Scorpion in the Sea

FIFTY-EIGHT

Mike stood sweating in the control console booth of the forward fireroom, and listened to the satisfying whine of main feed pumps, forced draft blowers, and the underlying roar of 1B boiler making 1200-pound steam. The amplified intercom circuit between Main Control in the forward engineroom and the rest of the spaces blared intermittently with orders from the Engineering Officer of the Watch, abbreviated inevitably as “EE-OW” by anyone speaking on the circuit. The rush of air from the 16 inch ventilation ducts added to the noise level, but it kept the temperature at a bearable 95 degrees. The fireroom smelled of steam, lagging, fuel oil, and ozone in about equal proportions.

“She came right up, Cap’n,” shouted the BT Chief over the noise of the machinery. “Nary a wisp of steam, either. First time we’ve had a dry hole down here in a long time.”

The Chief Engineer stood behind him, a big grin on his face for a change.

“Looking good, Chief,” Mike shouted back.

So far, the main plant had come on the line like clockwork, almost as if the old girl knew she had a job to do. He had conferred with the Commodore earlier that morning, and they had discussed tactics and several what-if’s. The Commodore had explained the arrangements he was making to have someone on watch back in the harbor. Mike had promised the Commodore a call at noon to report status. He glanced at his watch.

“Gotta go call my Boss, Engineer. Keep her turning and burning, but if something does pop, make sure I hear about it right away — don’t try to handle it on your own.”

“Got a time bind, do we, Cap’n?” shouted the Chief, with a knowing grin.

Mike looked at him for a moment. “Yes, we do, Chief.”

He climbed up the short stub ladder from the lower level to the upper level, where the temperature was approaching 105 degrees. The water check-man saw him from across the upper level deck gratings and waved; Goldy’s snipes were an informal bunch when they had their boilers on the line. A fireroom was hardly the place for saluting. Mike waved back and then climbed up the twenty foot, stainless steel ladder to the main hatch, eased his bulk through the hatch, and headed for the more reasonably angled ladder-stairway up to the 01 level and his cabin. He went into his tiny bathroom and washed the sweat off his face. The air conditioning in the cabin felt like a winter breeze after the fireroom. He dialed the Commodore’s number, and was answered by the Chief Staff Officer, who put him on hold. A minute later, the Commodore picked up.

“OK, Mike, whatcha got?”

Mike gave him a quick update on the success of the repairs, and was able to report that Goldy was lit off forward and aft and that, so far, everything was holding.

“Good. Very good,” grunted the Commodore. “Better than we all expected, given the past history of some of those problems. What time you want to go?”

“I’d like to let her steam for the afternoon, Commodore, make sure we’re tight and right, and then get underway about 1630. I just need one tug to pull us away from the nest, so the pilots can’t claim overtime.”

“OK, do it. Coral Sea is still due in tomorrow, in the basin at around 1900. Now, as we discussed: I’m going to post an operations watch in the Deyo starting at 2000 tonight. I’ll have a watch officer and one enlisted on watch in the Deyo’s CIC. He’ll be joined by the CSO at daybreak, and I’ll be onboard at the first sign you have something. I’ve told the CO that I’m running a command and control test with you and Coral Sea. I’ve also asked him to have his passive electronic warfare suite manned up. Deyo’s gear is more sophisticated than what you have there in Goldy; if this gomer pops a radar, you’ll have another set of ears on the air. He can give you a bearing, although that won’t be too much help, coming from Mayport. My guy will be up on a secure UHF freq, and my comms Chief will contact you with callsigns and backup frequencies before you take off. OK?”

“Yes, Sir, sounds good. Did the I.V. seem curious?”

“A little, but I told him that you were going to combine a sea trial with a little exercise with the Coral Sea, and he seemed happy. Your crew figured out something’s going down?”

“Yes, Sir, some of the Chiefs have. The weapons groom for a possible inspection story didn’t wash; I think the Squadron chiefs were less than convincing.”

“I’m not surprised. Some of my guys are giving me funny looks. I suspect Chief Mackensie may have said some things. I wish Goldy had a unit commander’s cabin, because I’d be coming along if you did. But you’re gonna have to handle this one solo, Cowboy. You said you were sick of peacetime routine.”

“You heard it here first, Commodore,” said Mike with a grin. “But is there any chance of having a helo or two on alert thirty tomorrow, like around 1500 onward?”

“Yeah, CSO and I talked about that, but the problem is weapons: the only weapons they can carry are torpedoes, but their torpedoes will have the same problem your torpedoes are gonna have: bottom acquisition. And if we set them with a real shallow floor, they’re as liable to lock on Goldsborough or Coral Sea as they are the sewerpipe. Neither of you need that kind of problem.”

“Yes, Sir, but I was thinking, if they came out loaded with buoys instead of weapons, they might make a crucial difference in my localization search, especially if they could localize any sonar contacts we gain on the 23. Once the bird farm shows up, I’m not going to have much time to localize and whack this guy.”

The Commodore thought about that for a moment. A request for forces outside of the destroyer force would have to go through channels — from the Cruiser-Destroyer Group to the local Air Wing commander. He would be very hard pressed to explain why he wanted a helicopter to go out and play with Goldsborough when Goldy was supposed to be on an engineering sea trial. He was already amazed that no one at Group or higher up had stumbled onto what they were doing.

“Mike, I’ll try to think of something. Maybe talk to one of the helo squadron CO’s. But I can’t go through channels or we’re gonna get caught. But I’ll try. I know Mike Sinclair from a couple of golf games; he’s got a LAMPS helo squadron. He might be able to send a guy out, but he’ll have to come out there ignorant.”

“I’ll take anything I can get, Commodore,” Mike said.

“Hey, don’t forget the carrier — he has heloes, too.”

“Yes, Sir, but they usually fly the airwing off before they come into port. He might be fresh out of fling-wings by the time I see him.” He paused for a second. “At this juncture I’m still hoping we’re both entirely wrong.”

“I know, Mike. I hope we’re wrong, too. But the more I think about it, the more I don’t think we are. And if we’re not wrong, you and Goldsborough are all that’s between Coral Sea and a major tragedy for the U.S. Navy. What do the snipes call it — a no-shitter? I’m afraid you’re going to have to forget the past two years of admin, politics, paperwork, and liberty weekends and pare down to the bleeding bone. Get on the 1MC and brief your crew as soon as you’re clear, and then get into Condition Two right away — tonight. Button her up like you were at Condition One, and keep a damage control team manned up at all times; the first hint you get of a contact, get your entire damage control organization into Condition One. And — but, shit, I’m telling you your business. Gimme a call just before you sail if you need anything.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” said Mike, and hung up.

He called for the Exec to come up so he could pass on the Commodore’s arrangements and review their plan for bringing the ship’s readiness up as soon as they were clear of the channel. He reminded himself to call Diane if he could before they sailed. As he waited for the Exec, he thought about the upcoming operation. The Commodore’s warnings on damage control readiness had brought home the grim possibility that things could get nasty out there in a hell of a hurry. He recalled the vivid images from the Victory at Sea documentary films, of bigger ships than Goldsborough blown in half by a single submarine torpedo, their seemingly impervious armored steel hulls being punched up effortlessly by a thundering sea, bending first upwards in the middle before settling back down into the fatal, V-shaped sag that preceded a swift slide into the deep, with everybody aboard still able trying to get to their feet even as the sea sucked them down to spend eternity, entombed in sealed, flooded steel compartments.

He knew, without ever having experienced it, that the reality of a sea fight was a far cry from the antiseptic playacting of the annual fleet battle problems. He wondered how the crew would react. The typical Navy destroyer went to sea with last year’s high school class, the average age aboard ship being around nineteen. Outside, in the passageway, he heard the 1MC order the crew to set the special sea and anchor detail, and the familiar cold worm moved in his guts. It was one thing to be Captain at the head of the wardroom table. It was quite another to be Captain on the bridge, getting underway for what might be the battle of his life, of his ship’s life.

The Exec knocked on the door and came in. Mike briefed him on the Commodore’s arrangements, and went through the details of how they would tighten up the ship’s readiness as soon as they were clear of the river entrance. The Exec, as usual, wrote everything down in his little green notebook.

“Now,” said Mike, “I have to figure out how much to tell the troops — how much or how little.”

“Yes, Sir,” said the Exec. “I think they need to know what we think is going on. Maybe hold back on the Libyan aspect, but the rest of it — I’d just tell ’em right up front.”

“I agree, XO,” Mike said, nodding his head. “I’m going to lay it out for them, tell ’em we may be full of shit, but then again we may be right, and, if so, that we’ll be the only thing between Coral Sea and a very bad afternoon.”

“Operationally, nothing beats the whole truth, Cap’n,” the Exec said, closing his notebook. “I’d tell ‘em the ‘evidence’ too.”

“Yeah, I will. I think what I want to do is get on the 1MC and brief the whole crew, but then have a meeting in CIC with the principal officers to lay out our search and attack tactics.”

The Exec got up. “I’ll make an announcement that you’re going to speak to them about fifteen minutes after we secure from sea detail. We going out in a deception mode?”

“Yes. I think you were right about that. I’ll want to lock one shaft, shut down the military radars — just use the Raytheon, and keep the sonar and fathometer silenced until the right time.”

“When is that, Sir?”

Mike looked up at him. “I’m damned if I know yet, XO, but it’ll probably come to me.”

The Exec grinned. Mike threw up his hands.

“Probably when we have a confirmed contact on the carrier,” he said. “Right now I need to study the hydrographic charts very carefully, and I’ll need Linc’s PC. The sub can’t know yet, or shouldn’t know, anyway, that the carrier’s escorts are all going to leave her when she turns west, so the bad guys should be hiding, initially. In that water depth, they’ll need to use the bottom topography, and my guess is that they’ll be on the west or inshore side of any good shadow zone. Let the carrier approach, which they can easily hear and classify, go over top, and then rise off the bottom and fire. If she had escorts, they would all be looking out ahead of the carrier, not behind her, especially one hour out of home port. It’s not like there’s been any warning.”

The Exec nodded. “That’s the part I really don’t like about this whole deal. For fear of looking silly, nobody’s willing to tell the carrier he may be walking into something.”

“It may indeed be silly, XO. Part of me is hoping that we are indeed a bunch of dummies who’ve talked themselves into a wolf in the woods. We’re taking a chance that we may look quite the fools come tomorrow night, especially to the crew.”

“That’s why we get paid all this extra money, Cap’n,” the Exec said. “To take all these chances.”

“There you go, XO. Now, I gotta make a phone call.”

The Exec nodded and slipped out the door. Mike dialed Diane’s home phone number. She answered on the first ring.

“Yes?” she said anxiously.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Mike said. “A pretty girl who says yes.”

“Oh, stop,” she said. “I was afraid you’d leave without calling me.”

She paused for a second, and then let it all out in a rush. “Mike, I’m scared. Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I was determined to keep a stiff upper lip, pretend this is just an ordinary underway. But you guys could get hurt, or worse. I couldn’t stand that, not now, not after—”

“I know, Diane, I know,” said Mike softly. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m a little scared too, but I have to tell you, I’m more scared of fucking it up than I am of getting hurt.”

“Oh, Mike, you need to stop worrying about how your actions are going to look. You just focus on getting that bastard out there before he gets you, your ship, and your crew. Don’t let all the Commodore’s lectures about getting along politically interfere with your instincts. If all those ribbons you wear mean anything at all, they show that you have a fighter’s instincts. Listen to them.”

“Yeah, I know. But Vietnam was a long time ago. And this whole thing may yet be a phantom of our imaginations.”

“But if it isn’t, a lot of guys are depending on good old Goldsborough and Mike Montgomery, and the hell of it is, they don’t even know it.”

“Including, I guess, even your husband.”

“He’s not my husband,” she said defiantly. “Not any more. Not for a long time. I had to meet you to find that out, and now you’re going off to sea on this crazy mission. Oh, listen to me. I’m sorry. I sound like I need a widow’s walk up on the roof of these quarters so I can pace around up there until I see you coming back in. Oh, Mike, I’m so glad you called.”

“I love you, Diane,” he whispered.

“I love you, Mike. Please, please keep safe and come back to me.”

“Count on it, Love.”

There was a knock on the door, and the IC-man stuck his head in.

“Outside line coming down, Cap’n,” he announced.

Mike waved his acknowledgement and the IC-man closed the door.

“Gotta go,” he said to the phone.

“I heard him,” she said, her voice under tight control. “I’ve hated those words for too many years. I’ll be right here, waiting.”

“I know. I love you,” he said, and then the line went dead as the IC-gang disconnected on the pier and pulled the line aboard.