Torpedo Run (17 page)

"What's the big idea?" Peter demanded.

"Somebody had already stolen some of this food," Archer told him. "From now on it's going to be under lock and key, and every man will get an equal share. Furthermore, I want you to put a lock on the scuttlebutt so that no one can drink water without my permission."

Peter stood looking down at him in amazement. Archer now looked gray and beaten and weak, but his eyes were still glittery and his chin stubborn. "Sometimes I think you're crazy, Adrian."

"I'm not," Archer said without anger.

"Maybe not … well, it's no soap on the engines. Both V-drives are wiped out and there's no way to get through the reduction gear. Paddlin' Madeleine home."

"I'm aware of that, Mr. Brent."

"The rudders are jammed, too."

"I know."

"And a bullet took out the transmitter."

"Don't you think I know what's going on aboard this boat?"

Peter was counting to ten as he started to sit down on the bunk.

"You're soaking wet," Archer reminded him.

Peter straightened up and then leaned against the bulkhead. " … nine … ten," Peter said, aloud. "Now … " He looked down at Archer and wondered what he and
Slewfoot
and the crew had done to get such a man as commanding officer.

"Adrian," he said, "we're in a lot of trouble and it's the kind of trouble your 'black-shoe Navy' doesn't help. The kind of trouble where all of us have got to get along with each other or we get along without each other and come up dead. So how about knocking off all this
I'm
-the-boss nonsense and try being a human being."

Archer turned in the chair and looked up at him as though he were a wayward child. "I don't think you realize yet, Mr. Brent, how much trouble we really are in. Or realize that it is the kind of trouble that demands the sternest and most impartial and impersonal discipline. When you do, we will discuss it further."

"Let's discuss it now," Peter said. "First, why have you posted a watch on deck in weather like this?"

"If you will read the regulations … "

Peter interrupted him, trying not to let his anger show, "The regulations are what put us where we are now. So why don't you forget the regulations and just start trying to save this boat and the people in her?"

"You think this is my fault, don't you?" Archer asked.

Peter looked at him for a long moment and wished that he was not so tired and dismayed. It was hard to think about Archer now, but it was necessary. "Yes, I do," he said slowly.

"Suppose that barge had been one of our ships? And we had opened fire on it and sunk it. Whose fault would
that
have been, Mr. Brent?"

"His fault," Peter said. "At night this is PT-boat water. Our ships are not supposed to be in this area at night." He stopped and looked at Archer. "Not your fault, really," he went on, "but there're some things they didn't teach you in Rhode Island and the best way to learn them is by listening—the way the rest of us did."

"Thank you, Mr. Brent. You may go now."

"One more thing. How about giving Britches some more morphine?"

"No more. Unless there's serious infection and pain. Do you want to make a dope addict out of him?"

"You're probably right," Peter said, feeling defeat rolling over him like a slow wave as he turned toward the door. Then he stopped and looked at Archer again. "Adrian, for your own good, take this little piece of advice. Don't go near the rail on dark nights."

Archer stiffened in his chair and, for an instant, his face was drawn with some sort of pain or anger … something. "Is that a threat, Mr. Brent?" he demanded.

"That's advice, Adrian," Peter said, and went out.

When Peter went out, Archer got up slowly from the chair and walked over to the door. Taking a key out of his pocket, he locked it, testing the knob. Then he went back to the chair.

On deck, aft, Mitch and Stucky were floundering around, yelling curses at each other and anything else they could think of. Archer had ordered them to rig one of the canvas gun covers to catch the rainwater. The way he had explained it sounded simple enough: catch rain in the fire buckets, dump the fire buckets into the water tank (the bullet holes in it had been plugged). Simple.

It was not simple at all. In the first place, although it was pouring cold rain, not much of it seemed to be falling into the funnel they had made out of the gun cover. The next problem was to keep the fire buckets from being knocked all over the deck by the sweeping waves. And these same waves were knocking them around too. They had managed, in an hour, to pour into the tank about a bucket and a half and, as the storm got worse, they were catching and keeping less and less.

"Belay it," Mitch yelled. "If that idiot wants a drink of water let him come get it himself."

Shivering with cold and bone tired, Stucky and Mitch went below.

They did not see a wave sweep over the quarter and carry away the fire buckets. For a moment they rattled around the depth charge racks, then rolled on around the smoke generator and fell into the sea.

In the little chart house Peter dried his hands and unrolled the chart of the Bismarck Archipelago, pinning it to the table. He plotted in the last known position of
Slewfoot
from Willie's contact report and then broke out the tide tables and checked the winds and currents of the area. These alone would move
Slewfoot
now and they would move her as they willed and not as he or Archer or any man willed.

Slewfoot
was in an eddy of the South Equatorial Current which swept in a great band of warm water westward toward the Philippines and the Celebes Sea and then swung north and around to move eastward again above the Equator. This unseen and unfelt movement of the sea was, Peter knew, taking
Slewfoot
a little to the north of west.

Added to the current of the sea
Slewfoot
would also be at the mercy of the southeast trade winds pouring up from the belt of the Roaring Forties and the South Polar ice cap. The winds, like the current, would move
Slewfoot
westward and slightly north.

The combined strength of the two—the current and the wind—over a long period of time would, Peter calculated, move
Slewfoot
at the rate of about four of five knots.

He paused for a moment, thinking of what Archer had said—that he didn't realize how serious their problem was. He wondered if Archer did. There were only two answers to it. If, tomorrow,
Slewfoot
was sighted by one of our patrol planes she could be saved. Or—and Peter did not see how it could be done—Sko could get her moving under her own power again and she could save herself. But only if Sko did it soon.
Slewfoot
was being driven, by wind and sea, a hundred or more miles a day. If it took Sko too long, there would simply not be enough gas to get her home again.

Peter laid the parallel rulers down on the compass rose at the side of the chart and picked off the course he estimated
Slewfoot
was moving on. Then he walked the rulers across the chart to her last known position.

The sharp, straight edge of the rulers cut through the penciled dot of
Slewfoot's
last position and then went across the Bismarck Sea and on into the Pacific Ocean—on and on until, at last, the rulers came to the Philippine Islands. Peter took a pair of dividers out of the rack, opened them to the degree scale on the chart, and began to spin them along the line of the ruler. As the miles mounted up he spun the sharp dividers slower and slower.

Two thousand miles. Two thousand miles of open and hostile ocean. Two thousand miles of the awful wastes of the Pacific now completely dominated by the enemy.

At four o'clock in the morning, Peter looked into the dayroom. Sko, Skeeter, and the Professor, so tired they had not even stripped off their oil- and water-soaked pants, were sprawled in their bunks. Jason, just relieved of the watch by the Preacher, was taking off his dripping clothes. Goldberg was awake in his upper bunk, and Britches was still asleep. Murph's sleep seemed undisturbed by his guilt. Stucky was having a nightmare, and Mitch was snoring. Sam was sleeping as usual with one foot out of the bunk and planted firmly on the deck. Only Willie was missing.

Peter found Willie sound asleep, his head down among the parts of the ruined transmitter.

As Peter came back down into the boat, weariness overwhelmed him too. As he went aft he saw that there was still a slit of light from under Archer's door, but there was no sound.

As Peter stripped off his long-wet clothes he prayed for sunshine. If it kept on raining like this, no one would see them on the gray sea.

In his dream,
Slewfoot
drifted through the rain forever and ever.

Angry voices outside his door woke him up.

Mitch, Stucky, and Jason were crowded into the narrow passageway in front of Archer's cabin. Archer was standing with his back to the closed cabin door.

"What do you mean, no chow … sir?" Mitch demanded.

"Exactly that," Archer said.

"Look, Mr. Archer," Jason said, his voice less angry than Mitch's, "we haven't eaten since yesterday."

Peter squeezed out of his cabin and moved over beside Archer.

"There's very little food aboard," Archer said. "What there is may have to last us a long time. It will be given to you in small amounts at twelve hundred each day. Until it's gone."

Mitch began to laugh. "Man, you talk like we're going to be out here forever."

"We'll be back in Morobe tonight," Stucky added.

"You will be given something to eat at twelve hundred," Archer said and went back into his cabin. They could hear the key turning in the lock.

Mitch was furious. "How about it, Peter? Is he going to get away with that?"

"He's eating it all himself," Stucky decided.

"Calm down," Peter said, "and get out of here. I'll talk to him."

When they had cleared the passageway, grumbling to themselves, Peter knocked on the door. "Brent," he called.

The key turned, and he went in. Archer had not shaved, which made him look even more gray and sick. As Peter started to say something, Archer said, "Before you start sounding off, answer me this. If we are not sighted today what do you think is going to happen?"

Peter laughed, "We'll take a long, lonesome ride."

"Exactly. And if we're going to survive we must save what food we have. We must make it last for days, perhaps weeks, perhaps—months. There isn't much."

"Then why don't you explain that to the men instead of acting like a little Hitler?"

"I leave the popularity contests to you, Mr. Brent,"

"Thanks a lot," Peter said and left. He was startled by the brilliance of the sunshine when he reached the deck. It was a beautiful day, rain-washed and clear and warm, with the gentle southeast trade wind blowing steadily. High, brilliant white clouds drifted unconcerned toward the horizon, and the sea was almost pure blue and the sparkling of the little waves like diamonds.

There was nothing in sight except the sea and the sky. The green lump of New Guinea had disappeared, the long white line of New Britain had gone.

Peter went up to the foredeck and called down the hatch for all hands on deck. The men who were not already topside came trooping up, all unshaved and tired and angry.

As they gathered around him, Peter looked at them one by one. The faces he had known for so long all seemed changed—older, oddly bitter, the tired eyes a little wild, the mouths set and angry.

"Now look, you guys," Peter said, "get with it. We're in a mess and you people are acting like a bunch of spoiled brats."

Peter heard Stucky say in a low voice, "Maybe he's eating chow with the Captain."

Peter pushed through them to the gunner. "You've been riding this boat as long as I have, Stucky. And done some good shooting. All I want from you is more of the same."

He turned back to the others. "Now, Sko, what's chances of getting the engines going?"

"Forget 'em," Sko said.

"Okay," Peter went on, "then here's what I think will happen. With a day like this our patrol planes will spot us from a hundred miles away. It's made in the shade. But we can't take a chance in case they miss us. So the Captain's right. Until we know we've been sighted and help's on the way, we've got to go easy on the chow. Because if we don't get spotted we've got a two-thousand-mile ride, and what little food we've got will have to last the whole way."

Stucky said angrily, "Willie, why don't you fix that transmitter? How'd you get a rate as a radioman if you can't even fix a transmitter."

Willie, instantly furious, turned on Stucky. "You're so smart, you dumb trigger-puller. You fix it!"

"Knock it off," Peter said. Then he looked at them, one by one. "You guys get with this boat, the way you used to be. She's gotten you out of a lot of trouble. Now you get her out of this trouble."

He looked at them again and, slowly, their faces became the faces he had known before—the faces of men he could trust to do what had to be done.

All except Stucky. For some reason, this one would not change, but stood, his face angry and sour, and stared at Peter.

And as Peter walked away from them he heard Stucky yelling at Sam, "It's all your fault, Sam! This boat should be loaded with chow."

As Peter turned and started back, Archer's commanding voice from the bridge stopped both him and the argument.

"All hands! Man your battle stations!"

The words froze them for an instant and then they broke and ran for the guns.

Peter ran up on the bridge beside Archer. "What's up?"

"Listen," Archer said.

Then Peter could hear it. The far, faraway drone of a plane. He got the binoculars out of the chart house and began scanning the sky, starting in the southeast.

The plane was just a dot in the blue sky. It didn't even seem to be moving. "I can't make it out," he told Archer, "but it's coming from the southeast so it must be one of ours."

Peter leaned over the windshield and called, "Spread the flag out across the deck. I think this is one of ours."