Authors: David Poyer
The Med
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Contents
II:
The Liberty
III:
Underway
10.
U.S.S.
Ault
IV:
The Ready
12.
U.S.S.
Guam
15.
U.S.S.
Guam
16.
U.S.S.
Ault
17.
U.S.S.
Guam
18.
U.S.S.
Guam
20.
U.S.S.
Guam
22.
U.S.S.
Guam
24.
U.S.S.
Ault
25.
U.S.S.
Guam
VI:
The Assault
28.
U.S.S.
Guam
31.
U.S.S.
Guam
VII:
The Afterimage
34.
U.S.S.
Ault
Critical Praise for the works of David Poyer!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
For this book I owe much to James Allen, James Blandford, A. J. Campbell, Kelly Fisher, Marilyn Goldman, Judith Haynes, Richard R. Hobbs, R. P. Lucas, Robert Kerrigan, Llewellyn Williams, George Witte, Andrew T. Young, George Zabounian, and many others who gave of their time to contribute or criticize. All errors and deficiencies are my own.
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This novel is dedicated to all those who serve in peacetime,
But especially to those sailors, officers, and marines
â
And their families
â
Who served through the long cruises
The liberties
And sometimes, the actions
Of the Sixth Fleet.
We sent you to keep the peace for us.
Some of you never came back.
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Every discussion of duty has two parts. One part deals with the question of the supreme good; the other, with the rules that should guide our ordinary lives.
âCicero, “On Moral Duties”
I
LINE OF DEPARTURE
1
The Central Mediterranean
Forty miles from land the sea heaves in predawn darkness. No buoy, no man-made mark interrupts the undulant glitter of stars on an easterly swell.
The destroyer is a sharp-edged shadow against Cassiopeia. Since midnight she has cruised slowly before the prevailing sea. But at 0400, suddenly, she heels as her rudders bite water. The hum of turbines rises to a whine, the sound rolling out into blackness, and a phosphorescent waterfall shoots from the screws. As she gathers speed she begins to pitch, dipping her bow to the swell, then lifting to shake hissing spray into the sea. Above her wake a stain of smoke unrolls against the sky.
The Line of Departure for an amphibious assault is drawn not through dark waves, over the mirror of stars, but across a Navy chart in number-two lead. On one side, in the minds of men, is peace. And on the other, the irrevocable commitment to battle.
The destroyer crosses the line still accelerating, sonar pinging into the deep, radar sweeping the sky. Its gray sides fade to black. A single dimmed stern light retreats into the night. The waves of its passing widen and then disappear, merging at last with the unchanging sea.
Half an hour later six gray ships slowly lift into view to the east. At first only their masts show above an empty horizon, against the faint glow that precedes morning. Then they grow closer. Not speedily, but with a steady and inexorable pace.
They are not so sleek, nor so fast, nor so heavily armed as the destroyer that escorted them, ten miles in advance. But they are larger, swelling with displacement curves rather than the fine lines of speed. Instead of guns and missile launchers, their decks are cluttered with helicopter pads and replenishment stations, stacks of containers and nested landing craft. In the faint light rises deck on deck of superstructure, topped by the vertical spikes of booms and funnels.
Flung wide across miles of sea, the task force moves across its face with ponderous eagerness; and from each ship, above the antennas and signal lines, streams the red-and-white-striped ensign of impending battle.
The landing has begun.
U.S.S.
GUAM
LPH-9
High in the island of the helicopter carrier, a stocky man in khakis thrusted his face angrily into binoculars. He raised them with the ship's roll, leaning into the coaming, examining a shadow that steamed parallel to her, four thousand yards away. The glasses remained level for several minutes; then Captain Isaac I. Sundstrom, Commander, Mediterranean Amphibious Ready Group, jerked them down. He muttered into the fresh wind of a twenty-knot passage, and turned for the interior of the flag bridge.
“Commodore's on the bridge!” At the shout officers and enlisted men looked up from dimly lit charts, flickering radars. They glanced at one another, but only one manâa lieutenant, junior gradeâmoved cautiously toward Sundstrom, his hand rising automatically to his helmet, saluting unseen in the darkness.
“Good morning, Commodore.”
“Dan. Morning.” The words were short with anger and fatigue. “What's going on? Are we ready to hit the beach?”
The lieutenant's name was Dan Lenson. Seen by the faint radiance of a vertical plot, he was taller than the commodore and almost unnaturally thin, hair somewhere between sandy and dark. He too looked tired. Rubbing a sun-bleached mustache with the back of his hand, he pitched his voice above the roar of wind, the hiss of radios.
“Commodore, we're on two-eight-zero true, speed nineteen. The amphibs are in circular formation for movement to assault.
Guam
's the guide, in station zero.
Barnstable County
is dead ahead;
Newport,
on the starboard beam;
Spiegel Grove,
starboard quarter;
Charleston,
port quarter.
Coronado
lagged back during the night; I shifted
Charleston
to her station at 0200. Screen units:
Ault
is twenty thousand yards ahead of the main body, sanitizing our track in to the beach. The other destroyers are deployed along the air threat axis.” His eyes shifted to a board behind the commodore. “Equipment status: Both of
Coronado
's boilers are on line now and she's catching up, eight miles astern last time I looked.
Ault
has an anchor casualty that's being worked on right now.
Barnstable
reported radar trouble againâ”
“She'll need that during beach approach. Damn it,” said the commodore, looking out at the darkness.
“Yes sir.” The lieutenant waited, then went on when his senior did not continue. “Other than that, all units of Task Force 61 and embarked marines report ready for the assault. We're at H minus one hundred now.”
“Where are we on track? Are we up with intended movement?”
“I hold us dead on so far, sir.”
“I think we're falling behind. Let's play it safe. Goddamnit, I don't want to be late again!”
“That will make it harder for
Coronado
to catch up, sir. If she isn't in position for that first waveâ”
“You heard me, Dan. I don't like to give orders twice.”
The lieutenant studied him. Dawn was coming. He could make out the sagging, lined face under graying hair. “Aye aye, sir,” he said at last. “I'll signal another knot speed increase. Mr. Flasherâ”
“Got it,” said a voice from the darkness.
“Dan, you've got to keep me informed. I'm not getting the proper reports.”
“Sir, the chief staff officer was up here most of the midwatch. I thought he wasâ”
“Don't count on that zero, Dan. He's disappointed me too often.”
“Uh ⦠yes, sir. We're ready to go, then, as far as I can see.”
“Have you talked to the
Guam
's bridge yet this morning?”
“Just a few words, Commodore. Would you like me toâ”
“Forget it,” said the older man. His face settled, his head lowering itself toward his chest; his eyebrows drew together. “I told you last night to keep close tabs on that brownshoe son of a bitch. Remember how Fourchetti screwed things up in Bizerte, when that helo went into the drink? That's not how I want things run. When my captains look bad I look bad. And I don't like to look bad. That's the name of the game, Dan.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I'll
do it. Just like I have to do most of what gets done around here.”
“Yes sir,” Lenson said again, to the commodore's back.
As the door to the bridge wing opened a blast of sound hit them. Fifty feet below, on the flight deck, ten helicopters were beginning their flight checks. The roar of their engines warming up made Lenson cover his ears. Several of the near aircraft had engaged transmissions, and their blades began to whip around, slowly at first but then faster until in the dim deckedge lights they blurred into misty disks. The smells of exhaust and kerosene and hot metal mingled with the wind that blew back along the deck from the sea.
The commodore seemed not to notice it. Below him, around him, something massive was taking form out of the night. Leaning over the coaming, he swept his gaze along the length of his flagship.