“As godforsaken a place on this earth as you could imagine,” the medical officer informed Matron in return for her retraction of the prejudicial adjectives. “And,” he added hastily, “under strict supervision.”
“She should be drummed out of the service,” Matron retorted. “She has no place — absolutely no place — in—”
“Well, Matron, you won’t be bothered by her anymore.”
The matron, however, was barely appeased. “She’s a bad penny, that one. Mark my words, Captain. She’ll turn up again.”
The MO made no comment on her prediction but did tell Matron it was the best he could do.
Before she packed, the Bahama Queen passing by McNab’s Island, through the narrows, past the Imperial Oil refinery into Canadian Forces Base Halifax, Lana sat down and wrote a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Richard Spence in Oxshott, England. Trusting the highly reliable fleet mail service — much of it sent electronically from base to base — more than she trusted the civilian post, Lana addressed the letter care of her brother at Holy Loch, with a covering note to him just as she had done with the tape that William Spence had made a few days before.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Spence:
My name is Lana La Roche and I was a nurse on your son’s ward aboard the hospital ship Bahama Queen. Although we’ve never met, I feel I know something about you, as William talked quite a lot about his family. I know he sent a tape, and though, of course, I don’t know what he said about his wounds and the major surgery he had — I’m guessing he didn’t say much at all about this and so I thought it might be of some help if I could tell you a little about the circumstances as I know that by now you will have received official notification from the DOD of his death and that after what appeared to be the chance of a good recovery, his passing must be a terrible shock. It was a combination of things, mostly the fact that he had contracted pneumonia from oil he had inhaled while trying to rescue shipmates trapped in the engine room of his ship, and while we were concentrating so much on the severe wounds to both arms, the wretched pneumonia, as it so often does, was already forming in his lungs. By the time it was detected, I’m afraid that plus the amputation proved too much. He was a wonderful young man and, though weakened by his ordeal, quietly brave — not only on the Peregrine but on the Bahama Queen as well, where I think he knew the end was near.
All I can say is that he clearly loved you all very much and told me so, and that helped him a great deal. We buried him at sea yesterday, as regulations call for. It was a very simple but moving ceremony. I asked the ship’s first mate to mark the spot as near as he could on a chart of the area, a copy of which I’ve enclosed. I will keep the original for another time to send as I’m forwarding this by Fleet SAT Post — electronic mail. I don’t know if this will help any, but the first officer told me the location of the burial is remarkably exact as they take bearings from Loran and satellite.
I’ve addressed this letter care of my brother Robert, as I did the tape I sent on for William, asking Robert to pass it on also. I hope we can meet someday. Please don’t bother to reply, but if you wish to write sometime, and I can tell you any more about William’s time on the ship, please write me care of the address in Virginia on the envelope and they’ll relay the letter to me. Sincerely yours,
Lana La Roche
In the covering note to Robert she told him he could read the letter, as it would fill him in on the news, “if that’s what you can call it,” and also reminded him that, as she’d mentioned in her earlier note, whenever he got back to base and received the tape and the letter she sent him, he should advance the tape for a minute or two until William started talking—”otherwise the boy’s parents might think there was something wrong with it.”
The censor patched out “Bahama Queen” and went over it again, making sure there was no mention of the USS Roosevelt, on which her brother Robert Brentwood served, and whited out the time and place of the burial, giving another point hundreds of miles away so as not to give away any more information about the hospital ship’s location.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Standing at the bow, his tank commander’s collar pulled up, hands gripping the rail like a Roman tribune aboard his chariot, Douglas Freeman went up to the Saipan’s starboard flying bridge as the LPH headed north in the Sea of Japan, having reduced her speed from fifteen to a mere five knots. When Al Banks found the general, he immediately told him he had good news and bad news and asked him which he wanted to hear first.
“Both barrels,” said Freeman, adding grumpily, “They’ve turned it down.”
“No, sir.”
Freeman pushed himself back from the rail. “Don’t say they’ve approved?”
“Hold on a minute, General. Good news is, the Taiwanese have told Washington they’ll back off for the moment. They’re reinforcing the offshore islands of Matsu and Quemoy. That’s provocative, but as long as they don’t start shelling the mainland or launch an amphibious assault, Washington believes China will stay out of it. They haven’t withdrawn all the way to Taiwan, but at least they’ve withdrawn to their side of the dividing line in the Taiwan Strait.”
“All right, so China’s off our back. Quid pro quo. They won’t resupply the NKA in return for us keeping the Kuomintang on a leash. I don’t like it, but right now I don’t care what those lily-livered bastards in Foggy Bottom have arranged. What’s the bad news? Have we got the go signal or not?”
“Monsoon, General. Moving down from the Sea of Okhotsk.”
“It figures,” said Freeman. There was disgust in his voice, but it was a calm disgust at receiving the news of yet another delay, and the blowup that Banks had expected never materialized.
“Now,” said the general calmly, “God’s on their side.” He turned back to face the sea. “When will it hit us?”
“Ten hours — maybe less, the met boys say.”
“Why?” asked the general slowly, darkly, in a tone so controlled, so ominous, that Banks would have preferred some of the general’s feigned short-fuse rhetoric. “Why is he doing this to me?” repeated the general.
Freeman leaned against the rail, one foot up on the lower rung.
“All right, Al,” he said wearily, without looking around at his aide. “Let me know when the monsoon’s expected to be over. ‘Course,” he sighed, “by that time Washington’ll probably have changed their minds.” Now he turned around from the rail. “The Yosu perimeter?”
“Half what it was, General. Intelligence estimates it can hold four days at most.”
Freeman had turned away again, looking up this time at the starless sky. “God, I hate nights like this.” There was a long silence — uncomfortable for Banks.
“Anything else, General?”
“No, Al. Keep me updated on that damned monsoon.”
“Yes, sir. Goodnight.”
As impatient as General Freeman was, alone on the upper deck of LPH Saipan, below in the oil-smelling belly of the LPH’s hangars, David Brentwood, one of the two thousand marines and airborne troops still waiting, put his camouflage pack against the bulkhead as a pillow, loosening his load-bearing vest and taking off the Kevlar helmet, placing his protective eyeglasses inside it, and unsnapping his belt. He was reading the note on the postcard again.
“Hey, Stumble-ass, don’t worry about it,” said Thelman. “She’ll be there when you get back.”
“Then,” said another marine, “keep off twenty-six. Gunner kept those cold pills. He’ll be about as fast as Tim Conway.”