“This Major Struthers — a most peculiar man.”
“I found him to be a delightful man to have aboard ship, sir. Very cooperative, very pleasant.”
“The Australian military people are very peculiar,” the Operations Officer said. “Not long ago a troop transport loaded with Australian troops from Africa docked at Freemantle, over on the other side of the continent. All the officers commanding those troops had been killed in action or wounded and invalided home.
“A group of English officers was waiting on the dock to take command of the debarking troops. Those Australian troops literally drove the English officers from the dock with a hail of pennies! The Australian penny, Captain, is a very large coin. Thrown with great force it can damage anyone it hits. They threw so many pennies, aimed them so well, the English officers ran in retreat! And the Australian High Command ignored the incident!”
He stood up. “Well, I don’t want to interfere with your rest and relaxation, Captain. I congratulate you on the recommendation for a medal for gallantry by Major Struthers. Our own recommendation will, of course, be filed. I’ll see you here in my office when your ten days are up.”
“I thought we were getting two weeks, sir.”
“Ten days. I’m very sorry but we need submarines out there who can and will fight, sir. As it is I’m stretching it to give your crew ten days.”
Later, sitting over a glass of strong Australian beer, Lieut. Comdr. Gene Puser said, “Captain, there is no way you are going to change these old Gun Club boys. You’re just going to have to grin and bear it.”
“My God!” Hinman said. “How can they discount the evidence? How can they sit there and say that we are missing our targets when I know I didn’t miss?”
“The first thing you have to recognize, sir, is that when you say the torpedoes are faulty you are criticizing all of them. But to be fair, and God knows I don’t want to be, you should see the condition some of the torpedoes are in when some submarines arrive here after patrol. They haven’t been routined, some of them have air flasks with only a half an air charge in them, I’ve seen water scoops plunged up with filth, I’ve seen the air line that goes to the combustion flask too badly misthreaded that it was hanging on the flask by one or two threads. It would blow off the minute the torpedo was fired and the fish wouldn’t have run!
“I’ve seen torpedoes with no alcohol in the alcohol tanks, fish so filthy that I know the screws wouldn’t have turned because the bearings had never been taken care of. So these people do have some basis in their assumption that you people out there are missing the targets, because they’re sure that the torpedoes are so badly cared for that they don’t function.
“And that’s only half of it, the lesser half. What’s worse is the political situation here. Admirals are feuding with other Admirals. General MacArthur, who is the best politician of all of them, takes one side and then the other, playing our people off one against the other so he can get what he wants. It’s a damned wonder that anything gets done at all!”
“Why do you stay here and put up with it?” Hinman’s tone was blunt.
“I owe a hell of a lot to Bob Rudd. He asked me to be his eyes and ears. I hate being a tale bearer but I rationalize it by saying to myself that it’s for the good of the Service.
“And I can see some good coming of it. Captain Rudd is putting enormous pressures on Washington and the torpedo experts there and in Newport.
“The fact that they admitted that you had sunk those ships in the harbor would not have happened six months ago. Six months ago they wouldn’t have asked for an Intelligence evaluation of your contact report! Six months ago they would have put you on the carpet for even admitting your shore party had mined a Japanese bath house! But when they asked for an Intelligence report on that I knew it was a sign that what I do for Captain Rudd, what he’s doing from his end, is getting results.”
“Hell of a thing,” Hinman grinned. “Painting a bath house on the Conning Tower! Major Struthers wanted me to go up to the Empire and put him ashore so he could blow up a train and we could paint a train on our Conning Tower! He’s a character!”
“One to be a friend with, not an enemy,” Puser said. “He’s one of the few around who are living who’s got two Victoria Crosses. That’s the British equivalent of our Congressional Medal of Honor, you know.”
“He never even hinted at it when he was on board,” Hinman said. “What did he get them for?”
“I only know about one,” Puser said. “British Intelligence got word that Rommel was going to host a dinner party for his top commanders in Bizerte, in Tunisia. The Major parachuted into the outskirts of the city and walked into the General Staff Headquarters building, and God knows how he did that!
“Then he walked up, nice as you please, and rapped at the front door. When the German sentry opened the door he cut the man’s throat! He walked into the building, found the room where the dinner party was going on, kicked the door open and Sten-gunned the whole dinner table! Rommel wasn’t there but he killed a lot of top German brass!
“Then he ran out of the building, it was built up on stilts like so many desert buildings, and went under the building and jumped into the cesspool that the building’s toilets emptied into! He stayed there all that night and the next day and then he climbed out the following night and walked out into the desert to a prearranged place and was picked up by a light plane. I’m told that the plane’s pilot put in for Hardship Discharge, said the Major’s stench had ruined his nose and eyes for life!”
Hinman toyed with his empty beer glass. “He’s a strange man but a good one. He’s properly trained for his work. We’re not. The Japs are much better at anti-submarine warfare than we are. We were never trained properly to attack enemy ships. We don’t know much about their mast heights, their silhouettes, their speeds. But the Jap knows how to fight us! Bob Rudd told me that we’re taking very heavy losses in the submarine force.”
Puser nodded assent. “I’m sure you’re right. Some of our submarine skippers are far too timid. You didn’t mention that but you could have because I’m sure you know it. We get patrol reports in here from a Captain and then we hear a request for a transfer from his Executive Officer and you wouldn’t think the two men had been on the same war patrol! We’ve got younger officers accusing their Captains of outright cowardice! Not one, quite a few! It’s shocked the Command here almost into a coma, they don’t want to believe that Academy officers are cowards, some of them.
“I’ll say this to your face, sir; there aren’t very many Art Hinmans around and there are damned few Arvin Mealeys! Which reminds me, there’s another thing I want to tell you.
“You read Mealey’s report on the patrol he made with Mako? He went into great detail about the tenacious and skilled attacks made on him by the Japanese. Intelligence has found out who was directing those attacks on Mealey. His name is Captain Akihito Hideki. He used to run the anti-submarine warfare school for the Japanese Navy. His nickname in the Japanese Navy is ‘The Professor.’ Not many anti-submarine people know as much as that fellow does and Mealey was lucky to get away from him. Just hope that you don’t ever meet up with him!” He drained his glass.
“Now, if you want to know about Brisbane’s night life, which isn’t much, or about the ladies of Brisbane, and there are lots of them, let me know.”