The Circle (10 page)

Most of the officers had eaten and the table was cleared. Some of them were still sitting at it, though, talking. They glanced up as he came in. “Hey, it's Dirty Shirt Dan,” said one.

“Damn it, it's all I got. Nobody told me we were pulling out so soon.”

“See the XO; he's got some used ones he'll sell you.”

“Sailors belong on ships, and ships belong at sea.”

“I guess we're where we belong, then.”

“Not me, man. I belong in the Black Pearl, slamming down brewskis till I fall on my sword,” said Cummings. “You just get off watch?”

“No, I was trying for morning stars.”

“Good luck in this murk,” muttered Silver. “If we see Rigel again this cruise, I'll eat it.”

“Mabalacat saved out oatmeal and toast for you.”

He got coffee and began to eat, sitting opposite Evlin. He was thinking about what he had to do that day, idly noticing the graceful curve of the lieutenant's wrist as he lifted a spoon, when laughter interrupted his thoughts. He glanced down the table, at the smiling, young, slightly empty faces.

“What could I do? I took my hand off her ass, flashed him my hazel eyes and boyish grin, and waddled off.”

“Risky shit, messing with another guy's wife. Look what happened to Sully.”

“He was drunk.”

“Him? The O club don't stock enough. That sucker can hold more than any three normal men.”

“He don't show it, either. I didn't know he drank till I saw him sober once.”

“What happened, anyway? I heard—”

“I got it from the duty officer. He was at the bar at the Sheraton over on Goat Island. He picked up this chick who swore her husband was in the Med. Anyway, she invites him home, base housing over on Girard. Next morning, he's in the kitchen pouring himself a wake-up when a key turns in the door and this huge marine gunny comes in. Sullivan freezes as the guy stalks toward him, then says, ‘Glad you're here, buddy. The sonofabitch you're after is in there with her now,' and he points to the bedroom. The jarhead wheels, and Sully goes out the front door at the speed of sound.

“So now he's out in the bushes, wearing nothing but goose bumps. He works his way out to the street and waits till he sees a guy in uniform driving toward him. He runs out in the road, flags him down, and jumps in. ‘Take me to Pier Two, please,' he says. Only the guy's a gung ho shore patrolman, and he takes him straight to the stockade.”

“Risky.”

“Maybe the variety's worth it. They got streets named after my wife.”

“No Entry?”

“One Way.”

“Like they say, sailors, whores, and officers' wives don't give a fuck.”

“Did you hear Lassard's latest? He and the rest of his bunch picked up some captain's daughter on Thames Street and set Circle William on her.”

“That guy's a BS artist. I don't believe anything from that quarter.”

Dan remembered that Circle William meant closing all accesses to open air. “Hey,” he said. “I thought you were supposed to keep the conversation light in here.”

“That's as light as we get, sex and drinking.”

“Light, but not obnoxious. That why you been keeping quiet, Dan?”

“I'm here trying to eat.”

“What is that shit, anyway? Looks like lamb barf.”

“It's Navy all-purpose breakfast!” said Johnson.

“It's used for breakfast, mucilage, damage-control compound, too.”

“Don't make fun. Supply Corps spent a lot of money developing APB,” said Cummings, blowing his nose in his napkin. “You even get it in two colors, haze gray and khaki.”

“Didn't they just pass the word for you, Tom?”

“No, that was my rack calling me.”

“You spent all night there.”

“I rate eight hours a day, my man. What I get in the nighttime's gravy.”

Dan gave up. The disbursing officer had all the comebacks. He pushed away his plate. His stomach wasn't as enthusiastic as it had been on the bridge. Maybe it was the way the bulkheads tilted. He freshened his coffee and flipped open his notebook. The quarterdeck passageway had to be prepped for spray painting. The training schedule was due, maintenance chits had to be rewritten, and he had to review his men's records for dependency certificates.

The big item today, though, would be refueling. They'd rendezvous with USS
Calloosahatchee
at 1400. He thought about it while the room dipped and swayed around him, then got up. “'Scuse me,” he said to Evlin. The lieutenant nodded absently.

The chief petty officers' quarters was one deck down. Three of the chiefs looked up from the mess table as he came in. The talking stopped. “Morning,” he said. “Chief Bloch here?”

“Try in back, Ensign. Through that door, hang a right.”

He found Bloch between two tiers of bunks, sitting at a wobbly card table in his undershirt. The chief's head gleamed like a freshly waxed car under the fluorescent lights. His big hands were paring a sliver of balsa from a three-inch-long boom with an X-Acto knife. He didn't look up as Dan pulled out a chair. Lenson stared at him—the combination of muscle and delicacy was so incongruous—then at the model. Each plank had been riveted with minuscule copper nails. Gun ports were hinged up, suspended with tiny chains. A cannon muzzle poked out through one of them.

He felt angry that Bloch was down here during working hours, instead of on deck. But the boatswain's mind didn't seem to be on ship's business. He was intent on scooping a tiny gouge in the wood, humming under his breath in tune with the ventilation fans.

Dan examined the heavy, private face, the sag of chin, the leathery texture of Bloch's cheeks. In the harsh light, the corners of his nostrils were shot with broken veins. A thirty-year man, without much longer to go. Dan imagined a rented room ashore, more model ships, dishes in the sink. Not for him. When he got out Susan would be there, there'd be two more kids, they'd buy a place in the country.…

Bloch glanced up. “Oh. Morning, sir. Thought you was Chief Ludtke, sittin' there.”

“What you building, Chief?”

Bloch leaned back as the compartment began to tilt. The knife started rolling and he flicked it point-first into the table. “USS
Constitution,
” he said. “Old Ironsides. You build models?”

“Used to, when I was little. It's a beauty. You do that carving on the stern yourself?”

Bloch said it wasn't much. He had a camphor-wood chest at home that'd knock your eyes out. “Bought it off the Bund, trading with the sampans. Swapped a worn-out foul-weather jacket and two pair of boondockers for it.”

“The Bund. Germany?”

“Shanghai. I could tell you some stories … they used to sweep the harbor every morning, police up the bodies. They'd tie them to a buoy, string of 'em, like fish. If nobody claimed them in three days—cut 'em loose, bang, bang, down to the bottom.
Merrimack
was the last ship out of China in '49.”

“Is that right. Can we talk about the replenishment this afternoon?”

Bloch blinked. “Sure,” he said. He slowly gathered the boom and a few spars, put them in a box, and got up. He pulled on a shirt and buttoned it outside his trousers. “Let's go out in the lounge.”

They sat over heavy china mugs of coffee. “All right,” said the chief. “What you need, sir?”

“What's happening topside, Chief?”

“We mustered on station this morning. Ikey and Popeye are turning the guys to. Popeye, that's what we call Rambaugh. On account of he smokes that little pipe of his upside down, like the cartoon. And 'cause he's so runty, I guess.”

“How's painting progressing?”

“We're keeping at it, when we can.”

“Will we get it done before we're too far north to paint?”

“Well, sir—I don't think so.”

His stomach quivered. Bryce and Norden had been asking him this every day, and he'd been telling them it was on track. “I thought it was going to be done before we hit sixty north.”

“We tried,” said Bloch. He looked regretful but not particularly upset as he lifted the white mug with the green stripe at the rim. “The POs've had the guys at it from muster to dusk. We've been having these surprise general quarters, and you know we got to knock off in the squalls, too. You can tell the XO that, sir, if you're worried about him jumping your shit.”

“I'm not worried about what to tell the XO!”

Bloch pursed his lips. He took a King Edward out of his shirt pocket and began to pick apart the wrapper with his blunt, cracked nails.

Dan said reluctantly, “Well, maybe I am. But if we don't get that primer covered, the rust'll be way ahead of us when we get back.”

The older man nodded thoughtfully, as if informed of the existence of corrosion for the first time, and recasting his life plans on that basis. He put the cigar in his mouth and popped flame from a kitchen match with his thumbnail.

“I want to get as much done as we can, Chief. If it means working after normal hours, setting up lights to work after dark, then that's what we got to do. They can have comp time—uh, rope yarn, when we get up where the bad weather lives.”

Dan felt uncomfortable. He felt stupid, giving orders to a man twice his age. But hell, he thought, that's how the Navy wants it. So that's the way it'll be. “Refueling will go today at fourteen hundred. Are we set up for it?”

“We will be.”

“When?”

“I'll have Rambaugh get the gear laid out after lunch.”

“I'd feel better having it done earlier. Once the tanker comes in sight, we may go right alongside. Let's say eleven hundred.”

The cigar ceased its motion. Bloch's eyes left it to steady on Lenson. “Look, sir. I know you want to start out makin' a good impression. But don't you think—”

The quiet of the lounge was shattered by a strident bonging. “General quarters, general quarters,” stated the announcing system. “This is a drill. All hands man your battle stations. Set material condition zebra throughout the ship. Now general quarters.”

“Shit,” said Dan, jumping up. Bloch was already on his way out. Lenson tried to recall his route to his battle station, the gun director. But he couldn't remember how to get there from the chief's quarters. As he hesitated, running men pushed him aside. Hatches slammed as the ship subdivided itself into watertight sections. He hauled them open again, pushed through, dogged them behind him, sweating with the dreamlike desperation of lateness. At last he gained the weather decks and pounded up ladders. Cold wind tore at his clothes. Panting, he hauled himself up the face of the director, slid into the bucket seat, pulled on earphones, and dropped the heavy steel helmet over them. “… All stations manned, exception of director one,” he heard.

“Director one, manned and ready,” he shouted, mashing the intercom button. “Mount fifty-one, fifty-two, Director: Stand by to put mount in automatic.”

The gunner's mates acknowledged in bored voices. He flicked switches and spun a handwheel. The director hummed and moved to the right. Below, on the forecastle, and aft, the guns began to train around, too, lifting, following his will. The seat was icy under his buttocks as he bent to roll his socks over his cuffs. Too late, he realized he'd left his jacket below.

“All stations manned and ready,” said Norden, on the battle circuit.

A moment later, Packer's voice boomed out over the shipwide speakers. “This is the captain speaking. Time: five minutes, twenty seconds. We did a lot better than that before we went in the yard. We'll continue with daily drills until we're ready in under four minutes.

“We'll stay at GQ for a few minutes to check comms, then go to abandon-ship stations for drill. All hands use caution moving about the weather decks. I don't want anyone overboard out here.”

Dan bent to check out the sights. The seas were heavy. Through the magnification of the range finder, he could see them sawing at the horizon nine miles away. Nine miles … if this was for real, he could put four shells out there, two hundred pounds of steel and explosive, with one squeeze of the trigger that hung by his ear. He put his head out of the director and watched the ship climb a foothill of sea the hue of a blue shark's back.

“Mr. Lenson!”

He looked down and saw Bryce, hatless, looking up from the deck. The XO was bundled in a leather flight jacket. His face was flushed.

“Yes, sir?”

“Your men all at their stations?”

“Ah … I think so, sir.”

“So, are they all in battle dress?” the exec called up, smiling.

That sounded like one of those Brycean quandaries, the kind he already knew the answer to. “They're supposed to be, sir. I don't know any of them who aren't.” God, he thought. That sounds so weak.

“I suggest you check, Mr. Lenson, instead of sea-law-yering me.”

“Director one, off the line to check battle dress aft,” he muttered into the mike.

“What's that?”

“Off the line, checking aft.”

“Hell you are—”

He hung the headset over the scope, cutting Norden off in midword, and wriggled out of the director.

The lookouts were crouched silent and miserable to port and starboard. Williams and Hardin, Hard-on the men called him. He ran an eye over them; socks rolled, collars buttoned, life jackets cinched, helmets buckled. He headed aft, clattered down the ladder to the Asroc deck. He was halfway across it when he saw the open window flaps on the whaleboat.

Aha, he thought. As he headed for it, smoke streamed out, edges shredded by the wind. He swung himself up and poked his head into the cuddy.

“Hey there, Ensign.”

Dan blinked. It was like peering into a cavern. Lassard was dimly visible far forward, his knees drawn up to his face. Coffey, Greenwald, and Gonzales sprawled beside him, boots propped on the thwarts. The troglodytic, feral impression was strengthened by a thick haze. All four seamen were smoking cigars, puffing out jets of smoke, their eyes fixed on his.