by David Poyer
They didn’t respond, at least not verbally. Somebody shifted in back. The others stared at Dan expectantly.
“Now, this ‘petition.’ That’s not how you present a grievance in the Navy. In fact, it’s close to what military law calls ‘conspiracy.’ I know some things have seemed not so shit hot lately. But this is still a U.S. Navy warship. We still have the UCMJ and you still have a chain of command. Any complaints or suggestions, take them up with your division chiefs or division officers. If what you hear from them doesn’t satisfy you, then I’ll see any man who has a beef, one-on-one.”
A murmur. “What was that?” said Dan sharply.
“You said we got a chain of command. But you don’t got any orders, and Mr. Juskoviac does.”
Mellows dropped his lounging attitude and moved forward threateningly. “You shut your fucking mouth, Carr.”
Dan said, “Wait a minute, Marsh. What do you mean, ‘Mr. Juskoviac does’?”
“That’s what he said. He said he at least got orders saying he’s the XO. You don’t have anything says you’re in charge.”
“That’s enough. You people are on the edge of some serious trouble—”
“The chief’s right,” Dan told them. “You can all go below now.” The ones in back started to drift. “No—wait a minute.”
He straightened, keeping the anger reined, but letting it show. “For your information, I do have orders. They are verbal, but they are just as effective as paper orders, until those paper orders arrive. So don’t allow yourselves or your shipmates any illusions I am not in full command of this ship. Another thing. The next man who circulates a petition will be charged under Article Eighty-one and Article Ninety-four. If you don’t know what those articles mean, you’ll find the Manual for Courts-Martial in the ship’s office. They are the articles in the Uniform Code of Military Justice for conspiracy, mutiny, and sedition.
“Any other questions?”
He held them fixed, but not one returned his look. They stood completely silent. He said, hearing the edge in his voice and also something that, to his surprise, sounded close to contempt: “Dismissed.”
* * *
“YOU wanted to see me?”
Dan observed himself as if from a distance. He had to get a grip; this anger took him by surprise sometimes. It was the lack of sleep and the continual stress.
He said to Greg Juskoviac, “Yeah, let’s take a little stroll.”
A fresh wind out of Asia swept the fantail. Dan waited till they were aft of the quad forty tub. The lookout glanced around, then stood quickly from a folding chair set with its front legs on the gunwale strake. Dan took three quick strides to him, jerked the light metal chair up off the deck, held it over the lifeline, then pitched it out and down. It splashed into the whirling foam Gaddis dragged behind her. Still visible beneath the water, it glinted for a moment through the bubble-streaked sea, then faded away into the deep green. The lookout gaped, then jerked his binoculars up and turned away hastily, taking refuge behind the black barrels.
“You OK?” Juskoviac said, his voice a blend of alarm and concern.
“No, I’m not OK! What the hell are you telling people? I just had a bunch of white-hats tell me you told them you had orders and I didn’t.”
Juskoviac licked his lips. “I didn’t say that exactly.”
“What exactly did you say, Greg? I’d very much like to know, because right now I’m thinking of relieving you of your duties.”
“They came to me for advice. A lot of these guys, they were jerked in here en route someplace else. They’re gap fillers. They want to know when they’re going to get back to their commands.”
“Don’t stop now. Keep explaining.”
“So one of them said why were you CO anyway, we were the same rank.… I said something about the MTT and you being senior. Then they asked about my orders, whether I had orders to the ship. I said sure, of course I do. I didn’t say anything about command orders. They aren’t command orders.”
“They sure as shit aren’t.”
Juskoviac seemed about to say something else. Dan waited, sure he knew what it was. That his own weren’t command orders, either; that at best he was head of the training team on a Pakistani frigate named PNS Tughril. If he said it, Dan was ready to rip Juskoviac’s head off and throw it overboard after the chair. But finally the exec said just, “Yessir.”
“OK, so these boys consult with you about their grievances. Great; that’s XO territory. But the next thing I know they’re in my stateroom, presenting a goddamn petition, for God’s sake. And where the hell are you? Leading them! Do you have the faintest, slightest idea that is not your role? Do you have any conception of that?”
Juskoviac said in a sulky tone, “Well, I’ve been trying to take care of this Vorenkamp thing. You wanted me to write up the investigation.”
Dan closed his eyes. It was hopeless explaining or remonstrating. The man did not have it in him. How had he made it to lieutenant commander? The average competent petty officer third had more leadership ability.
“Listen carefully now, Greg, OK? Words of one syllable. I am not happy with your work. Either in this matter or anything else I have asked you to do since I took over this ship. I’ve tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ve tried everything I know to motivate you, to explain how to accomplish your duties, and it hasn’t worked. I am now terminating my efforts. I considered, on the way down here from the bridge, relieving you and putting Jim Armey in as XO. But I need him in the engine room, and I can’t afford to let you fuck things up down there. I’d swap you and Chick, but the same goes for the guns. In fact, I can’t think of anyplace in the ship for you except maybe the scullery, and that would bring too much discredit on the rest of the wardroom. So I’m going to leave you, officially, with the title of XO. But you are out of the loop from now on command-wise, and the day we touch port you are off this ship.”
Dan expected Juskoviac to lash out, at the very least verbally, even to punch him. That was why he’d come back to the fantail, where they could have it out without an audience. It would have been a relief, a release. But all the exec did was get a hurt, sad look. “If you weren’t happy, you could have told me,” he said.
Dan felt himself start to lose it. He stared around wildly and caught the aft lookout glancing at them out of the corner of his eyes and murmuring into the phones. He brought his hands down with an effort. “That’s all I have to say. Anybody else comes to you with their problems, send him to Chief Mellows. He’s the guy I have to depend on around here. Unfortunately. Do we understand each other?”
Juskoviac said, “And you still want me to do the investigation report, right?”
Dan gave up. He started forward. He glanced back, to see the slim figure standing silhouetted against the sky, against the wake; he couldn’t see Juskoviac’s face, but he could see his hands, held close against his thighs.
Then Dan heard running steps behind him. He whirled, bringing his fists up, but Juskoviac stopped a few feet away. The exec was panting, and Dan saw with stunned fascination how he’d transformed, in that brief period of time, into Juskoviac, Flip Side. For the first time, he wondered if there might be something more going on with the man than being an incompetent no-load; if his Jekyll and Hyde act might have a depth no one had suspected.
“You’re not getting away with this,” the exec said in a low, tensile voice like a steel strand drawn tight and plucked. His hand shot out to grip the lifeline as Gaddis rolled. “You’re not going to get away with screwing me again, and all these guys.”
“I never meant to screw you, Greg. I don’t have anything against you personally—”
“Oh, shut up!” Juskoviac screamed it out, and despite himself Dan took a step back. Glancing up, he saw faces appear above them, peering down over the bent and twisted frames of the helo deck life nets. “I’ve listened to your gung-ho, Blue and Gold bullshit since you pulled your stiletto out of Dick Ottero. ‘For the good of the ship.�
�� ‘To get us out of the yard early, so we can go to Desert Shield.’ It’s a load of fucking crap, you don’t give a shit about anything but your fucking promotion, and it doesn’t fool me or the men anymore. That’s the reason they’re presenting petitions. That’s why they’re setting fires. And it’s only going to get worse. When they decide they’ve had enough, I’ll be on their side. You’ve overstepped your authority. No; you don’t have any authority. You think you’re some kind of self-anointed king.”
Dan fought for control, aware of those listening above, but also, with one corner of his mind, realizing the situation was moving toward court-martial territory. If it did, witnesses to a scene like this would be invaluable. “Are you threatening me, Greg?”
“Oh, I don’t need to threaten you, Dan,” Juskoviac said, and the queer knowing little smile he said it with was more unnerving than his words. “I don’t need to do a damn thing. You’re blowing this one all by your lonesome. All I have to do is stand by to pick up the pieces after it goes off.”
“I won’t allow you to take her over, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Dan told him, but even in his own ears his voice sounded blustering, defensive, and weak. He knew he was right. But something in Juskoviac’s malevolent certainty had penetrated his confidence like a crossbow bolt through a faulty breastplate.
A murmur and then a scatter of laughter came from above him. He did not look up. He stood rooted as the exec, still with that secret smile, came toward him, brushed by, close enough to touch, then undogged an exterior door and disappeared inside the skin of the ship.
18
THE next afternoon a minuscule darkness took shape on the horizon, a speck in the immensity of sea and sky. Dan broke out the package of charts Suriadiredja’s staff had turned over at the briefing in Singapore.
Dahakit was an isolated dot of land far to the west of Luzon. The chart informed him it had been surveyed by Comdr. N. P. H. Harkins, R.N., HMS Blazon, in 1894, with additions and corrections from a Japanese survey in 1937. The longitude of all points depended on Tokyo Meteorological Observatory being in Longitude 139° 44’ 41’’ East. It was an atoll formation, with four comma-shaped islands spaced around a central lagoon. The largest was about half a mile long. Dan eyed the chart for a long time, weighing his options. Noting the group of men standing on the bow, looking toward the atoll as it slowly rose from the sea.
Jim Armey, at his elbow, wiping his hands on a rag. The engineer’s overalls were filthy and wet. Dark circles rimmed eyes that looked like accesses to hell. He said in an undertone, “Thinking of dropping the hook, Skipper? Swim call, at least?”
“There’s no reason to stop here.”
“Lot of heat stress down below. Since the air-conditioning went down. We haven’t been seeing you in the engine spaces like we used to.”
“I’ve got a lot on my plate up here.”
“Sure you do, but you ought to know something else, too. You tie a safety down long enough, something explodes. The word is things are going to start breaking down in earnest if we don’t stop at that island.”
Dan gritted his teeth. “Not you, too, Jim.”
Armey said quietly, “Hey, I’m on your side. Greg came around to talk to me about you. I told him to pound sand. But if somebody stuffs a rag into an oil line, we’re gonna have permanent damage.” He shaded his eyes at the island. “Inhabited?”
“Couple of hundred people, according to the sailing directions.”
“It’s real wearing, steaming shorthanded like we are.”
“You want to lay over a couple of days, Jim? Is that what you’re saying, in your subtle way?”
“I wouldn’t say no,” Armey said, looking ahead with a strange, distant expression. “Just to get some shut-eye would be nice. But even if we anchor, I guess we’ll have to keep a steaming watch.”
Dan weighed it, looking at the chart again. He’d been thinking about anchoring off, using the atoll for a shelter and putting the hook down to the south. But the bottom went almost straight down. They’d have to drop close to some wicked-looking reefs.
Or they could go inside. The eastern entrance was charted at eight fathoms. The lagoon within beckoned with twelve to twenty, adequate depths and good holding ground. That seemed deep for a coral atoll, but he checked three times to make sure it was fathoms, not yards or feet or meters, and fathoms was what the chart said.
He slowly realized everybody in the pilothouse was stealing glances at him. The men on the forecastle were staring up at the bridge. He didn’t like the appearance of being forced to acquiesce. But they were right—they’d gone without even a step ashore for a long time. And sometimes giving a crew what they wanted was the best way to reassert control. With the hook down they could save fuel, too. There wasn’t much point in steaming around aimlessly, waiting for things to clarify themselves.
“Sea and anchor detail, Mr. Doolan,” he said, and suddenly everyone in the pilothouse became very busy.
They approached from the eastward, very slowly, preceded in by the inflatable in case the old charts had missed a pinnacle or did not show a Second World War wreck. The northerly swell boiled cream on long ribbons of reef as they inched toward the eastern gap. Dan searched it with his binoculars as they neared. The hydrography showed the unmistakable slope of a volcanic upthrust, but at the surface it was a classic atoll formation. Level and low, a crew cut of white coral sand and coconut palms, so flat a typhoon must strip it bare.
A clatter from aft. The boatswains, checking out the engine on the other RHIB. The crew gathered along the lifelines, staring shoreward as Gaddis moved gradually into shallow turquoise and indigo, between ivory patches of reef. Gulls soared in their wake, crying despairing warnings. Ahead the channel looked emerald deep. The fathometer was tracking with the old survey so far, showing a good six fathoms, twelve meters, beneath the frigate’s tentative keel. The entrance gradually narrowed, and Chick slowed to one-third, barely creeping ahead. The bow wave chuckled. The surf boomed and thundered. Shoals seethed to starboard. Squinting into the flat, dull light, Dan shaded his eyes to search for patches closer in. He was not immune to the ever-shifting colors, the play of hue and sound, but his mind was with the ship. If she bent a prop here or gashed her hull plating against a coral head, they might never get out again.
Then she was inside, the churning reef fell astern, and he breathed again. The depth fell away to dark green, then to a hazy, light-filled, translucent blue. The ripple of energy from bow and quarter furrowed the lagoon. White fingernails of surf clawed out toward a close horizon above which the sky bleached pale as if scrubbed with lye. A couple of miles distant he made out boats, moored not far from the flat, dark mass of the principal island.
Doolan gave the word to drop on cross-bearings from cuts on two of the islands. He put the engines astern until Dan was satisfied the anchor was set. They had room to swing. Four thousand yards to the nearest shoal water. He called the engine room and told Armey he could pull fires, but to keep an aux diesel running. The inflatable in the water circled back, the coxswain looking up for instructions. Dan leaned out from the wing and motioned him in.
* * *
“SHALLOWING fast, sir.”
“We can’t draw a lot more than those canoes,” Dan told them, pointing to the outriggers drawn up on the beach ahead. “Keep going.”
He’d told Chick he had the CDO; he was going ashore to check things out. Making Chick the command duty officer avoided the awkward question of Juskoviac’s status. The crew staying behind had watched with a curious mixture of envy and hope as they cast off. Now Gaddis was a separate world astern, hunting slowly back and forth to the hook. He gave her one last, long look, then faced forward again.
The island drew slowly closer as they purred on. Wooden-hulled fishing smacks with astern wheelhouses rode off a collapsing pier. The canoes were drawn up under the flickering shadows of the palms. He didn’t see any human figures, though as they neared he made out structures beneath the tr
ees that covered the rest of the island. The whole scene lay in an ominous silence, save for the endless sigh of the trade wind under a close gray sky. The water was so clear that looking down, he saw sharks nosing along the bottom.
The coxswain beached them near the pier. Dan stood and looked carefully around. The lagoon was sheltered, but the thunder of the surf still underlay everything, a foundation of sound so steady it was almost silence. The RHIB shrugged in the shallows. He saw nothing moving onshore. Only the coconut palms swayed slowly, and the obscurity beneath them could hide anything. He smelled smoke and something strange he could not identify, that he’d never smelled before. He knelt on the pitching thwart, then levered himself down into water warm as blood and began wading toward shore.
Fifty yards out he made out the first figures, brown against pink-white sand, waiting in the shadows. Twenty yards out a patch suddenly detached itself and moved into the sunlight. It was an old man in a short-sleeved khaki shirt so faded it was closer to white than its original tan. Dan gave him a salute as he splashed up onto the beach, and the old man returned it, snapping to attention and whipping his hand up to his forehead.
“Good morning, sir. I am Philip Kalapadon, Sergeant, Philippine Scouts, Retired.”
Dan introduced himself, shaking the fragile hand, uncomfortably conscious of the brown faces that thronged close, gazing up into his. Kalapadon did not release it. Instead he turned and began walking inland, past the shoal of drawn-up outriggers. Dan looked back at the men in the boat, motioned them to stay with it. Then he followed. Kalapadon pushed through the crowd like a canoe through white water. He said something and laughter rippled. Dan nodded, forcing a smile. They came to a coral wall. “What’s this?” he said.