Sentinels of Fire by P. T. Deutermann Read Free Book Online Page B

they were simply barbarians.
    â€œWhat do you want to say to CTF 58?” I prompted, remembering we were on the hook to answer the admiral’s message.
    â€œWhat I want to say and what I will say are two very different things,” the captain said. “I want to say, send more destroyers. Leave those helpless little gator-freighters at the beach where they belong. Hell, send a battleship or six. What else do those overblown tubs have to do, except carry admirals around in grand style? It’s not like the Japs have anything left worthy of a sixteen-inch salvo.”
    Open sarcasm was something new from the captain. In the two months I’d been aboard he’d been Mr. Steady Eddy, the wardroom’s stable element when the rest of the officers started bitching and moaning about how the tin cans were being thrown away up on the picket line while entire squadrons of battleships and aircraft carriers steamed back and forth in grand fleet dispositions, ready to refight the Battle of Midway at a moment’s notice, even though the great bulk of the Jap fleet already littered the bottom of the Pacific.
    â€œI recommend we tell it like it happened, then,” I said. “His message didn’t ask for advice, just the facts as we know them. I can gen up a draft pretty quick.”
    The captain waved his acquiescence. He was obviously in a black mood and just wanted me to go do my job. The sound-powered phone set squeaked.
    â€œCaptain.” He listened for a moment and then said, “Very well. I’ll come up.”
    He hung up and spoke to me again. “Belay the message—there’s a big raid coming in. Radar shows two formations, a big one for Okinawa and a smaller one splitting off and breaking up into pairs.”
    Those pairs were headed for the picket line, I thought. Here we go again.
    I put away my notebook as the GQ alarm went off. I looked at my watch; it was only nine fifteen. It felt like we’d been through a whole day already. I glanced at the captain as I opened the door to go up to the bridge and CIC. He was still sitting there, staring at absolutely nothing. I closed the door gently, so as not to disturb him, which was a bit silly since the passageway was full of men scrambling to their GQ stations outside the wardroom.
    I joined the stream of men thumping up the ladder toward the bridge and my GQ station, the Combat Information Center, which was right behind the bridge. I could hear the engine-order telegraph ringing as the ship increased her speed and the OOD initiated evasive maneuvers. Below I heard the sounds of steel hatches being slammed down and repair parties laying out their firefighting gear. Malloy ’s crew was fully trained, so there were no orders being shouted. Everyone knew what to do and where to go, and the ship would be buttoned up in under three minutes, ready for whatever might be headed our way.
    The exec’s traditional GQ station was aft, at a place called secondary conn, the theory being that if the bridge command team got wiped out, the exec, second in command, would be able to take over from a station a hundred fifty feet aft. Since the advent of the Combat Information Center, however, most execs took station in Combat, where all the tactical information was concentrated and displayed. Some captains were even starting to fight their ships from Combat, although most clung to the tradition of being on the bridge. Our skipper was one of those, trusting his own eyes over what might or might not be true on a radarscope.
    â€œCombat manned and ready, XO,” LTJG Lanny King, the CIC officer, reported as I stepped into the dark and crowded space. “We have many bogeys, but none headed directly our way.”
    â€œYet,” I said, speaking out loud what everybody else was thinking. Combat spanned almost the entire width of the upper superstructure. There were two vertical, six-foot-high Plexiglas status boards along the back