D. M. Ulmer 01 - Silent Battleground (4 page)

      Bostwick nodded.

      “We believe the Soviets are up to something.  Since the old guard reemerged and overthrew the Glasnost crowd, there’s been a lot of unrest.  Our Intelligence people believe the new Premier needs a major war against NATO to consolidate power.  The Soviets won’t like the emergent balance of power if things keep going the way they are.”

      Bostwick did not subscribe to this view, but made no move to challenge it.  Danis’s pleasure with
Denver’s
overhaul success would be reported up the line and the ambitious CO had no wish to temper that.

      “Pardon my saying so, Commodore, but we’ve been there before, starting with the Cuban missile crisis.  Glasnost isn’t dead.  Our efforts must center on restoring it.  I don’t see a problem.  Just like always, they’ll back down.”

      “I hope you’re right, Hal, but I think not.  We’ve lost contact with all their submarines.  It’s like they know how we track them and have flipped off the switch.  And we believe they’re more combat ready than we are.”

      “May I ask, sir, what this has to do with Maddock?”

      “Two things.  First, he can’t be replaced in the near term.  If I approve your recommendation, that makes him a
short timer,
bad for both his morale and the crew’s.  Second, he’s a good tactician because he didn’t over invest himself with the high-priced tea
kettle,” the commodore said, referring to the nuclear reactor.  “Mind you, we must know what we’re doing there, but other areas need attention.  If this Soviet thing continues, we’ll need all the Brent Maddocks we can get.  He’s a rare breed that understands the sole purpose of everything aft of the torpedo room is to get our bullets within attack range.”

      Bostwick remained silent, but disagreed.  He knew submarine CO’s careers were destroyed on the spot if they ran afoul of reactor problems.  All the other sins were forgivable. 

      “I understand, sir, but I’m firm on this recommendation.  As
Denver’
s CO, I must send this to SUBPAC, hopefully with your concurrence, but with whatever endorsement you choose.”

      Danis thought,
You brassy son of a bitch.  You think I’m a lame duck and can wing anything past me you want
.  Danis spoke with a soft but firm tone.  “Captain Bostwick, the shorter one’s tenure becomes, the less concern for opinions by higher authority.  By much reckoning, not least of all yours, my tenure grows short.  Let me assure you, my position will stand in this matter.  If not reinforced by COMSUBPAC, then by others well positioned to do so.  Those I refer to hold my service reputation in high esteem and are long of memory.  Do I make myself clear?”

      He showed the
Denver
skipper there’s more than one route for an end run.  The well positioned others mentioned had a lot of affect over Bostwick’s promotional chances.

      Bostwick knew he’d lost the round.  “Perfectly, Commodore. I’ll withdraw the recommendation.  And now, if you please, sir, details on this Soviet thing.”

***

      Dave Zane opened the refrigerator and drew a glass of wine from his ready
box of Franzia.  He spotted two bottles of Mount Ste Michele Chardonnay.
      “What time is Brent coming, Bea?” Dave asked, addressing his daughter Beatrice by her pet name.

      “About six.  For dinner … okay, Dad?” 

      “Not gonna ask how I know?”

      “Nope.”

      Dave liked Brent Maddock and saw much of himself in the young officer.  He hoped something would come of his relationship with Bea.

      Settling into his recliner, he balanced his glass of wine on the arm.  Several logs crackled in the family room fireplace as he fired up the TV with his remote.  A news anchor flickered into view: top item, growing Soviet displeasure over the Iraq-Iran situation.

      The TV narrator said, “It seems the Iranians are about to resolve the current war in their favor,” then digressed to conjecture on the meaning of this, irritating Dave.

      Damn newsies believe a good voice and camera presence qualifies ’em to interpret what’s not interpretable.  Why the hell don’t they stick to the facts instead of their half-assed theories? Maybe a body could then figure out what’s happening.

      The camera zoomed in on the anchor’s stern look.  “Earlier today, President Andrew J. Dempsey warned that any foreign military forces placed into the Iraq-Iran conflict would surely result in the gravest of consequences.”

     
Dempsey’s words are tough,
Dave thought,
but he’s gotta know backing an opponent into a corner leaves him one option.  Fight.

      Thirteen years earlier, Dave retired from the Navy at the rank of captain, Submariner Engineering Duty Only (EDO), and now made his home on Bainbridge Island, not far from Bremerton Naval Shipyard, the site of his final posting before retiring.  As a civilian, he took up a profitable second career in domestic real estate sales then lost his wife Dale after a four-year bout with cancer.

      Bea set out on her own after college then moved home to recover from a disastrous relationship.  Alarmed at Dave’s deterioration over the loss of his wife, Bea stayed on with him.  She adored her father, a rigid standard by which she measured all her suitors.

      Dave’s submarine career began at Submarine Base, New London, Connecticut in the summer of 1957 where he attended the Officers’ Submarine School.  He sired Bea in
fertile flats,
nickname for married student officers’ quarters.  A train roared through the base each day at 5:30 a.m., a full hour before anyone had to get up.  Awake with an hour to kill, young couples did what came naturally and a high birthrate resulted with Bea numbered among that bumper crop.

      Veterans of World War II ran the submarine Navy when Dave entered the service.  Consequences of the Navy being caught off guard at Pearl Harbor remained fresh in their minds thus operational readiness held top priority.  Performance at sea in simulated combat operations made or broke careers.

      The year 1957, eleven years after Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech, found the Cold War at full tilt; the Kremlin conceded the U.S. Navy had an insurmountable lead in surface combatants.   It planned to counter by using the same leverage demonstrated by the United States during WW II.  Fifty-five percent of combined Japanese merchantmen and warships went to the bottom, compliments of U.S. submarines that comprised only 1.6 percent of the Navy’s wartime complement.

      The Soviets launched a vigorous submarine building program and by the early eighties force levels rose to five hundred, while their U.S. counterpart fielded only a hundred submarines.

      U.S. submarine mission priority shifted to anti-submarine warfare in the absence of a significant surface threat requiring a new set of tactics and weapons.  One big problem: how to attack a submerged submarine with no way of determining its range?  The answer: new techniques for passive ranging, Target Motion Analysis (TMA) developed by forward thinking submariners.  This gained them a permanent measure of fame, for emergent techniques bore the names of their inventors, Clearwater plot, Lynch plot and Ekelund range, to name a few.  The number of practice torpedoes fired and ratio of constructed hits measured a commanding officer’s success. 

      Dave felt proud to be part of that.

      The advent of nuclear power shifted the Navy’s emphasis to reactor safety and demoted mission to a distant second.  Dave feared this shift might prove painful in event of war.  Now, worried by what emerged on the international scene, he believed this fear might be close to fulfillment.

      Lieutenant Brent Maddock held similar beliefs, hence always a welcome guest for Dave to vent upon.

***

Brent’s vintage Porsche hydroplaned through a heavy spring rain along State Route 3 from Bremerton.  He turned off and crossed the bridge to Poulsbo, a tiny fishing and resort village located at the head of Liberty Bay off Puget Sound.  This lengthened his drive, but he had a liking for the town and drove through it whenever the opportunity presented itself. 

He’d met Bea Zane in Poulsbo under unlikely circumstances four months earlier.  One night, Woody Parnell,
Denver
’s new Ensign, Dan Patrick and Brent enjoyed a hard earned night on the town.  Dog-tired from the overhaul’s hectic pace, the three arrived at the same local restaurant where Dave Zane, Bea and longtime friend Commodore Eric Danis shared a table for dinner. 

At evening’s end, the young officers’ fatigued conditions, coupled with having over-imbibed caused them to be boisterous and appeared in no condition to drive.  The commodore became extremely annoyed, particularly as they wore uniforms.  With a tone of anger in his voice, he told Dave and Bea that he would leave and personally drive them back to Bremerton. 

Dave Zane wished to prolong an infrequent visit with his old friend and volunteered Bea to do the job.  Bea agreed and after the foursome departed, Danis commented on the deteriorating conduct of new junior officers.  Dave smiled and reminded his friend of a young Lieutenant Junior Grade back in sixty-five who had to be lowered into his submarine on the end of a mooring line.  This errant officer had too much party at Cot House Tavern near the fleet landing of the Polaris Base in Holy Loch, Scotland.  Both men sat silent for a moment and then shared a good laugh. 

Commodore Danis said, “Tell me, Dave, is time really flying by this fast?” 

They retired to the comfortable warmth of a huge hearth for a brandy and outrageous tales of their own junior officer days.

***

Brent’s Porsche crunched onto the circular gravel driveway of the Zane’s modest dwelling.  It sat upon a quarter acre, screened from the road and the neighbors by stands of Douglas fir and cedars.  The house, built on a partial bank, had two sides of the basement open to ground level to accommodate access to the garage and a sliding glass door connecting the family room with an expanse of lawn.  Dave disliked puttering about the yard but did nurture a variety of shrubs and flowers planted by his wife.

Bea wished to intercept Brent before he rang the doorbell and alerted her father to his arrival.  She wanted a few minutes alone with Brent before Dave found an excuse to capture him for yet another marathon conversation but reached the door too late. 

Ding-dong, the bell sounded.                 

Dave called, “Who’s that?”

“The iceman, Daddy.”

Brent held Bea for a long kiss then slid a hand to her buttock as he pressed her close. “Hi, Den Mother.”  He used the nickname coined by Woody Parnell the night of their drive to Bremerton Bachelor Officers Quarters (BOQ).

Bea wore blue jeans and a red cotton shirt open at the neck.  She perceived herself unattractive as a child, though now she accepted that time had ripened her like a rare wine.  An abundance of chestnut hair tumbled to her shoulders.  She smiled back at Brent through brown eyes set in a slightly oval face.  Bea’s firm full figure brought the top of her head to Brent’s chin.

She bombarded him with questions.  “Hi, yourself.  How can you be so casual?  What happened out there?  The story is all over the yard and it scared the hell out of me, Brent.  Good thing it ended before any of us heard or I’d have been worried sick.”

Brent used a nonchalant monotone, “Must’ve been a slow day at the yard if that’s all you talked about.  Taxpayers won’t like that.”

“They say you’re the hero.  Tell me about it.”

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Okay, I know how to get it from you later.”

“Promises, promises.  How will you do that?  Spare none of the torrid details.”

“Wait and see,” she teased.

Dave arrived to claim Brent; his excuse, a vino refill.  “Hello, Brent.  What a nice surprise.  Can you stay for dinner?”

“Dad!”

Opening the refrigerator, Dave asked, “Glass of wine, Brent?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

“Good.  Maybe Bea will let me crack this good stuff seeing you’re here now.  All I ever get is that fifty cents a gallon stuff from a box.”

Patting her father’s generous stomach Bea said to Brent, “Your heart just has to bleed for this poor, neglected fellow.  He looks so starved.”

Brent grinned and said, “Don’t see how you make it, Dave.”

Uncorking a bottle of chardonnay Dave poured two glasses. 

Bea asked, “What about the cook?”

Dave winked at Brent and gave him a grin.  “Drinkin’ and cookin’s bad as drinkin’ and drivin’.  Don’t want to spoil our dinner.”

“Pour me a glass, turkey, unless you plan to drive to McDonald’s for dinner.”

Dave poured his daughter a glass of chardonnay.  “Should give ya the stuff you make me drink.”

Bea embraced her father, kissed him and said, “Yeah, sure,” then surrendered Brent gracefully.  “You two get out of my kitchen if you expect dinner anytime before midnight.”

The men retreated to the family room.

Dave turned off the television, silencing a local concern over what should be done about excessive wild geese populations that no longer migrate because tourists feed them.

Being sarcastic Dave said, “I’ll sleep a lot better when they get that goose thing straightened out.”

Walls of cedar backed a recycled clay brick fireplace that blended well with the Pacific Northwest décor of the room.  A glass sliding door provided a view onto a lush lawn that had already begun to green under the early spring rain.

At sixty-three, Dave considered himself overdue for grandchildren to spoil and hoped Bea and Brent might remedy that. 

Dave sipped the golden chardonnay.  “Ah … that’s good stuff.  Not as good as a stiff belt of gin, mind you, but a stomach as old as mine, well, ya gotta compromise.  Sit down, Brent, and tell me what’s doing in these new fangled submarines.  Bea says you had some wild sea trials.”

“You could say that.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“There’s not a lot to tell.”  Brent reviewed the casualty and went on, “It’s happened on other ships but always on the surface.  Just our bad luck to be at test depth.”