Tommy

by William Illsey Atkinson

  It’s probably the late hour, but Tommy’s grown mystical. He wants more than specs. He wants Bataan’s personality, her soul. Every craft has such an aura. Some have it by the ton — Huck Finn’s raft, say, or a nineteenth-century clipper with stuns’ls set and a wake die-straight behind her in a phosphorescent sea. The soul of Bataan remains to be seen.

  There’s something else, too, something half-hidden, that makes Tommy uneasy. Bataan’s soul is what a secretary of defense will call a known unknown: something you haven’t yet discovered but expect to. Bataan must also have unknown unknowns — big and small things that no one has predicted or could ever predict. Emergent properties, they’re called, and Tommy wonders what Bataan’s emergent properties are. What she’ll do for good or ill that flabbergasts her designers, builders, captain, officers, and crew. That astounds her enemies as well as her colleagues.

  That gobsmacks her 2ic navigator.

  Come in, come in! Captain Cassidy stands up and offers his hand.

  Tommy nods, shakes, sits. Thank you, sir. Good of you to see me.

  Part of my job. What’s on your mind?

  Ship’s specifications, sir. I’ve finished going over Bataan’s and I wanted to discuss them with you.

  Hard spec? Soft?

  Both, sir. Not just measurements and volumes. Performance, too.

  Performance? When the thing’s barely launched?

  Yes, sir. Call it extrapolation.

  And?

  Well sir, Bataan’s quite a vessel. Incredible is the only word. I am very impressed.

  Cassidy smiles. He knows his man. But? he says.

  Tommy spreads his hands. But she may have certain . . . vulnerabilities.

  Go on.

  The con island, sir. A big steel tower, biggest thing above the flight deck. It sticks up three stories. You may as well dye it red and slap up Kanji lettering that says bomb here. It’s armored but only partially, and only with two-inch plate. There are big sections with no protection at all. The bridge windows, for example.

  Go on.

  Well sir, Bataan’s built and floating and no one can change her design. And her fitting’s finalized in sixty days. So I — Tommy pauses. Cassidy waits.

  I’m designing a protection methodology for her, Tommy says. A kind of fire umbrella.

  Sorry, don’t understand.

  An anti-aircraft protocol, sir. A way to organize Bataan’s aa patterns that excludes all entry corridors for an airborne attacker. A way to shield her sky.

  Hmph! Surely the Pentagon has all that figured out.

  Yessir. I thought so, too, originally. But I called bupers, bupers referred me to cincpac, cincpac checked with the Pentagon, and the Pentagon referred me to the Bureau of Naval Ordnance. And burnavord told me —

  Another pause. Go on, Cassidy says.

  Two things, sir. First, burnavord said that Bataan’s aa emplacements already minimize the odds of any successful airborne attack. Quantity, location, firepower, every existing parameter made a successful airborne strike unlikely to the point of impossibility. Second, burnavord told me pretty clearly that as ship’s 2icnav none of this was, ah, any of my business.

  You’ve omitted a word or two, Tommy.

  A couple, sir. My goddamn fucking business, quote unquote.

  Cassidy wears a bleak grin. Hard to take on the Japs when your own people are so hostile, isn’t it? Proceed.

  Well, sir, that pretty much concludes the first part of my report.

  Not if I read between the lines. Look, son, I know burnavord can be difficult. I’m wrestling with them right now about torpedo depth. I’m pretty sure we run our fish too shallow. But in this case burnavord may have a point. You’re a navigator: why poke your nose into gunnery? Every sailor has his tasks. Don’t presume to second-guess the whole fifteen-hundred-member crew.

  And sixty-nine, sir.

  Cassidy looks at him.

  Full complement is fifteen hundred and sixty-nine, sir.

  For Pete’s sake, Tommy! You’re not God Almighty, to see the little sparrow fall. You aren’t just bypassing burnavord, are you? You’re trying to outthink the whole goddamned Navy.

  But it’s so vital, sir. cincpac and the Pentagon have figured out individual gun emplacements to the nth degree: yes, sure, fine. But nobody’s fully analyzed ship’s gunnery — its aggregate power, its refresh and decay and sustain rates, how its fields of fire should overlap across the whole fire hemisphere. Or how they don’t overlap, how they can suddenly open up blind spots that are unintended and unknown. Nobody’s looked at how the ship as a whole is going to fight. I have. Or I’ve started to. Or I’ve started to start.

  Cassidy frowns. You’ll have to explain.

  Sir, I’m doing something that no one, not burnavord or the Pentagon or anyone anywhere, has ever considered. I’m computing a mathematical minimax.

  A what?

  A minimax, sir. A set of differential equations that can be solved for minimum risk and maximum protection. Say Bataan’s in battle. There’s a pair of slow Judys bearing one-ninety, range ten miles, and a faster bogey, a Merv, bearing three-oh-eight and range six miles. You have twenty-two ship’s twenty-millimeter guns, eleven batteries of two each, and twelve batteries of forty mils — two dozen heavier barrels. What are your aim points? Where do you put your main fire screens, and with what weapons? And when, and for how long? That’s what I’m solving.

  I see, says Cassidy, who obviously does not. With what success?

  Sir, I can generate aa fire patterns that greatly reduce bogey hazard.

  You believe you can.

  No, sir, I can. I have.

  Cassidy says nothing. Then: You’re sure.

  Sure as math, sir. I’m on to something here.

  War by slide rule. Battle by equation. Tactical mathematics.

  Yes, sir, you could say that.

  And nothing like this has been done before?

  Not even attempted, sir. Not to my knowledge, anyway.

  Have you considered that there may be a reason for that?

  Tommy looks puzzled. Sir?

  I’m saying nobody’s done it because it’s a lousy idea.

  Everything new appears in a vacuum, sir. That’s why it’s new.

  Cassidy drums his fingers on his chair arm. If you’re right about this then you’re a hero. A hero no one knows about except God and us two, but a hero nonetheless. But if you’re wrong, Tommy! If your fancy equations don’t work. You could piss away fifteen hundred men — and sixty-nine, thank you — and sixty million dollars. That requires some caution.

  That’s the reason for my work, sir. I’m making that catastrophe less likely.

  You think you are.

  I know I am, sir. With respect.

  Lieutenant Commander, let’s be realistic. You use math like the rest of us use language. You think it, you speak it, you tell it what you want and you get it. But you’ve never been in battle, and I have. And I can tell you when the shit starts flying, nobody’s solving equations. Even those who could don’t have the time.

  I know, sir. It’s why I’m working this out now. Give me six months and I’ll work my equations down to a series of routine fire drills. The gun crews needn’t do any math. I’ll do it for them, in advance.

  Cassidy rubs his eyes. You’ll have to give this tired old brain an example.

  Well sir, take the standard Navy trajectory data. The traj tables give a gunnery officer his floor ballistics. How fast a shell travels when it’s leaving the gun barrel, how much it slows for each tenth-second afterwards, that sort of thing. The tables incorporate a lot of abstract factors — specific impetus, rifling delay, aerodynamic efficiency, ambient temperature. They crunch all that into hard sink rates. And those tell you where your shells are going to go.

  I’m aware of that. Go on.


  The ballistic data have a direct effect on where the gun crews aim. The key factor is initial velocity. The faster the shell, the flatter its trajectory. With a slower shell you aim higher. The shell has a deeper arc. It goes above target, then falls to where you want it. It’s only the training officers who need to know this, by the way. They turn the theory into practical rules for gunners.

  Got it. Proceed.

  Aiming high or low, that’s vertical vector — Y axis. Then there’s horizontal vector, X axis. How much you lead the target.

  I’ve hunted, Commander.

  Then you know that if your projectile flies faster, its trajectory is flatter. With a fast projectile you don’t lead as far or aim as high.

  All logical.

  Yessir, but there’s a disconnect. The Navy’s current trajectory data were put together before we adopted synthetic explosives. So our traj tables are for lower muzzle velocities and slower shells.

  Good God. Are you telling me the tables are useless?

  Worse than useless, sir. Totally misleading. Train a gunner to aim where they say and his shell will pass over or ahead of a bogey at anything greater than point-blank range. The farther the bogey, the greater the miss. The flak cloud from a five-inch aa shell peaks at a hundred and ten feet four seconds after detonation. Base your aa fire on current traj tables and even something that big will miss a bogey beyond two miles. We’re shooting at ghosts.

  But the gun crews will have practiced! Unmanned drones and tow sleeves —

  Not the same as battle, sir, as you point out. When battle comes the gun crews and their officers will revert to what they’ve learned. Not all of them, maybe, but some. Enough to compromise the aa umbrella.

  Well! War will teach them. That’s what war does.

  Yessir, assuming they live. Once a gunner’s had a scrap or two he’ll autocorrect, sure. He’ll use the faster shells effectively. But if he fights his first battle aiming where he’s been told, which is where the traj tables tell his trainer to point him, he may not live to fight a second time. Neither may his ship. Sir? Do you know our carriers’ crew losses to date from enemy fire?

  Cassidy clears his throat, shifts in his chair, shakes his head.

  Twenty point eight men per ship-month, sir. As of today every U.S. carrier can expect to lose an average of two hundred and fifty men a year.

  Jesus! I didn’t . . . My God. Terrible. You really think you can reduce that?

  By an order of magnitude, sir. Ten times, maybe more.

  How much more?

  To nothing, sir. Or next to nothing. Close as dammit.

  Cassidy looks at him a long minute. Keep working, he says.

  Tommy’s lost. He crossed Bataan’s gangway an hour ago. The ship’s been in commission ninety hours, and she’s moored at Pier Two of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and Tommy has no idea where he is. Mars, maybe.

  He’s tried his best to follow his superior’s directions, but icnav Kraweski is not a helpful man. Atkinson? Fuckin well time ya showed. Yeah, yeah, papers. Get the hell outta my face and find ya cabin. Ya can do that, can’t ya? What? Directions? My God, ya want a patha breadcrumbs? Okay, listen up. Port ladderway abaft the kelson, starboard ya helm, two ladderways up, port helm to the companionway, down two levels to yeomen’s deck —

  Right, thinks Tommy, who has followed directions. Who can’t possibly have followed directions, or else he would not be facing a blind alley in the large intestine of a very large ship. Yet here he is, Theseus in the labyrinth, without even a minotaur to show him the way. Some navigator, nose to nose with a blank steel bulkhead and a growing sense of professional evaporation. Tommy scratches his head.

  He sees an envelope.

  It’s wedged between two steam pipes and it sticks out at eye level. It has his name on it, in handwriting he knows. Tommy snatches, tears, reads.

  Sir! Welcome aboard USS Bataan! As you are reading this I assume you have, even as I have, followed cdr Kraweski’s directions, which are total bunk. Hazing the snotties, grand old custom, finest traditions of the Service. So here’s how to find our cabin. Face the way you came. Walk twenty-two long paces to the ladderway . . .

  Tommy does as he’s told. In ten minutes, he’s marched directly to a steel door with two names stenciled on it. atkinson. a.h., that’s him. And below that —

  Tommy flings the door open and he’s there: Feathers in the flesh, perched on a countertop, grinning.

  Your directions are better than Kraweski’s, Lieutenant.

  Thank you, sir, we do our best. How do you like our digs?

  Feathers sweeps his arm out: their cabin is so tiny that his fingers brush the opposite wall. There are two stacked bunks and a fold-down steel desk that Feathers is using as a chair. The cubbyhole reeks of fresh grey Navy-issue paint. There is a tiny porthole.

  Six by seven, Feathers says, seeing Tommy start a mental calculation. Forty-two square feet. Six-foot ceiling, five-six under squawkbox and pipes. I envy you, sir: you’re what, five-five? This ship is made for you. You fit her, I do not.

  Fish out of water, Feathers. You don’t fit anywhere.

  I prefer to regard myself as a rara avis, sir. Too good for this sublunary world. Too handsome, too stylish, too everything.

  Too flippant. Where’s the head?

  The what? Oh, the crapper. Feathers sticks a thumb at the door. Out there, sir, in the great beyond. The hall, or companionway, or grotto, or whatever these salt-stained barbarians call it. It seems that even we princeling officers have to share.

  It’s not the Ritz, is it?

  You’re right sir, it’s better! Newer, cleaner. No exorbitant monthly fees. No peeling wallpaper in horrid patterns. No swaybacked mattresses with mystery stains. No illiterate, ill-humored staff. No syphilitic nobleman next door bellowing with the dts.

  You are perpetually beyond me, Carrington.

  I am beyond myself much of the time, sir. Would you like to see the ship?

  See her, what do you mean? I’m aboard her.

  I mean take a painstaking tour of her. Find out what’s done, and where, and by whom. Stem to gudgeon, larboard to starboard, flag mast to keel.

  No need. I’m a lowly 2icnav. All I do is shoot the sun and box the compass. I’ve found my cabin. Show me the bridge and I’m done.

  Feathers shakes his head. No go, sir. I propound a situation: you’re duty officer. The bridge is hit — captain dead, xo unconscious — and the engine-room squawk says, Mayday, mayday, drive gear in-op request instrux! What do you tell the poor troglodyte who’s sweating away down there in the lithosphere? Thanks for calling, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can?

  I’ve memorized all the deck sections and elevations, Feathers.

  With respect, sir, you’re on a real cvl, not a drawing of one. A section is not a ship as a pinup is not a woman. I remind you that you just got lost.

  But I have to report to Captain Schaeffer.

  He told me to orient you. We’ll start with the boiler room.

  Jesus! Tommy doesn’t realize he’s yelled it till he sees Feathers smile. At least he thinks he’s yelled it; he’s moved his mouth but he’s heard nothing. The noise in the boiler room is crazy and its light is dim, and both are hellish.

  Feathers cups hands to mouth and shouts in Tommy’s ear, Pleasant, isn’t it?

  Tommy nods, looking about him in the din and reek. He thought he was deep when he found Feathers’ letter, but the power deck is three ladderways deeper still. This is it for cvl-29: the basement, the bottom, the end. Six inches beneath his shoes float giant squid. And it’s stifling: he breathes not air but a searing aerosol of bunker fuel. His hearing, his whole mind, are overwhelmed by the high-pitched hiss of the enormous oil-fired boiler that looms beside him.

  An engine-room yeoman walks over, salutes, stands easy.

  Can we
talk! yells Tommy. The yeoman frowns; he doesn’t understand.

  Talk! No? Tommy shakes his head. He needs a notepad. He makes yap-yap motions with his right hand. The yeoman brightens, nods, and ushers the officers through a hatch labeled control. On the other side it’s hotter and if anything darker, but less noisy.

  Atkinson, Navigation! This is Lieutenant Mason of Aerology!

  Mitzuk, sir! Steam Yeoman First Class! Already know the loot’nant!

  Are we keeping you from something!

  Nothin’ can’t wait, sir! Monitoring Boiler One’s rise to forty, that’s travel pressure! Take ’nother two hours or so! What can I do ya for!

  I’ve just come aboard and the lieutenant’s showing me the sights! Call it an inspection tour!

  Mitzuk’s smile becomes a grin, white teeth startling in his grimy face. Hard to see much, sir, but I’ll try!

  You said forty! That’s pressure, right! Forty pounds per square inch!

  Nossir, atmospheres! Each of ’em being fourteen pounds five!

  Good God! Tommy yelps. So forty of them —

  ’S nigh on six hundred psi, sir! Gotta watch yourself, a pinhole leak c’n take your head off! C’mon, I’ll show you!

  Tommy’s skin creeps as Mitzuk smacks a cam and shoulders open the hatch to the boiler room. The three of them are in the middle of an awful lot of force. Despite the noise, Tommy can now hear the odd bit of Mitzuk’s speech, or maybe he’s just learning to lip read.

  People think steam’s wet ’n’ white, sir, but it ain’t when it’s this hot! Dry’s a bone an’ clear’s glass an’ hotter’n hell! Comes out here! Mitzuk smacks a pipe a yard in diameter that’s wrapped in thick fawn-colored insulation.

  Where does it go! shouts Tommy.

  Turbines, sir, three on ’em! Engine Room next door! Mitzuk jerks a thumb at the bulkhead through which the big pipe disappears.

  You know about turbines! Tommy shouts.