Scorpion in the Sea

SIXTY-SIX

The Commodore and several other officers stared out the windows of Deyo’s expansive pilothouse at a scene from hell. Huge clouds of black smoke were rolling in over the base, obliterating the afternoon sunlight and making it appear that many ships in the basin were on fire. The smoke was so thick that its source, the partially submerged wreck of the car carrier, was visible in the murk only as a brilliant, pulsating orange glare. An entire sector of the horizon along the carrier piers was obscured, and the towering pillar of black smoke was pushing itself into a mushroom shaped cloud above the base.

The sound of police and ambulance sirens could be heard all over the base. Men on the ships moored near the Deyo were scrambling to help injured shipmates who had been hit by the hail of metal raining down out of the sky when the car carrier, packed with over 2000 partially filled automobile gas tanks, had blown up on the river. It was plain that there was now a major problem on the base as well as in the river junction, with scores of people injured. The Captain of the Deyo hurried in through the back door of the pilothouse, and walked over to where the Commodore was standing.

“Sir, I’ve got some people injured out on deck, and there seem to be a lot of injuries on the ships all around us. My medical people are helping our guys, and then we’re going to send a team out on the base. The base command center has apparently sent out an operational incident report. If you don’t need me right now—”

“Yeah, go ahead,” interrupted the Commodore. “But make sure I still have that circuit up with the Goldsborough. I need to talk to Mike right now.”

“Yes, Sir, base shore power is stable, so we shouldn’t have lost comms, unless an antenna got hit. I’ll verify you’re still on the air.”

He stared out the windows for a moment. “What on earth do you suppose happened out there?”

“I have the inkling of an idea, Captain,” said the Commodore, shaking his head, his face grim. He hurried below to CIC. The IV looked at his Exec, who shrugged his shoulders in a beats-me expression, and hurried back down the ladder.

The Commodore took the handset from the anxious looking watchstander and called the Goldsborough. A radio talker in Goldsborough’s CIC answered at once.

“This is Charlie Delta Sierra One Two,” said the Commodore. “Pass to your Charlie Oscar that a large merchant ship has blown up in the St. Johns river channel. An eyewitness reports that the merchant was torpedoed, I repeat, torpedoed. Tell your Charlie Oscar, Heads Up, we may be right after all, over?”

“This is One Sierra, roger, copy all, out.”

The Commodore put down the handset. Mines, he thought. Fucking mines, not torpedoes, not in sixty feet of water. The bastards laid down mines, right on our front fucking door!