It was Richardson who had the closest view when Eel passed by less than twenty-five yards away. Suddenly he lowered the periscope.
“What’s the matter, Skipper?” asked Buck, who happened to catch the fleeting look of disgust on his face.
“It’s pretty nauseating,” he replied. “Moonface has been dead a long time and lying on that raft in the sun.”
The moment of silence was the second of those uncomfortable stillnesses everyone expects someone else to break. Richardson could visualize the scene: the bellowed orders, the imprecations, the denunciations, finally the shouted pleas. The stolid silence which must have been its own answer. The pitiless sun, cold nights, and lack of water, combined with the effects of his wound, could end only one agonizing way. For a time Moonface might have hoped for a change of heart among the crewmen, and after he was alone, perhaps, he must have hoped someone else — some other ship — would happen upon him. Toward the end he must even have hoped that an American submarine, possibly the Eel herself, might turn up. All the while, until delirium began, he must have tasted in full measure the bitterness of being contemptuously cast aside, spurned, condemned not only by his fellow men but by his own crew. No degradation, no deserved retribution, could have been greater.
And now Moonface lay spread-eagled on his raft, his tremendous body burned black by the sun, bloated by the swelling of the gases within, the facial tissues of his cheeks drawn tight in a ghastly grimace showing his large, stained teeth. His eyes had been already gouged out by the birds gathered around him. The inside of his mouth, his tongue, the tender tissues of his lips, the softest skin of his neck, even his private parts, now exposed and distended, had been prey for days to an obscene flock of feathered sea-vultures.
The periscope, with its magnification of six, brought Richardson within a few feet of the horrible spectacle, and it was from this he recoiled in disgust and dismay.
“Well,” said Buck Williams, breaking the hush, “I can’t say I feel too terribly sorry for him. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow.”
“I sure agree,” simultaneously said both Dugan and Lasche. Cornelli and Scott, who had unobtrusively mounted to the conning tower, showed by the looks on their faces that they, too, shared the sentiment. Only Keith put a different shape on it.
“One thing we have to remember, though — he was sick. Considering what he said about going to school in California, and his ability to speak English, he must have lived there quite awhile. Probably Japan and the Jap Navy didn’t accept him very well because of all that, too. He must have been a tormented man. Still, he was trying to serve his country. Just as we are. The commodore gave us a lot of trouble, but that’s what he was trying to do, too.”
“And so was Bungo Pete,” observed Richardson unwarily. Again, there was silence. No one in the conning tower spoke in response. With a start, Richardson realized he had broken a taboo. There had been a conspiracy of silence on board the Eel. It was the first time, in his own hearing at least, that the name “Bungo Pete” had been voiced aloud. The looks in the eyes of the others, even of the normally impassive Scott and Cornelli, told him they had understood his inner turmoil. From the beginning they had understood. They knew he had done it for them, and for their contemporaries, living and dead, in other submarines; though he could not excuse himself, must always suffer for what he had had to do, which they also understood — yet he would have had to do it all over again. Although this continuous self-immolation must be his personal and private sacrifice, they had tried to help in the only way they could.
The circumstances in which war sometimes places men, their prior training, the decisions they have to make and the time they have to make them — all are mixed, intertwined, involved in the mammoth conflict between ideals of which war is the ultimate expression. The human being, caught in such circumstances, may find hidden elements of his character of which until then he had been unaware, which he would never know except through the eyes of others.
Mirrored in the faces of the small company in the conning tower, Richardson for the first time sensed that they had supported him not only as their titular leader, but for his own sake. The U.S. Navy had made him their commander, but the intuitive alchemy of men, their personalities interacting with his — or what they were able to see of his — created a bond far stronger than that of simple discipline. They would follow him, had followed him, not because the organization and the system demanded it, but through a higher order of loyalty, regard, appreciation of the man they thought him to be.
And then he knew that he had once felt that way about Joe Blunt. But Blunt had not measured up to the trust and confidence his junior, Richardson, had placed in him. He had failed the standard he had set for himself, the standard to which Richardson, by consequence, had held him. It was a high standard, but not unattainable; it was the one to which Richardson also aspired. Blunt had taught it to him. He must never betray it. It was for this reason, he now saw, that he had felt Blunt’s failure so personally and so deeply.
Eel’s crew had not known Blunt as the man he had been, but only as he was at the last. Vainly, Richardson had been telling them the old Blunt was the real one. But the real Blunt, to them, could only be the man they had all known. It was he, the man they had seen and felt, whom they would always remember. They had supported Richardson willingly in what he had been trying to do for Blunt, but they had done it for him, not for the wolfpack commander. The subconscious reason behind his heightened reaction to Keith’s criticism of Whitey Everett now also stood clear and talclass="underline" man must stand by man, by the higher qualities of man implicit in the meaning of humanity. Even enemies must learn to recognize their ultimate brotherhood. Most important of all, man must stand by himself, must never betray the image he has created of himself, for that image is the only reality.
He knew, then, what he must do. There was one thing he could do for the memory of Moonface, but really it was not for him at all but for Tateo Nakame, an enemy he had been forced to destroy without opportunity for thought; and for Joe Blunt, a friend and superior who had destroyed himself. It was in the nature of the expiation of a blood debt, a debt brought about by forces beyond his own control but for which, nevertheless, he must make what restitution lay in his power. It was the debt of the decent man.
Not everyone would understand, but some would. Eel would not surface, should not surface. Not only had Everett’s order forbidden it; he could not expose his crew to yet another hazardous hand power dive to avoid a fast-approaching aircraft.
He put it into as few words as he could. Someday, if the moment of truth fell on them, they would remember. It would be like that other time when he had sent everyone below, and alone on Eel’s bridge had made the dreadful decisions. He would again act alone, bearing the full responsibility. It would be a moment of religion. He allowed himself only one comment, to allay any possible fears. “We ourselves put that raft in the water,” he said. “We know there aren’t any booby traps on it.”
The others listened as he gave his instructions. “I’ll take the conn,” he said. “Cornelli, take over the helm. Al, I’ll need your fine hand on the dive. Alert the pump room that the hydraulic system is likely to be exercised a little. Also, it may cost us a little of your air.” He started to order Keith and Buck below as well, hesitated at the silent plea in Keith’s eyes. Buck, not waiting for any word, purposefully stepped to the after end of the conning tower and started up the TDC. The whine of its synchros filled the tiny cylindrical compartment.