The Circle

by David Poyer

  Around ten the sky lightened. The sun was invisible, but enough light bled through a driving wrap of cloud for Dan to see the great swells that rolled now in confused patterns, random, jagged masses, but with the prevailing seas more and more evidently from the east. By 1800, when he came on again, it was long past the brief Arctic twilight, and pitch-dark once more.

  Even so, he could tell immediately that the wind was rising. Even inside the pilothouse, enclosed by steel and glass, he could hear it. Not the eerie whistle they’d lived with for days past. This was a violent, vibrating scream. And it was still building. He watched the needle on the anemometer twitch upward, wavering with each laboring buck of the ship.

  He looked down at the forecastle as a sea boarded, boiling across the gear, rising like a tide till it gleamed and bulged a few feet below the whipping wipers. The phosphorescent foam glowed feebly in the light of the forward range. Aside from that, the world was black. Pancake ice clattered against the hull. He clung to the overhead wire, wondering groggily what would happen if they hit something sizable. Destroyers were compartmented, but then so was the Titanic.

  The 21MC crackled hollowly above the shriek. “Bridge, CIC,” it said under his hand. He pushed the lever twice, meaning, go ahead.

  “Bridge, CIC: We have a high-altitude bogey on the air search. Racket shows Short Horn and Bee Hind radars.”

  “Uh … can you translate that for me?”

  “Those are Soviet airborne ASW and early-warning radars, Mr. Lenson. Assignment Ten in your JO Journal.”

  The ship rolled, came back a bit, and stopped there, lying over uncertainly, like an aging dog wanting to obey but at the same time longing to curl up and rest. He pressed the lever. “Bridge, aye. Lieutenant Evlin—”

  “I heard him. Right rudder, quick,” said Evlin in a low voice.

  That was right; he had the conn. He tore his attention back. “Right full rudder,” he said loudly, pitching his voice against the unearthly scream.

  The helmsman responded, his voice high. “Right full rudder! My rudder is right full, sir, no course given.”

  We can’t stay on this leg, he thought. We’ve got to abandon the racetrack. Find a better course, and steady up on it. He turned his head to Evlin, an invisible presence beside him. “What course, sir?”

  Ryan was trembling like a live thing under the lash of the wind. She’d started to come back upright, but now sagged off even farther to port, driven over by uncountable tons of wind pressure on the superstructure. He twisted, searching the dark for Evlin’s face. The lieutenant was watching the sea.

  At last the OOD reached for the phone—the captain had gone aft a few minutes earlier, after spending all day in his chair—but just then Packer came through the weather door. Spray battered through it behind him. The dank-smelling wind battled with the overheated air, then was sliced off as the door sealed. The captain’s foul-weather gear was soaked. Water ran off his face like rain off a mountain.

  “Get her head around,” he said. “Forget the wind. Head her into the swell.”

  Dan steadied his voice before he said, “Sir, I have my rudder right full. She’s not responding.”

  “That so? No sweat, Mr. Lenson. Use the engines. Wind direction?”

  “Veered another ten degrees, sir.”

  “Eye’s getting closer. But it’ll be a while. Bring her on around to the right. Carefully. Remember you got the fish down aft. Steady on one-one-zero, see how she rides there.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll watch it, but Mr. Lenson seems to be doing pretty well.”

  “That’s good,” said Packer, looking at him, actually seeing him, Dan felt, for the first time since he’d come on the bridge. “We can use another qualified OOD.”

  “Sir, did you get the word about the high flyer?”

  Packer turned to the radar, bent over it, began peeling off his soaked jacket. The boatswain helped him with the sleeves. “Yeah. It’s a Bear. The antisubmarine variant. Probably out of the Kola. He’s got all his gear turned on and he’s doing what looks like a grid search.”

  “What’s he doing out here?”

  “Beats me.” Packer leaned into the intercom. “Sonar, Bridge. I’m securing the racetrack due to worsening weather. Do you still hold that hundred-fifty hertz contact at zero-seven-five?”

  “No sir, it faded about an hour ago.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, are we wasting our time? Do you want to bring the VDS up?”

  The voice of the 21MC changed, became Reed’s. “ASW Officer, Captain. Sir, this is what we came out here to find out: whether the AN/SQS-thirty-five will cut it in adverse conditions.”

  “Goddamn it, I know what we’re doing here, Aaron. Right now, I’m worried about losing the damned thing.”

  “I don’t see that as a problem, sir. The catenary should absorb our stern motion before it affects the fish.”

  “What if it doesn’t? I’m thinking about bringing it up.”

  The metallic voice hesitated. “Well, sir, actually we can’t recover, not pitching like this. According to the technician, the cable’ll snap. I recommend we lower it to six hundred feet and ride it out.”

  Ryan seemed to draw a long breath, then launched herself into a tremendous roll. Things clattered downhill in the dark, then clattered back as she reared almost as far to starboard, shaking herself like a horse frenzied by flies.

  The captain must have signed off, given Reed some final order, because now he swung on Dan. Lenson stepped back. In the darkness Packer’s eyes were invisible, but something in his bent shadow, the waiting shapes around it, the still-increasing shrieking outside evoked unreality and horror.

  “What’s the anemometer say? Can’t quite make it out.”

  “Varies between fifty-five and sixty, sir, gusts to around sixty-five.”

  “Sounds higher than that. May be reading low. Barometer?”

  “Twenty-eight eight and falling, sir,” said Yardner, the quartermaster, through the porthole behind them.

  “Steady on two-one-zero, sir,” cried the helmsman. “No … swinging past it.”

  “Two-one-zero?” said Evlin instantly.

  “Sorry, sir, I mean one-one-zero, swinging left—”

  “Hold her as close as you can,” said the captain. He sounded bored again, after that flicker of interest about the aircraft. “Use as much rudder as you need.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Dan clung to the cable as Ryan recovered. The sea streamed off her foredeck as she staggered upright. In the dim wash of the navigation lights, long streaks of foam burned with the cold luminosity of watch hands. His mind gave him two lines of Coleridge: “About, about, in reel and rout/the death-fires danced at night.” Only that had been in a calm.… A swell high as a two-story house rolled toward them, a black monolith whose crest the wind peeled off even as it began to break, tore off and blew across the surface in a boiling pearly fog that froze the instant it hit glass and paint and steel. It kicked the bow upward, till he was looking at the boiling blackness of the night sky.

  Then she toppled, like a woman executing a swan dive. He felt light, then abruptly heavy as she buried herself. The bullnose disappeared, black water closing over the anchor and wildcat. The wipers whined and grated at full speed, throwing spray off into the night.

  “Sir, she’s falling off again!”

  “Mark your head,” said Dan.

  “One-two-five—drifting right—my rudder’s hard left—”

  “Give her a full bell on the starboard shaft,” said Packer, face pressed to the window. “We’ve got plenty of power. As long as the engines hold out and our stability’s good, it’ll punch us around, but it won’t hurt us.”

  “Starboard engine ahead full, indicate RPM for twenty knots,” said Dan, trying to keep his voice as even and casual as the captain’s. Unfortunately, he was starting to feel sick again. The combination of violent motion and darkness was intensely nauseating.

  “Keep the rudder out of the stops,” muttered
Evlin. “Or it’ll jam.”

  “Mind your rudder. Keep her out of the stops,” he said.

  The engine-order telegraph pinged as the order went down. “Mind my rudder, aye.” Ping, ping. “Engine room answers, starboard ahead full.”

  “Very well.” Sweat tickled his spine. God, he thought, we don’t need a jammed rudder tonight. Without control, a ship would fall off, drift helplessly around till she fell into the troughs. Then she’d roll like death itself, gathering energy with each cycle, till she went far enough to capsize.

  The red-lighted numerals of the compass were ticking slowly left when another bridge-high sea crashed over the bow, bludgeoning them bodily to starboard before the helmsman could bring her back. The old destroyer reeled, the pilothouse swinging through the sky in great sweeps. Dan clutched the radar as water sprang into his mouth. He thought briefly, for no particular reason, of Pargo. Hundreds of miles away by now, and hundreds of feet down. Storms didn’t reach down there. They’d be eating ice cream and watching movies, no doubt, wondering why Ryan had stayed behind.

  “She seems tender, sir,” Evlin was saying to Packer. His words were faint above the clanking clatter of gear aft. “Last time we hit major seas, on the way back from the Med, she seemed to ride better than this.”

  “It’s the added weight aft. Long moment arm on that hoist. Just like a fat kid on a seesaw.”

  “Should I call main control, get another boiler on the line?”

  “No. I want to conserve fuel. We should be able to ride this out without going to full power. Have them stand by, though.”

  “We haven’t ballasted yet, have we, sir?”

  He didn’t hear the captain’s answer to that. Something had broken free aft and was hammering on the hull, a dull, heavy thudding every time they pitched.

  “Mr. Lenson,” said Evlin. “Find out what that noise is.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” He swallowed scorching bile as Ryan flung herself into the air, then fell away, floating his stomach free like the drop of a roller coaster. “Bos’n, go see what that noise is.”

  “I don’t feel so good, sir.”

  “Well, neither do I, Pettus! Do as you’re told!”

  His guts soared again as the old destroyer hesitated, halfway aloft, then aimed herself suddenly for the bottom two thousand fathoms down. For a moment it seemed she might make it. The sea rumbled like a herd of cattle stampeding below the pilothouse. He heard retching behind him, and turned, to see the quartermaster chief bury his face in the wastebasket.

  That did it. He muttered thickly, “Al, you got the conn,” and staggered toward Yardner. They vomited together, tottering back and forth across the deck, leaning into each other like sumo wrestlers, their hands gripping the slimy bucket and each other’s clothes. When he came up, gasping, his face was a few feet from someone else’s. He stared blearily. “Who’s that?”

  “Pettus … sir.”

  “I told you to check out that … banging.…” Then he doubled again as a fresh accession of nausea racked him. When he looked up, spitting and drooling, the boatswain’s mate was gone. “Pitch that overboard,” he said to the quartermaster, who had also straightened and was breathing heavily, his arms flung out against the aft bulkhead like a man crucified.

  Wiping his mouth, he dragged himself behind the helmsman.

  Coffey had taken over. The black seaman stood before the wheel with his legs straddled wide. The dim glow of the binnacle silhouetted him. He crouched, listening, as the ship debated with herself whether to roll or not. Then, as she decided, flung the wheel to port with all his strength. “Coffey, you doing all right?” Dan asked hoarsely.

  “Holdin’ out, man.”

  “Don’t let her get away from you. Let me know if you get tired.”

  “Ali X. don’t get tired, sir.”

  “You ready to take the conn back, Ensign?”

  “Uh, yessir, Lieutenant. This is Ensign Lenson; I have the conn.”

  A murmured chorus of moans and coughs answered him. Only Coffey’s voice sounded strong.

  Pettus came back a few minutes later, dripping wet. “What was it?” Dan asked him.

  “Whaleboat, sir. Shifting in the chocks. I got a couple of guys and tightened the gripes down.”

  “Good work. Look—I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  “No problem, sir. I ain’t feeling too good myself.”

  Barfing made him feel weak but better. He pressed himself against the helm console and forced his consciousness out along the ship. The bow he could see. The lashings on the tackle were holding, but it looked like the range of motion of the chains was increasing. Still, as long as the brakes held on the wildcat, the stoppers could go and the anchors would still stay aboard. From what he’d overheard, the fish was in danger, and it was too late to hoist it. Well, at least no one would have to go out on the exposed fantail.

  He wondered what it was like below. In the berthing compartments, shoehorned full of swaying men in the close, sickening darkness; in the offices—he’d seen publications a foot deep in the ops shack. It must be hell itself in the engine spaces. Worse; neither Dante nor Jonathan Edwards had thrown in fifty-degree rolls.

  He gauged the angle of the deck and when it was downhill, let go and slid back to the radar. The screen was solid light, the whole scope face smeared with the sparkling acne of sea return.

  The ship snapped back and he grabbed for the overhead. Packer, taken by surprise as he was climbing into his chair, almost fell. Dan caught his arm just in time. The captain settled himself without a word, but Lenson heard the seat belt click.

  It was still black-dark when Ohlmeyer relieved him at 2000. He crept below, legs so shaky he had to stop halfway down the enclosed ladder and sit for a few minutes, hugging the handrail as the corridor spun around him in huge slow circles. He wondered where he was heading. His stateroom? Forget it. No point trying to sleep tonight.

  The wardroom was a wilderness of tumbled chairs. The drawers had broken open on the sideboard and coffee and sugar and silverware lay scattered across the carpet. Saltshakers and glasses patrolled the slanting deck with each roll, clattering over knives and salad forks like little trains going over switches. Silver, Norden, and Talliaferro sat in a stiff row on the sofa, as if posing for a daguerreotype, their arms gripping the back. Trachsler and Reed and Johnson had lashed chairs down in the corners with light line. “Hello, Dan,” said someone as he came in. “Help yourself to midrats.”

  “Very funny.”

  “No, ‘Fredo made sandwiches. They’re in the reefer.”

  “Don’t mention food, Rich. Ever again. Please.”

  “Have some crackers. That’ll settle your stomach,” said Talliaferro. The engineer had filled one black-nailed hand with a sandwich and the other with a glass of powdered milk. He looked exhausted, the pockets under his eyes matching the grease on his coveralls.

  A roar of water came from outside and the ship staggered over to starboard. It took him by surprise. Their previous bad rolls had been to port. The chairs began to slide. The fiddleboards on the shelves gave way and magazines, books, and a chess set he’d never seen before cascaded out. The phone sprang free of its holder and extended rigidly on the end of its cord as if being pulled by a ghost. Talliaferro began to slide off the couch and had to decide what to let go of. The sandwich lost. It flew the length of the wardroom parallel to the deck, separating in midair into three separate projectiles. The ham hit Commodore Ryan’s portrait, stuck for a moment, then dropped into a corner of the frame.

  A splintering crash of crockery came from inside the wardroom galley, followed by screaming in Filipino. Dan closed his eyes, remembering he was the mess treasurer.

  “How’s things topside, Dan?”

  “Holding, sir. I made a tour before I went on and the captain made one around nineteen hundred. We regriped the whaleboat. The fo’c’sle looks okay but the stoppers are working loose.”

  “We need to put somebody on it?”

 
“We’ve got line, pelican hooks, and the brake. I don’t want to send anybody up there in this weather.”

  “Not even if it means letting the anchor go?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, sir,” he said rather weakly. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”

  Norden shook his head. The weapons officer was clinging to the sofa with both hands, very pale. “What the hell are we doing here, anyway? We ought to just run for it.”

  “What’s that mean?” said Talliaferro.

  “Oh, nothing. I like to hang around in the dangerous semicircle of extratropical storms. Has he ballasted yet, Ed?”

  “No,” said Talliaferro. He took a dainty sip at his milk.

  “Shouldn’t he?”

  “I asked permission to. Service tanks are drawn down to zero. Lot of free surface down there. What’s more, we got at least a hundred and fifty tons of ice topside by now.”

  “What does that do to metacentric height?” Dan asked him.

  “You don’t want to hear it, kiddo.”

  “It’s up to him,” said Norden. “But didn’t they lose some of these cans in a typhoon because they weren’t ballasted? Those were Gearings, weren’t they?”

  “Why don’t you ask him, Rich, if it upsets you so much?”

  “Because you’re the engineering officer.”

  “Then let me and him worry about it,” said Talliaferro.

  “So. Everyone taking it easy, eh?”

  Bryce had come in in his T-shirt, an unlighted cigarette in his mouth. He described a wavering walk across the deck as Ryan began another roll. Dan could tell by the way she gathered herself that this would be a bad one.

  Trachsler half-rose. Apparently he meant to offer the XO a seat, but it was a misjudgment. The roll broke his grip on his chair. He staggered forward, lost his footing, and was catapulted onto the wardroom table. He slid down it on his stomach, too startled to brake himself, and went off headfirst into a tangle of chairs at the opposite end. The other officers jumped up, more cautiously, and slid and crawled across the floor toward him. “Ken! You all right?”