Battleship Boys

by Paul Lally

“—being the good generals and admirals they are, they’ve left the details to the expert.”

  “And that would be....?”

  JJ’s craggy white eyebrows raise. “I’m looking at him.”

  Miguel Vargas has been awake with a toothache since midnight.

  He’s spending the night in Adriana’s mansion-sized Casa Nautica. She’s in the adjoining bedroom and a notoriously light sleeper. To keep her from waking up, he’s taken refuge in the bathroom.

  For the past week, the pain’s been manageable, so he kept kicking the can down the road about going to see a dentist.

  Hates dentists.

  Loathes them.

  That’s why this particular “can” joined hundreds of others he’s been booting out of the way for a solid month now, because his entire being has been focused on getting the first full shipment of the fentanyl/heroin on its way to Brownsville and beyond.

  All that’s changed.

  He speaks just above a whisper into his smartphone.

  “Did I wake you, Ernesto?”

  “Of course not.” Despite his brother’s words, his voice is foggy with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything.”

  “Talk to me.”

  “My tooth. Killing me.”

  Ernesto’s voice sharpens into his “older brother” voice.” “You didn’t take care of it yet? I told you last week that—”

  “You’ll have to make the crossing for me. I can’t go like this.”

  The briefest of hesitations. “Can’t you delay the shipment? Just one day?”

  “Impossible. The Americans’ guard shift changes over tomorrow night. Our side changes at noon today.”

  A sigh so soft you can barely hear it.

  But Vargas does. “Just this once, amigo, then the world is yours. I promise.”

  Ernesto chuckles. “You said that last time.”

  “But I have to—” A piercing throb of pain stops whatever he was going to say. He moans instead.

  “Anything different this time?” Ernesto’s voice is all-business. “Same road check? Same pull-over before crossing?”

  A wave of relief surges through Vargas, but another lancing pain stops it cold. “Everything is exactly the same as when you crossed last time.”

  “The driver?”

  “Arturo.”

  “Good. He knows my new Kenworth better than his own wife.”

  “The first of many, my friend.”

  “Wives?”

  “Kenworths. How many did you say will be a good start for your new trucking company?”

  Ernesto’s voice warms up like a sunrise. Even over the phone you can sense his smile. “Five is my goal. But this one is a start. She is a such a beauty.”

  “With what the gringos are paying for this shipment alone, you will have four more a lot sooner than you think.”

  “See to that tooth. I will see to your cucumbers.”

  “Don’t forget what’s underneath.”

  Ernesto laughs. “That too!”

  The captain’s “In Port Quarters” on the Rock are palatial, to say the least. An impressive-looking walnut desk upon which he can conduct important business, a comfortable sitting room, a dining area that seats twelve—should he care to entertain visiting dignitaries while in port—and a full-size bed in spacious sleeping quarters—oh, and private bathroom facilities, of course.

  It’s not where Captain Jiro Koga is hanging his hat, however.

  Nor has any previous USS New Hampshire captain occupied these posh quarters while underway. For one thing, they’re situated three decks below the navigation bridge, too far from the action, should he be needed. But more importantly, commanding a capital warship is not the same thing as commanding a ship of state. It’s a hands-on proposition 24/7.

  Toward that end, the captain’s “sea cabin” is where he lives while at sea. Located directly aft of the bridge and steps away from the chart room, the bare-bones, austere quarters are a skipper’s home away from home. From here, he can be out of his rack, on the bridge, and in command in no time flat.

  While it’s true, the Rock’s currently motionless in drydock, that’s about to change dramatically. During the past two weeks, the Azipod replacement has taken place without and “significant complications,” the hull-scraping/painting concluded, and an hour from now—Captain Koga checks his watch—the command to “flood the drydock” will be given.

  He sits at a small fold-down desk at the far end of his narrow quarters, as he reads through the daily crew reports. His reading glasses refuse to stay put on his broad nose, so he continually slides them up—and they slide down again.

  A knock on the door.

  “Hairu” he says.

  Nothing. Another knock.

  “Watashi wa itta hairu!” Koga barks, annoyed at the interruption.

  The door opens partway, and Jack pokes his head in. “It’s me, captain.”

  Koga stands quickly and bows. “Pardon me, Mr. Riley. I thought you were my chief engineer. We are to meet regarding the Azipod functions.”

  “Checking out okay?”

  “Hai. Most efficient.”

  “Ever worked with azimuth thrusters before?”

  “Only in the simulator. But my first officer’s last billet was on the dry bulk container Helena Shäffer. He used Azipods and bow thrusters with great success.”

  “But the Rock’s 68,000 tons; that’s a lot of steel.”

  Koga doesn’t bat an eyelash. “Correct. But if memory serves, the Helena Shäffer is 110,000 tons. I will confirm that with my first officer.”

  Jack smiles. “Touché.” He looks around the cramped space. “All settled in here?”

  “It is most sufficient for my needs.”

  Jack notices a small, white porcelain vase resting on a black legged pedestal on the deck next to the bulkhead. Inside the vase a single yellow flower. Directly above it, a two-foot-long scroll depicting a summery scene of lacy-leaved bamboo beside a river.

  Captain Koga senses his puzzlement, “My tokonama.”

  “I’ve heard of them, but never saw one on a ship.”

  “One’s home is not always on land.” Koga traces the silk-screened image of bamboo fronds with his finger.

  “They’re those focal-point things, right? When you enter a Japanese home. I saw lots of different ones when I was in Kyoto a couple years back.”

  “Buddhist in origin, a way of welcoming travelers and helping them settle their minds for prayer and contemplation. Nowadays, more for beauty than inner journeys, I’m afraid.”

  “What about you?”

  “My tokonama does both.”

  They silently regard the tiny display, out of place in the strictly utilitarian sea cabin with overhead pipes, conduits in plain sight, a single bed, a phone and loudspeaker on the bulkhead, a desk, and toilet facilities. More like a Buddhist monk’s chambers than a Four-Striper’s.

  Jack says, “What’s it like to be here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Commanding a battleship that once was anchored in Tokyo Bay on the day your country surrendered.”

  Koga considers the question. A smile touches his lips but doesn’t last long. “Ironic.”

  “I wonder what your grandfather would say, if he were here. The one who captained one of those super-subs during the war. He had the I-401, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Right. Must have been something. To attack the Panama Canal, I mean.”

  “More symbolic than real for the damage it caused, but yes, for my grandfather’s action he received many honors. None of which he chose to display. After the war he never spoke of his experiences at sea again.”

  “Must have had his hands full commanding that gigantic submarine.”

  “More than full. It was an underwater dragon with a mind of its own.”

  The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Sentoku-class submarines were the largest undersea vessels in World War II. Not until the nuclear ballistic
missile subs arrived on the scene in the 1960s did anything approach the size of these undersea giants. In effect, they were submersible min-aircraft carriers, each carrying three Aichi M6A1 seaplanes capable of carrying torpedoes or bombs.

  Built too late in the war to be a threat against America’s west coast, (if fleets of them been available early enough, they could have altered the final outcome of the war), only the I-400 and I-401’s were available to launch a surprise attack on the Panama Canal’s Agua Clara locks on the Atlantic Ocean side.

  The success was more psychological than actual.

  But even so, it sent America into a tizzy for about three frantic months while they raced to repair the damaged locks. The delay gave the Japanese enough breathing time to gather forces for a successful conquest of Midway Island, which in turn added another year to the war. What was supposed to end in 1945, ended almost exactly to the day on August 16, 1946.

  “To answer your question, Mr. Riley...” Koga takes off his reading glasses and tucks them away. “I would like to think that my grandfather would praise me for having a command once again. Nothing worse for a sailor than to be without a ship, as I have been ever since Hanjin went bankrupt.”

  “Even if it’s an American warship?”

  “My grandfather served his nation as I do mine.”

  “Which is?”

  “The sea.”

  Jack inhales deeply. “I can smell it from here.”

  Koga checks his watch. “In less than an hour, if my engineer gives me the go-ahead, your journey begins.”

  “Our journey, you mean.”

  “No, sir.” He shakes his head. “Mine has already begun.”

  Three months before, in the dead of winter, when the Rock first “rose from the dead”—meaning when her hull rested onto the dry dock’s keel blocks and she emerged dripping from the water for the first time in twenty years—green slime, tube worms, barnacles, and dripping ooze obscured what once-upon-a-time was covered with 550 gallons of “Hull Red #98901” paint applied over the entire steel surface below the MLW (Maximum-Load Waterline).

  After teams of workers scoured, scraped, and sand-blasted the battleship’s hull free from the ravages of time, that very same color was re-applied. But this time with a release agent that kicks biofoulers’ asses bigtime whenever they try to hang around for a free ride and sends them back to where they came from.

  All this effort for a seventy-five-year-old battleship that doesn’t have a home? With shipbreakers from Brownsville to Bangladesh licking their chops to chew up her steel? Jack concedes these facts without argument. But to combat these arguments he happens to be a man whose staggering amount of wealth keeps growing faster than he can spend it.

  Is he aware that the total cost of that pricey experimental marine paint is $83,554? ($166 a gallon)

  Yes.

  That the labor costs for twenty-six workers to apply it, $42,611? ($6087 a day x 7 days)?

  Yes.

  That’s because CFO Andy Diengott sends him daily expenditure tracking reports on all his holdings, from his SuperCap ventures to per-gallon-costs of Hull Red #98901.

  Whether he’s in his Gulfstream flying at 48,000 feet, in a hotel suite somewhere in the world, back home in Portsmouth, or up here in Portland, Jack reviews the numbers every morning as he eats his bowl of Cream of Wheat—his favorite hot cereal, by the way, but one his partner Bianca despised. She maintained no self-respecting Italian would be caught dead eating such a “slimy colazione (breakfast).”

  “Forget that awful stuff,” she would say. “Give me a cornetto and cappuccino and I’m good to go.”

  But those times are gone, and so is Bianca; snowshoeing in Anchorage for all he knows (not a peep from her for a year now). His favorite cereal’s in the bowl, tasty as ever, as Jack regards the monumental battleship restoration expenses the same way you or I might regard the morning sky: mild indifference mixed with a touch of anticipation of the day ahead.

  That’s what it’s like when money is no object.

  And why on this bright, sunny, cold morning, the USS New Hampshire is resting on keel blocks for the last time. Her elegantly shaped bulbous bow gleams brightly with the brand-new “Hull Red” paint job, including a “boot top,” a foot-wide black stripe painted above the waterline on all naval ships.

  BTW, not a tube worm or barnacle in sight.

  They wouldn’t dare.

  For the past hour, the drydock’s floatation tanks have been filling with the waters of Casco Bay and ever-so-slowly lowering the battleship to a point where wavelets ripple along the length of her hull.

  But she’s not floating yet.

  Keel blocks still support her weight and will continue to do so until that critical moment arrives when the ship’s downward force upon the blocks surrenders to the rising center of gravity. When it happens, Archimedes’ Law of Buoyancy (“the buoyant force on an object submerged in a fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid that is displaced by that object”) takes over.

  Silent witnesses to the big event, Tommy, Jack and JJ stand high on ABSD-3, directly across from the Rock’s forward turret #2.

  Jack peers into the water. “We’re very close.”

  His dad says, “Beyond close. I swear she’s free.”

  And he’s right, of course.

  You don’t live around boats and ships as long as Tommy has not to know when a vessel returns to the element for which it was created. In the case of the Rock, small ripples shiver along the entire length of her hull.

  While it’s true, rigging lines still hold her securely to both sides of the drydock, instead of being iron-hard rigid like they’ve been for months, they rise and fall ever so slightly as the Rock “breathes” once again.

  She’s floating!

  Moments later, ragged cheers erupt around the perimeter of the floating dock. Bath Iron workers gathered in groups here and there wave their hardhats, and hoot.

  Simultaneously, the deep-throated, OOOOOOM from the battleship’s whistle mounted on the forward funnel adds to the pandemonium as it echoes and re-echoes the good news across the City of Portland.

  Too long has she been held a silent prisoner, trapped against her will inside the floating drydock’s dull-grey, rust-streaked walls, enduring workers’ pokes and prods from bow to stern as they painted, installed, removed, and replaced whatever was needed to restore her to seaworthiness.

  Where once upon a distant time, cramped enlisted quarters packed the lower decks aft of Turret 4, single and double prefab staterooms await the sweepstakes winners.

  Where once, oil-fired Boilers #3 and #4 provided steam to spin turbines that drove the Rock’s four screws, brand new diesel generators reside in bright yellow serenity, eager to crank out DC power to the Azipods via cabling as thick as your arm.

  Where once, the Rock’s four main armament turrets traversed port and starboard while her twelve Mark 7 guns elevated to blast enemy targets to kingdom come in massive, multi-turret salvoes, only Turret 4 remains functional.

  And no small feat to do so.

  But thanks to the ingenuity of old sailors like Stanley Albertini, who on more than one occasion drove up to Portland to “advise” the restoration crews, the turret rotates as smoothly as the day it was built, its center gun elevates as elegantly as a queen lifting her finger to beckon a servant, and the best part of all?

  A package of Lucky Strike cigarettes.

  It happened one day back in early January...

  Stanley’s blowing on his hands, trying to stay warm inside the unheated turret as he and a crew of four Bath Iron workers puzzle out why the propellant bag “scuttle door” only opens halfway. You can’t fire 16-inch projectiles unless you’ve got the “kick” do so.

  That’s why last week, Navy ordnance technicians (thanks to JJ) supervised loading-in three hundred polyethylene-coated, silk-wrapped propellant bags into the magazine flat, three levels below the gun pit.

  It was one thing to acquire the high-explosive 16-
inch rounds from BAAA. But more of a challenge to find the powder charges required to send them on their way.

  But, never say never. Sure enough, locked up in one of BAAA’s many storage facilities was a gold mine of such propellant charges in their original cylindrical aluminum storage cannisters, three per cannister. Temperature-controlled (not a degree higher than 70), humidity just right, these 110-ten-pound cylindrical “bags” were sleeping beauties waiting for the kiss.

  Think of a battleship main battery turret as the top of a wedding cake that you can see inside.

  The bottom layer, four levels down, is the magazine flat filled with D839 propellant bags.

  The next “layer” up, the projectile flat with 16-inch HC and AP projectiles lined up vertically in double rows around the perimeter.

  Above that, the engineering flat packed with the necessary machinery required to rotate and elevate the guns, and above that...

  The gun pit. Home to the “bride, groom and minister” themselves: three Mark 7 naval guns inside a heavily armored, fully rotational turret.

  Back in the Rock’s war days, using vertical hoist systems to simultaneously deliver projectiles and propellant to the waiting gun crews, a 76-man, 16-inch main battery turret was a city of death.

  Multiply that by four.

  But only when they worked.

  Which they did to perfection in World War Two, Vietnam, and the Gulf War.

  But after being inactive for so many years, the smoothly oiled operating system is not so “smooth” anymore. As proof, the propellant bag scuttle doors jammed halfway open, and the guys are scratching their heads.

  Except Stanley.

  He’s closing in on ninety-four years of age, but that doesn’t stop him from shouldering his way past the baffled workers and saying, “Gangway, fellas’ lemme’ see what the hell’s going on here. Hand me that light over there.”

  He stoops down, leans inside the rectangular-shaped opening until his top half disappears up to his hip. Seconds later, he sticks out his hand like a surgeon. “Hammer. The ball peen one. Don’t want to hurt the girl.”

  Three soft taps...then a BIG one.