Part VII
Tormolen forced himself to stay where he was. Every instinct in him pulled at him, drawing him to go out on the bridge wings himself and join the numerous lookouts all trying to spy the enemy through the dark. But his training told him that his place was here, on the bridge. He ought to be near the radar set that could see through the night far better than any human eyes. Near the radio, which would bring word from the other ships, ahead of the Manchester. And at the place where the reports of all those lookouts dotting the superstructure of the Manchester, many younger and keener eyes all just as keen to spot the enemy as Tormolen himself was.
But it all came down to a matter of trust. Tormolen had to trust his radar set - and its operator. He had to trust the other ships, their radio sets and operators, and his radio set and operator. He had to trust his lookouts, and the system set up to get their reports to him accurately and quickly.
Further, he had to trust that Admiral Lee knew what he was doing, and was as well served by his little fleet as Joe hoped.
Something in him rebelled against all that trust. He wanted to put all his faith in his own eyes, his own ears, his own judgment.
But against that were his years of training and discipline and experience. It had been drilled into his head time and time and time again that the Navy was a team, that it took a whole crew to fight a ship. A commanding officer had the duty to trust his crew, to rely on them, or he was doomed.
And all the while telling him to trust all these people, the Navy also kept pounding into him that the captain had absolute authority and absolute responsibility for his ship. It was a dichotomy that Tormolen had never really fully appreciated.
The quarter moon gleamed off the relatively smooth sea. Off to the right, he could see the hulking shadow of Savo Island, a darker black against the black of night. He could barely make out the massive South Dakota almost dead ahead. Objectively, there was no way he could know if the Japanese were out there. But his gut said they were, and that they would find them.
Or, worse, be found by them.
"Sir, flash from the Washington! Enemy ships to starboard!"
Tormolen snapped out of his reverie. "Radar, focus to starboard! Starboard lookouts, find those ships! Portside lookouts, keep sharp - we don't want to get in a crossfire like Callaghan did. And all lookouts, watch out for torpedoes!"
Part VIII
Tormolen could feel his frustration mount. He could see the battleships firing their secondary batteries, their muzzle flashes like lightning. His lookouts were straining their eyes, trying to see any signs of hits. And his gunners were ready to open fire as soon as they were given a target.
But the Japanese were not cooperating with the Americans. There were no flashes of lights, no bursts of flame out in the darkness that Tormolen's fire control could lock in on. That meant the 18 5" guns that the Manchester could bring to bear to her starboard were utterly useless.
Then, as quickly as they started, the battleships' guns went silent. Apparently they had lost their targets. Indeed, Tormolen was not entirely convinced they'd ever had targets. It wouldn't have been the first time he'd heard of such a thing; as a boy, he'd heard a tale out of the Revolutionary War.
It seemed that the Americans in Burlington, Vermont had been exceptionally nervous about a British attack. One night, a lookout had sounded the alarm about a British ship just offshore. The cannons mounted on the shore had opened up, and fired all through the night at the Redcoats, but the ship stubbornly refused to sink. Then, as dawn broke, it was revealed that they had been attempting to sink an island.
Tormolen had never been able to verify the story, but he found it plausible. And in the near pitch black of this November night, he found it downright persuasive.
The night had returned. The darkness and silence descended as if they had never been disturbed. But the men aboard the seven US Navy warships knew differently. If the enemy was indeed out there, the Americans had just revealed their presence.
