Tales of the South Pacific Part 4

Military custom regarding nurses is most irrational. They are made officers and therefore not permitted to a.s.sociate with enlisted men. This means that they must find their social life among other officers. But most male officers are married, especially in the medical corps. And most unmarried officers are from social levels into which nurses from small towns do not normally marry. As a result of this involved social system, military nurses frequently have unhappy emotional experiences. Cut off by law from fraternizing with those men who would like to marry them and who would have married them in civilian life, they find their friends.h.i.+ps restricted to men who are surprisingly often married or who are social sn.o.bs.

Bill Harbison did not stop to formulate the above syllogism when he started going with Nellie Forbush. Yet in his mind he had the conclusion well formulated. Put into words it began, "What the h.e.l.l! If I'm going to waste three years of my life..." It went on from there to a logical end. Nellie Forbush just happened to be around when the decision was reached.

Bill was lovely to her. He took her swimming and gasped when he saw her for the first time in a swimming suit. She wore a gingham halter and a pair of tight trunks with only a suggestion of a flared ballet skirt. She did not bathe. She dived into the ocean and swam with long easy strokes to the raft. Perched upon the boards, she shook her bobbed hair free of water and laughed. "Some difference," Bill thought. "Not much like Grandmom!"

Nor was she much like Grandmom driving home along the narrow road through the coconut plantation. It was still daylight, but shadows were so thick it seemed like evening. Bill pulled the jeep to the side of the road and kissed his beautiful nurse. It was no chivalrous kiss. It was a kiss born of seeing her the most lovely person on the beach. It was a long, helpless kiss, and both officers found it thrilling and delicious.

After that there were many more swims and even more kisses. Bill wasn't around LARU-8 much after that. If Nellie had any free time, he was sure to be somewhere with her. Since he ate no breakfast he might be absent from meals several days in a row. His men found no difficulty in doing the work he was supposed to do. Late at night he would censor his mail, so that fellow officers came to expect a thin light from his bunk at two or three in the morning. He rarely rose from his sack before ten. He was still slim, browner than before, and fastidious in dress. He played no basketball, and volleyball only occasionally. Long hours at the beach kept him in shape.

Twice after he started going with Nellie he went to his skipper and asked for a transfer to some unit farther north. The first time the Old Man simply said no! On Bill's second visit, however, the skip-Per asked him to sit down. "I know how you feel, Bill," the chubby, jovial Old Man said. "You want to get out and win the war. We all do, and maybe we'll get a chance... later. There's some talk that LARU-8 may be in on the next big strike. But the point is this, Bill. Even if LARU-8 sits right here for the duration, that's not your problem. You're in the Navy now. You'll be called to action when you're needed." The Old Man looked hard at Bill. "If you don't mind my b.u.t.ting in, young feller, don't mix your Navy life and your private life. Don't expect to use LARU-8 to help you settle personal problems!" He half smiled at Bill and returned to fixing his fis.h.i.+ng rod.

It was after this second refusal that Bill scared Nurse Forbush. They were driving home from a wienie roast on the beach and he took a back road through the coconuts. Nellie was not unhappy about this, for she had grown to love the handsome lieutenant. She was surprised, however, when he insisted that she leave the jeep. He had a blanket with him, and before Nellie knew what had happened, she found herself wrestling with him on the ground. She succeeded in pus.h.i.+ng him away, but his renewed attempt was more successful. He ripped her dress and bra.s.siere.

"Bill!" she cried softly. "Bill! Stop! What's the matter?"

He paid no attention to her entreaties but kept clawing at her underwear. In desperation she grabbed a coconut and swung it with all her strength against his head. She did not knock him out, but she did stun him. He staggered around for a minute and then realized what had happened. He came back to where Nellie was mending her clothing with ill-tied knots.

She was neither crying nor nervously hysterical. She was merely shocked beyond words. Bill stood silently by until she was ready to leave. Then he helped her to her feet and picked up the blanket.

"We'd better go," she said.

They drove home in silence. Bill tried to say something once or twice but couldn't. Besides, his head ached where the coconut had crashed. At the armed gate to the nurses' quarters Bill said a stiff goodnight. "I'm sorry," he added. Nellie said nothing, and disappeared between the guns of the two guards.

Nellie tried to go to sleep in the long corridor used as a dormitory by the younger nurses. She couldn't. While she lay there wondering what she ought to do, she saw a light coming from Dinah Culbert's room. Instinctively, and without much forethought, Nellie went in to see Dinah.

"h.e.l.lo!" the latter said pleasantly. "Been up late?"

"Yes," Nellie answered. "I see you are, too."

"It is rather late for me," Dinah replied. "I'm trying to plough through War and Peace."

"Lots of people read that book out here," Nellie said naively.

"Yes," Dinah said sweetly. "At least they start it. I'm going to be the one that finishes it."

"Dinah," Nellie said hesitatingly. "May I bother you for a minute?"

"Of course, my dear. What is it?"

"It's about Bill," Nellie said. "Bill Harbison."

"What about Bill?" Dinah asked, pulling her long lounging gown about her knees.

"I'm in love with him, Dinah. Very much."

"That's nothing to worry about, Nellie. Bill's a fine young man."

"I wondered if you could help me, Dinah?"

The older woman instinctively went on the defensive. "I wonder what's happened," she thought. Aloud she said, "Of course, my dear. What's up?"

"Is Bill married?"

Dinah thought, "It is serious, isn't it?" She answered, "I don't know, Nellie."

"I thought you might," the lovely girl in the soft nightgown replied.

"No, Nellie," the older woman explained. "You see, when I went with Bill, whether or not he was married was of no consequence. How could it possibly have interested me? I never deluded myself with even the faintest suspicion that we might fall in love." She paused and then added, "Of course, if you really want to know all you have to do is call his commanding officer."

"Oh, I couldn't do that!" Nellie gasped.

Dinah smiled and thought, "You couldn't do that! No! But you could take a chance on your whole life. That's all right! Girls, girls! No wonder I never got married. I guess G.o.d made a mistake and gave me a brain!"

Nellie persisted. "Dinah?" she asked. "What do you think?"

"Darling, I told you. I don't think anything. But I will tell you something that I thought a couple of months ago. You might not like it, but here it is. When Bill stopped taking me places he was in a foul mood. I said to myself, 'G.o.d help the next girl he goes with.' If I'm not mistaken, you're that next girl."

"What did you mean?" Nellie asked, half shuddering at Dinah's cold statements.

"I don't know, Nellie. I think it was something like this. Bill Harbison went with me only to fill a need in himself. It was unnatural, and I knew it. But it was fun. I now go with several older men whom I met through Bill. I bear him no grudges at all. But I never deceived myself for a moment that Bill was the handsome, winsome, gallant boy he played at being. He's just like you and me, Nellie, a huge bundle of neuroses which this climate makes worse."

"I know that, Dinah," Nellie said. "I feel it in myself, sometimes. But what did you mean about G.o.d helping me? That's what I've got to know."

"I meant that it was just as unnatural for Bill to go with you as it was for him to go with me. Bill is a sn.o.b. Nellie, you may not like this, but it would be as impossible for Bill to marry you as it would be for him to marry me. That's why it doesn't make any difference whether or not he's married. But if you want to know, I can make some discreet inquiries among my friends. Although, of course, it wouldn't be exactly easy for me to do so." She smiled.

"I know what you mean, Dinah. I think I know all of what you mean. Thanks for talking." The handsomely built young girl folded her nightgown about her thin waist and left. Dinah watched her go.

"She thinks I'm jealous of her," the older woman mused. "I wonder what happened tonight? Probably tried to rape her." She sighed, from what cause she did not know, and returned to War and Peace.

Next morning Bill was at the hospital. Before she went to sleep Nellie had decided not to see him if he called, but when she looked down from her window and saw him standing penitently by his jeep, she hurried down. They went for a drive and Bill apologized. "Seeing you so beautiful on the beach made me lose my head," he said.

She was on the point of asking him if he were married. But she didn't. All over the world at that moment men torn from their homes were meeting strange girls and falling in love with them. On every girl's tongue was the question she almost never asked: "Are you married?" At first she reasoned, "Well, we're not in love, so it doesn't matter." Later she reasoned, "We love one another, so it doesn't really matter." In strange ways they discovered that their lovers were married men, or in jubilation they found they were not. But rarely did they ask the simple question: "Are you married?" For they knew that most men would tell them the truth, and they did not wish to know the truth.

So Nellie did not ask. Instead, she did a very foolish thing. She told him about Charlie Benedict back home who worked in a store and wanted to marry her. He was 4-F and miserable about it. He wrote her the funniest letters. Poor Charlie! Instead of the plan's working as she thought it might, Bill said nothing about marriage. Instead he pulled her to him and almost crushed her with kisses. "My darling!" he whispered. Then, in a delirium of love, he calmly proceeded to do what twelve short hours before she had hit him over the head with a coconut for doing. He had her partly undressed when a native unexpectedly came along the unused road.

With great relief and yet with some regrets, Nellie recovered her determination and hastily dressed. She sat in the jeep with her head in her hands. Her short hair, attractive and brown, fell in cascades over her fingers. Her world was in turmoil. Then, suddenly she knew what she should do. The sunlight falling between the interstices of the leaves helped her make up her mind.

"Bill," she said simply. "I love you very much. Desperately. You know that. I want you, and I'm not afraid of you."

Harbison leaned back against his jeep seat, his eyes filled with the lovely girl. He hardly knew what was happening, the blood was pounding in his ears so strongly. His hand reached for her firm, bare knee and rested there a moment. Then she pushed it away. She put her own hand on his cheek.

"Bill," she asked directly. "Do you love me?" In reply he clutched her to him in a long kiss and started fumbling at her clothes again.

"Bill," she insisted. "Tell me. Is there any chance that we might one day get married? When the war's over?"

The words knocked Bill's head back. The d.a.m.ned girl was proposing to him! What was happening here? He swallowed hard and looked at her, a common little girl from some hick town. What did she think was going on? This was a furious turn of events!

Nellie saw that Bill was dumbfounded. "I'm sorry, Bill," she said, keeping her hand against his cheek. In a torment of conflicting pa.s.sions Bill thought of that cool hand, the soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the waiting knees. Now the sunlight was on him, too, and he scarcely knew what to do. He knew Nellie was his for the asking, but d.a.m.n it all she was nothing but a little country girl. h.e.l.l, he wouldn't look at her twice in the States.

"And besides," he said to himself with great resolution. "After all I am an officer!" That decided it. He pushed Nellie's hand away from his cheek.

"I'm married," he said. "I thought you knew."

Nellie heard the words like hammers upon her brain. "I'm married!" That was it, but so much was ended with those words. She looked at Bill and in her heart thanked him for telling her the truth. She leaned over and kissed him. "Thanks, Bill," she said. "Now let's go back."

On his way home from the hospital Lt. (jg) Bill Harbison, USNR, who would soon be a full lieutenant if he didn't drop dead, felt pretty pleased with himself. The silly girl was obviously in love with him, and he had turned her down. He could have had her for a whistle. He slapped himself in the stomach. He was disturbed. He could feel a thin line of fat attacking him. "All this party business and nurses," he said as the jeep bounced along. "Soft living. I better get back to kicking that football in the afternoon."

THE CAVE.

IN THOSE fateful days of 1942 when the Navy held on to Guadalca.n.a.l by faith rather than by reason, there was a PT Boat detachment stationed on near-by Tulagi. It was my fortune to be attached to this squadron during the weeks when PT Boats were used as destroyers and destroyers were used as battles.h.i.+ps. I was merely doing paper work for Admiral Kester, but the urgency of our entire position in the Solomons was so great that I also served as mess officer, complaints officer, and errand boy for Lt. Comdr. Charlesworth, the Annapolis skipper.

The job of Charlesworth's squadron was to intercept anything that came down The Slot. Barges, destroyers, cruisers, or battles.h.i.+ps. The PT's went out against them all. The j.a.ps sent something down every night to reinforce their men on Guadal. The PT's fought every night. For several weeks, terrible, crus.h.i.+ng weeks of defeat, the defenses of Guadalca.n.a.l rested upon the PT's. And upon Guadal rested our entire position in the South Pacific.

I have become d.a.m.ned sick and tired of the eyewash written about PT Boats. I'm not going to add to that foolish legend. They were rotten, tricky little craft for the immense jobs they were supposed to do. They were improvised, often unseaworthy, desperate little boats. They shook the stomachs out of many men who rode them, made physical wrecks of others for other reasons. They had no defensive armor. In many instances they were suicide boats. In others they were like human torpedoes. It was a disgrace, a d.a.m.ned disgrace that a naval nation like America should have had to rely upon them.

Yet I can understand their popularity. It was strictly newspaper stuff. A great nation was being pushed around the Atlantic by German submarines. And mauled in the Pacific by a powerful j.a.p fleet. Its planes were rust on Hickam Field and Clark Field. Its carriers were on the bottom. Americans were desperate. And then some wizard with words went to work on the PT Boat. Pretty soon everybody who had never seen a real j.a.p s.h.i.+p spitting fire got the idea our wonderful little PT's were slugging it out with j.a.p battles.h.i.+ps. Always of the Kongo Cla.s.s.

Well, that crowd I served with on Tulagi in 1942 knew different. So far as I ever heard, none of my gang even sank a j.a.p destroyer. It was just dirty work, thumping, hammering, kidney-wrecking work. Even for strong tough guys from Montana it was rugged living.

The day I started my duty with the PT Boats we were losing the battle of Guadalca.n.a.l. Two American wars.h.i.+ps were sunk north of Savo that night. Eight of our planes were shot down over Guadal, and at least fifteen j.a.p barges reached Cape Esperance with fresh troops. Toward morning we were bombed both at Tulagi and at Purvis Bay. A concentration of Bettys. At dawn a grim bunch of men rose to survey the wreckage along the sh.o.r.e.

Lt. Comdr. Charlesworth met me at the pier. A stocky, chunky, rugged fellow from b.u.t.te, Montana. Stood about five feet nine. Had been an athlete in his day. I found him terribly prosaic, almost dull. He was unsure of himself around other officers, but he was a devil in a PT Boat. Didn't know what fear was. Would take his tub anywhere, against any odds. He won three medals for bravery beyond the call of duty. Yet he was totally modest. He had only one ambition: to be the best possible naval officer. Annapolis could be proud of Charlesworth. We were.

"We got by again," he said as we studied the wreckage of the night before. "Any damage to the gasoline on Gavutu?"

"None," his exec replied.

"Looks like some bombs might have hit right there beside that buoy."

"No, sir. One of the PT's. .h.i.t that last night. Tying up."

Charlesworth shook his head. "How do they do it?" he asked. "They can hit anything but a j.a.p barge."

"Sir!" an enlisted man called out from the path almost directly above us on the hillside. "V. I. P. coming ash.o.r.e!"

"Where?" Charlesworth cried. As an Annapolis man he was terribly attentive when any V. I. P. 's were about. He had long since learned that half his Navy job was to fight j.a.ps. The other half was to please "very important persons" when they chanced to notice him. Like all Annapolis men, he knew that a smile from a V. I. P. was worth a direct hit on a cruiser.

"In that little craft!" the man above us cried. Probably someone aboard the small craft had blinkered to the signal tower. Charlesworth straightened his collar, hitched his belt and gave orders to the men along the sh.o.r.e. "Stand clear and give a snappy salute."

But we were not prepared for what came ash.o.r.e. It was Tony Fry! He was wearing shorts, only one collar insigne, and a little go-to-h.e.l.l cap. He grinned at me as he threw his long legs over the side of the boat. "h.e.l.lo, there!" he said. Extending a sweaty hand to Charles-worth he puffed, "You must be the skipper. Y'get hit last night?"

"No, sir," Charlesworth said stiffly. "I don't believe I know you, sir."

"Name's Fry. Tony Fry. Lieutenant. Just got promoted. They only had one pair of bars, so I'm a little lopsided." He flicked his empty collar point. It was damp. "Holy cow! It's hot over here!"

"What brings you over?" Charlesworth asked.

"Well, sir. It's secret business for the admiral. Nothin' much, of course. You'll get the word about as soon as I do, commander," Fry said. "I hear you have a cave somewhere up there?"

"Yes, we do," Charlesworth said. "Right over those trees." Above us we could see the entrance to the cave Fry sought. Into the highest hill a retreat, shaped like a U, had been dug. One entrance overlooked the harbor and Purvis Bay, where our big s.h.i.+ps were hidden. The other entrance, which we could not see, led to a small plateau with a good view of Guadal and Savo, that tragic island. Beyond Savo lay The Slot, the island-studded pa.s.sage leading to Bougainvillea, Rabaul, Truk, and Kuralei.

"I understand the cave's about ten feet high," Tony mused.

"That's about right," Charlesworth agreed.

"Just what we want," Tony replied. He motioned to some men who were carrying gear in black boxes. "Let's go, gang!" he called.

Charlesworth led the way. With stocky steps he guided us along a winding path that climbed steeply from the PT anchorage where Fry had landed. Hibiscus, planted by the wife of some British official years ago, bloomed and made the land as lovely as the bay below.

"Let's rest a minute!" Fry panted, the sweat pouring from his face.

"It's a bit of a climb," Charlesworth replied, not even breathing hard.

"Splendid place, this," Fry said as he surveyed the waters leading to Purvis Bay. "Always depend upon the British to cook up fine quarters. We could learn something from them. Must have been great here in the old days."

As we recovered our breath Charlesworth pointed to several small islands in the bay. "That's where the Marines came ash.o.r.e. A rotten fight. Those ruins used to be a girl's school. Native children from all over the islands came here." I noticed that he spoke in rather stilted sentences, like a Montana farmer not quite certain of his new-found culture.

"It'll be a nice view from the cave," Fry said. "Well, I'm ready again."

We found the cave a cool, moist, dark retreat. In such a gothic place the medieval j.a.ps naturally located their headquarters. With greater humor we Americans had our headquarters along the sh.o.r.e. We reserved the cave for Tony Fry. For once he saw the quiet interior with its grand view over the waters he said, "This is for me." He turned to Charlesworth and remarked, "Now, commander, I want to be left alone in this cave. If I want any of you PT heroes in here I'll let you know."

Charlesworth, who was already irritated at having a mere lieutenant, a n.o.body and a reserve at that, listed as a V. I. P., snapped to attention. "Lieut. Fry," he began, "I'm the officer-in-charge..."

"All right, commander. All right," Fry said rapidly. "I'm going to give you all the deference due your rank. I know what the score is. But let's not have any of that Annapolis fol-de-rol. There's a war on."

Charlesworth nearly exploded. He was about to grab Fry by the arm and swing him around when Tony turned and grinned that delightfully silly smirk of his. Sunlight from the plateau leaped across his wet face. He grinned at Charlesworth and extended a long hand. "I'm new at this business, commander," he said. "You tell me what to do, and I'm gonna do it. I just don't want any of your eager beavers messing around. They tell me over at Guadal that you guys'd take on the whole fleet if Halsey would let you."

Charlesworth was astounded. He extended his hand in something of a daze. Tony grabbed it warmly. In doing so he engineered Charlesworth and me right out of the cave. "Men bringin' in the stuff," he explained.

This Fry was beyond description, a completely, new type of naval officer. He didn't give a d.a.m.n for anything or anybody. He was about thirty, unmarried. He had some money and although he loved the Navy and its fuddy ways, he ridiculed everything and everybody. He was completely oblivious to rank. Even admirals loved him for it. n.o.body was ever quite certain what he was supposed to be doing. In time no one cared. The important thing was that he had unlimited resources for getting whiskey, which he consumed in great quant.i.ties. I've been told the Army wouldn't tolerate Fry a week.

We were several days finding out what he was doing on Tulagi. Late that afternoon, for example, we heard a clattering and banging in the cave. We looked up, and Tony had two enlisted men building him a flower box. That evening he was down in the garden of the old British residency digging up some flowers for his new home. A pair of j.a.p marauders came winging in to shoot the island up. Tony dived for a trench and raised a great howl.

"What's the matter with the air raid system?" he demanded that night at chow. "That's why I like the cave. It's safe! They'd have to lay a bomb in there with a spoon!"

It soon became apparent that Charlesworth and Fry would not get along. Tony delighted in making sly cracks at the "trade-school boys." Charlesworth, who wors.h.i.+pped the stones of Annapolis, had not the ready wit to retaliate. He took no pains to mask his feelings, however.

It was also apparent that Fry was rapidly becoming the unofficial commanding officer of the PT base. Even Charlesworth noticed that wherever Tony propped his field boots, that spot was headquarters. That was the officers' club.

Settled back, Tony would pa.s.s his whiskey bottle and urge other men to talk. But if there was anything pompous, or heroic, or ultra-Annapolis in the conversation, Fry would mercilessly ridicule it and puncture the balloons. The PT captains delighted to invite him on their midnight missions.

"Me ride in those death traps? Ha, ha! Not me! I get paid to sit right here and think. That's all I'm in this man's Navy for. You don't get medals for what I do. But you do get back home!" Unashamedly he would voice the fears and cowardice that came close to the surface of all our lives. Men about to throw their wooden PT's at superior targets loved to hear Fry express their doubts. "Those sieves? Those kidney-wreckers? Holy cow! I'd sooner go to sea in a native canoe!"

But when the frail little craft warmed up, and you could hear Packard motors roaring through Tulagi, Tony would pull himself out of his chair in the cave, unkink a drunken knee, and amble off toward the water front. "Better see what the heroes are doing," he would say. Then, borrowing a revolver or picking up a carbine as he went, he would somehow or other get to where Charlesworth's PT was shoving off.