The Med (31 page)

Lenson followed suit. The other ships were buttoning up, too. He could see men running, guns swinging as the crews tested the drive and elevation motors, then settling into the Ready Antiair position. He looked around at the grim battle-ready faces, and felt his fatigue lift on a wave of excitement.

This was how it should be, he thought. No matter that Sundstrom had his faults. He was still their commander. No matter that they had been at sea so long, that their ships were old and their equipment obsolete, that they worried constantly about breakdowns and spare parts. The amphibious Navy was used to being the orphans of the fleet. Their crews weren't the hand-picked men of the submarine force, or gung-ho marines, or spit-and-polish cruisermen, cocky and loudly proud of it. And maybe the officers, some of them, were not the sharpest-looking or best-connected. They were amphib sailors, the “Gator Freighters”; but they knew their unglamorous business; and they were ready now, awaiting whatever orders came. He felt the pride come to him in that moment.
Guam,
and every other ship in the Mediterranean Amphibious Ready Group, was cleared for battle.

“Flagship report yet?” Flasher asked him.

“Yeah. They're manned.”

“That was quick.”

“Chief Staff Officer!” said the commodore, from his chair.

“Yes sir.”

“Have all units reported manned and ready?”

“Just a moment, sir.” Hogan lunged for the PRITAC.

“No, goddammit. Why don't they report? I want them to report.”

“Yes sir.”

“Let's see if they're on their toes this afternoon. Dan! Let's come around to two-seven-zero.”

“Just the
Guam,
sir?”

“No, goddammit! Use your head! You think I want a collision out here? Bring the whole formation around.”

“Aye, sir.” He scrambled for the radio.

“
Charleston
reports, manned and ready,” Glazer sang out.

“
Bowen,
manned and ready.”

“
Newport,
manned and ready.”

“
Barnstable County, Ault, Coronado, Spiegel Grove
report manned and ready, Commodore.”

“Very well,” muttered Sundstrom, holding up his arm to examine his watch, but saying nothing more.

The ship shuddered, leaning into the turn. Fourchetti was bringing it around with full rudder, Lenson saw. Below, on the flight deck, crews scrambled to shove extra blocks beneath the helicopters as the deck tilted. The gun mount below clanked as the crew fed rounds to the breech.

“Are we clear?” Sundstrom asked the bridge in general.

“All units coming around, sir,” shouted Glazer from the starboard wing. Lenson turned guiltily to port, but Hogan was already out there. He held up his thumb through the closed hatch window.

“All clear to port, sir,” Lenson bawled.

“Quickdraw,” said Sundstrom.

“Sir?”

“I said, Exercise Quickdraw! It's a standing exercise, goddammit—‘On receipt of signal, all units fire three rounds of inert ammunition on a clear bearing.' Put it out, right now!”

Dan was still holding the handset. “All units, November Zulu,” he shouted automatically into it, “This is November Zulu. Immediate execute: Exercise Quickdraw. I say again, immediate execute, Exercise Quickdraw. Stand by—”

“Belay that!” shouted Flasher suddenly.

“What—”

“Belay it! Disregard!
Now!
”

“What the devil—” said Sundstrom.

Lenson hesitated for a fraction of a second, looking at Flasher and then Sundstrom, then said tightly into the handset, “Disregard. I say again, disregard this transmission. Out.”

“Just what the hell are you doing?” shouted Sundstrom, regaining himself. Except for his voice, the crowded bridge was silent. “Lieutenant Flasher, since when—”

“Quickdraw is a destroyer exercise, sir,” Flasher said, speaking rapidly, moving up near the commodore's chair. “Most of these amphibs have never heard of it. But some of them have, and they'll start to shoot.”

“So? The rest of them will catch on. We've got to—”

“Sir. Look out at the mount.”

Sundstrom stared at Flasher for a moment, then bent forward to look through the window, down toward the 01 level. He watched the crew for a moment. “What? I don't see—”

“Look at the shells, sir.”

“The
shells?
”

“They loaded with live rounds.”

Sundstrom did not speak.

“They think this is for real, sir,” Flasher muttered, almost into the commodore's ear. Sundstrom was still looking down. “They think we're under attack. I'll bet every tube on every ship has live antiaircraft rounds in the breech. If we all start firing, somebody's going to get hit.”

Sundstrom looked down for a moment more. The bridge was absolutely quiet. And Lenson watched the struggle plain on his face, the anger and humiliation.

“Belay that order,” the commodore said.

“Aye aye sir,” said Lenson. His finger pressed the “send” button for a moment, by reflex, but he did not lift it to his lips.

“Have all units clear their guns.”

“Aye aye, sir.” He lifted the handset again, feeling a wave of near sickness. He could see, looking down over the coaming, the green-and-yellow noses of the antiaircraft ammunition. Flasher was right. Proximity-fuzed live rounds, at random bearings, the ships this close together …

And off their beam, well within range, men on the bridge of the Russian trawler studied them through binoculars, impassive and intent.

*   *   *

They stayed at GQ for a long time after that. Sundstrom was subdued. No one else said anything beyond the most routine of reports, and those in hushed voices. The time for evening meal came and went. At 1800 the commodore sent down for a tray. When his steward came up he ate it sitting in his chair, regarding the choppy horizon with an impassive expression. The officers stood about as if afraid to move, afraid to speak. At last he called Lenson over. “Yes sir,” Dan said, straightening to a tired attention, looking at the remains of a bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwich.

“Dan, I think you got a little carried away on that message you wrote for me. I let it go out as is, but it was a little too purple, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes sir.”

“Anyway, we got results. They know now I mean business up here. We'll stay at GQ for a while, get the men used to their stations. This was a good idea, to call them away without warning. When I play the game, I like to play it to the hilt. That's the way professionals operate. But we don't want to overdo any aspect of the problem. Do we?”

“No sir.”

“Where's Commander Hogan?”

“Out on the port wing, sir.”

“What's he doing out there?”

“Uh—I'll find out, sir.” The old Naval Academy response.

“Get him in here.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

He listened to the conversation. Sundstrom wanted a beefed-up watch. He wanted officers on both wings of the flag bridge with binoculars, since the lookouts on the ships were worthless. He wanted a staff officer in CIC at all times to oversee the operators on the air-search radars. They were just putting in the time, they weren't bearing down, they were goof-offs and Captain Fourchetti wasn't supervising them. So his staff would.

“We have a full watch bill, sir,” he heard Hogan saying.

“I don't give a damn about that! You saw how he let that Russki make me look silly. This is too important to let some ensign drop the ball on us.”

“I agree with that, sir, but the point is we only have so many men. We'd have to go to port and starboard watches on the bridge—”

“Don't bother me with the details. Just do it. If my staff can't cut the mustard, get some of those helo pilots out of the wardroom. They just sit down there with coffee cups in their hands all day. Christ, Bill, do I have to reinvent the wheel for you every day?”

“No, sir.”

“I'm not just out here to prove a point, my friend. I'm not gilding any lilies here. We are entering a multithreat environment, and I demand positive control.”

“Yes sir,” said Hogan.

Lenson stood just behind the chair, watching the back of Sundstrom's head as he talked. For just a moment, looking at the graying hair, he imagined … No. He shut his mind off before it betrayed him into something terrible.

“Well, I'm going below. I've been up here since midnight.” He dismissed Hogan with a flip of his hand, glanced back. “Think you can handle things for me, Dan?”

“Yes sir.”

The commodore swung himself down from the chair, grunting. As soon as the door swung shut behind him the crowded mass of men breathed out. The bridge suddenly seemed wider. Byrne sat down on a switch box, rubbing his knees. Flasher pushed back his helmet and wiped his forehead. Lenson opened his mouth, about to comment, but he caught the tight expression on the chief staff officer's face and closed it again. After a moment Hogan went below too, and he shoved his own helmet back and leaned into the radar repeater with a sigh. No one said anything for a few seconds.

“Good times, huh?” said Glazer.

“It's no goddamn joke,” said Flasher. His face was white. He patted his uniform pockets. “This guy's dangerous.”

“That was a nice save with the guns, Red.”

“Yeah, right on the money.”

“MacInroe would never have done that,” said the operations officer. He found gum in his back pocket and wadded three sticks of it into his mouth.

“MacInroe?” said Glazer.

“The commodore before Double-Nuts. Left before you came aboard. He was no hand-holder; he'd tear you a new asshole if you fucked up; but he knew what he was doing. This guy … he's a fucking idiot. We got to watch this one real close.”

Looking at their faces, seeing the despondency and choked rage—these were lieutenants, lieutenant-commanders, reduced now to being wing lookouts, a seaman recruit's job—Lenson felt he ought to say something. There had to be a reason for the way Sundstrom acted. But nothing came to mind. It was Jack Byrne who said at last, “Well, you know he's got a lot on his mind.”

“Jesus, I should hope so,” said Flasher.

“Serious,” said Byrne. He straightened, adjusting the dirty lifejacket with a little movement of distaste. “Sure, he went overboard there, but basically I think he's right.”

“Come on, Jack. He craps on you more than any of us. What's right about that?”

“I'm not referring to that. I mean the tactical situation. Actually, he's not taking enough precautions. Or not the right ones. We could use some air cover, for example. I think we ought to get ready for things to heat up real fast around here.”

Flasher bared his teeth, and seemed about to speak when a metallic voice said, “Flag bridge, bridge.”

“I got it,” said Lenson, reaching for the intercom. “Flag bridge, aye.”

“Is the commodore down there?”

“No. He's gone below.”

“Oh.” He recognized Fourchetti's voice. “Well … all right if I secure from general quarters now? I got a lot of work to get done on those helos. If we're not doing anything, I'd like to secure my men.”

“Commodore didn't say to, sir.”

“Well, look, Mr. Lenson—”

“That's what he said, sir,” said Lenson savagely, thinking Why do I have to get in the middle, a lieutenant junior grade; let the four-stripers fight this one out. I'm just carrying out orders. “He wants the men to get used to their battle stations.”

“My men spend all day working at their battle stations, Mr. Lenson,” the captain said frigidly.

“Yes sir.”

“I'll give him a call.”

“Yes sir.” The captain rang off. A minute or two later the 1MC spoke: “NOW SECURE FROM GENERAL QUARTERS. SET THE NORMAL UNDERWAY WATCH. ON DECK, SECTION THREE.”

“They're still in three sections,” muttered McQueen. Lenson turned to look at the petty officer, but he had already bent to his charts again, his back rigid.

“Dan, how about we secure, too?”

“No, goddammit, Red. We're not part of the ship. We work for him. We'll stay at GQ here till he secures us himself.”

He felt like an asshole, saying it, but that was the way it worked. Here in Comphibron Six, under Isaac I. Sundstrom. Resenting their resentment, his own bitterness and fatigue, he stared out, over the choppy gray sea, toward the distant line of an approaching squall. Somewhere out there were men in ships, putting out to battle.

He wished with all his heart that he was one of them.

16

U.S.S.
Ault

Deep in the ship, so deep there was nothing below him but a skin of metal and then the sea, Kelly Wronowicz braced himself against the steel web that held up the roaring engines.

The ship rolled, and he held on grimly. Around his boots black stinking water streamed sluggishly from one side of the bilges to the other. A work light, a naked bulb at the end of a cord, dangled out at a crazy angle as the
Ault
hung at the end of her roll. When she came back the slime reversed its course, like a tide. It swirled around the men who kneeled and lay beneath the deckplates, made them slip and curse as they crawled forward, scattering handfuls of detergent ahead of them over the scummy steel of the bilges.

“Over here,” said Wronowicz, wriggling between the engine mounts toward the farthest corner of the void. “Under the main condenser, here. We got to get this too, guys.”

“Sure, Chief.”

“We got it covered. Go on back up to the mess.”

“Yeah, we'll take care of it, Chief,” grinned Blaney.

Prone under the torn-up gratings, his belly against the sea-cold steel of the bottom, Wronowicz said nothing. Smee and Polack and Blaney were working late this evening. So was he—six hours of general quarters had bitched a whole work day. Now, in the dirtiest, oldest coveralls the engineering department had, their faces smeared with the used oil and crud here at the lowest point of the ship, where all the leaks and emptyings of tanks and engines and pumps collected, the three men were cleaning the bilges. It was a dirty job, back-breaking, stifling in the heat and sound of the running engineroom, done in darkness and fetor.