The crew’s mess was a marvel of operation. Crocky and his team of two Filipinos and the sailor Washington worked ’round the clock to keep the food flowing. Food was the morale builder of the submarine force. If you had a good cook like Crocky, then the crew was happy — for the most part. Bad cook meant bad morale and short tempers. The Navy ought to do a study on it, for in the crew’s mess, in shifts of twenty-four, sailors wedged themselves together for the three daily meals. Assholes and elbows, as they said, bumping into each other, shoveling the grub for a quick savory taste, then back to the duties of the boat until the next meal.
On board surface ships, the captain’s cabin was big enough for meetings, but on the older diesel submarines such as Squallfish— only one of her class — the captain’s cabin was more a private closet. He had the only one-rack stateroom on board the World War II diesel submarine, and it measured less than four feet across and about seven feet long. Every inch of it filled with a rack for sleeping, a small desk barely shoulder-width, and a cabinet for cramming his uniform items away. No wonder submariners looked as if they slept in their clothes. He had hung a mirror on the inside of the cabinet door. Beside the mirror, taped to the bulkhead, were photographs of his wife, June, and two children: Dale, who had just turned eight, and his daughter, Marilyn, who was learning to walk.
“Will do, Skipper. Coffee?” Arneau asked, waving an empty cup at Shipley and turning his head toward Lieutenant Alexander “Alec” Weaver.
Alec Weaver, the operations officer — OPSO, as they called him aboard the Squallfish—waited patiently, blocking the door leading from the passageway into the wardroom. The walking space between the serving line where the coffeepot constantly recycled whatever remained from the fresh morning brew and the three small booths where the officers sat for their meals was only wide enough for one person at a time.
Shipley pushed his cup out. “Thanks, XO.”
Arneau hoisted his cup at Weaver.
“No thanks, XO.” Weaver shook his head, reached up, and pushed his glasses off the end of his nose. “Already had two cups today.”
“What’s a sailor without a cup of java?” Arneau asked, reaching down to pick up Shipley’s cup. “Come on,” he cajoled, pushing his body against the coffee urn. “You can get by.”
Weaver eased by the XO, placing his hands lightly on the man’s shoulder as he pushed by the officer. Then he easily slid his lanky frame onto the small padded bench. His hip touched Shipley’s.
Shipley bounced the unopened brown package a couple of times on the top of the table. He noticed Weaver watching the action.
Arneau set the filled cup in front of the skipper and slid into the left side of Shipley. Submarines were not warships for those who needed privacy or had an aversion to physical contact. Every inch of space held something. Human comforts were the last consideration in the design. Nothing was done aboard the Squall-fish without bumping, touching, rubbing against each other. If you didn’t get along with your fellow submariners, you didn’t last long in the submarine service. There was no room for incompatibility.
He had seen it in World War II. Lots of sailors and officers thought submarines where were they wanted to serve. Submarines were the first warships to carry the war to the enemy. Many officers and sailors barely made it through their first mission before they found themselves hoisting their seabags onto their shoulder and lumbering down the docks toward the destroyers.
“I’m surprised you haven’t opened it, Skipper,” Arneau said, raising his cup to his lips.
“Thought I’d wait until all three of us could be here.” He tossed the envelope onto the table. “I want you two to understand how unusual this is and why I’ve put off opening it.” He glanced at both of them.
“I would have ripped it right open before I left the dock,” Arneau said.
Shipley nodded. “I can understand the urge, but the letter that accompanied the orders said not until we were under way, but no later than seventy-two hours after we sailed.”
“I only meant—”
Shipley shook his head. “I know what you mean, XO,” he said in an understanding voice. He had been there, done that, and was now doing it again. Mysteries at sea were as dangerous as couriered letters and packages.
“Orders?” Weaver asked. “You think this is redirecting our mission?”
Shipley laughed. “I don’t think it’s an early Christmas card from CINCNELM.” He bounced the package one more time. “Gentlemen, I’ve received only two of these in my career. That was in World War II. This is the third one.”
“Then they are altering our mission,” Weaver said emphatically. “Hope it doesn’t mean we’ll be out past our maximum sixty days.”
Shipley looked at his young operations officer. How old is Lieutenant Weaver? he thought. Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Most likely. He twisted his head to look at Arneau Benjamin. “XO, what do you think?”
“I think we ought to open it and find out what kind of mess our beloved Commander- in-Chief of the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean is throwing us,” Weaver said.
Shipley put his hand over the package. Weaver wanted to grab it and rip it open, he could tell. The tension was too much, but in a perverse way, Shipley was enjoying this.
“Sounds like it might be a more exciting mission than patrolling the Iceland-U.K. gap,” the XO added.
“Always a mission somewhere,” Shipley answered. “A submarine mission never fails to include a primary and a secondary course of action.” He turned the package over and began pulling off the tape that some enterprising security officer had used to double-seal it. “The big question will be if the commodore and his staff are aware of it. During World War II, the two times I received something such as this, it was the commander of the sub Group who delivered them, and he delivered them personally.” He rolled the tape into a sticky ball and placed it on the table.
Weaver reached over and pulled the trash toward him, cupping it in his hand.
Then, with his thumb and finger, Shipley worked the brown flap away from the envelope.
Arneau let a deep sigh escape, drawing a look from Shipley. “Nervous, XO?”
“Not like it was Christmas.”
“Didn’t know you practiced Christmas.”
“If it involves gifts, candy, and food, no good Jew would ever turn down the holiday just for something as benign as religious differences.”
Shipley and Weaver smiled.
“Unfortunately,” Shipley said as his effort reached the end of the flap, “deliveries such as this are less than joyous occasions.”
“What were the other two times you received things like this, Skipper?” Weaver asked.
Shipley looked at the operations officer. Weaver leaned toward him, his eyes fixed on the thick brown envelope.
“One was during the Battle of Luzon after MacArthur had gone ashore. The submarine was detached from protecting the resupply effort of our troops ashore to search for Japanese transports evacuating troops from the Philippines. The second one was the dangerous one. It sent us into Tokyo Bay, where we set a few buoys the boys from OP-20G had designed. Don’t really know what the buoys did, but they did break the Japanese code—”
“Ultra? Wasn’t it called Ultra?”
Shipley shook his head. “Ultra was the operation that broke the Germans’ Enigma code. Not sure if we had a code name or operations name for our efforts in breaking Japan’s naval code. We just did it.”
The flap came open, and Shipley stuck his hand inside. “What I do know is that if it had not been for the cryptologic efforts of the on-the-roof gang of World War II, we might still be fighting.”