The Gulf

by David Poyer

  “No tug,” said Shaker. He didn’t look at Dan. “Thanks. Terry, we ready to shove off?”

  Pensker saluted. “Checkoff list complete, Captain, ready to get under way.”

  “Very well.” Shaker raised his voice above the mechanical and human murmur. “This is the captain. I have the conn.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” A chorus from the bridge team, helmsman, lee helmsman, phone talkers, boatswain, quartermasters, and Dan. Talk and yawning came to an abrupt end.

  “Take in lines one, three, four, five, and six. Hard right rudder.”

  As talkers and helmsman repeated the orders, Dan followed Shaker’s top-heavy bulk out to the wing again. The wind brought him the captain’s smell, tobacco and sweat and a hint of shaving cream. Below them, the lines came in, tossed off the bollards by overalled pier crew, then hauled aboard smartly by the deck gang. The phone talker trailed the officers, tugging his cord behind him like a ladies’ train, relaying reports as the lines came in. When only number two still restrained them, Shaker looked into the wind for a moment, glanced back along the ship, then snapped, “Engines ahead one-third, indicate three knots.”

  Seated at the console that filled the center of the bridge, the helmsman advanced a lever; a needle followed it upward. “Ahead one-third, indicate three knots … engines answer, ahead one-third, sir.”

  Dan propped his shoe on the signal-light bracket and watched fascinated as Shaker, cap tilted back, walked the stern out, holding the bow back from the barge with a combination of spring line and jockeying the throttle between ahead and astern. The Bahraini harbor pilot hovered behind him, looking anxious. The strip of oily water slowly widened.

  Shaker ordered the last line in as the stern cleared the tanker, then slacked his rudder and increased power aback. The pier began to move forward.

  The combination of stern-walk and the wind swung Van Zandt neatly onto course for the southern fairway. Shaker ordered an ahead bell, steadied her, then looked around, grinning faintly at the relieved faces around him. “This is the skipper,” he said, raising his voice again. “Lieutenant Pensker has the conn.”

  “This is Lieutenant Pensker, I have the deck and the conn.”

  I wouldn’t have done it that way, Dan thought. I’d have walked us out with the bow thrusters, and done it a lot slower, too. At one point, they’d been only fifty feet from the tanker.

  But Shaker hadn’t even deployed the thrusters. He’d done it the hard way. And on a ship he’d never maneuvered before. It was an amazing display, and not only of shiphandling.

  McQueen muttered at his elbow. The captain was out on the wing again, saying something funny, apparently; the high, relieved laugh of the pilot drifted in. Time to navigate. “Officer of the deck, hold us on track,” said Dan. “Recommend ten knots; next turn, time two-nine.”

  “Steady as she goes,” said Pensker. “Engines ahead two-thirds, indicate ten knots.”

  “Steady as she goes, aye; course zero-seven-two, checking zero-seven-zero.”

  “Ahead two-thirds, engines indicate ten knots, sir.”

  “Very well.”

  Dan muttered, “You got it, Mac.” His assistant immediately said, “Officer of the deck! Turn bearing on fairway marker ‘ten’ will be two-seven-zero; now bears two-nine-zero; time to next turn, two minutes; next course one-zero-seven, pick up the A.S.R.Y. range markers.”

  Pensker was staring through his binoculars at the channel ahead. “Very well,” he said again, in a tight voice.

  Dan studied the weapons officer from behind. Early as it was, there were stains under his lifted arms. It was good to take conning seriously, and a new CO put everyone on his best behavior, but Pensker seemed nervous. He was a good officer, intelligent, dedicated, but sometimes he tried too hard. Maybe it had something to do with his being the only minority officer in the wardroom.

  Beyond him was the blinding dazzle of morning at the latitude of the Sahara. To starboard, coral reefs drew a sapphire line beneath the crème de menthe of the bay. To port, a short chop splintered the new sun above the shallows. The fathometer clucked sleepily. Six feet under their keel. Astern, their screw would be kicking up mud, turning the wake the color of bakers’ chocolate. But it would deepen past the next turn. They were headed fair.

  McQueen marked the turn bearing and Pensker rapped orders to the helmsman. The steering gear hummed and the jack staff began marching right. Past the choppy line of shoal, past the low metal buildings of the repair yard, past the scorched, fragment-ripped bridge of a tanker holed by an Iraqi missile two months before. The sun shafted through the windows, painting the shadows of the bridge team across the receivers and cables on the aft bulkhead. Pensker ordered fifteen knots. They felt the acceleration almost at once; the gas turbines, marinized jet engines, responded faster than the steam plants on older ships.

  Shaker came in from the wing. He studied the chart over Dan’s shoulder. Exposed rock slipped down their starboard side, looking like the pumice in gas grills. A few minutes later, Sitra anchorage came into view. A dozen ships, freighters and empty, waiting tankers rode to anchor in the morning breeze, all pointing the same way, like sheep on a hillside. Service boats and water taxis skimmed among them. They moved past rusty hulls, the flaking paint of working merchantmen. A Dutch ship dipped her flag. Van Zandt returned the salute.

  “Mr. Lenson.”

  “Yessir, Captain.”

  “What’s the watch routine? What condition did Bell steam at?”

  “Condition three, sir.”

  “How many sections?”

  “Three.”

  “We have enough tactical action officers?”

  “Yes sir, our TAOs are school-qualified and they’ve stood watch since we inchopped.”

  “Okay, good.” Shaker looked closely at Dan’s shirt. “That’s polyester.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get the word around, I don’t want people wearing that under way anymore. Cotton uniforms only.”

  Dan nodded.

  “Pilot boat approaching to port,” said the phone talker. Shaker went out on the wing again. He shook hands with the Arab, then led him aft. The boat curved toward them, matching course and speed and then nuzzling closer, like a baby whale moving in to nurse.

  When Shaker came back up, he stood for a time looking out. He had that same abstracted expression Dan had noted before. Finally he said, “Any more course changes?”

  “We’ll be on this leg for another hour, into the Gulf, Captain.”

  “Okay,” said Shaker. He brought his watch up. Like most Navy men, he wore it on the inside of his wrist, to avoid cracking the crystal against bulkheads or ladderways. “General quarters, Bo’s’n, if you please.”

  The bridge exploded into activity. “General quarters, general quarters,” the 1MC barked in BM2 Stanko’s clipped growl. “All hands man your battle stations. Set material condition zebra throughout the ship.”

  Dan stabbed his Seiko and snapped to McQueen, “You got it, Senior. Keep an eye out for fashts and fish traps.”

  “Right, Commander.”

  He slid into the combat information center, one level down, and caught a gas mask and a life jacket in the air. Snapping them on, he settled into the captain’s chair and looked around. CIC was lit in dim blue, air-conditioned icy for the electronics. The last few arrivals were flipping switches and buckling seat belts. The ESM console was lit and operating. As he looked around, thumbs came up at the surface-search radar, the air-search repeater, the plotting board, the weapons console. Beside him, Al Wise, the operations boss, plugged his headset into the TAO jack. “Sonar, manned and ready,” came a shout from behind the curtains, and Dan put on his own headset, dialed the battle circuit, and said, “Bridge, CIC; manned and ready down here.”

  “Bridge aye.”

  “Engineering, manned and ready,” said another voice on the line.

  “Weps Control, manned and ready.”

  Dan asked him, “Terry, what are you missing?
”

  “Just DC … wait…”

  “Damn it,” Lenson muttered.

  “Damage control, manned and ready.”

  “All stations, manned and ready, sir,” he heard Pensker telling Shaker. Dan looked at his watch. Two minutes and thirty-two seconds.

  The bridge door, locked watertight, came undogged. The captain appeared. He looked around in the darkness, then came toward Lenson. “Isn’t that my chair?” he said.

  “Yessir. Captain Bell wanted me here for GQ. He preferred the bridge. If you want to change that—”

  “We’ll discuss it. Is that as fast as we button up?”

  “We’re the fastest in the squadron, sir. Average is more like five or six minutes.” Dan hesitated. “And if you’re talking incoming ordnance, we’re ready to fire in seconds with the regular watch.”

  “Is that so? Okay, let’s stand down.”

  Wise passed the word up and a moment later the boatswain’s pipe shrilled “Secure.” Dan took off his headset, hesitated again, and said, “Captain, we’ll be serving breakfast in about twenty minutes.”

  “Have them send it up. I’m going over the officer records in my cabin.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And I’d like to see you there, say about eight?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He left. Dan unbuckled his gear and left it with a radarman, then went back up to the bridge. McQueen was correcting the track south. Lieutenant (jg) Tad Proginelli was relieving Pensker. Dan had a word with him about navigational aids off Qatar and warned him to be alert for small contacts, dhows and oil-rig service craft.

  He stepped out on the wing and took a last look around. The land was dropping behind them, dun and gray, already blurred at five miles by the dust-laden air. Below the tan sky, below the climbing ball of sun—it would be deadly later—the Gulf shimmered ahead, blue and vast, interrupted only by the distant white superstructure of a hull-down freighter. It was headed north, to Kuwait or the Iranian oil port at Khārk Island. He stared at it, disquieted at the captain’s evident dissatisfaction. This was the best ship in the Mideast; Hart had said as much.

  Then he dismissed it. He was hungry, and it was time to eat.

  * * *

  The wardroom was empty, the twin tables waiting set with silver and plates. Then, in the corner, he heard voices, and frowned as he glanced toward them.

  Two of the pilots, Schweinberg and Hayes. They had no assigned stations unless they were launching the bird. He half-listened as he studied the menu. Omelets, french toast, bacon, juice.

  “Yeah, she was fat all right. Should have painted stripes on her, tell you which end to make your approach from.”

  “A real pizza and beer special. She was all over you, Chunky.”

  “Like white on rice.”

  “Like stink on shit, you mean.”

  There was a pause. Outside in the passageway the speaker announced “Breakfast for the crew. Watch reliefs and first-class petty officers to the head of the mess line.”

  The next voice he heard was Schweinberg’s. “So, whaddya think of this new captain?”

  Hayes’s: “I don’t know anything about him, Chunky.”

  “You know he lost the last ship he was on? They never fired a shot.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just slack, just a nonperformer. They say he had the guns turned off. They say this turkey’s a real—”

  “Mr. Schweinberg,” said Dan.

  The heavy head came around the corner of the TV nook, the heavy-lidded eyes peering blearily for him. “Oh, hello, XO.”

  “When did the two of you get in last night?”

  “Oh—not too late.”

  “I said when?”

  “I didn’t really notice, sir,” said Hayes innocently.

  “I see. Where were you at officer’s call?”

  Schweinberg said, “Well, sir, we sort of thought, the flight det don’t need to be up and about for getting under way. That’s ship-driving stuff. So we, well, we were checkin’ our eyelids for light leaks.”

  “Those are for all officers. All officers.”

  After a pause, Hayes said, “Okay, Commander.”

  “And another thing. I didn’t like what I just heard. First off, it’s wrong. But regardless of that, you’re way, way out of line talking like that about the CO. I don’t want to hear that kind of crap aboard this ship again. Is that understood?”

  He was shouting when he finished. The black flier nodded; then Schweinberg did, too. Dan, still angry, stared at them a moment longer, then turned away.

  The other officers trickled in, saw him seated, and requested permission to join him. Dan nodded shortly. He had a western omelet and picked out the meat bits, shoving them to the side of his plate. The juice leaned slowly in his glass, then inclined gradually to the opposite side. The conversation was subdued. Guerra and Wise ate stolidly; Hayes and Schweinberg said nothing, ate with their eyes on their plates. Pensker still looked nervous. Dan thought about getting them talking, then decided he’d leave it up to them. He didn’t have long before he had to see Shaker one on one for the first time.

  For some reason, he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  * * *

  At five minutes to eight, he was outside the captain’s door. The ship’s chief master at arms, Nolan, was standing there with a short man in tow. “Waiting for the Captain?” Dan asked him.

  “For you, too, sir. Meet Hospitalman Bernard Phelan, sir.”

  Dan shook his hand. It felt cold. Phelan looked very young; Indian of some kind, at a guess. “Welcome aboard, Phelan. I got to get on the PN’s tail, I missed your orders somehow.”

  “We weren’t expecting him, sir,” said Nolan.

  Lenson considered that, then decided it could wait. “Chief, this isn’t a good time for him. The CO wants to see me now and it’ll probably take awhile. Have you got him a bunk? Sheets? Got his records?”

  “I got a bunk, sir,” said Phelan. “Records, though, they’re still on the Long Beach.”

  Lenson nodded and looked at the door. Then he thought, What? “What do you mean?”

  “I missed the ship in Karachi, sir,” said Phelan. He had a low voice, soft and timid-sounding. Dan evaluated his uniform, haircut and mustache. They were borderline acceptable. Phelan didn’t meet his eyes, but that could be shyness.

  “You missed movement? That’s pretty serious. What happened?”

  “Well, it’s complicated, sir.”

  “Give me the short version.”

  “Well, we had forty-eight hours libs, sir. I was on my way back when there was a traffic accident. I got involved taking care of a little girl. She was messed up pretty bad. I rode with her to the hospital. I sort of forgot about the ship, making sure she was all right. Then when I got to the pier, it was too late.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, I didn’t know what to do at first, so I got a room in town. The next day, I figured the thing to do was turn myself in at the leg—leg—”

  “Legation?” said Nolan.

  “Yessir, I mean, yes, Chief. They held me for another couple of days and then got me on a flight to Bahrain. They said over at headquarters I could sort of augment with you for a while.”

  Dan nodded. He had no way to evaluate the story. Or the man. He’d learned long ago you couldn’t tell what another human being was like from appearances. You just couldn’t judge them that way. Not even military people. The uniform was misleading. It said, We’re all alike, we’re all the same, less complex than civilians. But under the uniforms there was just as much variation, depth, mystery, suffering, and enlightenment as anyone else possessed.

  So you had to take them on faith. The kid looked sincere. Close up, though, his eyes had an unfocused look. “You been getting much sleep?” Dan asked him.

  “No, sir. Up all night on the plane.”

  “Well, you got a home till we meet up with Long Beach. I’m glad you’re aboard; Doc’s been complainin
g he’s up to his ears in record review. I’ll drop down to sick bay tomorrow and we’ll have a talk.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  They shook hands again, Phelan saluted, and they left. Dan glanced down, checking his own uniform. Everything was cotton now, and he’d exchanged his shiny but flammable Corfams for leather shoes.

  He knocked, and a moment later let himself in.

  * * *

  The captain’s cabin was the size of a small bedroom. It held a low round table, two chairs, a built-in sofa, and a porthole. Dan noticed that Bell’s print of Channel Dash was gone. In its place hung a family portrait. An insulated coffee server and cups waited on the table, along with Van Zandt’s Battle Doctrine, the Organization and Regulations Manual, and several manila jackets. He recognized two as service and medical records. The last, the red one, was the personnel reliability folder kept by the COs of each ship that carried what the Navy called “special weapons.”

  “Be out in a minute,” Shaker’s voice boomed from the washroom. “Sit down.”

  He took the sofa, noticing, as he edged by the table, that the records were his own. He noticed something else, too, something about the photo on the bulkhead. As he got closer, he saw what it was. A woman and two boys. The woman’s face had been razored out in a neat rectangle.

  Shaker came out a few minutes later, in uniform trou and T-shirt, with a towel round his neck. His cheeks and nose were reddened already from the sun. He looked tired. “This humidity’s a killer,” he said. “How we fixed for water?”

  “Topped off yesterday. Both evaps are up. We allow thirty gallons per man per day, including laundry and cooking.”

  “Certainly sounds adequate. Coffee?”

  “Yessir, thanks.”

  Shaker poured himself a cup, too. “In here,” he said, glancing across at him, “what do you say, let’s make it Ben and Dan.”

  Close up, Shaker’s pale blue-gray eyes reminded him of those Alaskan dogs, huskies, malamutes. Dan had to look away. “Okay … Ben.”

  There was a knock at the door. It was the messenger of the watch, a seaman apprentice named Billetts. His voice shook as he relayed the officer of the deck’s respects and requested permission to strike eight bells on time.