The Circle

by David Poyer

  THE COURT: That is apposite, but we are more interested in what happened after the collision.

  A. Sir, we got up on the sound-powered phones right away. We made contact with the forward repair locker, but the after one didn’t answer up. We had battle lanterns, so we could see. Since there was smoke, I made the men put on oxygen breathing apparatus. We tested pressure in the fire mains, but it was zero. I didn’t know it then, but that was because the engine rooms and firerooms were gone.

  Anyway, I sent out investigators. They came back saying there was nothing but water beyond frame 110 and the superstructure was burning above that. Well, I heard at that time from the forward locker that we had been cut in two. I figured then we had to try to make the forward half float and fight the fire. We were taking water by then and the smoke was getting thick. It didn’t bother us because we had the OBAs, but I was getting worried because I didn’t have contact with nobody but the forward locker.

  Well, then I moved the party forward along the 2 level and sent men back to try to establish a watertight boundary. I sent men topside through a scuttle and we rigged two Handy Billies, that’s a gas-powered pump. Some of the operations guys had another one going and we all got water on the fire. The guys reported back, though, it was a fuel fire, and water wasn’t doing much good. Also they were afraid the magazines might go.

  But anyway, we couldn’t get a boundary set—the hatches were buckled; you couldn’t dog them. We didn’t have no steel-bending gear. I was still on the circuit, but now the forward station didn’t answer, either. Then the captain came on the line.

  THE COURT: Commander Packer?

  A. Yes, sir. There’s a phone on the bridge, by his chair; you can tap into any circuit on the ship. He asked me were we still down at Repair Two. I said, “Yes, sir,” but that we was getting kind of discouraged. He told me to get out of there. I said, “Sir, we might could stop the flooding forward of frame one ten, and that fuel fire’s gonna burn itself out if it doesn’t get into the cable runs.” He said it was already on the bridge and the ship was done. He said that was an order, for us to get out and abandon.

  Q. At what time did the captain call you?

  A. I can’t say, sir. Anyway, I passed that word and got the guys out haiko, I mean pronto. I was climbing the ladder myself when everything went to hell. There was this terrific crash, and she just went right on over. I fell down through the scuttle and lost my OBA mask.

  What then. I knew we had to get out the main deck, what was then underwater. I knew capsized with all the flooding she already had, she’d go bow-up in a couple seconds and slide on down to Davy Jones’s in box. One of the guys had a light that still worked and we found the main deck scuttle. There was water just shooting in. I made them go down into it and told them to swim for it. But a lot of them I never saw again after that.

  After we come up outside, the guys that made it, we saw her go down. She didn’t last but about fifteen seconds after we got out. We swam around a while. We found a raft, but there wasn’t room for everybody. Some of us hung to the sides. We gradually sort of moved away from things. The wind pushed us I guess faster than the men in the water. We saw lights, but we didn’t have no paddles to get over to them. Later a boat went by. We waved and shouted, but they never stopped. It was after that a couple other guys slipped under. It was awful cold in that water.

  Q. What kind of boat?

  A. Like a ship’s boat, but it wasn’t showing any lights; we couldn’t tell whose it was.

  Anyway after dawn, about eight, a helicopter come over and saw us and then CALLOOSAHATCHEE come picked us up.

  * * *

  DAN sat rigid. So that was what had happened to Packer. To Evlin. To Coffey and Ohlmeyer and Popeye Rambaugh and OS3 Matt. To all those brave enough to stay. Brave, as he hadn’t been. Unto death.

  The next time he was called, no one would cut him off. He owed it to them to see that the truth was told.

  * * *

  THE Court adjourned at 1510, to reconvene at 0900 the following day.

  23

  AS Susan Lenson piloted her father’s MG through the tangle of access roads east of the Pentagon, the Potomac opened before them, edged with ice under a winter sky, the center, broad as a ship channel, the dull, dark, burnished hue of antique bronze.

  Dan slumped on the passenger side, his tie loosened. He was watching his wife.

  She drove fast and skillfully. As she often did when driving, or writing, or studying her archaeology monographs, she’d tucked a twist of hair like black glistening rope between small, even teeth. She’d perched sunglasses on her nose, but they rested instead, as they often do with Asians, on her cheeks.

  He dropped his eyes to small, fine wrists. She didn’t look third trimester in the loose overcoat. Her perfume brought back memories of watching her put it on, touching the stopper to her body here and here and here before the mirror. In winter she grew almost sallow; in summer she tanned in a day. Her neck was delicate as glass. He touched it lightly, stroking downward, and after a little while she turned her head, rubbing his hand with her cheek as she reached down to shift.

  The last time they’d been in this car, she’d been straddling him, moonlight glowing on her sweaty breasts. He half-closed his eyes. All at once the image was more vivid than the oiled walnut dash, her wool coat, the snow hissing in the wheel wells. He remembered her whispered cautions, and his clumsy fumbling toward something unknown and frightening and incredibly desirable. An erection stirred beneath the codeine buzz, then subsided as he realized she was not nude, it was not summer, that the seat belt all but disappeared beneath the swell of her belly.

  “Crap,” she muttered, jerking the wheel. The car skidded for a few feet before the tires caught again. Blown snow broke over them like a wave as a cement truck rocketed by, on its way to the complex springing up at Hyman Rickover’s fiat in Crystal City. He flinched before he realized it was only that, snow. The sun glared down on the inch-thick film of white that covered the city.

  He closed his eyes, letting the 1600 pill wash him to and fro like a starfish in surf. What a winter. Endless. Still only January. He wanted to hack his way sweating through green jungle. Then suddenly he could see the jungle, smell dank vegetable rot, hear in the verdant distance the echoing harsh judgments of mynahs.… He forced his eyes open, blinking as the little car whined up onto the George Washington Parkway. Weird, he thought. Things happen in your mind when you take this stuff. Good thing I’m not driving. But I’m here. Back with Susan. A hell of a lot of guys off Ryan won’t ever hold their wives again. So knock off the crazy visions, or whatever they are, Mr. Mind.

  “Boy,” she said. “That hurts.”

  “What hurts?”

  “My belly button. Nobody told me my belly button would hurt.”

  “Is that right?” Dan said. “Does it hurt bad?”

  “I’ll live. Say, I read an interesting fact. Something you might like.”

  “What’s that, Babe?”

  “It’s about seals. They can dive fifteen hundred feet down, then surface rapidly. They can collapse their lungs. They can stay under for more than an hour.”

  Thinking of diving seals made him thirsty. “Uh, that’s interesting. Where’d you pick that up?”

  “Mom and I went over to the Mall last week. Museum of Natural History.”

  The Chans, her mother and father, lived northwest of Washington, in Rockville, Maryland. She’d taken leave from school for the last month of her pregnancy, staying with them. The Navy hadn’t been able to find her with the news about the sinking. When he finally figured out where she was, and called from Newport, they’d decided it would be just as well for her to stay in Rockville till he came down, then join up at a hotel in town.

  So that this, having her pick him up today, was the first he’d seen of her since she’d dropped him off at the pier in Newport. He’d recognized her dad’s car as it pulled up to the west face. They’d hugged, kissed, but there’d been something p
erfunctory and tentative about it.

  He’d looked forward to this so much. There’d been times he thought he’d never see her again. But now that they were back together, it wasn’t what he’d expected. It’s physical, he told himself. Her pregnancy, his injuries made it awkward. A few hours and everything would be fine.

  “I’ve never been there,” he said.

  “It’s worth a trip. They have a big exhibition from South America—Craig Morris’s work. He’s been excavating on the Inca.”

  “I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.”

  She caught the exit for the Key Bridge and rode the car’s momentum up the hill into Rosslyn. When they pulled into the Marriott she slowed suddenly, snatching a parking space as a cab pulled out from in front of it. A businessman who had been waiting behind the taxi gave her a dirty look. He half-raised his hand, then saw Dan and lowered it and put his car back into gear, looking for another space.

  The lobby hit them in the face with warm air. He blinked, dragging himself across clean, unworn carpet. He’d forgotten how elegant the civilian world could be.

  “Dinner? It’s early yet, but—”

  “I’m ready. All I had was a sandwich.”

  “Here? Or do you want to go out?”

  “Oh, let’s eat here.”

  “Are you feeling all right, Dan? You look tired.”

  “It’s this goddamn shoulder. I haven’t done anything all day but sit and listen to people testify.”

  “Weren’t you on the stand?”

  “Yeah, once, but not for long. I think tomorrow’s Dan’s big day.”

  “How is it going?”

  “I’m not supposed to discuss it.”

  She glanced at him. “Even with me?”

  “Even with you.”

  “Okay, fine,” she said. They went down the corridor. There was a line, but after a look at them both, the maitre d’ seated them right away.

  Facing each other, they seemed to have nothing to talk about. He played with a fork. Anger pushed dully against the protective membrane of fatigue and apathy as he followed her glance out into the night. In the early darkness traffic choked the parkway and the Roosevelt Bridge. On their way home, he thought, to wives, husbands, families they saw every day. One thing about the Navy, it taught you not to take anything for granted. Beyond the shimmering lines of stalled traffic, Washington was a scattered, twinkling hurly-burly of light, like a distant carnival. The floodlighted Memorial was a white finger flipping off the world.

  “What’s wrong, Betts?” he said at last.

  “Nothing. I’m tired, too. My back hurts.”

  He was considering pressing it, getting it out in the open, when someone said from beside their table, “Excuse me. You’re from Ryan, aren’t you?”

  The woman was stocky, with shoulder-length brown hair. Her voluminous green dress looked odd, though he couldn’t have said how. Her face was round, not chubby, but broad. It was hard to guess how old she was.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner. I’m Deanne Evlin.”

  It took a second before the name registered. By the time he’d stammered something Susan had asked her to sit. He pulled another chair over. Even close up, she could be twenty or forty; she had an air of immunity to time that, when he thought of it, Evlin had sort of had, too.

  “I’m glad to meet you. Sorry I didn’t understand right away—”

  “You’re hurt.” She had a soft voice, soft and clear.

  “Not too badly. Look, Mrs. Evlin.”

  “Deanne, please.”

  “Deanne, I had no idea you were in town. I’d have looked you up. I had a lot of—a lot of respect for Alan.”

  His words seemed to release some inner tension. She dropped her eyes, and he thought for a moment she’d weep. But she didn’t. Instead she smiled up again, a slow, sad smile with peace woven into it. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “It’s the truth. Al and I—we got to talk some. On the bridge, at night. I wish we’d had time for more. He was quite a man. A good officer, but … in a different way from the others.”

  “Did he show you the picture of the Master?”

  Dan grinned.

  “He shows that to everybody. I think he uses it—used it—as a test. The Master heard of it, and laughed! He thought it was amusing. There’s power, you see, even in a photograph of him.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that. Al told me about you, and your MS work, and your—plans together. I’m sorry. Did you come here for the court of inquiry? I guess that’s a stupid question.”

  “Not so stupid. I guess no one expected me. They won’t even let me in.”

  “That’s right, it’s closed except to survivors. I was trying to think where you would have been sitting. But still—”

  “That’s terrible!” said Susan, putting her hand on Deanne’s.

  “Yes, you’d think they’d let me know something. But all they say is that it’s in progress and I’ll be informed of the outcome. But how can I just wait? It’s as if he’s on trial, isn’t it? Even though he’s already rejoined?”

  “Rejoined—yes. Yes, it is.”

  “I wish—not that it hadn’t happened, everything that happens is right—but that he’d had just a little more time. He was thinking of leaving the Navy, you know. It wasn’t my will, or the Master’s. But we discussed it, his participation, and whether it was appropriate for his stage of development. He was close to a decision.”

  “He’d made it.”

  “I’m sorry?” The calm eyes turned to him.

  “He’d made that decision, Deanne. On this cruise.”

  “And what did he decide?”

  He said awkwardly, “He told me he’d decided to get out. And when it came to, to when he had to act on what he believed—I don’t know if I agree with what he did. But I think it was the decision you’d have wanted from him. It would have made you proud.”

  “I think I see. Will you be able to tell me more later? It would mean a lot to me, to know more.”

  “If I can.” He caught Susan’s look. “I mean—yes. After the trial.”

  “And now they’re trying to find him guilty of crashing his ship into the other one, is that right?”

  “It’s not that simple—well, maybe it is, when you get right down to it. There’re two easy goats. The captain, and Alan. I don’t think either of them deserves the blame, but Packer was the commanding officer, and Al had the deck when Kennedy hit us.”

  “Is there a lawyer? Someone to represent him?”

  “I don’t think so. Captain Packer’s family has someone there. A Lieutenant Hauck. But he had to go through some kind of appointment process.”

  “Then I want to ask your advice, as someone who knew and loved Alan.” In the candlelight her face shone like an icon. “Our society has a branch here in Washington. Perhaps they could arrange for someone to represent him. Do you think Alan ought to have someone there?”

  He struggled briefly with an unwillingness to drag civilians into the struggle he saw shaping up. But the way Johnstone was hammering away, with only Hauck against him, seemed unfair. “That might not be a bad idea. If you really care—”

  “Of course she cares,” said Susan hotly.

  “I only meant—”

  “I know what you meant,” said Deanne. “Thank you for your advice. I hope you are both happy, Dan and Susan, and find peace.”

  When she had left he sat staring into his coffee. Then he looked at his watch, and shook a tablet out of the envelope. “That was funny, running into her.”

  “Not that funny. There’re only two hotels this close to the Pentagon.”

  “But how did she know who we were?”

  “That’s not hard, either. There’s nobody else here in uniform.”

  “You’re probably right. Dessert?”

  “God, no. Maybe a glass of wine. A little one.”

  “Is that okay for the—for the baby?”

  “I gave up smoking for her. I’m
not giving up my whole life.”

  He shook his head when the waiter asked what he wanted. It didn’t seem like a good idea to mix alcohol and pills.

  “Well, I guess it’s time to go up,” Susan said at last. He thought she didn’t sound very eager.

  * * *

  IN the room, he drew the curtains, then shrugged slowly out of his service dress blouse. He hung it carefully on a chair, leaning against the wall for a moment, fighting vertigo. The wall itself seemed to tilt, as if the solid ground were rolling. She was in the bathroom, telling him about some friend of hers she’d had lunch with. “Moira Lieberman. Remember her? We were roommates. She was with me when I met you. At that dance, in Smoke Hall.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Don’t say ‘Uh-huh.’ Do you remember her or not?”

  “The heavy girl, right? Long dark hair?”

  “She’s not heavy. Just solid. And it’s short now. She’s doing her master’s in North American Prehistory with Robert Kelly. I wish they had something like that in Newport. But of course they don’t.…”

  He was only half-listening. The bed yielded softly, unlike a bunk. Despite the drug he was getting excited. “I thought you were in the program at Salve Regina.”

  “That’s an evening class, and it’s not very good. I’m just going to get farther and farther behind.…”

  She came out in a shapeless gray sweatshirt and pants. Beneath the Naval Academy crest her stomach thrust out at him, round as a mooring buoy. “I recognize those,” he said.

  “They’re the only things that fit me now. They keep me warm at night.”

  “I can take over that job again.”

  When he put his arm around her she stood still, letting him hug her. “Don’t squeeze me too tight,” she muttered into his neck.

  “Sorry.”

  “Want to feel it?”

  “What?”

  “The baby, stupid. Put your hand here. Feel it? She’s kicking.”

  Beneath his hand he felt a faint movement, slow yet violent, somehow unsettling.

  “How do you know it’s a she?”