2

THEY clattered down the outside ladder from the pilothouse. “What’ve you seen so far?” Norden called back.

“Just the XO’s office, the bunkroom, and the bridge.”

“I’ll give you a thorough look at her, then. Know much about this class?”

“Read about it in Jane’s. World War Two construction.”

“Uh-huh.”

He was about to say more—he’d memorized it—but the blond lieutenant had begun opening doors and talking rapidly. Radio central. Radar equipment room. Crypto room. Teletypes clattered behind closed doors. They dropped another level into a passageway so narrow, men turned to slip past them. Dan braced himself against a bulkhead as it tilted slowly. From a nest walled by filing cabinets and pigeonholes, a monklike face blinked out over the platen of a gray Royal. “Seaman Vogelpohl,” said Norden. “Department yeoman. Vogel, this here’s our new First Divoh.”

“Good morning, sir.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

Norden continued down the passageway, talking over his shoulder. “They built her in Seattle in ’44. She’s three hundred ninety feet long. Forty feet, ten inches beam. Twenty-two hundred fifty tons nominal displacement, thirty-five hundred full load. Crew of two hundred eighty. Two General Electric geared turbines with sixty thousand shaft horsepower from four six-hundred-pound oil-fired Babcock and Wilcox boilers. Range, three thousand miles at cruising speed. Flank speed, thirty-two and a half knots. At least when she was new.

“We got the standard four-department breakdown aboard: operations, weapons, engineering, supply. I’ll introduce you to the department heads at lunch.

“Okay, our department, weapons. They built her with six five-inch guns, torpedo tubes, forty and twenty-millimeter, but that’s changed over the years. We got four five-inchers left, torpedoes, and the Asroc—antisubmarine rockets, that’s the box launcher between the stacks. The pad aft was for these little radio-controlled helicopters they were playing with a few years ago, but they didn’t work out. Kept flying off over the horizon and nobody ever saw them again.”

“They must have been smaller then.”

“Helicopters?”

“The crew.” Dan looked at the overhead, noting the crust of cracked paint and painted dirt on the foot-thick bundles of cable that lined it. “Everything’s so cramped.”

“You get used to it. But you’re right, it isn’t as roomy as the new destroyers.”

“Was she in the Pacific?”

“Okinawa. Caught a kamikaze on the stern. It took the cap off the after stack and wiped out one of the quad forties. Killed six guys. They mothballed her when the war was over, then dragged her out again for Korea. She’s been steaming ever since.”

They threaded their way past sailors lined up for haircuts, past the galley. As soon as Dan was sure he was lost, Norden hauled up a spring-loaded scuttle in the deck.

As it clamped shut above them, he caught his breath at the sudden crush of humid heat. It was like being wrapped in a blanket soaked in boiling water. Noise battered his ears. The handrail burned his palms. It led down and down, debouching at last on a slick steel grating. “Forward fire-room,” Norden shouted over the din. “Also known as Number One. Two boilers here, two more in the after fireroom, Number Two. You can cross-connect them to either set of turbines for split plant operations. You got all this at the Academy, right?”

Lenson had to cup his hands around his mouth. “Some of it … yes, sir.”

“Then you recognize most of this.” Norden stabbed his finger rapidly around them. “You’re on what’s called the boiler flat. Over there’s reserve feed-water tank and fresh-water tank. On the boiler, steam drum, economizer elements, soot blower heads, safety valves, checkman’s glass, et cetera. These are M-type boilers with separately fired superheaters. You’ll want to memorize superheat and speed combinations: two boilers, twenty-two knots without, twenty-seven with; four boilers, twenty-eight without, thirty-two with, so on, so forth. Now for the lower level.”

Dan followed him along a shoulder-wide catwalk. He could see no relation between the diagrams he’d studied in Isherwood Hall and this roaring insanity. Some agoraphobic engineer had taken a thirty-by-forty sauna and crammed it with machinery, webbed it with dripping pipes, roofed it with I beams, and stuffed every remaining cubic inch with asbestos sheathing. The air burned his skin when he moved. Ahead of him, the lieutenant veronicaed around a steam-hissing valve stem and slid down a ladder, all one motion, his boots dangling in space until they slammed into the deck plates. He followed clumsily, feeling as if he was sinking through boiling liquid.

On either side, the boilers roared steadily, looming out of sight above. A tornado of white flame whirled behind a blue-tinted sight glass. Beneath his feet, through open steel grillwork, he could see oily water eddying between deep frames as the ship rolled. A black fireman in a T-shirt cut off at armpit level twisted past, not looking at them, carrying a clipboard, flashlight, and rag. His face was closed, his knotted belly sheened with sweat.

Norden paused under a blower. The blast of air from topside was icy. Dan shivered at the sudden transition, tropical Brazil to New England winter. “You’ll qualify down here later,” the lieutenant shouted. “Just wanted to show you Ed Talliaferro’s sneak preview of hell.”

“He’s the engineering officer?”

“Right. Now we’re going to Number One engine room. To get there, you’ve got to go up to the main deck, aft in the passageway, and down again. There isn’t any direct access from the other waterline spaces. That way, if she takes a hit, we might stay afloat long enough to get off a message.”

The engine room was almost as hot and even noisier. The air was murky with oil fumes and flaking insulation. Men glanced at them from a central control station, then returned their attention to gauges and handwheels. He ducked his head under pipes and barked his elbows on valves as Norden pointed out the main steam lines from the firerooms, the low- and high-pressure turbines, the main electrical switchboard, and the number-one turbogenerator, evaporator, deaerating feed tank, and main reduction gearing, along with assorted lube oil heaters, pumps, purifiers, and test stations. A spinning shaft sixteen inches thick, slick and gleaming under brilliant overheads, led out a weeping seal aft to its propeller. “Twin screws,” he bawled into Lenson’s ear over the tooth-chattering hum of gears and the tappa-tappa of air compressors and the steady whispering drip of steamy water from taped-up couplings. “And the engine rooms are completely separate. They built two of everything into these. As long as we can float, we can probably limp back.”

Down another ladder, and he was lost now as he was introduced to the main condenser, two main feed pumps, and the auxiliary condenser. The lieutenant’s arm traced a bronze casting like an oak growing up through the deck plates. “This here’s the main intake. Goes right through the bottom of the ship. Crack in this guy, engine room’d flood in about a minute.”

Dan stared. A rivulet wormed downward from what looked like a hasty solder job. He turned, checking the location of the ladder up, then, realizing Norden was watching him, jerked his eyes back. He searched a suddenly vacant skull for a question to ask. “What’s the, ah, operating pressure?”

“Of the steam plant? Standard. Six hundred pounds. Like I said.” Norden squinted at him.

“Oh. Sure.”

They climbed out of the engineering spaces, past the glances of pimpled messmen stirring soup, out onto the weather decks. He sucked cold air gratefully, looking around as Norden dogged the door behind them. He had to look hard to make out the land, now only a violet line astern. Shearwaters scaled across the waves on rigid dark wings. To the southeast, ahead, the sea was a mass of gold. Ryan had increased speed, slicing through light seas with a hissing burble.

The weapons officer led him forward, leaning into the wind. “Forward five-inch mount,” he said. “Got a new fiberglass shield on it, testing it out.”

“Right.”

The deck narrowed as they approached the bullnose. They stepped over massive chains toward the ground gear. He recognized some of it from the books. Pelican hooks, chain stoppers. The rest was just rusty iron to him.

“Okay, we get to your shit now,” Norden said. He crouched, putting the capstan between him and the wind. Dan bent, too. “You’ll be in charge up here during sea detail. You got two stockless anchors, five ton and seven ton. Five hundred fifty fathoms of chain, five-inch diameter, thirty tons breaking strain.… Don’t you have a wheel book?”

“Uh, not yet.”

“Get one.” He pulled a green notebook from his back pocket and slapped it. “Can’t remember everything. You’ll be responsible for a lot of gear. So write it down! Wildcat and brake. Electric drive, ten thousand foot-pounds of torque.…”

They finished the forecastle and headed aft. Dan, his head busy scrambling numbers, glanced up at the bridge as they passed beneath its windowed gaze. Someone was staring down at them. It was the captain. “Torpedo tubes here, port and starboard,” said Norden, reclaiming his attention. “And up there, aft of the stack, the Asroc launcher.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Boat deck to starboard. The whaleboat’s yours, too.”

Dan nodded. They continued aft, under a portico formed by an overhang of the helicopter pad; Norden called it a “Dash deck.” The weapons officer looked about with a critical eye as they passed kneeling men in dungarees and jackets. Hand irons clattered. The sailors glanced up, sweating despite the cold, then bent to work again. Norden stopped at each fire-fighting station and underway replenishment point. He pointed out corroded nozzles, frayed hoses, patches of bare primer, rusted scuppers, missing fittings. His voice edged toward reproach. It was as if, Dan thought, their condition was already his fault. His stomach tightened.

Two-thirds of the way aft, the lieutenant paused, looking over the lifeline into the sea. Then he put his foot on the scupper. Dan hesitated. You weren’t supposed to lean on lifelines. After a moment, he put his hand on it, not trusting it with his weight.

“Now that you’ve seen her, what do you think?”

“Things look … worn.”

“Very diplomatic. She’s a piece of junk.”

“Oh.”

“This is a wartime class. They built them to last five, ten years. They’ve been steaming for thirty. They put a lot of gear on the weather decks. It rusts. Even the interior spaces are going. Machinist’s mate on Ault dropped a ball peen in the engine room and it went right through the bottom. Fortunately, they were in dry dock at the time. Everything aboard’s been rebuilt fifteen, twenty times. Half the time when you order parts, the company that made them’s out of business.”

“She seems to steam okay.”

“Oh, Ed does miracles down below. But she’s wearing out. The main condensate pump casing cracked last year off Cape Henry. No spare for that—nobody expects a casing to crack. But metal fatigues.”

He nodded. Norden went on. “On top of that—well, the war’s been sucking cash and men to Westpac for six years. They keep saying withdrawal on the news, Vietnamization, but we’re not seeing it yet. We’re on a short string for operating funds. And we’re undermanned—especially in the deck gang.

“I suppose the XO already told you this, but first lieutenant’s no strawberry-pie billet. Not on Ryan. You’re in charge of preservation and painting of everything topside, plus all the deck evolutions—anchoring, underway replenishment, mooring, towing, operating boats and winches. You can see the kind of shape the weather decks are in. We were supposed to get a complete blast to bare metal and repaint in the yard, but they pulled us out halfway through overhaul. Just ran out of money. The chief got a coat of red lead on the worst places, but basically we got to strip it and do the preservation ourselves before we get north of sixty.”

“Sixty?”

“Degrees latitude. It’ll be too rough to paint after that.” Norden rubbed his chin, frowning.

“How much longer has she got?”

“What, in commission? I don’t know what they’re planning long-term. Squadron staff was saying when I came aboard that us and Bordelon—we’re the only Gearings left on this coast—were slated for decommission and scrap. But that was two years ago.” Norden shrugged; his face darkened. “She’s like an old clunker nobody bothers to fix anymore or cares about. You just keep adding ten-weight till it craps out, then take the plates and leave it by the side of the road. Bloch, that’s your boatswain’s mate chief, he’s good. But you’re going to have to exercise leadership. We got some hard cases—guys been busted in rate, brig rats, that kind of shit. Anybody can’t hack it in the other division, they shitcan them to you.”

“I see.”

“I don’t mean to turn you off. We can use some youthful enthusiasm. But I want you to go in with your eyes open. You’ll get a lot of sob stories from the deck apes. But our job’s to keep this ship running somehow.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“I know that. Just wanted to give you the straight skinny.”

“I appreciate that—Rich.”

They walked aft, around the turn of the deckhouse, into a knot of shouting men. Dan caught one of the voices: “… don’t got a fuckin’ clue what’s really going down—”

“Whoa,” said Norden into sudden silence. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, sir,” said several voices. The shouters moved apart warily, then drifted aft. The one who remained put his fists on his hips and looked expectantly at Norden. He was the man Dan had watched on the forecastle.

“Ensign Dan Lenson, meet Boatswain’s Mate Chief Harvey Bloch.”

“Pleased to meet you, Chief.”

“Welcome aboard, sir.”

Dan looked at him eye-to-eye, but height was the only dimension he matched this man in. Bloch seemed as thick as he was wide. His bare head was bald, whether naturally or shaved, Dan couldn’t tell. His stomach bulged, turning the waistband of his trousers, and a nest of black hair showed at his neck. A knot of keys was clipped to his belt. He looked exhausted and angry.

“You our new division officer, sir?”

“That’s what they tell me, Chief.”

“Mr. Sullivan’s not coming back?”

“No, he’s gone for good,” said Norden. “He really stepped on his crank this time.”

“Too bad,” said Bloch, looking off to sea. “I liked him.” His left hand slapped a chipping hammer into his right. It disappeared when he wrapped his fingers around it. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows. Dan stared at a blurred Betty Boop in a sailor cap, skirt lifted and bodice open, showing purple breasts larger than her head. On the other arm, a scroll—the letters too seeped and faded to read—disappeared under the sleeve.

“D’we come up with those anchor stoppers, Chief?”

“Yessir. Some dickhead storecreature sent ’em down to the snipes.”

“And did we get the pump covers, and the new garbage chute before we got under way?”

“Rousted ’em out of the tender last night.”

“Good. How about introducing Ensign Lenson here to some of his men?”

“No problem.” The chief bellowed downwind, “First Division! Front and center! Yeah, you!”

The men he addressed, the ones he’d been shouting with a few minutes before, dropped brushes into cans and ambled toward them. One straightened a paint-stained white hat; another slowly tucked in a ragged shirt. The others simply strolled up and stopped, swaying to the slow roll of the deck. “This here’s our new division officer,” said Bloch. “Straighten up, Gonzales, for Christ’s sake! That’s Greenwald. Hardin. Jones. Williams. This here is Coffey. And this prize pupil is Seaman Recruit Lassard.”

The last named was older than the others. His face was handsome but spoiled by his hair. It was cut to the quick, boot camp—style. His pale hands were flecked with white paint. Seaman recruit, Dan thought. You couldn’t get lower in the Navy. Most enlisted were third class, even second, at this man’s age.

Lassard returned his stare with a faint, absent smile. His blue eyes were slightly bloodshot. He looked intelligent, but Dan had the feeling he wasn’t really there with them, on the open fantail of USS Ryan, standing out to sea.

“Ay, four-oh to meet you, man,” he said softly. “You can call him Slick. Everybody does. You Flamer’s replacement?”

“Lassard, that fuckin’ mouth of yours—”

“That’s all right, Chief,” Dan said. It looked like a chance to establish quick rapport. He took a step forward and extended his hand. Lassard took it with the same dreamy look. Dan felt the callus, the hard muscle beneath.

The grip tightened, forcing his knuckles together. Dan hissed in surprise and pain before he remembered his father’s old cop trick. When his left thumb found the paint-smeared web of Lassard’s, the remote eyes widened, just a fraction, and then the seaman let go and stepped back.

“Ay, man, you got soft hands there.”

He felt something sticky on his palm, and stopped himself from wiping it on his uniform pants. His hand hurt now, but he ignored it and shook hands with the others, too, trying to match names with faces. Gonzales, short and dark, grinned and slid his feet around when he was introduced. Greenwald was thin, with a face like an accountant’s unexpectedly but not without reason accused of fraud. Coffey’s was rigid as carved teak, his hand dry and neutral. He wore a shoelace braided around his wrist.

“Okay, back to work,” said Bloch. The men ambled aft again. He turned to Lenson. “The most useless set of cats’ assholes in the division. No. In the ship. They call themselves the ‘kinnicks.’”

“‘Kinnicks?’”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care, sir. I just know I could get twice as much done around here without ’em.”

“Discipline problems? Or just lazy?”

Bloch uttered a fearsome blasphemy. “This is the worse division I seen in twenty-eight years in the Navy, sir. Half of ’em come in to dodge the draft. I got three new transfers—not these, these are the bright boys—Cat Five. That means IQ under eighty. You got to show them which end of a swab to hold on to. Every time. But they’re not the ones give you trouble. Lieutenant here’ll back me up—”

As he talked, Dan watched the men. Lassard was painting a white diamond around a pad eye. Each time he lifted his brush from the pot, he paused, staring out at the passing sea. As the paint drooled downward, the wind spun streamers of it out over the gray deck. “Just pretend I’m not here, Chief,” said Norden. “Give it to him straight.”

“All right.” Bloch rubbed his hand over his head. “We got short-sheeted on the last overhaul. XO cut my budget again last month. We ain’t even got enough paint—I had to cumshaw twenty gallons haze gray off a master chief on the Sara. I could make do if I had good men. But we’re short a lot of hands, and like I say, there’s major problems with the ones we got.”

“How about petty officers?”

“Two of ’em are okay. One just made third. My first-class…”

“What’s the matter with him?”

Bloch looked at the deck but didn’t answer.

“I’m just showing him around the ship now, Chief. You two can get together for record review later.”

“Well, nice meeting you, Chief.”

“Welcome aboard, sir.” Bloch hesitated. “Don’t get me wrong, sir. These old cans are the cat’s nuts.”

“The what?”

“The best. We got problems, but I’d ten times rather be aboard here than the cookie tins they’re building now. Aluminum! Single-screw! I done my whole career on these. When they go, that’ll be time for me, too.” He turned away, leaving it unclear who had dismissed whom, and began shouting again.

Dan followed Norden forward again, catching up with him amidships. The whaleboat loomed above them, cradled in steel arms. “He seems pretty much on top of things,” he said tentatively.

“Yeah, Bloch’s good. Most of his twenty-eight’s sea time, except for two years at Great Lakes pushing boots. Divorced. Lives aboard. Got a little marine surveying business he does part-time in port.”

“That about manning, and budget, that doesn’t sound so good.”

“Well, don’t let us gloom and doom you too much. We aren’t the only ship in the fleet with problems these days. That reminds me, this is your first tour; you get to pick where you go. How come you aren’t on your way to Nam?”

“We, uh, you know, choose according to class rank. When they got to me, it was this or a tanker.”

“Well, nice to know we’re a notch above somebody.”

“How about you? How come you’re not somebody’s aide, or—”

“Or in some high-powered staff billet? My great-granddad started out on the deck plates. I wanted to, too. I just told the detailer, send me where anybody of my rank and age would go if his name was Smith.” Norden grinned boyishly and slapped his shoulder. “And they thought I was serious! Maybe next time I’ll wise up! Ready for lunch?”

“Sure,” said Dan, grinning, too. Somehow he couldn’t help it.

Ryan’s wardroom was smaller than an average living room. It looked worn but clean. The only furniture was a threadbare couch, bolted to the deck through worn gray carpet, and a table. On the bulkhead hung an oil of a stern-looking man with high collar and rear admiral’s stripes; in the background, a four-piper destroyer thrust its bow out of a malachite sea. A dozen men stood around the table, leaning on their chairs. They perked up as Norden introduced Lenson, reaching to shake his hand. “Mark Silver you know … This is Ralph Weaver, the comm-oh; Ken Trachsler, damage control; Aaron Reed, sonar; Barry Ohlmeyer, guns, our bull ensign and duty bachelor; Ed Talliaferro, chief engineer; Al Evlin, operations and senior watch officer; Tom Cummings, disbursing and acting supply. You’ll be relieving him as junior ensign, also known as George, also known as Shitty Little Jobs Officer. He’ll get with you later about turning over the mess accounts. Right, Chow Hound?”

“Soon’s we put down our forks.”

“I guess that does it except for Murphy and Johnson, and they’ll be down after they’re relieved.”

“Pleased to meet you all,” said Dan to the wardroom at large. Despite getting stuck with the mess treasury, a thankless job of nit-picking and bookkeeping, he felt warmed by their welcome.

“You married, Dan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kids?”

“First due in February.”

“Good grief.”

“She don’t expect you back by then, I hope.”

“Like they say, you got to be there for laying the keel, but not for the launching.”

He grinned wordlessly and let it wash over him.

“Hey ’Fredo! Captain coming down?”

“He say he come down.”

The redheaded ensign, Dan had already lost his name, said, “We’ll give him five more minutes, then we’ll—”

The forward door opened and Packer came in. The executive officer was behind him. Bryce was the only one in the room wearing a tie. Ohlmeyer ducked his head, glancing around in real or feigned embarrassment. The captain said nothing; either he hadn’t heard the remark or he ignored it. He pulled out the chair at the head of the table and nodded to the assembled officers.

The table sat in a ripple movement, by seniority. Dan wedged himself into the chair at the foot, directly beneath the portrait. He had eight inches between the table and the bulkhead. When he looked up, the captain was staring at him over the silver. They were face-to-face, ten feet apart, with the others ranked on either side. “Who’s this?” asked Packer. “Didn’t I see him on the bridge?”

“This is the new man I called you about, sir. Daniel Lenson, Mr. Sullivan’s replacement,” said Norden.

“Sully’s not coming back?”

“No, I don’t think the Flamer will rise again this time,” said Bryce, smiling.

“That so? Well, welcome aboard.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Packer lowered his attention to a bowl of mucky-looking stuff the steward slid in front of him. Mabalacat delivered along both sides, two plates at a time. Dan got his last. It was a spicy potato soup that tasted better than it looked. He sipped at it, glancing up furtively to observe the captain.

“Jimmy John,” Bryce had called him, but Dan had a feeling no one called him that to his face. He was by no means the tallest at the table, but there was no question of his domination of it. It showed in the hushed tones the others used in the face of his silence. Now he was capless, Dan saw dark hair, but eyebrows the color of the silverware. He ate slowly, his attention on the soup. The tension he’d thought he saw on the bridge seemed to be gone.

The main course arrived. “What’s this called, ’Fredo?” said Bryce.

“Knockwurst, sah.”

“No. This.”

“Boiled cabbage, sah. You like?”

“Yes, it’s tasty. Real down-home. Let me have some more of that, on the side.”

“So where you from, Dan?” said a man midway up the table. Lenson swallowed rapidly, groping for the name. Pockmarked cheeks, tired eyelids, a swatch of black hair plastered across his forehead. Talliaferro, pronounced Tolliver, the engineer. First names? He decided it would be okay over food. “Pennsylvania, Ed.”

“Whereabouts? Out west? I’m from Bradford.”

“Uh, not really, it’s near Philly.”

“Okay, hotshot check! You ready to take over my watch section, Lenson?” asked another man, a jaygee.

The others chuckled. He hesitated self-consciously. Should he act cocky? Confident but modest? While he was debating it, he lost his chance; the captain turned to the operations officer, Evlin. “Al, you got the Gap Filler directive copied yet?”

The senior lieutenant dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “It’s in mimeo, Skipper. Distribute it right after lunch.”

“I want everybody familiar with it before we get to the exercise area. We can waste a lot of time up there if we screw up the runs. I want them to know it cold.”

“I’ll see to that,” said Bryce, smiling around at the table.

“Was there anything else hot in that traffic they handed up before we got under way?”

“Nothing new, sir.”

“Ed, how’s that port shaft sound now?”

Talliaferro shoved his plate aside. “I think we got her in shape, sir.”

“The steering unit? And number-two generator?”

“Like I say, we got her running again. But once we clear coastwise traffic, I’d like to kick her up to flank for an hour and get a stethoscope on a couple things.”

“Good idea. Let’s combine a full-power run and crash-back with a shakedown general quarters tomorrow, Ben, say around oh-nine hundred.”

“Will do, Captain,” said Bryce, looking alert and jovial.

Norden coughed into his fist. “Could we possibly hold that till after lunch, sir? Deck division’s putting fresh paint down aft. I’d like it to dry before people run through it.”

“Rope it off,” said Bryce, not waiting for Packer to answer.

“Aye, sir.” Norden glanced down the table at Dan, as if to say, I tried.

The steward raked in the empty dishes and dealt dessert: bread pudding. When the captain was done, he pushed the plate back and began packing his pipe from a leather pouch. That seemed to be a signal. The others folded their napkins and crossed silver on their plates. Mabalacat returned with coffee.

“Gentlemen, Mr. Evlin tells me he’ll have the operation order for this little excursion available sometime this afternoon. Let me summarize it, just to put everybody in the picture—including our new ensign.” Packer’s eyes lingered on him.

“We were pulled early from overhaul for this assignment. Squadron Ops says it was authorized at the Chief of Naval Operations level, via the type commander. Morton, that’s the Pac-side test ship for the AN/SQS-thirty-five IVDS, reported performance degradation during cold-weather operations in the Chukchi Sea. Before COMCRUDESLANT signs off on a fleetwide buy, they want to check the figure of merit in heavy-sea, cold-weather operations.

“That’s where we come in, as the prototype installation. We’ll be heading up north of the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap to play convergence-zone ops with Pargo, a nuke attack boat. She’ll be coming out of the Northern Fleet op area. She’s up there now playing hide-and-seek with the Soviets around the Kola Peninsula. Estimated time out is three weeks, if all goes well. But I’ll tell you now, much as I know everybody wants to get back to their families, doing this right has priority.

“The idea is to test the thirty-five B under the most demanding conditions any ship’s likely to hit in wartime. So make sure you’re ready for rough weather. If there’s a storm up there, I intend to head for it, and I’ll stay in it as long as I can.”

The men nodded. Packer paused. He lighted his pipe thoroughly, using a butane lighter set high, then went on. “I had a talk with the commodore when we got these orders. He wanted to shift the fish to a newer ship. But operational demands in Southeast Asia mean the fleet’s spread thin. Dewey and Beary were held over in the Med for that reason. I told him we could respond to the tasking.”

Some of the officers leaned their elbows on the table.

“So we’re on the line for it. It goes without saying that we aren’t in the best shape for the North Atlantic in winter. However, this is the kind of mission that would be demanded of us in wartime, and I judge we can do it. If there’s anyone here who disagrees, I’d like to know about it.”

No one moved. “Well then,” said Packer, from behind a thickening smoke screen, “we should have reasonable weather for the first few days. I want to get as much topside work done as we can. And be sure your gear’s secured for sea. We can expect heavy weather and ice north of the Circle this time of year.

“Any questions?”

Men stirred, but no one spoke. Dan watched the engineering officer lift his coffee, his brows worried. He was kind of worried himself. He wasn’t sure he understood what the captain was talking about. Then he thought, Well, I guess I’ll find out.

“XO, anything to add?”

“Not much, sir,” said Bryce. “So, this won’t be a Caribbean cruise. But I’ve always said, there’s nothing a crew can’t overcome if they work hard and keep their cool. That shouldn’t be too tough, north of Iceland this time of year.”

He chuckled, but no one joined him. Mabalacat moved round the table, refreshing coffee from a battered silver server. One by one, the officers excused themselves; the captain acknowledged with a nod. Dan got up when Norden did, but on his way past, Evlin leaned his chair back to bar his passage. “Say, Dan.”

“Yes, sir?” Some instinct warned him to be formal with the senior department head. Precise diction. Short brown hair and mustache. Wire-rimmed glasses.

“We’ll be revamping the watch bill now you’re here. You’ll be standing junior officer of the deck. We’re in three sections. You’ll be in my section, which means—” Evlin consulted his watch.

“First dog, mid,” said Norden.

“Right. You’ll stand your first watch from sixteen hundred to eighteen hundred, then come on again at midnight to four.”

“Aye, sir,” he said, cheerily enough, but he felt his spirits sag. He’d been up since four; he was already tired, and it looked like a long afternoon ahead. Now what sleep he managed tonight would be broken. Disappointment struggled with eagerness and apprehension. His first underway watch. For a moment he imagined the OOD fallen, himself in charge, saving the ship.

As he followed Norden down the passageway, he stepped back, as he had on the pier, taking a moment in the midst of experience to reflect.

He’d seen Ryan from stem to stern, from keel to bridge. Had seen the crew in microcosm: the sailors, chief, wardroom; had been admitted for a moment into the mind of the captain. He’d felt her climates, from the roaring swelter of the engine room to the air-conditioned clatter of Radio Central, smelled fuel oil and insecticide, deck wax and electricity, men’s sweat and paint. Almost three hundred men, crowded into a steel box the length of a football field but only a quarter as wide. In some eyes, he’d read dedication, competence, and respect. In others, barely repressed violence.

Ryan was not yet his. Only with work and time would he win his share in her, as crews in the old days won shares in prizes. He wasn’t sure why this meant so much to him. But he knew what he wanted of USS Reynolds Ryan. He wanted to be tested, and to succeed. To be part of her. To belong.

“This swab locker’s yours,” said Norden, banging open a door stenciled I DIV CLNG LKR. “And it’s a shithouse. The deck’s rusting out. See that? Reason is, the spigot’s busted. And it’ll keep rusting till it’s fixed. And it won’t get fixed till somebody takes responsibility for making it happen.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, taking a deep breath. “I’ll get on it right away.”