Cold is the Sea

by Edward L. Beach

  “You’re just being a loyal wife now. How can he not be able to push me around if Admiral Scott, who is a much nicer guy, seems to be able to do it so easily? He thinks I’m a patsy for Scott—”

  “Don’t be silly. Brighting has been pushing juniors around all his life, and lately seniors as well. That’s something he’s an expert at. Part of his game is to block in advance all those he might have trouble dominating. Another part of it is to hit at one through another.” Laura smiled enigmatically. “But he hasn’t really run into you yet, my darling.”

  “There’s not much chance he will, either,” Richardson said morosely.

  “If only there were someone on Brighting’s staff who could get the word to him that you hadn’t anything to do with any scheme BuPers—isn’t that what you call Admiral Scott’s office—might have cooked up.”

  “Scott is the Chief of Naval Personnel, and BuPers is the shorthand word for his whole bureau of a couple of thousand people. . . .”

  Laura knew the superfluous explanation was really her husband’s device to let him think over what she had just said. She ignored it. “You must know someone over there among all those people. You must have been with some of them, men or women, somewhere. A lot of them are submariners. During the war, maybe?” The strange expression was still around Laura’s mouth.

  A thought was growing in Richardson’s mind. Joan had been moving in Navy circles ever since the war. It was totally possible, even likely, that Laura and Joan had met somewhere. Although he had never discussed her with Laura, more than once over the years of their marriage he had wondered if Laura knew of his wartime affair with Joan. It was even possible she had heard of Joan’s early relationship with Jim Bledsoe, Laura’s first husband—for so tragically brief a time. Recognizing the possibility made it harden into probability. Laura and Joan might certainly have known of each other, might even have met somewhere. If so, they had doubtlessly been fencing, each uncertain how much the other knew.

  Joan had been very much in his life, at a critical time. Laura must know, or have shrewdly guessed, already. But, womanlike, she must have it from him. He had already denied Joan once, would not a second time. He could not, however, tell what he knew, or surmised, about her and Jim. That was not his secret. Nor need he distress Laura with any details of his own relationship (that word, again!) with Joan. Yet he would have to tell her something. That was clear.

  “I do know someone over there, though there’s nothing she could do. I ran into her by accident when I was over there. It’s a WAVE lieutenant, Joan Lastrada. I knew her when she was in the intelligence business in Pearl Harbor, during the war.”

  Again that unfathomable ghost of a smile. “Good. Now maybe we’re getting somewhere.” (Could that simple statement have had a double meaning?) “How can we get Joan to tell Brighting you had no part in Scott’s scheme?”

  “We can’t, Laura. Nobody has any influence over Admiral Brighting. She’s only a lieutenant in his shop. I’m not about to go to her with any such idea!”

  “I know you far better than you think, husband mine, and I wouldn’t love you as much if I thought you would. But she might anyway, if she finds out what’s been going on. . . .”

  Something was going on in Laura’s mind, all right. “We’re not going to get Joan or anybody else mixed up in this,” he said again, a little too loudly. As he pronounced the authoritative-sounding words, however, he sensed an unusual undercurrent. It was almost something one could touch. There was a fleeting, cryptic look in Laura’s eyes, a general abstractedness, an attitude of listening to another tune entirely. For the moment, he had lost her.

  The conversation, and the unusual note on which it ended, a note he could never before remember emanating from his wife, remained uppermost in Richardson’s mind for days. There were the final details of turning over his office to his relief, the modest good-bye luncheon given by his office mates, finally the Friday morning arrival of a moving van at his house. Even the hectic activity of tearing up the home of three years and seeing it packed into the van, a routine gone through so very many times and yet always traumatic, seemed overshadowed by a quietness of waiting. Something was going on somewhere, out of sight and out of hearing. His sixth sense, whatever that might be, was whirling madly. Laura was no help, nor had she been, although on this moving day, when he asked her point-blank, she admitted to the same intuition. Even Jobie felt it. “It doesn’t feel like we’re moving to where we’re supposed to be moving to,” he announced with thirteen-year-old directness.

  Late in the afternoon, the moving van was about to pull away from the empty house when the telephone, now on the floor in an empty hall, sounded its insistent tocsin. “Just a moment for Admiral Brighting,” said a female voice.

  There were no communication-establishing formalities. Brighting spoke on the telephone with the same expressionless monotone Richardson had heard in his office. “Richardson, there’s a vacancy in the next class at Arco. It starts tomorrow. Do you want it?”

  “Yes, sir!” Richardson could say nothing more. The unexpected words rang through his brain. Whatever it was that had changed Brighting’s mind, it had indubitably happened. He had won! Euphoria flooded his body.

  “You will bring no uniforms with you, and no rank insignia. You’re to wear civilian clothes the entire time you’re on the site. There are officers and enlisted men there whom I have put into positions of responsibility, and you’re to accept orders from them as though they were from me. At no time are you to use your rank for any purpose whatsoever. I will not have my program and organization disrupted by the requirement of toadying to you by anyone, or for any reason. You will be there for one purpose, and one purpose only: to learn what they can teach you. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Richardson again.

  “Be in Idaho Falls tomorrow morning. There is a flight you can catch tonight, and I’ll have the plane met on arrival in Idaho.”

  Richardson’s elation evaporated. Even under wartime pressure, he had known of no case of such peremptory treatment of officer or man. Abandoning Laura and Jobie without warning could not be vital to any training course. Surely he merited more considerate treatment than this! “Admiral,” he began, “the moving van is about to pull away, and our car is packed. We’re within an hour of starting to drive to New London. May I have the weekend to get my family safely up there? I can be in Idaho Monday morning—” But Laura was frantically shaking her head and putting both hands over her mouth, as the flat voice cut in.

  “Richardson, if you want nuclear power training, you’ll be landing at Idaho Falls airport tomorrow morning. An officer as resourceful as you should have no trouble having his orders modified and arranging his personal affairs.” The telephone clicked dead.

  Laura was hugging him and kissing him, nearly crying her relief and delight. “Of course I can handle the rest of the move myself,” she said. “Friends will help me if I need them. Jobie and I will repack you a suitcase right now, while you telephone Deacon Jones and get the paperwork started. Then we’ll drive you to the airport. Jobie and I won’t have any trouble driving through Baltimore to the motel tonight, and we’ll roll into New London tomorrow just as planned.”

  There was an interval of furious activity. The car had to be partially unloaded and the two largest suitcases packed for a lengthy stay in Idaho. Deacon Jones had to be tracked down by the BuPers duty officer and asked to return to his desk to prepare the new orders. Airline reservations had to be made and tickets purchased. Admiral Scott’s administrative aide had to leave a party and return to the bureau to sign the modification in orders drawn up by Jones. Finally the Richardsons set off in their loaded automobile, not for the road to Baltimore and the motel planned for their overnight stop, but for Washington National Airport.

  It was not until hurried good-byes had been said and Rich was strapped in his seat in the airplane that he was able to unwind enough to admit the thoughts which had been knocking at the door of his
consciousness for the last hour.

  What was it that had caused Admiral Brighting to change his mind? What had happened the last few days? What could lie behind the extraordinary order to leave all rank behind—could this be a reaction against whatever it was that had brought about the reversal?

  Foremost of all the confused ideas spinning through Richardson’s head was one simple question which, he sensed, might well remain forever unanswered. Could Joan have had a hand in this? He had at least managed to ask Laura this during a moment’s breathing space. But Laura’s answer was totally unsatisfactory. “What makes you think anyone had anything to do with it? Maybe old man Brighting just had a change of heart.”

  All the same, it was the first time, so far as Richardson knew, that Brighting had ever changed his mind, and he wondered.

  3

  Admiral Brighting’s empire, carved out of an unlikely combination of Navy, industry and science, was the most complete and efficient Richardson had ever seen. A car met him very early Saturday morning at the Idaho Falls airport and took him immediately to “the site,” as his driver-escort referred to it. The site was nearly one hundred miles away, and the station wagon hurtled along at top speed, accelerator pressed to the floor, over a flat, hard-baked plain which stretched in all directions, as level as the sea, to a horizon any seaman must know was false. The road was obviously built for speed, though only two lanes wide. There was hardly a curve and only a single intersection, and during the entire trip, which took just minutes longer than an hour, they saw only two other cars, both of them headed in the opposite direction.

  The road had but a single destination, and it came in sight while still some twenty miles distant, a square white dot poised on the horizon at the base of glowering, slate gray mountains. “That’s the prototype, or rather, the building it’s in,” said Rich’s companion. “It’s six stories high, and most folks can’t believe it’s that far away.”

  At closer range, the dot grew into a graceless, windowless, sand-colored cube, dominating a number of lower buildings of industrial character. A tall chain-link fence surrounded the complex, and a cloud of steam rose from a broad, squat structure alongside the boxlike bulk of the prototype building.

  “That’s the cooling pond,” said the driver, answering Richardson’s question. “We’ve been critical for three months. There’s not much heat going into it right now, though. At full power it steams up a lot more than this.” The speaker, who had introduced himself as Lieutenant Commander John Rhodes, officer-in-charge of the prototype, was a short, dark young man. He had not been talkative during the ride from the airport, and was clearly ill at ease. “Rhodes with E. G. Richardson,” he said to the guard at the gate, and instantly Rich felt he knew at least part of the reason for his discomfiture.

  “Here’s where you’ll be staying, Mr. Richardson.” The car had stopped in front of one of a small group of quonset huts of wartime vintage. “I’ll help you with your luggage, and then I’ll take you over to the prototype and start you off. It’s warm in there, so don’t bother with a jacket or a tie.” The speech had been rehearsed. Admiral Brighting’s instructions must have been very specific. Rhodes tried to look squarely at Rich, but his gaze faltered. He was, clearly, having difficulty overlooking the thousands of Navy precedence numbers by which Rich was his senior. Until recently, his indoctrination had been all the other way.

  “Fine, John,” said Richardson, searching for the way to start off his study period on the right note. “Look,” he said, “I’m here for one thing only, to learn everything you fellows can teach me. So why don’t we just knock off the rates for the time being—that will make things a lot simpler. My friends call me ‘Rich,’” he continued. “Is yours ‘Dusty,’ like all the Rhodes in the Navy?”

  “Right—uh—Rich. Nobody calls me ‘John’ anymore. I guess I sort of like ‘Dusty.’”

  “Okay, and don’t forget that ‘Rich’ business.” Rhodes’ handshake contained considerably more warmth than at the airport. “That goes for everybody else here, too, Dusty, and now that’s settled, is there time for me to shave before coming over?”

  “I really don’t think so, Rich.” This time Rhodes’ eyes were unflinching, and again Richardson had the sense of a hidden message, some concealed urgency, behind the words.

  Once in the prototype building, however, Richardson was surprised to discover only a duty section, a very small percentage of the total force, present. Rhodes had a small office suite opening directly into the cavernous interior housing Mark One, as the prototype reactor for the Nautilus was known, and there were desks for an assistant and two secretaries, all three vacant. The main room of the building, occupying almost all of its interior from concrete floor to metal roof, had the air of being full of activity even though few persons were present. Toolboxes, workbenches, storage lockers, equipment bins and boxes were everywhere. Mark One was festooned with steel ladders, catwalks, wire cables, steam piping and waterlines, the ordered confusion of the paraphernalia of many functions and many workers.

  And, of course, Mark One itself, a horizontal cylindrical section of a huge submarine’s pressure hull projecting through the side of a tremendous circular steel tank the size of a big swimming pool and filled with light green seawater, instantly captured Rich’s attention. He had already read of the pool and seen a photograph of it, but the reality of the beige-colored pool walls, green seawater and dark gray hull cylinder was breathtaking. The purpose of the salt water, he knew, was to duplicate the radioactive shielding effect of the sea around the simulated submarine’s reactor compartment. The submarine hull section was identical to the Nautilus’ reactor and engine compartments, except that, for economy, only a single turbine and propeller shaft had been installed. The water level in the pool surrounding the reactor compartment was the same as it would be with Nautilus fully surfaced, since that was the condition of least shielding.

  “There she is, sir—Rich. You’re to be here fourteen weeks and learn all about it. Then we’ll give you an examination, and if you pass it you’ll be a qualified reactor operator.” Dusty Rhodes was looking with proprietary satisfaction at the surrealistic monster. It was humming softly. Richardson thought he could detect the noise of ventilation blowers buried amid the other sounds, but the rest meant nothing to him. Rhodes answered his unspoken question. “We’ve been keeping her self-sustaining for the past couple of weeks. What you’re hearing are the electric turbo-generator sets, one of them, that is, and the main coolant pumps in slow speed. The main turbine isn’t running.”

  Rich nodded his acknowledgment, though he was far from clear as to the information imparted. But it was then that Rhodes, his guard let down perhaps because of his companion’s ready acceptance of his role as a student, forgot himself. “You’ll have two days’ head start on the others,” he said. “The class won’t really begin until the other students get here Monday morning.” The moment he spoke the words Rhodes realized they were beyond recall, and the consternation he felt reproduced itself on his face. Richardson struggled to keep his sudden anger from showing.

  Dusty Rhodes’ slip regarding the other students made little difference, Rich assured him. He would have known soon anyway, and he was too grateful for Admiral Brighting’s change of heart, whatever the cause, to quibble over his pettiness. Rich kept a second reason for silence to himself: whatever or whoever had changed Brighting’s mind—Joan maybe—was owed something too. But the internal anger remained until it was replaced on Monday by the pleasure of welcoming Keith Leone and Buck Williams. It had been years since they had been in the same duty area as Rich. Despite occasional correspondence, the closeness brought on by wartime service together had begun to dim. Now, magically, it was all restored. All three felt it, and Rich was forced a few times to emphasize that, as students under Brighting’s control, the old official relationship had no place on the site. Not until Richardson had spent several hours guiding his newly arrived friends in a thorough inspection of Mark One did he
realize that there were no other new students. Keith, Buck and he were the entire class. It must have been organized and scheduled just for them.

  “You’re here to participate in the actual operation of a submarine nuclear reactor,” Dusty Rhodes told them that first day. “The whole function of all this machinery is to turn that propeller shaft.” The four were standing on the floor of the mammoth enclosure—“room” was hardly the proper word—in which Mark One rested. “As I guess you know, we call this Mark One because Mark Two is the Nautilus herself. They were building her in Groton at the very same time they were building Mark One here out in the desert. Only, Mark One was kept a few months ahead. Everything was tested and proved out before its duplicate was allowed to be installed in the ship. All changes that were found to be needed here were automatically done there, too.”

  It was obviously a speech that Dusty Rhodes made to every new group of trainees, but there was also a note of pride in his voice. It had been one of the extraordinary engineering feats of the time. Mark One was a monument to the genius of its designers and constructors, particularly that most demanding and irascible construction engineer of them all, Admiral Brighting. And now he, Lieutenant Commander Dusty Rhodes, had been entrusted with its total and exclusive charge.

  “I don’t see any propeller, Dusty. How do you simulate the resistance of the water? Just turning a big thing sticking out of the end of a fake submarine hull isn’t the same. To get horsepower you have to do work.” Keith’s question was one he knew Rhodes would have the answer for.

  “We thought of that, all right,” said Rhodes, picking up the cue. “When you get into your schedule, one of the things you’ll be learning about is the water brake. It duplicates propeller resistance. Makes the turbine think there really is a propeller out there—even puts thrust on the thrust bearing. There is some trouble with it, though. Since we’re not really driving a ship, what we really do—the work we do—is make heat. You’ll be calculating the BTUs before you’re through here. We make a lot of heat, and this damn things heats up too easy. We have to have a garden hose spraying water on the outside casing of the water brake whenever we stay at full speed for long.”