Chapter 41
Seaman 1st Class Tim Jardine felt that he was now living almost all his life within ten feet of the antiaircraft guns that pointed out into the chill night. He comforted himself by realizing that it could have been a whole lot worse. At least some of the maddening restrictions on their behavior and movement had been relaxed. In a way it was funny. The closer they got to Japan, the less edgy the brass had gotten about the possibility of enemy attacks. Maybe they were getting used to it.
It did seem that fewer Jap planes were flying, and it was logical that the Japs had to run out of suicide pilots someday. After all, a kamikaze didn't make many return flights if he set out to kill himself.
Jardine and the other men in the gun mount had also concluded that their officer, Ensign Hollowell, was a pretty good guy, even if he was an officer and young and inexperienced at that. For one thing, he had devised a better way of rotating men at the guns that kept them fresher during the night. He also wasn't a prick when it came to keeping things neat and shipshape in the area. If the navy wanted the guns manned all the time, then certain things had to be considered less important than others. The turret and its occupants may have looked a little casual, but they were ready to fight.
But the best thing about Hollowell was that he was always hungry and had a great habit of getting food and Cokes for the men. Jardine bit into a sandwich and decided that if feeding people made them like you, then Hollowell was going to be very popular.
Haverman handed Jardine his binoculars and stretched his shoulders. They ached from the strain of peering out into the darkness of the night. "Here, your turn."
"Thanks," Jardine said as he settled the straps over his helmet. "Keep an eye out for MacArthur, he was walking around a little while ago."
Haverman grunted but did not make any disparaging comments about their important guest. MacArthur's nocturnal habit of pacing the ship alone was an old story by now. Just about everyone had seen him, although no one spoke to him. MacArthur just wanted to be alone to think, and who could blame him? The invasion was a month old and the Japs were still hanging in there with no signs of their giving up. Jardine shuddered at the thought of the hell the men on Kyushu were going through. Thank God he'd been drafted into the navy.
Jardine looked through the powerful glasses. As usual, there was nothing. Then a star twinkled and went out. What the hell? He checked where the star was and it returned.
"Dammit," he muttered.
"What is it?" Ensign Hollowell asked.
"I'm not certain, but there may be something out there, just over the horizon. I'm kinda certain I saw some motion low in the sky."
Hollowell made a quick phone call. A moment later he hung up. "Lieutenant Greene says there's nothing on radar, so, if it's a plane, it's way the hell out there. The darkness may be playing tricks on you. Greene thinks it might be a bird."
"Okay, sir," Jardine said, but he didn't feel comfortable. He had that gut feeling that whatever he saw was fairly close, and it sure as hell didn't strike him as a bird. Wrong sort of motion, although he had to admit that he hadn't seen all that much. It was just a sense that it wasn't a bird.
So why hadn't radar latched onto it? If it was a plane and was close by, it should have. But where was it written that radar was perfect? The more he thought about what he hadn't quite seen, the more uncomfortable he became.
Oh, hell, maybe he was just a little tense being so much closer to Japan than they had been a few days ago. They'd all been surprised when the five-ship unit had changed its routine and moved well north of their original position. Now, instead of being behind the fleet, they were just within the navy's defensive perimeter. Then he laughed to himself. Like, how did he know that they really were closer? There had never been any land in sight to prove to them that they were actually any nearer Japan than they had been before. Maybe it was all a big joke and they'd wake up tomorrow off San Francisco.
Then he saw it again. It was dark and just a few feet above the waves, and it looked like some weird bird of prey. But it wasn't a bird. It was definitely a plane and it was close, very damn close and coming at them. He yelled and the antiaircraft battery came alive. Ensign Hollowell saw the dark shape and hollered out the range but not the order to open fire.
There was a second's hesitation. What if it was an American plane? Was the Augusta's floatplane out on some damn fool errand? Hollowell sure as hell didn't want to shoot down an American plane.
At that moment, the portside destroyer opened fire, and searchlights lit up the sky. Instead of helping, it blinded the men in the Augusta.
"Dammit," snarled Jardine as he tried to blink away the sudden loss of night vision.
"Can you see it?" screamed Hollowell.
"No!" Jardine could see nothing except light streaks across his eyes. Then it was in front of him. "Yes!" he yelled back. The guns opened up at the dark plane that was dreadfully close and still only a few feet above the water. Streams of tracers laced the sky, but none seemed to hit the plane that was now only a hundred yards away and closing in with horrifying quickness.
"It's going to hit us!" Haverman moaned, and covered his head. The plane was headed right for them. Then, at the last second, the plane was struck by a shell and shuddered. It seemed to rise up higher by a few feet and flew right over Jardine's head. It was so close that he saw the landing gear above him. With a roar it crashed into one of the eight-inch bow turrets. Explosions and flames racked the bow of the ship, hurling Jardine to the deck. He screamed in fear and confusion as the cloud of burning gasoline swept above them, showering him with flaming debris. Frantically, he pounded at the host of little fires that had started around him until they were out. Only then did he realize that he had burned his hands.
Behind him, damage-control parties rushed toward them and their hoses sent water hurling onto the major fires. Secondary streams doused Jardine's gun mount and ended any fear of their ammunition exploding. Jardine heard others moaning in pain and realized that, other than his hands, which had begun to blister, he wasn't badly hurt. He whimpered at the joy of it. The goddamn kamikaze, and that's what it had to have been, had tried to kill him, but had failed. He was still lying facedown, with debris on top of him. He had to have a lot of bruises, but all of his limbs seemed to be functioning.
Ensign Hollowell lurched to his feet. The right side of his face was all red and one eye was closed. "Sound off," he ordered, and the men complied, identifying themselves. Everyone was alive, but a couple were injured. Haverman said he thought his leg was broken, and that seemed to be the worst of it, presuming that Jardine's burns weren't too bad. Maybe he could get a trip back to the States out of it?
"I think I'm okay," Jardine responded, "but there's a bunch of crap on my back." He didn't want to move. The debris wasn't all that heavy, but there might be an unexploded shell or something else that might hurt him if he moved it himself. "Somebody check it out, please."
Ensign Hollowell staggered to him and pulled some things off him. Then he looked down. "Aw, shit," Hollowell said, and started gagging. "It's an arm."
Jardine shrieked and jerked away, causing the limb to flop down on the deck where he stared at it in shock and revulsion. The arm had been ripped off at the shoulder and was badly burned. "Ain't one of our guys," Jardine finally said. "Thank God." Somebody had been ripped apart, but it wasn't one of his buddies in the gun mount. He was being heartless, but so what? He was alive and the other guy wasn't and that's all there was. "Hey, maybe it belongs to that Jap pilot?"