The Circle

by David Poyer

  “Abandon ship,” Pettus was yelling into the mike. But it was dead.

  “Knock that off,” said Dan.

  “Sir, we got to get off her—”

  He ran to the port side. The carrier loomed abeam of them, a black cliff higher than Ryan’s mast tops, studded with dim lights. It was moving away. He craned aft over the splinter shield. Kerosene reeked the air. Flames were shooting up, with crackling rapid bangs, all along the Asroc deck and down to the waterline. A black mass loomed astern, not burning, but illuminated by the flames. It took a few seconds before he understood that it was the aft section of the ship.

  A door slammed open on the 02 level and men spilled out. Some of them stopped at the life-jacket lockers and began to pull gear from them.

  He turned back into the bridge. Packer was on the starboard wing, still looking aft. His pipe was still in his mouth. Evlin was with him, standing straight, hands white on his binoculars. “She’s cut in two, sir!” Dan shouted above the rising roar of the fire. The deck lurched again, rising under them, and the slant aft steepened.

  “She never responded to the emergency bell,” said Packer hoarsely. His face was bleak and still in the growing firelight.

  “She’s cut in two aft. Should we pass ‘abandon ship,’ sir?”

  “Al, what do you think?”

  “I’m afraid she’s going, sir.”

  “All right,” said the captain. “No power to signal with … but I guess the fire’ll show everybody where we are. Pass ‘abandon ship’ by word of mouth. Try to keep her afloat, and get as many off as we can.”

  * * *

  HE found himself at the bottom of the ladder on the main deck. He didn’t recall the process of getting there. He felt disoriented, remote, as if watching a film. His mouth tasted strange, as if he’d been sucking on a knife. Men shoved past him. He saw their faces clearly now in the glare. A man in trousers but naked from there up threw his legs over the lines and dropped, running in the air. “Abandon ship,” Dan shouted, fighting his way aft, in the direction of the fire. He heard them repeating it behind him.

  The flames were coming up from the after deckhouse, from what was left of the Dash deck, licking swiftly forward. Their tips fluttered in the wind like bright pennants. They danced on the surface of the hull, and he thought for a confused moment that the metal itself was burning. The smoke was choking and the heat grew as he fought his way aft.

  He got abreast of the Asroc launcher before the smoke and heat forced him back. He suddenly realized he was still carrying the binoculars. He tore them off and wedged them carefully behind a standpipe.

  He had to think, had to think what to do. Boy’s Town was forward of the break. He wanted his books, Susan’s picture. He fought his way inside, past the sailors coming out. The stream pushed him back.

  One of the men coming out was Norden. His skivvy shirt was torn and he was barefoot. He clutched Dan’s arm. “Lenson! What happened? I was below, in my rack, all of a sudden—”

  “Kennedy hit us.”

  “Christ. Christ! And the captain—”

  “He said to abandon, Rich. Get as many guys off as we can before she goes.”

  The weapons officer stared past him. For an infinitely long, suspended space of time that could have been instants or years, Dan saw the fire reflected in his wide-open eyes, two miniature cones of vivid flame, as if the burning was within him, not around him.

  Then Norden was gone, running, headed aft.

  Suddenly his disorientation, his remoteness, was replaced by fear. Forget the picture. He had to get a life jacket, get to his raft, get off. He was going to die here if he didn’t get off. He lurched into a clumsy run, slamming into other men. The deck slanted farther and he dropped to all fours, scrabbling on hands and knees. An animal moan rose in his throat.

  Then someone was gripping his arm, calling his name over the growing hissing roar. He tried to pull away. But the hand held fast.

  He came back to himself with a rush of shame, straightening and turning, shielding his eyes against the light.

  Chief Pedersen and three others were hauling gear out of one of the fire stations. One of them, mustached, thin, grime-faced, let go of Dan’s shoulder. He bent, straightened, and his glasses flashed as he tossed the end of a roll of hose over the side.

  Dan saw that it was Alan Evlin. His uniform shirt was torn and dirty and his khaki trousers were wet to the knees.

  “Better get to your station, Dan; get your men taken care of. We probably don’t have much longer.”

  “What about you, Al? Why are you still here?”

  The others staggered out of the locker like pallbearers around a coffin. They set their burden down and the firelight played over the bright machined brass fittings of a portable pump. Evlin grimaced but didn’t answer. He bent and began priming it.

  “Did you all get the word? Captain said to abandon ship.”

  “Yeah, we all heard, Mr. Lenson.” Coffey pulled at a cord. The pump started with a whine. The black seaman had to shout his next words. “Gonna try some water on it, anyway. Might hold it back a few minutes, let more guys get topside.”

  Pedersen hefted the nozzle. The motor increased speed. A stream gushed out, faltered, then reached out toward the fire.

  “You need help?” shouted Dan.

  Evlin answered this time. “No, think we got it covered. Thanks.”

  The operations officer glanced behind him. Pedersen and Matt and Coffey were walking the nozzle slowly aft, shielding their faces from the heat. The water went into the fire and disappeared. “Doesn’t look good, does it? Well, we’ll try this for five minutes, then pack it up.”

  “Don’t stay too long.”

  “No problem,” Evlin grinned suddenly, teeth white against his smudged face. “See you later.”

  “See you, Al.”

  Evlin turned away. He shielded his forehead with an arm and went to join his men, kicking a kink out of the hose.

  Dan left them and went on along the slanted deck. The iron taste was still in his mouth. His stomach was jumping and he knew without looking that his hands were shaking. But somehow, now, he wasn’t so afraid. Seeing them go about their business so calmly had steadied him. Men below, he thought. He hoped none of his guys were down there in the dark—

  He halted, struck by a sudden horrifying thought. Isaacs was below. Locked below. Had anyone thought of, remembered, cared enough about him to go back?

  * * *

  HE reversed direction and fought his way down a leaning ladder past frantic, cursing men in skivvies who were trying to come up. The part of his head promoting self-preservation was still trying to argue him out of it. He belonged topside, organizing the survivors. She could go any minute. He’d be trapped—

  But something about the way a soot-streaked face had grinned at him kept him going down.

  He reached the foot of the ladder and crouched, glancing around swiftly. The interior of the ship was dim, more shadowed than lighted by the sallow gleams of emergency lanterns. The green tile decks by the mess line slanted upward, shining faintly with the satin smoothness of fresh-buffed wax. The tables glowed too, clean and ready for an early chow that now would never come. White smoke eddied along the overhead, feeling its way like a rising tide in the expectant, waiting silence.

  He gathered his courage and ran forward, past the chiefs’ mess, then down another ladder and forward again into the narrowing forepeak, deep below the waterline, parts of the ship where, even normally, few people went. Behind him the shouting and din died away. No running feet drummed here. He jerked open rusty scuttles, scrambled down canted empty ladders, possessed by the same feeling he had in dreams, when everyone else had left for formation and he alone searched for some item of uniform, something without which he didn’t dare go back.

  A hammering and howling gradually grew below and ahead as he scrambled panting forward through the shadowed, humid, paint-smelling dark.

  The supply locker had a thin me
tal door secured from the outside by a brass Navy padlock. He could hear Isaacs hammering and screaming on the far side. He tried the hasp. It was locked, all right.

  A dogging wrench offered itself on the bulkhead, a seven-inch length of heavy pipe. He jerked it free and began hammering at the hasp. Sobs burst from his throat. The club dented the metal, dented the door. He thought, Slow down. Think, goddamn it! He caught his breath and aimed the next blow. Hard to see now. Eyes smarting, filling with tears. A flicker showed at the far end of the corridor.

  The lock snapped off and clattered to the deck. He forced the door inward. Isaacs was just inside. Blood covered his hands like red gloves. They stared at each other. “Mr. Lenson,” Isaacs whispered.

  “Get out, Ikey,” he gasped. “We’re abandoning. Get topside, get out.”

  The petty officer bolted out and disappeared up the, corridor without another word or backward look. Dan followed him, his feet sliding and splashing. He realized suddenly that the deck was covered with running water. He passed the open door of one of the supply storerooms and halted. Cummings was squatting by a safe, hunched forward, coughing in the thickening haze as he set the dials a millimeter at a time.

  “Chow Hound! Tom!”

  “Yo.”

  “D’you get the word? We’re abandoning.”

  “Just a minute.” The disbursing officer cursed and struck the steel with his fist, then bent forward again to the dial. Dan left him and ran on, downhill now, planting his feet in the corner formed by the deck and bulkhead. He had only one idea now, to get out.

  At the next level, there was less smoke but more water. It was a foot deep in the corners. Two chiefs were coming out of the lounge. One was swinging a gym bag. The other was pulling on a foul-weather jacket. In the amber dim of the battle lanterns, the deck was littered with chairs and dishes and clothing. Floating on its side in the rising water was Bloch’s model ship, masts snapped and rigging snarled by someone’s boot.

  Sailors pushed by him, going the wrong way. He shouted and grabbed their clothes, got them turned around and headed aft and upward. When no more came out of the dark he followed them. At the next ladder, he caught up to the chiefs. They climbed with maddening slowness. A wave of hot air and bitter whitish smoke overtook them, scorching his throat, and he coughed until his feet slipped on the canted treads.

  He finally emerged at the top into a transverse corridor. At the same moment, he realized he was lost. He scrambled instinctively uphill into darkness and came to a dead end. He clawed at metal, and suddenly, unexpectedly, it opened over him. He grabbed the edge of the hatch and pulled himself up into the open air, sobbing and retching out the smoke that coated his lungs.

  Life jackets littered the deck, soft, yielding beneath his feet like lifeless bodies. The deck was bright as noon, lighted by an immense roaring pyre that soared above the masthead, shedding sparks at its apex, slanted by the wind. The sea was burning around it.

  He hauled himself up by the lifeline and looked for the after section of the ship. Couldn’t see it. Maybe it was already gone. The engine rooms were the largest spaces on Ryan, and the carrier’s bow had ripped right through them.

  He turned and looked up at the bridge, expecting to see the captain still there. But the wing was empty.

  Almost helplessly, he turned again, like a moth, toward the mountain of flame. Within the burning light, shadows moved. He picked his way slowly toward them, shielding his face from the radiated heat.

  The shadows became men, clustered around the whaleboat. They were on the far side of the flames from him, too surrounded and suffused by roaring, wavering brightness for him to recognize individuals. The inferno had spread, cutting them off. It looked as if they were having trouble lowering the boat. Ryan’s increasing list wouldn’t make it any easier. For a moment, he thought one might be Lassard. Another gesticulated lankily, like Greenwald. But who was that heavy man climbing over the gunwale? And behind him, that one in a blackened T-shirt? Then the curtain of flame shifted, thickened, scorching his face, and he had to fall back and turn away.

  It occurred to him that it was time he thought of abandoning. Should he go to his assigned raft? No, it was in the heart of the fire. He picked up a life jacket and began strapping it on. His hands shook ludicrously; he heard a short bark of laughter; it was his. And after everything, his cap was still on his head. He thought for a moment of keeping it. Then he ripped it off and threw it over the side.

  Seeing it disappear reminded him, as he knotted the last tie, that you shouldn’t go over the high side. Barnacles, ripped steel could shred you like cheese in a grater. He thumbed the waterproof light pinned to the vest. It didn’t work. Fortunately, there were plenty of Mae Wests lying around. He pulled lights off two and stuck them into his pockets.

  A group of men came running up the deck. One of them was Lipson, who stopped. “You all right, sir?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “You got blood on your trou, there.”

  His fingers found a sticky tear in one thigh. “Must have caught an edge someplace. It’s all right.”

  “Well, okay, sir. Don’t hang around too long.”

  “Gotcha. You, too.”

  The radarman ran aft. Dan went forward, limping a little.

  When he came out of the breaker onto the forecastle, he was surprised to find a group of sailors standing by the mount, looking out into the dark. “What’s going on?” he asked them.

  “Ship out there, sah,” said one. He recognized Mabalacat, the wardroom steward.

  The bow was rising slowly. Which meant that the stern was going down. “You guys better get in the water.”

  “It’s gonna be awful cold in there, sir.”

  “I hear you, but if she goes down sudden she may suck us under. Jump in and swim clear.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  They didn’t act frightened, but neither did they move. He picked up a life jacket and threw it at a man without one. “Get over the side,” he said again.

  “Hey, you first, sir.”

  “It’s a deal, Cherry.” He threw his legs over the lifeline and looked down.

  The sea was black, with sparkling highlights of fire. Heads bobbed here and there, faces bright, looking strangely tranquil. His hands gripped the line. He tried to make them let go, but they wouldn’t.

  “Jesus,” he said out loud, “we got to get off this thing.”

  The ship didn’t seem unstable, though it was still listing, and pitching a little in the seas. He cast a wild glance aft. More men, lightless cutouts against the intense white brilliance, were leaping from the 02 level. He saw one hit on his stomach and disappear. He didn’t come back up. The fire sound was enormous but bizarrely cheerful, like a bonfire at a pep rally. He remembered a brush blaze he’d fought as a teenager. The boys were bussed out and given Little Indians to strap on their backs. The nozzles gave out a thin stream, like a man pissing. There’d been lots of joking about that.

  “Goddamn it,” he said, “I’ve got to jump.”

  The lifeline was biting his flesh, but still his hands wouldn’t let go. A cook in a white apron climbed over the line next to him and went headfirst into the glittering water. He came up on his back, looking up at the ship, and began to backstroke clumsily away. His face glowed like the moon in a dark sky.

  Dan pleaded silently with his rigid fingers and suddenly, unexpectedly, they released. He teetered for a moment vertical on the deck edge and then kicked away weakly and plunged feetfirst, bent forward, into the sea.

  The impact slammed the breath from him and water filled his mouth. He clawed at the darkness, but it was the life jacket that brought him up with a rush.

  He bobbed limply on the surface, wheezing at the sudden intense cold. The side of the ship was an arm’s length away. There was slimy growth along the boot topping. A man hurtled over him and hit within spitting distance, sending water over his head.

  He began swimming then, starting instinctively with a dog
paddle, then turning on his stomach for a crawl. The life jacket dragged maddeningly. He swam as hard as he could for fifty strokes and then was exhausted. He turned on his back and let the life jacket hold him up and looked back at the ship.

  The forward half of USS Ryan floated bow high, her deck tilted toward him. She had moved in the water and he realized she still had a little way left on her. From the forward stack aft, a solid pyramid of white flame ran down along the sides and spilled into the sea. Patches of inky darkness showed between the fires on the water. Light glowed from the windows of the bridge, ruddy and warm, welcoming, like farmhouses passed by night. He remembered the decades-deep accumulation of paint, the crowded cable runs full of flammable insulation. The light wavered on the black water. A few men were still jumping. A black man in white trousers and life jacket stood calmly at the rail, looking out.

  He lifted his arm and turned the face of his watch to the flame. Thirteen minutes had passed since the collision.

  He wondered then what had happened to the others. He hadn’t seen the captain since he left the bridge. He hoped Al and Chief Pedersen and Ali X. had left their pump. All his men forward in berthing … he wished now he’d stayed aboard longer. At least he’d remembered Isaacs in time. The makeshift brig must be underwater by now.

  He became conscious then of the men around him in the water. Some were still shouting, but most were quiet now, tossed up and down by the four-foot seas. Some had turned on their lights. One he did not recognize with hair plastered over his forehead called out, “Think she’ll float, Mr. Lenson?”

  “Not much longer,” he shouted back. The words came out slurred. He couldn’t feel his lips anymore.

  “She looks pretty buoyant. Fire’ll get her first.”

  “Maybe,” he shouted.

  “Five bucks says she’s still there tomorrow morning.”