for women. Some explored the city, walked in the parks, sampled the Australian specialty of a steak topped with two or more fried eggs. Others, who chose to be quartered with hospitable families, fell happily into the family’s routine and more often than not smuggled a case of Nestlé Instant Coffee out of the submarine base as a reward for their generous hosts.

Chief Monk Flanagan came down to breakfast a week after the R & R period had started. He had a dull ache in the back of his head, the result of some solitary beer drinking in his room the night before. Paul Blake saw him and waved. Flanagan walked over to his table and sat down.

“Morning, Chief,” Blake said. “I don’t know what this cold yellow fruit is, but it sure is good. I’ve had some for breakfast every morning.”

“It’s sliced mango,” Flanagan said. “Tropical fruit. We used to buy mangoes from kids in Manila, before the war. Cost five centavos each, that’s two for a nickel, our money.”

The waitress, a tall, bosomy woman in her fifties, came to the table with a pot of steaming coffee and a tall glass of creamy yellow liquid. Flanagan smiled his thanks and drank the glass of liquid down in three long swallows.

“What’s that stuff in the glass?” Blake asked. “Every morning when I eat breakfast I notice the waitresses give it to most of the guys but they never give me any. I don’t know what it is so I don’t know what to ask for.”

“It’s a Dutch drink, I think its name is Advocat or something like that. It’s made of brandy, egg yolks, and heavy cream. Best thing in the world for a hangover. These waitresses have had sub crews in here before. They know who needs a glass of that stuff and who doesn’t. You don’t drink, do you?”

“No,” Blake said. “My mom asked me not to drink when I enlisted, so I don’t.” He drained his glass of milk. “You know, I kind of like the idea of having a bowl of fresh fruit on the table for breakfast. Back home in Kansas my mom thought you had to have meat and potatoes and vegetables and even pie for breakfast before you went out to work in the fields.”

“You grow up on a farm?”

“My pop has six thousand acres of wheat,” Blake said. “The harvest crews, some of the men, used to drink pretty heavy, and maybe that’s why my mom asked me not to.”

“What’s a harvest crew?” Flanagan asked.

“People who come around every year at harvest time. They have their own equipment, big stuff. They’re something like submarine men, Chief. Real professionals. They stick together. They go from farm to farm during harvest — all through the wheat belt, all the way up to the Dakotas. My mom used to go over to the other farms when they’d be working those farms and help with the cooking. The other farmers’ wives would come to our farm when the harvest crew was at our farm. If you think a submarine feeds good you should see what a farm puts on the table for the harvest crew!” The waitress walked up to the table.

“You feel like food this morning, Chief?”

“Bring me about four eggs, sunny-side up, please. And a stack of toast.” He reached into the bowl of fruit on the table, took a passion fruit, cut through the tough outer skin, and scooped out the mass of purple seeds.

“What are you doing with your time?” he asked Blake.

“I’ve done a lot of sightseeing,” Blake said. “I’ve been to a couple of movies. The Australians call movies ‘flicks,’ did you know that? And the girl who works with the Red Cross, the one I met when we were in port last time, she left a note for me. I took her to lunch a couple of times and to a movie, and this afternoon we’re going out to her house for dinner with her folks.”

“Makin’ out, huh?” Flanagan asked.

Blake blushed, the crimson line crawling up his boyish face to his blond hair.

“She’s a nice girl, Chief. Her folks took my picture last time and sent it to my folks, and now I guess they’re writing to each other.” He rose as Steve Petreshock and Jim Rice came up. “See you fellas later,” Blake said. Rice and Petreshock sat down.

“What’d we do, scare the kid away?” Rice asked.

“You’d scare away a bear with that beard and those eyes,” Flanagan said. “You look like something the cat dragged in.”

“You hit it, Chief,” Rice said happily. “A regular wildcat got me yesterday afternoon. I was standin’ on a corner near St. George’s Square, and this nice looking broad walked up to me and asked me how long it’s been since I had a good home-cooked meal. I allowed as it had been quite a time, and she invited me to go home with her and she’d cook me a good dinner.

“Hell, I thought maybe I was going to meet her old man and her kids. You know how nice these Aussies are, always trying to feed you or buy you beer or do things for you.

“But she doesn’t have any kids and her old man’s been missing in action in Crete or someplace for about a year or more. She cooked me a damned good meal and then she just damn near dragged me into the bedroom by my beard, and once we got into the sack she turned out to be a regular wildcat! Man, I ain’t had anything like that in my whole life! I told her I had to get back here early this morning. A man’s got to regroup and reload after a night like that, but I’m sure as hell going back and see if her convoy needs another torpedo attack.”

“Convoy?” Flanagan said. “I’ve heard that thing called all sorts of names but I never heard it called convoy.”

Rice grinned. “She didn’t have a shower at her house so I got in the tub and she got in with me and she saw old Herman at attention in the suds and she started to laugh and told me it looked like a torpedo. Which I had to admit is about right. So we started playing a game. She was the convoy and I torpedoed her.” He drained a tall glass of milk the waitress had put in front of him. “Man, that was some night!”

“What’s your excuse?” Flanagan said to Petreshock.

“Who needs an excuse? I walked into a joint called the Silver Slipper and there was a bunch of wounded Aussies in there. They were trying to big-deal the bartender into giving them each a beer and he wasn’t budging. From what they said they’d busted out of the hospital and they didn’t have a florin between them. So I popped for a few beers. I don’t remember comin’ back to the hotel, don’t know how I got here, but when Jim walked in and woke me up this mornin’ I checked my wallet, figured they’d take me for every damned pound in it, but as far as I can tell there ain’t a sixpence missing.”

“Aussies are good people,” Flanagan said. “I looked at the security logbook this morning. They checked you in at twenty-three hundred hours. Shore Patrol brought you back to the hotel.”

“Any charges against me?” Petreshock’s face was suddenly concerned.

“No charges.”

“Nice people,” Petreshock said. “Not like the Shore Patrol back in Pearl. Those bastards will hammer you on the head with a nightstick and then write you up on charges of damaging the club.”

Paul Blake walked out of the hotel into the early morning heat. He smiled to himself. Everything was backward in this country. They ate eggs for supper, on their steak. It was January and full summer. He looked at his wrist watch. He had several hours to kill before Constance Maybury would be off duty at the Red Cross. The zoo was down the avenue, he remembered. He began to walk, smiling broadly at the people hurrying to work, all of whom smiled at him. As he walked he saw the open door of a church, and without thinking he turned and went inside. He stood in the cool gloom at the back of the church. Then he knelt on the padded kneeling board that was fastened to the back row of seats.

Listening to the words of the Twenty-third Psalm that had been sent by the sonar operator on the U.S.S. Mako as that submarine sank slowly into the 30,000-foot depth of the Philippine Trench had driven into Paul Blake’s consciousness the fact of his own mortality, a recognition that few 22-year-olds know. He bowed his head as he knelt, and he wondered how it would feel to know you were going to die very soon, that there was no way to avoid death or delay it? How would it feel to wait, as the men of the Mako had waited, for their ship to sink deeply into the sea, until the terrible pressures of the sea crushed the ship like an eggshell? He said an awkwardly phrased prayer under his breath, rose to his feet, and saw the Anglican priest standing near the door. The clergyman’s eyes went from the blue submarine insignia on Blake’s right sleeve to the silver Submarine Combat Pin he wore above his breast jumper pocket.

“You are welcome, any time,” the clergyman said.

“Thank you, sir,” Blake replied. “Is the zoo down this street?”

“Four blocks to your right as you go out the door. You’ll see the entrance to the park, and the zoo is inside, to the left.” Blake nodded and stepped out into the morning sunshine, squaring his white hat carefully on his head. The clergyman watched him walk away.

“So young,” he said to himself. “So very young.”

Flanagan made his way to the Chief Petty Officers’ Club shortly before noon. He walked down the long graveled path to the two-story building on the riverfront and climbed the white stairway outside the building to the dining room and bar. He found a table overlooking the Swan River.

The club began to fill at noon. Flanagan noted that there were a number of submarine Chiefs in the crowd, their pale faces standing out in contrast to the tanned faces and arms of the submarine tender and base Chiefs. He nodded at Nuthall and Wilson, who sat down at a table next to his in company with two other Chiefs.

“Any word on my outer door?”

“It’s on the way, that’s all I can tell you,” Wilson said. “You get the word on the overhaul, the refit?” Flanagan shook his head.

“Since you got to wait for the door and because there’s a lot of boats in port the people in the Squadron decided you would have to do your own refit.”

“That’s gonna make a lot of people happy when they get back from the hotel,” Flanagan said. He turned his head as a burly Chief Boilermaker standing at the bar raised his voice.

“Too damned many heroes in this club,” the man said. “Too fucking many Feather Merchant Reserves wearin’ the Chief’s hat because they’re on some fucking submarine!”

“Who’s that character?” Flanagan asked Wilson.

“Chief Boilermaker named Scott,” Wilson said in a low voice. “He got kicked off the boats years ago, before the war. Changed his rate from Machinist’s Mate to Boilermaker. Hates all submarine sailors. Likes to make trouble, and he’s a nasty bastard in a fight. Strong as an ox. Trouble is, he’s a hell of a good man at his trade. But the way he’s drinking these days I think his liver has got to go.”

Flanagan raised an arm as he saw Doc Wharton and John Wilkes Booth, newly promoted to Chief Yeoman, come in the door of the club and stand surveying the room. They saw him, and moved to his table and sat down.

“How about letting me celebrate getting the hat and buy a beer before lunch?” Booth asked. Flanagan nodded, and Booth went to the crowded bar. He wedged himself in next to the Chief Boilermaker and tried to get the attention of the busy bartender. “Three beers,” he called out.

“Didn’t know you submarine pukes drank beer,” the Chief Boilermaker said in a loud voice. “Thought all you fucking heroes drank champagne. Ain’t beer just a little bit too common for you shitheads?”

“So?” Booth said. He measured the other man’s bulk with his eyes as he moved away from the bar.

“So?” the Chief bellowed. “So? So I think all you submarine fuckheads are fuckheads. That’s what’s so, you shithead!” He stepped away from the bar holding his empty beer stein in his right hand. The conversation in the club died away. Wilson leaned over and half-whispered to Flanagan.

“Better get your Chief away from that dude or there’s going to be a lot of trouble. Old Scott has had too many and he’s looking for trouble.” Flanagan nodded and got to his feet. Doc Wharton followed Flanagan toward the bar.

“I don’t like the way you talk, Chief,” Booth said in a soft voice. “That is, if you’re really a Chief Petty Officer. Maybe you stole your hat off some real Chief.”

“You callin’ me a thief?” the burly man moved away from the bar, his red-veined eyes glaring at Booth. “You know what I think you are? I think you’re some kind of a Reserve jackass and you know how you get the attention of a damned jackass? You hit the son of a bitch on the head!” He swung the heavy beer stein up and around and smashed it toward Booth’s head. The Chief Yeoman jerked his head to the right but not quickly enough. The chipped glass bottom of the stein sliced downward against his left ear. Booth reeled away, his hand going to his torn ear as Flanagan moved past him.

“You want some of the same medicine, you fucker?” the Chief Boilermaker bellowed. He swung the beer stein upward, and Flanagan moved in, his right fist traveling in a low arc, smashing into the other man’s crotch. The Chief Boilermaker gagged and then he doubled over, retching. He staggered a step or two and went down on his knees, his hands clutching at his genitals, his face agonized. Flanagan moved over a little, took aim, and then kicked out hard with his right foot, slamming the heel of his shoe into the other man’s head. The man toppled on his side, his breath whistling between his teeth, his hands still grabbing at his crotch.

“Will you damned people keep it quiet?” a submarine CPO said in a loud voice. “Man can’t hardly hear himself eat his soup.

“How badly is he hurt?” Flanagan said to Doc Wharton. The Pharmacist’s Mate was pressing a bar towel against the side of Booth’s head. A steady stream of blood was running down the side of Booth’s neck, staining the collar of his new khaki shirt.

“Looked like his ear was torn off about half way down,” Doc said. He motioned to the bartender, who gave him another clean towel. Wharton took the bloodstained towel from the yeoman’s head and looked at the ear closely. He pressed the clean towel against Booth’s head.

“He’s gonna need a lot of stitching,” he said.

“Hospital?” Flanagan asked.

“He should go there, but if we take him there they’ll hold him for God knows how long to check for concussion. Any time someone gets hit in the head they worry.”

“If that happens we’ll lose him off the boat, sure as hell,” Flanagan said. “What with charges and God knows what being brought. Best damned yeoman we ever had. Good man on the twin twenties, too.” He looked at Wharton. “You think you can take care of him?”

“I could sure as hell try,” Wharton said. “My kit is at my girl’s flat. We can do it there. If it works, fine. If it doesn’t we can always send him to the hospital.”

Flanagan turned and faced the Chief Petty Officers in the restaurant and bar. He looked down at the unconscious Chief Boilermaker and then at the seated Chiefs.

“My name is Flanagan, Chief of the Boat of the Eelfish, “ he said in a flat tone of voice. “If this dude or any of his friends wants to see me they can come around.” He turned and saw that the two relief-crew Chiefs, Nuthall and Wilson, were helping Wharton move Booth toward the door. At the end of the gravel path Nuthall left and trotted down the street.

“We’ve got a Squadron car parked down the street,” Wilson said. “We’ll drive you wherever you got to go with this guy

“You’re good people,” Flanagan said. “Doc is going to try and sew him up over at his girl’s place.”

Nuthall drove up and the three men got into the car. Ten minutes later they were in the sitting room of a modest flat. A buxom young blonde went hurrying into the kitchen for a basin of warm water in response to Wharton’s order.

“Her name’s Sheila,” Wharton said. He sat Booth down on a kitchen chair that Nuthall had brought out and carefully moved the bloody towel from the side of Booth’s head. The left ear was hanging, torn away from the scalp skin down half the length of the ear. Wharton gently bathed the area with warm water and soap. He turned to the girl.

“Get me that bottle of rum I bought yesterday. Pour out a big glass. I’m gonna have to hurt this bastard, and a little rum will make it easier on both of us. Not as good as a shot, but I don’t have any morphine.” He handed Booth the glass of rum, and he gagged as he took a swallow.

“Get it down, fella,” Wharton said. “Soon’s you begin to feel brave and happy lemme know, and I’ll go to work.”

Booth smiled wanly. “Fucker sneak-hit me. You fix me up and I’ll go back and cold-cock that son of a bitch so hard he won’t wake up for quarters.” He drank the rest of the rum, shuddering as the powerful liquor bit at his throat. Flanagan held a towel against the damaged ear while Wharton laid out a curved needle and sutures. He threaded the needle and dipped needle and suture in a vial of alcohol. He pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, picked up the needle, and moved in beside Flanagan. Flanagan took away the towel, and the upper half of the ear flopped down as the blood began to run.

“Can’t work on that damned thing with him sitting up,” Wharton said. He turned, looking at the furniture in the room.

“Sheila,” he said. “You sit at that end of the couch. We’ll lay him down on the couch, put his head in your lap. I can kneel beside the couch and sew him up. That way the damned ear won’t flop around.”

“Gimme ‘nother drink,” Booth said. Flanagan filled the glass half full of rum and handed it to Booth, who drank it down in three long swallows. Sheila sat down at the end of the couch, and Nuthall and Wilson helped lay Booth on the couch with his head in the girl’s lap. She curled one arm over the back of his head and pressed his face into her bosom. Wharton knelt on the floor and turned to Flanagan.

“Drape that clean towel over his face. I’m gonna start sewing at the bottom part of the ear and go up and around the top. One of you other guys get some ice out of the icebox in the kitchen. You’ll find an icepick in the drawer. Wrap the ice in a towel and maybe we can slow down this damned blood a little. Bastard bleeds good. Monk, if you’ll get some of that gauze out of my kit, give it to me so’s I can keep the work area clean.”

He bent to his work, his whole being intent on what he was doing as his rubber-gloved fingers gently inserted the needle through the skin of the ear and then through the scalp skin, pulling the edges together. He tied off the knot expertly, clipped the suture with a pair of small scissors, and began the second stitch. He finished the third and fourth stitches, and Sheila began to moan.

“What the hell’s eatin’ you?” Wharton grumbled. “He’s the one gettin’ hurt, not you.” He stitched expertly, working his way up around the curve of Booth’s ear. Sheila moaned again and suddenly crossed her legs, moving Booth’s head.

“Damn it, woman!” Wharton snapped. “Don’t move his head sudden like that. I might put this damned needle in his eye, for Christ’s sake! And stop moaning.” He stopped his suturing and stared, and then he yanked the towel. He rocked back on his heels.

“Why you damn woman!” he roared. Wilson and Nuthall, standing at the end of the couch, began to laugh.

Sheila’s head was thrown back against the couch, her eyes closed, her shoulders quivering. A low moan escaped her lips. Flanagan moved so he could see what had upset Wharton and he grinned. Under the cover of the towel draped over his face Booth had unbuttoned the girl’s blouse and had fastened his mouth on the nipple on her breast.

“Don’t get mad, Doc,” Flanagan said. “Rum or a tit, no difference, so long as the bastard keeps his head still and doesn’t holler.”

“I keep telling this broad she should wear a brassiere,” Wharton said. “I never ran into anything like this before, damn it.” He ground his teeth and went back to work, pulling the needle through the flesh with little regard for the pain he was giving to Booth. Finally he stood up and reached for a wad of fresh gauze. He smeared Vaseline on the gauze and then sprinkled a heavy layer of sulfa powder on the Vaseline. He fastened the gauze over the damaged ear and strapped it down with adhesive tape.

“Uncouple from that tit, you bastard,” Wharton said. “Sheila, you bitch, get that man’s mouth off’n you. Jesus Christ! I never seen the like of this in all my life!”

Booth sat up on the couch, his eyes squinting shut. “Man, you are sure some kind of doctor,” he said. “And who’s this lovely creature who held my poor old Alabama head?”

“Never mind who the hell she is,” Wharton snapped. “What the hell kind of thanks is that? I sew you up and you go to sucking on my girl’s tit?”

“Is that what I was doing?” Booth said. He touched the gauze over his ear tentatively. “Well, I don’t rightly remember doing that, but if you say I did then I must have done it. My pappy would tan my ass he caught me doing that to your girl. But my pappy ain’t here, he’s on the farm in Alabama. You know where is Alabama, honey?” he turned to the girl.

“No, she don’t know where Alabama is and she don’t have to know,” Wharton said. “Just get your ass out of here.” He turned to Flanagan.

“Take him to the hotel and keep him there. I’ll come by tomorrow morning if I can get a doctor on the tender to come out with me.” He took some pills out of his kit and gave them to Flanagan. “Give him two of these soon’s you get him back to the hotel. Two more in four hours. Should knock him for a loop, loaded with codeine.” He stripped off the rubber gloves and looked at Wilson and Nuthall.

“Appreciate your help but don’t go talking about this damned caper or I’ll wind up with my ass in the brig.”

“Us, too,” Wilson said with a grin. “We’ll take the patient back to the hotel, Doc.”

Flanagan was waiting in the lobby of the hotel the next morning when Wharton came in with another man. He was short, not over five feet three, and he walked briskly, the small gray goatee on his chin leading the way with a belligerent firmness.

“Doctor Silver,” Wharton said to Flanagan. “Doctor, this is the Chief of the Boat, Chief Torpedoman Flanagan.”

“If you haven’t eaten breakfast yet, sir,” Flanagan said to the small Commander. “They serve a mighty fine meal in this hotel.”

“I haven’t eaten and I might as well,” the doctor said. “All this tsimmes because of this Navy’s stupid rules. A man is sick or hurt I make him well if I can. That’s what I am, a doctor, not a robot with rule books in my eyes and cotton in my ears. I am a healer. So I risk a court-martial. Maybe they’ll throw me out and I can go back to civilian life.

“This man here, my friend, you know he was a dancer in civilian life? So they make him an assistant to a doctor, me. The Navy is crazy. We’ll eat and then see if this man I call friend learned anything from me before he got the itch in his ass to go to sea on a submarine.” He looked at Flanagan shrewdly.

“ ‘Ah, you are the one who hit the other man in his testes. I treated him, you know. They brought him in to me yesterday. You hit him very hard. Had cause, I am told. Hitting a man in the testes is a good thing to do to put him out of combat. Makes him reflect on his lost youth.” He sat down at a table with the two Chiefs and helped himself to some slices of chilled mango.

“This friend of mine, here,” the small doctor continued, “he tells me a story of how effective a woman’s breast, her nipple, is as an anesthetic. He should write an article for the New England Journal of Medicine.” He shook his bald head. “You never know what will work. If the patient had been a homosexual you might have put him into shock.”

In Booth’s hotel room Dr. Silver stripped off the adhesive tape with a gentle touch and removed the dressing. He looked at the suturing Wharton had done with a critical eye.

“For a goy, not bad,” he said. “Now I want you to go downstairs and do something for me.

“When we came in through the hotel garden I saw some very big aloe vera plants. You know what is an aloe vera, dancer? No. You would not know that.

“The aloe vera is a sort of big cactus but it has no spines. It has very wide, very thick leaves filled with a healing gel. Ask the hotel gardener to cut off one large leaf for me and bring it here. Cut it off at the base of the leaf.” Wharton left and the doctor busied himself taking Booth’s pulse. Wharton returned with the thick leaf of the aloe vera plant, holding it away from him so the thick, sticky gel dripping out of the cut area of the leaf wouldn’t soil his uniform.

“This plant is called the medicine plant down in the tropics,” Dr. Silver said. “You can find reference to it in the Bible, Old Testament, of course. You can find reference to this plant in the old Egyptian writings.

“Now, you cut off an inch or so from the bottom of this cut end of the leaf.” He sliced through the fleshy leaf and a thick, sticky, colorless gel oozed out. “You spread this on the wound. It heals. If you burn yourself and spread this on, it will stop the pain almost at once, and the burn will heal without scarring or blistering.” His gentle fingers spread the sticky gel over the entire wounded area.

“You see, how it is absorbed almost at once. Now a little more, so, and a new dressing.” He turned to Wharton.

“I want this done three times a day. Keep the aloe vera leaf in a refrigerator or an icebox here in the hotel. Take his temperature each time you dress the wound. If he runs more than one degree above normal, call me. If he feels nauseous call me.” He went to the sink in the room and washed his hands.

“For you, patient,” he said to Booth, “no alcohol. Lots of rest. No anesthetic like you used yesterday. It could raise your blood pressure, make your other ear drop off.” He left the room followed by the two Chiefs.

“Let’s have a little more of that excellent coffee in your hotel dining room, and then I must go back to the ship and lecture Navy officers on the treatment of sailors who must be considered to be human beings and not enlisted men.” Seated at the table he grinned at Wharton.

“A creditable job of suturing, my friend. What I taught you must have taken hold. But if I have to criticize, and I must, the suturing at the top of the ear is not as neat as at the bottom part of the area. You didn’t have to go as far away from the cut at the top to find tissue strong enough to hold the sutures.”

“That part was done after he had seen Booth, ah, sir, sucking on his girl’s breast,” Flanagan said.

Dr. Silver shook his head. “You have to learn never to let all your emotions show. You can show sympathy, empathy, joy. Never distress or sorrow. It upsets the patients. Worse, it upsets their relatives. Patients should never have relatives. It is unfortunate they do. They get in the way of the healing process. They expect miracles. The patient hopes for a miracle but he’ll settle for less. I’ll come back tomorrow at lunch, my friends.” He left, walking with swift strides on his short legs.

“He’s one hell of a man,” Wharton said. “He fights with the Navy brass all the time. He knows more about medicine than all of the doctors on the tender put together, and he lets them know that every day. Those who listen to him learn. Those who don’t listen don’t get over it for a long while. He works a lot at the Australian military hospital on his off time. Sort of a consultant. Most of the medical people in the hospital think he’s God Himself.”

“Well,” Flanagan said, “he’s the right race, isn’t he?”