by David Poyer
Two men were talking not far from him, back by the antennaservice platform. He wasn’t really listening, but whatever part of your mind stood watch while you wool-gathered thought he heard his name.
“Yeah, he’s one,” the mutter came, barely interpretable on the sultry wind.
He turned his head slowly. He couldn’t see who was speaking, whether they were black or white, only that they were both smoking—two red coals, like dying stars transmitting to each other in the dark.
“If you ask me, all the fucking officers need a goddamn testosterone transfusion. This fuckin’ ship is full of fuckin’ pansies.”
“What can we do about it?”
“We can’t do a fuckin’ thing, man. Just watch your ass when you pick up the soap. The fuckin’ skipper, he’ll suck your dick, anybody goes up at night, knocks on his door.”
“I knew something was funny … but the skipper? You’re shittin’ me.”
“I shit you not, Jack. You can tell there’s something sick waiting to blow on this banana boat. Hey, one of ‘em touches me, I’ll beat his fucking ass, you know? I’ll fucking kill the fucker. Just among us chickens, they ought to round them all up, put ’em in a camp. Then we figure out what to do with them … .”
He couldn’t tell who they were, even what department. All he knew was that his hands tightened on the lifeline. He cleared his throat and they fell silent. The coals wavered, then described outward arcs. The butts hissed in the still water. When he looked back again, both shadows were gone.
He stood motionless in the hot darkness, looking across the bay. He panted shallowly, quickly. When he was sure he wasn’t going to throw up, he headed back to his cabin.
29
“ON-SCENE leader! Cooling compartment two-fifty-four-Echo!”
The instant the water spray hit the dogged-down door, it flashed into steam. Dan manhandled the nozzle into the porthole, angling it to play around inside the compartment on the other side. He counted ten seconds, straining to hold the heavy nozzle up, then jerked his head. The access man knocked the dogs free with six fast hammer blows and jerked the door open. “Compartment door cooled and undogged!” he bawled.
Staring into the wall of yellow flame, blinking behind the mask, Dan had a moment of wholehearted fear. His lungs pumped pure oxygen in and out rapidly.
Sweeping the blast of water from side to side, he gathered his courage and jumped through.
At his feet, a black pool glowed with a faint blue unearthly flame. Then, faster than the eye could follow, it ignited with a hollow whump into a roaring lake of white fire. Fluttering yellow tongues raced across above his head, into a webwork of soot-blackened pipes and I beams. He wheeled, trying to quench it before it reached the crack in the pipe. But he couldn’t turn fast enough; the heavy hose resisted him.
The fine oil mist ignited with a hollow boom that knocked his mask askew and blew him into the men behind him. He got a lungful of the lighter-fluid stink of distillate fuel before he could clear and restart the OBA. “Water curtain,” he coughed, then yelled, “On-scene leader! Class Bravo fire, compartment two-fifty-four-Echo. Advancing! Move in!”
The fire roared around them now, licking up through the gratings under their boots. The heat scorched his face even through the shield. Suddenly, a halo of water appeared around his head, snuffing back the writhing torch of burning oil. The men behind him surged forward. Dan dug his boots in to avoid being pushed into the flames. Squinting into the glare and heat, he hauled desperately at the unyielding iron-stiff canvas of the charged fire hose.
Around the scared, sweating men, the flaking concrete of the fire-fighting training building was blackened by decades of burning oil. Above them, inky smoke rolled away into the bright sky. A jeep marked with a red cross waited on the apron. The instructors hovered just out of range of the flames, which were directed and controlled by valves. One was yelling, but Dan couldn’t make it out over the roar. His mask was still awry and he was getting more smoke than oxygen. His skin felt like frying chitterlings. But he held his ground, sweeping the blast of mist steadily across the base of the flames that leapt up from beneath his feet, from above, from all around them.
TODAY, the last day before the battle problem, Barrett lay pierside while the crew tweaked and peaked before the final test. The alert condition only added to the sense of urgency. Transports screamed in, wheeling over the piers to touch down at Leeward Field. They were landing advance elements of the 38th Marine Amphibious Unit, and they screamed out filled with dependents and civilian personnel. A squadron of Air Force OV-10s had reinforced the armed A-4s, and he saw them orbiting occasionally, low-winged two-engine jets that looked slow but that could maneuver amid the low dry hills like crop dusters.
The funny thing was, there was no official word as to what was going on. There were rumors, of course. Castro was dying; there was going to be a civil war. Or that he’d sworn to take Guantánamo Bay at last. But officially it was just that “intelligence sources” had detected increased Cuban activity and the alert and buildup were purely precautionary.
It looked like a lot of activity for a precaution. But like everyone else aboard, he didn’t have time to think about anything but what was in front of him at any given moment to do or solve, and when lights-out went, he fell on his bunk without taking his clothes off or brushing his teeth. Only another five days, he’d think before the black closed over him. Only another four. And last night: Day after tomorrow, and that’ll be it.
And now it was only one more day.
WHEN the last flicker was extinguished, he started backing his team out. “Line One, level out … . Water off at the Y gate … . Don’t kneel down; you’ll get a grate burn.” When they were all out safely and the open sky burned above him, he stripped his mask off and leaned against a bulkhead. The steel scorched his shoulder through the suit and he flinched upright, staggered, almost fell.
“On-scene leader: Fire is out throughout the compartment.”
“Set the reflash watch,” Dan bawled, then started to cough and couldn’t stop. He dropped the hose and doubled over. He could breathe out fine, but he couldn’t inhale without setting it off again. The corpsman ran over with the green cylinder of oxygen, but he waved him wordlessly to wait. Finally his breath came back a little, then a little more. The others bent or squatted on the shimmering asphalt, sweat running off their faces as if they’d just emerged from a river. Finally, he was able to croak, “Get the gear off. Get in the shade and drink some fucking water before you guys pass out.”
HE showered and changed, feeling weak, as if he’d been fasting. He had a steam burn on his neck, but it didn’t seem bad enough for sick bay. He was sitting in the department office looking vacantly at his crammed-solid in box when Ensign Steel stuck his head in. “Mr. Lenson, got a second?”
“Yeah. What is it, Ron?”
Steel let himself in. “I got my maintenance hat on today, sir.” The electrical officer was also in charge of reviewing and running the ship’s planned maintenance system. “Okay,” said Dan, trying to refocus. “What is it?”
“Jeez, what’s wrong with your throat? You sound like the XO.”
“Sucked some smoke over at the trainer. What you got?”
“Sir, Chief Narita was aboard doing spot checks this morning. He hit on CE division.”
Dan glanced up. Harper’s division. “They failed,” Steel said, then explained why.
“You mean they’re not doing the maintenance? Or that—”
“Not the item they spot-checked-the filter on the UCC-one teletypewriter converter. The monthly record said they’d been changed, but when the instructor pulled them, they were dirty.”
“I’ll take care of it,” said Dan. Steel nodded and left, and Dan started punching buttons on the phone. The filter itself wasn’t a big deal. But saying it was done when it wasn’t, that was bad news.
Harper wasn’t in the computer room, the electronics repair shop, or his stateroom. Dan frowned, the
n dialed the quarterdeck. “Hi. Mr. Lenson here. Can you pass the word for Mr. Harper, please?”
The 1MC said, “Chief Warrant Officer Harper, dial two-three-four.” Dan’s phone buzzed two seconds later.
“Jay, where are you?”
“In the crypto locker. I’m classified materials custodian, remember?”
“You’re also the electronic maintenance officer, and I just got a report about gun-decked maintenance.”
“Oh, fuck me … . Cool your jets, Dan. The guys’ve been busy as a dog with two dicks.”
“I understand that, but you don’t mark maintenance done when it isn’t. Who’s your PMS petty officer?”
“Williams, and you know how busy he is. Anyway, those filters, the periodicity’s wrong; they change them way too often.”
“If the periodicity’s wrong, submit a feedback report and get it changed.” Dan felt his temper going. “Look, I’m not going to argue with you. I want your maintenance either done or properly postponed in accordance with the manual. Is that clear?”
Harper didn’t answer. A second later, to Dan’s astonishment, came the unmistakable click of the phone being hung up.
“You bastard,” he muttered. “Okay, let’s have this out.”
The red light was on over the vault door. Dan pulled a wrench off a bracket and hammered on the thick steel so hard, a chip of gray paint came off. But no sound came from inside. Enraged now, he went down to the quarterdeck, looked up the number of the registered publications room, and dialed Harper there.
“Crypto, Harper.”
“Did you just hang up on me?”
“I think we got cut off.”
“I was beating down your door. Didn’t you hear me?”
“Nobody has access to this space but me and the comm officer, Lieutenant.”
“I want you out in the passageway in four seconds or you’re going to spend your next liberty restricted to the ship.”
“Working,” said Harper, and Dan heard again that sardonic, insolent note.
When he got back to the centerline passageway, Harper was locking the vault. He turned coolly to Dan. “Okay, what you need?”
“First, I want that weekly schedule fixed. Then I want you and Williams in my office with your maintenance records.”
“I’ll do that, Lieutenant, but I got something to say, too. I don’t like being threatened with the loss of my liberty. You do that to some fucking seaman, not to me.”
“Oh,” said Dan. A tide of fatigue-fed anger was obliterating his self-control. “Is that right? Or else what?”
“Or else you and me go down on the fucking pier and go head-to-head, shipmate.”
Suddenly, the fire curtain descended between him and his anger. He knew what it was made of: the fear that he was like his father. “I’ve got a better idea. How about this: You shut the fuck up and do as you’re told,” Dan said coldly, turning away.
But to his surprise, he felt Harper’s hand on his shoulder. He whipped around, doubling his fists. But just at that moment, the 1MC said, “This is a drill; this is a drill … . Security alert! Security alert. Away the security-alert team and the backup alert force!”
HE froze as Harper sprinted away. The chief warrant was in charge of the security-alert team, the force that responded to unauthorized personnel attempting to board the ship or to intrusion alarms in the missile magazines or Radio Central. When they were called away, everybody else stayed in place or else got “shot.” Within seconds, two gunner’s mates stormed forward from the hangar. One carried a .45, the other a pump shotgun. “You see the intruder?” the guy with the riot gun yelled.
“No.”
When they were gone, he sidled cautiously to the nearest door and let himself out onto the weather decks.
Below him, the sound of boots on metal told him they were sanitizing the main deck. A whistle blast echoed, followed by Harper’s shout. Dan looked down, to see him standing by the lifelines, gesturing furiously. “Move, move, move, move, move, move! Secure each area, then move on! Stay out of your partner’s goddamn line of fire! He can’t shoot through you!” Faces running with sweat, Chief Miller, Cephas, and Antonio broke from behind a bulkhead, one by one, the two others covering the runner, crossed an open area at a sprint, and skidded to cover behind a coaming. A second later, their weapons leveled and a sharp series of clicks sounded as they steadied and squeezed off at an imaginary opponent.
Dan had to admit that usually the chief warrant was dedicated, sharp, effective. But lately, he seemed to be dropping the ball, getting a short-timer’s attitude. Like this maintenance thing … but how important was it? Maybe Harper was right, changing filters wasn’t that big a deal.
And maybe even gun-decking your records wasn’t that big a deal, either, considering some of the other things that went on aboard Barrett.
He stopped, blinking in the sunlight, wondering what was happening to him.
THAT evening at 2100, all hands met in the helo hangar. Dan went up early, but everybody else had the same idea; the hose reels and boxes were all occupied. The men squatted, heads in their hands. They looked tired beyond caring, and he heard voices raised in the midships corridor. Angry shouts were quelled by Chief Oakes’s roar. Yeah, everybody was on edge.
He found a place he could perch. As he did so, something crackled in his pocket. He felt around for the letter and opened it again.
It had come in that afternoon at mail call—a plain envelope, his name and the ship’s name in pencil. An adult hand had added the Fleet Post Office zip code. Inside was a piece of lined school paper.
Dear Leutenant Dan,
I hope it is all right if I write to you on your ship. I asked the lady at the post office and she said it will get to you okay like this.
I miss you, Dan. Wish we could go riding on your motocice. Could you send me a hat so I can wear it at school? From the ship. I would like to go with you and see your ship sometime when you get back.
We got our school pictures today. Here is one for you on the ship the USS Barrett.
Sincerely,
Your friend,
Billy Strishauser
He folded it again. Poor kid. He’d send him a USS Barrett hat, and a T-shirt … . The smile left his lips gradually. He leaned back against the bulkhead and closed his eyes.
“Sir …”
He flinched awake. Ensign Paul took his hand off Dan’s thigh and said, “Sorry, sir. You were about to fall off.”
“Thanks, Martin.” He straightened and saw the XO fiddling with a mike. The next moment, Vysotsky’s voice rolled out.
“Can I have your attention, please.”
Men shook the sleepers awake. Dan frowned, glancing around, but didn’t see the captain.
“Okay, listen up,” said Vysotsky. He paused, glancing at his watch, then went on. “Tomorrow morning is the final exercise, what we’ve all been waiting for. The instructors will test everything we’ve learned and see how well we put it together under stress. To pass, we’ve got to show we can fight the ship, take a hit, extinguish fires, stop flooding. We’ve got to show them we’ve learned our first aid and self-aid and that we can transport and care for a large number of wounded.
“Now, remember, there won’t be a single thing they ask us to do that we haven’t drilled over and over. The only new element will be the mass conflagration. Again, we’ve drilled all the damage control and fire fighting. The difference will be that tomorrow there’ll be live fire hoses, foam and smoke generators to make things more authentic. It will be as close to battle as we can get without actually taking a hit. There’ll be fifteen evaluators, so don’t even think about breaking your seal or sneaking a cigarette.
“After that, if we pass—I know you’ve all been waiting for this—the next port is …”
The crew was riveted. Vysotsky milked the suspense before he finished: “ … Guadeloupe, in the French Windward Islands.”
The crew murmured as the exec went on. “Not a port the USN visits
a lot, but Senior Chief Oakes has been there. He says it’s a great place to relax and unwind. I think you’ll enjoy it.
“Okay, Mr. Lohmeyer, over to you.”
The damage control officer looked daunted and sleepless. He adjusted his glasses as he said, “Okay,” cleared his throat, said louder, “Okay! I went over last week and talked to the DCA on the Canisteo after their mass conflag to get a feel for what they’re going to throw at us. They’re basically going to try to burn us and then sink us. First will be the fighting portion, when the ship goes to full auto and defends itself against air and surface threats—what—ever they decide to heave at us.
“That’ll be graded separately, but it’ll end with either a torpedo or a missile hit. That will knock out all comms except for the sound-powered phones and messengers. We’ve got to find the holes and plug them, find the fires and put them out. The damage control chief and the XO will track damage from the bridge. I’ll be in DC Central working the structural-strength and overall stability problem.
“Now, we may think we got this stuff memorized, but it’s gonna be different when we’re taking water, injured guys are screaming and running through the compartments, and the smoke’s so thick that you can’t see your hand in front of your face. In the middle of everything, they’re gonna rupture our fire main, and we’ll have to patch it. There’s gonna be shoring needed, and it’s gonna be someplace with a curving bulkhead, so we got to figure it out right the first time.
“The good news is, that last part is only about an hour. When they’re satisfied, they’ll pass ‘silence’ over the 1MC and Woollie will come on and announce the grade. So we’ll know right away if we’ve passed or not.