War and Remembrance Read Online Free PDF

Northampton,
CA-26, Senator.”
    A pause. “What happened to the
California?”
    Pug paused too. “I’m commanding the
Northampton.
“
    The senator, low and grave: “Pug, can we handle them out there?”
    “It’ll be a long pull.”
    “Say, I may resign from the Senate and go into uniform. What do you think? The Army’s getting gouged on lumber and paper. I can save the war effort several million a year. They’ve offered me colonel, but I’m holding out for brigadier general.”
    “I certainly hope you get it.”
    “Well, give my love to the kids. You’ll hear from me about the Jewish girl.”
    After twenty-four hours, Victor Henry felt as though he had been aboard the
Northampton
a week. He had visited the ship’s spaces from the bilges to the gun directors, met the officers, watched the crew at work, inspected the engine rooms, fire rooms, magazines, and turrets, and talked at length with the executive officer, Jim Grigg; a laconic bullet-headed commander from Idaho, with the dark-ringed eyes, weary pallor, and faint air of desperation appropriate to a perfectionist exec. Pug saw no reason not to relieve Hickman straight off. Grigg was running the ship. Any fool could take it over; his incompetence would be shielded. Pug didn’t consider himself a fool, only rusty and nervous.
    He relieved the next day, in a ceremony pared of peacetime pomp and flourish. The officers and crew, their white sunlit uniforms flapping in a warm breeze, lined up in facing ranks aft of the number three turret. Standing apart with Hickman and Grigg, Victor Henry read at a microphone his orders to assume command. As his eyes lifted from the fluttering dispatch, he could see beyond the ranks of the crew the oil-streaked crimson bottom of the
Utah.
    Turning to Hickman, he saluted. “I relieve you, sir.”
    “Very well, sir.”
    That was all. Victor Henry was captain. “Commander Grigg, all ship’s standing orders remain in force. Dismiss the crew from quarters.”
    “Aye aye, sir.” Grigg saluted like a marine sergeant, wheeled, and gave the order. The ranks broke. Pug saw his predecessor piped over the side. Hickman was acting as though it were his birthday. A new letter from his wife, hinting that all might not be lost, had made him impatient as a boy to get back to her. He ran down the ladder to the gig without a backward glance.
    All afternoon Pug read dispatches and ship’s documents piled on his desk by Commander Grigg. Alemon served him in lone majesty a dinner of turtle soup, filet mignon, salad, and ice cream. A marine messenger brought him a handwritten note as he was drinking coffee in an armchair. The envelope and the sheet inside were stamped with two blue stars. The handwriting was upright, clear, and plain:
    Dec.
19, 1941

Captain Henry,

Glad you’ve taken over. We sortie tomorrow. You’ll have the operation order by midnight. The new Cincpac will be Nimitz. The relief of Wake is looking more dubious. Good luck and good hunting
—

R. A. Spruance
    Next morning, in calm sunny weather, the cruiser got under way. The deck force unmoored with veteran ease. On the swing of the tide the bow was pointed down-channel. With assumed calm that seemed to deceive the bridge personnel, Victor Henry said, “All ahead one third.” The quartermaster rang up the order on the engine room telegraph. The deck vibrated — an inexpressibly heartwarming sensation for Pug — and the
Northampton
moved out to war under its new captain. He had not yet heard from Senator Lacouture about Natalie Jastrow Henry.

2

    S HE was embarked in a very different vessel, a rusty, patch-painted, roach-ridden Turkish coastal tramp called the
Redeemer,
undergoing repairs alongside a pier in Naples harbor; supposedly bound for Turkey, actually for Palestine. In the stormy week since she had come aboard, the old tub had yet to move. It listed by the stone wharf, straining at its lines with the rise and fall of the tide, wallowing when waves rolled in