“Excuse me, sir. That was the last of them.”
“Yes, I know. They won’t be a bother to us anymore.”
“Yes sir, that too. But I meant that was our last 109D…” he said, looking down at the deck. Even though he was the skipper’s fair-haired boy, he was still frightened of him.
“Well, that’s fine. It’ll make room for the As in the launch racks. We find any more radios, we’ll just have to close in and use the five inch.”
“Good idea, sir.”
“Of course it’s a good idea! It’s mine!” Wright replied with that evil grin, the one that never ceased to turn everyone’s bowels on board to fluid. “Has that Jap had any more luck finding a way to arm them?”
“No, sir. He says every time he gets to a bit of code in the program where he thinks he can do it, it puts up a roadblock. He’s getting really frustrated I think, sir.”
“Well, he’d better find a way, Stevens. And he better not be bullshitting us. Because if I find out he’s just been pulling our chain, his life on board here will take a turn for the worse.” He shook his head. “And you’re sure that was the last radio station?”
“Yes, sir, pretty sure. The one on Oahu is still chatting away, but he seems really smart and I can’t get a fix on him. Doesn’t transmit for more than a few minutes at a time, and from his signals seems like he moves around every day, never staying in one spot. He spends most of his time exchanging weather reports with some guy on Honshu in Japan, and some Ruskie in Murmansk. Other than that, the whole Pacific is quiet.”
“Good. Then the whole South Pacific is ours!”
“Yes, sir. You weren’t thinking of going up to Japan or Russia, were you?”
“No, Stevens. Far too cold up there, and there’s nothing there we want right now. I might change my mind though, once we arm the As.”
“That’s good, sir. I don’t like the cold all that much.”
“Have you found out anything on that other little matter?”
“You mean Ensign Johnson and Suplee?”
“Yes. Have you found out what those two are up to? I don’t trust them. They’re not team players.”
“No, sir, I haven’t. If they’re up to something, they’re really good at hiding it. Every time I get close, they’re talking college football.”
“They talk about college football, eh? Alright, but I still want you to keep a close eye on them.”
“Aye, sir, but to tell you the truth, they’ve been right on a lot of the stuff on the ship, and both have worked really hard to repair a lot of it. They may be a little flaky, but I think they’re harmless,” Stevens said, thinking he may have overstepped his bounds.
“Be that as it may, Stevens, I still don’t trust them.”
“Aye, sir, I’ll keep an eye on them.”
“That is all, Stevens,” Cmd. Wright said in dismissal, and Stevens departed like a dog with his tail between his legs.
“Fear is the ultimate motivator,” Wright said to the empty deck. He saw a dark speck on the horizon and raised his binoculars. It was the growing shape of the ship’s helicopter returning from Guadalcanal. At least that Major Paleen had finally figured out how to fly the damn thing, and about fucking time, too. He watched the silhouette grow larger until he could hear the engines of the helicopter and lowered his binoculars. It came closer, circled the ship once, then hovered over the landing deck on the fantail. The aircraft shakily lowered to the deck and finally dropped the last few inches with a thud. He heard the turbines wind down, then called into the bridge to the Filipino helmsman, who was standing around doing nothing at the moment because the ship was not moving.
“You get word to Major Paleen that once he secures the bird, he is to report to me here on the bridge.”
“Yes! I do right away!”
The man scrambled rapidly through a hatch, as if he couldn’t get away from the skipper fast enough, leaving Cmd. Wright on the bridge alone. He had to come up with something soon; life on board was becoming mundane. After two years at sea, he was hard pressed to find any more ‘hazards to navigation’, and whatever they hadn’t sunk themselves had either sunk on its own, or washed ashore somewhere. They had seen a few container ships broken in two, stuck hopelessly on reefs on a few occasions, but now the seas were free, and without the excitement of a sinking or two once in a while, the natives were getting restless. He sat back in his chair and ran his finger through his growing beard. It was a dark black, and went all the way to the middle of his chest now. Upon reflection, he fancied himself a modern day Blackbeard, scourge of the seas. He laughed aloud at that one, and he’d even removed all pretenses about a month ago when he had Stevens strike down the Stars and Stripes and raise a huge Jolly Roger on the mainmast. Stevens had found it in one of the crewmen’s lockers when he was rummaging through them. He wished it didn’t have the white lettering below the skull and crossbones reading, ‘Show me yer’ Booty!’, but it would work for now. Maybe he could get one of those East Indian women to fashion one.
He heard the hatch to the bridge open and turned to see Major Paleen enter wearing a green flight suit. The major came to attention and saluted him in the British fashion, palm outward, which always annoyed Cmd. Wright, but he said nothing.
Without rising, he returned his salute and said, “Stand at ease, Major, do you have anything to report?”
“Yes, sir! Your targeting was most proficient. The target was completely destroyed,” the major reported. He hadn’t actually seen anything destroyed at all, except for a few hundred yards of jungle, but he knew well enough to tell the skipper what he wanted to hear lest he receive a tirade of abuse.
“Very good to hear, Major. We won’t be getting any more trouble from them. Now tell me, how is the bird flying?”
“It is a sheer joy to fly! I only wish my Air Force had some of these fine machines!”
“So you feel confident then, and you’re up to speed with it?”
“Oh yes, sir! Like it was part of my body I can fly it.”
“Good, good. That is all,” he said, dismissing the major with a wave.
The major turned to leave, looking relieved.
“And Major?”
The major stopped and turned slowly, as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Yes sir?”
“You will be in the wardroom for dinner tonight? I missed you the last few nights.”
“I apologize. I was not feeling well that last few times and was lying down in my cabin. I will be there tonight, sir.”
“Good, be there at 1800, sharp.”
“Very good, sir!”
“That is all.”
The major scampered off the bridge like his trousers were on fire. The skipper picked up the growler phone and called down to the engine room, where Ensign Johnson, Nakamura and Suplee were working on one of the turbines. He heard the other end pick up, and Johnson’s voice answer.
“Mr. Johnson? How long before we can get underway?”
“We can get underway now with limited power, sir. We still have the fuel pump out of number three turbine, and it’ll be a while before we can get it all back together, so we have it offline until we can make the repairs.”
“Do you think you can fix it?”
“Yes, sir, but we still have to tear it down. Be about two days I think.”
“Very well, we’ll be getting underway in a few minutes.”
“Aye, sir,” Johnson said. “Do you mind me asking where we’re headed, sir?”
“I haven’t decided yet, Mr. Johnson. That is all,” he said, hanging up the phone. He stood and walked over to the chart table and looked over the map of the South Pacific for a long time, until his finger stopped on a speck of land. “There. I think there will do nicely. I’ve never been to Tahiti!” He looked up to see the helmsman had returned and was standing at his post with nothing to do yet again. Cmd. Wright wrote a few notes on a slip of paper and handed it to him. The man took the slip of paper, looked at it and nodded. He put
a few entries into a keyboard in front of him, and they both could feel the rumble and vibrations of the turbines below coming to life. He steered the helm to guide the boat to the correct course, and then added power to the twin screws which spun to life, churning up the water at the stern into a huge froth, and the ship heeled over, turning rapidly onto its new heading. The skipper went out to the wing bridge and let the sea breeze hit his face, feeling like he was the King of the Seas.
Down in the Engine room, Ensign Johnson had hung up the phone and walked back over to the workbench when the turbines fired up and spun up to speed. The noise grew to a deafening level, and he shut the hatch to the workshop, where they had the fuel pump sitting on the workbench.
“What did the skipper want?” Suplee asked.
“He just wanted a progress report,” he said. “Where’d Nakamura get off to?”
“He said he had to take a dump, so went off to the head, sir,” Suplee said. “Sir, this thing is fucked. There’s no way he can fix it without parts.”
“Well, I told the skipper it’d be two days.”
“Oh shit! What now?”
“What now is we’d better find a way to get it fixed,” he said firmly.
“Sir, this thing is fucked, just like everything else on this tub. That patch we put on the hull is still leaking, and because we never painted it, is rusting like a motherfucker. The pumps keep breaking, and when we get one pump fixed, another one takes a shit. Sir, we need to stop screaming around the ocean, shooting up everything, and stop and make some serious repairs.”
“I know, Suplee. We’ve just got to work with what we’ve got. I suggested to the skipper on several occasions that we go back to Pearl and get the parts, or even San Diego, but he’d have none of it.”
“Fuck. Now where are we headed?”
“I have no idea. I asked the skipper, but he said he didn’t know either.”
“But Stevens told me this was the last transmitter. And I think we’re all out of the 109Ds.”
“Yeah, so who knows? He got his retribution and dealt out his punishment. I have no idea what’s in his head right now, and frankly, I don’t want to know.”
“I hear that, sir. And that fucking beard he’s got now… all he needs is a goddamn eye patch and a fucking parrot on his shoulder.”
Johnson laughed. “Don’t give him any ideas!”
“That fucking flag!” Suplee continued, not being deterred from his rant. “I actually cried when they struck the colors.”
“Yeah, that really pissed me off too,” Johnson said. It more than just pissed him off, it infuriated him to no end. Seeing the flag come down like that, falling to the deck, being trodden on by those fucking Somali assholes while they raised the Jolly Roger, had struck a chord so deep, he didn’t ever think he’d get over it. If he didn’t hate the skipper then, he surely loathed him now.
“That fuck is probably up on the bridge singing sea shanties…” Suplee trailed off in frustration, and Johnson had to laugh at the mental image of the skipper on the bridge, tri-corner hat, parrot on his shoulder wearing an eye patch singing ‘yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!’
“It’s not funny, sir!”
“That’s not what I was laughing about,” he said, and told Suplee of his mental image, and they both had a long and hard laugh over that. When they had calmed down from their fit of laughter, the hatch opened and Nakamura came back in smiling sheepishly. Ensign Johnson turned to him and asked, “Can you fix it?”
“Ah, need new gasket. Maybe I make one, but not sure. I try though.”
“All I ask is to try.”
“I will do my best for you, Mr. Johnson!”
“How’s your other chore coming along?” he asked, and Nakamura drew a blank look. “The missiles you’re working on?” “Oh. That. Not so good. Make code very hard to break into. I not sure if I can do it,” he said, looking scared and relieved at the same time.
“Well, just between us three— and this goes no further— I don’t care if you ever arm them. Actually, I’d rather you didn’t, and we could throw them overboard.”
“You no want nuclear bombs?” Nakamura asked with wide eyes.
“No, I don’t,” he said gravely.
“I do not want nuclear bombs too! I see what they do to my country long time ago!”
“And I know myself, Mr. Nakamura. I hope the skipper never gets control of them.”
“Good, I slow down!”
“They scare the shit out of me too, Mr. Nakamura,” Suplee added for good measure.
While they were having their discussion, something else was happening in the Number 4 engine room. Since they had automated everything, there was really no one to keep an eye on all the myriad gauges and computer screen readouts on engine performance. At the current power they were running on, the main bearing in Number 4 turbine was getting extremely hot because it was worn to the point of breaking. At two-thirds power, it got quickly to the point that a flash fire erupted in the engine and almost immediately the whole engine compartment was engulfed in fire. Fire alarms blared out all over the ship, and Ensign Johnson, Suplee and Nakamura sprang into action. Slamming the hatch closed to the compartment, Johnson hit the emergency fuel cutoff switch, checked the panel to see if the lights showed that the compartment was sealed, and hit the Halon fire suppression system.
When they had everything almost under control, the growler phone rang and Johnson picked up the phone. “Engine room!” he said breathlessly.
“Give me a report! What the hell happened down there?” Cmd. Wright barked on the other end.
“Not entirely sure at the moment, sir, but it appears the number 4 turbine caught fire. We have the compartment sealed, and I activated the Halon system. I’m going to wait a bit then vent it, and see what the damage is.”
“Are the other engines okay?”
“Yes, sir, they seem to be fine. I don’t know what the problem was. Everything seemed to be fine this morning.”
“You need hands down there?” the skipper asked.
“No, sir, I don’t think so.”
“Good. Keep me apprised of the situation.”
“I will, sir. I’d like to recommend reducing power to the other two turbines for the moment, until we can figure all this out.”
After a brief moment, where it seemed like the captain was mulling things over, he came back, “Very well. I’ll reduce power to half. And be quick about it down there!”
“Aye, sir!” Johnson said into a dead handset. He hung it up in its cradle and swore.
“Holy shit, sir!”
“Yeah, that could have been a disaster. Imagine if we hadn’t been down here.”
The one thing that gave sailors nightmares, second only to sinking, was a fire on the ship. If not contained rapidly, it could spell doom for the vessel. That was why they trained hard and long on fire suppression and damage control. If they hadn’t been there to seal the compartment and activate the Halon system, it would have been the end of the USS Hughes, and all three of them knew it. After a short while, Ensign Johnson vented the Halon out of the compartment, and when he was sure it was all gone, he un-dogged the hatch, and with a battle lantern, peered into the compartment. It seemed the fire had flashed so hot that it shattered all the lighting. It was still very hot in the room, and it surprised him that it could get that hot so fast. He could feel the heat through the leather soles of his deck shoes, and dared not touch anything in the compartment for fear of getting burned. All the paint was burned off the overhead and bulkheads, and the metal decking was warped from the heat. The turbine was completely burned up, wiring and hoses completely destroyed. In a few minutes, one of General Electric’s greatest designs was now reduced to scrap. He dogged the hatch and looked at Suplee and Nakamura, shaking his head. He went over to a computer monitor and after hitting a few keys, brought up the statistics for that turbine.
“Right here,” he said, pointing to the screen, the two other men looking over his shoulder. �
�Seems the temperature on the main bearing skyrocketed right here. It probably was worn. I don’t doubt it, everything is long overdue for preventative maintenance and overhaul.” He printed out the reading to show the captain. Taking the papers from the printer, he turned to the two men. “I’m going to go and get cleaned up for dinner in the wardroom, and I’ll give the skipper my report then. You men try to clean this place up the best you can and seal off that compartment.”
“Aye, sir, we’ll take care of it,” Suplee said, and he and Nakamura got to work, the fuel pump forgotten on the workbench.
At 1800 sharp, Ensign Johnson entered the wardroom to see the captain and Major Paleen already having coffee.
“Good of you to join us, Mr. Johnson. Please, have a seat,” the skipper said cordially. He sat down at the table, and an Indian woman appeared out of nowhere and poured him a cup of coffee. He took a sip and looked at the captain, suppressing a smile when he thought about how comical he looked now.
“Do you have a report for me, Mr. Johnson?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Then get on with it!” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, fingers interlaced. “I’m curious to find out what happened down there.”
Johnson cleared his throat and began his well-rehearsed report. “Sir, about a half hour after we came up to power on the operating turbines, the temperature of the main bearing in Number four spiked, and before we had a chance to react, the whole compartment was engulfed in fire, destroying everything.” He held his breath.
“So you’re telling me that we’re down to only two turbines?”
“Yes, sir. That is what I’m telling you. The entire compartment is destroyed,” Johnson said, handing over the printouts, which the skipper set aside, forgotten.
“That is not good news. Not good news at all,” he said with an icy stare at Johnson.
Johnson looked away and caught the gaze of Major Paleen, angered at the smug expression he saw. He wanted to reach over the table and punch him in the throat. He was just a goddamn Nabob, and he didn’t hide it.
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