by Robb White
Amos saw Nash glance at Reeder and then look over at him. He was surprised that Nash seemed shy, looking at him and then away. "You mind working with me, Mr. Wainwright?" Nash asked.
"Fine," Amos said.
"Okay," the chief bawled. "Reeder, you work by yourself."
"That suits me right down to the ground," Reeder said. "I don't want anybody else fouling up my work."
Day after day in Death Row the two-man teams stood at the heavy tables trying to disarm the exploders the Hangman rigged up for them. There was no way to tell when that no-volt current was going to zap you, and you waited all day long for the crushing, jerking jolt of it when you made a mistake.
There was seldom an hour when, from one or the other of the workbenches, a howl of pain and outrage and defeat didn't rise. The rest of the students would watch the victim tear himself loose from the current and stand there shaking, but no one ever laughed again as they had laughed at Amos.
As the terrible days went on, the students began to recognize and then reluctantly admire the enemy's skill. From the simple plunger in the wall of the screw hole they went on to more intricate ways the enemy had devised to keep their exploders from being disarmed. The enemy built tricks within tricks; when you were feeling good because you had figured one of them out, you got zapped by a secret within a secret.
The timed mechanisms were the real horrors. As you worked on the device, you could hear the clock inside, ticking away the seconds you had left to make it stop. Because if you couldn't make the clock stop and it stopped because your time had run out, then it zapped you. And even then you never knew how long after that last tick the enemy had set the thing for. It might be only seconds before it zapped you, or it might be minutes. You never knew.
It soon became apparent to everybody in the class that the chief was giving Amos and John a rough time. For them he reserved the most intricate exploders, and as Amos and John, out of sheer desperation, got to be expert at taking them apart without getting zapped, the chief began to pull some pretty raw stuff.
Once, after Amos and John had figured out a particularly tricky clock mechanism, got it apart and stopped and completely disarmed so that it couldn't possibly explode, it zapped them when they laid it down on the table.
Death Row 25
As the weeks went by, John Nash began to work out what he called his Grand Plan.
Amos didn't want any part of it, didn't want to be noticed any more than the chief was noticing him already.
It was a simple plan. Rig up a device that would zap the chief.
"I can do it!" John announced one day. "I've figured out a way to rig an exploder so it'll zap him. No wires. No connections. Just one thing pressing on another thing, the ankle bone connected to the neck bone."
"And our head bone disconnected from our body bone," Amos had argued.
"We'll make a little game of it, Amos. Bet him a couple of beers; keep it all friendly and nice."
"Zap him?"
"Zap him. Nail him down to the floor and shake him like a leaf."
"I'd love to see that," Amos said, "but from a long distance off. Way off and land of anonymous."
"Then you'll do it?"
Amos wanted to. He was fed up with the chiefs harassment. But getting through Death Row, getting out was more important. "No, John. The way he'd report it to the brass could get us into real trouble."
John was disappointed. "Well, I can't do it by myself. I really thought you'd go for it, Amos."
"One of these days I'll tell you why I can't take a risk like that."
Only a few nights later, though, Amos changed his
mind. He shared a room in Bachelor Officers' Quarters with a lieutenant (junior grade) named Beach, whom Amos did not like. Beach was a by-the-book, paperwork man whose only ambition was to keep from being sent to sea, where somebody might shoot at him. Since Beach was the Personnel Officer for the command, he had been successful in outwitting all attempts to get him sent to sea.
That night when Amos came in, Beach looked up and said, "Say, Wainwright, did you know that you've got gaps in your service record?"
Amos felt as though everything were turning cold. He could hear the quiver in his voice as he tried to sound casual. "What sort of gaps?"
"You worked in the Navy Department before coming here, but there's no fitness report on you by your commanding officer there."
"That poor old commander had a hard time remembering his name. Don't worry about it; I can get it straightened out."
"See that you do," Beach said and got up to comb his hair, which he did every few minutes.
Amos watched Beach out of the corner of his eye as he told him a joke he had heard that day.
Beach was not amused. "And that's not all," he said.
"All of what?" Amos asked, feeling the shakes coming, as though the Hangman had just zapped him.
Beach looked at him from the mirror. "You haven't got any orders assigning you to this school, Wain-
wright. The way I see it, you have no right to be here."
Here it is, Amos thought. Disaster. He tried to laugh. "That Navy Department is one more fouled-up operation."
He realized instantly that it was the wrong thing to say. "Oh, yeah?" Beach said. "It's never fouled me up. People can't just wander around in the Navy, going any place they choose, you know."
"You're right. I'll get it squared away tomorrow."
"7 will get it squared away," Beach said. "I'm preparing a report on this matter for the Commanding Officer."
Anger began to ride over Amos' fear. "Come on, buddy," he said as politely as he could, "I know how important it is to keep all these papers straight. But it's only one missing piece. It won't take long to get it, so why bother everybody?"
"Because it happens to be my duty," Beach said. "You have no orders to be here."
Amos started to say something, then stopped, knowing that there was nothing he could say. He went straight to John Nash's barracks and got him out of a card game.
"Changed my mind," Amos told him. "Are you sure this gizmo of yours can zap the chief?"
John grinned at him. "This thing will zap anybody."
"Show me."
As they approached the high, barnlike building, both of them saw light through the windows. They
ducked behind a 5-inch-gun mount and watched. "Nobody's supposed to be in there at night," John said.
"Hingman maybe," Amos said, moving toward the building.
There were some bushes near one of the windows, and Amos crept in under them and raised his head slowly to look in. He ducked down again and waved to John.
"It's only the football player," he said as they moved along the building to the door. Without knocking, Amos opened it and went in.
Death Row looked even spookier at night. A huge black man, wearing only dungaree trousers, was giving the place a sweep down with a push broom.
He was a steward's mate, second, named Lafayette Maxwell, who had been a professional football player, a linebacker for Chicago. Now he played on the naval station team with a lot of other ex-pros.
"Hey, Max," John called softly. "Okay to come in?"
Max turned and leaned on the broom handle. In the dim light he looked dangerous just standing still. "If you can't read the signs that say keep out, I guess it's okay to come in."
"Can't read a word of English," John said, closing the door. "You know Amos Wainwright?"
"I've seen him around. How you, Mr. Wainwright?"
"That depends," Amos said, shaking hands with him.
"What you up to, John?" Max asked.
"We're going to zap the chief."
Max leaned back on the broom and grinned. "Hing-man? Well, then, is there anything I can do to help?"
"He still giving you a hard time?"
"He just resents me because I play ball all afternoon. He thinks that's a lot of fun, getting your brains jarred loose. It isn't exactly what I joined the Navy for. . . ."
Max
leaned down and looked hard at Amos. "Mr. Wainwright, I see you all the time around BOQ with that Personnel Officer, Lieutenant Beach. How about putting in a word for me? Tell him I'll take any kind of sea duty. Any kind. A rowboat."
"I'm sorry, Max," Amos said. "I'm the last guy in the world who could help you. Beach is my roommate in BOQ, but he's trying to get me court-martialed right now."
"Sorry to hear that," Max said. "What'd you do?"
"Got tangled up in the paperwork."
John backed away a little. "Haven't you got enough trouble? Why add to it by zapping the chief?"
"Right now I'm one step ahead of Beach and his court-martial," Amos told them. "The only way I can stay ahead is to get sea duty. If I can make the chief mad enough, he'll ship me out."
John went over to his locker, and as he worked the combination on the knob, said, "I don't know what he'll do to you, but I guarantee this will make him mad."
He took what looked to Amos like a standard mine exploder down off the shelf and held it out to Amos.
Amos carried it over to their workbench. "It's got to work, John. And he's smart."
"Not smart enough," John said, picking up the loose ends of two wires. "Here's the leads that go to the battery and detonator. Before he gets to the other end of these wires, he's going to get zapped."
Max stood at the bench, watching. "I want to be around when that happens. I'll even cut practice to be here."
"Tomorrow morning," Amos said, as he watched John taking the exploder apart.
"Here's the plunger in the bolthole," John said.
Amos felt his disappointment like a weight. "John, he'll spot that before he even starts."
"The beauty of this device is that he'll spot everything," John said. "He'll get more and more confident as he goes along, and that's what's going to nail his feet to the floor, and wave him like a flag. Because when he gets this thing completely apart, that's when it's going to bite him."
Amos was doubtful. "I don't want any dirty tricks like he pulls on us, John. If it isn't legitimate, I guess we'd better call it off."
"This is legitimate," John said. "I got a jeweler's saw and sliced the base plate in half. Then I hollowed out a place for the acid, coated the bare wires with wax, laid them in there, and glued that plate together again. I painted it so there's not even a hair-
line crack showing. When those wires pull out of the wax and hit that acid it's take-off time in Dixie."
"What pulls the wires?"
"You take all the joy out of life, Amos. Wait until tomorrow, and the chief will show you what pulls those wires."
"I'm counting on that," Amos said. "So put it together, John, and let's find out whether I get sea duty or a court-martial."
When the chief reached their workbench the next morning, they pretended to be working on John's invention. Hingman watched them for a minute and then said, "What's that gadget? I didn't assign you that."
"I was just wondering, Chief," Amos said, "if you ever got zapped fooling around with these things?"
"I don't fool around with 'em."
"I mean," Amos said, "what would happen if I rigged up an exploder you couldn't figure out, and it zapped you?"
"That'll be the day."
"You wouldn't want to make a little bet on it, would you, Chief?"
Some of the other students wandered over to see what was going on.
"What are you talking about, Wainwright? What do you think this war is, some sort of game?"
"Not at all, Chief, but the enemy's always figuring out new ways to rig these things, so wouldn't it sort of keep us on our toes to rig up some ourselves?"
"What kind of bet?" the chief asked.
Amos steadied his breathing. "This. If I zap you, you graduate me. Right now. Today. You call Beach and tell him I'm available for sea-duty orders."
"And if you don't?"
Amos shrugged.
There was real animosity in the chief's eyes. "What a cheap shot. You know something? I looked up your record, Wainwright. You've been on active duty since 1941, and you haven't spent a day of that time at sea, where you could get your tail shot off. So now, when the hot wind's beginning to blow on you, you come up with this. You can't zap me, and you know it. All you want is for me to flunk you out of here so you can get another safe shore-duty billet in another school for ensigns. Well, I got news for you. I'm going to flunk you out all right, but you're not going to get any more shore duty. You're going as far out in the forward area as I can get you sent."
This was even better than Amos had hoped. "You want to go with me, Chief?"
"I've been."
"Okay, have we got a deal? If I zap you I get sea duty. Right now, today?"
"Right now, today," the chief said.
Amos pushed John's exploder across the table. "All right, Chief, take it apart."
There was some noise from the students as they crowded around the table where the chief stood holding the exploder in his hands, turning it slowly one way and then another.
The noise died as the chief put the exploder on the table and began working on it.
The first thing the chief spotted was the slot in the top plate that allowed it to be removed without disturbing one of the bolts. "Smart Ensign," he said, "I thought you had more regard for my intelligence than this. That plunger-in-the-bolthole is the first thing I taught you."
"The wires are still sticking out," Amos said.
"No problem. I'll just bypass the plunger and we're home free."
Amos had to admire the way he worked. Very carefully, doing nothing until he had figured out how to do it right.
When he uncovered the safety switch and relay, he studied them for a long time, examining the wiring and then the two wires leading to the detonator. "Mistake number two," he said. "The wires here aren't the same gauge as these. So they can't be the same wire, can they?" He smiled at Amos, "Too bad, Mr. Wainwright."
But as the chief got deeper into the case Amos saw that John had installed a thin wire spring that was the same color as the case metal and was flat up against it. Some of the other men saw the spring, too, and each nudged the man next to him, because evidently the chief had not seen it.
They waited, tense with hope.
"I'll just rip all this junk out of here," the chief said, picking up a ratchet, "and see what else the ensign has rigged up for me."
The men around the table didn't look at the spring any more for fear their eyes would guide him to it.
Then the chief raised his head and looked at Amos. "Thought I didn't see that spring, didn't you? How many times have I told you men not to touch anything in a mine until you've looked at it?" He snapped his hand out in a dramatic gesture. "Hemo-stat, nurse!"
Grinning, he clamped both ends of the spring in place and then removed the bolts holding it.
Amos, worried now. looked over at John, but John seemed unconcerned. Max stood behind him, looking over his shoulder.
"Hmmm," the chief said, "that spring doesn't hold down anything. Tricky."
Amos felt guilty about taking credit for what John had done. "I'm just making the bet with you, Chief. John Nash is the one who put that mechanism together."
"Oh, two smart guys," the chief said, looking over at John. And then he noticed Max. "What are you doing in here, Maxwell?"
"Waiting for you to get zapped."
"Well, go on out and play with your little footballs.*
"They ran out of footballs."
"Then go tackle somebody."
"You afraid you're going to get zapped, Chief?"
"Everybody's smart this morning. Okay, stick around, Maxwell, and I'll show you who's really smart."
As he went back to work, the class grew quiet. They had wanted to see the chief get it, but now it looked as though it wouldn't happen. He was just too smart, too careful.
"Well, look at that," the chief said as he got deeper into the exploder. "Take a look, gentlemen."
He pointed out the ti
ny piezoelectric microphone almost concealed in the casing. "Did you think I'd drop a tool or something and make enough noise to set this thing off, Nash?"
"Something like that." • 804185
The chief laughed. "You got everything in here but the kitchen stove."
"That, too," John said.
The chief took a little putty on the end of his finger and carefully coated the face of the microphone. "That takes care of that little ear, so what else have we got in here?" He looked at the pieces of the exploder lying all over the bench. "Worried, smart Ensign? There's not much left of this thing, is there?"
Amos glanced at John again, but John was just gazing idly up at the ceiling.
"Looks like you didn't make it," the chief said as he lifted an entire compartment out of the exploder.
"Well, what do you know? We've got a real problem here." The chief glanced up. "As you look at this, men, be careful not to jar it."
The men leaned over cautiously and looked down into the exploder casing.
Amos looked, too, feeling a wave of disappointment.
This was too simple, too obvious.
In the bottom of the exploder was an ordinary magnetic firing device. It was made up of five slim metal magnets standing on edge and held apart by metal strips. The group of magnets was delicately balanced on a bronze knife-edge.
There was nothing unusual about it. Amos could see the tiny springs that would hold the magnets in the horizontal plane in whatever ambient field the mine was laid. The whole mechanism was supported in gimbals so that it would always stay in the proper position no matter how the mine was tilted.
"What do we do in a case like this?" the chief asked. "We have two choices, don't we? We can either lift those magnets off, being very careful not to let them tilt to either side, or we can wedge them in place and then take the whole thing out. So—end of lesson. Okay, you people, turn to. Zap-the-chief time is over."
Amos said helplessly, "The wires are still sticking out."
The chief stared at him. "The only thing I like about you, Mr. Wainwright, is that you don't know when you're whipped. You want that firing mechanism out? Okay, I'll take it out."