The Circle

by David Poyer

  The knowledge that he had nothing else helped him endure Plebe Year and three more of the toughest engineering curriculum in the country. But even if he’d admitted his fear, he didn’t know how to do anything about it. Or understand, as his roommate had told him once, that it lay at the root of his corrosive self-doubt.

  The deck under his feet rose to the first long swell. He was afraid. At the same time, for the first time in his life, he felt he was where he belonged.

  * * *

  HE’D reported aboard that same morning. Susan had needed the car, a get-acquainted visit to the Navy obstetrician, and she dropped him with his gear at Gate 17. From the hill, he could make out only a gray prickly mass, a leafless jungle of masts, booms, and antennas, and beyond it the bay, fringed by ice. He showed his ID at the pass office and dragged his bags downhill, nodding to passing sailors; his hands were too full to salute back. Even when he reached the waterfront, sweating and feeling the strain in his arms, there were too many ships to tell which was his.

  The pier guard directed him to an abused-looking structure of cracked concrete supported by tarred wood pilings. Ships lined it on either side. It smelled of oil, dead crabs, leaking steam, and garbage. He stared around as he picked his way past radar vans and generator carts, stumbling over vipers’ nests of cables and hoses. Engines rumbled. Tractors grunted past him, towing dollies of crates and drums. Bells trilled and he watched a gun mount elevate. A mechanical arm lifted a missile canister like an offering.

  He was examining a minesweeper when he noticed men looking down at him from its bridge. Faint laughter reached him over the clatter of an air-driven chipper. He flushed, dropping his eyes, and went on.

  He had a sudden vision of himself from their perspective: an awkwardly tall, painfully thin young man in a new double-breasted blue bridge coat. He straightened a little. The single gold stripe and star on his shoulderboards were embarrassingly bright. To hell with them, he told himself.

  When he saw the numbers 768 ahead, he stopped. The end of the pier, naturally. He settled the bags to the concrete and stretched, shaking fatigue from his shoulders. The wind from the sea numbed his cheeks and ears. He followed the delicate balancing of a gull, narrowing his eyes against the winter sun.

  He knew already he’d always remember this. Along with the moment of birth, so dimly recalled; the morning he reported to Annapolis; the first time he’d lifted his face from Susan’s, and kissed away the painful tears. The times of beginning, which would define the way he knew and saw himself forever.

  Trying to quell his nerves, he slid his eyes slowly along the length of his first ship.

  USS Reynolds Ryan was one of four Gearing-class destroyers left in the Fleet. She’d had a hundred sisters, but their keels lay now on sea bottoms across the Pacific and scrapyards across the world. She was built low and narrow, with a long sweep of main deck rising to a steep, slightly flared Atlantic bow. Next to the modern destroyers, she seemed small, old, and crammed with gear. But to his eyes, she still had the deadly grace of that most beautiful of all things hewn by man from the fabric of earth, a ship of war.

  She was stern to him now and he saw with surprise that her main deck was barely five feet above the water. Her sides looked corrugated. The seas of decades had hammered in the thin shell plating between her ribs and stringers.

  He wiped his palms on his coat and bent to dig out his orders. He took several deep breaths, staring at the bay. He glanced at his hands again. The trembling had lessened, though the square knot in his stomach remained. He picked up his gear and forced himself into motion again.

  As he covered the last few yards, his B-4 bag punching his legs, 768’s warlike rakishness gave way to the signs of age and hard use. Rust streaked her sides. Filthy water pulsed from a slime-encrusted overboard discharge. Her haze gray was patched with blue and orange primer. Steam leaked from the pierside connections in a hissing mist. He kneed his burdens ahead of him up the gangplank, into the fog.

  For a moment he was alone, like an aviator in clouds. Icy droplets brushed his face. The steel grating was slick, and the hard leather soles of his new shoes suddenly went out from under him. He caught himself on the handrail, nearly losing the envelope into the scummy water.

  Then he came out of the steam into clear air, stepped down, and was aboard. She was moving slightly, even alongside the pier. He dropped his gear with a grunt, lifted his arm to a wind-gnawed flag, then turned to salute the watch.

  There was no one there. He held the salute, peering about. There was supposed to be someone on the quarterdeck. No one had ever told him what to do if there wasn’t.

  “Uh … anybody home?” It sounded silly, and he was instantly sorry he’d said it.

  A face peered round the deckhouse, followed a moment later by the rest of a third-class petty officer in blues too big for him. He threw Lenson a casual salute, his mouth moving. Dan dropped his hand, uncertain again. There was supposed to be an officer, a chief at least, in charge on deck.

  “Permission to come aboard?”

  “Sure thing. Help you, buddy?”

  “I’m reporting aboard. Midshipman—I mean, Ensign Lenson.” He held out the envelope. “My orders.”

  “Just a minute.”

  The petty officer disappeared. Dan stared round the quarterdeck, a narrow gap between the after five-inch mount, the lifelines, and the gangway. Steam blew between him and the shore. The wind skidded things past his new shoes. Cigarette butts. An Oh Henry wrapper. A Styrofoam cup with a peace symbol drawn on it. The nonskid decking curled under his feet, showing gray paint turning to chalk, salt stains, steel speckled with rust.

  He was examining a ship’s bell green as the Statue of Liberty when the sailor came back. “Exec says for you to go on up to his stateroom.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Forward along the main deck, last door, around the handling room, port side.”

  He hesitated. They’d told him that when an officer reported aboard, his bags should be carried for him. It was supposed to make the right impression. But the sailor was staring out across the bay. He made no move to help. In fact, it looked as if he’d forgotten Dan’s existence.

  “Say. How about taking care of my bags?”

  “No problem,” said the petty officer. The motion of his mouth was gum, Dan saw. “I’ll keep an eye on ’em. You can come back for ’em after you see Commander Bryce. Shit! This wind’s a mother, ain’t it?” He went around the corner again, leaving Dan alone.

  Okay, he thought, so the real Navy’s not like what they told you at Annapolis. You knew that, anyway. Right? Right. He picked up his bags and struggled forward with them.

  He undogged the door and found himself in darkness. His B-4 snagged on blackout curtains. When he got it free, the miniature maze led out onto a narrow passageway, hot, humid, grimy, and so low his cap scraped the pipes that covered the overhead. It smelled of fried food and oil and roach spray. The air grew even hotter as he battled his way forward, shoving his bags ahead of him.

  When he came to the tarnished plaque that read XO, he set his bags down, wiped his forehead, and tucked his cap under his arm. He checked his uniform and knocked. Then opened the door, took two steps in, and came to attention. “Ensign Daniel Lenson, sir, reporting for duty.”

  “Lenson?” A heavy man in his midforties looked up from a foldout desk. He was in long-sleeved cotton khakis, not blues, and for a moment Dan wondered whether he himself was in the wrong uniform. But no, he’d seen men in blues on the other ships he’d passed. Gold oak leaves gleamed at the XO’s opened collar. Dark patches showed at his neck and under his arms. He held out a damp, soft hand without rising. “Commander Bryce, executive officer. Welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Sit down. Take your coat off. Coffee?”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Help yourself. Pot’s over there.”

  Dan valved coffee from an urn and spooned sugar and cream substitute
from battered silver cruets. The air in the tiny compartment was close and hot after the December dawn. His spoon rattled on the saucer. Take it easy, he told himself, breathing deeply again. He eased himself down on a leather settee, balancing the cup and saucer on his thigh.

  Bryce had bent his head to the papers, smiling down at them as if they contained delicious secrets. Dan could see his scalp through the sparse veil combed over it. He sipped, letting his eyes wander. The stateroom was cramped to the point of claustrophobia. Steel desk, steel chair, wall locker, a door that must lead to a head. He guessed that the settee converted to a bunk. The bulkheads were green. The only things on them were a rack of pubs, a metal locked box, and Bryce’s cap. His eyes came back to the XO, to find him smiling at him again. Dan smiled back uneasily.

  “So, you’re one of these Annapolis men, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Worked my way up from a right-arm rate myself. No, up from a red clay farm, studyin’ the south end of a mule.” Bryce looked to the side, his jowls quivering around a chuckle. Then the eyes returned, small and black and suspicious. “This where I’m supposed to ask you what sports you played, that so?”

  “Uh—track and lacrosse, mostly, sir. A little tennis. Some fencing.”

  “Uh-huh, real Joe College, eh? Understand you didn’t have all smooth sailing down there, though.”

  Dan set the cup carefully on its blue-rimmed saucer. Perspiration prickled his face. What was Bryce hinting at? He’d earned his share of demerits, sure. Caught out after taps, squeaked by on aptitude, bucketed a couple of semesters of calculus. He was no high greaser, but few of them went to destroyers; they flew, or joined Rickover’s whiz-kid nuclear Navy. Could he mean Susan? Or that business with Davis, in 17th Company? Was that his Academy record Bryce was looking at?

  “A little,” he said carefully. “Nothing out of the ordinary, sir.”

  “You went to damage-control and gunnery schools en route here, correct?”

  “Yes, sir. They were good; I learned a lot.”

  “Sounds like you from up north.”

  “Pennsylvania, sir.”

  “From Georgia myself. Biggest state in the Union east of the Mississippi. Know that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So, just get into town?”

  “Yes, sir, movers got here yesterday.”

  “Married?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Long?”

  “Six months, sir.”

  “Oh my.” The exec’s eyes sought the overhead. “You’ll be glad to get to sea, build up your strength again. Cigarette?”

  “No thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t smoke?”

  “Maybe a cigar once in a while, sir.”

  “A cigar?” The eyebrows rose; the smile became intimate. “Open that drawer. No, to the right. Push the button; it’ll unlock.”

  The box held a dozen black coronas. He didn’t want one, but it seemed impolitic to refuse. He took one at random and bent it to the smoky flare of the XO’s Zippo.

  The first puff filled his mouth with dead mice, old socks, and gasoline. “How you like that? Pretty good?” said Bryce, scorching the end of a Camel.

  Through instantaneous nausea, Dan said, “Is this Georgia tobacco, sir?”

  The exec squinted at him. “What? No! Jamaica. Nigger come aboard in Ocho Rios with a case of those for the wardroom. So, you know all the right forks to use, that right?”

  “I guess so, sir. Just start from the outside and work in.”

  “That the trick? Always wondered about that. They still handin’ out that duty, honor, country stuff?”

  “I guess so, sir,” he said again. He was trying not to inhale any more of the smoke. “There’s still an honor code, and all that.”

  “Things aren’t that cut-and-dried in real life, my friend. Get a few years on you, you’ll realize that.”

  “Well, it sounds good to me, sir,” he said. They looked at each other.

  Bryce glanced at his watch, became brisk. “Well, I’m going to have to cut this short. I see you brought your gear. That’s good. We’re getting under way at oh-nine hundred.”

  “Today?” He sat up, dropping ash into his coffee.

  “Yeah. At-sea trial for the VDS fish. Our playmate’s out there waiting. Hope your wife’s settled in. Might want to call her before we cast off.”

  Dan stared at the cigar. It burned with little pops and sputters. Betts would be pissed. She was anything but “settled in”; the duplex was three boxes deep in books, clothes, old furniture her parents had given them disassembled. And what were “VDS fish” and “playmates”? “How long, uh, will we be out, sir?”

  “Three weeks’s my guess. Week up, a week operating, one week back. Slated to be back by Christmas. But it’s elastic.” Bryce waved away a month with his cigarette. “Anyway, about your billet—you bring your orders?”

  “Here, sir.”

  “I know they assigned you as gunnery officer, but the CO and I talked it over, and we’re going to break you in as first lieutenant instead. Deck gang, bo’sn’s mates. We had a jaygee there, but he ran afoul of somebody’s husband over in base housing and the legal beagles have got him deep-dished. Rather than move another man over, we’ll leave Ohlmeyer as Guns and plug you into First Division. Any problems with that?”

  “No, sir. Sir, I hoped I’d get some navigating experience, I—”

  “All our junior officers navigate. You’ll get enough time on the bridge, if that’s what you want—Dick?”

  “Dan, sir.”

  “Dan. Daniel Lenson.” Bryce gave him an odd glance; it might have been suspicion, but then he seemed to dismiss it. “We’re standing one in three now. I’ll tell Evlin to put you on tonight as jay-oh-dee. Jimmy John, that’s Captain Packer, believes in shaking his ensigns down fast as they can take in slack. You’re a Boat School type, I expect you to shine from day one. And if you don’t, well, let’s just say you won’t be spending many evenings with that hot new wife. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

  Bryce nodded. He lifted his voice. “Hey, ’Fredo!”

  Steps sounded outside the door. “Sah?”

  “New boy here. Fix him up in Mr. Sullivan’s bunk.”

  “Mistah Sully, he be back?”

  “No. If he’s got any laundry, bring it here; I’ll take care of it.”

  “Sah.” The door banged shut at the same moment something squealed in the room, loud, like a small animal being hurt. Bryce’s hand found a telephone under the desk. “XO,” he said. “Yes. Yes. Aye, sir. Be right up.”

  When he hung up, Bryce sighed. He flicked the lighter open and closed. “So. Follow Mabalacat. He’ll show you your room and issue your linen. Report to the bridge when sea and anchor detail goes. Your department head’s name’s Norden. He’s a Yankee, too. And a … anyway, you’ll see him on the bridge.”

  “Thank you, sir.” He waited a moment, then stood. “I’m glad to be aboard, sir.”

  “Good to have you.” Bryce shook hands quickly and stubbed the cigarette out in a brass shell base. When he stood, his belly strained over his belt. He banged the door open and motioned Lenson out.

  In the passageway, Dan slipped the cigar into a butt kit. He and his roommate had smoked a pack of Wolf Brothers once to kill the Severn mosquitoes, and gotten sick as dogs. This was worse. The back of his tongue tasted like sandpaper basted in creosote.

  “Sah? This way to room.”

  He stood beside his luggage, watching the steward’s retreating back. Again he thought, They told me to insist on service. But they’d told him not to make threats to subordinates, too, and what Bryce had said sounded very much like a threat. Well, maybe he was being too sensitive his first day aboard.

  He picked up the bags and followed the Filipino aft, into heat that, incredibly, kept increasing. Hell, he thought. Under way today. Under way today!

  How was he going to break this to Susan?

&nbs
p; * * *

  AND now past the moving destroyer slid the snow-coated rocks of The Dumplings, the low hills of Fort Adams, the bare prickle of trees above granite. The land was so close, it seemed he could spit to it. Somewhere to the east was fashionable Newport, the mansions of turn-of-the-century Vanderbilts and Oelrichs. But he couldn’t see them from here. Ahead stretched the Narragansett, green-white and cold-looking, broken by a two-foot chop. The channel was broad as a thirty-lane highway, its edges marked by two lines of buoys—red to port, black to starboard. He watched one slide past. It was bigger than he’d thought, easily eight feet in diameter. Its steel side was hairy with barnacles.

  Wedging himself into a corner, he listened to the litany of the piloting team.

  “Navigator recommends steer two-two-zero.”

  “Come left to two-two-zero.”

  “Two-two-zero, aye! My rudder is left, coming to two-two-zero.”

  “Very well. Quartermaster, got a set and drift yet?”

  “Tide’s behind us, sir. About a knot and a half.”

  Ryan’s bridge was thirty feet wide and ten deep. It was crammed with radar consoles, helm, engine-order telegraph, plotting table. Two leather chairs grew from pedestals to the left and right. Neither was occupied at the moment. In the space left over, a dozen men stood shoulder-to-shoulder or bent over gear. Officers in khakis or blues and foul-weather jackets. Enlisted men in dungarees, some neat and new, more shabby and faded. Most wore blue ball caps, though one had on the traditional white sailor hat. Two of the windows were latched up. The cold, bright wind blew steadily in through them. Ryan slid down the channel like a Lincoln on a new highway. The steady vibration of her turbines tickled the soles of his feet. He leaned against a bulkhead, feeling raw tactile pleasure as knobs and levers dug into his back.

  The lieutenant who’d given the course order—the officer of the deck, he assumed—stood in the center of the pilothouse, just ahead of the helm. Short blond hair stuck up around the edges of his cap. He was staring forward through a pair of heavy binoculars. His hands were deeply freckled, the deepest Dan had ever seen, giving the effect of countershading. Against it, a green stone sparkled in a silver-toned class ring. His slight shoulders were relaxed into the glasses, hips thrust forward. Dan had a moment of envy. He knew the basics of what was going on, but it was different from Tactics class, different from cruising around the Severn in Yard Patrol craft, making believe.