Scorpion in the Sea

NINE

Mike stood at the main bar in the Officer’s club, nursing a beer. He had come prepared to be bored, and had not been disappointed. The large reception room was already getting hot and stuffy, its air conditioning overwhelmed by the growing crowd of officers in summer whites. The crowd was a mixture of aviators and surface ship drivers. Two thirds of them were trailing wives, and Mike, having nothing better to do, conducted a faintly indifferent appraisal of the women as he scanned the room.

The Admiral, a tall, ascetic looking man in his mid fifties, had just arrived with his wife, creating the appropriate stir amongst the faithful. He was followed closely by the Chief of Staff and his wife. The Admiral’s wife was a kindly looking lady, with a ready smile for everyone she met and the ability to convey the impression that she remembered each and every one. The Chief of Staffs wife, on the other hand, was something else again. Mike remembered her from previous official functions. In her case, one could not be indifferent. He was intrigued by her fine dark eyes, which she focused neutrally on a point about five feet ahead of her husband as she accompanied him through the crowded room. If she was conscious of the stares and glances of the room full of men, she gave no indication. He watched her progress through the crowd with her husband, moving with a cool, detached grace, causing almost a ripple effect, like an elegant yacht entering a marina through the crowd of smaller day boats. He wondered how a woman who looked like that had ever hooked up with J. Walker Martinson, III, cold fish non-pareil.

“Now that’s worth staring at,” said a voice behind him. Mike turned to see who it was. A Commander wearing gold wings on his shirt was looking past him at Diane Martinson.

“Amen to that. Too bad she’s taken,” he replied.

“I see that look on her face, I have to wonder how often she’s being taken. That guy looks a lot more interested in the Admiral than in giving her the time of day, and she’s definitely scouting.”

Mike laughed. “You can tell all that from twenty feet and a port quarter view?”

The commander smiled. “That dolly is transmitting on the SEX band, my friend. I have a permanent watch on that band, even if I am married.”

They both turned back to the bar as the Martinsons disappeared into the crowd of officers and their ladies clustering around Admiral Walker.

“Name’s Don Pringle, by the way; I’m skipper of VP-4.” Pringle was a handsome man of medium height, with a fierce-looking moustache sprouting aggressively from his tanned face.

Mike shook hands. “Mike Montgomery; CO of Goldsborough.”

“Is that one of the Spruance-class ASW ships? I don’t recognize the name as one we work with.”

“No, we’re not really in the ASW game. We specialize in AAW, like in shooting down aircraft. Goldsborough is a straight-stick tin can, with guns.”

“Shooting down aircraft! Bite your tongue! No wonder we don’t play with you. You guys are dangerous!”

Mike laughed. “We don’t shoot down P-3’s unless we absolutely can’t help it, and then we always pick up the survivors, so there’s no break in their per diem …”

“Only communists and other undesirables would have the gall to shoot at, much less hit a P-3, Blackshoe,” Pringle responded amiably. “We’re much too valuable. Bad enough that the Sov subs are supposedly putting SAMs in their periscopes; we don’t need our own tin cans getting hostile. Ready for another beer?”

“Ready as ever. What do you think of this little gathering?”

They moved together down to the bartender’s station, snagged two beers, and then made their way to one of the French doors opening out on to a veranda to escape the rising tide of cocktail party noise.

“I think it’s an OK idea,” said Pringle. “We never really see you guys, except at sea, or on a radio net, or maybe at an exercise prebrief. It gets kinda impersonal, you know? I talked to one guy, skipper of one of the Spruance DD’s, and he’s going to set up an exchange day, my officers aboard his ship for a day at sea, and then we’re gonna let his guys come fly on one of our patrols. Walk a mile in the other poor bastard’s moccasins, you know?”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, that’s good stuff. We’ve got all the heloes out here at Mayport, but you guys are all the way over at NAS Jax. Besides, Goldsborough does ASW as sort of an add-on mission; she’s a quarter of a century old, and her sonar is strictly an active beast. We’re out of it when it comes to sophisticated passive work, and that seems to be the game these days.”

Mike was scanning the crowd as he spoke, hoping to catch another glimpse of Diane Martinson, but she was not in sight. He wondered what made Pringle think she was on the prowl.

“Yeah, well, of course, that’s all we can do from the airplane,” continued Pringle. “Unless we drop a pinger buoy, but we don’t do that until we’re pretty freaking sure we got the sewerpipe in a box. We use an active pinger, we usually drop a torpedo on the next pass. But before that, we’ll work a guy for hours on end, getting him localized. It takes lots of sonobuoys and lots of time and lots of patience.”

Mike turned back to the bar. “Yeah, I hate that about ASW. From the ship’s point of view you spend hours and hours processing ambiguities, all the time wondering if you really got a guy or a whale.”

Pringle nodded. “You know what they say: ASW means anti-submarine warfare; it also stands for awfully slow work.”

Mike finished his beer. “Roger that. Look, nice talking to you. I’ve got to let my boss see that I actually came, and then, with any luck, I’m outa here and on the beach.”

“You single? I thought all you blackshoes were married.” Pringle looked surprised.

“Free and easy, as the song goes. Which is why I feel the urge to blow this popstand. See you on the radio.”

They shook hands again, and Mike turned to find the Commodore. He needed to make his manners to the Admiral, and then convert a trip to the head to a sneakaway into the parking lot, the Commodore’s instructions notwithstanding. He pushed gently through the crowded room, careful not to take advantage of his relative bulk, and oblivious to the buzz of conversations and the thickening atmosphere from the smokers, greeting fellow CO’s as he headed for the second reception room. There he found the Commodore, the Admiral, and the Chief of Staff clustered in one corner, surrounded by mostly surface officers who were trying to look extremely interested in what the Admiral was saying. Since this was business talk, there were no wives in the group. He noticed that the alluring Mrs. Martinson was not around as he joined the small crowd, and eventually worked his way close enough to nod to the Commodore, who acknowledged him with a brief nod of his own, and to say good evening to Admiral Walker. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Captain Martinson eyeing him, but he decided to ignore him for the moment. The Admiral was asking him a question.

“Well, Captain, did you find any submarines out there last night?”

“No, Sir.” He went on to describe the search, emphasizing the wretched sonar conditions in that part of the operating areas, as the officers around them listened attentively. “I think maybe somebody was seeing things,” he concluded.

The Admiral nodded. “I suspect that’s possible; fishing can be a tedious business.”

Captain Martinson broke in. “So can ASW; are you sure you looked hard enough, Captain Montgomery?” Martinson pronounced the word “Captain” in a manner designed to let everyone know how improbable he found the title. An officer was always called “Captain” if he were actually in command of a ship, even if his actual rank was only a Lieutenant. Mike turned his head to look directly at Martinson.

“We looked as hard as the report warranted, Chief of Staff.”

There was a sudden pause in the surrounding conversations. The Commodore shot Mike an exasperated look from behind the Admiral’s right shoulder, confirming Mike’s own sudden realization that, once again, he had gone a little too far. The Admiral, aware of the unintended impertinence, gave him an amused smile.

“I’m sure you did your best, Captain. If there really is a sub out there, we’ll probably be hearing more about him. Gentlemen, I need a refill. Eli, you look like you’re out, too. Come on.”

The two senior officers moved away, breaking up the attending circle. Mike turned with the rest of the officers to go, but Martinson wasn’t finished.

“Smooth move, there, Montgomery. You just told the Admiral that you make the decisions as to which missions are important and which aren’t. How clever of you,” he said, with a superior smile on his face.

Mike flushed with anger, mostly with himself for letting his mouth run without his brain being engaged, but he held his tongue. By Navy protocol, Martinson, being senior, could call him by his last name like a sailor if he wanted to, even though it was a deliberate insult for the Chief of Staff to do so. Martinson finished his drink. He was almost as tall as Montgomery, with a receding hairline, and fine, aristocratic features which were marred by the perpetual, faint sneer on his face when talking to subordinates. He was known in the surface ship community as a “killer,” one who promoted only his favorites and who killed off their competitors with exquisitely crafted fitness reports. He spoke with an acquired New England accent.

“I understand,” he said, “that you live in the actual village of Mayport. As I remember, that’s right next to the commercial fishing piers. Perhaps you can speak to some of the commercial fishermen this weekend, and perhaps see what that was all about.” He pronounced the word perhaps in the British style, p’raps.

“The Coast Guard,” Martinson continued, “was less than forthcoming. It might be useful to explore the antecedents of this report. Think you can manage that? I mean, if I ask you to do it, will that be sufficiently important?”

He stared down his nose at Mike, as if peering haughtily over reading glasses that were not there. The effect was diluted somewhat by the fact that Mike was taller than the Chief of Staff.

“I think I can manage that, Chief of Staff,” said Mike, evenly.

“Oh, very good. Do let us know what you find out.”

He gave a frosty smile, turned and walked away to find the Admiral. He had said “us” as if there were a royal triumvirate to whom this minion would report on Monday. Another ship CO who had been standing nearby and listening wagged his index finger gently at Mike as the Chief of Staff strode away.

“You do have the gift of gab, Michael,” he said sympathetically, albeit with just a hint of professional relief that someone else was on the Chief of Staffs list. Commander Brian Thomas Duffy had command of a Perry class frigate. He was of medium height, red haired and had a round, red Irish face.

“Win some, lose some,” shrugged Mike. “That guy’s been on my case since the first time I sent out a message saying the basin gave the ships lousy support.”

“Yeah, I remember hearing about that,” Duffy said with a chuckle. “That was like, what, over a year ago, wasn’t it? It needed saying, but I was glad you said it instead of me.”

Mike looked down at him, trying to keep any hint of contempt out of his voice. He had little respect for the goalong guys, the Commanding Officers who chose never to criticize anything, although in his more reflective moments he realized that they were going to get along a lot better than he was. Duffy caught his look.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he said, finishing his drink. “If more of us bitched, maybe things would get better. But let me ask you — did you get any better support from the base after you blasted them? I’ll bet you didn’t.”

“If everybody keeps quiet,” replied Mike. “It never gets better.”

“Nope, I think you have it wrong,” said Duffy, shaking his head. “It’s peacetime. The shore establishment is never going to support the Fleet in peacetime the way they should. It’s you that has the unreasonable expectations. All you accomplished was to get yourself some instant notoriety as a troublemaker, and now the big guys treat everything you do with suspicion.”

“Perhaps,” said Mike. “But I think it’s our job as CO’s to call a spade a spade.”

“Again, I disagree,” said Duffy, looking past Mike at someone across the room. “It’s our job as Commanders in command to conform to the expectations of our superiors, not piss them off. That way we stand a chance of getting promoted, and thereby gaining a chance of fixing some of the things that are wrong once we get senior enough to do it. I have to go. Take care, Michael.”

Mike finished his beer as Duffy walked away. He knew that Duffy was probably right, but it still rankled him. One of his CO’s during his XO tour had said the same thing. The Navy is monolithic; it is neither bad nor good — it just is. It succeeds because it makes its officers, especially its commanding officers, conform to a professional standard. You can buck the system if you want to, but be prepared to experience some pain for the privilege.

It was time to go. The Commodore most certainly knew that he had been there. Mission accomplished, sort of, he thought wryly. He made his way through the crowd to a side door, and out into the hall. Some of the party had spilled out into the hallway, slowing him down as he headed for the main entrance to the club. He made a pit stop on the way out. Coming out of the men’s room, he spotted the destroyer squadron Chief Staff Officer standing by the front door, in animated conversation with two aviators. He reversed course, and trying to look inconspicuous, walked back down the hall, made a right out through a side patio door, and collided with Diane Martinson.

They touched briefly, and stepped back away from each other in confusion. He was aware of a subtle perfume, and the soft feel of her body. The back of his right hand had momentarily pressed against her belly. They both were startled, and began apologizing simultaneously. He thought of a dozen flippant things to say, but was distracted by her dark, appraising eyes. They stared at each other for one second longer than was appropriate, a visceral, subliminal channel opening briefly between them, and then she half smiled, half frowned, stepped around him and was gone.

He stood there, feeling like a tongue-tied teenager. She had been nearly as tall as he was; probably just her high heels. Part of him wanted to turn around, go after her, apologize again, do something to maintain contact. Then his better judgement reasserted itself, told him to get gone while he could. The Chief of Staffs wife, for Chrissake! He fled through the side door, and went out to the parking lot, a mosaic of images still imprinted on his mind of her disturbing beauty.

He unlocked the door of his car, a white, 1966 Alfa Romeo hardtop coupe, known by aficionados as a “big Alfa.” He slid in, and lit off the engine, which came to life with a satisfying vrooming noise. He drove out of the O’Club parking lot a little faster than was necessary, aware that the Chief Staff Officer probably had seen or heard him leaving.

What had that woman been doing out there alone on the patio; maybe she had been as bored with the reception as he was. He wished he had been able to keep her there for a moment. He made his way across the base, past the piers and the repair buildings, and out the main gate. Turning right, he drove down past the long fence which bordered the airfield for a mile and a half. The Naval Station itself was collocated with the Mayport Naval Airfield, home to four squadrons of anti-submarine warfare helicopters. The tops of the hangar complex were visible above the palm trees and dense palmetto groves which framed the landing strips. To get to the village of Mayport, he had, to drive almost all the way around the perimeter of the naval complex, a distance of some four miles.

Mayport itself was a tiny fishing village at the junction of the St. Johns river and the Intracoastal Waterway. The St. Johns flows north up the east coast of Florida, through the city and port of Jacksonville, and then east to the Atlantic, while the canal-like Intracoastal Waterway parallels the east coast of Florida. The two waterways joined in a Y-junction a few miles inland from the mouth of the St. Johns on the Atlantic. A ferryboat ran from the Mayport side to the opposite side of the St. Johns, to allow the coastal highway to continue up the Florida coast to Georgia.

Several commercial fishing boats were based in Mayport, tied up to aging wooden piers on the Waterway. There was one large seafood restaurant, an historical tourist attraction called Hampton’s Fish House, which was perched directly on the point defining the intersection of the river and the Waterway, and right next to the ferry landing. The village of Mayport consisted of a few stores selling bait, tackle, and beer, and one gas station. Between the ferry terminal and the main river were two sandy dirt roads embracing a collection of ramshackle wooden houses. On the other side of the fishing piers lay the Mayport marina.

Mike drove down the hard packed gravel road to the marina, parked, made his way past the marina office and across several floating pontoon piers, and went aboard his houseboat, named the Lucky Bag. As soon as he opened the door, he was greeted by a raucous “Shit-fire!” from a large green parrot who was roosting on an A-frame perch in the main lounge. The parrot stretched his neck and began the bowing routine parrots do when greeting their bonded pair mate. Mike dropped his briefcase on the leather room couch, and walked over to the perch. The parrot was dipping and weaving, and Mike bent his head over to one side, and then the other, much to the parrot’s delight. They then recited the parrot’s repertoire of unsavory language, and, when all the formal amenities were over, he pitched the parrot onto his shoulder board and headed for the bedroom to get out of his Navy uniform and into his marina uniform of khaki swim trunks, a t-shirt, and ancient tennis shoes.

The Lucky Bag was a converted commercial fishing boat, eighty feet in length, with a proportionally deep beam and draft. The interior had been gutted and rebuilt to accommodate a large central lounge amidships, two guest cabins and a bath forward, a galley just aft of the lounge, and a spacious master’s cabin which took up the entire after section below deck. The engines had been removed, and the engine room, located beneath the galley area, now contained a diesel generator, an air conditioning plant, and the remaining utilities. The deckhouse had been modified to retain the pilothouse and a companionway ladder to the lounge forward, but the entire after section of deck had been made over into a large, covered, screened in porch area which reached all the way to the stern. With the boat moored bow-in at its pier, the porch overlooked the entire waterway and river junction area.

Mike fixed himself a gin and tonic in the galley, and then he and the parrot went up the after companionway ladder to the porch to watch the sun go down over the river junction. After an evening of serious Navy, and a week at sea, the view from the porch deck was particularly lovely. The western sky over the palm trees across the waterway was filled with red and orange hues and light, stringy clouds. The waterway itself was a shimmering sheen of orange, sparkling light, cut repeatedly by a steady parade of small craft going in both directions. There was a slight onshore breeze from the Atlantic ocean, coming from behind the marina and the naval base hidden in the trees. The screeing noises of the gulls, the puttering hum of small boat engines, and a mixture of music from the radios on passing boats provided a soothing contrast to the metallic environment of a warship, with its tight, confined spaces and atmosphere of anxiety over old machinery and often dangerous evolutions. He found it wonderfully ironic that he could slip out of the Navy entirely by simply stepping onto this old houseboat on the river.

Upriver there came a loud honk of the car ferry’s horn as she got underway from the far shore and headed for the Mayport side. The ferry’s horn was echoed by the lesser blat of a commercial fisherman standing into the junction. The two skippers were exchanging signals about how they were going to pass in the junction of the two waterways. The St. Johns was navigable to large, ocean-going ships from its mouth next to the naval base all the way up to Jacksonville, which meant that considerable care had to be taken when operating any kind of boat in this busy intersection. Mike put Hooker, as he called the parrot, down on the back of a rocking chair; Hooker promptly cussed him and dropped a bomb on the newspaper that Mike kept spread around the rocker to protect the rattan carpeting. Mike retrieved his binoculars from their box by the companionway door, focused them, and identified the incoming fisherman as the Rosie III. Good, he thought. Chris Mayfield. Now maybe I can get the skinny on this stupid submarine business, as well as some fresh snapper for supper. He put the binocs down and retrieved Hooker; the bird walked down his arm and took a slug of gin and tonic, getting a beakfull and then putting his head back to swallow.

“You’re going to get fucked up, there, Bird.”

“God Damn!” croaked the parrot, helping himself to one more shot. He wobbled a little on the return trip to Mike’s shoulder.

“Idiot bird,” grumbled Mike.

Mike left the porch via the port side main deck, and went down the brow to the pier. He waved to a couple of girls who were opening up their boat for the weekend. The big chested blonde invited him to stop by; he acknowledged the invite without actually saying yes or no. With Hooker on his shoulder, he walked across the floating moorings to the sand parking lot, and headed down the dirt road towards the commercial piers.

The Rosie III was docking in a cloud of diesel exhaust and shrieking seagulls, who were anxious for whatever scraps might be coming their way as the crew finished cleaning out the nets. Mike could see old man Mayfield in the door of the boat’s pilothouse. Christian Mayfield was about seventy, and he had been fishing almost his entire life on the Jacksonville fishing grounds. He affected a poverty-stricken demeanor, always complaining about the high cost of everything, but Mike happened to know that he owned a third interest in Hampton’s, as well as many of the house lots in the village. He normally would not give a Navy officer the time of day, but had been intrigued by Mike’s choice of habitat, and his habit of bringing Hooker into the back bar at Hampton’s.

The front bar of Hampton’s was where the tourists went; the back bar, separated from the main dining room by the kitchens, was reserved for locals, and the bartender, an enormous black man called Siam, made sure that this rule was observed. The day he had moved onto the houseboat, nearly a year and half ago, Mike had decided to check out the action at Hampton’s. He had gone into the tourist bar with Hooker on his shoulder. The hostess had been flustered by the bird, and especially after Hooker started up with his salty language. She had told Mike he had to leave because no pets were allowed in the restaurant. Mike had objected on general principles, and then Hooker helped things out by proclaiming a word which genuinely embarrassed the waitress at the top of his durable lungs. The waitress had called Siam, who doubled as bouncer. Upon discovering that the offending customer was almost as big as he was, and being even more intrigued by the parrot’s language, Siam had invited Mike to the back bar. He later told Mike he was curious as to the extent of the bird’s vocabulary, cursing being something of a fine art in Siam’s opinion. Siam and Hooker had compared notes on profanity apparently to Siam’s satisfaction. The bartender then tried to pet the parrot, who promptly took a chunk out of his hand, much to the delight of the regulars. Mike had been a local ever since. Thereafter Siam had great fun trying to induce the uninitiated to go down and pet Hooker on the head. He also kept a small, wooden box with a towel stuffed in it under the bar for those occasions when Hooker drank too much and passed out.

Mike used the side entrance near the kitchen into Hampton’s, thereby avoiding the fancier front foyer. The back bar was a small, plain room, with only five booths along the water side, and a long bar with a steel foot rail made from the steam exhaust piping of the original ferry, and stools running down the length of the landward side. Most of the long wall on the waterway side was glass, which overlooked a railed deck, and a floating pontoon to which boats could tie up. Waterborne regulars could moor to the pontoon and come directly into the back bar for a beer if they wanted to. Behind and above the bar ran panels of mirrored glass, which let the serious drinkers enjoy the view outside without having to execute dangerous maneuvers on their barstools.

Siam was polishing glasses and ignoring the one other customer when Mike came in. When he spotted Hooker, Siam got out the wooden box and slid it down the bar, and began mixing a gin and tonic for Mike, putting in extra lime. Hooker was partial to lime. Mike took a seat at the end of the bar, and waited for Mayfield. He wondered if he should call the ship, to make sure the shut down of the main plant was going all right. The Chief Engineer would stay aboard until fires were pulled under the two boilers and the ship was on shore power. Another good deal for the snipes, to stay aboard after everyone else went on liberty. He decided to give it another hour, so as not to appear that he was worried about what was going on in the ship, even though he usually was. Mayfield banged through the side door, and yelled for a beer. He spotted Mike and joined him at the end of the bar.

“Hello, you ugly fuckin’ bird,” he rasped, scowling at Hooker.

“Fuck your Mama,” squawked Hooker, aiming a bomb at Mayfield’s right boot. Mayfield shied his boot away at the last instant. He smelled of sweat, fish, bourbon and diesel oil in equal proportions.

“Dirty little fucker,” he said. “Hey, Siam, this fucking bird just crapped on the deck, for Chrissakes. What kinda place you runnin’ here, anyway.”

Siam just shook his head; he was not much for conversation. Mike had been letting Hooker suck on the gin and tonic for a few minutes, and the parrot was now rapidly developing a starboard list. A cocktail waitress came in from the front bar to get a steel tray of ice, saw the wobbly parrot staggering around the bar, and shook her head disapprovingly. Mike, figuring enough was enough, laid Hooker down in the towel box, where he promptly closed his eyes and passed out in a heap of feathers. Mayfield looked over into the box.

“You’re gonna kill off that little fucker, he keeps drinkin’ like that,” said Mayfield,

“Hasn’t hurt you any, best I can see,” replied Mike.

“I’ve been going to sea longer; toughens up your liver and lights. What’s happening with the fucking Navy these days? I thought I saw number 920 out there along the Stream the other day.”

“You sure did. Some wiseass called in a report of seeing a submarine out there, and we were elected to go see. You don’t happen to know who that was, do you?”

“Yeah, I do. It was Maxie Barr on the Brenda. He called me about it the other morning on the marine; him and me sailed in the Liberties in Willy Twice, so he figured I’d recognize a U-boat if I saw it. And he said it was a fucking U-boat, came up on the surface, sorta halfway up, and then went back down again. Scared the shit outa him.”

“He called it a U-boat?”

“I just said that, didn’t I? Yeah, he called it a U-boat. Said them fucking Nazis were back, and that he was gonna tell the Navy, get somebody out there to kick their asses.”

Mike stared at his drink, shaking his head. It was almost dark outside; the lights in the bar were reflecting against the glass, dimming the silhouettes of the boats along the waterway. Siam eased down the bar.

“Hit ’em again?” he asked, tipping his chin at their glasses.

“Yeah,” said Mayfield. “But give this sailorboy a sody pop, so he stops getting his parrot fucked up. Lookit that bag a shit in there, that’s disgraceful.” Hooker opened one eye, yawned, and went back under.

“Well, we went out there and spent the night killing fish with the sonar,” said Mike. “I think Maxie must be getting the DT’s or something. If he did see a submarine, then it was a diesel boat from that description. We don’t even own any more diesel boats.”

“Them fuckin’ Russians, now, they got diesel boats, yeah?”

“Yeah, but they don’t send diesel boats across the pond to fart around in U.S. waters — they might send one of their big nukes, but, man, you won’t ever see a nuke on the surface like that.”

Mayfield nodded. “Well, he saw something out there; he was jibberin’ like a goddamn Portigee on that radio.”

Siam brought their refills. The bar was starting to fill up, as the crewmen from the fishing boats gathered for some serious drinking. Mike didn’t need another drink, but it was Friday, and it was bad manners to refuse. He would now have to buy Mayfield a drink, so he slowed it down to make the next round a single.

“Navy gonna keep looking?” asked Mayfield. His tone of voice was indifferent but his old eyes were serious as he looked sideways at Mike.

Mike shook his head slowly. “Nope. We didn’t even file a report on it. If a Navy unit doesn’t make the sighting, it never happened.”

“Shit. Just like the fuckin’ cops,” grumbled Mayfield. “Some asshole cuts you off on the road, you get his license, report it, cops give ya the same story. We don’t see, we can’t write it.”

Mike agreed. “Well, that’s how it is. You catch that U-boat in your nets, bring his ass in, we’ll seize his butt and take all the credit.”

He looked at Mayfield for an instant, and then both said, simultaneously, “Just like the cops.”

They laughed. Mike finished his drink and ordered another beer for Mayfield, leaving money on the bar. He stood up, and picked up the parrot, cradling the inebriated bird in his left elbow.

“You want a fish?” asked Mayfield, over his shoulder.

“Sure.”

“See Jack; he’s got some nice snappers in the chill box.”

“Appreciate it, Cap. And look out for U-boats.”

Mayfield finished off his second beer, and started in on the third. Wiping a line of foam off his upper lip, Mayfield belched loudly. “I’ll do her, Michael. Count on it.”

Mike left the bar and headed back down the sand road along the commercial piers. He stopped by the Rosie III, where Jack, the cleanup man, was hosing down the after deck, blowing bits of fish, viscera, and seaweed from the nets through the limber holes along the deck. A few hundred seagulls swirled overhead in the spotlights. Jack pointed with his chin indicating that Mike should help himself. Mike went into the deckhouse to the ancient refrigerator that was secured to the bulkhead by flimsy looking chains, and picked out a nice one and a half pound red snapper, stuck his finger through its gills, and headed back out on deck to the gangway. Buddy handed him a plastic bag with a dozen large shrimps.

“Kept too many for me to eat,” he yelled over the noise of the gulls.

Mike thanked him, and carried his fish and bag of shrimp back to the marina, Hooker sleeping soundly in the crook of his arm. It was almost fully dark as he walked down the sand road toward the marina; a pair of tourists going towards the restaurant gave him a strange look.

Back on board the Lucky Bag, he put Hooker in a duplicate of the box in the bar to sleep it off in the lounge, and cleaned the shrimp and fish in the galley. He walked back to the short ladder leading up to the back porch, where he turned on the gas grill set up on bricks. Returning to the galley, he put the cleaned shrimp in a glass plate and poured Catalina dressing over them; he brushed down the fish with olive oil. He removed a half loaf of old French bread and a bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay from the refrigerator, uncorked it, grabbed a glass and the fish, and headed back out to the porch deck. He settled back in a deep rattan chair, waiting for the grill to heat, and enjoyed a glass of wine while he watched the boats go by in the dark.

He picked up the phone and dialed the ship’s number and told the OOD to have the Command Duty Officer call him back. He sat back in the creaking chair, and sipped some wine. Maybe later he would slip down to one of the clubs along the waterway, see what was shaking. Or see if the big blonde next door had been serious; or maybe he would just eat his fish and hit the rack. A week at sea, with countless calls about contacts at night and ship exercises early in the morning, was taking more of a toll than it had when he was a Lieutenant. The phone rang, and the CDO gave him a status report on the plant. Mike dictated a wrapup message on the submarine search, which the CDO promised to have out that evening. When the grill was hot, he put the bread in one corner and then placed a well blackened cake rack criss-cross on top of the steel grill. He broiled the marinated shrimp for two minutes on one side, a minute on the other, before picking them off the grill. He then raised the grill, turned down the heat and put the snapper on.

He sat back on the porch while the snapper slow roasted, and thought about the mythical submarine while snacking on the shrimp. A U-boat. Maxie had apparently used the term U-boat. Both Maxie and Chris Mayfield had served in the convoys during the big war; they would know what a U-boat was supposed to look like; Mayfield had told him that he had seen one on the surface after a destroyer had cracked it open with depth charges. He said it had looked like a gutted big fish rolling on the surface, all covered in red rust, and blowing diesel oil and bodies out of huge gash in her side before tipping up her bows and sliding out of sight. Mike knew that modern nuclear powered submarines didn’t look anything like that; even modern diesel-electrics tended to be streamlined and tail finned like the nukes. Except for the older Russian boats, which were, after all, copies of the last class the Nazis had put out in 1945 before their thousand year Reich derailed.

He poured some more wine, went back to the lounge to check on Hooker, and came back out to the porch deck. He turned the snapper over. A U-boat. He had hoped to hear a vivid tale about a big something coming up out of the water in morning twilight, something a drunk or a near-sighted old man who had been up all night might feasibly confuse with a surfacing submarine. But if Maxie had called it a U-boat, then he had seen something else altogether.

He retrieved the fish and the hot bread from the grill onto a wooden platter, broke out some lemon wedges and a doubtful looking tomato from the refrigerator, and returned to the table on the screened porch to have his dinner. The traffic on the river had thinned out by now, with only an occasional small boat putting by in the dark, the faint noise of its engine competing with the sound of bugs flying into the screen. He washed up after dinner, thought briefly about going out, and decided to call it a day instead. Definitely showing his age, he thought.