100 Fathoms Below

by Steven L. Kent

  He was distracted enough by his thoughts that he only barely registered the absence of Lieutenant Junior Grade Duncan, who normally ate with them. Maybe he was needed in the control room. No one had informed Jefferson, but he let it slide. He had enough on his mind.

  The stewards served them steak, grilled to perfection by Gordon’s galley staff. Jefferson cut into his and watched the juices flow from the lightly pink interior. Under normal circumstances, his mouth would have watered and his stomach would have grumbled in eager anticipation, but the mirrors kept returning to his thoughts. There was something eerie about shattering a mirror. Symbolically, it was like shattering yourself, wasn’t it? All a mirror could do was show you your reflection, and to break it …

  To break it meant you didn’t like what you saw.

  As he ate his steak, he looked across the table at Captain Weber, who was engaged in small talk with the other officers about sports, their families, their children—anything but the op itself or the strange and tragic events that had taken place. Such things were routinely avoided at dinners like this. The captain thought that a good meal and a chance for easy conversation was the best way to relieve stress among the officers, but it all felt forced. Two crewmen were dead, the hospital corpsman was sick, Roanoke was being further vandalized by the day, the radio wasn’t working, and they were sailing deep into Soviet territory. No amount of steak dinner and chitchat would change any of that.

  Earlier, he had informed Captain Weber about the fresh cuts he’d seen on Bodine’s hands, and the possibility that their timeline of events was off, that the helmsman might have died after vandalizing the head, not before as they had thought. But the captain wanted facts, not conjecture, and had ordered Jefferson to continue his investigation until he had concrete answers. To do that, Jefferson needed confirmation of Bodine’s time of death from Matson, but that was where he kept hitting a brick wall. Thanks to the fever, Matson’s memory—indeed, his whole state of mind—could no longer be trusted. Hell, maybe, in his delirium, Matson had smashed up the head himself, then gone back to quarantine with a shard of glass and used it to mutilate Bodine’s hands. No, that was too far-fetched. If Matson were that out of his mind with the fever, he wouldn’t bother framing a dead man. And besides, though Matson had clearly been sick, he hadn’t been that far gone when Jefferson saw him in the torpedo room.

  Which meant that either Matson had prematurely hallucinated Bodine’s death when he called Jefferson on the circuit to report it, as he suspected, or …

  Or what? Steve Bodine had risen out of his body bag like Christ on Easter to go smash some lights and mirrors, then run like hell without being seen before anyone could investigate what all the noise was?

  It didn’t add up. Once again, Jefferson felt as though he was missing some important bit of information that would make it all make sense.

  When the meal was over, Captain Weber dismissed everyone but asked Jefferson to stay behind for a moment. Both of them remained seated at the table.

  “It’s been a rough op so far, hasn’t it, Jefferson?” the captain asked.

  “Aye, sir,” he replied. “This isn’t like any underway I’ve ever been on.”

  “I take it you’ve never lost a man on your boat before?”

  “No, sir. Have you, sir?”

  Captain Weber shook his head. “Not until now. I’ve been in the submarine service long enough to see past crewmen die from cancer, heart attacks, car accidents, but never on the boat, never during an op. I’ve been lucky that way, I suppose. Did I ever tell you my father served in Korea?”

  “No, sir.”

  “He was a navy man too. A love of the ocean runs in my family. We used to say we had salt water for blood. He was stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan, not far from Gangneung. He saw a lot of airmen fly off the ship and never come back. These were swaggering, cocksure pilots, the kind who thought they could never die. You know what he said about that? He said everyone is lucky—you, me, everyone—but only until the day they’re not. There’s no such thing as a charmed life, he said, but there’s no such thing as a life wasted, either. Hold on a moment, Jefferson. I’ve got something for us. Get the door, would you?”

  Jefferson got up and closed the wardroom door while Captain Weber went to one of the built-in cubbies in the wall. This one had a lock on it, but he took a key out of his pocket and opened it. He pulled out a bottle of Macallan twelve-year-old single-malt Scotch and two glasses, and set them on the table.

  “Sir?” Jefferson asked, raising an eyebrow as he returned to his seat. He knew perfectly well that General Order 99, which had been in place for nearly 70 years, forbade liquor on naval vessels while at sea.

  Captain Weber sat and uncorked the bottle. “Don’t worry. A small amount of alcohol is permitted on submarines for medicinal purposes. According to regulations, it can be issued only on the authority of two men. The first is the hospital corpsman. The second, of course, is the captain.”

  He poured out two glasses and passed one to Jefferson, who accepted it in stunned silence.

  “You lost someone important to you, Jefferson,” Captain Weber said. “I would be a piss-poor captain if I didn’t know what was going on with my own crew. I know you took Bodine under your wing, and I know you had high hopes for him.” He raised his glass. “To Steve Bodine. Long may he sail.”

  With everything else that was going on, Jefferson hadn’t really had time to let it sink in that Bodine was dead. Or maybe he just hadn’t let it sink in. He had felt it for a moment down in the torpedo room, looking at his friend in a body bag, but now, with the captain toasting Bodine’s memory, he felt himself choking up. He steeled himself against the rising tide of grief and raised his glass to the captain’s.

  “To Steve Bodine,” he said. “I was going to encourage him to apply to Officer Candidate School, sir. I think he would have gone far in the navy.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” the captain said, “especially with a mentor like you.”

  They sipped their Scotch in silence for a while. It had been a long time since Jefferson had had a drink. It was smooth, tasting of wood and peat and honey. It went down warm and pleasant.

  “Lieutenant Commander, I don’t think I’ve ever told you this before, but you are, hands down, the best executive officer I have ever served with,” Captain Weber said. “Everything you’ve had to deal with on this underway would have broken a lesser man. When we get back to Pearl Harbor, I’m going to recommend you for your own command. I know some of the higher-ups have already been thinking about it, but a recommendation from me will help kick the wheels into motion. You’ve earned it, Lee. You deserve it.” He poured them both another glass. “However, should you tell anyone else on Roanoke about my secret stash of Macallan, not only will I withhold that recommendation, I’ll put you in an inflatable and launch you out of a torpedo tube myself.”

  Jefferson laughed and lifted his glass. “You’ve got yourself a deal, sir.”

  ***

  As XO, Jefferson had his own stateroom in Officer Country, which also happened to be the forwardmost room on Roanoke. Beyond it was only the fore ladder, which led up to the captain’s egress, and the bulkhead that separated the forward compartment from the submarine’s water-filled nose cone, where the sonar sphere was housed.

  By the time he returned to his stateroom, he was feeling happily warm from the Scotch. He took down the folding bed from the bulkhead, sat on it, and began unlacing his boots.

  Damn, he was going to miss Bodine. He had the nagging sense again that he had ridden the young man too hard, been too stern with him in his effort to make him the best sailor he could be. But it had been born of good intentions, and that had to mean something, didn’t it? Sometimes, it seemed as though white sailors in the US Navy were given as many second chances as they needed, but a black sailor had to mess up but once before others started talking in hushed tones about whether “his kind” belonged in the navy at all. And that was why he ha
d been so tough on Bodine. Surely Bodine had known that and hadn’t blamed him. Right?

  He thought it was his own drunken imagination when he heard Bodine’s voice just then, softly calling him.

  “Lieutenant Commander …”

  Jefferson shivered and pulled off his boots. It was just his imagination running away with him. Bodine was on his mind, after all. He was exhausted from a long day, and his mind was drifting pleasantly from the Scotch. Was it any wonder he was hearing things?

  “Lieutenant Commander,” came the voice again.

  This time, Jefferson sat up bolt upright. That wasn’t his imagination. He really had heard something, but he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Close enough to be heard clearly. Was someone hiding in his stateroom with him? But where? There was no place to hide.

  “You should hear what they call you behind your back, Lieutenant Commander,” Bodine’s voice continued.

  Jefferson stood up. “Who’s there?”

  “The captain, the other sailors—you should hear the names they have for you when you’re not around. Jig. Sambo. Spade. Shine.”

  Jefferson turned in a circle, looking into the corners of the stateroom, but no one was there. He was alone.

  “They can’t stand you. They can’t wait until this underway is over, so they can get away from your uppity black ass. It’s all they talk about when you’re not there.”

  “You’re wrong,” Jefferson said loudly. Was he going crazy? First, he was hearing voices, and now he was talking back to them? But Scotch had a way of replacing one’s common sense with fearlessness. “I just spoke with the captain. He’s not like that.”

  “They’re all like that.”

  Jefferson put his hands over his ears and shook his head. He had to be losing his mind. Or maybe this was a delusion brought on by the fever that was going around. Damn it, had he been infected when he went down to the torpedo room earlier? Matson had warned him it could happen …

  The sound of breaking glass outside his stateroom startled him out of his thoughts. One of the light fixtures outside? He turned toward the door.

  “Do you know what the best thing about being on a submarine is, Lieutenant Commander?” Bodine’s voice asked. “There’s no sun. Down here, it’s always night.”

  Another crash, closer now, followed by the tinkle of glass shards falling to the deck.

  “Who are you?” Jefferson shouted.

  “Don’t you know your old friend Steve Bodine?”

  No, it was impossible. He was dead. And yet, that voice …

  Fuck this. Someone was playing a nasty prank on him, and he was going to have the son of a bitch’s hide for it. He walked to the door and reached for the handle.

  Another crash came from outside, making him pause. More glass fell tinkling to the deck. Christ, the three light fixtures in the Officer Country corridor.

  “I’m just outside your door, Lieutenant Commander.”

  Jefferson stared at the handle.

  “Why don’t you come out and say hello?”

  To hell with this sick bastard, whoever he was. Come out and say hello? That was exactly what Jefferson was going to do. And when he caught the son of a bitch, he would give him an ass-kicking to remember. He gripped the knob, turned it, and yanked the stateroom door open.

  The corridor outside was dark. He was right: all three light fixtures had been smashed. The light from his stateroom bled out into the shadows before him, falling across bits of shattered glass on the deck. Beyond where the light reached, he saw a shape in the darkness—the silhouette of a man. It had Bodine’s posture and stood at Bodine’s height, but it couldn’t be Bodine.

  The silhouette’s eyes glowed brightly out of the darkness as if they were reflecting the light, like a cat’s.

  In a harsh, inhuman whisper, Steve Bodine said, “Hello, brother.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When Jerry White showed up for his watch section in the control room, he was pleasantly surprised to find that Lieutenant Duncan was not on duty as the diving officer. Unsurprisingly, in Duncan’s absence his watch went more smoothly than ever. The new diving officer didn’t ride him the way Duncan did, didn’t look for tiny things to criticize, or, worse, fabricate them as an excuse to dress him down in front of everyone. When the watch was over six hours later, Jerry left the control room actually feeling good about himself for a change, basking in the feeling of a job well done.

  He climbed down the main ladder to the middle level, planning to get some chow and maybe finally start that book he had brought along. But as soon as he stepped off the ladder, Senior Chief Farrington came walking up to him and said, “White, come with me.” Without breaking his stride, Farrington continued toward the mess.

  Jerry hurried after him. “What’s this about, COB?”

  Farrington didn’t answer. They entered the mess, and Farrington went to the closest table, where four enlisted men were eating a seafood gumbo that smelled tantalizingly good.

  “Gentlemen, I need this table for a few minutes.”

  If it were anyone else below the rank of ensign, the men would have scoffed at the request, but for the chief of the boat they got up with their trays and took another table. Farrington indicated that White should sit down. Then the COB sat across from him.

  “How would you describe your relationship with Lieutenant Junior Grade Charles Duncan, White?”

  Jerry frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Lieutenant Duncan has vanished. Were you aware?”

  “What?”

  “When he didn’t show up for his watch section, someone was sent to his stateroom. He wasn’t there, either. The officers he shares the stateroom with say he wasn’t present for his usual sleep section. I’ve had men searching the boat for the whole past section, and more searching now on the top level. Something tells me they won’t find him there, either.”

  Jerry stared at the COB. How could anyone go missing on a 300-foot submarine? There was no place where you wouldn’t be seen by someone. Hell, Jerry couldn’t even take a piss in private most days. Then he remembered how Bodine had evaded them during the boatwide search for him. How had he done that?

  Farrington interrupted his thoughts. “It’s no secret there was friction between you and Lieutenant Duncan. How did that make you feel? Angry?”

  “Hold on a minute, COB,” Jerry said. “You think I had something to do with it?”

  “I’m just asking questions, White. Did it make you angry?”

  “Yes, it made me angry, but not enough to … to do something to him. Look, I never wanted any trouble. I just wanted to keep my head down and focus on my duties. I never so much as talked back to Lieutenant Duncan, even when he was treating me unfairly.”

  “So, you feel he was treating you unfairly,” Farrington said. “Why didn’t you come to me about it? That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Tim Spicer told me I should, but like I said, I just wanted to focus on my duties. I didn’t want to …” He trailed off.

  “Didn’t want to what?” Farrington asked.

  Jerry sighed and looked around the mess to see if others were listening. Of course they were. They stared at him like school kids watching someone being taken out of class by the principal. Jerry’s cheeks flushed with humiliation. He was never going to catch a break on this damn boat.

  “Didn’t want to what, White?” Farrington pressed.

  “I didn’t want to become known as someone who’s constantly making complaints against officers,” he said. “I didn’t want that reputation.”

  “You already have a reputation,” Farrington said. “I read your file, I know all about how you got your previous XO drummed out of the navy. Did you know I was against your transfer for Roanoke, White? The captain thought you were worth it because you saved Philadelphia from a fire, and the XO backed him up, but I thought differently. I thought maybe you have a problem with authority. Do you, White?”

  “No, COB, I don’t
,” Jerry said. The accusation angered him, but he tried to keep his tone calm and even. It wasn’t easy. “I took the same oath you did: to obey the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

  “And what about Ensign Penwarden?” Farrington continued. “Was he treating you ‘unfairly,’ too?”

  Jerry frowned. “Ensign Penwarden? No, I barely know him. Why?”

  “The ensign hasn’t turned up, either,” Farrington said.

  “They’re both missing? Wait a minute, couldn’t they have gotten sick and reported to quarantine?”

  “Matson would have informed us if they had,” Farrington replied.

  But Matson hadn’t looked well the last time Jerry saw him. It wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that Matson was too sick to remember to alert anyone when new patients showed up.

  “But surely you’ve checked the torpedo room anyway,” Jerry said.

  Farrington shook his head. “Quarantined. It’s off-limits.”

  A sailor came rushing up to their table, out of breath. The grease marks on his pants marked him as part of the Engineering Department.

  “COB, it’s—it’s the XO,” the sailor panted.

  “Lieutenant Commander Jefferson? What about him?” Farrington demanded.

  “He’s gone,” the sailor said. “No one can find him anywhere.”

  “Slow down,” Farrington said. “What are you talking about?”

  “The engineering officer sent me to fetch him so they could talk about the new broken lights in Officer Country,” the sailor said, “but the lieutenant commander’s stateroom is empty. The lights were broken in there too. His bed was down, but it doesn’t look slept in. I searched for him all over the boat. I even had other crewmen searching too, but nobody can find him.”