“That’s perfect!” smiled Saltz. “I need that ship in good hands. Don’t let me down. Over and out.”
Saltz’s face disappeared from the screen. I looked at Mira. She looked at me. And inside a second her face let slip three revealing expressions: pride in me, then worry, then… fear. Like she thought she’d never see me again. Like she didn’t want to lose me. And then her face just went calm and smooth again. And I felt like I’d learned more about her in that second than in the last month.
“I can’t leave.” My voice faltered.
“You must.” She murmured.
“The Harvy is my ship. You are my Captain.” I felt childish, I felt foolish, but I couldn’t stop myself. For the past few months, I’d seen her every day. We worked as a team. We were one. We cared for our baby. And now I was going to leave for weeks. Far away. As if in different planets.
“You’re Navy. We’re at war. You’ll protect us better from the Loghi.” Her voice trembled. “You must.”
She was telling the truth. It was my duty. I had to go. And that was that. All else was completely irrelevant. And yes, I would be able to better protect our baby from the frigate. And if that was so, there was no other place I should be. It was my duty. My duty as an officer, my duty as an X.O, my duty as a partner, and my duty as a father.
I stood up.
“I’ll get my gear ready.”
I turned to leave, but she caught my arm, pulled me gently to her, put her hands on my neck and kissed me.
“I will always be here,” she whispered.
I looked at her with a cold, hard face.
“Don’t you dare get killed.”
That surprised her. It surprised us both, actually. Hesitant, she stepped back. She saluted me, with a serious gesture, maybe for the first time. I responded with the most perfect salute I ever did. And then I turned and left.
*
“Welcome aboard, sir.”
I put my cap on and responded to the lieutenant’s salute.
“Mr.Doorbos?”
The young lieutenant smiled. He was young. Maybe 18 or 19.
“Yes, sir.”
I put forward my hand.
“Byllard Iddo.”
The young man hesitated and then smiled and shook my hand.
“I know, sir. We’ve been expecting you.”
He’d been in charge of the Loghi for the last few hours. I didn’t know if his nervous stare was a sign of relieve because I was taking over or some kind of evaluation, trying to figure out if I was up to the job. Maybe a bit of both.
“I don’t know if you’d rather meet the officers now, sir,” he said. “Or maybe go to your cabin and rest a bit, sir, they tell me…”
“Well, let’s meet the officers, why don’t we?” I replied.
“Of course, sir. Please follow me.”
*
The W.S. Loghi was a 5th class 6-Hull 32-battery frigate with a crew of 2000 men and women. 250 for each hull, 300 in the tower and 200 Marines.
Frigates were a dream to command. They were fast and flexible, usually avoiding the line battles fought by the great battleships that made up the core of the fleets. Yet, they were more powerful than almost any other vessel out there except line ships and destroyers, the prime escorts of anything from battleships to merchants. Frigates were mostly used for long haul patrols, search and destroy, pirate hunt or special missions. But they were useful for everything. They could work as runners and explorers for fleets, escorts for convoys or sharp shooters for flotillas, but they did their best as lone rangers going further and faster than anyone else. Any officer in his right mind would love to command a frigate. And now this one was mine.
It was also a pleasure to be back aboard a Navy ship. Evidence was everywhere, in the efficient way everything was packed and ready, in the spotless way everything was clean and neat, in the impeccable salutes from every hand, in the way everything looked and worked smoothly and effectively. There were no signs of disorder or mutiny anywhere.
*
The senior officers were waiting for me in the Captain’s office. The C-Team, five of them, plus six Hull-Captains, plus the Marine Major, plus the master-of-the-tower. They all lined up to salute me, and Doorbos introduced me to all. Most of them were young, even though there were three or four that had been in the service for many years, possibly passed for promotion and, who knows? resentful of cocky young officers like me. Which of them had encouraged the revolt?
I suddenly felt really tired, I had been on duty for over 14 hours, and I was dying to lie down, so I said:
“I’m sure we’ll have a chance to know each other better in the coming days. Right now I’d like to ask you just one question.”
They all looked nervous and uncomfortable, maybe fearing I’d ask about the mutiny or any disturbance in the ship. But I asked:
“Is the ship ready for action? In all honesty, and I remind you that our lives and others’ may depend on it: is she ready for action?”
They tighten their bellies, straighten their backs and answered one after the other.
“Yes, sir.”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Certainly!”
And they were serious. There wasn’t any doubt in any voice. They were confident of their performance.
“Good, then. That’s enough for now. Carry on.”
Before everyone left, I called Steld, the Signals Commander and asked to be called if ‘any strange contact whatsoever was picked up anywhere.’ Finally, everyone was gone except for Doorbos, and I told him: “Now, please take me to my cabin, Mr.Doorbos. I think I’ll have some rest, now.”
As I laid my head down a few minutes later, I recalled my entrance into this crew’s life finding it had been rough and clumsy. I hadn’t been able to say anything clever nor really pay attention to any of the officers. I wondered if they’d hate me already. Much later I would learn that I actually had impressed them all. Go figure.
*
One time, we had a two weeks’ vacation in Webbur. We’d just run three high-risk convoys back-to-back, and we were exhausted. The last one, HC8, had been attacked five times along the way. It was just luck that kept us going.
Mira had wanted to take me to a cabin in the woods near a lake she knew, up in the Hobaka ridge, in Obata. We took the train. As soon as the train was under way, Mira told me:
“I’m going to the bathroom.”
“I’m going with you,” I replied.
We closed the door, we jumped into each other, almost ripping all our clothes off. She turned around and put her hands firmly on the mirror, I yanked down her panties and entered her from behind. Frantic. We both were. Frantic. We had to fight to contain our screams. When we got back to our seats, she fell asleep on my shoulder.
Curiously enough, sex got milder after that. That was the trip that changed some things. That changed everything. Sex lost priority on that trip, and other things took its place. Better things, even. Like holding hands by the lake, swimming naked side by side, sailing in the morning, kissing in the moonlight, dancing slowly on the porch, waking up side by side, cooking for each other. At one point, looking at her sitting on the couch reading poetry, I thought those had been the best days I ever had.
But then we had to come back. There was a war on.
*
“Sit down, Lieutenant.”
Doorbos sat across my desk. The Captain’s desk. Rested and clean-shaved, I suddenly felt confident there. Like it was second-nature. But I had some questions still.
“I’m not here to look into the mutiny, nor anything else that happened before I came aboard.” I started. “But I need to know. I need to know the ship is fully functional. I can’t see any sign of disorder or ill-will. So, what happened here?”
“Well, sir, I don’t think you’ll find anything wrong right now. Captain Neehan run a tight ship.”
“Mutinies don’t happen in tight ships, Mr.Doorbos.”
“Well… There was cause.”
“What h
appened, Mr.Doorbos?”
“Well, sir, when Captain Neehan had the accident, Mr.Voica assumed command. He was never a much-respected officer, sir. He was here because of family ties and never really earned affection from anyone.”
“To the point, please, Mr.Doorbos.” I wasn’t about letting any man openly criticize an officer like that – even a disgraced one.
“Well, sir. Practically his first order of business, other than transferring the Captain, was ordering an FQ drill. You see, this is our third convoy in a row, sir, without rest, and we’d just had a drill that ended up in the Captain’s accident.”
A Full Quarters drill, or FQ drill, was a full ship battle stations drill that included some exhausting exercises as fully loading the missile batteries over and over again. I could understand that taking such a drill after losing the commanding officer like that could have been extremely unpopular, and instead of asserting command, work the other way around.
“So, what happened, sir” continued Doorbos “is that on the first time 5th Hull wasn’t pitch perfect, so Mr.Voica ordered us to drill once more. But 1st Hull refused, sir, and then 2nd Hull refused as well. You see, the men were exhausted, sir. And when Mr.Voica called the Marine MP’s to take the officers to the brig, Major Glavin refused to do it as well, sir. Pretty soon everyone refused his orders, and he locked himself in his cabin and didn’t come out until the officers from the Ascim came to take him. And that was that. I know that mutiny is severely punished, sir.”
“By death, Mr.Doorbos.”
“Yes, sir. But you’ve seen the ship, you’ve met the officers. They’re good officers, sir. Very unlike Mr.Voica, sir. He had no business commanding this ship, sir, or any other, if you ask me.”
“I’m not. I’m not asking you, Mr.Doorbos.”
I didn’t like what Doorbos was saying, and I had to let him know. Voica might have been an incompetent idiot, but I was far from condoning a mutiny of any kind.
“It’s the Navy’s job to decide who commands a ship, lieutenant, not the men’s.”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
“I’m not here to assert blame for the situation; that will be done by others once we arrive in Webbur. But I will have no insubordination from anyone, and that has to be made perfectly clear. Do you understand, Mr.Doorbos?”
“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Perfectly clear.”
But it wasn’t clear. He still asked:
“Would you want to do something about that, sir?”
“Do?”
“I don’t know… A gesture, sir. To make it clear?”
I didn’t understand the suggestion. Was the discipline so affected that it needed a gesture to assert it above the words of the Captain to his second in command? I asked:
“A gesture? A disciplinary gesture? Would you recommend that, Mr.Doorbos?”
“I wouldn’t, sir.”
“Good, then. That will do.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
His face filled with relief and he saluted me and left. I found out later that Captain Neehan was fond of some manipulative gestures, and then understood that Voica’s drill was a page out of that manual as well. Fortunately, I had other schooling. In ships much larger, more important and better run.
*
I made my best to know the ship as quickly and as deeply as I could. In two days, I visited every Hull, conferred with every captain, inspected the tower top to bottom. By the second day in, every single hand in the ship had seen my face. I was mostly pleased with what I saw. But I hadn’t seen them in action yet.
*
The master-of-the-tower was a sullen man of 50, with a thin nose and a cold stare. His name was Tamburo, Patt Tamburo. Unlike most people, to whom he was rude and blunt, it took me 30 seconds to start to like him.
“How well is the tower, Mr. Tamburo?”
“Tight.”
“Really tight?”
“No. But tight enough, Captain. Most of the lads don’t need the whip most of the time. The occasional smarty. No idiots.”
He wasn’t speaking of a real whip, of course. That was a thing of the past. But I knew what he meant.
“Fast to call?” I asked.
“Fast enough.”
I raised my eyebrow.
“Fast enough for the Silent?”
“Barely, sir. But they’ll do if you give ‘em a chance.”
I smiled.
“It’s not me who’s going to give them a chance, Mr. Tamburo. It’s the enemy.”
“Aye, sir. That he will.”
“Advise?”
“Some meat, sir.”
“Meat?”
“There’s not a lot of energy around, right now, they’re a bit tired. And I reckon they will need some energy if they have that chance you just mentioned, sir.”
I thought for a couple of seconds.
“Very well, master-of-the-tower. Meat it is. Please tell the cook. But remind everyone I will be expecting that energy.”
“Yes, sir.”
*
The bridge of the Loghi. I hadn’t been on a frigate in a long time, and the bridge of the Loghi looked like the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. Smaller than the large bridge of a first-tier battleship, it could accommodate 7 to 9 people. That made it cozier and more controllable. Otherwise, it looked pretty much as a battleship bridge. It had a mimicking display all around, showing the space around the ship and making us feel as if suspended in Space. It had a Captain’s chair above the one of the First Officer. And the various consoles could be turned to any direction. Everything a Navy ship-of-war should have. It didn’t have a Constellation display, showing in 3D the relative position of everyone in the fleet or convoy, but that didn’t dent in the least the extraordinary feeling I had as I entered the room.
“Captain on deck! Attention!” Shouted Doorbos, behind me, as we got in.
Everyone got up quickly into attention. That felt good. That felt really good.
“That will do,” I said.
Steld, the S-Comm, was running the bridge at that point. He saluted me and asked:
“Will you assume, sir?”
“No need, thank you, Mr.Steld. The bridge is yours, carry on.”
“Yes, sir.”
He sat down on the F.O. chair, leaving the Captain’s to me, as dictated protocol. I asked Doorbos to introduce me to everyone, and after I had shaken everyone’s hand, I sat on that high chair. It felt good. I sat quietly.
Doorbos, standing next to me, tried to engage me in conversation twice, but finally, I dismissed him.
“You can go, Mr.Doorbos. I’m sure you’re needed elsewhere. I’ll call you when necessary.”
He was a bit surprised but saluted me and left.
I sat quietly in the bridge for about an hour. After the first 20 minutes, everyone almost forgot I was there. In that hour, I felt as I was becoming part of the ship and the ship was becoming part of me. The crew got comfortable as well. Comfortable with my presence. And that felt right.
Finally, I got up with a smile and said:
“Thank you, Mr.Steld. Carry on.”
And I left. It had been a mystical experience.
*
That night I called Mirany. It was so good to see her face. To hear her voice. Only then did I realize how tired I was. I was finally relaxing a bit.
“How’s your new ship?” She asked.
“Interesting. Clean and tidy.”
She could hear the pride in my voice.
“Tight?” She asked.
“Tight enough.”
She gave me a sad smile.
“Good to be back in the Navy, then?”
I gave her back a sad smile, not knowing what to say. It was, and it wasn’t.
“It is, and it isn’t. How’s the Harvy?”
She gave me another smile. Different. Like she was looking at a family picture.
“Oh, fine! Chaotic!”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,
you know what today is?”
“Today?”
“It’s the Day of the Jewel! And we seem to have about a thousand children on board, so they have been doing the rounds, complimenting everybody and distributing whatever candy they found who knows where. I had the cooks bake cakes in every hull!”
I laughed, imagining the refugee children around anyone I remembered. That sounded lovely. Her face was lovely.
“I wish I was there.” And, for a moment, I meant it.
“Me too. I don’t know if we can manage it on our own. The Silent we can handle. But these little boys and girls… The Axx Republic messed with the wrong people, let me tell you. I may have to retire, after this.”
And I laughed again.
“You’re loving it,” I said.
She smiled back, tenderly.
“Who wouldn’t?”
That was my Mira.
*
It was two days later that I was called in the middle of my sleep.
“Captain, sir.” It was Mass, my 16-year-old orderly, shaking me gently by the arm. “Sorry to disturb you, sir.”
“What is it, Mr.Mass?”
“You asked to be called if there was a contact.”
I jumped from my bed and looked at him straight in the eye.
“Get my shirt.”
I put on my trousers like a lover hearing the husband coming in. As Mass handed me the shirt, he immediately picked up the boots as well. In less than two minutes I was out of the door.
I calmed down before entering the bridge. I didn’t step in as if strolling around, like Mirany would do. I entered like Admiral Hedde did: quiet, affirmative, straight to his chair.
“I have the bridge.”
“The Captain has the bridge.” Said Doorbos, leaving my chair and taking his own.
I looked at my screens and glanced at the Signals screen, but then I remembered: I was the Captain.
“Mr.Steld, please put the flag on the MID.”
“Sir!”
Doorbos filled me in:
“Contact at Level 12, 10-and-11, sir. Could be nothing.”
I looked at him and knew that even he didn’t believe that. There had been enough convoys, victims, and defeats, to have learned no contact was ‘nothing.’ I spoke directly to him, for there was no special Captain-First Officer communication line, as Hedde had on the Magnar.
Fighting the Silent (The Dark Sea War Chronicles Book 1) Page 9