The Circle (33 page)

Packer cut off, interrupting the chief engineer in midacknowledgment. He stared around, and saw Dan.

For a fraction of a second, so transient Dan wondered ever after whether it was just the shift of a flashlight, Packer smiled at him.

Then he turned away. “Rich, you hear that?”

“Uh, yes, sir. Sir, we're steady on three-five-zero.”

“Okay, that's good for now. But I've got to go east, not north. Hear what I'm saying? I've got to go after this bastard or we'll lose him. He'll tiptoe away in that fucking ice, and we'll never see him again. Till we hear that launch impulse, when the missiles come out of the tubes. And unless we're sitting on top of him, right then, there won't be a goddamn thing we can do about it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now, we were ballasted, but we still went to sixty degrees on that roll. And she didn't want to come back. We're way more tender than we ought to be. We either got free surface somewhere, or a lot more ice than I thought. I can't come right again till we get rid of it.… Mr. Sullivan!”

Dan got up from his half seat against the helmet stowage. “Lenson, sir.”

“Yeah, Lenson. Get your division up on deck. Muster them in the Dash hangar. Sledgehammers, axes, pry bars, every man bring a tool. Rich, tell Main Control to get steam hoses rigged to the oh-two level. We've got to get some of this ice off.”

“Now, sir? It's pitch-dark—”

“Now, Rich,
now.
In half an hour, I'm coming right, and if we're not ready, we're going to roll, and if we don't come back, that's just tough titty. So get cracking! Dan, get your people moving; they won't have long to work. Make sure they wear foul-weather gear and life jackets.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“And lines, lifelines. If anybody goes in the water, I won't be able to come about for them. Make sure they understand that. Move, Lenson!”

“Aye, sir,” he said without thinking, the way you responded at the Academy after a two-hour come-around, when your body screamed so loud your mind could no longer make itself heard. Then only something more kept you going. Something deeper. Discipline, and pride, and something that was neither of these, though it was part of them. Maybe it was only knowing it had to be done. Past Packer's squinted eyes, he caught the cracked face of a clock. It had stopped at five minutes past midnight.

15

HE ran into Bloch on the ladder down. The boatswain had on a gray sweatshirt and a watch cap. His belly pressed out between the halves of his unlaced life jacket. He still hadn't shaved. “You looking for me, sir?” he said.

“Yeah, Chief. We got to get our boys up on deck.”

“Up forward? Ikey's getting a party together now. We—”

“Forward? No, muster in the Dash hangar. We've got to get some of this ice off, fast.”

“Well, we're taking water up forward, sir. Somebody better be doing something about that right quick, too.”

He stopped halfway across the mess decks, swaying as the steel around him reeled to the stern seas. “What are you talking about?”

Bloch took off his cap and wiped his forehead. Dan caught a faint whiff of something, after-shave or liniment. “Talking about the handling room, sir, forward of chiefs' quarters. The gunner thinks we cracked the shield on the mount, running into these seas all night.”

Oh, Jesus, Dan thought, staring at the chief's bald spot. The ship was coming apart around them. And worse than that, the crew. He hadn't studied this at Annapolis. The tactics books took crews for granted, faceless and pliant material. Battles were duels between admirals, Scheer versus Jellicoe, Nagumo versus Spruance. But if you couldn't depend on the men, how could you take a ship into battle? How could you even stay at sea? He bit his lip, pulling his mind back as Bloch said, “What you want us to tackle first?”

“Did the gunner report the flooding? Yeah? Let's get them on their feet, then see what we have to do when we get there.”

First Division berthing was a swaying, stinking cave. Men had slid off the mattresses, the mattresses had slid off the bunks, and the lockers had burst open, littering the deck with uniforms, boots, hats, books, magazines, toothpaste, condoms, letters, cans of Brasso and Kiwi. The locked-down air was yellow with sweat and grease and vomit. The men sat or lay between the bays, heads in their hands. A few looked up as he and Bloch staggered in. “First Division,” Dan yelled. “Petty officers and seamen. Grab foul-weather gear and muster on the mess decks. Right now!”

“What's goin' on, sir?” said Rambaugh, getting up. His pipe was still in his mouth. Dan wondered whether he slept with it that way.

“Get your men on their feet. We're going up on deck, oh-two and oh-three levels. We got to deice to save the ship.”

“Williams! Gonzales! Coffey! Connolly! Jones! Lassard!” the second-class bawled out, turning to the compartment.

“Coffey's on watch, Baw.”

“I hear ya. Rest of you mugs, on your feet! Rain gear, Mae Wests, line-handlin' gloves!”

Ohlmeyer came in through the forward hatch just then. The gunnery officer carried a battle lantern. His red hair was plastered down wet above a white face. “Cherry” Heering, the leading gunner's mate, was with him. “Dan, can you give me some men?”

“I don't know, Barry. Captain wants my guys topside. What you got up there?”

“The seal's given way and the casing's cracking around it. We're taking water in the mount and handling room.”

“How much? A lot?”

“Couple hundred gallons so far,” said the gunner's mate. His eyes showed white around the irises. “But more every minute, right in the electricals … few more seas and you can write this whole fuckin' mount off.”

“Can you stuff it from inside?”

“We tried. Nothing to hold it there,” said Ohlmeyer. “No, we've got to do it from up on the fo'c'sle.”

Bloch turned to the second-class, who stood waiting, his old eyes alert. “Popeye, take two guys and help him. Blankets and mattresses. Pick out the worn-out ones. I'll go topside with Mr. Lenson and get things set up.”

“'Kay, Chief.”

“The rest of you meet us up on the Dash deck. Don't think to fuck off down here. If this bitch turns turtle, you'll never get out of this compartment. Where's Ikey?”

“Here he is, right behind,” said the first-class.

The men began struggling to their feet and pulling on gear. Dan and Isaacs followed Bloch out. Aft through the mess decks, up two ladders, aft again past the frozen Asroc launcher.

The hangar was dark and empty. From outside and below came the thunder of men running on thin metal, and a heavy, scraping clatter. It was a storeroom now, packed with the shadowy profiles of line spools, lashed-down boxes, athletic gear, the separate walled-in space of the torpedo magazine. The chief pointed to a crate of gloves and basketballs. “Ikey, grab two, three your Louisville Sluggers out of there. Them bats is the best thing to get ice off with.”

The door to the weather decks resisted them. Dan remembered this was aft, windward now. He got his shoulder to it beside Bloch and body-slammed it open.

The sea night was black as frozen tar. Frozen spray lashed them like a cat-o'-nine-tails. His foul-weather jacket was soaked instantly. It was icy, glacial, the cold of interstellar space sucked down into the sea and flung at them, riding a wind that flattened their ears and rippled their cheeks.

Bloch was shouting something. “What?” Dan screamed.

The chief laid his head alongside his. “Which side?”

“We're stern-on. It doesn't matter.”

“We may lose some men doing this, sir.”

Dan blinked, ducking as frozen spray needled his eyes. “Get the lines ready,” he said, and turned forward, boondockers greasy under him, for the open area between the stacks.

Someone had turned on the lights on the 02 and 03 levels. Red and white working floods on the mast and over the unrep stations, bringing the boat decks and davits, lifelines and stacks out of the black with a weird pink glow. Looking forward, he saw for the first time what
Ryan
had been carrying on her bent back.

The ice on the decks was a foot thick, smooth and slick with new water, which slowed and congealed even as he watched into another suddenly translucent veneer. The lifelines were crusted six inches thick with white opaque ice, blown back and frozen like coconut Popsicle. The whaleboat was almost unidentifiable, a huge rounded mass solid with its davits and lowering tackle. Heat conduction had kept the stacks clear; they stood out black in contrast; but above them the top hamper, bracing and whips, the tripod mast and its trucks and lights and antennas was a thick frosted fretwork. Below it, the forward deckhouse, what he could see of it, was an ice palace. From beneath the translucent sheathing portholes and floodlights diffused a jewel-like luster, like an immense smoky diamond, plunging and leaning with drunken gravity as
Ryan
raised her stern to the overtaking surge.

Out of nowhere, he remembered looking through the microscope when he was choosing Susan's engagement diamond. The jeweler was having the little joke that Dan suspected he'd chuckled over to probably ten thousand other uncertain young men: “Cut, color, and clarity are just as important as carat weight. Yes, that is a lovely stone, not as big as you might afford, but most women know that size is not all that counts, if you know what I mean. You'll never be unhappy with that stone.”

And looking into that crystalline microcosm of self-sufficient light, where not an atom had changed its position in 10 million years, he'd understood with sudden joy that their love would be like that. Fixed, never-changing, till death parted them, and maybe not even then.

Something black moved on the main deck. Men, dragging out long tubes. “Give them a hand; that's the steam,” he shouted.

First Division ran forward, slipping on the ice, and hauled up the steam lances and hoses. Bloch and Isaacs moved among them, shouting and pushing, pointing to the thickest accumulations. Gradually, the men picked spots to stand, braced themselves, and began swinging axes and bats. Three sailors ranged themselves on one of the lances, a six-foot steel pipe, and suddenly even the wind was blotted out by a roar like someone had lifted the safety valves of hell; a billowing, opaque cloud obliterated them, then was shredded by the wind and whipped away. Dan skidded over. The live steam blasted and melted at the same time. When the nozzlemen undercut properly, whole sheets of white armor fell from bulkheads and stanchions, exploding into glistening curved chunks that kept, like castings, the shape of the steel to which they had clung.

When he was sure it was going well, he told Bloch to keep at it. The chief nodded, panting, and swung his baseball bat again.

Dan headed forward, pulling himself over the ice by the lifelines between the stacks. He'd only been topside for ten, fifteen minutes, and already his face felt as if it were made of cut glass. He wondered where Rich was. He was the only officer on deck. He didn't expect the XO, but Rich ought to be up here, too. He passed the Asroc launcher. Stefanick and two others he didn't know were jetting it with hand sprayers. He caught a sweet antifreeze whiff of chemical.

He was almost to the bridge when the ship began to roll again. He crouched instantly, grabbing the lifeline, praying it wouldn't be as bad as that last one. His heart pounded so hard he saw flashes behind his eyes. The old destroyer's recovery was sluggish, an overweight sea creature tiring of the fight.

When she staggered upright again, the terror released him, and he labored on the last few feet, panting out of a dry throat through dry lips. Below him, the wind was ripping the tops of the waves off and flinging them hundreds of yards downwind.

He wasn't looking forward to going down on the forecastle.

When the door clamped shut behind him, he saw Packer hanging by one arm from the overhead rail, shouting at the helmsman. He sucked desperately at the close warm air and looked around for Norden. Didn't see him. Then he did, bent over, face burrowed into the radar hood. He made his way toward him, but Packer saw him first. “What are you doing here?”

“Sir, I came to—came to report. My men are at work on the oh-two level and oh-three level. I saw some Ops types turning to up on the signal bridge.”

“Good. A gang's getting steam hoses up to the—”

“They're back there, sir. The lances work pretty good—”

Packer kept right on talking, ignoring his interruption. “They'll help you with the ice, but Bloch knows the drill. I want him in overall charge.”

“Aye, sir. Sir, did Mr. Ohlmeyer tell you about mount fifty-one?” Packer nodded. “He asked for some of my men. I lent him three, and I'm going down there now to take them out on deck.”

“Very well,” the captain said. Dan swallowed and turned to go.

“Dan.”

He turned back instantly. “Sir.”

The hand weighted his shoulder. “But remember what I said. Make sure they wear life jackets. Rig your safety lines tight. I'll try to maintain this course, but if I have to alter while you're out, I'll sound the foghorn.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go, Lenson!”

Just before the door closed, he heard the captain say, “Rich, I relieve you. I have the deck. It sounds like they need you down there more.”

He didn't hear the weapons officer's reply.

*   *   *

HE let himself out the starboard wing, and caught his breath.

The wind was lashing up a dark stampede. In the faint flashes and gleams the topside lights sent into the sea, he saw it heaving and bulging in terrifying splendor.

Looking out on it, like the world before land was created, tortured with the pangs of birth, he realized he might not see daylight again. Packer was determined to make easting. If they didn't get enough ice off her, she wouldn't recover from the next roll. She'd keep going on over. Capsize, and sink. What was the water temperature? Thirty-eight degrees. Sea water froze at 27.5.