The Commodore Read Online Free PDF

in evidence, except for a massive oil slick where the remains of Atlanta lay bleeding three hundred feet down off Lunga Point. Once they got around Cape Esperance, they headed southwest to find the approaching battleship group.
    â€œTime to intercept a station four thousand yards ahead of Washington is ninety minutes,” the OOD reported. “Her three escorts are each stationed at one-thousand-yard intervals ahead of the main body.”
    â€œVery well,” Sluff said. He leaned forward in his chair and buzzed the wardroom pantry. Mose picked up. Sluff asked for a tray on the bridge whenever Mose could manage it.
    When a destroyer approached a formation of capital ships, her captain did not leave the bridge. He wondered when they’d have to go back to GQ. Probably after dark. He sat back and relaxed, determined to enjoy his new ship’s ride as they plowed through calm waters toward the setting sun, as the pestilential, dark green mountains of Guadalcanal receded into the evening mist. There was a swell under that deceptively flat sea, and the ship was gracefully rising and falling in time to huge, deep, and invisible waves that had probably originated on the other side of Borneo.
    Twenty-one hundred tons light, twenty-five hundred tons fully loaded, 376 feet long, and capable of thirty-five knots, J. B. King sported five single five-inch gun mounts, two torpedo mounts carrying five fish apiece, a bristling nest of smaller AA weapons, depth charges, and, most importantly, a Combat Information Center supported by a full radar suite. There were 329 officers and men assigned to run and fight her, and he was still so proud of her that he smiled every time he even thought about being the skipper.
    A sudden breeze washed through the pilothouse, rattling the charts on the chart table and blowing a bluish cloud of cigarette smoke, coffee fumes, and human perspiration out to the leeward bridge wing, to be replaced by the smells of the evening meal coming up from the ship’s galley. He became aware of the periodic thrumming vibration as her twin screws lifted and settled back into that deep swell.
    â€œBridge, Sigs,” the bitch-box squawked.
    He held down the talk key. “Bridge, aye.”
    â€œCaptain, message from CTF Sixty-Four in Washington: Take station one thousand yards astern South Dakota. Night action expected.”
    He acknowledged the message and pressed the key for the Combat Information Center, two decks below. “Combat, put us on an intercept course at twenty-five knots to take station one thousand yards astern of South Dakota, second capital ship in line.”
    â€œCourse is two three five, Cap’n,” Carl Nelson, the navigation officer, replied.
    Sluff smiled. Nelson had already gotten the word from the signal bridge and computed the correct intercept course before even being asked. What was that famous saying? The difference between a good officer and an outstanding officer was about three minutes? He told the OOD to change course to 235 and take station as ordered. Mose came out into the pilothouse, bearing a tray covered by a white napkin. The ship heeled to starboard as she came around to the southwest to intercept her station, a point in the water behind South Dakota, which was moving north at twenty knots in the wake of the Washington.
    He lifted the napkin: it looked like meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans. The meat loaf was real; the potatoes had been reconstituted from a white powder, and the beans canned. He picked up a fork and dutifully ate all of it without tasting much of anything. He finished with a fresh cup of coffee from the chart-table pot. The sun was now a reddish disk on the western horizon, and he could just make out the black silhouettes of two battleships rising from a shimmering horizon. The three destroyers ahead of the main body were still not visible. He called the signal bridge and asked who the escorts up front were. The chief told