CV

48

Commander Leonard W. Markey was a stocky blond man. His eyes were pale blue; his eyelashes were almost white, and his skin so fair that it burned and peeled. He would have been well suited to North Atlantic or Arctic duty, and therefore, as a matter of habit and tradition, the Navy had assigned him to the Asiatic Fleet.

Markey had graduated from Annapolis seventeen years before, standing one hundred forty-first in his class. At the age of thirty-nine, he knew he had been a little too long in grade, and could not look forward to further advancement unless there was a shooting war, an eventuality for which, as a sensible man, he had no yearning. He considered himself a good officer; in maneuvers last spring, Bluefields had scored the second-highest marks of any helicopter carrier in the fleet. On the whole, he was satisfied with his life and his career; he looked forward to another few years of undistinguished service, then retirement with his wife and children on Oahu.

His present mission had started out as something just unusual enough to be interesting, but certainly not much of a challenge. The search for the missing lifeboat was routine; the recon helicopters came back every day with nothing to report, and that was not surprising: if the lifeboat was under power, it could be anywhere in a thousand-mile radius by now. That was not really his problem—other ships and planes out of Guam were looking for the lifeboat, and eventually one of them would find it. Meanwhile, rescuing the VIP passengers from Sea Venture was his problem.

At first he had not been able to believe that CV’s behavior was anything but some kind of dumb mistake, but now he was beginning to see the matter differently. This was not an aid-to-civilians mission, like ferrying Roosevelt’s dog home from Yalta during World War II; he was fighting a naval engagement against an opponent who was making a jackass out of him.

The problem was that he couldn’t land a copter on CV’s deck, because every time he tried, the damn thing submerged. With helicopter reconnaissance, he could locate it every time it surfaced, but he couldn’t fire a shot, couldn’t drop depth charges, couldn’t do anything that might injure civilians; and if the copter approached, down it went again.

There had to be a solution. There was; Markey had found it, and he felt pleased with himself.

For the time being, Bliss had decided, the best thing would be to run partly submerged at night, when the chances of being sighted were almost nil, and surface in daylight. There was no way to escape the carrier except by running fully submerged indefinitely, and he couldn’t do that because the air-purifying chemicals wouldn’t hold out forever. Food was going to be a problem, too; their supplies were meant to last only until they reached Manila.

When he entered the Control Center at oh-eight-hundred on Thursday, the sun was well up in a partly overcast sky. He said good morning to Ferguson and Stuart, looked at the log, then the barometer. “No sign of our friends yet?” he asked.

“Not yet. Woop, excuse me, I think I see them.”

In the foretop monitor, a dark shape was rising and dipping near the horizon. “Yes, there they are,” said Bliss. “Everything secured?”

“Yes, sir, as you ordered.”

“Any complaints from the passengers?”

“Oh, yes."

The four frogmen were mustering on the flight deck. In the bridge monitors, Markey watched them climb into the copter carrying their gear. The door closed.

“Charlie Hatrack Four Niner, you are cleared for takeoff.” said the speaker.

“Roger.”

After a moment the two sets of blades began to turn; the ungainly machine rose from the deck, hovered, swiveled in midair, and tilted off toward Sea Venture.

“Down to plus ten, Mr. Ferguson.”

“Yes, sir.”

The water rose over one deck after another. The copter made a pass overhead, swung back; then a series of dark shapes dropped from it into the water.

“What was that?” said Bliss sharply.

“Frogmen, sir. Four of them.”

“No, I meant that other thing—what was it, a raft?”

“Looked like one, sir.”

“What are they up to?” Bliss muttered, and gnawed a thumbnail. “Raft—they’ll tie onto us— Oh, God! Surface, Mr. Ferguson, smartly!”

“Sir? Yes, sir.” Ferguson touched the controls. In the lookout screen they saw the water receding; then the Signal Deck broke the surface, and as the lenses cleared they could see white water boiling across the deck. Four struggling figures were washed over the side.

“Plus ten, Mr. Ferguson. Where’s the copter?”

“There, sir.” The helicopter swooped overhead, descended to port, came back again.

In the screens now they could see the raft, and four dark heads bobbing in the swell a few yards off the port quarter. The frogmen and their raft were slowly falling astern. The copter circled again. Presently it hovered and lowered a sling. They watched as one frogman after another was hoisted into the copter. They left the raft behind. The copter drifted away toward the carrier.

Ferguson was clearly puzzled. “Chief, if you don’t mind my asking—”

“They were going to tie onto us with a long line. We’d tow them, wherever we went. Then the next time we surfaced, they’d be there. That would be the end.”

“Yes, sir.” Ferguson’s eyes were bright.

Bliss turned away. He was not proud of himself, and the admiring looks of his deputies merely made him feel like an imposter. This was not his line at all, this Homblower kind of daredevilry. Something Hartman had said, talking of Nelson, had put it into his head—Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen, putting the spyglass to his blind eye and remarking that he couldn’t read the signals. That was all right for Nelson, but not for him. Nelson had been made a viscount afterward; he was simply going to lose his job, and perhaps his life.

When the copter returned with its crestfallen crew, Markey said to his executive officer, “Goddamn it, who is that guy, anyway?”

“Civilian, I think. Maybe he was in the merchant marine before.”

“Well, where did he get that cocked hat?” Markey sat down at the chart table. “Do you realize I’ve got to signal CINCAF and tell them we’ve blown it again?”

“They can’t get away with this forever.”

“Well, what’s going to stop them?” Markey looked gloomily at the table. “Get San Francisco on the phone. Tell them I want a complete set of plans for Sea Venture, right down to the nuts and bolts. This is going to be a dirtier job than I thought.”