Dangerous Ground jm-1

by Larry Bond

  Jerry reported their progress to Hardy, who quickly lost interest when he saw that there weren’t any problems. The Senior Chief’s face became a stoic mask. Jerry’s small feeling of triumph was mixed with disappointment at having to waste mental energy on bull like this.

  Despite the delays and constant “supervision” by Hardy or Patterson, the torpedomen managed to find their rhythm and the pallets started to come across in a regular fashion. As the support pallets, essentially crates full of supplies, came aboard, they were stowed in spaces normally reserved for torpedoes on the upper centerline rack. Finally the control and display pallet, filled with computers, displays, and power supplies needed to control the ROVs, was lowered into the torpedo room and stored near the Manta control console. The ROVs themselves were placed in the starboard stowage racks along with the winch and maintenance pallets, although putting them in place did not mean they were “installed.” Boxes of cabling and miscellaneous equipment filled corners of the torpedo room. Davis assured Jerry and Foster that the clutter would be gone once everything was hooked up.

  Although they’d started at 1330, it was nearly 2000 (eight in the evening) by the time the torpedo division finished bringing the last pallet aboard. By that time, Davis had methodically checked the support pallets and had started on the retrieval winch. Leads had to be run to power the winch, the controls had to be hooked up, and everything had to be tested until it was rock-solid reliable. There were no Radio Shacks where they were going.

  Even after the last of the pallets were aboard, the division had a lot of work to do. All the loading gear had to be struck below and stowed. The torpedo loading tray had to be turned back into deck plates, and the weapons shipping hatch closed and inspected. Jerry’s division performed a dozen tasks carefully, using checklists, all under Foster’s careful eye.

  They’d broken for dinner, with Lieutenant Washburn, the Supply Officer, checking with Jerry when his men would be able to stop and eat. It was well after the normal mealtime, but Washburn had kept the mess cooks standing by until the torpedo gang could be fed. He’d laid on a good meal for the crew’s last night in port, with roast chicken and mashed potatoes and two kinds of pie for dessert. Jerry was starving by the time they all sat down, and even Emily Davis was ready to stop for a decent meal.

  For convenience, they all ate together in the crew’s mess, with Jerry and Davis seated at their own table and the rest of the torpedo division filling two others. Foster sat at the head of the enlisted group.

  The men ate quietly, so quietly that Jerry noticed the silence. No grumbling, but no joking either. Jerry was tired and was sure his men were as well, but he wasn’t so exhausted he couldn’t talk. Emily kept up her customary stream of questions, about the boat, the living and eating arrangements for the enlisted men, what the food would be like after they’d been at sea for a month.

  Jerry couldn’t answer all of her questions completely, so Emily moved over to the enlisted table and asked to join them. The conversation picked up, and with a feminine audience, the torpedomen shared some of their stories about “life on a boat.”

  After dinner, they headed back to the torpedo room. It took two more hours for the torpedomen to finish their tasks, and they were almost as quiet as they were at dinner. In other circumstances, Jerry would have taken the Senior Chief aside and asked him what was wrong, but that wouldn’t work with Foster.

  So instead, Jerry listened and watched, and practiced making himself as invisible as circumstances allowed. As the torpedomen became involved in their tasks, Jerry eventually heard TM2 Boyd and TM3 Lee talking as they worked on a cable connection from the control pallet to a switch box for tube one. Boyd complimented Davis. “She’s a pretty good tech. And she’s got a good attitude.” Jerry recalled that Boyd had been answering a lot of Emily’s questions about life aboard a sub.

  “She’s okay, but that other one!” Lee shuddered. “I just re-upped so I could get a boat on the West Coast. Right now I wish I’d just gotten out.”

  “You and the rest of this division,” Boyd agreed. “If everyone shows up for Quarters tomorrow morning, it’ll be a miracle.”

  8. UNDERWAY

  May 13, 2005

  SUBASE, New London

  The shutting of a locker door brought Jerry to consciousness a few minutes before his alarm went off. It was just before six, with Quarters an hour away but from the sounds in the passageway, half the crew must already be up. Jerry took a deep breath and stretched as much as the confines of his rack would allow. He could smell the enticing scents of breakfast from the wardroom next door, and that ended any further thoughts of lounging in his bunk. Getting up, Jerry dressed. Both Washburn and Berg were already gone and likely in the wardroom. Remembering that there were now ladies aboard, Jerry made sure he was respectable before stepping into the passageway.

  The wardroom was crowded, with most of the junior officers either eating breakfast, or waiting their turn to sit down. Sitting on the couch was Emily Davis. Even in a beige-colored shirt and Dockers, Emily stood out among the khaki-clad officers. Dr. Patterson was nowhere in sight.

  “Good morning, Emily. Is our boss sleeping in?” Jerry asked her, half-joking. Both of them knew he wasn’t asking about Hardy.

  “Dr. Patterson said she wasn’t getting up until it stopped being so crowded,” Davis replied seriously.

  Almost everyone, including Jerry, laughed and Tom Holtzmann immediately remarked, “That won’t be for quite a while.” Lenny Berg then asked, “Is that a promise?”

  The laughter died suddenly and Jerry turned to see Patterson at the door, scowling at Berg. Silently, she moved toward the coffeepot as several officers scrambled out of her path. She poured a cup, added two sugars, and left, leaving an uncomfortable silence behind.

  Berg looked at Jerry and shrugged. “What can she do, send me to sea?”

  Lenny’s quip failed to revive the wardroom’s atmosphere and they ate silently, the mood clinging to the wardroom as officers ate their breakfast, left, and others took their place at the table. Jerry was glad to finish and headed for the torpedo room. The unfamiliar equipment they installed last night seemed to be in order, but Jerry couldn’t shake his discomfort.

  It wasn’t the technology. As a pilot, Jerry had lived with complex equipment, had depended on it for his life. It was one characteristic that aviators and submariners had in common. Both trusted machines because they thoroughly understood them — how they worked, what their limits were, and exactly what to do if any of a hundred things went wrong. That kind of competence didn’t come without long hours of drills, study, and more drills. It took time to obtain that level of competence — time that they didn’t have.

  Tomorrow, on a politician’s say-so, they would get one chance with each ROV, and if they didn’t work, that was it: the patrol would be scrubbed, and possibly, Jerry’s new career along with it. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe in third chances. Jerry knew he should care more about the mission than his career, but he still didn’t have a clue what they were going to do with all this stuff.

  * * *

  Quarters on the pier were mostly for show. Families were allowed to watch and the crew was given a few minutes for good-byes before the maneuvering watch was set. Jerry watched from the bridge, already at his station, as fathers and husbands hugged, waved, and promised their wives and children things they couldn’t control. The single guys, like Jerry, had fewer connections. He’d remembered to send a letter to his sister Clarice in Minnesota, asking her to make sure Mom didn’t worry too much. The cold drizzle that started to fall mirrored the somber mood of the families and crew.

  Jerry felt eager to get underway, in spite of all the obstacles he faced. Now he’d finally get the chance to prove himself. And when they returned, it would be resolved, one way or another.

  He spotted Emily Davis on deck as she stumbled on a fitting and almost fell into the water. The contrast between her and Patterson was never more apparent. Davis was down a
mong the men, asking questions and finding out everything she could. She was interested in what they did and how they did it, which came across to the crew as a professional compliment. The last time he’d seen Patterson, she’d been in the wardroom, typing on her laptop, doing her best to shut out everything and everybody.

  By 0730, all stations were manned, the tug was secured alongside, and Jerry gave the order to single up all lines. The wind helped this time, setting Memphis off the pier, and Jerry almost felt at home as he conned the sub away from the base.

  * * *

  Jerry was kept busy throughout the surface transit, but even with a patch, Jerry’s unhappy stomach constantly threatened to betray him. It took almost three hours to reach the gap between Block Island and Montauk Point and another three before they could submerge.

  The diving alarm was a welcome sound. He could feel the boat’s side-to-side motion fade as their depth increased. It also got him off the exposed bridge, which was cold and wet. Although he’d only been aboard a relatively short time, the sounds and sensations of Memphis submerging were familiar now. This was where she was supposed to be.

  He’d just changed into dry clothes and stepped into the passageway when he saw Emily Davis leaving the wardroom. She looked nervous and tense, clearly upset.

  “Emily, are you all right?”

  She noticed Jerry and nodded hesitantly. “I’m fine. I’m just being foolish.”

  Jerry’s face must have shown his confusion. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been aboard a submerged submarine,” she explained. She looked around, then stepped back into the wardroom, motioning for Jerry to follow. As soon as he stepped in, she closed the door. Jerry was suddenly — and acutely— conscious of the CO’s orders against “fraternization” and how little slack Hardy would give if he were found alone with Emily.

  “I feel like an idiot,” Emily confessed. Her tone was measured, almost controlled, but she was visibly shaking. “I’m an engineer, and I know what pressure this boat can stand, but as soon as we submerged, I could sense all the water above us, tons of it. Hundreds of feet of it.” She paused as fear flashed on her face. “How deep are we right now?”

  “Two hundred and fifty feet.” Jerry answered, pointing to the depth gauge on the bulkhead. He tried to keep his voice calm and steady, but knowing the exact number only increased her distress. Emily was on the verge of panicking. Great, thought Jerry, just great. She’s claustrophobic. “Don’t you work with submarines all the time?”

  “Yes, but I specialized in ROVs. And being a woman, as well as a junior employee at the lab, I was never picked for any of the at sea trials. I’ve only been to sea once before and that was on the research ship Knorr back in ‘98.” She paused, then almost started crying. “And I had no idea I’d feel like this! It never crossed my mind that I’d be so afraid! I should know better.”

  “You do know better, Emily, but this isn’t a rational thing. It’s pure emotion.”

  “So what do I do about it?” At this point, with her anxiety out in the open, facing her new fear, she was trembling and pale.

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. He was too new to submarines himself to have ever dealt with anything like this. Besides, the Navy’s psychological screening process weeded out any applicants for subs who showed even the slightest signs of claustrophobia. “Does Dr. Patterson know?”

  “No!” She shook her head violently.

  Ill-equipped to handle the situation, Jerry tried to think of whom he should hand over this delicate problem to. There weren’t too many sympathetic ears on this boat. In the end, Jerry went with his training. “Would you like to talk to the XO?”

  “All right,” said Emily. The idea seemed to calm her a bit, and Jerry realized that talking about her fear might be the best therapy.

  “Okay, then, why don’t you go to your stateroom and I’ll go find the XO and ask him to come and see you,” replied Jerry. Emily nodded and wiped her eyes with her shirtsleeve.

  Hoping nobody was watching, the two ducked out of the wardroom and Jerry headed to control in search of the XO. He found him near the plotting tables talking to one of the quartermasters. Jerry waited until Bair had finished his conversation before approaching. “Sir, Dr. Davis would like to talk to you.”

  Bair nodded and said, “Fine. Where is she?” he asked, looking around.

  “In your, I mean her, stateroom.”

  “And why is she there instead of here?” Bair asked.

  “She needs to speak to you privately,” Jerry answered softy.

  “This can’t be good.” Bair observed and left, heading forward to his old stateroom. Relieved, Jerry felt absolutely no guilt about passing the buck to the XO.

  * * *

  It was a late lunch, scheduled after Memphis had submerged. Apparently, Jerry wasn’t the only one aboard with a queasy stomach. He ate in the second sitting, which was fine with him. Not only did it give him a few more minutes for his appetite to return, but he could also pick out a good spot for the mission brief. All the junior officers ate quickly, so that the mess stewards could clean up by 1500. That’s when the Captain and Patterson had promised to finally brief the crew on their destination and what they would do when they got there.

  The chiefs started showing up before the JOs had even finished eating, and by 1500, the tiny wardroom was jammed with all the officers not on watch and most of the chiefs.

  Hardy entered, followed by the two ladies, and everyone did their best in the cramped space to come to attention. The Captain let them stand for a moment, then said, “Seats.” Emily Davis looked nervous, but that could have been for several reasons. Neither Hardy nor Patterson looked pleased.

  The XO spread out a nautical chart and taped it to the bulkhead. A thick, dark black line stood out against the light blue and gray contours. It showed their track from New London, past Newfoundland, through the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland, then past Jan Mayen Island and Spitsbergen, and finally across the Barents Sea. It almost touched Novaya Zemlaya, a barren finger of land that reached up from the far northern coast of Russia. The Barents Sea lay on its western side, the smaller Kara Sea to the east. Novaya Zemlaya was part of the Russian Federation.

  Hardy let everyone study the chart for a few moments, then stood.

  “At the direction of the President, this boat has been assigned a special mission.” He pointed to the chart. “This is our route for the next twelve days. We will approach the eastern coast of Novaya Zemlaya, survey several environmentally sensitive sites, collect water and sediment samples, as well as other information, then return.”

  Jerry heard a buzz of conversation, with the word “environmental” repeated several times, always with a questioning tone. Mitchell was more puzzled at the general reaction than Hardy’s announcement. He guessed this was not a typical mission.

  “Dr. Patterson will now explain exactly what we’re going to do.” Hardy motioned to Patterson, who was sitting to his right. She stood up quickly and glanced at a pad of paper.

  “President Huber has been a champion of the environment since his days as governor of Arizona. Even before that, as a state senator, he had led the drive for the cleanup of the San Sebastian waste site, as well as. ”

  Jerry fought the urge to tune her out completely. There was always the chance she might say something useful.

  Patterson droned on for another five minutes about Huber’s environmental consciousness, managing to work in how essential her expertise had been to the President during the election, and now as part of the President’s Science Advisory Board. “It’s vital that the President do well with this issue. The environmental vote is one of his core constituencies. It’s never too early to start thinking about the next election.”

  Maybe she thought the silence in the room was polite attentiveness. Jerry, proudly apolitical, was repelled by the entire concept. A patrol to further a president’s reelection chances?

  She handed a second chart to Davis, who
taped it up over the first one. A detailed chart of the Novaya Zemlaya’s east coast, it was marked top secret, and was covered with angular shapes, crosshatched in several colors.

  “These are locations that we know have been used by the Soviets — and now the Russians — as dumps for everything from toxic waste to fueled nuclear reactors. Red marks radioactive waste, orange is machinery, yellow toxic material, and purple is unknown. We are going to collect photographs and samples from these sites, enough evidence to convince any objective observer that the waste is leaking into the environment on a massive scale. They’ve denied it, of course.”

  She looked out at the officers and chiefs, as if expecting an answer — or at least agreement. For the first time since she’d come aboard, Patterson was smiling, her manner animated. It was clear to Jerry that she cared deeply about this, although he wasn’t sure if it was the environment or the President’s political agenda.

  “In two months, at the World Environmental Congress in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the President will confront the Russian delegation with the evidence we collect. He’ll discredit them and gain stature with every country there. And then there’s the domestic audience. This has the potential to add at least ten points to his approval rating.”

  She said the last sentence with so much enthusiasm Jerry almost laughed. She obviously expected her audience to react to this happy possibility. When they didn’t, she stood silently for a moment, then seemed to shrug it off.

  She turned to Hardy. “I want to talk about the ship’s speed. Your ‘transit speed’ is fifteen knots.” She consulted her notes to make sure she used the proper term.

  Looking at the list, she asked, “Who is Lieutenant Commander Ho?”

  The Engineer raised his hand. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “As soon as we’re done with the ROV trials this afternoon, change our speed to twenty-five knots.” She saw surprise in the Engineer’s face and paused. “This sub can move at least twenty-five knots, can’t it? I looked up your speed. We can reach our destination in about half the time.”