by Larry Bond
As if on cue, Senior Chief Foster appeared by the port tube nest. He looked over and saw the two of them by the starboard tubes; this earned Jerry a deep scowl. Jerry ignored the senior chief’s displeasure and motioned for him to come over.
“Excellent timing, Senior Chief, I’m afraid that I’ve exhausted my limited knowledge of the torpedo tubes, and Dr. Davis here is full of questions. Dr. Davis, this is Senior Chief Foster, my division’s leading chief. Senior Chief, Dr. Davis.”
As Foster shook Davis’ hand, he looked straight at Jerry and said, “Sir, I thought you said the survey was this afternoon. I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to get people freed up for that and . . .”
“Whoa, Senior. I haven’t changed a thing, so stand down,” replied Jerry tersely. “Dr. Davis was curious and asked for a quick look around before the survey this afternoon, and seeing as she is a guest on board our boat, I saw no reason not to grant her request. We’ve made every effort to stay clear of the men. And now that you are here, you can help reduce the good doctor’s curiosity.”
Foster looked pained and embarrassed. Jerry sensed that his mild chastisement of the senior chief in front of a visitor had just blown up the abutments to the bridges he had torched earlier. Oh well, thought Jerry, he’s a big boy. He’ll just have to get over it. For his part, Foster merely nodded stiffly and then turned to address Davis. “What do you want to know, ma’am?”
“In talking with Mr. Mitchell, I gather that your torpedoes are about 19 feet in length, but what I need to know is how long is the tube itself?”
“First off, ma’am, with the torpedo mount dispenser attached, the length of a Mk48 Mod 6 is twenty feet six inches. The length of the tube itself is twenty-two feet two inches.”
Davis jotted down the figure and looked relieved. “Whew, that leaves three inches to spare. They said my babies would fit, but I didn’t think it would be this tight.”
“Your ‘babies’ ma’am?” asked a perplexed Foster.
“Yes, they are part of the special equipment we’ll load on your submarine in a few weeks. I’m not at liberty to say much more right now,” responded Davis nervously.
“Excuse me, Dr. Davis,” said Jerry. “But I think you can tell him at least as much as I’ve been told. I’ve only been on Memphis for a couple of days now, and Senior Chief Foster and the others will do most of the work installing your equipment. I believe that puts him in the ‘need to know’ category. Wouldn’t you agree, Senior?”
Foster was momentarily taken aback by Jerry’s remark and could only utter a halfhearted, “Yes, sir.”
Sighing, Davis quickly looked around and said, “All right, I guess you have a point. We’ll be loading two ROVs and their support equipment for the upcoming mission. The ROVs are modified Near Term Mine Reconnaissance System vehicles. I had to lengthen them slightly to accommodate some of the modifications and I was concerned that they wouldn’t fit. The survey this afternoon is to go over our space requirements and to work out any possible issues with the loading and installation.”
“I see,” said Foster only slightly less confused. “Will we be able to look over the technical documentation for these ROVs? I’m assuming we’ll also be maintaining as well as operating the vehicles.”
“That’s right, Senior Chief,” replied Davis with some caution. “But I can’t let any of you see the documentation until just before we leave. It would reveal the purpose of the mission and, for now, that is only to be known by myself, Dr. Patterson, your Captain and your Executive Officer.”
Foster was obviously dying of curiosity. He looked at Jerry with an annoyed and questioning expression, but all Jerry could do was shrug his shoulders and shake his head no. “Very well, ma’am. Do you have any other questions?”
“Yes, I do, several, as a matter of fact.” Her expression brightened. “Is it possible to open the outer doors on both the starboard tubes at the same time? I believe you have an interlock that normally prevents this from happening, but can it be overridden?”
Foster explained that the nesting interlock used mechanical linkages and that it could be disabled by removing a padlock at one of the connection points. The Weapons Officer held the key, but it required the Captain’s permission, since it was a safety feature.
Davis nodded and fired the next question, which Foster answered succinctly and quickly. The questions kept coming, well beyond any reasonable definition of “several.” And once again, Jerry was impressed with Foster’s knowledge. It seemed like there was nothing this man didn’t know about the torpedo tubes or the supporting systems. Still, after about forty minutes Jerry noticed that Foster was becoming annoyed with Dr. Davis’ unending stream of questions. Before matters could get out of hand, Jerry inserted himself to draw the interrogation to a close.
“Excuse me Dr. Davis, I hate to interrupt, but the Senior Chief still has a few hundred things to do before the formal survey, and it’s almost lunchtime. I suggest we save the rest of your questions for this afternoon.”
“But I only have a few more!” exclaimed Davis. “Really, I’m serious. It will take just a little longer.”
“Later, Dr. Davis, please,” replied Jerry in a firm tone as he gently started turning her back toward the ladder. Reluctantly, Emily began moving— slowly. As they were just about to leave the torpedo room she suddenly spun around and faced Jerry. She looked like a kid who had just lost a prized possession. “The Manta! I forgot all about my questions on the Manta! Do we have time for those now?” Jerry could only roll his eyes. Then, with a very a deliberate motion, he pointed his finger toward the door.
“Okay, okay. I understand. Later,” said Davis with more than a hint of disappointment, but she also smiled at Jerry’s expression. Jerry softly chuckled as they headed up the ladder to forward compartment middle level. He had known a number of bookish engineer types at the Academy, but this was the first time he had met a young woman who could match them. She was just as passionate and intense about underwater vehicles as he had been about his beloved F-18s. That suited him just fine. She cared deeply about her work and would likely move heaven and earth to make sure everything worked perfectly. This reassured Jerry, since the crew of Memphis would have to use her ROVs to do something, somewhere—something that obviously meant a lot to the CNO and his staff. No, Memphis could certainly do worse than to work with the likes of Dr. Emily Davis.
By the time Jerry had finished this train of thought, he and Davis walked into the wardroom—and into a full blast from Patterson.
“Emily! Where the hell have you been? We need to leave now, if we are going to get ready for the survey this afternoon.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry Dr. Patterson. Lieutenant Mitchell was giving me a quick tour of the torpedo room. I thought it would help speed things up to get some of my questions out of the way.” Jerry noticed that Davis looked very uncomfortable and embarrassed by Patterson’s unexpected hostility. For that matter, no one in the wardroom looked at all comfortable with Dr. Patterson. Even Captain Hardy, whose face was crimson, suffered in silence, even though he looked like he was going to erupt at any moment.
“Fine, fine, Emily, get your coat and let’s go,” replied Patterson in a patronizing tone. As Patterson and Davis collected their coats and other belongings, the mess steward emerged from the pantry with a set of plates. He set them down on the table and walked up to Hardy and asked, “Excuse me, sir. Will our guests be staying for lunch?”
Before Hardy could say a word, Patterson looked menacingly at the mess steward and said, “I’m not spending any more time on this rust bucket than I absolutely have to.” She then turned toward Jerry and pointed a finger at him. “You! Show me how to get off this piece of junk.”
Jerry quickly looked at Bair, who stiffly nodded his head in the direction of the door. Jerry then motioned to the door and said, “This way. Dr. Patterson.” In her haste to leave the wardroom, she pushed Jerry out of the way and stomped down the passageway toward the forward escape trunk.
As Davis passed by Captain Hardy, she uttered a barely audible “Thank you” and proceeded out into the passageway. Jerry followed the two women toward the escape trunk, but Patterson seemed to remember the way. By the time he was topside, Patterson was already storming off the boat, with Davis running behind to catch up. He shrugged and went below.
When Jerry returned to the wardroom, he found it incredibly quiet and even tenser than before. Hardy ate little and said not a word, although it was obvious that something really bad had happened. Bair’s expression matched Hardy’s. Lunch was eaten in absolute silence, and only after Hardy had left did any of the other officers even dare to ask the XO about what had happened.
Bair pushed himself away from the table, rose, and said, “Gentlemen, believe me, you don’t want to know. And even if for some insane reason you did, I couldn’t tell you. All I can say is this mission will be closest thing to hell that I have ever seen in this man’s Navy.”
As Bair left, the remaining officers looked at each other with astonishment and dread. A sense of despair seemed to descend on all in the wardroom. Jerry was also confused by what the XO had said and couldn’t understand what had brought him so far down. Lenny Berg saw the questioning look on Jerry’s face and tried to explain.
“Jerry, the XO has always been one of the few bright lights on this boat. He is the man who has served directly under Hardy for almost two years and he has been our BS filter from day one. Believe me, he’s taken a lot of hits for this crew. If being this Captain’s personal whipping boy isn’t hell, then I do not want to find out what hell is really like.”
The other officers murmured their assent and slowly filed out of the room. Jerry stayed behind, trying to comprehend the enormity of what Berg had said. The normally jovial Lenny Berg had been cast into the pit of depression by the XO’s three sentences. And while Jerry didn’t understand the exact ramifications of those words, he knew that things on board Memphis had taken a turn for the worse.
Jerry looked up at the clock and realized that he only had about an hour and a half before the ladies returned for the survey. Remembering the thick qualification book and schedule he received from Richards, Jerry decided to go to his stateroom and see just how much work he faced in his quest for the gold dolphins.
As he entered his stateroom, Jerry saw a stack of documents and three-ring binders over a foot tall sitting on his desk. In awe, Jerry investigated the mountain of paper. After looking at a few pages, it soon became apparent that these were the division’s records. Maintenance logs, calibration logs, training and readiness records, various inventories, and more, a lot more. Jerry remembered Moran’s comment about the senior chief “unloading” some paperwork. Well, thought Jerry, I guess Senior Chief Foster has officially turned over the division. He looked around his cramped stateroom. Now where the hell am I going to put all this stuff?
Jerry spent the next hour segregating and organizing the division’s records. He skimmed each packet of paper and placed it in one of four piles— maintenance, personnel, training, or supply—on his bunk. He vowed to look at everything in more detail later, but right now he just wanted to get a handle on his job as a division officer. As daunting as the huge pile looked at first, from what Jerry could tell, the senior chief seemed to have run a pretty tight division. Once again, Jerry was impressed with the man’s abilities. If only we could get along, he thought ruefully.
Looking down by his pillow, Jerry saw his qual book. He picked it up and saw that it was well over an inch thick. He began to wonder if he could finish in time. Flipping through the book, Jerry noticed all the signatures he needed to obtain before he would be awarded his dolphins. There were watches to stand under instruction, tens of system checkouts and practical exercises to perform, and dozens of standard operating and emergency procedures to memorize. Setting it aside, Jerry picked up the schedule that Richards had recommended and started looking at what he should be doing first. The list was oppressively long and the pace demanding.
The more Jerry looked at his qualification requirements, the more apprehensive he became. He then lifted his eyes over the schedule to the four mounds of paper on his bunk and tried to figure out how he was going to juggle his qualification needs with his responsibilities as a division officer.
Then it dawned on him that as the Manta operator, he was probably going to be in the torpedo room manning the UUV control console for a lot of the time once they got on station. As the fear of failure started growing, Jerry recalled the aura of pessimism in the wardroom over lunch and that fear started to give way to panic. “Whoa,” Jerry said to himself. “Don’t try to swallow an elephant whole. Take this one bite at a time.”
It was almost time for the good doctors to return, and the thought of dealing with Patterson again was not particularly a pleasant one. However, this time Jerry wanted to be topside to greet them. Besides, a little fresh air sounded really good right now. Before he grabbed his coat and ball cap, Jerry took out a pen and wrote his name on the cover of the qual book. This is now my book, he thought, and I’ll finish it one signature at a time. He then placed the book on his bunk and headed for the forward escape trunk.
It was windy topside, but the wind was from the south, so it wasn’t bitingly cold. The sun occasionally shone through the streaks of gray clouds. All in all, not a bad March afternoon. Jerry took a few deep breaths, relishing the outside air. There was a momentary flash down at the end of the pier and Jerry saw Dr. Patterson getting out of a car. Emily appeared a few seconds later. Jerry allowed himself a smug moment. Those 20/10 fighter pilot eyes of his were still working to spec. Patterson was now past the pier guard and was moving quickly toward the brow. Emily, with her shorter gait, was struggling to keep up. As Patterson approached, Jerry could swear he heard her stomping on the concrete pier. Okaaay, Jerry thought, she is still pissed off from this morning. This should make for a lovely afternoon—NOT.
“Good afternoon Dr. Patterson, Emily. I trust you had a good lunch,” said Jerry as he pointed to a number of breadcrumbs on Davis’ coat.
“Oh yes,” replied Davis as she brushed the crumbs off. “We had grinders at a very nice restaurant called Spiros.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with it. It’s a popular haunt for submariners.”
“So I noticed,” interrupted Patterson. “Can we skip the unnecessary pleasantries and get this survey over and done? Now, take us to the torpedo room, Lieutenant.”
Patterson’s rude remark caused something inside Jerry to pop.
Jerry walked up and looked Patterson straight in the eye and said, “Dr. Patterson, might I make a slight suggestion? Since it’s obvious that this morning’s meeting with the Captain and the XO didn’t go very well, exercising a little common courtesy might make this afternoon’s evolution less painful.”
Patterson stared at Jerry in utter amazement. Recovering quickly, she gave Jerry a “Who are you to question me, little man?” look, then said, “I don’t have to, Mr. Mitchell, because I work for the President.” And with that, she tried to push Jerry back so she could get to the hatch. But he was ready for her this time, and he held his ground.
“Interesting,” responded Jerry. “So do we.” He then stepped away from the hatch and motioned for Patterson to proceed. She did so in silence.
The survey in the torpedo room began with a strict warning from Hardy that anything heard during the meeting was not to be discussed with anyone outside of the present group. Furthermore, any speculations about the nature of the mission were to be kept strictly to oneself. The Captain spelled out in detail exactly how the restrictions were to be applied, assuming nothing. It was so detailed that Jerry began to get a little insulted. This wasn’t the first security briefing he’d ever attended. He watched the torpedo gang for a similar reaction, but they endured it in patient silence.
Finishing with another stern warning about the penalties facing anyone who disclosed classified information, Hardy then turned over the meeting to the XO, who
introduced Dr. Patterson and Dr. Davis. Patterson reemphasized the Captain’s admonition for strict security and explained that the orders for this mission came from the President himself. This drew a low murmur from the TMs and FTs, which the XO quickly silenced.
Emily Davis then took over and started telling Jerry and his men what they needed to do to prepare Memphis for the patrol. They would be loading two ROVs and their support equipment. Everything was loaded on pallets sized to fit through the weapons shipping hatch, the same one used to load torpedoes.
“The ROVs are modified Near Term Mine Reconnaissance System (NMRS) vehicles,” she explained. “They were used as early mine clearance vehicles, but we’ve adapted them for this mission.
“The changes include a different sensor package and a thrust vector axial pump jet for precision navigation. Each vehicle has its own cradle, which is compatible with the torpedo storage rack’s tie-down arrangements. All of the launching and recovery operations, and most of the maintenance work, will be done using Navy-approved NMRS procedures.” Jerry made a quick note to himself to make sure that they obtained a full set of manuals from SUBASE.