“You’re one hell of a surgeon, Doc,” Thompson said. “Next time I have to cut my toenails I’m gonna have you do it. Now lemme get up from here because I have to feed my people.”
“No you don’t!” Captain Hinman said. “You’re going to get in your bunk and stay there!”
“Captain,” Thompson said, sitting up on the mess table. “Ain’t no itty-bitty Jap bullet make me flake out in my sack!” He swung his legs off the table and stood up, moving his head from side to side gingerly.
“Don’t hurt hardly none at all,” he said. “This old Doc has fixed me up just fine!” He smiled and started to walk and then suddenly collapsed in a heap on the deck.
“Shock,” Doc Whitten said professionally. “Had to hit him sooner or later. Nothing to worry about. After we get him in his sack I’ll give him a shot to knock him out and he’ll sleep for about twelve hours. After that he should be okay if there’s no infection inside there.”
Hinman walked back to the Control Room and stood beside Joe Sirocco. “I’ve got to come to a decision on Grabnas,” he said. “Barber just told me the temperature of the injection water, the temperature of the sea water outside, is ninety-six degrees! We can’t keep Grabnas’ body in that torpedo tube very long; it’s too hot. I can’t put him in the freezer locker, no one would want to eat any of the food.”
“Burial at sea, sir?” Sirocco said gently. “It’s been done for centuries.”
Hinman nodded.
The following midnight John A. Aaron, Radioman Second Class, USNR, preached a short sermon over the ship’s communication system. The body of Andrew F. Grabnas, Seaman First Class, USNR, aged twenty-two, was carried topside encased in the heavy plastic cover from his bunk with a bar of lead lashed to his feet.
As the officers and Chief Petty Officers of the U.S.S. Mako stood at attention on the main deck Captain Hinman read the traditional words that have been used to bury seamen far from home. When he had finished with a soft “Amen” Ginty and DeLucia slid the body over the side as Lieut. Nathan Cohen, standing on the cigaret deck, softly chanted the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning.
Chapter 27
The message ordering the Mako in to Brisbane for refit and a period of rest and relaxation came a week after the deck gun actions against the Japanese ships. There were no expressions of joy from Mako’s crew when the news came that the patrol was over and they were heading for port. The death of Grabnas had sobered the crew. The soft-spoken Floridian had been popular with his fellow crewmen. Tribute was paid to him in small subtle ways that only the men who knew and served with him appreciated. Ginty summed up the crew’s feelings in the Crew’s Mess, his deep growl dominating the compartment.
“That Greek kid, that Grabby Grabnas. Called hisself a ‘Conch’ because he was born in Key West. He was proud of being born in Key West. Lousiest submarine base in the Navy to do duty in, I heard! What the hell is there to be proud of, born in a lousy place to do duty? I’ll say this for the bastard; he never came forward to my Room what he didn’t bring fresh coffee for the man on watch and a doughnut or a sandwich. Never shot his mouth off to no one. I’ll say another thing and any you poges want to call me wrong stand up; that son of a bitch wasn’t no ‘Conch’ or whatever he wanted to call himself. He was a submarine sailor! Coulda served on S-Boats with me and that’s something I wouldn’t say about very many of you bastards!”
Two Australian Navy gunboats met Mako at sea off the Great Barrier Reef and escorted her into Marston Bay, where a uniformed pilot came aboard, and then into the mouth of the Swan River. On the way up the river the port lookout leveled his glasses at the shore line.
“Someone over there on top of that little white building is sending us semaphore flag signals, Bridge! It’s two broads!” The off-duty crew members on deck enjoying the unaccustomed sunlight came alert.
“Better see what they want, Bradshaw.” Captain Hinman said. The quartermaster climbed up into the periscope shears and squeezed himself in beside the port lookout.
“Gimme your white hat,” he said to the lookout. “I’ll use my hat and yours for flags. God knows where our flags are stowed.” He held a hat in each hand and answered the girls on the small building. One of the girls began whipping her semaphore flags rapidly.
“What’s she saying?” Hinman called up.
“Meet… you… at… gate… sixteen… hundred,” Bradshaw yelled out. “Hey, that second one is going now and she’s too fast for a Chief Signalman on a battleship to read! Man, can she go!”
“Never mind that crap,” a voice yelled from the deck. “Just tell them we’ll be there with bells on!”
Captain Hinman laughed and turned to the Australian Navy pilot.
“I’ve been in a lot of ports in my life but I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“This is your first trip here,” the pilot said. “Brisbane is a lonely city for women. You won’t see a man in civilian clothes on the street between the ages of seventeen and fifty unless he’s lost an arm or a leg or is blind.”
“Why?” Joe Sirocco asked.
“Our men made up most of the famous Ninth Divvy, the Ninth Division of the Australian Army,” the pilot said quietly. “The bloody British threw our men in against Rommel, in Africa. Rifles and flesh and blood against tanks! Rommel’s tanks cut our boys into ribbons! They’ve been overseas since late Thirty-nine and this city is a lonely place for women.”
The official welcoming party at the New Farm Wharf lacked the enthusiastic celebration that the Submarine Staff at Pearl Harbor usually gave a returning submarine, but it was warm enough. A working party from the submarine tender brought aboard crates of tropical fruits and eight sacks of mail. As the crew spread out on the deck, chewing at fruit and reading their mail, Captain Hinman and his officers went up on the Wharf to meet and shake hands with the Submarine Staff officers. A tall, slim, Australian General stepped out and shook hands warmly with Major Struthers.
“First things first, Captain Hinman,” the Operations Officer of the Staff said. “We are pleased to credit Mako with four ships sunk in the special mission at Bougainville. Four.
“In all fairness I will say that we could not give Mako credit for any sinkings until Intelligence had confirmed the actual results. That confirmation has come in. The Japs have written off four of the ships as a total loss. Three other ships are badly damaged, engine rooms flooded, that sort of thing and you are credited with damaging those ships. Two other ships have been repaired so we cannot give credit for those.” He paused and nodded his head at a junior officer, who stepped forward and handed Captain Hinman a large, flat manila envelope.
“Open it, Captain,” the Operations Officer said.
Hinman opened the envelope and pulled out a stencil of a bath house on stilts with a Japanese Rising Sun flag painted on its side.
“Naval Intelligence also reports the Japanese Command at Bougainville reported that a Major General, a full Colonel. and two enlisted men were killed in what was described as the explosion of a probable aircraft bomb during an air raid while they were taking their morning shower on the date,” he paused and allowed a small smile to cross his face, “on the date Mako reports that the shore party had mined a bath house within the Japanese Army camp!