Pacific Interlude Read Online Free PDF Page A

one can do exactly right. You all know what has to be done in your areas and I’ll try to stay off your backs as much as I can. I’m under no illusion that I know more than I do know and God knows I’ll welcome all the help you can give me. Thanks for your attention.”
    â€œI’ll go see if the men are ready for muster now,” Simpson said.
    â€œGive me about five minutes,” Syl told him. “I’ll be in my cabin.”
    An actor needs to catch a few minutes between acts, he reflected as he sponged off his face with a towel dipped in lukewarm water from the tap. He wished he did not have this feeling that he was acting so much of the time. “Just be yourself,” his mother had often told him, but the last true self he remembered had been a college boy. He could not come aboard this ship in gray flannel slacks and a tweed sports jacket to be himself when he took command.
    Sometimes he liked to imagine it was his college boy self that had been a role circumstances had forced him to play and that he really had been born to be the captain of a ship. His mother’s brother and father had been regular naval officers and his father had commanded a subchaser in World War One before starting his career as a history professor. His mother had said that the ghosts of many sailors roosted in his family tree, maybe dating from way back in the Viking days. Sometimes it helped him to believe that the sea was in his blood. In his heart he felt that all this family tradition was mostly bullshit, but on the days when he could take it seriously, it probably improved his skipper act. Now what in the hell was he supposed to tell the poor damned enlisted men who found themselves aboard this desperate rust bucket?
    â€œCaptain, the men are mustered on the tank deck,” Simpson said at the door.
    â€œVery well.”
    Putting his cap firm on his head, Syl squared his shoulders and walked briskly after his executive officer. The crew was lined up in a double row on the deck. Cramer and Wydanski stood a little to one side, but Buller was not in sight. The men stood at ease, looking dejected as they stared at their feet or the rusty decks. Their caps were on straight and their cuffs were buttoned, but their uniforms were already streaked with rust and soot.
    â€œAttention!” Simpson barked, and as the men stiffened up he did a smart about-face and stood facing Syl in front of them.
    â€œAt ease,” Syl said after waiting a fraction of a second. “My name is Syl Grant. I shall read you my orders.”
    Taking a piece of mimeographed paper from his inside coat pocket, he unfolded it and read, “To Sylvester G. Grant, Lieutenant, U.S. Coast Guard Reserve, from U.S. Coast Guard Army Manning Detachment, Milne Bay, New Guinea. You shall proceed immediately to Brisbane, Australia, where you will report aboard the tanker, U.S. Army Y-18 and assume command as soon as possible …”
    He paused, put the paper back in his pocket and cleared his throat.
    â€œIf you expect a pep talk from me, you’re going to be disappointed,” he said. “I don’t like this ship any more than you do, but we got her and we better make the most of her.
    â€œFirst let me do a little bragging. As you can all see, I’m not exactly the old man of the sea. If I was in the army, they’d probably call me a shave-tail lieutenant, but I’ve been at sea about three years and this is my third command. I’m proud, even cocky about one thing: no man was ever killed or seriously injured aboard my subchaser in the North Atlantic or on the freighter I brought out here from California. Most of that safety record was luck and the grace of God, of course, but some of it was my hard work. My main ambition is to finish this war with the same record: I want no man aboard this ship ever to be killed or injured and I’ll do anything in my power to prevent that, even if I have to be a son of a