The Passage

by David Poyer

  “XO, to the bridge,” he shouted down.

  “Aye aye, Captain. Boatswain! Call the exec. If he’s not in his stateroom or ship’s office, pass the word.”

  Vysotsky pounded up a few minutes later. Dan told him the captain was topside, and he disappeared up the ladder. Simultaneously, the tactical radio remote spoke inside the pilothouse. Dan stayed on the wing in case Leighty gave another order, but he could hear the message coming over. It was from Dahlgren. “Speed ten,” Van Cleef yelled out.

  “Give them a roger and drop to two-thirds.”

  Another white pyramid broke the gray to port, and Dan swept his glasses around the horizon again. He counted five sails now, lurching and swaying across the leaden sea. He bared his teeth. According to Fleet Weather, over the past twenty-four hours the storm had curved, angling off northward. Good from their point of view, but there were a lot of people sweating it out in South Florida, Dade and Broward. So the center shouldn’t pass directly overhead, and they’d be in the navigable semicircle.

  Still, it wasn’t good weather. They were registering forty knots on the wind indicator, and Barrett was rolling heavily as she came beam to the swells. He didn’t even want to think what it must be like in a small boat.

  “Let’s try reporting in,” Leighty shouted down. His voice was a thin cry above the keen of the wind.

  Dan shouted back, “Aye aye, sir,” and went inside. The coordination net was on remote number two, a clear, unscrambled VHF circuit. That would make range essentially line of sight mast to mast, around thirty miles at a guess. He motioned to the boatswain to dog the leeward door. Clearing his throat, he popped the handset and said in a slow, distinct radio voice, “Any station this net, this is USS Barrett, DD-nine ninety-eight. Over.”

  A decisive tenor answered almost before he was done. “USS Barrett, this is USCGS Munro, WHEC-seven twenty-four. Over.”

  “Uh, Munro, this is Barrett, reporting in on this net.” He gestured frantically at Chief Morris, who read the ship’s current position off the chart as Dan repeated it into the mike. Munro came back with her position. Dan told Van Cleef to get that down to CIC, make sure she was properly identified on the surface picture.

  Leighty came back in as Dahlgren reported in. He reached for the message board as he listened. Dan pulled his own copy of the OTC’s message out of his shirt pocket and rescanned it, refreshing his brain.

  Since this was a humanitarian operation, the Commander, Seventh Coast Guard District, had designated Munro’s commanding officer the officer in tactical command of the boat-lift monitor mission. As the other ships reported in, he assigned them to picket positions in a gradually narrowing bottleneck leading from the north coast of Cuba to the Florida Keys. They were to direct and assist the refugees, providing food, water, and navigational advice, and “fulfill a police mission as required.” If they judged a craft too badly found to proceed, they were to advise the crew and passengers to turn back to Cuban waters. They were not to take refugees aboard unless foundering was imminent.

  Okay, Dan thought, that was pretty straightforward, except maybe for the part about telling them to go back. He refolded the message as Van Cleef said, “Sir, they’re getting thicker up ahead.”

  Dan stepped to the window. His binoculars stopped halfway to his eyes.

  He didn’t need them now.

  As he’d checked their orders, Barrett had coasted on, not fast, but now she was surrounded. Ragged sails dotted the heaving sea all around them. He stared out, transfixed and appalled. There had to be a hundred boats in view now, and more poked over the horizon each minute. It looked like a regatta, as if everyone in Cuba had set sail in whatever they could find that would float.

  “Slow to five,” said Leighty. “Hoist the battle colors. Stand by the motor whaleboat. Away the casualty and assistance team.”

  Suddenly, the bridge, previously quiet except for the crackle of the speakers, was filled with voices. “Engines ahead one-third. Indicate pitch for five knots.”

  Ping, ping. “Engine Room answers, ahead one-third.”

  “Very well.”

  “Away the motor whaleboat, Section I provide. Away the Cat Team, muster on the flight deck—belay my last, away the Cat Team, muster on the fantail.”

  “Bridge, Main Control. Request permission to go to split plant ops.”

  “Permission granted,” said Leighty. Van Cleef hit the switch on the 21MC to relay that to the engineers. At that moment, Munro came back on the air. Dan whipped out his pencil and got the signal down on the margin of the chart. “This is USS Barrett. I read back: Take Station Bravo, conduct channelization operations, and render assistance in accordance with your zero-two-zero-seven-three-zero-zulu. Maintain guard on this net and other nets in accordance with paragraph five. Report hourly at time fifteen. Over.”

  “This is USCGC Munro, roger, out.”

  Chief Morris read off, “Station Bravo: East corner, twenty-two degrees, fifty-five minutes north, seventy-eight degrees, thirty-five minutes west. Southwest corner, twenty-two degrees, fifty-two north, seventy-eight forty west. Northeast corner, twenty-three twelve north, seventy-eight forty-seven west. Northwest corner, twenty-three zero-nine north, seventy-eight fifty west.” He had it already penciled in, but Dan stretched over the chart with dividers, making sure. The area was twenty miles long and five wide, oriented along the east side of where the Old Bahama Channel bent north to become the Santarén. Leighty leaned in over his shoulder. Dan felt him pressing against him as the captain’s finger moved along the outboard limit of their patrol area.

  “Shit. He’s got us thumbtacked right up against the reef.”

  The captain was right, Dan saw. Along the inner edge of their area, the sea shoaled precipitously from 180 fathoms to 3.5. Along the vast light blue shallow-water sprawl of the Great Bahama Bank, rocks and shoals were marked with tiny crosses: Larks Nest, Copper Rock, Wolf Rocks, Hurricane Flats. Not a nice position, he thought. Reefs and flats to the north, Cuban territorial waters to the south. Obviously thinking along the same lines, Leighty asked Morris, “How far is it to Cuba, Chief?”

  “From the southwest corner, twelve miles, sir.”

  “Shit,” Leighty muttered. “And as the storm goes by, the wind’ll swing around to put us right on those rocks … . Okay, we’ll just have to keep a close watch on the fathometer. Ask Mr. Paul to give me a call about the anchor. Give us a course, Chief; let’s get headed over there.”

  They wheeled slowly north and cranked on speed. Leighty limited them to fifteen knots, saying he didn’t want to run over anyone—if a boat didn’t have a sail up, they might not see them till they came out of the swell line. Dan asked if he should double the lookouts. Leighty said that was a good idea.

  The captain started for the ladder, then hesitated, brow furrowed. “I meant to ask them something when they came up on the circuit—the political end.”

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “I mean, what exactly we intend to do with these people. Do we turn them back? Or are they political refugees?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Sorry, I didn’t think to ask that.”

  “It’d help to know. I’m going to call them back on a scrambled net, see if the OTC has any dope on that. Be down in Combat.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Leighty had the door open when the lookout phone talker said, “Aircraft to port, bearing two-seven-zero, position angle two.” Van Cleef went out on the wing and reported back, “Multi-engine. Looks like a P-three.”

  Dan looked at Leighty, who was still lingering. The captain blinked, apparently thinking. Dan hit the intercom. “Combat, Bridge: We have a P-three in sight up here.”

  “Bridge, Combat: We’re talking to him. He’s from VP-ninety-three out of Key West. He’s reporting surface contacts to the OTC.”

  “Roger.”

  “Captain’s off the bridge,” the boatswain bellowed. Dan rubbed his face, looking at his watch: still forty-five minutes before his turn
over.

  “Somebody waving to us, to starboard,” the phone talker said.

  “What’s that?” He turned quickly.

  “Wait one … Sir, somebody waving at us. Bearing zero-four-zero.”

  “I’ve got him,” Van Cleef said. Dan lined his glasses on his and saw them, caught for an instant on the crest of a wave.

  “Head on over there, sir?”

  “Yeah. I’ll call the captain.” He reached for the intercom.

  BARRETT pitched slowly, heavily, as the little boat danced crazily in her lee. Dan, leaning out, signaled to the fantail. A crack, and the orange thread of a shot line bellied in the wind and fell across the boat. When a tow line was across and they were trailing astern, he said, “Pass to the linehandlers: Haul them in and stand off about fifty feet.”

  “Petty Officer Bacallao, lay to the fantail,” said the 1MC.

  Dan had taken the conn back from Van Cleef, anticipating tricky maneuvering. With props turning at zero pitch, Barrett was essentially a huge sailboat, and she tended to turn downwind, which would be uncomfortable, to say the least, for the refugees. He had to juggle the engines and rudder to keep her bow into the seas, which swept down in impressive-looking ranks from the north. Closer to the reefs, the short fetch should shelter them, but out here they were building to a size that made the little craft astern pitch and heave sickeningly.

  “Ready to relieve you, sir.”

  He returned Cannon’s salute but told him to stand by, get the rhythm of the sea before he took over. A few minutes later, Dan handed over the binoculars, calling out to mark the passage of responsibility—hastily, because the helmsman was already wrestling the bow around again. Cannon stepped to the centerline, shouting orders, and Dan backpedaled out of the way.

  He jogged aft and emerged on the helo deck. Aft of him, the weather decks stepped downward. He ran across the flight deck, feeling it slant under him so that his progress was an arc, not a straight line, and clattered down two more ladders to join a clotted knot of khaki and denim on the fantail.

  A strange-looking craft rode the swells a hundred feet off, undulating as the waves passed under it. Two men were stretched out atop it. “Let me see those,” Dan muttered to a chief with binoculars.

  With seven magnifications, he could see the stitching in the canvas stretched over what were obviously old inner tubes. Some had gone soft, wobbling at every blow of the sea. The two clung grimly to sewn-on handholds. “Jesus Christ,” he heard the chief mutter. There was no engine and only the snapped-off stump of a board that must have been their mast.

  He looked around. The captain and the Spanish-speaking petty officer, Signalman Third Bacallao, stood by the rail, looking down. Bacallao held a loud-hailer. Behind them were several boatswain’s mates and Ensign Paul.

  And behind them was Harper, a short-barreled riot gun at port arms. With him were the rest of his security team, all armed. Catching his look, Harper gave him a wry little smile.

  “Ready for anything, right, Chief Warrant?”

  “That’s my job, sir.” Harper nodded toward the sea. “Looks like the fucking America’s Cup out here.”

  “Sure does.”

  “Yeah, we ought to get some pictures. Then when anybody tells you communism’s so great, show them these guys. Imagine wanting to get away from something so bad that you’ll go to Miami.”

  Dan stared down, overcoming his shock at their craft long enough to study its passengers: two emaciated men of indeterminate age. The white-eyed faces that turned upward from time to time could not be read in terms of the emotions he knew. Bacallao turned the bullhorn on and off, making a loud clicking noise, watching the captain.

  “But what happens when they get there?”

  “Yeah, good point. Too fucking many Cubans in Florida already.” That wasn’t what Dan had meant, but Leighty was saying something. When he stopped, making an abrupt gesture toward the men below, Bacallao lifted the loud-hailer and shouted a question. They responded with weak cries. Dan moved up a couple steps to hear the petty officer translate. “They say they have food but no more water. They don’t know which way to go. They want to know how far America is.”

  “Mr. Paul, send them down some water. Chief Warrant Officer Harper—”

  “Here, sir.”

  “Jay, we need to break out some of that landing-party gear. I want compasses, ponchos, groundsheets. Get it all staged up here; there’re going to be a lot more boats in this condition.”

  Harper hesitated. “Sir, I’m on the security team.”

  “I don’t think we need to worry about their taking over the ship, Mr. Harper,” said Leighty. His eye caught Dan’s and he smiled faintly, then turned back to the rail and the emaciated men on the oversized air mattress. Then he turned back and waved Lenson up.

  “Did you ever get through to the OTC?”

  “On what, sir?”

  “On the political question—whether they’d be repatriated, held, whatever.”

  “Oh. No, sir, I didn’t. I’m sorry, I misunderstood—”

  “That’s all right; maybe I didn’t make myself clear.”

  The sky broke open in a spatter of rain. Cold, heavy drops clattered down from the whirling gray above to the heaving gray deck. The boatswains had slid down plastic jugs and the Cubans were drinking, holding grimly with one hand while the other held the containers to their lips. Water ran down thin throats.

  “Think they’ll make it?” Leighty muttered.

  Dan looked around at the sea. The shelter of Barrett’s towering sides had damped the waves, but the raft was still going up and down so violently, he could barely follow it with his eyes. Outside the lee, the seas were high and cruel. He could only imagine what they looked like to the men below. The Cubans were shouting something now. Their voices arrived all but drowned in the roar of the wind, inhuman, shrill, and distant, like the piping of seabirds.

  “They might, sir. The wind’s bad, but the Stream’s with them. You can go a long way in a small boat. Look at Captain Bligh.”

  “Bligh was a seaman. And he had a longboat, not something stitched out of canvas and inner tubes.” Another man joined them and Leighty said, “George, what odds you give ’em?”

  The exec stared down, mouth tightening as he watched the light raft soar skyward. As it reached the crest, Dan leaned forward, fingers going white on Barrett’s sturdy lifeline. The wind had caught and lifted the corner. For a moment, it teetered on the brink of capsizing, or maybe just dumping everyone off and soaring away downwind, skipping from crest to crest like a runaway balloon. But one of its occupants rolled over just in time, plunging the errant end so deep green water covered it and him. They clung grimly as the raft rode down the glassy back of the wave.

  Vysotsky said hoarsely, “I don’t know. Fifty-fifty?”

  “That high? That thing’s not going to hold air forever.” Leighty snapped to the interpreter, “Ask them what they are. Fishermen? Sailors? What?”

  Ballacao said, after an exchange that was interrupted when the boat veered dangerously close to the side, “They say they worked in a cigar factory, sir.”

  Leighty suddenly looked angry. “Okay, that’s it. Get them aboard.”

  Heads snapped around on the fantail. “Sir?” said Dan.

  “I said, get them aboard. Jacob’s ladder to port. Get moving!” he snapped at the astonished boatswain’s mates. “Have heaving lines ready in case one of them slips.”

  Beckoned aboard, the men hesitated, then unshipped lengths of board and began rowing furiously. The boatswains hauled in on the line. Ensign Paul jumped forward, shouting, but too late. The raft was pulled under the counter, out of sight. For a terrible moment, Dan thought the screw had gotten them. But they must have jumped at the last minute, because they appeared pale and shaken at the top of the ladder. The sailors hauled them aboard, where they stood dripping and shuddering, looking around apprehensively. Up close, they were younger than Dan had thought at first. Their inflamed eyes s
eemed to pulsate as they looked around. Raw bloody patches showed at ankles and knees, where the canvas had rubbed. “Get the chief master-at-arms,” Leighty snapped to Vysotsky. “Get them some clothes. Find a space to bunk them. Have the corpsman look them over before they eat.”

  One man, cheeks hollowed around a cigarette, started suddenly toward the captain. Leighty shook his head brusquely and started off. “Sink the raft,” he called over his shoulder.

  “I’ll take care of it, sir.” Harper unslung the riot gun.

  Leighty went forward, apparently back to the bridge. Shortly thereafter, white sea shot from the screws and Barrett got under way again, into the teeth of the wind.

  Dan stood under the outstretched barrel of the five-inch, wondering if he would have the guts to put to sea in something like that. They could have no idea of what lay before them—except a damn good chance of dying. But still, they’d done it, and made it. Or at least two of them had.

  What horror lay behind them, that they’d risk their lives to escape? He’d heard a lot about Cuba, but now, looking at the men’s backs as they were led away, covered with olive drab blankets, he realized how little he really knew. You heard about torture and forced labor. But then you read that they’d conquered illiteracy, distributed land, that medical care was free … . In the end, you didn’t know what to believe, except that a bearded man in fatigues had come out of the mountains and overthrown a dictator, then become one himself; that the CIA had tried to kill him, and failed; that the Russians spent $10 million a day in aid, and that Cuban soldiers were fighting in Angola, Mozambique … .

  But people kept trying to escape. And wasn’t that, finally, the proof of the matter? They hid in the wheel wells of jets, hijacked passenger planes, swam to Guantánamo, crossed barbed wire and minefields and seas. Only God knew how many of them didn’t make it.

  He stood on the fantail for about an hour. Barrett passed boat after boat, all tossing madly, all headed somewhere between northwest and west. Some passengers waved, but in others they saw no motion at all.