"We seldom have a chance to show our party manners to a VIP, Sir."
Christ, is that what I am?
"Beautiful day," Pickering said.
"We're making good time, too, Sir. Did you check the chart?"
"We're making, if I haven't forgotten how to read a chart, better than twenty knots?"
"We are making 'best speed consistent with available fuel,' Sir," the captain said, then took a sheet from his shirt pocket and handed it to Pickering.
URGENT
SECRET
FROM: CINCPAC
TO: COMMANDER DESTROYER FORCE TWENTY
1. GREGORY IS DETACHED FROM DESFORCE TWENTY. GREGORY IS TO STEAM FOR BAKER XRAY MIKE AT
BEST SPEED CONSISTENT WITH AVAILABLE FUEL.
2. DESFORCE TWENTY WILL PROCEED TO BAKER XRAY MIKE IN COMPLIANCE WITH PRESENT ORDERS.
3. PASS TO CAPTAIN PICKERING ARRANGEMENTS FOR HIS FURTHER MOVEMENT BY AIR HAVE BEEN MADE.
BY DIRECTION: D.J. WAGAM, REARADM USN
Pickering went to the heavy plate glass windows of the bridge and looked out. There was no other vessel in sight on the smooth, blue swells of the sea.
"Where, or what, is Baker XRay Mike?"
"Espiritu Santo, Sir. They've got a pretty decent airfield up and running there."
"Is this what the Navy calls 'flank speed'?" Pickering asked.
"She'll go a bit faster than this, Captain. But the ride gets a little rough, and the fuel consumption goes way up. I dislike not having enough fuel in the bunkers."
"That was a question, not a criticism. I've never been on one of these before."
"You know what they are?"
"High speed transport," Pickering said. "Right?"
"That's something of a misnomer, Sir. They removed half the boilers and converted that space to troop berthing. It's high speed relative to a troop transport, not compared to anything else. She's considerably slower than she was before they removed half her boilers."
"Well, whoever's idea it was, it seems to be a good one. They couldn't start landing aircraft on Henderson until they got some fuel in there, and they couldn't risk sending a transport."
"The original idea, as I understand it, Sir, was that the APDs would be used to transport the Marine Raiders. We even trained with them for a while. You familiar with the Raiders, Sir?"
"Yes," Pickering said. "A little." Franklin Roosevelt copying-or trying to best-the British again. They almost wound up being called The Marine Commandos.
"What happened to the idea of using these ships to transport Raiders?" Pickering asked.
"Well of course, in a sense, we did. We are. We put the Raiders ashore on Tulagi. But that was a conventional amphibious assault. What I meant, Sir, was that I think the idea for the conversion of these ships was to transport the Raiders on raids."
"That isn't going to happen?"
"There is some scuttlebutt, Sir, that the Second Raider Battalion was to be landed yesterday on Makin Island from submarines. I emphasize, Sir, that it's scuttlebutt, and probably shouldn't be repeated."
Meaning, of course, that you know goddamn well the Second Raider Battalion was landed yesterday on Makin by submarine, but are afraid that when your VIP supercargo has a few drinks with the brass, he will report that you told him. "I know an officer with the Second Raiders," Pickering thought aloud, and then corrected himself. "I have a friend who is an officer with the Second Raiders."
I know Colonel Evans Carlson and Captain Roosevelt, whose father is our Commander-in-Chief, and a dozen other Raider officers. But I'm not sure-I frankly doubt-if they would appreciate me going around announcing that I'm a friend of theirs. Killer McCoy, on the other hand...
"And actually, he's more my son's friend-they went through officer candidate school at Quantico together-than mine. Very interesting young man. He was an enlisted man with the Fourth Marines in China before the war. They call him 'Killer' McCoy."
"Your son is a Marine, Sir?"
"Yes, he is."
"With the First Division?"
"No. Thank God. He's just finished flying school. Actually, the last I heard, he'd just finished F4F training. I expect he's on his way over here, or will be shortly."
"The F4F is supposed to be quite an airplane," the captain said.
Thank you, Captain, for your-failed but noble-attempt to reassure the father of a brand-new Marine Corps fighter pilot that all is right with the world:
"Bridge, Lookout," the loudspeaker above Pickering's head blared suddenly. "Aircraft, to port. On the deck."
The captain ran to the port to the open portion of the bridge, rested his hands on the steel surrounding it, and looked out.
Aware that his function as supercargo was to stay the hell out of people's way, Pickering successfully resisted the temptation to look for himself. He backed up until his back touched the aft bulkhead of the bridge.
The captain turned around. "Sound General Quarters," he ordered. "All ahead full. All weapons to fire when ready." He looked at Pickering, and over the clamor of the General Quarters bell, said, "It's an Emily. Obviously on a torpedo run."
Then he turned to look at the aircraft again.
The Emily, Pickering knew, was the Kawanishi H8K2, a four-engine flying boat which had obviously borrowed much of its design from Igor Sikorski's Pan American Airways flying boats. It was fast-he recalled that it cruised at 290 mph-had a range of 4000 miles, and could carry either two of the large, excellent, 1780-pound Japanese torpedoes, or just over two tons of bombs.
It's spotted the Gregory, Pickering realized, and has decided an American destroyer all alone on the wide sea is just what she is looking for.
With the element of surprise on the side of the bomber, a destroyer made an excellent torpedo target. On the other hand, hitting an aircraft with the 40mm Bofors and.50 Caliber Brownings on a destroyer was very difficult, even if they could be brought to bear in time. An aircraft slowed to a speed that allowed it to safely and accurately launch a torpedo was a little more vulnerable, but not much.
Thirty seconds later-it seemed like much, much longer- there was a sudden, violent eruption of noise and sound on the bridge. Explosions followed, and smoke, and shattering glass. And before Pickering regained his senses, there was another explosion and then a water spout thirty feet off the port rail; and a moment later a hundred feet off the starboard rail, another.