“Speaking of literature, I used to date a nurse when I was stationed at Hickman Field back in Hawaii,” Hendricks said. “I laid her in the post library back in the memoir section.”
“It’s Hickam Field,” Michener said.
“What?”
“Hickam, not Hickman.”
“Who the hell cares?” Hendricks blurted. “It was the nurse I was talking about.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Nick interceded once more. “The poker game, yes?” He looked at Ready. “Bosun, are you finished with your quite interesting but, alas, extraneous comments?”
“Yes, sir,” Ready replied, embarrassed at being so thoroughly patronized. “Sorry to all you sirs.”
Michener looked at Ready with an interested expression but said nothing more. Nick announced the game was five card stud, dealt one down and four up with betting between the deals. Ready called for a side conference with Kennedy. Nick nodded agreement. They scooted their chairs back a few feet. “Do you understand how to play, sir?” Ready asked in a whisper.
“Well enough,” Kennedy whispered back. “I essentially put up my money and then wait to be eaten by these sharks.”
“That ain’t a good attitude, sir.”
“I will endeavor to improve it. What’s your advice?”
“If your cards are lousy, drop out. If you have some good cards, then bet and keep raising until you think some other guy has better cards. Then drop out.”
“Let me get this straight. Your advice is to ante up and then drop out unless I’ve got a killer hand that can’t lose?”
“It’s what I do, mostly,” Ready confessed.
Kennedy shook his head. “There’s only one way I have any chance at all with this bunch. I’ve got to act like I don’t know what I’m doing and bet high a lot of times no matter what I’ve got. In other words, bluff the hell out of them.”
“You do that, sir, and you’re going to lose all our money and our boat, too.”
“I may lose my money,” Kennedy said, “but not my boat. I don’t have a boat, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“You really ought to be more optimistic, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“Well, Ready, let’s see if I have any reason for optimism after this game.”
“Are you gentlemen of the Solomon Islands ready to play?” Nick purred.
Kennedy and Ready scooted their chairs back to the table. “Deal,” Kennedy said.
Nick dealt, and the game began. During its early stages, Nick proved himself a heavy hitter who won and lost big. When he had something he apparently thought was good, he went after it as if he had chips to burn, exposing himself to ambushes from Hendricks, Michener, and Welch, who worked their hands carefully and reasonably. Kennedy, on the other hand, was completely and utterly unpredictable. With his bluffing, even when bluffing didn’t make sense, he won a few hands, so his stack of chips grew. Soon the word got out across the base that there was a hot poker game, and a crowd began to gather. Kennedy immediately became the sentimental favorite, and he didn’t disappoint, once taking a medium-sized pot with nothing but a pair of fours. Nick had folded early with a pair of tens showing.
“You got them all on the run, sir,” Ready whispered excitedly. “But I think you ought to pay more attention to what cards you’ve got. For instance, you bet a lot on just that pair of fours. You could’ve got beat easy.”
“Scoot back,” Kennedy said.
“Sir?”
“Scoot back away from me.”
Ready’s lip went out, but he scooted back.
Kennedy, bluffing nearly every hand, took a few more pots and raked in the chips.’”Kennedy, you’re a damn good poker player,” Nick allowed while smiling a disarming smile.
The play went on. Over the next series of hands, the stacks of chips before Hendricks, Welch, and Michener increased and decreased while Kennedy’s and Nick’s stayed pretty much the same. The other three officers were playing each other, it seemed, while there was a completely separate game going on between Kennedy and Nick. Pretty soon, there were bets throughout the O-Club Annex as to which of the two would end up the winner for the night. Ready was surprised to look up and see the guard from the gate, still dressed in his whites. Beside him stood Mary, the Tonkinese woman. Then he saw the cook from Nick’s Tropical Burgers. Ready wondered if anyone was still on duty in Santa Cruz but then stopped wondering and started concentrating on what Kennedy was doing, which was crazy but so far successful, against any odds Ready could imagine.
The game was changed to seven card stud, two down, the rest up. Now the chips started to stack up in front of Kennedy, and hand after hand went his way. First, Welch dropped out after Kennedy skunked him with a full house of three jacks, two of them in the hole, and two tens. Then Michener gave up and went off to a corner, where he was seen scribbling in a little notebook. Nick, chewing on an unlit cigar, bought another thousand dollars of chips. The next hand, Kennedy took Hendricks to the cleaners and the Tomahawk pilot threw in the towel. Now, it was just Nick and Kennedy. Both had big stacks of chips, although Kennedy’s was larger. The next hand was a small pot. Nick took it.
“Don’t forget why we’re here, Mister Kennedy,” Ready whispered. “The PT boat. Got to get all his money, sir. Make him scream.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nick’s head was down, his chin on his chest. He shuffled the cards petulantly, then stopped. Scowling, he bought more chips, paid for with a wad of dollars from his pocket. “Five card stud,” he said. He shuffled the cards, got Kennedy to cut them, then dealt one down and one up for each player. Kennedy had a jack of clubs showing. Nick had a ten of diamonds. Nick bet; Kennedy met the bet and raised him. Nick dealt Kennedy a ten of clubs and himself a queen of diamonds. Nick bet, and Kennedy raised. Nick met it, and both men got another card. This time Kennedy got a king of clubs. Nick got a jack of diamonds. Nick bet, and Kennedy quickly met it and raised. Perplexed, his face a frowning study, Nick reluctantly tossed in the necessary chips to meet Kennedy’s raise.
The last cards went down, a nine of clubs to Kennedy, a king of diamonds to Nick. The pot was huge. Somebody took the time to count it. “I make it near four thousand dollars,” he said, and an excited rumble went through the crowd, the kind of excited rumble that only big money can make in any audience. Animated whispers were exchanged as the expert poker players explained what was happening. Both of the lieutenants were working flushes with a possibility of a straight flush for Kennedy and the highest ranking of all hands, known as a royal flush, for Nick. Or neither of them had a thing. Both could, after all, be bluffing.
Beads of sweat appeared on Nick’s brow, and his upper lip became a swimming pool. He stared at the cards that Kennedy was showing. A flurry of side betting erupted in the assembly. “Two thousand dollars,” Nick said, after a considerable time, and pushed forward the necessary chips.
Kennedy met the two thousand and raised three. “I don’t think you’ve got a thing, Nick,” he said.
Nick wiped his face with his sleeve. “Well, I’m all in,” he said, pushing forward his remaining chips.
Ready whispered furiously into Kennedy’s ear. Kennedy nodded and said, “You mean you’re going to run away from my bet, Nick? I’ve got three thousand on the table to you, and all you can do is slide those few pitiful chips my way? I’m surprised at you. I thought you were a real poker player.”
Nick’s great eyebrows formed into an angry V. “Who’ll loan it to me?” he croaked. “Come on, somebody! It’s for the honor of Santa Cruz. Kennedy’s bluffing!”
“Ain’t nobody going to do it, Nick,” a voice from the crowd answered. “It’s Mister Kennedy’s night. Ain’t you figgered that out?”
Kennedy smiled. “Tell you what, Nick,” he said reasonably. “Maybe you can meet my raise with something other than money.”
“What do you mean?” Nick cried. He looked ill, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“Something of value. That thing we talked about earlier in the day.”
A trickle of sweat went down Nick’s cheek, dark with afternoon shadow. “You mean the thing with no paperwork?”
“Yes,” Kennedy answered. “That very thing.”
Nick squirmed in his chair. “All right,” he said heavily. “But I think we should sharpen up the pot a bit. I’ve lost count of what’s there, but shove in all you’ve got and let’s round it to, say, ten thousand dollars.”
“Done!” Ready said before Kennedy could open his mouth.
Nick said, “Then I think we’ve both been called.”
“Wait!” somebody spoke up from the crowd. “Before you show us your hole cards, let us all get our last bets down.”
Nick and Kennedy nodded agreement, and the money flew. When the hubbub settled down, Nick’s and Kennedy’s eyes met. “All right, Kennedy, let’s see the bad news,” Nick said with a sigh.
Kennedy turned up his card, and it was the jack of clubs. He had gotten his straight flush. The crowd let go with a mighty whoop while Nick just held his head. “My oh my,” he groaned.
“Show us your card, Nick!” a chief yelled. “Let’s see what you got skunked with!”
Nick shrugged and turned his card over. The noise in the Quonset drained away until all that was left was a destitute silence. When Kennedy found his voice, he said, “Congratulations,” and then patted Ready on the shoulder in an attempt to at least slow the boy’s weeping. Nick had made his royal flush.
18
Kennedy, Nick, and Ready walked through the gate of the great supply area and stopped on the big concrete dock. The endless Pacific sky rolled above them, deep black, strewn with sparkling stars and studded by a bright half moon. All was quiet except for a gentle rustle of palm fronds, the scratching of perhaps a rat in the grass, and the thin gurgle of the placid harbor. The light from the moon turned the hundreds of anchored boats and ships into silvery ghosts. “You have my wife’s address?” Nick asked.
“Yes, and I won’t lose it,” Kennedy replied in as strong a voice as he could muster. “As soon as I get stateside, she’ll receive the money.”
“Thank you. She needs it. It’s not been easy for her. We owe some to the bank. This will help.”
Kennedy was still angry at losing the game and couldn’t resist a jab at the winner. “I don’t get it, Nick. You shouldn’t have any money problems, not with all your enterprises around here. Nick’s Tropical Hamburger Stand, Nick’s Jeep Wash, Nick’s Whorehouse, for all I know.”
Nick took off his pith helmet and ran his hand across his face to wipe the sweat from it. “You don’t think much of me, do you?”
“I don’t know what to think, Nick. But I’m curious. Why doesn’t someone bring you up on charges?”
Nick put his pith helmet back on, and his bushy great eyebrows arched. “Why would anyone bring me up on charges? Do you think I’m a crook? Well, I’m not a crook. You see all the ballparks around here, the recreational clubs, the O-Club Annex, even the golf course? All the money I make from my enterprises goes into the morale fund that pays for all that. And why do I do it, Kennedy? I do it for these men, trapped as they are so far away from home without so much as a Jap to shoot at them to make it interesting, men who work twenty hours or more a day every day, even Christmas, and who are all mosquito-bit, and got grunge growing between their toes, and blisters and rashes in their armpits that drive them crazy. The money I make is so those men can have some place to get away and maybe listen to a record or two, or watch a Betty Grable movie, or play a game of baseball or horseshoes or even poker, anything to keep them from going nuts so that these supplies and all this equipment will be shoved up the pipeline to you charlies fighting the real war. That’s what Nick’s Tropical Hamburger Stand and all the rest are for, and I’m proud I have the savvy to do it.”
Nick smacked his fist into his hand. “Dammit, Kennedy. I’d give my eyeteeth to get into this war, but we all have to follow orders. Here is where the navy thinks they can use me to the best advantage, so here I’ll stay and do the best damn job I can!”
Chastened, Kennedy shuffled his brown shoes in the sand. “Nick, I’ve misjudged you. I’m sorry. By God, I truly am. Look me up when you get back to the States, why don’t you? We’ll share another glass of good whiskey. My father is likely to be able to provide us some.”
“I just might,” Nick said, partially mollified.
“Come to think of it,” Kennedy said, “I never caught your full name.”
“Richard Milhous Nixon.” He stuck out his hand. “Of Whittier, California.”
They shook hands. “See you around, Nick.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Nixon replied with a shy smile beneath his ridiculous pith helmet. “Good luck up the Slot. And don’t forget to duck!”
After Nixon had walked back inside his compound, Kennedy and Ready stood at the edge of the dock. In the quiet harbor, there was but a single light moving, a small boat maneuvering between the others. “Where are the other boys?” Kennedy asked, apparently just realizing they had disappeared.
“Beats me, sir. Guess they went off to loaf somewhere, and Marvin’s probably found himself a lady friend. He’s good at that.”
“Not only did I lose a small fortune, but I lost my crew,” Kennedy lamented. “I even lost the mascot.”
“Marvin ain’t a mascot, sir. He’s crew, too.”
Kennedy allowed himself a long sigh. “Does it really matter what I call your dog? Never mind. I guess we’d better find a place to sleep. Tomorrow morning we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“We got to get us a boat, sir.”
“Dammit, Ready. That’s what I’ve been trying to do!”
The light on the harbor flashed on them and then steadied. In a few minutes, the vessel with the light slid next to the dock. Someone jumped off and held onto a bow line. “Climb aboard, Mister Kennedy,” Once said.
Again grinned from behind the wheel of the vessel, which proved to be nothing less than an eighty-eight-foot mahogany-and-plywood, sharp-bowed watercraft, otherwise known as a PT boat. Marvin stood on the mid-deck loading hatch. Millie came up from below with an apron tied around his neck. “I’m baking some biscuits, Mister Kennedy. We should have a fine breakfast, come morning.”
Kennedy, in something of a daze, stepped aboard the boat. When he looked, the boat’s number, usually painted on the splinter shield, was rubbed out. He had a lot of questions, but he didn’t think he wanted to hear many of the answers. Once, pushing off and jumping back on deck with the line, answered at least one of them. “We found some boats made out of belly tanks on the beach and kind of borrowed them, sir. We started looking around the harbor until we ran across this torpedo schooner. She’s got a full tank of gas, and she started right up, too. Seems a right fine craft.”
“We came here for the PT-59,” Kennedy said. “We can’t just steal any PT boat we find.”
“Well, hell, sir,” Again said, “one PT boat’s the same as the other, ain’t it? What difference does it make?”
The twin’s logic was a bit overwhelming. “Well, I suppose there is no true difference. But the paperwork will be screwed up.”
“No it won’t, sir, because we don’t have no paperwork. Can I take her to Melagi now?”
“Why not?” was Pogo’s comment. The bushman, for no apparent reason, was wearing a nurse’s cap.
Kennedy couldn’t think of a reason why not, beyond an additional charge to his court-martial. He shrugged, which was tantamount as far as Thurlow’s boys were concerned to his enthusiastic agreement. Without another word, Again gunned the throttles to the wall, and the PT boat disappeared into the night.
19
Phimble piloted the Darlin’Dosie northward while the shadows lengthened on the small islands below. Soon the light would be gone entirely and he’d be flying in the dark, which he didn’t particularly like to do. He was also tired. Phimble had anticipated not do
ing too much that day, other than writing his wife a letter and maybe hiking down to the Raider base with Fisheye to see if the team mechanic could repair the generator used to show the only film on the base, The Fleet’s In, starring Dorothy Lamour. Ever since the generator had broken down the week before, the Raiders had been assembling after dark in front of the empty screen, which was a sheet nailed to a scrap of plywood erected atop a bunker, and staring at it until somebody made a critical comment on the movie, which, even if it was not being shown, they all knew by heart. No matter what the remark was, it invariably provoked a fight and the fists happily flew. Phimble didn’t much mind that the Raiders brawled, except their swearing tended to be loud and if the wind was just right, or wrong, he could hear them, even high on the volcano’s slope at Thurlow’s Cave. If Fisheye could fix the little generator that operated the projector, Phimble theorized, then maybe the Raiders would be mollified and it would guarantee a more peaceful evening.
It was while he was contemplating this idea over a cup of coffee that very morning that Phimble had observed Josh reading Dosie’s fool letter. Then Captain Clooney had appeared out of the bush with the demand from Colonel Burr. After that, Phimble’s day had simply gone to pieces. Josh had agreed to see Burr and then returned all in a sweat to be flown north to Lumbari and thence to New Georgia. Phimble had made Josh sit down long enough to spill what he’d heard from Burr. It wasn’t a pretty tale, and Phimble’s advice was to stay out of it.
But what was done was done, the mission was on, and it was going to play out, one way or the other. Phimble mostly wished that he hadn’t sent Millie with that Kennedy fellow. The boy could make a fine cup of coffee. Stobs was indifferent at best in his coffeemaking, usually getting the grounds in it and never getting it hot enough. He glanced at his copilot, who was the megapode. Dave was working on his nap. Fisheye was in the forward gun turret, and Stobs was at his radio station. Like Dave, both boys were probably asleep, too.