Scorpion in the Sea (17 page)

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Authors: P.T. Deutermann

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“Now, on all these engineering casualties: I want a composite report made up in a message. List the top ten hard spots, describe what’s wrong, and what you need to fix it. Get that on the street tonight, so the Type Commander guys up at headquarters in Norfolk get it in their Saturday
morning message traffic. You keep the plant steaming this weekend, so you can get back out there Monday, let’s say for a 1600 departure. That’ll give you time to refuel, load stores and all that stuff Monday morning.”
“Yes, Sir,” Mike nodded. “The engineer should have that message done already. But I need to call the ship and let the snipes know right away not to shut down.”
The Commodore pointed to his desk phone, and Mike made the call.
“Now,” he continued, as Mike hung up. “I’m going to assume you were correct about the bullet hole business. You must have seen one or two in all those years in Vietnam, yes?”
“Yes, Sir, I certainly did.”
The Commodore sat back in his chair, looking at him. Only his shirtfront was visible in the desk light; his face was in shadow. Mike could not see his expression. The Commodore was silent for a long minute. Then he leaned forward, his face showing his age in the light of the desklamp.
“You don’t have a lot of friends over there, you know,” he began. Mike knew that over there meant the Group Twelve headquarters.
“That Martinson fella keeps making remarks,” continued the Commodore, “like Goldy is on a downswing, can’t make her commitments, even the easy ones like this Fleetex, and now all this bullshit about a fishing boat and a submarine.”
“We didn’t exactly start that one, Commodore,” bristled Mike.
“No, but you are firmly associated with it; somehow this whole Weird-Harold is tied to Goldsborough. What I’m telling you is: take care. Martinson has the Admiral’s ear, lots more than I do. He obviously dislikes you, and you surely know his reputation as a career killer. If he puts a drop of poison on your name every time it comes up, eventually the Admiral starts to get sick when he hears your name, and then Martinson will try to get him to yank you offa there for something that doesn’t warrant it.”
Mike sat back in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief.
“I know I’ve done some things to get on their shitlist, Commodore. But the problems I’ve been squawking about do exist!”
The Commodore sat silent for a moment. “You’re in command, Mike,” he said, his voice flat. “You’re in command, in peace-time, in an old ship without a mission. You’re competing with guys in newer ships who are in the mainstream of fleet ops, who get to go overseas on deployment. That alone puts you at a real disadvantage. Also, you haven’t helped your case with some of those shittograms you’ve sent out over the past year, blasting the supply department and the repair department and the shipyard and anyone else who didn’t measure up to your standards of support to the Fleet. I cautioned you about that after the first one, but then you let another one go three months after that.”
“But everything I described in those messages was true. They—”
“Yeah, yeah, you told it like it was. But you put some senior Captains on report in the process, and they don’t care for that shit. They call Martinson and bitch and moan about how they have problems too, and they don’t need shit from some guy on the waterfront when there’s lots of ships that need support besides Goldsborough, etc. The Admiral pulls me aside at a party and says to get Goldsborough under control, that the way to get along is to go along—shit, you know the drill. But your biggest sin in the eyes of our very traditional Navy is that you’re different—you aren’t married, you live on a houseboat instead of in quarters, you go on liberty down at the beaches, you drive an expensive sports car—I know, I know,” raising his hand, as Mike sat forward in his chair, ready to protest.
“But the Navy is a very conservative, straight-laced organization,” the Commodore continued. “In peacetime, it values conformity over just about everything else, and appearances even above conformity. In peacetime, when nothing very real is going on, appearances take on the role of reality, because all the Services go into a defensive mode —trying to stave off the budget cutters who want to gut the
military now that the country doesn’t need them. I stress that word peacetime.”
He got up, and began to pace behind his desk, looking out through the plate glass window at the basin full of gray warships. “I know what I’m talking about. I wanted one of the Norfolk DesRons, close to Fleet headquarters. For visibility purposes. Visibility is the key to promotion in peacetime, especially when you’re trying to go from O-6 to O-7 and an Admiral’s star. Instead, I’m down here in what is, relatively speaking, this Florida backwater. On top of that, I’m Jewish and I’m a little bit aggressive about that; that makes me different, too. I’m a short guy in a tall man’s world, and I’ve always been a little pugnacious about that, too. I’ve got a bad temper. And therefore, I have little hope of becoming an Admiral, not because I’m any of those things, but because in the aggregate, I’m different—do you understand the distinction there?”
He paused for a moment, looking at Mike, a bitter smile on his craggy face.
“Probably not,” he sighed. “Well, here’s a rule you can get promoted by: you can afford to be different as long as you—you meaning your command, whether it’s a ship, a squadron, or even a shore station—as long as you don’t have any problems. Today’s peacetime Navy doesn’t have any problems, see, and if we do, we keep them in-house, thank you very much. When I was a ship CO, I went up the line and got help with problems from a reasonably sympathetic Commodore. Now that I’m a squadron commander, now that I’m the Commodore, I get some not-so-faintly veiled threats when I take problems up the line. When you sit where I sit, the word that comes down from on high is: so you got problems? We don’t want to hear that, OK? So you take just care of ’em. Or we’ll get somebody in there who can, OK? That’s what so-called major command is all about. It’s important that the System sees whether or not you can play the game when you’re a Commander. But when you’re a Captain in command, or a squadron Commodore, they want to see if you can play the game without depending on going up the line for help.”
“Surely,” Mike interrupted, “the big guys know that the ships have all sort of problems—people problems, machinery problems, supply problems. They don’t really believe that everything’s just fine and dandy down here on the waterfront, do they?”
“Of course not; but remember, they came up the same road you’re walking, and they all got by the command hurdles without having problems they couldn’t solve, one way or another, either by fixing them, with or without help, or even by hiding them until the next guy came along. They understood early on that the key is to keep the problems, whatever they are, behind the scenes. By all means, work the problems, work ’em hard, and get help from the system, but do it discreetly, and do not make the Navy look bad.”
The Commodore stopped again in front of his big plate glass window, looking at the ships through the darkened glass.
“We’re getting more and more like the Marine Corps, where the gravest sin is to bring any kind of discredit upon the Corps. Now: this submarine thing has the potential to blossom into a real story, and thereby make the Navy look bad, or worse, foolish. So you pay attention, and do it right —lots of tactical sitreps, search plans, fast paced operations razzle-dazzle: make it look really good. Write your sitreps using unclassified language which can be released to the newspapers, so the Public Affairs wienies don’t have to think, not that they could. Remember what this drill is all about. Because if you don’t, and this thing ends up making the Navy look bad, you are very vulnerable, because you’re on a ship that’s got problems, and because you are known as a guy who pours gasoline on the support fire instead of water, OK? Martinson and company are going to be looking for the first sign of intransigence from Goldsborough to put the axe into your command tour. You get the picture?”
“Yes, Sir, I sure do,” replied Mike grimly, getting up from his chair. He stared out the window for a moment. Goldsborough was just out of sight to the left. The Commodore returned to his desk and sat down.
“And, Mike—remember something else, before you tell
me that they can take command and stick it. Remember that you’re the Captain. You feel like the world is picking on you, and maybe you want to say fuck it, and hang it up. But that would leave your guys, your officers and crew, hanging out there, at the mercy of some hotshot who would be brought aboard to fix everything up, and a lot of people would get hurt professionally by a guy who has nothing to lose, and no way to go but up, see? You accept command, you take it on for the whole trip, for the good times and for the bad times. They say a ship is like a woman—costs a lot to keep her in powder and paint. But command is really like marriage in the Roman church: you’re married to that gray bitch until one of you dies or your relief shows up on the pier.”
Mike stood silently by the window for a long moment. “Yes, Sir,” he said, as if talking to his reflection. “I hear you. And thanks for the advice.”
The Commodore grinned at him in the semi-darkness of the office. “Yeah,” he said. “And other than that little unpleasantness, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?”
Mike grinned back. “Right, Commodore. Good night, Sir.”
Mike left the office and headed back across the waterfront to the ship. He hoped the XO was still onboard; knowing Ben, he would be hanging around until his CO got back with the word. Ben was a damned fine Exec; there was none of the eight to four-thirty mentality he found in many of his junior officers. The young ones today considered shipboard duty just a job, not a life, as he had been brought up to do. Maybe in peacetime, especially in an old, non-deploying ship, it looked more like a job than a life. A trio of his sailors came by, dressed in the liberty uniform of jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts. They greeted him politely in the darkness, but their thoughts were obviously on the beach. The ship was back there and out of their minds. For him, the ship loomed ahead and was very much on his mind.
The quarterdeck watch saw him walking down the pier, and, moments later, the four bells and “Goldsborough, arriving”
rang out over the waterfront. The rain started up again as he walked up the brow. He could hear the old ship stirring against the pier, her steel sides scrunching the log camels against the heavily creosoted pilings. Hello, Gray Bitch.
The Mayport Marina; Saturday 19 April, early afternoon
Mike was stepping out of the shower after an hour long workout with his weight set when the phone rang. Grabbing a towel, he stepped into the master’s cabin to reach the phone.
“Captain,” he answered, forgetting for an instant that he was ashore on his boat and not in his cabin.
“Yes, Sir, Captain, CDO here. We’ve had a motor vehicle accident, Sir.”
“OK,” Mike sighed, opening the towel out on the bed and sitting down. “What happened?”
“Best we can tell, Fireman Quigley in B division—he’s an after fireroom guy—wrapped his Harley around a bridge abutment over in Orange Park. I don’t have any more details on how it happened. We got the call from NAS JAX hospital.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes, Sir, but he’s racked up pretty bad. The B division officer is on his way over, and I can’t raise the XO.”
“OK, I’ll go on over there. Send out the personnel casualty sitreps and all that. Does he have family?”
“He’s single, Sir. Parents in Fall River, Massachusetts. I can give you their phone number; the hospital has it already and is going to call ’em. He’s like, twenty, maybe twenty one.”
“OK, thanks. Make sure you inform the Squadron duty officer, and have him notify the Squadron Doc. Tell them I’m on my way over to the hospital.”
“Aye, aye, Sir. Sorry about this.”
“Not as sorry as Quigley probably is; he a good guy?”
“Engineers seem to think so; at least he’s not one of their shitbirds.”
“OK, thanks.”
He hung up and looked at his watch. He was suddenly cold in the air conditioning. It was not all that hot outside, but the humidity was still up around 1000 percent. His body ached from the workout, but he felt better. Nothing like pumping iron to dissolve stress.
He found a clean set of summer whites, rigged a shirt with shoulder boards and insignia, and headed topside. As he was closing up the boat, he noticed that the clouds were blowing in again. More rain coming. He stepped back into the pilothouse and grabbed a plastic raincoat, just in case. Jamming his officer’s cap on his head, he headed for the Alfa.
He drove out of the marina and headed south on A1A. Traffic was light for a Saturday afternoon; everybody was already at the beach if they were going, although the overcast skies were not inviting. He drove down through Mayport Beach, Neptune Beach and Jacksonville Beach and then west to the Buckman bridge across the St. Johns, which was two miles wide at the bridge crossing south of Jacksonville. He could see the Naval Air Station off to his right as he crossed the hump in the middle of the bridge built to allow river boat traffic.
Just what Goldy needed, he thought, was some more attention. A kid wrecks his motorcycle, and the ship gets its traffic safety program inspected. Don’t have problems, the Commodore had said. Then his thoughts turned to the young sailor in the hospital, and all the administrative burdens precipitated by a traffic accident ashore were reduced to their proper insignificance. Twenty year old kid on his Harley, money in his pocket and the weekend still young, and now he would be seeing stainless steel tables, white lights, and people in green masks through a fog of pain. He grimaced. Poor bastard.
On the other side of the river he intercepted U.S. 17 for about two miles, and then turned off into the back entrance of the Naval Air Station, where the signs indicated the way
to the naval hospital. A light rain was starting as he drove into the parking lot. He looked for a spot reasonably close to the main entrance. As usual, there were none to be seen, and he began circling the lot, waiting for someone to leave. Sections of the parking lot were covered by wide sheets of standing water from the previous rains. The shimmering image of the main building of the hospital, surrounded by palm trees, was reflected in the wide puddles. Finally, he saw a car leaving and steered the Alfa into a parking spot. Grabbing his raincoat, he headed for the main entrance.
He asked for directions to the emergency room at the main desk, and they pointed him down a long green hall to the right of the waiting room. There was a steady procession of hospital staff, active duty patients, retirees, dependents, and an occasional man in uniform milling around in the corridor. Saturdays were apparently a busy day. He followed the signs to the emergency room, where he identified himself to the admitting desk corpsman.
“Yes, Sir, Cap’n,” said the Corpsman, a tall, thin black man, who eyed the gold star on Mike’s right breast pocket. “He’s in recovery four; they took him right up to surgery when he came in. That’s gonna be on the fourth deck. Elevators right over there.”
He thanked the corpsman, and took the elevator upstairs. He was met at the surgical admitting desk by a nurse. The ER had called them to alert her that the CO of Quigley’s ship was on his way up. The nurse, a Navy Lieutenant, was being harried by two ringing phones and an impatient looking young doctor. She looked at Mike anxiously as he walked up, but he waved her off. “Take your time; I can wait.”
She gave him a grateful look and returned to the threering circus at her charge desk. Mike looked around. The surgical admin area was at the junction of two halls. On one side were the swinging metal doors to the hallway containing the operating theaters; on the other a hallway led through swinging doors to wards and the special recovery rooms. There were several signs on the wall giving directions to various rooms and wards, along with faded safety
precautions posters and hospital regulations. Mike had the sense that all the real action was behind the swinging doors. There was an uncomfortable looking wooden bench against one wall. He decided to remain standing. There was no one else in the desk area, until Diane Martinson came walking through the doors leading back to the recovery rooms.
Their eyes met across the waiting room. For a moment, neither of them spoke. She was dressed in the traditional Gray Lady hospital volunteer uniform, so called because the starched full shirtdress was a utilitarian gray with trim white borders. Diane wore no makeup and had her hair pulled into an efficient bun at the back of her neck. Mike still thought she looked like a million dollars. She walked over to him, her face carefully composed. He could not decide whether to call her Diane or Mrs. Martinson. Her face grew serious as she approached, and he belatedly remembered why he was here.
“Captain Montgomery. You’re here to see about Fireman Quigley.” In her hospital flats, she had to look up at him.
“Yes, I am,” he answered, ducking the first name issue.
The nurse hung up the phone with a bang and groan of exasperation.
“Damn these infernal bureaucrats. They forget what we’re supposed to be doing here!”
She composed her face and turned to where Diane and Mike were standing.
“Captain. Thanks for being patient. We’ve got kind of a zoo going here.”
“No problem, Lieutenant. I encounter zoos occasionally. How’s my guy, Quigley?”
The nurse pulled a steel chart clipboard from a rack on the wall, and opened it up.
“Not terrific, Sir,” she replied. “He’s got two broken legs, some broken ribs, a possibly punctured lung, a dislocated shoulder, and several square inches of hide missing. Typical motorcycle accident, I’m afraid.”
She looked up, wondering if her offhand comment might have offended the tall Commander.
“Can I see him?” asked Mike. “Is he, uh, awake?”
“Yes, Sir, I think he is—Mrs. Martinson, you’ve been back in recovery—is Fireman Quigley awake?”
“Yes, he is, although they have him pretty well sedated. Shall I show you back to recovery, Captain?”
She was keeping it formal, as if they had never met. Once again, she seemed uncomfortable in his presence. He decided to keep it all official if that’s what she wanted.
“I’d appreciate that, Mrs. Martinson. I’m not going to try to take up a lot of his time or energy.”
He turned to the nurse.
“His division officer, Lieutenant (JG) Sorento, is supposedly coming in. I want to see him before I leave, and then I’ll need a phone with an outside line to call his parents.”
“Of course, Sir. You can use Doctor Henry’s office, right over there. Don’t be too long in there; that kid is going to need his strength.”
Mike smiled mentally at the twenty-four year old nurse calling the twenty year old sailor a kid.
“I understand. Mrs. Martinson, if you’ll lead on …”
Diane walked in front of him through the swinging doors into the recovery area. He was conscious again of a faint perfume amongst all the antiseptic smells of the hospital. Her uniform dress rustled as she walked. He realized that he was a half a head taller than she was, and that her hair, even pulled tight into a bun, was thick and luxuriant. They stopped outside of yet another set of swinging doors, marked Recovery Four.
“There are two patients in here besides Quigley,” she said, quietly, over her shoulder. “One appendectomy, a dependent wife, and one child who had to have her gall bladder taken out, of all things. Quigley is way in the back, behind the closed curtains. He’s—he’s not very pretty to look at.”
She paused in front of the closed door to see if he had any questions.
“Do you volunteer here often?” he asked.
She looked up at him for a moment, seeming to weigh
the propriety of a personal question under these circumstances.
“Yes, once a week, but usually on a weekday. They needed help today, so I came in. Shall we go in?”
He nodded, and they pushed through the door. The recovery bay contained four sections, each with a single bed backed up by a bank of tubes, monitors, and steel tables with medical equipment in steel trays. The beds were ringed by freestanding screen curtain racks on wheeled frames. The light was subdued, owing to the deliberately dimmed lights and growing darkness outside as more clouds moved in. Diane pointed to Quigley’s bed, and stepped aside to let him approach. Mike shivered. He hoped he would never have to spend time in a recovery room.
Quigley was on his back, his arms taped to splints at his side. His pale face seemed to be painted with blue, green, and yellow bruises all around his two very large black eyes. There was a great red scrape mark all the way across his forehead. He had tubes going down his nose and into both arms; his arm splints were taped to the bedside to ensure he did not disturb his IV’s. His legs were also on splint boards, and they stuck out from under the covers like marshmallow man legs. Mike recognized the man, but he looked very much smaller in the bed, enmeshed in all the paraphernalia of life support systems. One swollen eye was partially open, and suddenly he realized that Quigley was looking at him. Forgetting Diane Martinson, he bent down closer to Quigley’s face.
“Hey, snipe. You don’t look like you’re gonna be ready for the 20-24 in two firehouse tonight.”
Quigley tried a grin, but his puffed lips barely managed a painful twist.
“Don’t try to talk,” Mike continued. “There’s ladies present, and they’re probably not used to snipe talk. Now, listen: Mr. Sorento is on his way in, and he’s going to hang around until we know that you’re stable and on the mend. The hospital has notified your parents, and I’m going to be calling them as soon as I’m done in here. If they want to
come down, the ship will arrange for a motel room nearby. OK?”
Quigley blinked his eyes a couple of times; tears were welling up. Mike took Quigley’s hand in his. It felt hot and dry.
“It hurts; I know it hurts, son. But they’ll take good care of you, and we’ll leave somebody back when we go out next week. You’re not going to be alone. Diane—Mrs. Martinson—can I have a kleenex or something.”
Her hand appeared next to his, and he took the sterile paper towel and dabbed Quigley’s eyes a couple of times. From behind, Diane watched, marvelling at this big man’s gentleness with the sailor. Her only contact with senior officers had been in circumstances where a certain amount of professional posturing and a polished, almost macho image was the order of the day. Montgomery was holding this young man’s hand and wiping away his tears like he would a son, all the time reassuring the injured young man. For the first time, her attraction to him was infused by something besides the unmistakable sexual currents which seemed to flow when they met. She had to recompose her face when she realized he was getting ready to leave.
“OK, snipe,” he said. “The doctor’ll be in soon. I’m gonna call your folks right now and let them know what’s going on. You hang in there.”
Diane escorted Mike back to the swinging doors. He smiled at her briefly; his eyes were not all that dry, either, she noticed.
“Will you stay with him for a while?” he asked.
She nodded. “My relief comes in in about twenty minutes; but I’ll stay with him until she shows up.”
He nodded again, thanked her, and slipped out the door to make his calls. From across the recovery room bay, the young wife recovering from her appendectomy asked Diane if the big officer was the Captain of a ship.
“He sure is,” said Diane. “In the best sense of the word.”

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