Pacific Standoff (Periscope #1). Richard Deming
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The porter showed Jack to his berth—a lower, thank goodness—and promised to wake him fifteen minutes before they arrived in Union Station. Pocketing Jack’s quarter, he added that he would bring a cup of coffee, or what they were calling coffee these days, and wished him a good night. Jack untied his shoes, buttoned the curtains closed, and changed to pajamas. Only a submariner would have thought the berth spacious, but the fact was, it was nearly as large as the captain’s stateroom on the Manta, and that had to hold a desk, cupboard, and safe as well as a bunk. Here he could really stretch out.
He propped up the pillows and raised the curtain over the window. As he watched the darkness rush by, he allowed himself, for the first time all evening, to remember the reason for this journey. His father was dying. The man who had once carried him on his shoulders, who had held him on his present course since he was in short pants, was quietly slipping away—perhaps was gone already. Jack was no stranger to death; he had seen shipmates and friends and even his own brother die, and his torpedoes had carried death to uncounted hundreds of the enemy. This was different, not the artificial hazards and chances of war, but something as basic as the revolutions of the earth or the restless to-and-fro of the tide. This—not his twenty-first birthday, or his first drink, or his first screw—was the real coming of age. He recalled buying a piece of apple pie in the Automat across from Grand Central Station, on his last trip to New York. As he opened the little glass door and removed the pie, the machinery hummed and another piece of pie, apparently identical, appeared in its place. Now Fate was taking away his father and moving him noiselessly into place. It was time he thought of having a son, to be waiting in the wings.
A jolt, and lights outside the window. He looked out. The train was in Penn Station, changing engines for the New York to Washington stage. He must have fallen asleep sitting up. He idly watched the passengers on the platform, dividing his attention impartially between men in Navy uniform and women in almost any costume. The women of the East, at least those who were likely to ride the night express to Washington, were managing to look quite elegant in spite of war-caused shortages. The girl over there, for example, saying good-bye to an Air Corps major: silk hose with carefully straight seams, a hip-length fur coat, a pert pillbox hat with jaunty veil atop recently waved shoulder-length hair. She obviously believed in giving the boys something worth fighting for; he would not mind fighting for a piece of that himself.
The girl turned to board the train, and the blood drained from his face, then rushed back. It was his sister Helen. She must be on her way to Dad’s side, too. Jack started to spring up, then stopped himself. He could not imagine pursuing her through a crowded train in his pajamas. He would catch her on the platform in the morning. Remembering the casual lust of his thoughts moments earlier, he flushed with an embarrassment that soon turned to anger. Why should he kid himself about Helen? By now he must be the only submariner around who had not had her. Still, he was convinced she was a good kid at heart, if she would just outgrow her wildness and find the right man. In any case they were past the age where he had to play big brother and lay down the law, getting nothing but defiance and resentment for his trouble. But where, he wondered as he drowsed off, had Helen got that fur coat?
The porter awakened him as promised, and he was one of the first passengers onto the platform when the train stopped moving. Even so, Helen got by him in the crowd and he had to rush after her. He caught up to her in the middle of the enormous barrel-vaulted concourse. “Helen,” he said insistently. “Helen!”
She turned, and her face lit with delight. “Jack! What on earth…” She sobered. “You’ve heard, then?”
“Yes.”
“It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”
He nodded grimly and took her arm. “Come along. With this mob we’ll be lucky to get a cab before lunch time.”
“That’s all right. Bunny said he’d meet me with his car. Bunny Wilkinson,” she added, noting his blank look. “I know him from Cambridge. He’s something with OWI or OPA or OSS, one of That Man’s alphabet-soup agencies.” Helen had picked up the habit of calling President Roosevelt “That Man” from some of her diehard Republican society friends. For Jack, who thought of the President (when he thought of him at all, which was not very often) as his commander-in-chief, it had a nasty jarring sound. He debated saying something about it, but decided not to; Helen already tended to think of him as a little stuffy and old-fashioned. Compared to her maybe he was.
“That’s very kind of him,” he said cautiously, “but we shouldn’t take advantage of him. He may need his gas coupons for more important purposes.”
Helen laughed. “Not Bunny! I don’t know how he did it, but he has an X card. He can get all the gasoline he wants. That’s one reason I thought of him. You can’t imagine what the war has done to this city; it’s just impossible. Come on.”
They made their way outside. A shouting crowd clustered around the taxi dispatcher, and there were long, dispirited lines at each of the streetcar stops. Jack buttoned his overcoat against the dawn chill and wished he were back on board his boat. He was willing to grant that the nation needed all these people to coordinate a war effort that stretched around the globe, but he was glad he wasn’t one of them. His own concept of war was more direct: to seek out and destroy the enemy. He should be doing that now, not standing outside Union Station waiting for a man named Bunny!
“There he is!” Helen waved wildly, and a dark-green Packard roadster pulled up and stopped beside them. The driver, a solidly built young man with hair that was too long and a tweed suit that looked out of place away from the golf course, got out and strode over, arms outstretched. “Helen! Darling!” he cried. “It’s been far too long!”
Jack’s sister accepted the embrace and replied with a cool peck on the cheek. “Hello, Bunny. This is awfully nice of you. Do you know my brother Jack?”
The two men sized each other up as they shook hands and exchanged conventional greetings. Jack could not help thinking that such an obviously fit specimen as Bunny should be in uniform, not gallivanting around Washington in a Packard. If Bunny was aware of his reaction, it didn’t seem to faze him; he ushered them into the car and pulled away from the curb just as a red-faced policeman came hurrying toward them.
“Where to?” he asked at a stoplight. “Do you want to go straight to the hospital, or stop by your house first? Did I tell you how sorry I am to hear about your father’s illness?”
Helen glanced at Jack’s face and said, “The hospital, I think. I hope we’re not keeping you from your work too long.”
“No, no, free as a bird! Really! I have to see a couple of people this afternoon, but I can leave you the keys to Hetty”—he patted the dashboard of the car—“and take the trolley. If you’re free, maybe we can link up at dinner. You can still get a decent meal in Washington—if you know where to go.”
The expensive car, the unlimited gas ration, and the freedom from regular hours suddenly added up: the fellow must be a black marketeer, one of those swine who was profiteering from wartime shortages! Jack made a noise of disgust and covered it with a cough. Controlling his voice, he said, “What is your work, Wilkinson? Helen was pretty vague. You’re with the government?”
Bunny kept his eyes on the road. “I’m arranging for the production of the front ends of horses,” he replied airily, “to be shipped to Washington for assembly. It’s very challenging. How about you, McCrary? What secrets lurk beneath that undecorated bridge coat of yours?”
“Jack’s a submariner,” Helen said, ignoring the elbow jabbed in her ribs. “He did all sorts of marvelous things in his last boat, and now he’s getting ready to sail to the Pacific.”
Bunny Wilkinson’s flippant reply to Jack’s question had caused his neck to redden in anger, and as he listened to his sister he was aghast. Hadn’t she ever heard of security? Had she never noticed the posters that said, “Loose Lips Sink Ships”? Why, for all she knew, this fellow might be an Axis agent! Jack had heard only the sketchiest account of Helen’s encounter with Nielson, the Nazi spy, in England, but whatever had really taken place, surely it should have taught her to be more discreet!