Pacific Interlude Read Online Free PDF Page B

said, “do I have your permission to talk to Mr. Buller about his hat? I told all hands, including him, that they had to be in uniform for muster.”
    â€œNow now, Mr. Simpson.”
    â€œIf I may say so, sir, we have to nip this kind of thing in the bud. Mr. Buller’s whole manner is insubordinate—”
    â€œYour timing isn’t good, Mr. Simpson. Let me work things out with Mr. Buller in my own way. Right now I want to be alone.”
    â€œPardon me for saying so, sir, but this is my cabin too. I was going to lie down.”
    â€œDo as you please, Mr. Simpson,” Syl said, turned and strode to the bridge. Living in that cabin with Simpson would be hard enough in the years ahead without starting the torture any sooner than necessary. Right now he craved a few minutes of solitude, even if it could be found only in the nearest bar. The men who had arrived with him were already rushing ashore to explore the city. This was a time for him to be a follower.

CHAPTER 3
    T HERE WAS NO bar in that section of Brisbane except a saloon that was crowded with workmen from the shipyard, hardly a place for a Yank lieutenant. Syl kept on walking rapidly uptown. It was dusk and the air felt so cool that he shivered a little, an almost forgotten sensation. His first hours aboard the Y-18 had left him feeling very peculiar. She was certainly the worst ship he had ever seen, but the very danger that was inherent in her job gave her a grotesque appeal. As the captain of a gas tanker, he perhaps deserved to be as cocky and devil-may-care as a fighter pilot or a marine sergeant. In a way, his job was more hazardous than theirs. They returned from combat to safe bases, where they spent most of their days, but the men of a tanker had to live on top of thousands of gallons of gasoline almost all the time for a year or more. The fighter pilots and the marines feared only the enemy, but the tanker men also had to fear themselves and each other … one moment of carelessness or a suicidal impulse could blow them all up. Most people would never understand that, but other sailors treated the crews of gas tankers with sympathy and respect. The poor devils who ran the gas tankers had a right to swagger a little when they went on liberty.
    So Syl’s walk was more bouncy than it usually was and he pulled the visor of his cap to a rakish angle. He rather wished that instead of his ordinary Coast Guard lieutenant’s uniform, he had a suit of lights like a matador. What the hell, if he was going to dance with death, he should be honored for it.
    Fortunately or unfortunately, this mood did not last long. He felt suddenly tired and was glad when he came to the St. George Hotel, which had a sign advertising a cocktail lounge. That too was crowded, but since he was not wearing a suit of lights, Syl was ignored by the other officers and their girls when he sat down at the end of a long bar. He had not seen a dry martini since leaving Honolulu more than a year ago. This one tasted oddly antiseptic but good. At a nearby table a pretty girl in a low-cut black cocktail dress threw back her head and laughed, causing her ample breasts to quiver. Syl was shocked by the intensity of his sudden desire for her. He had a quick mental image of himself going over to her, bowing and saying, “I am the captain of a gas tanker. How about giving me a few good nights before I sail to my doom?”
    The young American major with her would not be pleased and her reaction probably would not be sympathetic. There were roles that had to be played by everyone, not just a captain aboard his ship. If he wanted a girl here in Brisbane, he would have to act out the part of a romantic young Yank lieutenant gracefully on the make and he was not quite sure he knew how. In Greenland and New Guinea, where he had spent most of the war, there had not been much opportunity for that sort of thing, and anyway, he had been playing a different role, that of the