Free War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk Page B

They stuck to him because he kept them on the move, rewarded them as a trainer throws fish to his seals, and turned a blind eye to their own pilferings in the rubble.
    The stinking smashed-up Cavité base reminded him of battered Warsaw, where he had been caught with Natalie by Hitler’s invasion. But this was a different war: sporadic bombings from the azure tropic sky setting ships ablaze and raising pretty bursts of flame among the waterfront palm trees; nothing like the storm of German bombs and shells that had wrecked the Polish capital. Nor was there yet the fear of an enemy closing in. Cavité had been a hot show, a thorough rubbing-out of a military target, but the base was just a smudge on the untouched hundred-mile coast of Manila Bay. The city itself kept its peacetime look: shimmering heat, glaring sunshine, heavy automobile traffic and crawling oxcarts, a few white men and hordes of Filipinos strolling the sidewalks. Sirens, fires, sandbags, tiny Japanese bombers glinting over green palm-feathered hills far above the thudding black AA puffs, made a war of it — a war slightly movie-ish in feel.
    Byron knew things would get rougher. Pessimistic rumors abounded: as, that the entire Pacific Fleet had been sunk at Pearl Harbor, carriers and all, but that the guilty President was suppressing the catastrophic news. Or, that MacArthur’s announcements of “small-scale” enemy landings on Luzon were lies; that the Japs were already ashore in force, thundering toward Manila with thousands of tanks. And so forth. Most people believed what General MacArthur told them: that the Jap landings in the north were light feints, well-contained, and that massive help was on the way. There were also optimistic rumors of a huge relief convoy, already en route from San Francisco with a Marine division and three mechanized Army divisions, plus two aircraft carriers crammed with fighters and bombers.
    Byron wasn’t much concerned either way. A submarine could leave Luzon at a half hour’s notice. As for his father and brother at Pearl Harbor, Victor Henry seemed indestructible to Byron, and he doubted the
Enterprise
had been sunk. That would have come out. He would have been quite happy, had he only been sure that Natalie and the baby were homeward bound. The work was a godsend. It kept him too busy by day and too worn out by night to worry overmuch.
    This pleasant time abruptly ended. Stopping his truck convoy in downtown Manila to report on his progress, he met Branch Hoban coming out of the Marsman building with a thick envelope in hand, blinking in the sunshine.
    “Well, well, Briny Henry himself, loose as a goose!” The captain of the
Devilfish
caught at his arm. “This simplifies matters.”
    Hoban’s handsome face had a hard set to it; the jaw was thrust far forward; the neat Clark Gable mustache seemed to bristle. He squinted at the four heavily laden trucks, and at Byron’s work gang, all bare-chested or in dirty undershirts, drinking warm beer from cans. “Heading for Mariveles, were you?”
    “Yes, sir, after making my report.”
    “I’ll ride along. You’re securing from this duty.”
    “Sir, Commander Percifield expects me, and —”
    “I know all about Commander Percifield. Go ahead in. I’ll wait.”
    Percifield told Byron that the admiral wanted to see him, and added, “You’ve done a 4.0 job, Ensign Henry. We’ll miss you. Turn over your men and vehicles to Captain Tully at Mariveles.”
    Byron was led by a yeoman into the presence of the Commander-in-Chief of the Asiatic Fleet, a dried-up small old man in whites at an oversize desk, facing out on a spectacular panorama of the blue palm-lined bay.
    “You’re Pug Henry’s boy, aren’t you? Warren’s brother?” Hart twanged with no other greeting. His round face, weathered in red-brown streaks and patches, wore a harried embittered look. His neck was all sunburned cords and strings. He held himself straight and stiff in the swivel