China Sea (52 page)

And that was not all. Something else nagged at him. Something he'd overlooked. Something important.

He stood silently on the bridge, wondering what it was. He felt strange, as if he himself had died, maybe with those who had died long ago, maybe those who were dying out there now, screaming and pleading against the howl of the wind.

Topmark came back a few minutes later. “Life preservers and rafts going over, sir.”

“Very well.”

Zabounian came up and stood beside Dan again. In a low voice he said, “Sir, we got the Raytheon up again. We've got another contact coming in.”

Dan nodded slowly. That was what he'd been trying to remember.

Gaddis
coasted at last to a halt and began to drift downwind in the oil-slicked sea. Slowly at first, then with gathering speed. Picking up the roll of the swells. He wondered fuzzily what he should do. Rig a sea anchor? Deploy the anchor again? He'd better get them started. Yet it seemed so futile.

“There it is,” said Topmark, lowering the binoculars and pointing something out to Zabounian. “To the right of that low cloud. About one-one-zero relative.”

They stood watching the shape coalesce from the fog. It was moving fast. They could see that even without radar. As it broke through, they saw what it was.

The second Shanghai. Undamaged, fresh, and angry, the gunboat was roaring in toward them as they wallowed helplessly in the heavy seas.

Then suddenly it seemed to stop, between one wave and the next, and a ripple of spray showed along its side. Not high, not an explosion like a torpedo strike or a mine detonation, just a momentary flash of white, like the instantaneous revelation of skirt by a flamenco dancer.

Dan leaned against the riddled, scarred splinter shield, screwing his face into the binoculars. Blocking from his brain the cries and screams of the wounded, the snap and crackle of fire aft.

A squall edge swept over the gunboat, and when it emerged again from the trailing skirts of rain, something had changed. It was riding lower in the water.

Zabounian muttered, “Isn't that about where we dropped the containers?”

And Dan saw that it was true, the racing gunboat had plowed straight over one of the still-floating container sections at full speed and ripped its bottom out or at least mangled its screw and punched holes in the thin, light planing hull.

Zabounian plucked a handset off the bulkhead and snapped the selector switch to the fire control circuit. He snapped, “Mount fifty-one? Bridge. Your target, gunboat. Bears one-ten relative, five thousand yards. With ten rounds VT—”

“No,” Dan said. Then louder, grabbing him by the shoulder and wheeling him around: “No! God damn it, cease fire!”

He hesitated for a long moment, eyes locked on Dan's face, then said quietly into the mike, “Belay that; I have a check-fire order from the CO. Stand by.”

He let up on the transmit button, but before he could speak, Dan said, “What do you see out there?”

“I see our last target. What do you see, sir?” Almost suspiciously, as if he suspected Dan's judgment. God knows, he suspected it himself. But he was pretty sure this was right.

He looked around the bridge, seeing blood splashes, seeing, recognizing, for the first time Chick Doolan's smashed body huddled near the wing door, the bullet holes, the scarred raw metal where fragments had sliced open aluminum. Knowing that all this, all of it, was in vain if no one returned. Total victory was as useless to the penumbral cause in which they soldiered as total defeat.
Gaddis
had come halfway round the world to convey a message. If that message was not delivered, they might as well never have come, never have made the long voyage, never have endured the ordeal and made the sacrifice.

He said slowly, “I see a messenger.”

“You mean we let them go?”

“We let them go. Otherwise, who'll tell the story?” He pushed himself off the bulkhead, timed his crossing to the lean of the ship, and limped across to the bitch box. “Main Control, Bridge. Jim, how's it going down there? Any headway on the fire?”

A heavy, exhausted voice came up in reply, one Dan knew but could not quite yet identify. “Bridge, Main Control: Status report. Main space fire extinguished. Reflash watch set in the fireroom. Five more minutes, we'll give you one-bravo boiler operational at reduced steam capacity. Max estimated speed at that time ten knots.”

“Who's speaking? Is Commander Armey still in the fireroom?”

The dragging voice coughed and coughed and said, “Mr. Armey's in pretty bad shape, sir. He was on the boiler flat when one of those shells came through.”

Dan let up on the lever for a moment as his throat closed, then took a fresh grip on it and on himself and asked, “Who else is down? How's our casualty list look?”

“Not good, sir. We've got a lot of wounded and four or five dead.”

“Who am I talking to? Who's in charge down there?”

“This is Sansone, sir.”

“Have you got enough men to steam, Al?”

“We'll cook you some fuckin' steam, sir. Don't worry about that.”

“Roger, Chief. We've got a lot of casualties up here, too. We're going to head south as soon as you can get the screw turning again. Try to get out of the way of this storm. At least, try to duck the worst of it.”

“Aye, sir. I'll advise when we can answer bells.”

Sansone signed off. Dan clicked off and looked around the bridge, at the smoke-blackened, shocked faces. The boatswain stared back, eyes red-rimmed and weary. “Good job, sir,” he said.

“You, too, Petty Officer Topmark.”

One of the signalmen, at the wing door. “Sir, permission to hoist the U.S. colors.”

“Do it, and—no, wait. Bring that black rag up here.”

He brought it up a few moments later. Dan held the black cloth for a few seconds, feeling their eyes on him. Then he hobbled out onto the wing. The deck was littered with .50-caliber and twenty-millimeter cartridge cases. He knotted a handful of the blackened brass into the flag, so that there was no chance it would float. Then he leaned over the splinter shield and dropped it straight down into the sea. It splashed; bobbed for a second or two, already swept aft by the motion of the ship, then vanished as the bow wave broke over it white and clean.

He still felt dizzy, but a little strength had returned. He gave Zabounian his instructions, then gathered himself, and, limping slowly and deliberately, headed down to check out his ship.

THE AFTERIMAGE

ROYAL THAI NAVAL BASE COMPLEX, SATTAHIP, CHUK SAMET, THAILAND

IT felt like
déjà vu
all over again. The ranks of Asians in uniform, swinging in to take their places on the pier. The band, better than he'd expected; they'd warmed up with some Eastern-flavored marches he'd never heard before. The reviewing stand, replete with dignitaries and saffron-robed monks. And behind them, the flag- and flower-festooned length of a freshly painted Knox-class frigate, gleaming in the sun that now and then broke through the clouds over the soft green hills and danced flashing off the waters of the bay.

The Thai national anthem came to an end, and Dan broke his salute crisply. He waited until the others glanced around for their seats, then let himself down. A government official stepped to the podium. Lenson crossed his legs, careful not to show the soles of his shoes, and feigned attention to the steady stream of language he did not understand. His own turn would come soon. He had been carefully instructed in what he was to say, and more specifically on the many things he was not to mention. Still, it was a momentous occasion, and he felt thankful to be here.

After
Gaddis
's action against the Chinese cruiser and her subsequent battering in two more days of heavy weather, he'd taken her south till he got the message directing him to his next port of call. The orders had pointed him west, to transit to the Gulf of Thailand with no intermediate landfalls. He had the fuel to make it, but barely; the frigate's tanks had been nearly dry when she arrived off Phra Island. A Thai patrol craft had escorted her at night into Sattahip, where she'd immediately been dry-docked for hull inspection, sonar dome and shaft X rays, repairs, and blasting and painting.

By then, of course, those wounded whom Neilsen couldn't save had died, and those who were going to recover were on the way. The final count had been eight dead among the ninety-plus who'd taken
Gaddis
into battle, counting among them Chick Doolan, Johnile Machias, Roy Compline, and Ben Engelhart.

Dan was still angry about the casualties. Intensely angry. But apparently those numbers had been acceptable to whoever had planned their equivocal and obscure mission.

It was perfectly obvious they'd all been expendable.

He suddenly became aware that the official had switched to English.

“… that the government of the United States has seen fit to transfer this notable addition to the Royal Thai Navy, for the purpose of extending our reach offshore and to police the continuing unrest in the Vietnam-Kampuchea area of the Indochinese subcontinent. It is with much gratitude on the part of the Thai people, government, and Crown that we accept the gift in the spirit in which it is offered.

“I will now introduce Daniel Lenson, commanding officer of USS
Marcus Goodrich
.”

Yes, he thought as he stood, they'd even disguised her name.

An interview with Jack Byrne had set him straight on his own responsibilities in the matter.
Gaddis
had never been north of the fifteen-degree line. What had happened in the South China Sea had never happened. Both Mellows and Vorenkamp, along with those lost in battle, had died in an action with a heavily armed Filipino extremist group off Mindanao. But Dan had presented a couple of non-negotiable demands of his own. Those surviving crew members who had not participated in the abortive revolt would get a step up in grade and their choice of assignment. The dead got posthumous Bronze Stars for their actions off “Mindanao” and the living wounded Purple Hearts.

Bobbie Wedlake had agreed to confidentiality; she had what she wanted, which she'd explained simply enough as “revenge.” Dan had driven her up to Bangkok, to catch her flight home.

The only other loose end was Juskoviac, who had survived the battle locked in his stateroom. Byrne had “persuaded” the exec to trade his silence for dismissal of any charges relating to inciting to mutiny, and a shore billet at a training command where he could navigate a desk with perfect safety to all concerned till a not-very-far-off mandatory retirement. Any objections the Thai government might have had to being accessories to such smoke and mirrors had been quelled by the gift of a much-needed frigate.

Byrne had seemed taken aback when Dan presented his after-action report but had accepted it, promising to forward it and the recommendations it contained to the appropriate authorities. He handed over in exchange an envelope containing Dan's own orders, as Tomahawk targeting officer with the staff of the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Central Command, in Mina Salman, Bahrain.

An envelope that remained in Dan's briefcase now. They were interesting orders, he had to admit. He'd operated in the Gulf before, as exec of
Van Zandt
during the strike that had destroyed half the Iranian fleet. This assignment might be even more dangerous, if the offensive against Iraq, built up and planned over the last five months in Operation Desert Shield, was finally unleashed. Byrne had intimated that war was imminent and had recommended Dan get himself in top physical shape; despite his being assigned to a staff billet, it was possible he might see action ashore.

But they weren't command at sea orders, and he doubted they could measure up to where he'd gone and what he'd done with the officers and men of USS
Oliver C. Gaddis.

Since then workmen had swarmed over the ship, repairing damage, restoring her to her pre-Pakistani configuration. She was still not fully ready for sea, but there seemed to be considerable impetus to get him and his crew out of the country fast. He'd only had a couple of meetings with his relief, barely enough to brief him on the maneuvering characteristics of his new ship.

And now it was time to lay down the office he'd never really had. His first command, in a way, and he was pretty certain there'd never be another. Officially, he'd never really been her captain. But he knew better, and he felt sure the ship did, too. He could feel her behind him, a conscious presence in the flickering sunlight. As if she were listening, waiting to hear how he would salute her and how he would remember her.

He took the podium, looking down at the men standing at parade rest to his left. At Jim Armey, Chief Tosito, and the other wounded sitting in the front row. They were too shaky yet to stand in ranks, but he'd wanted them at the ceremony. At Usmani, grinning up in his brand-new blues. He was a U.S. Navy sailor now, and proud as hell.

“I will make my remarks short,” Dan said. “Not because I want to, but because I've been asked to.” Slight frowns, uneasy shifts behind him on the dais; yeah, they knew.

“So I will be brief. To the outgoing crew: You overcame a lot of obstacles, but you acquitted yourselves nobly. I'm proud to have served with you, and maybe we'll run into each other again, down the road.

“To Captain Chandvirach and his men: Treat
Bangpakong
well, and she'll come through for you. She's a solid ship, a dependable ship. I wish you fair winds and following seas.”

There, that ought to be short enough. He turned to his relief, a tall man for a Thai, stiff and resplendent in whites and gold braid. He, too, would know the burden of command and the inestimable reward.

What was command? He knew now he had only glimpsed the edge of it … but he
had
glimpsed the edge.

If professionalism was responsibility for yourself, and placing duty before self, then command at sea was that, squared. It meant being responsible for others, and for placing their welfare over your own.