off, leathernecks turned into a slightly mitigated nuisance. They were still a pain to have to cart around aboard ships, but they did have some minor uses: taking islands away from the nasty buggers who occupied them and who refused to get shelled or bombed into extinction, for instance.
Marines thought swabbies were boring. Sailors were convinced Marines stood in the muscle line twice and didn’t bother waiting for brains. Marines figured they carried an extra couple of inches where an extra couple of inches mattered most. If you had to stand in line twice to get those, hey, what better cause was there?
Meanwhile, along with squabbling with each other (and with the Army, which both agreed was beneath contempt), the Navy and the Corps had to fight the Japs. Going toe-to-toe with them in the Pacific and knocking them flat hadn’t worked out the way the admirals wanted. Now the main idea was to keep Tojo’s monkeys from landing in Hawaii. If the USA had to fight the war from the West Coast, all of a sudden it looked a lot harder to win.
Screened by destroyers and light cruisers, Ranger steamed back and forth west of the islands, her combat air patrol alert to anything the Imperial Navy might try to pull. Pete hoped like hell the flyboys were alert, anyhow. When the Japs got the drop on you, it could mess you up but good. He’d found that out in Manila, and several times since.
Little by little, his longing for lost Vera faded, as did the pain from the physical injuries he’d got when Chinese terrorists bombed that Shanghai movie theater. His shoulder and his leg would probably always tell him when rain was on the way. And his heart would always ache when he thought about his Russian sweetheart. But, in the homely, clichéd phrase, life did go on.
He felt less and less guilt when he visited the whores on Hotel Street in Honolulu. He couldn’t bring Vera back. If he could have, he would have, and lived happily and faithfully ever after, too—he was sure of that. Being sure of it didn’t make it true, of course—one more thing he didn’t have to dwell on.
Vera was gone, though. He hadn’t even seen her into the ground. He’d been too badly hurt himself. He had to do something with those extra couple of inches. And he did, as often as liberty and the state of his wallet would let him. He felt terrible the first few times. After that, he just felt good, which was, after all, the point of lying down with a woman in the first place.
Those were interludes, though. Most of his time passed aboard the Ranger . He’d never served on a carrier before. His duties stayed the same: the Ranger ’s five-inch guns were no different from the ones the Boise had mounted. The ship itself? That was a different story.
Boise ’s first order of business had been to steam and to shoot. Ranger ’s was to get airplanes where they needed to go. They did the fighting for her. If her own guns went off, it was a sure sign something had hit the fan somewhere.
As Rob Cullum dryly put it, “You notice they gave ’em to us. They figured we’d get into some shit now and again.”
“Think so, do you?” Pete answered, deadpan. The other sergeant grinned and thumped him on the back. It hurt, but Pete didn’t care. It was a sign he was fitting in, and he wanted nothing more.
Being a portable airstrip made Ranger a special kind of seagoing beast. The vast, echoing space of the hangar deck under the flight deck amazed Pete. That it was usually echoing with the snarl of power tools and with Navy mechanics’ inventive bad language as they worked on fighters, dive-bombers, and torpedo planes mattered little. The space was what got to him.
Carrying all those planes meant carrying thousands of gallons of the high-octane gasoline they burned along with the ship’s own fuel oil. Fire at sea was any sailing man’s worst nightmare. Fire at sea aboard an aircraft carrier … “We’re nothing but a torch with a flight deck, are we?” Pete
Marines thought swabbies were boring. Sailors were convinced Marines stood in the muscle line twice and didn’t bother waiting for brains. Marines figured they carried an extra couple of inches where an extra couple of inches mattered most. If you had to stand in line twice to get those, hey, what better cause was there?
Meanwhile, along with squabbling with each other (and with the Army, which both agreed was beneath contempt), the Navy and the Corps had to fight the Japs. Going toe-to-toe with them in the Pacific and knocking them flat hadn’t worked out the way the admirals wanted. Now the main idea was to keep Tojo’s monkeys from landing in Hawaii. If the USA had to fight the war from the West Coast, all of a sudden it looked a lot harder to win.
Screened by destroyers and light cruisers, Ranger steamed back and forth west of the islands, her combat air patrol alert to anything the Imperial Navy might try to pull. Pete hoped like hell the flyboys were alert, anyhow. When the Japs got the drop on you, it could mess you up but good. He’d found that out in Manila, and several times since.
Little by little, his longing for lost Vera faded, as did the pain from the physical injuries he’d got when Chinese terrorists bombed that Shanghai movie theater. His shoulder and his leg would probably always tell him when rain was on the way. And his heart would always ache when he thought about his Russian sweetheart. But, in the homely, clichéd phrase, life did go on.
He felt less and less guilt when he visited the whores on Hotel Street in Honolulu. He couldn’t bring Vera back. If he could have, he would have, and lived happily and faithfully ever after, too—he was sure of that. Being sure of it didn’t make it true, of course—one more thing he didn’t have to dwell on.
Vera was gone, though. He hadn’t even seen her into the ground. He’d been too badly hurt himself. He had to do something with those extra couple of inches. And he did, as often as liberty and the state of his wallet would let him. He felt terrible the first few times. After that, he just felt good, which was, after all, the point of lying down with a woman in the first place.
Those were interludes, though. Most of his time passed aboard the Ranger . He’d never served on a carrier before. His duties stayed the same: the Ranger ’s five-inch guns were no different from the ones the Boise had mounted. The ship itself? That was a different story.
Boise ’s first order of business had been to steam and to shoot. Ranger ’s was to get airplanes where they needed to go. They did the fighting for her. If her own guns went off, it was a sure sign something had hit the fan somewhere.
As Rob Cullum dryly put it, “You notice they gave ’em to us. They figured we’d get into some shit now and again.”
“Think so, do you?” Pete answered, deadpan. The other sergeant grinned and thumped him on the back. It hurt, but Pete didn’t care. It was a sign he was fitting in, and he wanted nothing more.
Being a portable airstrip made Ranger a special kind of seagoing beast. The vast, echoing space of the hangar deck under the flight deck amazed Pete. That it was usually echoing with the snarl of power tools and with Navy mechanics’ inventive bad language as they worked on fighters, dive-bombers, and torpedo planes mattered little. The space was what got to him.
Carrying all those planes meant carrying thousands of gallons of the high-octane gasoline they burned along with the ship’s own fuel oil. Fire at sea was any sailing man’s worst nightmare. Fire at sea aboard an aircraft carrier … “We’re nothing but a torch with a flight deck, are we?” Pete
Similar Books
