It was March who made up his mind first. “I’m going to ask for the transfer,” he said. “I hate to leave this ship and the men on it and the action I know she’ll be seeing. After a battle or two you don’t feel like going back to school again. You want to go on to more battles. But I love the idea of submarines so much that I know I’d be a better man in a pigboat than I can ever be on a surface ship. So I’ll take a few months out, learn what I have to learn, and come back to this part of the world and really send some of those Jap ships to the bottom.”
“Guess you’re right,” Scoot agreed. “It won’t be long!”
So they had said farewell to the Plymouth sadly as they stepped into the launch taking them ashore. And they had stood looking at the great gray ship as the little boat moved toward the Navy Yard pier.
But now their eyes were set forward. They had a long way to travel to get home, a lot of hard work and studying to do before they could accomplish what they wanted.
They stepped from the launch and stood on the pier. For a last moment they looked out at the Plymouth once more.
“So long, old gal,” Scoot said. “You’ll be getting your face lifted here at Pearl Harbor and you’ll be back in the thick of it soon. Maybe I’ll see you out there—when I’m up in the blue sky flying my Grumman Wildcat.”
“Yes, and some time when I’m submerged and hear the throb of a cruiser’s engines,” March added, “I’ll stick up the periscope for a peek, wondering whether that ship is friend or foe. And it’ll turn out to be my old friend, my old sweetheart, the Plymouth.”
Together, the two young men turned and walked toward their new lives.