The Gulf (12 page)

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 Kh
ā
rk 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 complaining 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.

“Do it. Thank you,” said Shaker. The seaman saluted, and left with a look of relief. When the door was shut, he said, “That's something we don't need to do anymore.”

“Eight and noon reports?”

“Right. I know it's in
Customs and Ceremonies,
but it's a time-waster. We'll do it in port. Not at sea.”

Dan pulled out his wheel book and made a note.

“Okay,” said Shaker. He shook out a Camel and proffered the pack; Dan shook his head. The captain flicked a Zippo and inhaled. “Well. Here we are, back where sailors belong.”