The Sea Witch Read online

  At least there was a bit of a breeze to keep the bugs at bay. The place must be a hellhole when the wind didn’t blow!

  None of the sailors working on the Cat wore a shirt, and many had cut off the legs of their dungarees. They were brown as nuts.

  One of the men standing on the float winching the bombs up was wearing a swimsuit and tennis shoes — nothing else. I figured he was the officer, and after a minute or so of watching I was sure. He was helping with the job, but he was also directing the others.

  “Lieutenant Modahl?”

  He turned to look at me.

  “I’m your new copilot.”

  After he got the second bomb on that wing, he clambered up the rope net that was hung over the side of the ship. When he was on deck he shook my hand. I told him my name, where I was from.

  He asked a few questions about my experience, and I told him I’d never flown seaplanes — been flying the SBD Dauntless.

  Modahl was taller than me by a bunch, over six feet. He must have weighed at least two hundred, and none of it looked like fat. He about broke my hand shaking it. I thought maybe he had played college football. He had black eyes and black hair, filthy hands with ground-in grease and broken fingernails. Only after he shook my hand did it occur to him to wipe the grease off his hands, which he did with a rag that had been lying nearby on the deck. He didn’t smile, not once.

  I figured if he could fly and fight, it didn’t matter whether he smiled or not. Anyone in the South Pacific who was making friends just then didn’t understand the situation.

  MODAHL:

  The ensign was the sorriest specimen I had laid eyes on in a long time. About five feet four inches tall, he had poorly cut, flaming red hair, freckles, jug ears, and buckteeth. He looked maybe sixteen. His khakis didn’t fit, were sweat-stained and rumpled — hell, they were just plain dirty.

  He mumbled his words, didn’t have much to say, kept glancing at the Cat, didn’t look me in the eyes.

  Joe Snyder and his crew were missing, Harvey Deets was lying in his bunk shivering himself to death with malaria, and I wound up with this kid as a copilot, one who had never even flown a seaplane! Why didn’t they just put one of the storekeepers in the right seat? Hell, why didn’t we just leave the damn seat empty?

  No wonder the goddamn Japs were kicking our butts all over the Pacific.

  The kid mumbled something about Jones wanting to see me. If the Old Man thought I was going to wet-nurse this kid, he was going to find out different before he got very much older.

  I told the kid where to put his gear, then headed for the wardroom to find Commander Jones.

  After Modahl went below, I climbed down the net to look over the Black Cat. The high wing sported two engines. The wing was raised well over the fuselage by a pedestal, which had been the key innovation of the design. The mechanic or flight engineer, I knew, had his station in the pedestal. The Cat had side blisters with a fifty-caliber on a swivel-mount in each, a thirty-caliber which fired aft through a tunnel, and a flexible thirty in a nose turret.

  This Cat, however, had something I had never seen before. Four blast tubes covered with condoms protruded from the nose under the bow turret. I entered the Cat through one of the open blisters and went forward for a look. The bunk compartment was where passengers always rode; I had never been forward of that.

  I went through a small watertight hatch — open now, of course — into the compartment used by the radio operator and the navigator. The radio gear took up all the space on the starboard side of the compartment, while the navigator had a table with a large compass mounted on the aft end. He had boxes for stowage of charts and a light mounted right over the table. The rear bulkhead was covered with a power distribution panel.

  Three steps led up to the mechanic’s seat on the wing support pylon. The mech had a bunch of levers and switches up there to control the engines and cowl flaps in flight.

  On forward was the cockpit, with raised seats for the pilot and copilot. The yokes were joined together on a cross-cockpit boom, so when one moved, the other did also. On the yoke was a set of light switches that told the mechanic what the pilot wanted him to do. They were labeled with things like, “Raise floats” and “Lower floats,” which meant the wingtip floats, and directions for controlling the fuel mixture to the engines. The throttle and prop controls were mounted on the overhead.

  The cockpit had windows on both sides and in the roof, all of which were open, but still, it was stifling in there with the heat and stink of rotting fish. The Catalina was also rocking a bit in the swell, which didn’t help either.

  The door to the bow compartment was between the pilot and copil ot, below the instrument panel. One of the sailors was there installing ammo in the bow gun feed trays. He explained the setup.

  Four fifty-caliber machine guns were mounted as tightly as possible in the bow compartment — the bomb-sight had been removed to make room and the bombardier’s window plated over with sheet metal. Most of the space the guns didn’t occupy was taken up by ammo feed trays. The trigger for the guns was on the pilot’s yoke. The remainder of the space, and there wasn’t much, was for the bow gunner, who had to straddle the fifties to fire the flexible thirty-caliber in the bow turret. Burlap bags were laid over the fixed fifties to protect the gunner from burns.

  The sailor showing me the installation was pretty proud of it. His name was Hoffman. He was the bow gunner and bombardier, he said, and had just finished loading ammo in the trays. Through the gaps in the trays I could see the gleam of brass. Hoffman straddled the guns and opened the hatch in the top of the turret to let in some air and light.

  “That hatch is open when you make an attack?” I asked.

  “Yes, sir. Little drafty, but the visibility is great.”

  The Cat bobbing against the float and the heat in that closed space made me about half-seasick. I figured I was good for about one more minute.

  “How do they work?” I asked, patting the guns.

  “They’re the Cat’s nuts, sir. They really pour out the lead. They’ll cut a hole in a ship’s side in seconds. I hose the thirty around to keep their heads down while Mr. Modahl guts ‘em.”

  “He goes after the Japs, does he?”

  “Yes, sir. He says we gotta do it or somebody else will have to. Now me, I’d rather be sitting in the drugstore at Pismo Beach drinking sodas with my girl while someone else does the heavy lifting, but it isn’t working out that way.”

  “I guess not.”

  “In fact, when we dive for those Jap ships, and I’m sitting on those guns, I’d rather be somewhere else, anywhere at all. I haven’t peed my pants yet, but it’s been close.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Guess everybody feels that way.”

  “Hard to get used to.”

  “Are you going to be flying with us?”

  “I’m flying copilot for a while. They told me Deets has malaria.”

  “You know Cats, huh?”

  “I don’t know a damn thing about flying boats. I figure I can learn, though.”

  Hoffman wasn’t thrilled, I could see that. If I were him, I would have wanted experienced people in the cockpit, too.

  Oh well, how tough could it be? It wasn’t like we were going to have to land this thing on a carrier deck.

  HOFFMAN!

  This ensign wasn’t just wet behind the ears — he was dripping all over the deck. Our new copilot? He looked like he just got out of the eighth grade. What in hell were the Zeros thinking?

  That wasn’t me you heard laughin’, not by a damn sight. It wasn’t very funny. This ensign must be what’s on the bottom of the barrel.

  It was like we had already lost the war; we were risking our butts with an idiot pilot who thought he could win the war all by himself, and if it went bad, we had a copilot who’s never flown a seaplane — hell, a copilot who oughta be in junior high — to get our sorry asses home.

  I patted those fifties, then crawled aft, out of the b
ow compartment, before I embarrassed myself by losing my breakfast. There seemed to be a tiny breeze through the cockpit, and that helped. That and the sunlight and the feeling I wasn’t closed up in a tight place.

  There were lots of discolored places on the left side of the fuselage. I asked Hoffman about that. He looked vaguely surprised. “Patches, sir. Japs shot up the Witch pretty bad. Killed the radioman and left waist gunner. Mr. Modahl got us home, but it was a close thing.”

  Hoffman went aft to get out of the airplane, leaving me in the cockpit. I climbed into the right seat and looked things over, fingered all the switches and levers, studied everything. The more I could learn now, the easier the first flight would be.

  Everything looked straightforward … no surprises, really. But it was a big, complicated plane. The lighting and intercom panels were on the bulkhead behind the pilots’ seats. There were no landing gear or flap handles, of course. Constant speed props, throttles, RPM and manifold pressure gauges … I thought I could handle it. All I needed would be a little coaching on the takeoff and landing.

  The button on the pilot’s yoke that fired the fifties was an add-on, merely clamped to the yoke. A wire from the button disappeared into the bow compartment.

  I gingerly moved the controls, just a tad, while I kept my right hand on the throttles. Yeah, I could handle it. She would be slow and ponderous, nothing like a Dauntless, but hell, flying is flying.

  I climbed out and stood on the float watching the guys finish loading and fusing the bombs. Three men were also sitting on the wing completing the fueling. I climbed up the net to the tender’s deck and leaned on the rail, looking her over.

  Modahl came walking down the deck, saw me, and came over. He had sort of a funny look on his face. “Okay,” he said, and didn’t say anything else.

  He leaned on the rail, too, stood surveying the airplane.

  “Nice plane,” I remarked, trying to be funny.

  “Yeah. Commander Jones says we can leave as soon as we’re ready. When the guys are finished fueling and arming the plane, I think I’ll have them fed, then we’ll go.”

  “Yes, sir. Where to?”

  “Jones and I thought we might as well run up to Buka and Rabaul and see what’s in the harbor. Moon’s almost full tonight — be a shame to waste it. Intelligence thinks there are about a dozen Jap ships at Rabaul, which is fairly well defended. We ought to send at least two Cats. Would if we had them, but we don’t.”

  “Buka?”

  “No one knows. The harbor might contain a fleet, or it might be empty.”

  “Okay.”

  “Tomorrow morning we’ll see if we can find Joe Snyder.”

  “Where was Snyder going the night he disappeared?”

  “Buka and Rabaul,” Modahl replied, and climbed down the net to check the fuses on the weapons.

  TWO

  While the other guys were doing all the work, I went to my stateroom and threw my stuff in the top bunk. Another officer was there, stripped to his skivvies in the jungle heat. He was seated at the only desk writing a long letter — he already had four or five pages of dense handwriting lying in front of him.

  “I’m the new guy,” I told him, “going to be Modahl’s copilot.”

  He looked me over like I was a steer he was going to bid upon. “I’m Modahl’s navigator, Rufus Pottinger.”

  “We’re flying together, I guess.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I wondered if that letter was to a girl or his mother. I guessed his mother — Pottinger didn’t strike me as the romantic type, but you can never tell. There is someone for everyone, they say.

  That thought got me thinking about my family. I didn’t have a solitary soul to write to. I guess I was jealous of Pottinger. I stripped to my skivvies and asked him where the head was.

  He looked at his watch. “You’re in luck. The water will be on in fifteen minutes. For fifteen minutes. The skipper of this scow is miserly with the water.”

  I took a cake of soap, a towel, and a toothbrush and went to to visit the facilities.

  POTTINGER:

  I’d heard of this guy. They had thrown him out of SBDs, sent him to PBYs. I guess that was an indicator of where we stood on the naval aviation totem pole.

  The scuttlebutt was this ensign was some kind of suicidal maniac. You’d never know it to look at him. With flaming red hair, splotchy skin, and buckteeth, he was the kind of guy nobody ever paid much attention to.

  He also had an annoying habit of failing to meet your gaze when he spoke to you — I noticed that right off. Not a guy with a great future in the Navy. The man had no presence.

  I threw my pen on the desk and stretched. I got to thinking about Modahl and couldn’t go on with my letter, so I folded it and put in in the drawer.

  Modahl was a warrior to his fingertips. He also took crazy chances. Sure, you gotta go for it — that’s combat. Still, you must use good sense. Stay alive to fight again tomorrow. I tried to tell him that dead men don’t win wars, and he just laughed.

  Now the ensign had been added to the mix. I confess, I was worried. At least Harvey Deets had curbed some of Modahl’s wilder instincts. This ensign was a screwball with no brains, according to the rumor, which came straight from the yeoman in the captain’s office who saw the message traffic.

  In truth I wasn’t cut out for this life. I was certainly no warrior — not like Modahl, or even this crazy redheaded ensign. Didn’t have the nerves for it.

  I wasn’t sleeping much those days, couldn’t eat, couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. It sounds crazy, but I knew there was a bullet out there waiting for me. I knew I wasn’t going to survive the war. The Japs were going to kill me.

  And I didn’t know if they would do it tonight, or tomorrow night, or some night after. But they would do it. I felt like a man on death row, waiting for the warden to come for me.

  I couldn’t say that in my letters home, of course. Mom would worry herself silly. But Jesus, I didn’t know if I could screw up the courage to keep on going.

  I hoped I wouldn’t crack, wouldn’t lose my manhood in front of Modahl and the others.

  I guess I’d rather be dead than humiliate myself that way.

  Modahl knew how I felt. I think he sensed it when I tried to talk some sense into him.

  Oh, God, be with us tonight.

  I sat through the brief and kept my ensign’s mouth firmly shut. The others asked questions, especially Modahl, while I sort of half listened and thought about that great big ocean out there.

  The distances involved were enormous. Buka on the northern tip of Bougainville was about 400 nautical miles away, Rabaul on the eastern tip of New Britain, about 450. This was the first time I would be flying the ocean without my plotting board, which felt strange. No way around it though — Catalinas carried a navigator, who was supposed to get you there and back. Modahl apparently thought Pottinger could handle it — and I guess he had so far.

  Standing on the tender’s deck, I surveyed the sky. The usual noon shower had dissipated, and now there was only the late-afternoon cumulus building over the ocean.

  Behind me I could hear the crew whispering — of course they weren’t thrilled at having a copilot without experience, but I wasn’t either. I would have given anything right then to be manning a Dauntless on the deck of Enterprise rather than climbing into this heaving, stinking, ugly flying boat moored in the mouth of this jungle river.

  The Sea Witch! Gimme a break!

  The evening was hot, humid, with only an occasional puff of wind. The tender had so little freshwater it came out of the tap in a trickle, hardly enough to wet a wash-rag. I had taken a sponge bath, which was a wasted effort. I was already sodden. At least in the plane we would be free of the bugs that swarmed over us in the muggy air.

  I was wearing khakis; Modahl was togged out in a pair of Aussie shorts and a khaki shirt with the sleeves rolled up — the only reason he wore that shirt instead of a tee shirt was to have a pocket for
pens and cigarettes. Both of us wore pistols on web belts around our waists.

  As I went down the net I overheard the word “crazy.” That steamed me, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  If they wanted to think I was nuts, let ‘em. As long as they did their jobs it really didn’t matter what they thought. Even if it did piss me off.

  I got strapped into the right seat without help, but I was of little use to Modahl. I shouldn’t have worried. The copilot was merely there to flip switches the pilot couldn’t reach, provide extra muscle on the unboosted controls, and talk to the pilot to keep him awake in the middle of the night. I didn’t figure Modahl would leave the plane to me and the autopilot on this first flight. Tonight, the bunks where members of the crew normally took turns napping were covered with a dozen flares and a dozen hundred-pound bombs, to be dumped out the tunnel hole aft.

  The mechanic helped start the engines, Pratt & Whitney 1830s of twelve hundred horsepower each. That sounded like a lot, but the Cat was a huge plane, carrying four five-hundred-pound bombs on the racks, the hundred-pounders on the bunks, several hundred pounds of flares, God knows how much machine gun ammo, and fifteen hundred gallons of gasoline, which weighed nine thousand pounds. The plane could have carried more gas, but this load was plenty, enough to keep us airborne for over twenty hours.

  I had no idea what the Cat weighed with all this stuff, and I suspect Modahl didn’t either. I said something to the mechanic, Dutch Amme, as we stood on the float waiting our turn to board, and he said the weight didn’t matter. “As long as the thing’ll float, it’ll fly.”

  With Amme ready to start the engines, Modahl yelled to Hoffman to release the bowlines. Hoffman was standing on the chine on the left side of the bow. He flipped the line off the cleat, crawled across the nose to the other chine, got rid of that line, then climbed into the nose turret through the open hatch.