Edge of Valor (52 page)

“What?” asked Ingram.

“No change. He's in a private room with nurses assigned round the clock. Sally's asleep in an alcove down the hall. I'll check on them when I get over there.”

He patted her belly and kissed her. “I'm going to put you in an alcove if you're not careful. Promise?”

“Promise.” She kissed him back.

Talk was sparse as they headed for the ferry. There were none of the usual derisive epithets as they drove past the ramshackle wooden holding cells on Terminal Island. Six months ago they had been full of Japanese POWs in transit. Now the place looked abandoned.

When they reached Allen Field's main hangar, Ingram discovered that his ride was a twin-engine Beech JRB-4 “bug-smasher” training plane. The pilot was a Navy captain in a well-worn flight suit with “Pierson” embossed on the right leather patch and gold wings on the left. He stomped up and down and chewed a cigar. “You Ingram?” he demanded.

“Yes, sir.”

“You're fifteen minutes late, Commander, and I have a heavy schedule.”

“Sorry, Captain.”

Pierson jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “So I would appreciate it if you would board the aircraft. Now, if you don't mind.”

“Yes, sir.” Ingram yanked his B-4 bag from the Plymouth and began walking. Helen got out and followed.

“Where you headed?” demanded Captain Pierson.

“San Diego,” replied Ingram. “I thought you knew that.”

“No, I mean after.”

Helen jammed her hands on her hips. “And then Yokosuka.”

Captain Pierson seemed to notice her for the first time. “This your wife?”

Ingram turned. “Yes, sir.”

“A major?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jeez, she's a knockout.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Too bad she's not a WAVE. Where'd you find her?”

“Corregidor, sir.”

Three full seconds passed as Pierson stepped up and examined Helen's ribbons. Then he held out his hand. “An honor to meet you, Major.”

Helen smiled as they shook. “Thank you, Captain. Likewise.”

Pierson turned to Ingram and said, “You're a lucky man.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Just remember one thing.”

“What's that, Captain?”

He said clearly, “Love isn't love until you give it to someone.”

“Makes sense to me, Captain.”

Pierson rolled the cigar in his mouth and blurted, “Well then, do it, Commander. Take all the time you want, except hurry up. And don't forget to kiss her.” He turned and climbed through the Beech's aft hatch.

Ingram was the only passenger, so Pierson invited him to take the right seat. They flew at ten thousand feet on a clear but bumpy morning as the plane headed for San Diego and NAS North Island. Pierson was hilariously profane, acting more like Jerry Landa than Jerry Landa himself. In fact, it turned out they knew one another, both having been kicked out of the Mare Island Officers' Club in 1940 when they were junior-grade lieutenants. Pierson turned the controls over to Ingram so he could use his hands and arms to punctuate his raunchy stories. He had been a dive-bomber pilot in the
Yorktown
(CV 5) at the Battle of Midway. He worked his way up to commander of the carrier air group in the USS
Saratoga
(CV 3). Now carrier pilots were being retired as ships were put into mothballs. Pierson was looking at either getting out or reverting to the permanent rank of commander if he stayed in.

“What about you, black shoe? What's going to happen to you?” Pierson sat back and lit another cigar as the bug-smasher hurtled through headwinds.

Ingram struggled with the yoke, overcorrecting as the plane jiggled around, its altitude wandering up and down by two hundred or three hundred feet. “Staying in, Captain.”

“Why?”

“What else do
you
know how to do?”

“You don't think I'd be good at selling insurance?”

Ingram laughed, and Pierson nodded. “You too?”

“That's it. That's why I'm staying in. I'd be a lousy insurance salesman.”

“Here.” Pierson flipped switches on the autopilot. “You're headed for Yuma instead of North Island.”

“Sorry, Captain.” Ingram let go as the autopilot took over and corrected the plane's altitude and course. The ride became much smoother. “Amazing,” he said.

“Make a man out of you yet.”

Ingram shrugged. “Too much water under my keel to become a zoomie now, Captain.”

“Halsey did it; McCain did it. And they were in their fifties.”

“That was peacetime.”

Pierson's eyes flashed over Ingram's ribbons and his two Navy Crosses. “Yeah, we've all done some of that.”

They landed half an hour late. A driver with a Jeep waited to take Ingram to the departure area for the overseas flights. He checked in with the airman there, a redheaded third-class gum chewer who told him boarding was immediate. “I would advise you to step on it, sir.” He nodded outside to an R5D with its port inboard propeller turning over.

“Thanks.” Ingram grabbed his bag and turned to rush out.

“Oh, sir, this is for you,” the airman handed over an envelope with Ingram's name scrawled on the outside.

Ingram grabbed it and quickly walked out the door. Men were gathered about the plane, a Navy version of the C-54, pulling chocks, handing up landing gear safety pins, and making ready to pull away the stairway. Ingram was barely inside when a beefy chief petty officer closed the hatch. After securing the hatch the CPO locked it and then squeezed past Ingram heading for the cockpit. “Welcome aboard, sir. You Commander Ingram?”

“That's right.”

“Make yourself at home, Commander.” He waved at an empty cabin. “Take any seat; make sure you buckle up, sir. Coffee's up as soon as we take off.” He disappeared into the cockpit and closed the door behind him.

The R5D thumped and thudded toward the runway. After stopping and locking the brakes, they ran the plane's engines and then waddled onto the active runway for takeoff. The pilot firewalled the throttles and lifted off with barely half the runway gone.

Point Loma flashed beneath, and the R5D eased into a southwesterly course and climbed. Ingram took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and settled back. As he folded the jacket something rustled in the pocket. The envelope. It was a telegram from Helen. He opened it and read:

WALT HODGES DIED AT 9:02 THIS AM STOP NOBODY KNOWS WHY STOP HIS BODY KEPT FOR AUTOPSY STOP SALLY HOLDING UP WELL BUT NEEDS LOVE AND ATTENTION STOP ALL MY LOVE AND ATTENTION TO YOU FOR A GOOD TRIP AND SAFE RETURN STOP XOXOXO HELEN

PART THREE

        
In the dark, men break into houses,

        
but by day they shut themselves in;

        
they want nothing to do with the light.

        
For all of them, deep darkness is their morning;

        
they make friends with the terrors of darkness.

                            
—Job 24:16–17

Chapter Forty-Two

29 November 1945

SS
Marshal K. V. Polochev
, Berth 48, Port of Los Angeles, California

I
t was nearly one in the morning and activity on the
Marshal K. V. Polochev
was frantic. She was under orders to clear Berth 48 by 5 a.m. to make way for a Matson Lines cargo ship due from Maui at 6 a.m. Although she was only three years old, the
Polochev
looked much older. She was rust streaked, and the low overcast and mist made it look worse as dew dripped from every line, bulkhead, and overhead. Everything on her rust-caked deck was slippery and dangerous. Already, two forklifts had skidded and tipped over, spilling their loads; one of the drivers was seriously injured.

The
Polochev
was a liberty ship manned and operated by the Soviet Union on lend-lease, one of 2,170 mass-produced at 18 shipyards in the United States. At 441 feet overall, she carried 14,474 tons fully loaded and was fitted with 2 boilers and a steam turbine that drove her at 11.5 knots maximum speed. A glance at her hull plating confirmed the
Polochev
's hard driving over her short lifetime. The hull plates were dished in from countless storms in the unpredictable North Atlantic on the Murmansk run. Her engine, boilers, and evaporators all needed overhauling. But with all this she was still alive—and lucky alive, as her crew liked to say. Once, in a tight convoy, she had combed the wakes of two German torpedoes, one port, one starboard, both of which went on to rip into two other liberty ships.

Forklifts darted from the warehouse to the dock as if possessed, dropping their pallet loads beneath the
Polochev
's booms. Conflicting shouts in English and Russian tore the air as wharfingers and Soviet sailors wrestled with the pallets, hooking them up to thick lines dangling from the booms. Once connected, the loads were hoisted into the air, swung onboard, and eased into one of the
Polochev
's five yawning holds.