Edge of Valor (4 page)

White transferred off the
Howell
, but Ingram stayed on board as executive officer. He'd more or less followed in Landa's footsteps—their personalities completely opposite, their thinking and actions beautifully synchronized. Now Landa was a full captain and commodore of Destroyer Squadron 77 (DESRON77) with tactical and administrative control of the eight destroyers now arranged around the modern fast battleship
Iowa
. It was Landa who had put the
Maxwell
in station seven, the position nearest the Japanese mainland.

At length, Landa dropped his eyes and read the message. “Holy smokes. This has to be it.”

“It what?” asked Ingram.

The corners of Landa's mouth curled up. He looked at White, “You got this from radio central?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Ross thought it was important enough for me to see it. He brought it down.”

“And you read it?” asked Landa.

“Of course, . . . Commodore.”

Landa's face glowed; his eyes glistened as if he were getting ready to tell one of his famous farting jokes. But he remained silent.

Ingram spread his hands.
Enough
. “Come on, Jerry!”

Landa handed over the message.

“I'll be a monkey's uncle!” He whipped off his helmet and waved it in the air. “Can't be long now. With the Rooskies on our side, how can we lose?” An hour ago, a fleet broadcast had announced that the Soviet Union, a supposed neutral to the Japanese, had instead declared war on them and had begun pouring thousands of troops across the Mongolian border.

Landa snorted.

Tubby White was more vocal. “Sheyaaaat.”

Ingram continued, “All in the spirit of comradely cooperation, I'm sure. After all, those fine Soviets have been defending our cause for years.”

They stared at him.

Ingram grinned and clapped his hands. “Speaking of the spirit of comradely cooperation, how 'bout it, Commodore? Would you like to tell the crew?”

Landa unleashed his signature white-toothed smile and shook his head. “They're your guys.”

Ingram nodded. This was the skipper's job. “Can't argue with that.” He stepped inside the pilothouse and stood beside the 1MC—the ship's public address system—mounted on the rear bulkhead. The eight sailors and two officers in the pilothouse had their ears cocked in his direction. At a glance Ingram could tell the word had already leaked up from radio central via the sound-powered phone connected to Radford, the lee helmsman, on the engine room annunciator. They already knew what the message said.

No matter
. Ingram nodded to Birmingham, the short, stout, heavily tattooed second-class boatswain's mate of the watch. “Okay, Birmingham,” he said. “All
hands from the captain. Use that.” He pointed to the silver boatswain's pipe dangling on Birmingham's chest.

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Standing on tiptoes, Birmingham pulled down the microphone. Then he flipped all the compartment levers and energized the 1MC. Taking a deep breath, he blew on his pipe. Birmingham's pipe echoed clearly and mournfully throughout the ship, giving one the feeling he had stepped back two hundred years in time. Still on tiptoes Birmingham barked, “Now hear this. Now hear this. Stand by for the captain.”

Ingram stepped to the mike. “Good evening. I have in hand a fleet broadcast signed by Admiral Nimitz. A second atomic bomb was dropped today on the Japanese mainland. This one on Nagasaki in southern Kyushu.”

There was a massive intake of breath in the pilothouse. All eyes were fixed on Ingram as he continued, “While it says nothing about an end to hostilities, it does caution us to maintain the utmost vigilance while negotiations are under way. The war is not over by any stretch of the imagination. And I can't emphasize enough that we must remain vigilant. On the other hand, and I may be stepping out on a limb, I do like the use of the word ‘negotiations.' That's all I can say about this, so draw your own conclusions.” He checked the plan of the day posted nearby. “Okay, absent any visitors between now and sunset, the movie tonight is
Guest in the House
starring Ralph Bellamy and Anne Baxter. Showtime is twenty-thirty on the mess decks. That is all.” He flipped off the levers and walked out to the open bridge.

As he stepped through the pilothouse door, he heard Birmingham mutter in his fog-cutter voice, “I don't get it. What the hell's an atomic bomb?”

Landa and Tubby White were still on the port bridge wing pretending to snarl at each other. Landa said, “Short, to the point, but not exactly Knute Rockne.”

“Well, you can't expect—”

“Bridge, aye.” Anderson, Ingram's talker, wearing sound-powered headphones, raised his head and said, “Combat has six bogies, inbound, bearing two-eight-six true. Range twenty-five miles.”

The dreaded words mesmerized the three officers for a moment. Ingram and Landa locked eyes, the question unspoken. How did they get in that close?

“Must be hugging the deck,” muttered White. “See you fellas.” He dashed through the pilothouse door toward the ladder leading down to CIC.

“Must be,” said Ingram. They looked up to see the Hellcats swooping low, headed west, their engines snarling.

“I was so looking forward to a quiet evening with Ralph Bellamy,” sighed Landa, moving away. As was their custom during action, Landa took a position on the starboard bridge wing with his status boards and talkers to issue instructions to his destroyers. From the
Maxwell
's station in the number seven position he could see all of his “little boys” and send messages by flag hoist, signal light, or TBS—voice radio.

On the port bridge wing, Ingram took up a position between Anderson and Lt. Tom Waterman, his GQ officer of the deck. Athletic and dark-haired, Waterman was balding at the age of twenty-three. The hair loss made him look twice his age but seemed to garner respect from the men who worked for him.

“There!” said Waterman, pointing aft.

Ingram raised his binoculars and spotted planes popping out of the mist at about 15,000 yards, flying low, no more than 50 feet off the deck. “Close,” he muttered. Even so, he saw a Hellcat roar in aft of one. Almost immediately the Japanese plane burst into flames and hit the ocean with a splash. He squinted and tightened his focus. “Zeros.”

All the men topside, from the bridge crew to the 40- and 20-mm gun crews, strained to see the incoming enemy.

Ingram called, “Batteries released. Heads up, everybody; here we go again.” To Waterman: “Tom, tell main control to cut in superheat to all boilers and stand by for maneuvering bells.”

“Yes, sir.” Waterman ducked inside the pilothouse and gave the order.

Ingram heard the faint buzz of the oncoming Zeros' engines. They were flying impossibly low. Even so, the Hellcats ranged among them, their engines strong, authoritative. Machine guns rattled and another Zero hit the ocean with a loud explosion, its 500-pound bomb bursting on impact. The plume hadn't yet dissipated when Ingram yelled up to Falco, his gunnery officer in the main battery director. “Julian, shake a leg, damn it.”

Falco's head popped out of the director; sweat rolled down his acne-scarred face. “On target and tracking. You ready, Skipper?”

“Wait one.” To Anderson, “Does plot have a solution?”

Anderson keyed his sound-powered phone, asked the question, and nodded. “Yes, sir, plot reports solution.”

Range now was about eight thousand yards. A flash of light was followed by a large column of water, and another Zero disappeared.

Ingram yelled, “Falco, mounts 4 and 5 commence fire.”
We have to unmask batteries
. Ingram waited a moment as the after two 5-inch mounts belched out a round apiece. He called to Landa through the pilothouse hatches. “Jerry, how about a turn nine?”

“Negative.” Landa, a radiophone jammed to his ear, waved Ingram off with a thumbs-down. He yelled something, but a second salvo obliterated his words.

“What?” Ingram shouted back.

Landa yelled, “Formation speed, twenty-eight knots. Stand by, execute.” He hunched over the radio telephone handset to relay the same command to the other destroyers.

Ingram grabbed Waterman's arm. “Tom, make turns for twenty-eight knots and stand by for radical maneuvering.”

“Twenty-eight knots, radical maneuvering; aye, Skipper.” Waterman shouted the order through the pilothouse porthole, Radcliff spun up his enunciators, and the
Maxwell
fairly leapt out of her fifteen-knot wake.

The Zeros stood out clearly now. Three of them: one banking left, one banking right, and one boring straight in. Right for the
Maxwell
. Ingram felt as if cement had hardened in his stomach. They were targeting him, all three of them. An image of Helen flashed through his mind. Her large, brown eyes and glistening raven-black hair. Her olive skin. And then another image: Helen holding their baby, Jerry; the kid was smiling. And then she was smiling.

Suddenly, the Zero directly aft pulled up and then dove into the water in a fiery red ball of flame. A Hellcat flew through the pyre and then swooped to chase the Zero on the right.

Two to go: one on either side. The
Maxwell
's guns were blazing, port and starboard, as the Zeros heaved out about three thousand yards and then turned and headed directly toward her. Ingram had a sinking feeling.
We've been through so much. So many others have suffered. Maybe it's our turn. Oh, God, keep us safe
.

The Zero to starboard exploded about a thousand yards away, nearly vaporized. Pieces no larger than a tire or a wing flap twirled though the air.

One to go
. Ingram turned to look at the one to port. It wasn't there. “What the hell?”

“Sheyaaaat!” A lookout pointed up. The Zero had pulled nearly straight up to about a thousand feet. Now it was heading down at a steep angle for the
Maxwell
, its engine screaming.

Turn into it
. Ingram shouted, “This is the captain. I have the conn. Left standard rudder. Make turns for thirty-five knots.”

The helmsman spun his wheel; a flurry of replies answered Ingram's orders; and the Zero plunged down. No more than five hundred feet now.

Mount 53 belched out a 54-pound projectile. Milliseconds later, its proximity fuse triggered the round. The shell blew up in front of the Zero, tearing off its right wing. Men topside cheered as the Mitsubishi A6M, minus its right wing, twirled into a flat spin, trailing oily red flames and smoke as it descended a bizarre path.

Suddenly Ingram realized the Zero, its engine at an insane pitch, was still going to hit the
Maxwell
. He clenched his fists. “No, please.”

The others topside saw it too. Men in the after torpedo mount and the midships 40- and 20-mm gun mounts ran for their lives as the plane caromed down.

With a screech of tearing metal the Zero's left wing sliced through the number two stack. The rest of the plane splattered onto the starboard side of the main deck and spilled into the ocean leaving a hissing mist of dark smoke. Miraculously, its bomb had not gone off. The severed upper section of the number two stack stood in place for a moment, as if undecided what to do. Then, groaning and
tearing, it tumbled over to starboard onto the main deck, exposing economizers that gushed shrieking steam from the lower section. The top half of the number two stack tumbled into the Pacific, following its foe to the bottom.

Ingram slowly exhaled. He yelled at the lee helmsman to be heard over the din, “Radford, tell main control to secure economizers for number three and four boilers.”

Breathe
. Looking aft, Ingram checked the sky. The Zeros were gone. The steam stopped spouting. He called, “Mr. Waterman. Take the conn to resume formation course and speed.” To his talker he said, “Okay, Anderson, Damage Control Central, report damage.”

Landa walked through the pilothouse. “Thought that little bastard had our number.”

“I'll say.” Ingram's right hand was shaking and he felt like vomiting. Quickly, he stuffed the hand in his pocket.

The motion was not lost on Landa. He knew the signs. They'd been through it so many times. And they knew each other too well to say anything. Maybe later Landa would give Ingram some heat about this. Except . . . last June off Okinawa, Landa had peed his pants as a kamikaze dove on them, missing by only a hundred yards. He had dashed into Ingram's sea cabin to change. Later he claimed it had been spilled coffee. Maybe it really had been. Everybody reacted differently. But in the end, they were just ordinary men.

“Bridge, aye.” Anderson turned to Ingram. “Main control reports economizers secured on boilers three and four. They have twenty-seven knots available for steaming. No damage except number two stack.”

Ingram and Landa walked to the starboard side. Already the repair party was out on the main deck clearing wreckage. “Any casualties?” asked Ingram.

Anderson listened for a moment, smirked, and then said, “Yes, sir, there are.”

“Well, what?” demanded Ingram.

“Mr. White in CIC,” said Anderson.