Scorpion in the Sea (16 page)
Read Scorpion in the Sea Online
Authors: P.T. Deutermann
Cruiser-Destroyer Group Twelve headquarters; Friday, 18 April; 1800
Mike shook out his raincoat as he entered the Group headquarters building, a white, World-War II “temporary” building one block down from the Commodore’s office. A yeoman sitting at a desk literally covered in papers showed him where to put his hat and coat, and then pointed him in the direction of the Admiral’s office.
“Everybody’s down there, Sir,” he said, returning to his typewriter. “Just waiting for Goldy to get tied up.”
“Thanks,” he replied, and headed down the hallway.
He wondered who ‘everybody’ was. The messenger from the Commodore’s staff had been waiting on the pier; meeting at Group Twelve as soon as Goldsborough is tied up. He had left at once, leaving the remainder of the return-to-port operation to the Exec.
He found the door to the conference room open, and went in. The conference room contained one long table with ten armchairs in the center, a podium and screen at one end, and chairs around the rim of the room for straphangers. Two air conditioners hummed quietly in the shaded windows. The Admiral, sitting at the head of the table, was talking to the Commodore and the Chief of Staff when Mike walked in. Some of the Group Twelve staff officers were sitting around in the chairs against the wall. The DesRon Twelve Chief Staff Officer, Commander Bill Barstowe, saw Mike, and pointed a finger at the chair opposite the Commodore. He then caught the Commodore’s attention discreetly, and indicated that Mike had arrived.
“Captain,” nodded the Commodore, as Mike sat down. The Admiral and Captain Martinson broke off their conversation, and the Admiral turned to greet Mike.
“Captain,” he said, formally. “Thank you for coming right over. This meeting concerns the Rosie III and your schedule. The Commodore and I have been digesting your engineering sitreps; you’ve turned up quite a few main plant casualties. I was hoping that Goldy could go south
next week, but I’m thinking now that might not be such a good idea. Comment?”
next week, but I’m thinking now that might not be such a good idea. Comment?”
Mike was aware of the smug look on Martinson’s face, and he felt a tinge of anger creeping into his face. The Commodore was giving him a significant look. Not the time to light fuzes. He took a deep breath.
“Yes, Sir; no one of our problems is fatal, but the aggregate makes at least the forward fireroom a doubtful proposition for a three week operation. My guys have gone ’round the clock on the feed pump controls, but we’re down to needing parts now, and parts take time. The purifier in two engineroom presents the same problem.”
The Admiral nodded sympathetically. “I know you and your crew were looking forward to getting out for some fleet time, but I think what would happen would be that you’d limp into Gitmo or San Juan and clamp on to a pier for the better part of the three weeks. I’m afraid that Goldy is simply showing her age, and I fully understand that parts are becoming hard to find for that steam plant. I think you’ll agree that that’s simply not worth it.”
“Yes, Sir,” sighed Mike, resignedly.
He had half expected this, but the reality still disappointed him. The Commodore was looking down at the table. It was his job to ensure that his ships were ready to meet their commitments, even his elderly training destroyer, so there was some professional egg on his face as well. But the Admiral was also being realistic, and did not seem to be condemning anyone.
“Now,” the Admiral continued. “This business about the fishing boat. That was a good job on finding the wreckage—your instincts on where to look were better than ours, but then I understand that you are acquainted with the Mayport fishermen.”
Two of the staff officers sitting in the wall seats exchanged a smirk, as if to say what kind of a nut lives down in the village of Mayport, on a boat no less.
“We have something of a mystery on our hands now, though,” continued the Admiral, holding a sheaf of papers
in his elegant fingers. “You’ve heard about what the Coast Guard found?”
in his elegant fingers. “You’ve heard about what the Coast Guard found?”
“No, Sir, I don’t believe so; we did a turn-over with them this morning, ran some more engineering trials, and came straight back in.”
“They carried a Tethered Eye on that cutter; are you familiar with that system?” said Martinson.
“Yes, Sir,” Mike nodded.
He had read about the Eye some six months ago. It was a miniature submarine television pod which could be sent underwater to depths of 600 feet, trailing a fiberoptic control and data wire. In addition to a tiny sonar transceiver, the pod had a high intensity light surrounding its spherical glass nose, and the camera lens inside gave the front of the pod an eye-like appearance. The Coast Guard had begun to use the Eye to do quick surveys of sunken vessels, to determine if there were signs of life from men trapped in a hull.
“Well,” continued the Admiral, “they found the fishing boat, lying on her side on the bottom about a thousand yards from where you put down that buoy. She had her nets deployed, and not a mark on her. No signs of a collision, fire, explosion or any other kind of damage.”
Mike frowned. So why had she sunk?
“The complication,” said Martinson, “is your report that there was an alleged bullet hole in the nameboard that you turned over to the coastie. We haven’t released that to the press, yet, and we’re waiting for the coastie to get back in. We’re going to turn the board over to the local police labs to get their opinion on that purported bullet hole. The problem is, of course, what do we do about it, if it does turn out to be a bullet hole.”
Mike sat back in his chair. Alleged? Purported?
“It sure looked like a bullet hole,” he said. “Smooth entrance, ragged exit, long splinters of wood torn out on the back side. And no other damage to the board.”
“We appreciate your opinion, Captain,” said Captain Martinson. “But we still intend to have forensic experts look at it. It makes a difference as to what happens next.”
“How so, Sir?”
“Well,” said the Admiral, “absent the bullet hole, the Rosie III is a closed case as far as the Navy is concerned; misadventure at sea. The sea is full of mysteries like that, and they are a Coast Guard problem, not a Navy problem. If there’s a bullet hole in the board, however, then there’s more to it, and there’s going to have to be an investigation of some kind.”
“Yes, Sir,” protested Mike. “But that’s a Coast Guard matter, too—law enforcement within 200 miles of the coast. I suppose they can raise the boat and take a look, if they want to. Chris Mayfield was a friend, but what does this have to do with the Navy?”
“Because,” said the Commodore, speaking for the first time, “the locals are saying that it might have been the submarine that did it.”
“Submarine? What submarine?” asked Mike, forgetting for a moment that he had conducted a search for a submarine the previous week. “Oh, for Chrissakes, that submarine report?”
He laughed in disbelief. But nobody else in the room even cracked a smile. The Commodore leaned forward and explained it to him.
“Yeah, well, you think it was somebody having a bad dream, and, frankly, so do I, but the local fishermen, especially Mr. Barr, skipper of the good boat Brenda, swear that it was real. The way they see it, we couldn’t find it; if we had found it, Mayfield might still be around. They think the bullet hole in the nameboard proves he mixed it up with someone.”
“But we haven’t released anything about a bullet hole, have we?” asked Mike.
“No, Mike, we haven’t,” said the Commodore patiently. “But you know those guys—they have a way of knowing what’s going on. Somebody’s been running his mouth; or the Coastie talked to District on his marine radio. Who knows. But that’s why we’re going to get the cops to have a look at the nameboard.”
Mike shook his head. The others in the room were looking
at him. He still didn’t get it. What was the Navy’s involvement?
at him. He still didn’t get it. What was the Navy’s involvement?
“It means, Captain,” said Martinson, a faint hint of triumph in his voice, “that if the police say it’s a bullet hole, we have to send a ship out there into the op-areas to look for a submarine again.”
Now it all fell into place. Martinson had convinced the Admiral to use the excuse of his engineering problems to keep him here for this little sideshow. Mike looked at the Commodore for a moment as if expecting some help.
“Does anybody here believe,” he asked, rhetorically, “that there is an unidentified, diesel-electric submarine operating offshore who’s going around sinking fishing boats?”
“No, Mike, none of us believe that,” responded the Commodore, heading off the Admiral. “But if the fishermen believe it, and the newspapers pick it up and spread it, then we have to be seen like we care and that we’re proactively doing something about it; the Coast Guard doesn’t do windows or submarines.”
“We are reporting this situation up the Navy’s public affairs chain right now,” said the Admiral. “I want to be out front on this one, rather than waiting for the local papers to clamor for action. We are also pulsing the intelligence system, to see if there are any Sov’s unaccounted for. Now, your engineering casualties preclude you from going on a three week fleet exercise, but not from local ops. So, on a contingency basis, we’re announcing that we’re going to assign Goldsborough to go back out Monday. By that time the police lab either will or won’t have corroborated the bullet hole theory, and Goldsborough will, or won’t, spend a week looking for our phantom submarine.”
Mike looked down at the table and nodded. “Aye, aye, Sir. Only fair—we found the problem. But might you not want to send out a real ASW platform for this? Goldy is hardly a front-line subhunter.”
“Goldy is as much ship as we want to commit to this effort, Captain,” said Martinson politely. “As even you made clear the other night, we don’t think there’s a whole lot of merit in this submarine theory.”
Stung, Mike sat silent. Goldy was good enough for the shit details; that was what the Chief of Staff was saying. But not for fleet ops. The staff officers, taking their cue from the Chief of Staff, were smiling openly while looking innocently down at the floor. The Commodore, aware of the currents of antagonism flowing in the room, finally intervened.
“It’s a shallow water operation, Mike,” he said. “The big sonars on the Spruance’s aren’t worth shit in shallow water in the active mode. Searching for something in these opareas, especially a diesel-electric on the battery, takes an active sonar, and you’ve got a 23; the 23’s were made for active work, and this calls for active work.”
“And if you find one,” said Martinson, “you’ve even got depth charges, as I recall. You can classify him with an oil slick, like they did in World War II.”
The staff officers smiled at his wittiness when Martinson looked around the room as he enjoyed his little joke.
“You giving me permission to use depth charges to classify, Chief of Staff?” asked Montgomery, his face neutral. The Admiral made a sound of exasperation.
“No, Captain, he is not. C’mon, Mike—this is a shit detail, OK? We’re not even bothering our bosses about it—just the public affairs people. Go out there, go through the motions. You get a contact, do the regulation peacetime drill to find out what it is and who it is. Peacetime rules of engagement all around. Come in next Friday and it’s over and done with, and we’ve made the effort. Sorry about the fishing boat, and all that. Let’s not make this thing into a bigger deal than it is; this is all just peacetime public affairs damage control. OK?”
Mike sat back. Straight talk, at last.
“Yes, Sir,” he replied. “Got it. We’ll be ready to go Monday morning.”
The Commodore intervened again. “Let’s make it Monday afternoon—that way we can see what the midday supply run from Jax brings over. Maybe get some of your parts in.”
“Good idea,” said the Admiral. He began to gather up his papers, signalling that the meeting was over.
Mike had a fleeting thought, about something Mayfield had said in the bar. Maxie Barr had called it a U-boat, not a submarine. Do you suppose … But the Commodore got up at that point, breaking up the meeting.
“C’mon back to my office, Mike. I want a full brief on your engineering problems. Maybe we can expedite some of those parts.” He turned to Commander Barstowe. “CSO, you work with Captain Martinson here on that other matter we were talking about.”
The two officers took their leave, and headed back to the DesRon Twelve office. The rain had stopped. The ships tied up along the bulkhead pier glistened in the glare of the quartz halogen streetlights. Neither of them spoke on the walk back. Mike was still angry about the whole thing, the decrepit machinery in his engineering plant, cancellation of the cruise to the fleet operations in the Caribbean, and embarrassed that his ship didn’t run. And now getting stuck with this submarine charade. If this is what command is all about, they can stick it. He belatedly remembered his crew; they had worked hard, inspired by the prospects of real fleet ops and some Caribbean liberty ports. They would be really pissed off, too. He would have to go back and put the word out tonight. The Commodore must have been reading his thoughts.
“Sometimes command gets pretty disheartening, Mike,” he said, as they entered the darkened offices. There was only one yeoman working late in the squadron staff building; the rest of the staff had long since gone home. The Commodore made a quick phone call to his wife, telling her he’d be home in a few minutes. They went into his office, and the Commodore sat down at his desk, indicating a chair for Mike.
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