The Admiral’s daughter and Arthur Hinman made an odd couple. He was of medium height with the muscular body and feline grace of the middleweight wrestler he had been at the Naval Academy. She was taller than he by several inches and lean, a flat-chested girl-woman with an ungainly stride she never quite learned to adjust to her consort’s shorter legs. Long before Arthur Hinman had appeared on her horizon other young and ambitious officers with an eye to the promotional advantages that would be theirs if they took her as a wife had looked her over and passed her by in favor of a woman more feminine, less sharp of tongue.
Hinman saw something in Marie the others had missed. He appreciated the steel and flint of her character. He recognized that her caustic tongue was a defense weapon, employed because she lacked the outward attractions of most women. He sensed the deep, throbbing capacity for physical passion that resided within her spare body and he found a joy in the elfin spirit she had kept so well hidden from her father, the Admiral. Their union was consummated in a curiously sensual night a month before they walked from the chapel at the Naval Academy beneath an arch of swords held by Hinman’s fellow officers. The marriage developed into an enduring and passionate love affair that in time became the envy of other Navy officers — and their wives.
The marriage of the Admiral’s daughter and Lieut. Comdr. Arthur Hinman ended in noise, fire and blood on a sunny Sunday morning when the pilot of a strafing Japanese dive bomber zeroed in on a car he saw approaching the chapel at Hickam Air Field. Marie Hinman and two other Navy wives in the car died on that Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, at Pearl Harbor.
The news of the Japanese attack against Pearl Harbor reached the U.S.S. Mako at sea, two days outbound from Balboa, enroute to the submarine base at Pearl Harbor.
The news of his wife’s death and her burial was given to Captain Hinman an hour after Mako had made its way past the wreckage of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, the ship’s crew standing at shocked attention to honor the memory of the thousands who had died on that flaming Sunday morning.
The Navy Chaplain who had taken Captain Hinman to one side on the dock had difficulty telling his tragic news. Captain Hinman wasn’t listening to him. He was looking, standing on tiptoe, searching for Marie’s head above the crowd of people on the dock. And then the impact of what the Chaplain was saying had hit home. He rocked back on his heels, his eyes veiled, his face grave. He stared at the Chaplain for a long moment.
“Please stand by, Padre,” he had said. “I have work to do. My ship, you understand? When I have taken care of my ship’s needs I want you to take me to her.”
The Chaplain had nodded wordlessly and watched Captain Hinman as he walked over to Adm. Chester Nimitz and saluted and then began to talk, a ship’s Captain engaged in ship’s business with a man who had also been a ship’s Captain and now commanded a fleet. When Captain Hinman had finally saluted the Admiral and come back to him he nodded his thanks at the Chaplain for waiting and got in the Navy car the Chaplain had called for. He said nothing on the ride to the cemetery where the remains of hundreds of the dead had been hastily interred. He stood for a long time at his wife’s grave, marked only by a painted number on a plain white wooden cross. Then he had stepped back, saluted crisply, executed a smart about-face and marched back to the car. He said nothing in the car and when the Chaplain stopped the car on the dock alongside the Mako Captain Hinman got out and then turned and bent down to speak to the Chaplain.
“Thank you, Padre,” he said quietly, “I know it has been hard for you, too.” Then he had wheeled about and strode over the narrow gangway to his ship’s deck, took the salute of the deck watch and disappeared down the Forward Torpedo Room deck hatch.
The Executive Officer coughed discreetly and the sound carried back to the cigaret deck.
“Damn it, Mike,” Captain Hinman said, “if you want to talk to me come back here. Don’t just stand there.”
“Figured you might be thinking about something, Skipper,” Brannon said. “Ship’s captains are always supposed to be thinking deep thoughts, aren’t they?”
“You have to stop thinking every once in a while,” Hinman said. “Go crazy if you don’t. What’s on your mind?”
“Tomorrow morning is on my mind,” Brannon said. “As per your night orders we’ll be in position to dive at zero five hundred. We’ll dive on a course due west into the harbor mouth of Balikpapan. That way the sun should hide the periscope if anyone’s looking for us.
“Someone will be looking for us,” Hinman said. “That’s the name of the game. We’re going to have to go in as close as we can. The Staff in Pearl wants to know exactly how many oil tankers are loading in that harbor, what other kind of shipping is in there. We might have to go right into the mouth of the harbor from the way that chart looks.”
“The chart isn’t all that good,” Brannon growled. “It’s old, damned old! The channel is marked for depth but off to the south of the channel it only says possible shoaling. There’s a river comes down about there and I suppose it drops a load of silt. I just don’t know how much room we’ve got once we’re out of the ship channel and to the south of it. If I may suggest, sir, we might lay off a day submerged and watch, see what comes out. That way we might be able to get an idea where the deep water is south of the channel.”
“No,” Hinman said. “Anything that comes out of the harbor is going to turn north, not south.” He nodded as he saw Brannon jerk his head toward the after end of the small cigaret deck and he walked back to the rail and stood with his back touching the barrels of the twin 20-mm machine gun that was mounted in the center of the cigaret deck. Brannon joined him, his voice a low murmur.
“Chief of the Boat said to tell you that he and Ginty have finished modifying all the exploders in the torpedo warheads, sir. He says they’ll explode only on contact now, the magnetic circuits have been disconnected. I shouldn’t stick my nose in your business, sir —” his voice trailed off.
“It’s a good Irish nose,” Hinman said. “We’ve been friends a long time. Stick it in.”
“Well,” Brannon began. He looked up at the stern lookout who was standing in the periscope shears, his elbows braced on a pipe that ran around his lookout stand, his hands holding his binoculars to his eyes. Brannon’s voice dropped even lower.
“I’m worried, Skipper. The Bureau of Ordnance says that no one, not a ship’s captain, not even the experts in the torpedo shop on the Base can touch one of those Mark Six exploder mechanisms. The Chief and Ginty have done more than touch them, they’ve taken them apart and modified them!”
“On my direct orders,” Captain Hinman said.
“I know,” Brannon answered.
“You know how many torpedo failures we had on our first patrol,” Hinman said. “Nothing but failure! Nine fish that ran hot, straight and normal according to the Sound man and passed under the targets as they were supposed to do and not a one of them exploded. Then eight more that we fired to hit the targets and they ran as they were supposed to run and nothing happened! Then the two we set to run at two-feet depth and they hit the side of the target and just sank! The damned exploders don’t explode.”
“That doesn’t change what BuOrd says,” Brannon’s voice was stubborn. “You, the Chief and Ginty could all be hauled up in front of a General Court-Martial when we get back to Pearl and they take the fish off and find their damned exploders have been tampered with!”