Scorpion in the Sea

FORTY-SIX

Mike lay awake in his bed, uncomfortable in the air conditioned darkness. A thunderstorm had passed over a half hour ago, waking him with its sharp cracks of thunder and a sudden, sweeping rain across the deck above. He had awakened with a headache from too much gin, a queasy stomach, dry mouth, and zoo dirt breath, as the Boatswain Mate Chief liked to call it. He had never had a big capacity for alcohol, and he knew that his age was showing. He had taken a quick shower, popped two aspirins, rinsed out his mouth, gone back to bed, but could not go back to sleep.

He could feel the oppressive weight of the humid night air even through the air conditioning, the atmosphere not quite wrung out in the wake of the thunderstorm. There was another episode of heavy rain, punctuated by rumbling thunder in the distance over the ocean. His bedroom was washed in a dim, half light from the pier lights.

He thought about the submarine. Was there another Skipper out there even now, lying awake in his bunk, watching the clock and waiting for his big day? Going over the mission plan again and again, looking for the holes, waiting for the signal to get ready, to come up to periscope depth on a sunny afternoon amongst the Chris Crafts and the fishing boats to let loose a spread of Russian torpedoes? As he tossed and turned, he felt that he, they, somebody ought to be doing something. He recalled that terrible night on the bridge, the Captain yelling, the bridge watch fumbling around in the dark, and that terrifying black shape filling the windows just before the crash. Somebody ought to have done something; he should have done something.

As the rain subsided, he felt the boat move under the unmistakable weight of someone coming aboard. He sat up in the bed, looked at his watch. Twelve thirty five. He kept a gun taped to the back of the night table, and was trying to decide between the gun and simply calling the cops when he heard a female voice swear softly out on deck. He grinned in the dark as he felt the “intruder” walk back to the midships hatchway, obviously making no attempt to be stealthy, open the door none too surreptitiously, and come down the stairs into the lounge. What was this crazy woman doing out here in the middle of the night?

Diane slipped into the bedroom. She was wearing a stylish full length, white cotton raincoat, buttoned all the way to her throat. She carried a pair of sneakers in one hand, a small, clutch purse in the other.

“You always go breaking into peoples’ boats in the middle of the night?” he asked.

“I didn’t break in; I just walked onboard. Even your guard parrot didn’t care.”

She stood at the foot of the bed, hands on hips. They looked at each other for a few seconds in the semi-darkness.

“Well,” she said.

He threw aside the sheet, indicating a space for her on the big bed. She looked at his naked body for a few long seconds, and began to unbutton the raincoat. She wasn’t wearing anything else. She let him look, and then slithered onto the bed and into his arms.

“Needed to talk to someone, is that it?” he murmured into her ear. She covered his mouth with hers in a fierce, demanding kiss. Didn’t want to talk, after all.

Afterwards, she still didn’t want to talk. But he was awake, and all the anxieties about the submarine flap flowed back into his mind. His headache was also gone, helped on its way by rapid blood circulation. He asked her how in the hell she had managed to get out of the house in the middle of the night. She mumbled something, snuggling closer. He partially sat up.

“Hey, Diane, what did you do, slip him a mickey?”

She opened one eye, closed it again. “Yes, actually, I did. He had a bad headache, so I gave him a couple of bufferins, only one was a valium.”

“A valium? You keep valium around?”

“It’s a prerogative of almost-forty year old women to keep valium around. J.W. never takes anything stronger than aspirin, so it put him out like a light. What time is it?”

He snapped on a bedside light. “One thirty.”

She snuggled in again. “Turn that off and set your alarm for five.”

“I don’t believe you drove through the gate with no clothes on.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“It did have a certain effect.”

“Yeah, well, I had the raincoat on. My flasher uniform. I don’t think the gate guards are going to mess with a car with Captain’s stickers on the window. Besides, I cheated; I had a bikini in my purse just in case the stupid Volvo went swimming again.”

He laughed and hugged her. “I’m glad you came.”

“Well that’s good. I was beginning to wonder. Now, tell me what’s that bad dream sitting on your shoulder.”

He told her about the day’s events, including the Admiral’s black look as he left.

“Don’t worry about it, the Admiral, I mean. Wasn’t he the one that sent you out on this wild goose chase in the first place? After the fishing boat sank?”

“Yeah, but—”

“So he can’t fire you for concluding that there might be something out there without revealing that he’s the one that started it. He’s not going to do that. Trust me.”

Mike realized that, politically speaking, she was right. Captain’s wife, Dummy — what do you expect?

“He sure looked like he was going to fire my ass by dawn’s early light.”

“It’s harder to do that than you think. Do you really think there’s a submarine out there?” she asked, turning around to look at him.

“Yeah, I kinda think there is, or has been, anyway. I think the Navy ought to at least go out and take a hard look. Too many little indicators point to more than coincidence. I guess we’ll find out when the Coral Sea comes home.”

She sat up at last, tossing her hair away from her face. Her heavy breasts swayed as she tried to arrange her hair with her fingers. He sat behind her, and wrapped his hands around her front.

“You’re not helping.”

“Helping myself, sort of.”

“You worry too much about your career, you know that? If he’s going to fire you, look at it this way — you can get on with your life. You’re obviously not having a very satisfying command tour anyway; he might be doing you a favor.”

“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.”

“What would you do — you’ve got your twenty, haven’t you?”

“Yes. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“You should. J.W. is very sensitive about the subject of retirement. If he doesn’t make flag I think he’ll just spin in place somewhere, become even more unpleasant than he is now, and hang on until they throw him out at thirty. There’s a whole world out there outside of the glorious Navy, and most of you serious lifers don’t even want to look at it.”

“Just a lot of civilians out there. I’ve never talked to civilians. I don’t know what the hell I’d do.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. It’s ironic — the Lieutenant Commanders who don’t make it to command spend their last five years setting themselves up for civilian life when they hit their twenty. The guys who do get command never give it a thought, and then when the grand career peters out, they’re suddenly confronted with the possibility that they’re not going to make Captain or Flag. None of you guys ever think past the Navy.”

She turned to face him.

“You’re not married, no kids in college, no mortgage — you could probably live right here and not even have to work, except when I come sneaking around after midnight.”

“That’s not work.”

“But you could make it a second career. Think of the benefits. Why don’t we practice.”

“Right now?”

“Yeah. It has to beat thinking about submarines. Or is that a periscope?”