Free The Commodore by P. T. Deutermann Page A

chicken. They’re street fighters. And when they get sideways to you in a night fight for a minute or so, and only then haul ass out of there, it can only mean one thing. The Long Lances are coming. I chose to maneuver out of the torpedo water. That’s why I ‘departed the formation’—it was doomed.”
    â€œYou had no orders to do that,” Browning snapped. “So who the hell—”
    â€œThe destroyers were on the sidelines during that fight, Captain,” Sluff interrupted. “When battleships duke it out, destroyers take cover. As I said before, we, in fact, had no orders at all, other than to open fire when the heavies did. Which we did. We all did. But once I thought the Long Lances were coming, I decided to stay alive to fight another day.”
    â€œ You decided?” Browning said. “Who do you think you are, Wolf? I’ll tell you what you are: You’re a brand-new, untested CO in a brand-new, un tested ship. What could you possibly know about a night surface action?”
    Fuck it, Sluff thought. This guy was every inch the prick everyone said he was. “More than any aviator,” he said, having noted the gold wings on Browning’s khaki shirt.
    Browning’s face went bright red as he rose out of his desk chair. “You listen here, Tonto—”
    â€œAll right,” a gravelly voice said. “That’s enough.” Sluff turned to find Halsey himself, all bushy eyebrows and crocodile-faced, standing there in the batwing doors. “Miles, I want to talk to the skipper, here.”
    â€œBut, Admiral, we can not tolerate this kind of insolent—”
    â€œHe was there, Miles,” Halsey interrupted. “ We weren’t. I want to hear what happened. Captain Wolf, get in here and start from the beginning.”
    Sluff followed the admiral into the inner office, but not before giving Browning a look that said, See you outside if you think you’re man enough. Browning just glared. Halsey sat down behind his desk, lit a cigarette, and then pointed to a decanter of Scotch on a side table. “I take a splash of soda,” he said. “Fix one for yourself.”
    Sluff was a bourbon man, but this was not the time to quibble with Bull Halsey. He fixed the admiral a drink, poured an inch for himself, and then sat down in one of the three chairs in front of Halsey’s desk. He was still thinking about going back out there into the other office and pitching Browning through a window.
    â€œLet me set the stage,” Halsey said. “Two nights ago, the Japs came down from Rabaul to once and for all smash Henderson Field with a fourteen-inch shelling and then land a convoy’s worth of troops, probably fifteen thousand soldiers, to take the airfield and run the Americans into the jungle. Two nights before that they came for the same purpose, and a force of our cruisers and destroyers drove right into them, literally, right into them, and made them turn back. At great cost, I might add.”
    â€œYes, sir, we saw them, or what was left of them.”
    â€œOkay, then,” Halsey said. “When Callaghan and Scott went up against two battleships, some cruisers, and a bunch of torpedo destroyers, they got their asses kicked. But: The Japs lost one of their battleships, so they turned back. For one day. To regroup. When it became obvious they were gonna try again, I sent two battleships up there to see if we could stop them. And it worked. The Japs lost a second battleship, and the next morning Marine air on Cactus destroyed most of that convoy. Drowned those sunsabitches. Now the Nips’re all back in Rabaul wondering what the hell happened.”
    Sluff tried the Scotch. Not bad, he thought. “Yes, sir,” he said, for want of anything else to say.
    â€œI was eavesdropping when you were talking to my chief of staff,” Halsey continued. “I am sympathetic with the fact that you didn’t