Scorpion in the Sea

FIFTEEN

The Captain sat in his chair, glowering out at the persistent rain and the gathering darkness. The ship was headed at slow speed into the wind, which gusted noisily through the open doors. The bridge watch did not exactly tiptoe around the pilothouse but there was none of the usual banter. The red light came back on the bitch box in front of his chair. He leaned forward.

“Bridge, Main Control,” announced the box.

“Bridge, Aye,” Mike responded.

“Cap’n, that feed pump is not responding to the control system; she comes up on the governor, but trips off the line when the first demand signal hits. We’re gonna have to bring it down and have another go at the controls.”

“What’s that leave you with, Snipe — one feed pump operational forward?”

There was a slight pause. “Yes, Sir. 1A is feeding 1A boiler; 1B has a 1200 pound steam leak, and now 1C won’t respond to control system signals.”

“OK, Snipe. Look into the possibility of taking the controller off of 1B and putting it on 1C; if we don’t have two feed pumps forward, we’re not going anywhere next week.”

“Snipe, Aye. I’ll talk to the Chief.”

Mike sat back in his chair and watched the red light blink off. His sense of gloom deepened; there went the fleet exercise and their chances of getting out of Mayport for a while. Fucking main feed pumps; overhauled only a year ago by the Philadelphia Navy Shityard in their enduring tradition of half-ass work. That, plus another couple of high pressure steam leaks back aft, and a sick lube-oil purifier, and an intermittent water chemistry problem in 2B boiler … None of them individually fatal, but collectively, enough to convince the Group Commander to pull him out of the Caribbean trip. And his dear friend in high places, Captain Martinson, would be delighted to do just that. Mike finished the last of his cold coffee, crumpled the paper cup, and pitched it through the bridge wing door straight over the side. The bosun mate, about to offer him a refill, thought better of it. The Officer of the Deck took a sudden interest in the radar repeater. Outside, there was a sudden burst of heavier rain against the windows. A bright, narrow wedge of late afternoon sunlight low on the western horizon was being squeezed into the sea by the overcast.

Fuck it, he thought; we do the best we can. Old ship, dwindling parts support — which made sense, when you thought about it. Goldy was going to the mothball fleet in a year. Good people, but not the very best people. The very best people traditionally went to the brand new ships as pre-commissioning crews, which also made sense. All very sensible, and right in line with how we do business, but … disappointing.

It’s peacetime, he kept reminding himself. What do you want, a war? He realized that he was condemned to spend his entire command tour doing nothing but routine training evolutions in home waters. Might as well have gone to a reserve training ship. He wondered what it must have been like to skipper a tin can in wartime. Had to beat this dull business. Unexpectedly, his mind conjured up the image of Diane Martinson standing hipshot at the top of the float pier at the marina, her lovely body silhouetted in the afternoon sun, unconscious of her effect on mortal males while she rummaged through her purse for something. Or was she? Was a beautiful woman ever unconscious of her effect on men? Forget it, dickhead — she’s married, she’s Navy, she’s the Chief of fucking Staffs wife, and you don’t go crapping in your own foxhole, as the Army guys daintily put it. Lots of pretty women out there on the beaches. Still the image persisted, stirring him. It was more pleasing than main feed pumps.

“Captain?”

He sat up, surprised by the appearance of the Operations Officer. “Yeah, Ops?”

“Sir, remember we’re supposed to be keeping a lookout for that missing fisherman while we do the sea trials?”

“Yup. As I recall, you’ve worked up a general search area track, right? We’ve been executing that track?”

“Yes, Sir, we have, and we’ve covered about seventy percent of it. Two extra lookouts topside all day, too. Well, now there’s a formal missing vessel report in from Coast Guard District. We’re action on it, ’cause they know we’re out here. There’s a coastie coming out to assume on-scene commander for a real search tomorrow, and then we got this in from the Group.” He handed Mike a message.

Mike fished in his jacket pocket for a red flashlight, switched it on, and scanned the message. He sighed, and handed it back.

“OK,” he said. “So we go on over there and do a concentrated search, but I don’t think we’re gonna see anything at night in the rain. And I think they’ve got the area wrong, too. Mayfield works right here on the edge of the Stream, not thirty miles inshore of it. How’m’soever, get the XO to set up a track to rendezvous with the Coastie. If Group Twelve wants a concentrated search, we’ll give them a concentrated search. About all we’re good for these days, anyway. Tell the XO.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.” The Operations officer left the bridge.

Ten minutes later, the bridge phone talker announced that one of the topside lookouts reported smelling diesel oil. The Officer of the Deck went out on the bridge wing, which was the upwind side. The rain had dwindled again to a mizzle. The ship was creeping along at five knots while the Engineers worked out the problems in the steam plant.

“Cap’n,” he called in from the bridge wing. “I think we got an oil slick out here. All engines stop!” he ordered. “Spin main engines as necessary.”

“All stop, spin as necessary,” repeated the lee helmsman, snapping the brass handles of the engine order telegraph back to the straight up and down position; the engine order telegraph bells rang in response.

Mike got out of his chair and went out onto the bridge wing. The stink of diesel oil was suddenly strong. The oil slick could not be seen in the gathering darkness, but the smell was unmistakable on the normally pristine sea air.

“You’re right, Jimmy, that smells like a slick. Have CIC mark it down, and let’s take a look around here.”

He felt the beginnings of concern in his belly; from the smell of it, this was more than somebody pumping a dirty bilge over the side.

He called up to the signalmen on the next level to light off the two twelve inch searchlights. “Sweep either side, Sigs — we’re looking for anything floating.”

“Sigs, aye,” came a voice from the gloom of the 04 level above the bridge.

Moments later, a yellow cone of light stabbed out into the darkness, the light rain glinting in the beam as it jerked this way and that, until it pointed down onto the sea surface. The telltale multicolored sheen of oil sprang into view. The ship drifted slowly to a stop, and then began to roll slowly as she lost steerageway.

“Put left full rudder on, Jimmy, and then bring her up to three knots. We’ll do a slow spiral right here, see what we get.”

“Aye, Cap’n.”

The Officer of the Deck called in the orders. It took a few minutes for the ship to respond; they had to look over the side to watch the trail of an overboard discharge to see that she was in fact moving. Three knots; think you can handle that, Mike asked mentally. Oldy Goldy, the crew called her. Then he saw something in the water, as the light flashed over it from the level above.

“Hey, Sigs, go back, forward there,” he called out. “I saw something.”

The signalman pointed the searchlight beam back up to the bow illuminating a sea of heads on the bridgewing; most of the bridge watch had come out on the wing to help look. They strained to see what had caught the Captain’s eye. A small crowd had also gathered up on the forecastle as the Bosuns passed the word that a slick had been found. Finally, two men saw it at the same time. “Hold it,” they yelled simultaneously, but by then the signalman had seen it too, and was holding the beam steady, right on the bow. It looked like a plank of some kind, shiny and dark in the oil stained water. The ship’s head was slowly swinging past it.

“Get the big dipper up on the forecastle; back her down easy, so we stop right here, Jimmy.”

The word went out over the phones for the boatswain mates to bring up the big dipper, a large dip net attached to a long handle, designed to scoop up debris from the sea from the ship’s weather decks. Destroyers were often tasked to recover debris, especially when a carrier plane went down. The dip net was easier than putting a boat down. The ship trembled gently as the Officer of the Deck backed the offboard screw, keeping the propeller wash on the other side, and pulling the bow slowly back towards the plank in the shimmering water below. There was a flare of light on the forecastle as the hatches came open, and a crew of boatswain mates came topside, carrying sections of the dip net handle and the net itself.

The Executive Officer appeared on the forecastle. Mike smiled mentally; the XO had the right instincts — always go where the action is. He was lucky to have Ben Farmer for an Exec. Finally the forecastle crew had the big dipper assembled and pointed over the side. The net was six feet deep, but the plank was still an awkward object to retrieve. They pulled it up on deck after another few minutes of bad language and lots of direction. The signalman kept the searchlight centered on the net as it came up, and everyone saw the brass lettering at the same time.

“Oh, shit,” said the Officer of the Deck. “That’s a name board.”

The deck crew turned the board face up, and the brass letters gleamed out the name of Rosie III. The letters were big enough to be read clearly on the bridge.

“I’m going down there, OOD,” said Mike, his face grim. “Instruct the bosun mates to put an anchored marker buoy over the side; water’s not that deep, and I want to mark the spot where we found that.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. Quartermaster, gimme a depth of water under the keel. Sir, shall we tell the Coast Guard?”

“Yes, right; tell them we’ve got a datum,” ordered Mike as he left the bridge.

He went down two sets of interior ladders and out onto the main deck, and then forward through the breaks to the forecastle. The boatswain mates made way for him as he walked up the sloping steel deck. The oil smell was even stronger down here; the wet plank was covered in a thin film of oil; it looked like a corpse of some kind, lying on the deck in the folds of the net. The Chief bosun saluted as Mike stopped at the net.

“That who we’re looking for, Cap’n?”

“That’s him,” replied Mike.

What the hell have you done here, Chris, he thought. These were the signs of disaster. He stooped down to inspect the board, as if looking at it might somehow undo the stark import of finding a name board in an oil slick. Three bosuns began affixing a boat anchor to a coil of manila line, while a fourth disconnected an anchor buoy from the lifelines. The Chief pointed to the edge of the board.

“That looks like a bullet hole, Cap’n.”

Mike bent closer. Six inches to the right of the last roman numeral was a round hole with smooth edges. He reached into the net and turned the board over. The hole came through the other side with very ragged edges; there was a long splinter of wood missing on the back side of the hole. He looked up, and down the length of the board, but there were no other signs of damage. It did look like a bullet hole, about a thirty caliber round, with enough energy to have torn the wood up on the other side pretty good. He stood up, wiping the oil off his hand on a handkerchief. There was a splash as the bosuns threw the anchor over the side, and the manila coil whistled as it uncoiled to the bottom, 350 feet below.

Mike returned to the bridge and summoned the operations officer.

“Make a report, Ops; we’ve got the Rosie III’s nameboard, and an oil slick. We’re going to stay in the area tonight and search for people and any other debris. Tell ’em we’ve put an anchor buoy down and give ’em the posit. I assume that Coastie will come out here and take over, so include a local weather summary so he’ll understand there’s no real big hurry; we’re not going to see anything tonight, and I strongly doubt that we’re going to find Mayfield and his two guys.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. Should we set up a fathometer watch? The water’s not deep here, and maybe we can detect the boat on the bottom.”

Mike nodded. “Yeah, we can do that, although our bottom charts aren’t going to show the level of detail we’d need to pick the boat out of the normal bottom return. But go ahead; we’ll plot anything we find, and let the Coasties follow it up. Set up an expanding square search around this position, slow speed, real tight — I don’t want to go more that five miles from this position.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.”

“And, Ops — tell ’em we found what looks to be a bullet hole in the nameboard. Make the message classified, and make it op-immediate. Info the Group and the Commodore.”

“Aye, aye, Sir. A bullet hole? Rosie mix it up with some drug runners or something?”

“I don’t know, Ops, and the sea isn’t telling.”