The Circle (51 page)

When he rose again, it was much closer. Bearing down fast, he thought. Good, get in here and pick us up. Already he couldn't feel his legs, or his balls. He kicked his feet but the numbness didn't retreat. God, the sea was cold. He was glad he had clothes and shoes. Some of the men had gone over naked.

When he came up again the ship was almost on top of them. In the firelight he saw that it was the carrier. The bow rose like a lee cliff, broadening from the knife edge of the cutwater to a bulbous swelling beneath the flat line of the flight deck. Fans of light reached out from the island, probing the black sea. Then a sea broke over his head and he sputtered, clawed saltwater that burned like cold acid from his eyes with cupped fingers.

The carrier struck the forward half of
Ryan
just aft of the stack. The destroyer rolled toward him, scattering a burst of burning wreckage and sparks, and went over. The carrier, immense, ploughed over it, not lifting or slowing at all, shoving it down into the sea to a crunching scream of buckling plates and tearing ribs. The larger ship's side lighted suddenly in a smear of flame, and the concussion kicked him in the testicles. The old destroyer's underwater hull showed for a moment amid the drifting fire, red as blood, curved, rolling slowly.

The carrier moved past, blotting out
Ryan.
Flame followed it toward him, scattering in gouts of yellow that flared up again into white as it hit the water. The cliff heeled slightly, and the burning sea broke into patches, rolling out on the bow wave. A sheet of burning fuel swept toward him, leaping and guttering along the jostling crests as it ignited first blue and then glaring yellow and then an intense incandescent white. He screamed as it seared his shoulder and arm before he finished ripping the jacket off.

As the sea closed over him the immense beat of the carrier's screws filled his head. He frog-kicked desperately through the icy dark, eyes cramped closed, and came up into a stink of kerosene and smoke that seared his lungs. He dived again and swam and came up again in a patch of oil that for some reason was not yet burning.

He was in a shimmering tunnel of flame. It roared up on both sides, choking him. He couldn't breathe. His eyes and mouth burned. When he raised his hands, he saw that they were black with oil.

A strange thing happened to him then. He was drifting in a sea of fire, but at the same time he was above it. He could see the whole bright circle on the sea, the forward half of the old destroyer capsized and drifting amid fire, the aft section dark and almost gone. Around them bobbed the tiny dots of heads. But he saw it all from above, as if he were back in the dream, flying over it all.

He was Dan Lenson and at the same time he was someone who had no name; he was all the men drifting and crying out and the men trapped inside, hammering without hope at steel in the dark. He saw at the end of the tunnel of flame a place cool but intensely luminous, brighter than the fire, so bright that the fire was dark around it like a dark halo. He moved faster and faster upward through the flame and it did not burn, and the brightness grew, and before he had time to be startled or afraid, he hurtled through the incandescent oblivion into a place of clean, cool wind.

*   *   *

WHEN he came to, the sea was in his face and someone was hitting him on the neck. For a moment he was bitterly disappointed. Then he jerked his head out of the water.

“You alive, buddy?”

“Yeah. Yes.”

“Good. I can't hold you up any longer. Swim over there; there's some shit floatin' there you can grab.”

The hand left his collar and gave him a shove. He went under for a moment and panicked; struggled up again and swam weakly, blindly, feeling nothing in his hands and legs. The sea tossed him up and down. It was very dark and his chest hurt and his eyes burned too fiercely to bear. He coughed into a wave, retched, gagged, then kept coughing. He stopped only when he was too weak to continue. Then he could breathe. The sea seemed warmer now. This first reassured and then frightened him. From time to time, he could see lights. One blinking set of them moved in the sky. Helicopter, he thought. The idea of help gave him a little energy and he told himself firmly that he had to stay afloat.

He breaststroked slowly into a jostle of men and flotsam. When light licked across them, he saw boards and cushions and paint drums and life jackets, it seemed dozens of them. There was also a life raft, but it was full of silent bodies. He grabbed a Mae West and put it between his legs and another around his neck. He couldn't feel the straps, but he got one under his crotch and into the wrong D-ring. It held him up. One of the men bumped into him and they grabbed each other and held on, neither of them speaking.

The light licked out of the darkness again and swept over them. They waved and screamed hoarsely. Then he saw a green light, very close to the water. They shouted and screamed.

A boat grumbled out of the night, lifted on a wave, and slammed down beside them. Dan and his friend shouted and hands came over the side and pulled them up and over the gunwale and tumbled them into a heap of other oily, sodden bodies.

He lay there for a few minutes, thinking with regret of the windy place, and then tried feebly to get up. He was terribly cold. He wished he was back in the water and not out in the air. He was too weak to move. But he was alive.

He tried to laugh, needed to cry at the same time. Then the dark keel smashed him under.

When he came up again, the gig was alongside a ship and he was being rolled into a stretcher. He waved a hand and tried to say he didn't need to be carried, but something was wrong with his voice and the men just kept lashing him on. “This one's burned, too,” he heard one of them say. A little later, he felt a needle in his arm. Then he felt nothing at all. Except the cold. It seemed that that would stay forever.

V

THE COURT

 

 

 

Section 910, Article 110. Improper hazarding of vessel

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who willfully and wrongfully hazards or suffers to be hazarded any vessel of the armed forces shall suffer death or such other punishment as a court–martial shall direct.

(b) Any person subject to this chapter who negligently hazards or suffers to be hazarded any vessel of the armed forces shall be punished as a court–martial shall direct.

–
Uniform Code of Military Justice

 

 

 

SECRET

IMMMEDIATE

From: USS Kennedy CV–67

To: Secretary of the Navy

Info: Chief of Naval Operations
Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet
Bureau of Personnel
COMCRUDESLANT
Destroyer Squadron 22

Subject: Loss of Ship

1. In accordance with Naval Regulations Article 0778, LCDR Benjamin W. BRYCE, Jr. USN, senior survivor USS Reynolds Ryan (DD–768), reports loss of ship.

2. USS Ryan was assigned to screen of USS Kennedy early morning 25 December. Reduced lighting and radar silence were observed in accordance with operation order for exercise WESTERN VIGIL. At 0210 Zulu time the formation executed turn into wind to recover aircraft. Ryan was ordered to leave the screen station and take plane guard station on Kennedy.

3. At approximately 0215 Kennedy and Ryan collided approximate position 54 degrees 26 minutes north, 16 degrees 10 minutes west. Kennedy hit Ryan starboard side amidships, cutting Ryan in two. After section sank in approximately twenty minutes, forward section fourteen minutes after collision. Search by Kennedy, Talbot, Dewey, Garcia continuing, but recovery of additional survivors unlikely. Muster shows 239 officers and men in complement, 61 survivors recovered, 178 dead or missing presumed dead.

4. All survivors and recovered bodies currently aboard USS Kennedy. CV–67 will dock Gravesend 0700 27 December for repairs/debarkation. Request instructions as to disposition of bodies and survivors USS Ryan and notification of next of kin.

BT

SECRET

Do Not Declassify Without Approval Of Addressee

 

UNITED STATES ATLANTIC FLEET HEADQUARTERS OF THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF

 

From: Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet

To: Vice Admiral Charles R. Ausura, USN

Subj: Court of Inquiry to inquire into the circumstances surrounding the recent collision of USS John F. Kennedy (CV–67) and USS Reynolds Ryan (DD–768).

1. A Court of Inquiry consisting of yourself as president and of two other flag officers to be named is hereby ordered to convene in the OPNAV Conference Room, Pentagon, at 1100 5 January, for the purpose of inquiring into all the circumstances surrounding the collision between Kennedy and Reynolds Ryan. Lieutenant Commander Stanley Fox Johnstone, U.S. Naval Reserve, is hereby detailed to you as counsel for the Court.

2. The Court shall make a thorough investigation into all the circumstances connected with and surrounding the collision and the subsequent loss of USS Ryan. The Court shall report its findings of fact, opinions, and recommendations as to the cause of the collision, damage resulting therefrom, deaths of and injuries to naval personnel, and the responsibility for the collision and subsequent loss, including recommended disciplinary action.

3. All proceedings of the Court will be closed. All testimony, including the subject of such court, will be classified SECRET and witnesses and members of the Court will be so notified in writing. The courtroom will be guarded. A copy of the transcript will be forwarded daily to the Secretary of the Navy.

 

J. W. Richardson,

Admiral, US Navy

Commander in Chief, U.S. Atlantic Fleet

22

Washington, D.C.

BEHIND the fluttering gauze of a January flurry, the largest office building on earth loomed lightless and forbidding, surrounded by the endless acres of icy oaks and ranked white stones of Arlington Cemetery. Its five huge entrances were pillared by unadorned slabs of granite.

To Lenson, shivering as he let himself down from the shuttle bus from the bachelor officers' quarters, the Pentagon looked like a citadel. He stared up at it as the snow whirled down, then whirled away on a biting wind.

Only a few days, he told himself. It'll only be a few days, and then you'll know. And in the evenings—well, Susan would arrive today.

The surviving officers and men from USS
Reynolds Ryan
had been flown in to Andrews the night before. He saw the ones who'd come over on the bus's first trip up ahead, huddled in front of the river entrance.

He bent, and began struggling up what seemed like endless steps.

When they had all assembled, a guard took them in through corridors and turnings so complex and endless and identical each to the other that within seconds he was lost.

They sat now around a World War II–era library table in a small room in the B ring. Exhausted from the climb and dizzy from the 0800 pill, he slumped back, staring at Lieutenant Commander Stan Johnstone. The counsel for the Court had a chisel-pointed chin, half-erased hair, horn-rims, and a nervous habit of easing his neck within the collar of his service dress blue.

“I want to emphasize, gentlemen, that a court of inquiry is not a court-martial. There are similarities, but also important legal differences. Judges will preside, but they're called ‘members.' There'll be attorneys, witnesses, and testimony. At the close, there'll be preliminary findings of responsibility—”

“Sounds like a court-martial to me,” said Bryce, smiling.

“—but findings of guilt and subsequent sentencing will be determined by a duly constituted court. Now I'll try to anticipate your other questions. First, I can't tell you when you will be called. That'll be up to the president of the Court, Vice Admiral Ausura.

“Second, although you have the right to private counsel, I would not at this point necessarily advise you to exercise it. This is an extremely sensitive case. That's why it's being heard here, instead of at the Annex or the Yard. I advise you to answer the questions you will be asked over the next several days truthfully and fully. Evasion, withholding information, or lying may lead to charges being laid against you.

“Finally, the proceedings will be secret. I have here a document stating that you understand this.” He opened a black leather portfolio. “Pass these around, please. One copy each. Read and sign.… Everyone got a pen?”

When Dan jerked awake some moments later, Johnstone was putting the papers back into the briefcase. He couldn't remember signing one. He pushed himself upright, rubbing his face with his good hand. Get a grip, he thought. Can't be signing things you don't remember reading.

“Have any of you discussed what happened among yourselves—especially with the other officers?”

“We've shot the breeze, sure,” said Bryce.

“I advise you not to ‘shoot the breeze' anymore, Commander. If you become a party, it could be misconstrued as undue influence on witnesses.

“You have separate rooms at various area enlisted quarters, BOQs, and hotels, is that correct? You're free to move about town between Court hours, but keep to yourselves. Don't discuss this case with each other or members of the public—not even family. Everything you have to say will be heard. The Court will consider it and make a fair decision. Should you not think so, there will be procedures for appeal. Is that understood?”

They all nodded. Johnstone looked at Lenson next. “Ensign, I see you have an arm injury, and apparently some difficulty remaining awake. I understand you suffered burns during the abandonment of
Ryan
—”

“Actually, afterward, sir. In the water.”

“Just so. My question is, Will you be able to take the stand? Will you require special attention?”

He tried to look alert. “I'm under medication, sir, but I can testify.”

“Very well. Are there any other questions?”

“Do you think we'll be called today?”